From media journalist James Van Hise's forthcoming Gene Roddenberry: The Man who Created Star Trek, first book in his The Unauthorized Guide to Trek series. Due out June 2015.
Eugene Wesley Roddenberry,
the creator of Star Trek, was born in
El Paso, Texas on August 19,
1921. The young Roddenberry, who spent his
formative years in Los Angeles, was a science fiction aficionado from the word
go. It started with a battered copy of Astounding
Stories magazine, and took off from there. Of course, he never considered
writing in any genre or medium until much later in life, after college.
When he did, there would be
no denying that he had a certain knack for it! Young Gene was a sickly boy
whose parents often worried about his developmental problems. They failed to
realize he had a vividly active imagination which made the trials of reality easier
to bear. His discovery of science fiction, including Edgar Rice Burroughs' John
Carter of Mars books, actually led him back to reality, demonstrating the
possibilities of existence. Adolescence brought improvement in Gene's health,
and he soon became a highly active youth. "I was somewhat handicapped as a
child," Gene freely admitted. "I had the good fortune to lose most of
it. I was a science fiction reader from the time I was about eleven years old.
Since the age of four I've been reading everything in sight. I suspect if you
gave me a telephone book I would read it. At the age of fourteen I read Days of Our Years by Pierre Van Paassen,
which is a story that is sort of outmoded now, but it was the first statement I
read about the evil of war and that wars are often manipulated for reasons
other than the ones offered. I should say the whole range of reading through
school, I could think of fifty-five writers, but not [only] one or two [that
have influenced him.]"
As a child, Gene had radio
(the home entertainment system of the day), but television didn't exist yet. He
became a reader. He'd go to the library every week on the W-Line streetcar and
then home again. "I remember getting some peanut butter and crackers and
falling into the dream world of books." He noted, "If something comes out by Arthur C.
Clarke, I grab it immediately."
[The book then identifies the surprising magazine that may have inspired basic elements of Star Trek TOS.]
George Clayton Johnson, who wrote the first episode of ST ever aired, "Man Trap." once said, "I
remember having an argument with Gene Roddenberry, the great speckled bird of
the universe himself, in which I said to him, 'I'm unhappy about this.' And he
said to me, 'Look, George, it may well be, and I don't argue with you. You know
one hell of a lot more about science fiction than I do. ...However, I know more about this show because I created this show.'
"Whereupon I started to remind him that he created this show by reading Captain Future." Captain Future featured a handsome hero with three sidekicks, one of whom was an android, another a robot, and a third a brilliant emotionless scientist, Simon Wright, who existed only as a brain in a transparent floating case. George felt that elements of these characters were ancestral influences on Star Trek.
"Whereupon I started to remind him that he created this show by reading Captain Future." Captain Future featured a handsome hero with three sidekicks, one of whom was an android, another a robot, and a third a brilliant emotionless scientist, Simon Wright, who existed only as a brain in a transparent floating case. George felt that elements of these characters were ancestral influences on Star Trek.
This
may be true. Captain Future was very
popular in the 1940s in a vein of science fiction very similar to E.E. Smith,
another science fiction writer whom Gene named as a definite influence on his
own work.
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