Gene L. Coon

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Gene L. Coon (born January 7, 1924 in Beatrice , Nebraska , United States , † July 8, 1973 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American screenwriter and television producer . He was best known for his work on the original Star Trek series.

life and work

Gene L. Coon was educated in Nebraska and California public schools. After high school , he went to Glenndale College. In 1942 he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps , where he spent four years. From then on he wrote scripts for a number of series, including Wagon Train , Bonanza , Have Gun, Will Travel , A Thousand Miles of Dust (Original Title: Rawhide ), Alcoa Premier , Riverboat , Suspense , General Electric Theater , Mr. Lucky , Peter Gunn , The Rebel and Maverick .

In the early 1960s , Coon worked at Universal Pictures , where he helped develop McHale's Navy and The Munsters . The Munsters was originally planned as a satire on The Donna Reed Show . Between 1964 and 1967 , Coon wrote several screenplays and two Meanwhile novels , Back At The Front and The Short End Of The Stick . But he found his real destiny in Star Trek.

In the middle of the first season of Star Trek, Gene L. Coon was the producer of the series, replacing Gene Roddenberry . Gene Coon is widely known as a great help to Star Trek because he had an instinct for which stories would work on the series. Under his rule there was soon a noticeable improvement in the scripts. Coon invented the main directive of non-interference, the peace treaty of Organia, the villains Khan Noonien Singh , the inventor of the warp drive Zefram Cochrane and the most popular people of the Klingons . Still, his influence on the series is underestimated to this day. Unlike many others who worked on Star Trek, Gene Coon was never interviewed. Coon gave up his position as producer in the middle of the second season to work on the series The Name of the Game . However, he continued to write episodes for Season 3 of Star Trek under the pseudonym Lee Cronin.

Coon had a wonderfully dry sense of humor and a strange, succinct way of speaking. He was considered one of the fastest writers in Hollywood. It was not uncommon for him to write a script over the weekend so that it was ready to shoot the following Monday.

Gene L. Coon died of lung cancer on July 8, 1973 .

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personal data
SURNAME Coon, Gene L.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cronin, Lee
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American screenwriter and television producer
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Beatrice , Nebraska, United States
DATE OF DEATH July 8, 1973
Place of death Los Angeles , California, United States