These are the Voyages #2 by Marc Cushman

Author:Marc Cushman [Cushman, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Nightmare
Amazon: B00KSS2SEU
Publisher: Jacobs Brown Press
Published: 2014-06-05T04:00:00+00:00

John Meredyth Lucas

(memoryalpha.com)

Lucas later said, “And I of course jumped at the chance, because I’ve always loved science fiction. I asked Coon why he was leaving, but he never really explained it.” (110-4)

Coon believed his exit from the show could be expedited if he was able to offer Roddenberry a worthy successor.

“At first, Gene Roddenberry wouldn’t let him leave because he had a contract,” said Glen Larson. “The only way they’d let Gene out [was] if he continued to write for the show.” (106)

Lucas was invited to Roddenberry’s home that Sunday. He said, “I met his wife Eileen and his children. We got on well, exchanged our mutual love for science fiction, [then] I left. Gene Roddenberry stopped me the next day on the lot and said, ‘My wife says she bets you’re the one.’ That was flattering but hardly a firm offer. The following day I got a telegram from Gene officially offering me the job.”

The one thing blocking the way was the contract Lucas had signed to continue as a regular director on Mannix. He went to see the friend who had gotten him that job, Mannix first season producer Wilton Schiller. Lucas said, “I talked to Wilton, who saw the advantage to me and knew where my heart was. He was willing to give me my release but his boss, [Executive Producer] Bruce Geller, was not forgiving.”

Lucas got his release from Mannix, but he would never work on one of Bruce Geller’s shows again.

John Meredyth Lucas signed a contract with Desilu on August 30, 1967.

Daily Variety broke the news the next day with the front page headline “Gene Coon Quits; Lucas Reins Star Trek.” The trade paper reported Coon “asked for his release, on grounds he wants a long vacation from television and wants to work on a theatrical screenplay.”

Days after his release, and weeks before he would actually leave the Star Trek offices, Coon made arrangements to go to work for Universal, where he had helped develop McHale’s Navy and other series in the early 1960s. As Daily Variety reported, his first job, once he cleared Star Trek, was to write a feature film script for his new employers -- the western Journey to Shiloh, based on a novel by Will Henry (aka Henry Allen), and starring James Caan. After that he would be put back to work as a writer/producer in television, with Glen Larson as his associate producer, on It Takes a Thief, slated for a midseason premiere on ABC in early 1968.

Perpetuating the “official story” 30 years after the fact, Robert Justman went on record in his book with Herb Solow (Star Trek: The Inside Story), saying, “I wrote my last memo to Gene Coon on September 5, 1967, one day after the Labor Day holiday. He left the show that week, exhausted; he had come close to a complete nervous breakdown.” (94-8)

Ande Richardson-Kindryd disputes Justman’s claim that Coon was having anything close to a breakdown. And while it is true that Justman

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