Personal life of Gene Roddenberry
Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991) was an American television screenwriter, producer and futurist best remembered for creating the original Star Trek television series.[1]
Relationships
While at Los Angeles City College, Roddenberry began dating Eileen-Anita Rexroat, who was two years younger, despite the displeasure of her parents, who saw him as the common son of a policeman.[2] They became engaged before Roddenberry left Los Angeles during his military service.[3] At the start of June 1942, he was moved back to Kelly Field for advanced training and made plans to marry Eileen. They applied for a marriage license on June 13, and were married seven days later at the chapel at Kelly Field before Chaplain George W. Shardt.[4] They had two children together, Daleen Anita,[5] and Dawn Allison.[6] During his time at the LAPD, Roddenberry was known to have had affairs with secretarial staff,[7] and it was well known in the Department that he was having marital problems.[6]
Prior to his work on Star Trek, he began relationships with both Nichelle Nichols and Majel Barrett.[8] After he met Nichols when she was cast in The Lieutenant, he began a friendship that lasted for the rest of his life. But during the early period, prior to Star Trek, they began a romantic liaison that she described as falling in love. The pair kept the relationship secret from all but Barrett, and Nichols only wrote about it in her autobiography Beyond Uhura after Roddenberry's death.[9] Nichols was concerned about their interracial relationship becoming public knowledge, and the impact that would have on Roddenberry's career. They discussed it on several occasions but he maintained that he did not care about possible consequences for him. After several months, he decided it was time to reintroduce Nichols to Barrett;[10] they had met previously when Nichols auditioned for The Singing Nun. At the time, Roddenberry wanted to remain in an open relationship with both women,[11] but Nichols, recognising Barret's devotion to him, ended the affair as she did not want to be "the other woman to the other woman".[12]
By the time he started on the series, he and Nichols were only good friends but his involvement with Barrett continued.[8] He and Barrett had an apartment together by the opening weeks of Star Trek, leading Jerry Sohl to believe that Roddenberry was already in the process of divorcing his wife.[13] Following the pressures of the first two years of Star Trek, Roddenberry found that he had very little time for his family.[14] He had planned to divorce Eileen after the first season of the show, but when it was renewed, he delayed doing so fearing that he would not have enough time to deal with both the divorce and Star Trek. His oldest daughter, Darleen Anita, was married on July 27, 1968, to William Luther "Bill" Lewis.[15] Two weeks later on August 9, Roddenberry moved out of the family home. Barrett later remarked that she went and stayed with him at the Century Plaza Hotel, and stayed by his side for the following twenty-three years.[16] The divorce was not easy, and Roddenberry felt that he did not get his fair share of the assets, and that he never received some promised items such as his war medals.[17]
In 1969, while scouting locations in Japan for MGM for Pretty Maids all in a Row,[18] Roddenberry claimed that he realized that he missed Barrett and proposed to her by telephone.[19] In the version recited by Herb Solow, Roddenberry travelled to Japan with the intention of marrying Barrett.[18] She had a passport and joined Roddenberry in Tokyo, where they were married in a Shinto ceremony. Roddenberry had considered it "sacrilegious" to use an American minister in Japan.[19] He continued to have liaisons with other women, telling his friends that while in Japan he had an encounter with a masseuse.[20] Roddenberry and Barrett had a son together, Eugene Jr., commonly referred to as Rod Roddenberry, in February 1974.[19]
References
- ^ Alexander (1995): p. 204
- ^ Alexander (1995): p. 48
- ^ Alexander (1995): p. 58
- ^ Alexander (1995): pp. 59–61
- ^ Alexander (1995): pp. 103–104
- ^ a b Alexander (1995): p. 163
- ^ Alexander (1995): p. 123
- ^ a b Sterling, Ian (January 1995). "Uhura and Beyond". Starlog (210): 47–49. Retrieved April 17, 2015.
- ^ Nichols (1994): p. 130
- ^ Nichols (1994): p. 131
- ^ Nichols (1994): p. 132
- ^ Nichols (1994): p. 133
- ^ Engel (1994): p. 103
- ^ Alexander (1995): p. 350
- ^ Alexander (1995): pp. 352–353
- ^ Alexander (1995): p. 356
- ^ Alexander (1995): p. 359
- ^ a b Engel (1994): p. 139
- ^ a b c Van Hise (1992): p. 53
- ^ Engel (1994): p. 140
- Sources
- Alexander, David (1995). Star Trek Creator: The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenberry. New York: Roc. ISBN 0-451-45440-5.
- Engel, Joel (1994). Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and the Man Behind Star Trek. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0-7868-6004-9.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Nichols, Nichelle (1994). Beyond Uhura. New York: G. P. Putnam's. ISBN 0-3991-3993-1.
- Van Hise, James (1992). The Man Who Created Star Trek: Gene Roddenberry. Pioneer Books. ISBN 1-55698-318-2.
External links
