| Gene L. Coon | |
|---|---|
| Born | Gene L. Coon 7 January 1924 |
| Died | 8 July 1973 (age 49) |
| Pen name | Lee Cronin |
| Occupation | Screenwriter & Television Producer |
| Nationality | American |
Gene L. Coon (7 January 1924 – 8 July 1973) was an American screenwriter and television producer. He is best remembered for his work on the original Star Trek series.
Contents |
Gene Coon served in the United States Marine Corps for four years during and after World War II, seeing combat in the Pacific theater and serving in China and in occupied Japan.
Coon wrote mainly for television. His writing credits included Dragnet, Bonanza, Zorro, Have Gun - Will Travel, Wagon Train, and The Wild Wild West, as well as the premiere episodes of The Four Just Men and McHale's Navy. He also became a producer for The Wild Wild West and later became a producer and writer for Star Trek: The Original Series. His Wagon Train scripts contained strong moral lessons concerning personal redemption and opposing war, and he later repeated very similar themes in his Star Trek scripts (the latter series had the unofficial nickname of "Wagon Train to the Stars"). Coon joined Star Trek in the middle of the first season; David Gerrold credited him with being a skilled showrunner before Coon left in the middle of the second season.[1] He continued to contribute scripts for the third season, under the pseudonym “Lee Cronin”, as he was under contract to Universal Studios at the time and was likely not, by the terms of his contract, supposed to be working for Paramount as well.
His credited creations for Star Trek include the Klingons (in "Errand of Mercy"), Khan Noonien Singh (in "Space Seed"), Zefram Cochrane (in "Metamorphosis"), and the Prime Directive. Since he also had the position of doing rewrites for scripts, his work touches many more episodes. He also mentored the young Gerrold and helped him polish the script for the episode "The Trouble With Tribbles".[1]
In the closing credits of the 1999 Star Trek tribute film Free Enterprise, he is referred to as “The Forgotten Gene” (in comparison to the recognition received by his close friend and collaborator, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry).
Following his period with Star Trek, Coon produced the Universal Studios series It Takes a Thief, starring Robert Wagner, and to write for Kung Fu and The Streets of San Francisco. Coon was known as one of the fastest writers in Hollywood, and it was not unusual for him to rewrite a script for shooting overnight, or over a weekend.[2] He had a dry sense of humor as reflected in his two novels, Meanwhile Back At The Front and The Short End (published in 1964 about the Korean War). Coon was also fortunate enough to be reunited with the love of his life in time for them to spend his last years together.
He died of lung cancer in 1973.[3]