Gene L. Coon

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. Best known he was for his work on the original Star Trek series.

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

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

Middle of the first season of Star Trek was Gene L. Coon producer of the series, triggering from Gene Roddenberry. Gene Coon is generally called a great help for Star Trek, because he had an instinct for what stories would work in the series. Under his rule, soon there was a noticeable improvement in screenplays. Coon invented, among other things, the Prime Directive of non-interference, the Treaty of Organia as well as the most popular villains in Star Trek, the Klingons. Nevertheless, his influence on the series is underestimated until now. Unlike many others who had worked on Star Trek, Gene Coon was never interviewed. His position as a producer gave Coon middle of the second season on, to work on the series " The Name Of The Game". Nevertheless, he wrote under the pseudonym Lee Cronin continued episodes of the third season of Star Trek.

Coon had to speak a wonderful dry sense of humor and a strange, scarce type. He was considered one of the fastest writers in Hollywood. It was not uncommon for a script over the weekend to write in such a way so that it was ready for rotating the following Monday for him.

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