Gene Roddenberry, Pervert

[Ikiry0]

I'm a new viewer of SFDebris' work and highly enjoying it. However, one of the things I was rather amused to find out when watching TNG/TOS episodes was the talk about Gene Roddenberry being a pervert.

While I don't doubt that it's likely true (I mean, I HAVE seen some of the outfits) is there a particular source that would be a good place to read to learn more about the sort of stuff he tried to get greenlit? It sounds rather entertaining a read.

Thanks for the help, this seemed more an off-topic thing as it's less about any particular review and more a general theme that keeps resurfacing.

[SlackerinDeNile]

Didn't he come up with the original concept for Andromeda? I wonder how much his ideas for it differed from Robert Hewitt Wolfe's.

[lsgreg]

I think he was more a product of his time. There are a lot of undertones with a lot of shows from the 50's and 60's that he kinda carried along even into the TNG. The original pilot actually had Majel as the first officer which was unheard of at the time. I keep thinking of Gene carrying on a Mad Men type office.

[SuccubusYuri]

Didn't he come up with the original concept for Andromeda? I wonder how much his ideas for it differed from Robert Hewitt Wolfe's.

According to Wolfe he lifted the concept, lead name, the name "Harper" and some periphery nouns, but in general the material was his.

As far as primary sources...I think you just have to rely on memory-alpha to point you towards that kind of stuff an find the sources that way. It's not exactly the subject matter that gets slipped into behind the scenes books for the franchise itself, more interviews and memoirs with the staff.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

In terms of Star Trek behind the scenes stuff, a lot of the stuff that's well known today comes from Inside Star Trek by Herb Solow and Robert Justman. Hardcore fans on convention circuits have probably always known some rumors, but I think the book played a substantial role in robbing Rodenberry of his lionized status.

Off-hand, I don't recall the specifics of what Justman and Solow reveal about Roddenberry, but they make his womanizing tendencies and failure to give credit where its due (among other failings) quite clear. And yet they don't totally lambast him or call him a pervert either. Since it mainly covers TOS, it doesn't have much, if anything, about his other projects.

[Durandal_1707]

The original pilot actually had Majel as the first officer which was unheard of at the time.

Which would have been more impressive had it not been his freaking girlfriend that he was trying to cast.

[Anduinel]

More recently, "Fifty Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek" also had a bit to say about Gene's womanizing/lewdness/sexed-up SF concepts.

[Karha of Honor]

So in what way was old rod a perv? How was his sexuality different than the one found in most males?

[MaxWylde]

So in what way was old rod a perv? How was his sexuality different than the one found in most males?

Well, apart from his huge alcoholism and prescription drug abuse, the man was renowned for being quite the skirt chaser. What is true and what is false depends on who's talking, but Grace Lee Whitney was reportedly to be a victim of this. Hollywood itself is a cesspool of debauchery, even more so than it was in the 50s and 60s, but it was horrendous even back then. When I hear from Corey Feldman how he was molested as a young boy and a teenager by studio executives who had the power of his career in the palms of their hands, you know that kind of thing isn't simply a rare event. Modern pop culture rightly rants at the hundreds of child sex abuses conducted by Catholic clergy (and I'm a Catholic who has no issue airing the Church's dirty laundry in this regard if it sheds cleansing light on it), but we don't know how exactly bad Hollywood is, but we got a lot of glimpses, ranging from Errol Flynn's exploits all the way up to Bill Cosby.

Many actors and actresses have had to do humiliating things all for the sake of getting a part in some TV show or movie, and this is an industry that has absolutely no job security whatsoever for new and upcoming talent. There was one actress, Angelique Pettyjohn, who appeared as Shahna in the TOS episode The Gamesters of Triskelion, who purported had an encounter with Roddenberry to get the role. She had a rather short career in Hollywood (despite being in the film Clambake opposite Elvis Presley), ending up doing adult films in the 70s and 80s and appearing in a burlesque show in Las Vegas before she tragically died at the age of 48 on Valentine's Day 1992. I've heard fans who saw her appear at Star Trek Conventions say that she was very nice and enthusiastic with the fans, always glad to sign autographs.

Hollywood is the most exempt industry in California and the United States where it comes to OSHA and EEOC laws concerning Sexual Harassment; the law tends to look the other way unless foul play is involved, and how many of those cases wind up with a lot of controversy and scandal regarding the accused (Roman Polanski, O.J. Simpson, to name a couple)?

[drewder]

One reference that is pretty clear is his 1970s sexploitation movie "Pretty maids all in a row" that stars a high school gym teacher who has sex with a bunch of his students and encourages a male student to bed one of the female teachers. Strangely enough it also stars Scotty.