70s Trek: Star Trek In The 1970s

The creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, led an extraordinary life...before he ever created the show! Gene was a B-17 pilot in World War II and survived not one but two crashes!  After the War, he signed on with Pan Am as a commercial pilot.  Engine problems resulted in a third crash on the Syrian desert.  Twenty-six-year-old Roddenberry saved his passengers by walking across the desert to get help. After leaving Pan Am, Gene worked as a LAPD police officer.  He was a traffic cop riding a motorcycle, and later became the Chief's speech writer.  It was that experience that led him to TV in the mid-1950s.