EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an excerpt from Herbie J Pilato’s new book, DASHING, DARING AND DEBONAIR: TV’s Top Male Icons from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, published by Taylor Trade Publishing, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield.
The Great Bird of the Galaxy
by Herbie J Pilato
The Great Bird of the Galaxy.
That’s how the iconic Gene Roddenberry, who died October 4, 1991, is mostly remembered. As the creator of the original Star Trek, its initial TV follow-up, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and ultimately the subsequent and ongoing legacy of sequels and remakes for both the big and small screen, Roddenberry’s uplifting and majestic vision of the future will forever live long and prosper. A pilot in the US Army during World War II, Roddenberry would decades later become one of the first people to be “buried” in space. It all seemed to fit.