How Lucille Ball proved pivotal in the global success of ‘Star Trek’
Some of the greatest stories of all time have been inspired by unusual sources. Just take the Fast and Furious series, which was based on a random magazine article about fast cars, or Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean. But perhaps the strangest story of all revolves around how the American actor and comedian Lucille Ball inspired the science fiction series Star Trek to find international acclaim.
The story begins two years before the release of the very first Star Trek series in 1966 when Gene Roddenberry presented a show named Wagon Train to the Stars to Desilu Productions, one of the largest independent production houses in Hollywood. At the time, the company was just coming off the back of an era of dominance, having enjoyed consistent success with I Love Lucy, starring Ball, as well as The Untouchables and The Dick Van Dyke Show.
The head of Desilu at the time was none other than Ball, with her and the studio working with Roddenberry at the time to develop a script for a pilot, which would then be pitched to NBC. Looking for another major TV hit to fill the void of many of Desilu’s shows that were now coming to an end, Ball saw Star Trek as a potentially massive production that could take her company to the next level.
Despite believing that the show was completely different from its goofy planet-hopping reality, Ball greenlit the production, overruling her board of directors in the process.
Sadly, for Ball and Desilu, the pilot, named ‘The Cage’, flopped critically and commercially, yet the comedian still saw potential in the project, financing a reshoot after NBC surprisingly ordered a second pilot. The second shot at small-screen success saw just one character being saved from the original, the iconic Spock, with the new pilot being fatefully titled ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’.
“My understanding is that she didn’t play by rules,” Rod Roddenberry, the son of the original Star Trek creator, once said of Ball, “I think she took a chance on this guy and on this show because no one else was doing it and it was different. So whether you call that ingenious foresight on her part or insanity on her part she deserves tremendous credit for being the one who gave my father the chance”.
Take a look at Roddenberry speaking about the influence of the great Lucille Ball below.
