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Gene Roddenberry (top center) with the stars of the "Star Trek" movie from 1979 and its director Robert Wise
Photo:
Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images
The eventful life of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry is to be filmed as a biopic.
It was "the perfect day" to announce the project, announced the company Roddenberry Entertainment on Thursday: Exactly a hundred years ago, on August 19, 1921, the legendary "Spaceship Enterprise" producer was born in Texas.
His son, Rod Roddenberry, is involved in the film as a producer.
"He was an incredibly complex, captivating man," he said of his father, who died in 1991 at the age of 70, whose work and ideas had changed the world.
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Roddenberry at a "Star Trek" birthday gala in 1991
Photo: Ron Galella;
Ltd.
/ Getty Images
Roddenberry, who was used as a bomber pilot in World War II before his TV career, then worked as a police officer and as a pilot for an American airline, created a cult science fiction series with "Star Trek" in 1966.
The original series about Captain Kirk and Commander Spock was followed by numerous TV offshoots and over a dozen movies.
The space fairy tale with the intergalactic adventures from the 23rd and 24th centuries had an unusually diverse cast for the time, with black and Asian actors.
Roddenberry's ashes were sent into space as part of a space burial in 1997.
A director and actor are now being sought for the still untitled film project, reported the industry journal “Deadline” on Thursday.
The script is written by Adam Mazer, who previously wrote the drama film "You Don't Know Jack" with Al Pacino in the role of the American euthanasia doctor Jack Kevorkian.
feb / dpa