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TF01 3,Gene Roddenberry - Biography 4,edited by Simon Plumbe Gene Roddenberry - The Unauthorised Biography ----------------------------------------------- Compiled by Simon Plumbe -------------------------- Following the release of his controversial book, "Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and the Man Behind Star Trek" author Joel Engel has been the subject of numerous debates and discussions on Internet regarding the book, it's remarks about Gene Roddenberry and its accuracy. A number of Trekkers responded with their comments, many defending Gene, and these were replied to by the author himself, David Alexander (author of the OFFICIAL biography) and J. Michael Straczynski (creator of BABYLON 5). Presented here are extracts from the debate that rocked Internet... Unauthorized biographies seem to stay just a hair short of slander (or is it libel?), to sell large numbers of books. Is this GR bio unauthorized? It is unauthorized. I would read this book very cautiously, if one reads it at all. While there is no doubt some truths to it (and the occasional new & interesting ST trivia tidbit), the book makes a pretty fair number of allegations without backing them up with any sources. Don't let the 100+ endnotes in it fool you. -- Bill Mason, America Online ST forum host. WELL, BILL, as the author of the book in question, I have to take strong issue with your statement. I'd be interested to see just what in is not backed up with sources. Please provide examples. Interestingly, you didn't respond to the many times in the text when Roddenberry himself was obviously caught prevaricating -- as in, reinventing himself. I find great irony in the attitudes of people like you (and the post above) who seem to believe that being caught with your hand in the cookie jar is okay -- even if it violates the precepts you claim to extoll -- if your reputation is established well enough. There's particular irony in Roddenberry's position, inasmuch as his vision of the future was a vision of truth. Do the ends justify the means? They didn't apparently, for Picard, at least not in Gene's concept. I'll be glad to debate you on your contentions above, either here in this space or anywhere you choose. I say with absolute certainty that my book is the first authenticated, authoritative, and yes, even objective account of GR, ST, and their relationship to each other. I notice you didn't refute a single fact in it. If you can, do so. If not, then why try to prevent others from learning more about the subject they obviously care about. This is the first book not to rely on recapitulation -- a la the game of telephone -- for its bulk. It is you, not I, who's being unfair to "Gene's vision." Will you accept my challenge? -- Joel Engel Sure, you asked for it. Note first that I did not dispute your basic themes regarding Gene Roddenberry. I merely stated that you did not document your sources for all your claims, if indeed you have sources. (Personally I think you wrote the book with the intention of proving, for whatever reason, that GR was not the sole creator of ST and therefore was deluding the fans and was less of a person for doing so. In some other space I will jump on why I think that whole theme is ludicrious.) For now, if you can document it, feel free to produce your sources for any of these: Page 12: "Irony explains why so few of those former fellow gods joined those who, on November 1, 1991, had come to pay their final respects. They had no respect left to pay." Care to list out who you count as a "fellow god" (the most vaguest phrase you can imagine) and why they RSVPed. Or do just just assume they didn't like Gene so they skipped it? Page 23: "For Roddenberry and Stadler, however, the trip was not all work. They shared a mutual love of good times, which translated to booze and female companionship." Since Stadler isn't listed with your sources, who told you? Why didn't you bother to identify where you got that? Page 126: "From an anonymous distance across the street, wearing a outfit of black leather, his visage obscured by a helmet, Roddenberry sat astride his motorcycle, watching the festivities." Very romantic. He's at an "anonymous" distance, his face is "obscured," but you found someone who knows he was there, huh? Pages 157-158: How come this whole anecdote on The Animated Series completely fails to mention Walter Koenig? He wasn't asked to sign either, but it didn't seem to bother Leonard Nimoy much I guess, by your book's telling. Page 220: "(He soon plunked down more that $100,000 on a Rolls-Royce but complained to staff members when Majel Barrett spent $35,000 on a Mercedes.) That's nice; which staff members? Page 262: "...his secretary and lover, Susan Sackett...." This is my personal favorite, since you quote or refer to Sackett 10 or 12 times in the book previous to this. None of her quotes are about this, and no one even accuses her of this. Besides you, of course -- nice move slipping it into the epilogue. Perhaps you have documentation or witnesses, perhaps not. But crap like that just weakens the entire book's validity. I don't have to refute you; it's your responsibility as the author to provide this information in the first place. And considering all the people who aren't on record for anything in this book, the idea that you have created a completely "authoritative" account is laughable. And by the way, when did I say anything about Gene's vision? -- Bill Mason, America Online ST forum host As I promised somewhere in the 'group to Joel Engel, a commentary on the Roddenberry biography's theme. This book seems to have an underlying premise: to establish that Gene Roddenberry was not the sole creator of Star Trek. That he would unfairly, unethically, and perhaps illegally assume credit for creations within the ST universe that were not his own. And that therefore the fan's romantic visions of GR as the Great Bird are so much bunk and weren't we dumb to swallow it. The fatal flaw is right at the top: assuming that the fans don't know that GR was not the sole creator of everything ST. To put all the rambling discourse I'm about to embark on into one sentence: Duh, no kidding. The idea that the author thinks the fans are this stupid is ludicrous. Like we didn't know (to pull examples out of the air) that Matt Jeffries designed the TOS Enterprise; Leonard Nimoy invented the Nerve Pinch; that Theodore Sturgeon produced major information on Vulcan in "Amok Time"; that D.C. Fontana gave us Sarek and Amanda in "Journey to Babel; that we don't know there were huge rewrite problems with ST:TMP and with series episodes; that TNG had a huge writer staff turnover early on; etc. In the "Methodology and Sources" section, author Engel notes: "For the most part, I avoided the plethora of Star Trek books as reference tools, since they veracity quickly became questionable...." *Those* are where you find this information that fans have known for ages and ages. The assumption that we're so naive as to think GR did it all is insulting. It seems that Mr. Engel's problem with those sources is that they don't go into a blow-by-blow of exactly what GR did or didn't do and air everyone's bad blood on the matter. The bio's purpose is to air all this bad blood, and to air any "juicy" details of GR's life that are to be had, for the purpose of downplaying GR's overall contributions to ST and his overall perception as a person. Obviously the book must fail at part one -- downplaying GR's overall contribution -- since the book argues from the incorrect premise that the general audience thinks GR created everything. The bio holds GR to a higher standard than even we the fans expected of him. As for part two, Gene's overall perception as an person.... Obviously there will be some who didn't know a lot of the things in this book, and who will revise their opinion of GR as a result. That's to be expected, and that is their right. But the author's idea that successfully lowering our perception of GR supports his first premise that GR was The Creator of All is misplaced. First, again, because we already know he was not the Creator of All. Second, because the things the book brings out: his affairs, drug/alcohol problems, lies or misdirections about his military record (to name a few things)... they don't matter. OK, yes they do matter. Obviously no one wants to be indifferent to someone with those personal problems. Where they *don't* matter is in an argument about what Gene did or didn't contribute to creating Star Trek. (Unless someone can tell me what difference it makes to ST how many combat mission GR flew). If he *hadn't* been involved with those things, it might have made ST less of a personal firestorm for the people involved. But it wouldn't, overall, change GR's position in that group. GR created Trek. GR was not necessarily a terrific person to everyone he worked with in the process of creating Trek. Establishing the second statement does not change the validity of the first. *That* is where the book fails. If you want to read "the dirt" on GR a la the National Enquirer, then by all means read it. If you want to read an analysis of ST with fresh information on who-did-what behind the scenes, you don't want to read this book. It's that simple. -- Bill Mason, America Online ST forum host I hardly know where to begin to respond to Bill Mason's incorrect assumptions. So I'll make it short and sweet. What the fans did or didn't know was irrelevant to me. What was *true* was the only relevancy. While researching this story I came upon fabrication upon fabrication. Silly me for thinking that people would be pleased to discover what was true, not the mythos. It was GR who placed himself in the position of being a "visionary." It was GR who said, "It's not ST unless I say it's ST." It was GR who could not bear to let ST continue without his heavy hand. As for the plethora of previously published ST books: After sitting for seven hours a day over eight weeks pouring through every document in the UCLA ST archives; after actually interviewing the people about whom these fan books were written; after talking to the network executives -- after all of that it wasn't difficult to see that these books were most often wrong. Bill, you also fail to mention that I flat out state in the text that GR deserves the "lion's share of credit" for ST. Further, you failed to mention the many nice things I said about him -- sometimes, in fact, giving them more weight than they might otherwise have merited because, quite frankly, he didn't have as many unabashed admirers as I'd hoped. Finally, Bill, you still have not refuted a single statement in the book. Comparing the book to something in the National Enquirer is a cheap shot and downright silly. *Everything* in the book is documented. On the record. With citations. What I can't understand is why there's so much anger at me for saying that the emperor had few clothes on, instead of at the emperor himself for trying to deceive us all. If, as you claim, you knew and it was common knowledge that he didn't have any clothes on, why haven't you said so? That strikes me as extraordinarily disingenuous. So once again, I issue you a challenge: Instead of trying to tar me with a broad petulant brush, next time refer to specific instances of misinformation. It was GR, not I, who held the fans in contempt. I saw my job as setting the record straight. The upshot is that, for the most part, the many talented people who worked to make ST wonderful are still with us and deserve our applause. Dorothy Fontana, who's certainly one of them, wrote the foreword to my book. -- Joel Engel Since Joel is online and getting involved with discussions about his book, I thought it might be appropriate to post this message from J. Michael Straczynski which was in response to an inquiry about why he was quoted on the back of the book. This was bound to come up, so let me dive into this now and tell the full story. (I hope someone will archive this out there, so that if and when it comes up again, the reply will be available.) I have no vested interest in Joel Engel or his book. My first contact with Engel was when he wrote a bio of Rod Serling, and I booked him on Hour 25 -- my L.A. based talk show on KPFK-FM -- in order to rake him over the coals. (Needless to say, I'm a major Serling fan.) We went toe to toe for two hours, and many listeners felt that I was very hard on him. (And, in fact, I probably was; it's not easy when someone tackles one of your icons in full view.) What I found was someone who had no agenda but to get out the story, as fully and factually as he could. Whatever he said, he had at least two and usually more sources on. As a former journalist myself, I could find nothing wrong in his methodology or his motivation. I built a grudging respect for him over the length of that interview. He caught a *lot* of flack over that book, and I guess it was about a year later when he called and said that he was going to do his next book after a subject that would not be as controversial. Roddenberry. He knew of Roddenberry's work, though he had no connection with the person himself, and figured the book would be a cakewalk. Much to his dismay, he discovered that he was wrong. The story was riddled with controversy, and a very different image than the one usually projected. He lamented in one phone conversation (we spoke maybe six times in the course of writing the book, it's not any kind of real relationship; mainly he was hoping I could point him in one direction or the other for sources, one journalist to another) that those who spoke most positively of GR were those who never worked with him, while he was having the devil's own time trying to get anything positive out of anyone who *had* worked with him. This was NOT what he had wanted to get into, and apparently several times offered to give back the advance, just to get out of the book.... but a contract is a contract, and he was under an obligation to tell the story as best and as accurately as he could. Engel -- who has worked for the NY Times -- has *no* connection to Star Trek, *no* axe to grind, *no* interest in doing a hatchet job on anyone. If anything, he was hoping to *avoid* this kind of book. He made it a point *not* to sensationalize in the book. If anything, it's rather dry in places, specifically because he's trying to avoid even the appearance of exploitationalism. He is a very thorough, careful reporter, and is careful not to say *anything* for which he doesn't have multiple sources. Once word got out about the book coming out, many of those closest to GR began a process of damage control, accusing -- falsely, in my judgment -- Engel of bias, of doing a deliberate hatchet job, of having an agenda, on and on and on. I have made it a point to try and speak honestly and frankly on this and other systems, and I can tell you point blank that he operates under none of these. He did not set out to "dig up dirt" or to "do a hatchet job." He wanted to tell the full story, as much as could be verified factually. There's a *lot* of stuff he got that didn't end up in the book, which *would* have been sensational, but because he didn't have multiple sources, or because he felt it really didn't belong in the book, were omitted. When he finished the book, he asked me to read it in case I wanted to give him a quote. I accepted the book, figuring that I probably would NOT give him a quote, simply because I wanted to stay out of the line of fire. When I finished it, I found that it was an honest, straightforward job of good journalism, and knew *instantly* that it would come under a great deal of fire, most of it unfair, and total misrepresentation by certain portions of the fan community. In light of that, I felt honor bound to give some sort of quote. And that, as they say, is that. This isn't an easy area for anyone. As somebody once said, biography has lent death a new horror. Probably 25 years from now, somebody'll write a book telling about how Larry DiTillio was really the secret brains behind Babylon 5.... -- J. Michael Straczynski Regular readers to this space will likely recall the recent spirited discussion about my book "Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and the Man Behind Star Trek" (Hyperion). For those who don't know, it's an unauthorized but well documented biography that relies on attributed testimony from virtually every major Star Trek source, as well as documentary evidence to make the case that GR was not the man he claimed to be (to say the least). With the exception of Entertainment Weekly, whose reviewer seemed decidedly upset to learn that GR was not the visionary-creative genuis he wanted him to be, the reviews have been excellent. One of them, appearing in the Providence (Rhode Island) Journal-Bulletin, was accompanied by a sidebar quoting Majel Barrett on several issues the book raises. Needless to say, this was most unusual; I'd never before seen it in a book review. In any event, Mrs. Roddenberry made several ludicrous statements, including a few lies (such as I never attempted to interview her). But what most amazed me -- and is the reason for this post -- were her concluding comments. Myself, I heard the voice of delusion in them; and considered them an insult to all Star Trek fans, whom she seems to believe are incapable of thinking for themselves. Still, I wonder what others make of these thoughts. They follow: "Why dash people's dreams? [Gene] did so much, so much that was so good. And now this person is trying to dash the dream. "If everything in there were true, it still should not have been [published]. Because of what it's going to tear down if anybody believes that nonsense. "People all over the world had hopes and dreams for a better, kinder, more gentle world tomorrow. And if anybody believes all this stuff that's coming out, there go the dreams. There is no tomorrow. There is no vision. There is no future." It's obvious that Majel Barrett does not understand the role of legitimate biography. And it also seems that, in wanting to surpress the truth, she is in violation of ST's most noble sentiments. But do her thoughts mirror your own? I would appreciate hearing from as many people as possible. -- Joel Engel As for myself, I'd just like to echo the setiments that others have expressed far more eloquently... Biographies and muck-raking are two different things. A biography is a skillfully crafted collection of facts and anecdotes about the lives of interesting people. Muckraking, on the other hand, is sorting through the facts to reveal only the portions that support some sort of hidden agenda. The very title of your book ("Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and the Man Behind Star Trek") suggests that you had an agenda from the start. What I find strange and disturbing in all of these recent books is that they all have one thing in common: they all conviently waited until *after* the only person who knows if they are true or not is dead. Sort of a disgusting coincidence, if you ask me. -- Robert DeMillo Well, I invited it, so I can't complain about it. But FYI, books are titled *after* they're written, not before. As I've said many times here, I had no agenda when I started, and when I began to discover that I would not be spending a couple years with the saintly man I expected, I tried to get out of writing about him. It was the people at Hyperion who approached me about GR's biography--after he died. *Autobiographies* are written while the subject is living; biographies after. I like to think that my book, to use your words, "is a skillfully crafted collection of facts and anecdotes" about an "interesting" man, Gene Roddenberry. Though what I thought made him interesting was not what he thought made him interesting. I suspect that anyone who accuses me of muckraking hasn't read it. What I wanted to know in my previous post was whether people believe that documenting GR's hypocrisy and self reinvention is anathema to the message he espoused. Does revealing one destroy the other, as Majel implied? I don't think it does. Discovering Roddenberry has not, in any way, diminished my affection for or appreciation of ST; if anything, I now enjoy it more. That's partly because I now know that the vision was not an individual's, but rather arose in a collective. And most of these people are still here, and are still deserving of our applause. Learning that Moses contrived the Ten Commandments by himself or with friends, instead of receiving the tablets on Mt. Sinai, would not undermine my appreciation for their message. -- Joel Engel ... Who does it help if a dead hero is brought down to earth? Who does it hurt if the masses believe that the hero was better than the truth?.... You who are biographers are our modern myth-makers. You have the power to inspire as well as inform. The intersection of the two is hazy and ill-defined, but the future will remember us by what you write. Will they think any good of us,I wonder? -- Matthew Wayne Gertz I thank Matthew for his long and impassioned plea to leave our heroes as they are known best. I'm not quite sure where we disagree, inasmuch as I'm a big fan of heroes and myths. Surely, though, the deification of of Gene Roddenberry is a disservice to his own message. That's the irony. I got a letter last week from Sam Peeples, on whom Gene relied a great deal after the ST deal came through with Desilu Studios. It was Peeples who wrote "Where No Man Has Gone Before," the pilot that sold the series. He wrote it out of friendship with Gene, since the script price was considerably less than he normally made. Anyway, in his letter commenting on my book, which he'd just read, he emphasized his lifelong friendship with Gene, then noted that Gene himself would have recognized himself as being portrayed accurately. "I think he would even have laughed," Peeples wrote. Authentic biography, whether it ratifies or debunks the subject's public image, has a valuable place in society. Especially for one, like GR, who so eagerly thrust himself into the public eye. GR apparently had little or no compunction about demonizing network and studio people, as well as his own writers, producers, and actors, when it served his own ambitions; he simply lied when he felt the need. Gene invented a mythology in which he played Zeus, and the minor gods were pawns on the Olympian landscape. We quite rightly castigate the Elmer Gantrys and Jimmy Swaggerts of the world when they're caught with their pants down. Why should GR be different? There are so many heroes already in this world deserving of our emulation. The nobility and idealism of ST are unaffected by these "revelations," in the same way that one can appreciate the music of Wagner while knowing that his Nazi sympathies made him a moral scumbag. And no, biographers are not supposed to be myth makers. Responsible biographers (I put myself in this class) are supposed to be reporters who write with as much accuracy as they can the results of the thorough investigation they've made. Future generations will see that we were not afraid to look with an unblinking eye at our leaders and opinion makers -- unlike in past times when messengers were beheaded for delivering unwanted news. -- Joel Engel David Alexander is the official biographer of Gene Roddenberry. He asked me to post this to the net. ***** Simply put, Gene was my friend and I, his. Some months before his death in October, 1991, he chose me to chronicle his life. His charge was to write an honest biography, "warts and all," to use his phrase. To that end I have spent nearly three years researching and writing, seeking data, conducting interviews, and verifying facts in order to give the reader the accurate information necessary to form and intelligent opinion about Gene and the kind of man he was. As any knowledgeable historian or biographer knows, access to primary sources is the principle requirement for an accurate portrait of the subject. Access to Gene's private papers, his letters and correspondence, was exlusive to me. That material has provided a unique insight into Gene's private thoughts unobtainable in any other way. Some months before his death I told Gene that when word of the biography got out people with their own agendas would seek me out in an attempt to use the book to their own ends. I was not interested in grudges or reordered experiences to be used for sensationalized revenge. These people did not find me a ready audience. During the researching and writing I have been in brief contact with several people who wanted to write biographies of Gene. All were told the same thing: that Gene was a very private man, that much of what was in the public domain was incorrect, that there was much about him that they did not know, and a great many things they had no way of knowing. Consequently, any book they would produce would be bound by those limitations. The full response to the conflicting claims and nonsense swirling around Gene's life will be found in the 600 pages of "STAR TREK CREATOR: The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenberry", ROC Books - $23.95. (Available at your favorite book store by mid-May or directly from the author at 2005 Palo Verde Avenue, Suite 325 IN, Long Beach CA, 90815 - add $3 shipping.) With regard to the endless debate that seems popular on bulletin boards I would say that there is much good advice in the old farmer's adage, "Never wrestle with a pig - you might not win, you both get covered with mud, and the pig likes it." -- David Alexander, Gene Roddenberry's Authorized Biographer ***** All typos are mine. Bye!! Scott Evans UCLA Astronomy The potential reader of Mr. Alexander's biography ought to be forewarned that, though he was indeed authorized by GR, his book contains surprisingly few primary sources -- those people who worked with Roddenberry on ST. Unlike my biography of GR -- "Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and the Man Behind Star Trek" -- which contains testimony from *all* important ST sources, Alexander's book has comments only from Robert Justman, who also contributed significantly to my book. He did not interview, for example, Herb Solow (Desilu exec who sold ST), Alden Schwimmer (Gene's agent who suggested that he come up with a sf series), John D.F. Black (ST's first story editor), D.C. Fontana, either Grant Tinker or Herb Schlosser (NBC execs), Harve Bennett, Michael Eisner, Leonard Nimoy, Rick Berman, etc. etc. etc. All of these people, and a hundred more, appear in my book -- including many of GR's closest friends. It's quite clear that, by omitting the comments of people who actually worked behind the scenes with Roddenberry, Alexander will be presenting the friendliest view possible, not a "warts and all" comprehensive, objective work. While Mr. Alexander's access to GR's unpublished works and other correspondence no doubt gave him insights, as he says, into GR's "private thoughts," biography is supposed to focus primarily on *behavior* -- in other words, what actually happened, not just the subject's perception of what happened. Now, if his book was titled "The Innermost Thoughts and Feelings of Gene Roddenberry," this would not be a conflict; calling it a "biography" certainly is. Essentially, then, what Alexander has written is the posthumous, ghostwritten memoirs of Gene Roddenberry. "I was not interested in grudges or reordered experiences," Alexander wrote in his post above. Nor was I, an objective reporter. I verified everything that appeared in my book. What Alexander really is saying is that he wasn't interested in hearing from anyone GR had hurt or lied to. He wasn't interested in what actually happened, but only in maintaining the myth of The Great Bird. That's not biography, that's hagiography -- lives of saints. It's easy to dismiss people as having grudges or reordered experiences, but if he didn't interview them in the first place, how did he know whether the "grudges" were legitimate or, indeed, whether their experiences were "reordered?" The question Alexander has to answer, as I did, was why so many people who knew and worked with GR had "grudges." My research told me that it was because GR had reordered *his* experiences. Alexander has to serve the editorial pleasure of Majel Barrett, who has more than just an emotional interest in what Alexander writes: She owns one-third of it. I'm sure his book will have amusing moments to it, but will it be the truth? No. Will it locate Roddenberry in his actual relationship to ST? No. Will it be an authentic history of how ST got on the air, why it went off, and how it got back on again? No. How could it be, when he didn't interview the people who were there but instead relied on GR's own memories, dreams, and reflections. Not wanting to appear melodramatic, I nonetheless challenge Mr. Alexander to debate me in a public forum, in a place and time of his choosing. I will happily place my research, documentation, and eyewitness testimony against his. You see, in all the complaining and moaning about my book from Alexander/Barrett and their minions, there hasn't been a single refutation of any *fact* that appeared in my book. And no one -- repeat, *no one* -- has complained of being misquoted. Yes, the truth sometimes is unpleasant, but even GR said that truth ought to be our master. Let me conclude by saying that any reader who wants an authoritative, objective account of what went on in the development, production, and rise to iconic status of ST will read "Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and The Man Behind Star Trek" (Hyperion). Those who want to settle for a one-sided view, regurgitated through the word processor of an admitted friend who stood in awe of his subject, then by all means read Alexander's book. But be forewarned that whatever else his book may be, authentic biography it most assuredly is not. -- Joel Engel Now you've read comments that were circulating on the 'net, here's what I (Simon) have got to say on this book. I would like to stress that I have NOT read the book and I have no intention of doing so - I will be buying the OFFICIAL biography which has Majel's backing. First, no matter whether the book is truthful or not, it is still nothing short of a "cheap shot" releasing a book like this AFTER the subject has passed away. Who can defend Gene against the allegations made? Certainly not the man himself and if anyone else tries to defend Gene over this book then no doubt they would suffer accusations that they are merely trying to protect the memory of Gene and not tell the truth. Books like this should be published while the subject is still alive, with the consent of the person's family or not at all. We all know that Gene wasn't perfect - nobody is - but to write a book telling us exactly that is NOT what Trek fans want to read. David Alexander's boigraphy does go into some detail about Gene's personal problems, but it also concentrates on the man himself and on Star Trek whereas Engel's book seems to concentrate on dis-crediting Gene for Trek. Engel mentions Dorothy Fontana for creating part of the background for Spock through Sarek and Amanda. Yes, she may have done so, but even she acknowledges that Star Trek was Gene's creation - just read William Shatner's book, "Star Trek Memories" where she is quotes as saying that Gene brought her the proposal for the show to read over while Gene's series, The Lieutenant, was winding down in its production run. Next, in a review I recently read of the book it quotes Engel as saying (I may slightly mis-quote this, but the meaning is the same - I don't have a photographic memory!) that "Everyone who ever worked with Roddenberry grew to either dislike him or distrust him.". Now come on, this is an absoloute LIE. For example, Richard Arnold, the former Research Consultant admired and respected Gene and had nothing but love and admiration for the man, as do Trekkers everywhere. Richard would never say a bad word against Gene and anyone who knows Richard will attest to that. Others I could mention include Marina Sirtis who was seen on a documentary about Gene recently in the States where she talked about Gene and Majel and she was visibly fighting a losing battle to hold her tears back. Now if Marina didn't like Gene, why would she be crying? Similarly, I have been fortunate enough to meet many of the cast at conventions and when I saw George Takei at a con a few months after Gene's death, he talked about the loss of his friend and George was having difficult preventing himself from crying, as were most of the fans in the room listening to him. Others who I have also heard talk about Gene affectionately include Jimmy Doohan and Michael Dorn. I think it's safe to assume that the statement made by Engel was what he WANTS us to believe. Finally, I know from a very reliable source, that some of the material in Engel's book was taken from "hearsay" evidence - stories that were told to Engel by people who weren't there when events took place. As Bill Mason said above, I'd like to know who his "sources" were. Also, the same source was contacted by Engel for the book, who refused to comment at the request of Majel Barrett, yet Engel persisted, threatened to take the person to court for refusing to be interviewed (claiming that it was in breach of his civil rights) and he even taped telephone conversations with the same individual without permission. I won't add anything else, but if nothing else, I think the above two paragraphs say alot about the book and the methods used in its "research". -- Simon Plumbe Comments and opinions in this article were from: David Alexander, Robert DeMillo, Joel Engel, Matthew Wayne Gertz, Bill Mason, Simon Plumbe, J. Michael Straczynski