Good Behind the Scenes Books

[Maurice]

I'm going off the top of my head because it's been over twenty years since I read it, but Shatner makes a big deal about meeting the Apollo 11 crew while he was filming Star Trek in 1968 (Neil, Buzz, Mike) and that they were all huge Star Trek fans, blah blah blah. He contrasts it with July of 1969 watching the moon landing on a crappy TV, being out of work, divorced, and touring in a tiny trailer.

The 11 crew was not announced until January 1969 and they didn't know that 11 was going to be the moon landing until Apollo 10 was successful in May of 1969.

I think he also retells some stories that other Star Trek luminaries have told (Bob Justman for one) but makes himself the main character. (Going to Harlan Ellison's house to get him to finish City on the Edge of Forever.)

Again, 20+ year old memory. Someone can, well, fact check me.

They're entertaining reads and if the stories about his interactions with Nichols and Doohan while writing the book are made up to be OVERLY self-deprecating I'll be very disappointed.

---

Has anyone mentioned how both Cushman and Solow / Justman completely mangle the story of Roddenberry and Alexander Courage? How Courage was so offended by the royalty situation over the theme song that he never worked on Star Trek again worked on every season of Star Trek and many of the movies?

My favorite bit about that is that Cushman credits Courage's music used in A Private Little War to Fred Steiner and says it was specifically composed for the last scene. Journalism at it's finest!

(I'll ride my hobby horse out of here.)

Yep. Memoirs are not inherently factual. The Star Trek Fact Check Blog began, in part, in response to the Solow & Justman book, which—although a pretty good account—is not always accurate to the details the production paperwork attest to.

EDITED TO ADD: I spent the afternoon digging through the Variety Archive to see what I could tease out about Trek's renewal history in the 3rd season. It looks like they got a typical initial pickup for 16, then two more around the time the networks decided whether or not to pick up the back end of the season (usually late October). A few days later Freiberger is reported saying they are at the end of their 18. So far, not finding anything that mentions the remaining six that got them to 24.