Ball and Arnaz would eventually channel the success of their TV show into purchasing their own studio, forming the portmanteauing their names to form Desilu Productions, a name that will be familiar to anyone who watched Star Trek to the end of the credits.
When Ball and Arnaz eventually divorced in 1960, Ball took over the studio herself, becoming one of the most powerful women in Hollywood. That clout would become an essential part of the Star Trek story.
Ball had risen to prominence thanks to I Love Lucy pioneering the rerun on broadcast television, and so to make a name for her studio she wanted a show that could do equally successfully with rerun rights. Star Trek was to be that show.
“Gene’s great, I’ve nothing against Gene, but a script is nothing without money and she didn’t just finance the pilot once, she financed it twice,” Volk-Weiss says.
This is part of the story that is probably more familiar to Star Trek fans. Before there was the version of Star Trek we all know and love, there was the pilot episode, ‘The Cage’. It saw the Enterprise encounter the mysterious, alien Talosians.
Rodenberry’s first pick for the show’s heroic Captain Pike, William Shatner, was unavailable, and so instead Jeffrey Hunter was cast in the role. At the same time, Rodenberry’s choice for the ship’s doctor, DeForest Kelley, was turned down for being too sinister thanks to his villainous Western roles.
