Science Fiction History: 1954 Autobiographical Profile by Jerome Bixby Star Trek, Fantastic Voyage Author

Long before he penned television and movie classics like Fantastic Voyage, "Mirror, Mirror" "Day of the Dove", "Requiem for Methuselah", and "By Any Other Name", Jerome Bixby was a young short story writer trying to make a living selling yarns to any publication that appeared likely. His sly comedy, "The Battle of the Bells" appeared in the September 1954 issue of Imagination (the illustration for the story is reproduced below). Along with the story the editors requested a 500 word bio, and Bixby supplied one. This "About the Author" contains some illumination stories for fans of Fantastic Voyage,  Star Trek, and his other work for the screen and tv. Bixby wrote:

"Was born in Hollywood, January 11, 1923, at 3:48 A. M., began rolling slowly eastward, and fourteen years later found myself in New York City.

"In the interim I'd had measles, whooping cough and mumps all at the same time; bit a dog and apoliceman; outrun a tornado; flown a kite bearing a message to an angel (Lon Chaney's—and it came down without the message), and read a pulp magazine.

"The magazine was Street & Smith's old Wild West Weekly, one half of whose total wordage every issue consisted of gunshots written out as "Crang-g-g-g!" Soon I graduated to Doc Savage, Bill Barnes, Operator #5, G-8, The Spider, ad nostalgium (collected, swapped, ran a store for the neighborhood kids in my garage) . . . and at last to Astounding, because I wondered how the rocketships on the cover flew without wings. I immediately grew antennae, and haven't stopped reading science fiction since . . . and a year afterward, at thirteen, I sold my first story I ever wrote. To Astounding, you ask? Nope—to Wild West Weekly. Crang-g-g-g!

"My first ironclad ambition was to be a concert pianist; was just beginning to shape up when somebody broke my fist with his jaw . . . that ended that. Turned to composition; was an early member of The New Chamber Music Society, and had some radio and recital performances of piano works. Dropped music for ten years then (had a stomach to support)—but now the bug is starting to bite again: am sketching an orchestral work.

"Have worked as: soda jerk, office boy, lathe hand—(break here for military service: Air Corps, last war) —record salesman, insurance investigator, pianist in a dance band, portrait sculptor, freelance cartoonist, and recently (since '49) as a stf editor on and off. The ons have included Planet, TWS, Startling, Galaxy and Beyond; during the offs I've free-lanced. Five wonderful years . . . I only hope the next five are half as much fun.

"Likes: cats (her name is En-gram), Beethoven, bittersweet chocolate, Prokofieff, Adlai Stevenson, summer, and disputatious sophistry.

"Dislikes: overexuberant dogs, liver, 99% of all popular music, the advertising racket, mobiles, coffee that isn't quite sweet enough, and big fat cars with chromium smiles.

"Am 5'10", weigh about 135, and have muscles only in my fingers. I am content as I review the list to those who like and dislike me. I write my stories in a 4' by 4' closet, because I grind my Royal at night and sleep days when I hit a writing streak, and people who aren't crazy like to sleep at night . . . a man banged on the door and told me so.

"I'm glad to be alive, and in this country. I would, however, happily employ time-travel, catalepsy, deep freeze, transposition of souls or any other workable device in order to escape the childswarm of not-quite-yets and just-around-thecorners (and the goofball demands) of this gestating century." —Jerome Bixby

Watch for news of a new collection of Jerome Bixby's short stories and novelettes with a very personal introduction by his son, Emerson Bixby from Futures-Past Editions. Visit the Jerome Bixby Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jerome-Bixby/253812261442534/

MY LIFE IN STAR TREK PART I – GENE RODDENBERRY

Exclusive for Futures-Past Editions.

The first time I met Gene Roddenberry, back in 1967, I thought, “He’s a Shark.”


Then I thought, with great satisfaction, “Our shark. In an industry filled with sharks and bottom feeders, we need a shark if we want to get good science fiction on television.” He had called me in because he had secured the rights to produce a Tarzan movie and he needed an assistant to do research and to write the first draft of the movie’s “bible.” Gene had a unique idea for his Tarzan movie. Up until then, the producers of the Tarzan movies had kept the stories rooted in the contemporary world, with the most recent feature taking place in the 1960s. Gene wanted to go back to the story’s roots and set it around 1915. Although Gene found himself embroiled in studio politics that ultimately derailed the project, his essential no still survived twenty years later at the heart of the next regularly produced Tarzan movie, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan.

But before I tell you about that, I should probably tell you about the first time I worked for him. We never met that time. I just talked to him on the phone. From attending science fiction cons and read the show’s record breaking fan mail, Gene had figured out the marketing potential of the show. ST fans would literally buy anything with the words Star Trek on it or in any way related to the show. (By comparison, it was almost twenty years to the day from when ST went off the air at the end of the third season before Paramount licensed the first pair of Spock ears!) Gene was founding a company with Majel Barrett called Lincoln Enterprises to sell whatever ST merchandise he could lay his hands on free or produce at next to no cost. Based on Bjo Trimble’s recommendation, some samples of my writing and a phone call, I was hired to write Lincoln Enterprises’ first catalog. Thus I wrote the first few thousand lines of the first Star Trek merchandising copy ever.

But before I tell you how my involvement with Star Trek first began, at a West Coast science fiction convention circa 1964, when Gene preview the “Charlie X” episode (it was a first time ever TV preview to a science fiction audience at a convention).

But I see I have run out of time. So I will begin with the latter story in the next edition of this column.

Jean Marie Stine
Co-Publisher
Page-Turner Editions
author, Herstory & Other Science Fictions, ebook an paperback