The Desilu Star Trek Connection
Lucille Ball Said Yes to ‘Star Trek’—and It Cost Her Desilu: ‘They Warned Her Not To!’ (Exclusive)
Lucille Ball backed 'Star Trek' against all advice—which changed TV history and her studio forever.
By Ed Gross January 15, 2026.
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It’s one of those Hollywood chain reactions where every link matters. Without I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz would never have formed Desilu Productions. Without Desilu, Ball never becomes a studio executive and without Lucy sitting in the president’s chair, Gene Roddenberry almost certainly doesn’t get the chance to make a strange, expensive and deeply unconventional science-fiction pilot called Star Trek.
That sequence of events began more than 60 years ago, when Ball approved Roddenberry’s first pilot, “The Cage,” at a time when network executives were openly skeptical of the sci-fi genre. Others warned her not to bankroll the series at all, fearing it could push Desilu into financial ruin. From their perspective, the concern made sense: Star Trek was costly, complex and unlike anything else on television. From Lucy’s point of view, however, it was something else entirely: a show with ideas, ambition and the potential for a long future. In a twist that feels almost poetic in hindsight, both sides turned out to be right. Star Trek did strain Desilu’s finances and ultimately played a role in the studio’s sale, but it also became one of the most enduring franchises in television history, continuing to evolve more than half a century later and now celebrating its 60th anniversary accompanied by the latest spinoff, Starfleet Academy |
In a twist that feels almost poetic in hindsight, both sides turned out to be right. Star Trek did strain Desilu’s finances and ultimately played a role in the studio’s sale, but it also became one of the most enduring franchises in television history, continuing to evolve more than half a century later and now celebrating its 60th anniversary accompanied by the latest spinoff, Starfleet Academy
By the mid-1960s, Desilu was in the middle of a quiet transition, and executive Oscar Katz found himself at the center of it. Looking back, he was blunt about who mattered most in getting Star Trek off the ground.
Oscar Katz (Executive, Desilu): “If I had to pick the three people who had the most to do with getting Star Trek into reality, they would be Gene Roddenberry, myself and an agent at Ashley's named Alden Schwimmer. I had problems signing creative people, getting them to pitch projects. Schwimmer said, ‘Let’s get a couple of guys in the long form and the short form, let’s make overall deals with them. Let’s not say, ‘I like this property, I don’t like this property.’ Let’s approach them and say, ‘We’d like you to come to Desilu and would like you to make Desilu your home. The way we’d like to do it, don’t tell us your properties. We’ll make a deal for three properties to be determined.’ In the long form, Roddenberry is the guy he recommended. I knew Roddenberry from previous contacts and we made the same sort of deal with one or two guys in the comedy field.”
Financially, Desilu survived in two very different ways. As Katz explained, the studio made money from shows it owned outright—“such as I Love Lucy and The Untouchables”—and by renting out space to other producers. “Bing Crosby Productions shot all their stuff there, as did Danny Thomas and Sheldon Leonard,” he said. With three studio lots, Desilu could rely on rising real estate values even as its owned programming shrank. Where Desi Arnaz had once had “seven or eight series on the air that Desilu owned,” that number had dwindled to Lucy’s series (The Lucy Show) and a slate of rentals.
“I started working for Desilu in April of ’64 and began to develop programs. April is a late date to begin developing pilots for the fall, so I had a tough time. I think the first year I did three or four pilots, which means that I might have had 15 or 20 projects in earlier stages of development from which the four were selected. They had to be sold to a network in order to get financing. I think all four sailed, but it was hard to attract creative people. Desilu had a reputation for heavy overhead charges, etc. The second year, I did five pilots and of the five three got sold, which is a pretty good batting average. Especially when you consider that two of them were Mission: Impossible and Star Trek.”
Gene Roddenberry’s Vision:
From the perspective of Desilu President Herbert F. Solow, Star Trek didn’t begin as a sure thing or a fully formed vision. It began with a young writer who had an idea and needed someone to help shape it, protect it and push it into the system.
Herbert F. Solow: “Gene was just a young, eager writer who had an idea, who needed help developing that idea and taking him to a network and getting it sold. The story about me refusing to leave [NBC’s President] Grant Tinker’s office until he gave us a script commitment is absolutely correct. And then I had to work with Gene on the script, because there was no way that a relatively inexperienced pilot writer could sit down and write ‘The Cage,’ which was the ninety-minute script that Gene wrote. He needed what I refer to as a ‘script producer,’ which is the function that I fulfilled. I oversaw the production of the pilot, acting as executive producer, and Gene produced it. He was an eager, hard-working guy, who for whatever I did for him, he did likewise for me.”
“I maintain all along that if it wasn’t for Gene being a genius at self-promotion and having a massive ego about his work and about Star Trek, it would have died. It would never have come back to life in syndication; it never would have made other series, other movies, it would have faded away. Gene’s promotion of Star Trek would not let it die, so if he was a marvelously talented television writer, the equal of Rod Serling or Steven Bochco, people who had multiple creative ideas, they would be spending time with their newest idea. Gene did not do that. He always stayed with Star Trek or something very similar to it. That self-promotion and ego drove Star Trek into being what it is.”
Read more at: Woman's World
By the mid-1960s, Desilu was in the middle of a quiet transition, and executive Oscar Katz found himself at the center of it. Looking back, he was blunt about who mattered most in getting Star Trek off the ground.
Oscar Katz (Executive, Desilu): “If I had to pick the three people who had the most to do with getting Star Trek into reality, they would be Gene Roddenberry, myself and an agent at Ashley's named Alden Schwimmer. I had problems signing creative people, getting them to pitch projects. Schwimmer said, ‘Let’s get a couple of guys in the long form and the short form, let’s make overall deals with them. Let’s not say, ‘I like this property, I don’t like this property.’ Let’s approach them and say, ‘We’d like you to come to Desilu and would like you to make Desilu your home. The way we’d like to do it, don’t tell us your properties. We’ll make a deal for three properties to be determined.’ In the long form, Roddenberry is the guy he recommended. I knew Roddenberry from previous contacts and we made the same sort of deal with one or two guys in the comedy field.”
Financially, Desilu survived in two very different ways. As Katz explained, the studio made money from shows it owned outright—“such as I Love Lucy and The Untouchables”—and by renting out space to other producers. “Bing Crosby Productions shot all their stuff there, as did Danny Thomas and Sheldon Leonard,” he said. With three studio lots, Desilu could rely on rising real estate values even as its owned programming shrank. Where Desi Arnaz had once had “seven or eight series on the air that Desilu owned,” that number had dwindled to Lucy’s series (The Lucy Show) and a slate of rentals.
“I started working for Desilu in April of ’64 and began to develop programs. April is a late date to begin developing pilots for the fall, so I had a tough time. I think the first year I did three or four pilots, which means that I might have had 15 or 20 projects in earlier stages of development from which the four were selected. They had to be sold to a network in order to get financing. I think all four sailed, but it was hard to attract creative people. Desilu had a reputation for heavy overhead charges, etc. The second year, I did five pilots and of the five three got sold, which is a pretty good batting average. Especially when you consider that two of them were Mission: Impossible and Star Trek.”
Gene Roddenberry’s Vision:
From the perspective of Desilu President Herbert F. Solow, Star Trek didn’t begin as a sure thing or a fully formed vision. It began with a young writer who had an idea and needed someone to help shape it, protect it and push it into the system.
Herbert F. Solow: “Gene was just a young, eager writer who had an idea, who needed help developing that idea and taking him to a network and getting it sold. The story about me refusing to leave [NBC’s President] Grant Tinker’s office until he gave us a script commitment is absolutely correct. And then I had to work with Gene on the script, because there was no way that a relatively inexperienced pilot writer could sit down and write ‘The Cage,’ which was the ninety-minute script that Gene wrote. He needed what I refer to as a ‘script producer,’ which is the function that I fulfilled. I oversaw the production of the pilot, acting as executive producer, and Gene produced it. He was an eager, hard-working guy, who for whatever I did for him, he did likewise for me.”
“I maintain all along that if it wasn’t for Gene being a genius at self-promotion and having a massive ego about his work and about Star Trek, it would have died. It would never have come back to life in syndication; it never would have made other series, other movies, it would have faded away. Gene’s promotion of Star Trek would not let it die, so if he was a marvelously talented television writer, the equal of Rod Serling or Steven Bochco, people who had multiple creative ideas, they would be spending time with their newest idea. Gene did not do that. He always stayed with Star Trek or something very similar to it. That self-promotion and ego drove Star Trek into being what it is.”
Read more at: Woman's World
* Article from Women World Magazine