Shatner Wasn't Keen on Gene Roddenberry

According to William Shatner, Gene Roddenberry was exploitative in his attempts to make money.

As reported by Parade Magazine, Shatner didn't approve of Roddenberry's ways when it came to trying to extract money from his cast. "He was a chiseler who wanted a cut of outside money his cast earned, demanded to be called 'master,' and prohibited poor Nimoy from using a company pencil."

"After the first thirteen episodes writer/producer Gene Coon was brought in and Roddenberry became the executive producer, meaning he was more of a supervisor than working on the show day-to-day," explained Shatner, as reported by Trekmovie.com. "After that his primary job seemed to be exploiting Star Trek in every possible way."

Shatner described how Roddenberry tried to get twenty-per-cent of Nimoy's speaking fee for an engagement once, even though Nimoy already had an agent. Nimoy needed to leave work an hour early one Friday to make the speaking engagement. On that Friday, Roddenberry called Nimoy into his office. When Nimoy protested, saying he already had an agent, "He [Roddenberry] looked at me and said, 'The difference between your agent and me is that your agent can't get you out of here at five o'clock on Friday and I can," said Nimoy. "And all it'll cost you is twenty percent." Further protests led to Roddenberry informing Nimoy that, "Well, you're just going to have to learn how to bow down and say master." Nimoy stuck to his guns and Roddenberry backed down but for Nimoy, it "was the end of any semblance of a friendship" with Roddenberry.

To read more, head to the article located here. The TrekMovie report can be read here.

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