{"id":51836,"date":"2019-12-03T15:09:21","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T23:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.trektoday.com\/content\/?p=51836"},"modified":"2019-12-03T15:09:21","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T23:09:21","slug":"d-c-fontana-passes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/2019\/12\/d-c-fontana-passes\/","title":{"rendered":"D.C. Fontana Passes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dorothy (D.C.) Fontana<\/strong> passed away last night at the age of eighty after a “brief illness.”<\/p>\n

A press release provided by the American Film Institute<\/em> and posted on Rod Roddenberry<\/strong>‘s Facebook<\/em> page is posted below:<\/p>\n

“Most recently employed as a senior lecturer at the American Film Institute<\/em>, Ms. Fontana devotedly taught and mentored many classes of aspiring screenwriters, producers and directors by sharing a lifetime of expertise, craft, heart and integrity.<\/p>\n

“However, Ms. Fontana gained global notoriety for her writing and story editing on the 1960’s television series Star Trek<\/em>, as well as the 1970’s animated series, which she also executive produced. Her myth-building work on classic Trek blazed a trail for women, not only in television, but also in science fiction. Her well-known screen credit kept the fact of her gender a secret from most fans until they saw her picture in Stephen Whitfield<\/strong>‘s The Making of Star Trek,<\/em> one of the ‘Bibles” of classic Trekker fandom.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

“Dorothy Fontana was responsible for creating Spock’s childhood history, including the essential story Yesteryear<\/em>, which though produced for Star Trek: The Animated Series<\/em>, is as powerful as the best episodes of the classic series. She established the characters of, and relationship between, Spock’s father and mother (Sarek and Amanda) in classic Trek’s Journey to Babel<\/em> episode. It was Ms. Fontana’s development of the rare emotional travails of a half-human, half-Vulcan child…and adult (full of emotions, yet prohibited from expressing them), that made Spock such a unique character in the history of film and television.<\/p>\n

“Mr. Fontana’s writing credits also include episodes of: Then Came Bronson<\/em> (her script, Two Percent of Nothing<\/em>, co-written with Denne Bart Petitclerk<\/strong>, was nominated for a WGA<\/em> Award); Ben Casey; The Wild Wild West; The Big Valley; Bonanza, The Six Million Dollar Man; Land of the Lost; The Streets of San Francisco; Kung Fu: The Waltons; Dallas, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century; Babylon 5<\/em>; and the documentary, Bob Burns<\/strong>‘ Hollywood Halloween<\/em> (shared with Bob <\/strong>and Kathy Burns<\/strong>). Though best known for her television work, D.C. Fontana also wrote novels – including Trek’s Vulcan’s Glory<\/em>, and the Questor Tapes<\/em>, based on a pilot by [Gene<\/strong>] Roddenberry<\/strong>. She also wrote a Trek comic book, and several video games, primarily in the science fiction genre.<\/p>\n

“For decades, Ms. Fontana was an ardent and active member of the Writers Guild of America<\/em>, west, having served on its Board of Directors for two terms. She twice won the prestigious Morgan Cox<\/em> award for Guild<\/em> service; first in 1997 (shared with members of the Property Planning Committee<\/em>), and again by herself in 2002. Recording interviews with her from the Writers Guild<\/em> and the TV Academy<\/em> (among others) are available online.<\/p>\n

“Dorothy (D.C.) Fontana was born in New Jersey in 1939, and is survived by her husband, Oscar-Winning visual effects cinematographer Dennis Skotak<\/strong>. Please respect the family’s privacy. Send memorial donations to the Humane Society<\/em> (www.humanesociety.org<\/em>), Best Friends Animal Society<\/em> (www.bestfriends.org<\/em>), or the American Film Institute<\/em> (www.afi.com<\/em>).”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dorothy (D.C.) Fontana passed away last night at the age of eighty after a “brief…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51837,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2413],"tags":[2837],"class_list":["post-51836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cast-crew","tag-fontana"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DCFontana120319.jpg",580,225,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DCFontana120319-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DCFontana120319.jpg",580,225,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DCFontana120319.jpg",580,225,false],"large":["https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DCFontana120319.jpg",580,225,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DCFontana120319.jpg",580,225,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DCFontana120319.jpg",580,225,false],"newsphere-slider-full":["https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DCFontana120319.jpg",580,225,false],"newsphere-featured":["https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DCFontana120319.jpg",580,225,false],"newsphere-medium":["https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DCFontana120319.jpg",580,225,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"T'Bonz","author_link":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/author\/tbonz\/"},"category_info":"Cast & Crew<\/a>","tag_info":"Cast & Crew","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51839,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51836\/revisions\/51839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}