D. C. Fontana facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
D. C. Fontana
|
|
|---|---|
Fontana (2016; age 76)
|
|
| Born | March 25, 1939 Sussex, New Jersey, U.S.
|
| Died | December 2, 2019 (aged 80) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
|
| Other names | J. Michael Bingham Michael Richards |
| Alma mater | Fairleigh Dickinson University |
| Occupation | Scriptwriter, story editor |
| Years active | 1960–2006 |
| Spouse(s) |
Dennis Skotak
(m. 1981) |
Dorothy Catherine Fontana (born March 25, 1939 – died December 2, 2019) was an American television writer and editor. She is most famous for her work on the original Star Trek TV series. She also wrote for many Western TV shows.
Fontana started as a secretary for TV producers. She later worked for Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek. She became the story editor for Star Trek, helping to shape its stories. After leaving Star Trek, she worked on other popular shows like The Six Million Dollar Man and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. She also returned to Star Trek for Star Trek: The Animated Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Fontana was honored for her amazing work. She was added to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. She also won the Morgan Cox Award from the Writers Guild of America.
Contents
Growing Up and Starting Out
Dorothy Catherine Fontana was born in Sussex, New Jersey. She grew up in Totowa, New Jersey, and finished high school in 1957.
When she was just 11 years old, Fontana decided she wanted to be a novelist. She loved writing scary stories with her friends. She went to Fairleigh Dickinson University and earned a degree to become an executive secretary. After college, she moved to New York City and got a job as a junior secretary at a TV studio called Screen Gems.
Later, she moved to Los Angeles. She worked in the typing pool at Revue Studios. There, she became the secretary for writer Samuel A. Peeples on a Western TV show called Overland Trail.
First Stories Sold
When Overland Trail ended, Fontana continued working with Peeples on another Western show, The Tall Man. This is where she sold her very first story idea, called "A Bounty for Billy." She was only 21! She kept selling ideas for other Western shows like Frontier Circus and Shotgun Slade.
She used the name Dorothy C. Fontana for these early works. She learned a lot about writing for TV, like how many characters could speak in an episode. Sometimes, she even had to rewrite scenes because of bad weather during filming.
Becoming a Story Editor
Fontana then found a job on a TV show about the Marine Corps called The Lieutenant. She became a secretary for producer Del Reisman. Around this time, she started using the name D. C. Fontana for her writing. This was a smart move because it hid her gender. At the time, there were very few female writers at NBC, and she didn't want her ideas to be judged unfairly because she was a woman.
The Lieutenant was created by Gene Roddenberry. Fontana ended up working directly for him when his secretary was sick. Roddenberry encouraged her writing dreams. In 1964, she even published her first novel, a Western called Brazos River.
Shaping Star Trek
After The Lieutenant was canceled, Roddenberry started working on Star Trek. Fontana, who hadn't been a big science fiction fan before, quickly got into it. She helped develop the show from the very beginning.
Roddenberry asked her to write an episode based on his idea called "The Day Charlie Became God." She turned it into the script for "Charlie X." This was the second episode of the series to air. She also wrote "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" from her own idea.
By the middle of the first season, Fontana became the new story editor for Star Trek. This meant she was in charge of making sure all the scripts were good and fit the show's vision. She came up with ideas for episodes like "Journey to Babel" and "Friday's Child". She also rewrote many scripts to make them better. For example, she completely rewrote "The Ultimate Computer" when the original writer couldn't make the needed changes.
Fontana left the Star Trek team before the third season. But she kept writing scripts for the show as a freelancer. These included "The Enterprise Incident", "That Which Survives", and "The Way to Eden". For some of these, she used the name Michael Richards.
Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played Spock, said Fontana was very important for developing the Vulcan culture in Star Trek. He also praised her for writing strong, believable female characters.
Becoming a Producer
In the early 1970s, Fontana worked as Roddenberry's assistant on a project called The Questor Tapes. She also wrote a script for his film Genesis II.
She was then hired as both a story editor and an associate producer for Star Trek: The Animated Series. This show won an award for Outstanding Children's Series in 1975.
After that, Fontana became the story editor for The Fantastic Journey (1977). She also wrote for other science fiction shows like The Six Million Dollar Man and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. She even wrote episodes for family dramas like The Waltons.
Working on The Next Generation
When a new Star Trek show, Star Trek: The Next Generation, was being made, Roddenberry asked Fontana to join the team. She helped create the idea for the pilot episode, "Encounter at Farpoint." She wanted to be an associate producer, and after some discussion, she got the job.
However, her relationship with Roddenberry became difficult, and she left during the first season. She had even written an idea for Spock to appear on the show, but it was not used at the time. When Spock later appeared in the fifth season episode "Unification", she felt her original idea was right. She used the name J Michael Bingham for some of her work on The Next Generation.
Later Career and Legacy
After leaving The Next Generation, Fontana wrote a Star Trek novel called Vulcan's Glory. It told the story of Spock's first mission on the Enterprise with Captain Christopher Pike.
She returned to the Star Trek universe again to write an episode for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine called "Dax". She also wrote three episodes for the popular science fiction series Babylon 5.
Fontana also wrote scripts for video games like Star Trek: Legacy and Star Trek: Tactical Assault. She even wrote an episode for a fan-made Star Trek production called Star Trek: New Voyages.
Fontana was a member of the Writers Guild of America for many years. She served on its board and received the Morgan Cox Award in 2002 for her service to the guild. She was also honored twice by the American Screenwriters Association.
Personal Life
Fontana was married to cinematographer Dennis Skotak.
D. C. Fontana passed away on December 2, 2019, after a short illness.
Images for kids
-
Fontana (2016; age 76)
See also
In Spanish: D.C. Fontana para niños
