SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome to the Pan Am Podcast, brought to you by the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York. This podcast and our museum are dedicated to celebrating the legacy of the world's most iconic airlock, Pan American World Airways. My name is Tom Betty, and I'm the host of this program. Thank you for joining us. The Pan Am Museum Foundation is a nonprofit organization. Please visit our website for more information at the Pan Am Museum.org. Again, our website is the Panamuseum.org. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. If you are using Apple Podcasts, please consider leaving a review. It will help others discover this program. This podcast is sponsored by the generous personal support of Mr. Adam Aaron, the CEO and chairman of AMC Theatres. He is also president of our sister organization, the Pan Am Historical Foundation. If you're not familiar with Pan Am, welcome. We are honored to have you here, and for you to learn about what we're all about. If you already know of Pan Am, worked for or flown on the airline, or just love our history, it's good to be with you again. So with that, let's get this episode in the air, so to speak. Welcome aboard your Pan American jet clipper. Then we'll be joined by a very special guest, legendary actor, author, and activist George Decay. George played the character of Hakaros in the 1966 television series Star Trek and six subsequent feature films. He knew Gene Roddenberry well for over 25 years and will share his personal insights into the Roddenberry philosophy, memories of living in a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II, working in Hollywood as an actor, and how he became a pop culture icon. But first, let's learn more about the life of Pan Am pilot Gene Roddenberry. Eugene Wesley Roddenberry Sr. was born on August 18, 1921, in El Paso, Texas, to Eugene Edward and Caroline Glenn Roddenberry. Less than two years later, the family would move to the City of Angels, where his father was hired as a police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. As a child, Gene was obsessed with reading science fiction, such as John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, as well as the Lensman and Skylark series by Edward Elmer Smith. He was also equally fascinated by early aviation and had dreams of becoming a pilot for an all-too familiar airline. The young Jean was a verocious reader and would split his reading time between science fiction adventures and anything he could get his hands on about airplanes. In November of 1935, 14-year-old Jean Roddenberry was glued to the family radio set in awe, listening along as Pan Am's China Clipper flying boat made history, taking off from San Francisco and crossing the Pacific Ocean as the first commercial airplane to do so. This was big news at the time, as many said it could never be done, and the teenage Roddenberry intently followed the seven-day journey from San Francisco to Manila by reading newspaper articles and listening to radio reports from each of the plane stops: Hawaii, Midway, Wake, and Guam. Let's take a listen to a minute and a half clip of Gene Roddenberry talking about his fascination of aviation as a child and memories of his first flights. What did you want to be when you were growing up?

SPEAKER_02 4:40

I wanted to be an airline pilot. That was uh from the first time I looked at an airplane in the sky. Uh, I was fascinated by them. I built model airplanes as a kid. I studied them. I joined a club in which we used to pretend that we were flying radio beams with blindfolded and with a pencil. And one fellow on one side was going da-da, da-da, and the other side was going da-dit, da-d-which is the way the old beams worked. The first time I flew an airplane by myself, it was a feeling of such exhilaration. I'd already gotten that feeling when I was a s I had done six hours, I think, of tandem flight with an instructor, and some of it began then. But when you get into an airplane by yourself and you take off, and you're in this lovely three-dimensional world, you can go in any direction. And you go up in there, and those days, at least the air was clean. There is just no feeling any more exciting than uh that. Freedom, freedom, freedom, that's the feeling you get. And my second sensuous experience having to do that was the first time I flew at night. I remember so well because in those days also the air was clear, and over my head was this canopy of stars like diamonds in a cathedral. And below me were the were all the jewels of the earth, the reds and the greens and all the lights down there, piled up and shining and sparkling. It's a pity that the air doesn't stay clearer these days because it it just literally takes your breath away, the sheer beauty of it.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

After graduating in 1939 from Franklin High School, Jean enrolled at Los Angeles City College in police studies, where at first it appeared the young Roddenberry was going to follow in his father's footsteps to be a police officer. In 1938, the Roosevelt Administration recognized the need for air power with a war likely in the near future. The Civilian Pilot Training Program, also known as CPT, was a government-sponsored program created with the goal of training 20,000 pilots each year and was available for free for eligible men. The government would contract with private flying schools all over the country to provide trainings to students where they lived. After finishing his first year of college, Jean enrolled in CPT and found himself at the Joe Plosser Air College at the Central Air Terminal in Glendale, California. He was 18 at the time. Jean completed his flight training studies, and on September 17, 1940, he became a fully licensed pilot and was issued Airman Certificate No. 37-77-40 by the Civil Aeronautics Authority. He continued his studies at LA City College in the spring and summer of 1941 while also taking advanced flight training through the government-paid program with Earl Percy Parks Jr., an instructor at California Flyers. On June 26, 1941, Jean graduated from college with an Associate of Arts degree and was awarded a college service honor from the police club. This made him the first member of the Roddenberry family to finish high school and graduate college. Shortly thereafter, Gene would join the U.S. Army Air Corps. His service would be placed in standby status for the next few months. Let's take a listen to Gene talking about this time.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

I got into the CPT, civilian pilot training, which the government was doing before the war, realizing that probably we would go to war and need pilots. And uh I got my private license through CPT, my advanced license, acrobatics, and so on. I I joined the Air Corps before the war, before World War II, but was not called in until the Japanese uh bombed Pearl Harbor. And then on the 18th of December, 1941, while I was shipped off to Texas to begin my flight training. As a devoted hater of war, I'm sorry to say that the happiest day of my life was when I uh found myself shipped off to war to become a pilot. That's all I ever wanted to do in those days. Well, flying was a mixture of good things to me and and bad things. Uh obviously not too bad because I'm alive today. Uh it was uh oh just a stream of consciousness running through uh my flying days. Uh it was a great victory to me personally to get through cadets and not be washed out. So many boys in those days were. It was a great victory to be able to pass the uh uh physical examination. As I said, in my childhood I was uh uh somewhat handicapped. I I couldn't see in bright sunlight and I had asthma and so on. The miracle of adolescence for me was that all those things went away. And I remember four of us went down to take the exams for the air corps, and I was the only one who passed in all counts. Uh it's the miracle of the body changes of adolescence.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Gene completed his military flight training on August 5th, 1942, when he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was posted to Bellows Field in Hawaii to join the 394th Bomb Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group of the 13th Air Force, which flew the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. During his service in World War II, Gene had many close calls. Let's take a listen to him sharing some of his war memories.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

My flying experience was um basically a happy one. I remember uh the joy of going overseas. And uh uh I went over, supposed to be a pursuit pilot, uh fighter pilot, as they call it in those days, but in the Pacific, in those early days of the Pacific War, they had few uh fighter airplanes that could go more than 300 miles, and that wasn't very good in island hopping. And I remember uh being told I'd have to take some other specialty, and I was in a headquarters over in Hawaii, and I read a Life magazine article about B-17s always come back. And uh it looked good to me, so I went down and volunteered for a B-17 squadron, and that's what what I was sent into combat was in B-17s. Um it was early in the war, the Japanese had uh had superiority in the air. Their zeros were just a marvelous airplane. And uh uh yes, I recall uh ep many episodes of being up on bombing missions and having zeros belly roll in at it with their guns going and you shrink behind your wheel and wish you could get thinner. And uh but somehow when you're young, as as every politician knows, uh you have no fear of death, and and really no, when you have more to lose, you feel that you won't lose it. You certainly won't die. And I don't remember an awful lot of fear, although I don't remember being a hero either. I was not gung-ho. I didn't feel that I was on the front line of of America's de America's defense. Of course, I had close calls too in airplanes, uh, they're in combat in uh in the Pacific had its share of uh my combat had its share of Japanese zeroes uh coming in, our formations. I did lose some airplanes, uh two, uh toward the latter part of my uh uh flying experience. I flew 87 missions and uh uh even then I don't remember it too badly. Uh we we crashed both times, uh controlled crash, because I I had a aversion to l us bailing out over Pacific waters where there were sharks. I did have a friend that bailed out, and uh and the sharks almost got him, but his he broke his arm in the bailout, and uh so with only one hand available he couldn't untie, he couldn't unfasten his chute, and it floating around mercifully kept him from sharks until he was rescued by a coast watcher. Uh but I I didn't have that problem.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

During his time in World War II, Gene Roddenberry was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. Gene joined Pan Am in early 1945 as a junior pilot through a special arrangement, even though he was still an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was then honorably discharged from the military in July of 1945 with the rank of captain. The shift from being a military pilot to a commercial airline pilot was a little difficult for Gene, and he struggled with boredom. Let's take a listen to another clip.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Then when war was over and I became a pilot for Pan American World Airways, flying was uh a little more sedate, and you didn't exactly buzz cows as you in a Pan American clipper. Then I began to sour a bit on it. And there's not a lot of intellectual excitement in flying an airplane. Once you've learned all of your aptitudes and all of your rules and regulations, you you generally sit there strapped to a seat with the airplane on autopilot, wishing you could go back and talk to a passenger.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Pan Am pilot Gene Roddenberry was originally based in Miami, Florida, but then transferred to New York in November 1945 for long-haul flights and lived with his wife Eileen in Jamaica, Long Island. In 1946, the Roddenberries moved to River Edge, New Jersey. His flight schedule took him around the world to exotic locales, but each trip he would be gone from home for more than a week, sometimes more. At one point, Jean's schedule with Pan Am was six weeks on and six weeks off. It was on these long flights that Gene's imagination started to flourish, and his ambitions of being a writer became more and more strong. Jean started writing whenever he wasn't flying and enrolled in writing classes at Columbia University in New York City, but his flight schedule with Pan Am, along with family and work demands, proved to be too great, and he withdrew with passing grades in early 1947. Pan Am was expanding at an impressive rate in this post-war period. A new world was out there to connect. Founder and chairman Juan T. Tripp inaugurated the first round-the-world flight and flew east with leading members of the media aboard Clipper America, the latest model of the Lockheed constellation, also known as the Connie. They took off on June 17, 1947, with 20 passengers and circled the world in 92 hours, 43 minutes flight time, and returned on June 29th. At the same time, Jean was preparing for another overseas trip and flew west towards Karachi, then India, now Pakistan. Everything seemed to be normal and mundane as usual. He was to pick up a Pan Am flight in Karachi and was to fly as a passenger, also known as Deadheading, to Istanbul, Turkey to start his assignment. However, things were about to change for Jean that would forever alter the trajectory of his life. On the afternoon of June 18, 1947, Pan Am Clipper Eclipse, a Lockheed L049 constellation, took off from Karachi to Istanbul, under the command of Captain Joe Hart, First Officer Robert McCoy, radio man Nelson Miles, purser Anthony Volopi, and Third Officer Gene Roddenberry, with a total of 36 souls aboard. Let's take a listen to a newsreel from British Pathay played in movie theaters on what happened the next day on June 19, 1947.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Tragedy in the Middle East as a Pan-American constellation bound from Karache to Istanbul lies wrecked in the Syrian desert. Just before the crash, a radio message was picked up saying that the pilot was attempting to land with one engine ablaze. Eight of the 27 passengers and seven of the crew of ten were killed in a disaster whose cause is still unsolved.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Five hours into the flight, Roddenberry took over controls from Captain Hart to give him a break. Later, while Hart was in the back of the plane resting, the number one engine developed a fault with an exhaust rocker arm, and Roddenberry shut the engine down. Roddenberry called for the captain to return to the cockpit, and they, along with First Officer McCoy, evaluated the situation. All were not worried as they knew the plane could fly perfectly on three engines, and that the local airstrips in the area would not be able to make immediate repairs, and they decided to continue on to Istanbul. Gene decided there was nothing more he could do to help, and everything was under control. So he took a nap in one of the bunks built into the flight deck. Two hours later, he woke up to a nightmare. You are now going to hear directly from Gene Roddenberry about what happened. Note, this is the only known recording of Roddenberry talking about the crash, and he rarely spoke about it. Let's take a listen, and listener discretion is advised.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

I think the scariest things that ever happened to me came some years later when I was flying for Pan American World Airways. I was heading back from Calcutta, uh, and I and I was dead heading back. I was not one of the pilots of the plane. Uh and uh I checked somebody out in a navigation route, and uh we lost uh we lost our number one engine. Uh and I was flying at the time. I'd taken the wheel for a while. The pilot Joe Hart, who was killed in it, uh was a friend, and I said, You know, you all you guys uh rest. I'm I'm bored, so I'll fly for a while. And uh we lost number one engine. I called him up, and I remember us discussing that maybe we'd go to Ankara instead of Istanbul, because it was a little lower route to Ankara. We weren't worried. The the constellation, which is what this was, an L 049, flew very well on three engines. And I went back and went to sleep. And I remember I was wakened by the alarm bell. I opened the curtains of the bunk, and it looked like the whole left side of the airplane was on fire. What had happened is the uh number two engine, which is the one nearest the cockpit there, had blown its had had thrown out its uh first its bearings, and they had cut the oil and fuel lines aft of the of the the the where they can be stopped, and it was spewing oil, gasoline over the engine. And uh we we ultimately crashed in the desert. We were at twenty one thousand feet, and and it just seemed to take forever to get down. And uh as the supernumery, and it it saved my life. I was I was a supernumery because there was panic in the cabin. And I can understand why there certainly was in the cockpit, although controlled. And in my heart there certainly was. And I remember walking down the aisle of the airplane, telling, trying to tell people in as calm as possible a voice that uh it looks worse than it is, that uh we we know where we're going to land below and we know what we're doing. And uh I was in the third to last row of seats when the airplane hit. And uh and I re my images of that are looking out a window, seeing the we cartwheel for a quarter mile across a desert. I remember a great flaming pool of gasoline, I a glimpse of bodies writhing in the fire as they were burning. And uh nine of us got out.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

And uh I would like to read a few excerpts from the book Star Trek Creator, the authorized biography of Gene Roddenberry by David Alexander. The quote when the Alarm sound filled the flight deck. Gene was instantly awake, rolling out of the bunk and into the emergency that was only beginning. No one had to tell him what the problem was. Gene had seen plenty of engine fires during the war. He saw the bright light shining through the cockpit window, illuminating the left side of Joe Hart's face. It was the thing most dreaded by all who fly fire in flight. The number two engine, the one closest to the fuselage on their left wing, was burning furiously. The flight crew tried the normal fire extinguishing procedures to no effect. The brightness and intensity of the flames told them that the problem was beyond their control. The magnesium parts of the engine were burning, and the built-in fire extinguishers were useless. Captain Hart knew it was just a matter of minutes before the engine burned itself off the wing. How airworthy the plane would be after that was anyone's guess. Hart had to take the plane down. Gene was more pessimistic. He thought the plane would blow up in mid-air before it could be crash landed. Concerned with the passengers and the possibility of panic building in the cabin, Hart told Gene to take charge of the passengers and prepare them for a crash landing, just as he put the plane into a steep dive. Hart's confidence in his friend's abilities to handle the passengers saved Gene's life. Had he stayed on the flight deck, he would have ridden to his death. End quote. Gene quickly mobilized purser Tony Velope and flight attendant Jane Bray and prepared the passengers for an emergency landing. As the plane was descending, the fire spread to the wing, and soon afterwards, the engine separated from the plane, which ruptured the gas line and fed the out-of-control fire. Captain Hart expertly guided the plane into a wheels-up landing. However, the left wingtip made contact with the uneven ground, which caused the plane to spin toward the left, and the plane continued at 150 miles per hour, throwing bodies and anything not secured around the cabin. The crash resulted in a fury inferno that killed many passengers and crew. Let me share another excerpt from Alexander's book. Quote: The second the plane came to rest, Roddenberry, Velope, and Bray quickly began evacuating their charges through the ruptured fuselage. As the fire in the front of the plane approached their section, they knew they had only seconds to get everyone out. Moving as fast as they could, they pushed open the cabin door and guided the uninjured passengers out. Gene and Tony handed down the injured, and then the uninjured passengers on the ground dragged them to safety. Even with the composed and focused actions of the surviving crew, the evacuation did not go smoothly. Gene pulled out several people who were themselves on fire and used a pillow he found on the ground to smother the flames. On board, the flames were growing in intensity, so he could not make a couple of trips into the passenger compartment. The last passenger he pulled out died in his arms. The wind changed, blowing the burning gasoline directly over the ship's wreckage. Gene and Velope were unable to rescue any more passengers out of the plane. The other passengers, safe for the moment, the trio turned their thoughts to their friends on the flight deck. They ran around the burying fuselage and wings to the front of the plane. Looking in the cockpit windows, they could see the flight crew sitting at their station, slumped over in their seats, dead or unconscious. Frantically pounding on the windows, Velope, Bray, and Roddenberry tried to rouse their friends until the flames drove them back. End quote. After Gene and his remaining crew agreed that there was no one else they could be saved, they turned their attention on survival and treating the injured. They had crashed in the Syrian desert and would likely not be rescued for hours. At sunrise, they were greeted by desert tribesmen and spotted signs of civilization in the distance, telephone poles. Jean organized two parties of two men each to search for help and to follow the cables. He himself walked over four miles and found a small town where he was able to phone authorities. By noon, the Syrian military dispatched rescue teams that arrived at the crash site to help survivors and bring them to hospitals. The survivors of Pan Am Flight 121 were rescued. Gene Roddenberry sustained two broken ribs and minor abrasions and contusions. He, Tony Velope, Jane Bray bravely rescued many from the burning wreckage of Clipper Eclipse. Of the 36 people on board, only 21 survived the crash. The events on this summer day in 1947 forever changed Jean's life.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Something happened to me that had a big influence on my life. As we were coming down, and death was absolutely certain, I was thinking all sorts of things. Scratch a message to my wife in the middle, you know. Well, what am I going to say? I love you. She knew that. I thought, well, maybe you just ought to pray. And I remember thinking that, wait a minute, you don't ordinarily pray. And I wouldn't have much respect for a God that would accept your prayers when you were in dire straits like this. He's bound to judge you on, if he's judging you on what you you did in ordinary times as well as uh but he just wouldn't, he just wouldn't accept prayers. And so I I remember making up my mind not to pray. I just said, okay, take me as I am. And uh I've always been rather proud of that. You might call that dire emergency. And if you believe something in a dire emergency, it's probably what you truly believe. Uh but uh it was an interesting experience, if you live through experiences like that, it was a very interesting experience. I had uh I I we were rescued by Arabs, I had to make friends with them, and uh, and uh it was so interesting experience. I've never written a story about it because it just seems too real life sometimes gets too phony to translate into fiction. You wouldn't believe it in fiction. I wouldn't believe uh the sun coming up on the desert and the survivors crouched there, and uh young man from India suggesting that uh uh he imagined that uh many with re many religions represented, various people would like to pray thanks in their own way. I couldn't write that scene. No one would believe that same sun coming up, and it it just seemed so phony, but uh the experience was full of those things. I relate these experiences because I'd like my children to understand, and and anyone else who cares to listen that uh uh there really is no such thing as bravery. That we humans are capable of all sorts of things, uh, given the circumstances. I uh I was I was trapped into doing certain things as uh being the surviving officer of that crew. And uh uh there were the there was no bravery uh involved. You just do what you have to do, and all humans are capable of that. In different circumstances, I could have easily been a sniveling coward. Uh and uh and in with with different feelings. Uh so I'd like to say to my children, uh, have a certain pride in yourself. You're uh you probably will be surprised at what you're capable of. And uh and don't be judgmental about yourself. It I'm so anxious that you don't look on these experiences that I happen to blunder into and say, well, that's my dad. I couldn't do that because what the hell you couldn't.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

He decided that he did not want to fly anymore and would leave Pan Am on May 15, 1948, to pursue his dream of writing, particularly for the new medium of television. To have a steady paycheck while writing, Gene followed in his father's footsteps, becoming a police officer for the Los Angeles Police Department on January 10, 1949, where he would eventually write speeches for the chief of police and be a liaison on the TV show Dragnet. He would leave the police force in mid-1956 to pursue writing for television full-time. Gene would write for a variety of programs. His first series that he created was called The Lieutenant and aired on NBC from 1963 to 1964. His next series would turn into a pop culture phenomenon and redefined science fiction storytelling. In 1966, Star Trek aired on NBC. The series ran from 1966 to 1969. In 1979, Gene produced the feature film Star Trek the Motion Picture. This was followed by five more films. In 1987, he created the series Star Trek the Next Generation. Gene Roddenberry died on October 24th, 1991, at the age of 70. For more information on Gene's incredible life and achievements, we encourage you to read his authorized biography titled Star Trek Creator by David Alexander. The interview clips of Gene used in this episode is from a video on our YouTube channel. There is a link in the episode description. Now on to our interview with actor George Takei. He was named by his father after King George VI of England, who took the throne the year he was born. George is best known for his portrayal of Mr. Sulu in the acclaimed television and film series Star Trek. He's an actor, social justice activist, social media megapower, New York Times best-selling author, and subject of To Be To K, a documentary on his life and career. George's acting career has spanned five decades with more than 40 feature films and hundreds and hundreds of television guest starring appearances. With the outbreak of World War II, a five-year-old George and his family were placed behind the barbed wire enclosures of United States internment camps along with 120,000 other Japanese Americans. He spent most of his childhood at Camp Roarer in the swamps of Arkansas and at windswept Camp Toole Lake in Northern California. At the end of the war, George's family returned to their native Los Angeles. Inspired by this difficult chapter of American history, George developed the Broadway musical Allegiance, an epic story of love, family, and heroism in which he starred. Allegiance's record-breaking world premiere at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego in 2012 won multiple awards and was followed by a Broadway run from 2015 to 2016. Now a community activist, George serves as chair of the Council of Governors of East-West Players, the nation's foremost Asian Pacific American theater. He is also a member of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender political organization. As an author, George's first book, his autobiography, To the Stars, was published in 1994. And in 2012 and 2013, he published his second and third books, Oh My, There Goes the Internet, and its sequel, Lions and Tigers and Bears, The Internet Strikes Back. George's social media dominance is best denoted by his numerous awards. Mashable.com named George a social media superstar on Facebook in 2012. In 2015, Cosmopolitan Magazine named Take one of the internet's 50 most fascinating people. George and his husband Brad reside in Los Angeles, California. A special thank you to Philip Keene and Jonathan Delarco for connecting me with George and Brad. Mr. Take, it is a distinct honor to welcome you to the Pan Am podcast. Well, thank you very much. We very much appreciate your time. Earlier in this program, our listeners learned about the early life of Gene Roddenberry, his service in the Pacific during World War II, and joining Pan Am as a pilot after the war. You first met Gene in 1965 when you were cast as Mr. Sulu on Star Trek and had a friendship with him for the next 25 years until his death in late 1991. Tell us about the Gene that you knew in those 25 years and the enduring Roddenberry philosophy.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

Well, I see Gene as a truly extraordinary man, but also I knew him as an ordinary guy. Movie producers, television producers, and creators are extraordinary people. And Gene was that, very original, uh very uh literate, uh knew drama and how to uh build a story and all that. But he was like your neighbor next door. He was very down-to-earth, friendly, thoughtful, and uh a very approachable guy and a good friend of mine. The thing about Jean uh that uh attracted me when uh I went in for the interview for the role of Sulu in uh Star Trek was the breadth of Jean's uh uh interest in storytelling. He told me that he saw the 1960s as a rich mine uh for storytelling. It was a turbulent time, lots of drama, lots of tragedies, as well as extraordinary heroism. The civil rights movement was going on with African Americans demonstrating peacefully for justice, equality in American society. And law enforcement officers were attacking them. They were doing something perfectly legal, demonstrating for equality, and yet the so-called law enforcement officers were attacking them. Same kind of thing was happening uh with the other big uh issue in during the 60s. We we were engaged in a war in Vietnam and Asia, and it was dividing this nation in two, those who were fiercely supporting the war, and those who were just as equally uh strongly, passionately advocating for peace in uh Vietnam. And I, as an Asian American, I certainly was uh was a member of uh a Hollywood peace movement uh team called the Entertainment Industry for Peace and Justice. And those advocating for peace, peacefully, uh, were being assaulted by law enforcement officers again. There's something wrong with the law when law enforcement officers are breaking the law in the name of the law. And so Gene was concerned about that. He wasn't a member of the entertainment industry for peace and justice, but he brought that uh concern to storytelling. But the problem was television was essentially an advertising arena, and uh advertisers didn't want to touch anything controversial as the civil rights movement or the peace movement going on at that time. And so he needed to find some way to tell the story and be able to sell it to television. And he came up with the idea, and this was discussed when I was there to be interviewed for a role. I hadn't I never had been engaged in this depth of conversation when I uh was auditioning for a role in the television. He said he had a solution to that, and that was using metaphors and putting the metaphor into the future, and that's how he drove the conversation to the project that he was working on. It was a sci-fi story, but placed in a uh huge starship in the future, 300 years in the future, 23rd century, and this is in 1965 when I was being interviewed. He wanted to tell this story was a metaphor for Starship Earth, and uh populated by uh many, many different races, faiths, politics, uh, as Starship Earth was at that time. And uh he wanted the casting of the uh people working uh on the starship to reflect the diversity of this planet, and that was already one issue he was dealing with equality for people. And each of us were to represent uh the people of uh a section of this starship Earth. The captain was to be uh North American, but he he wasn't gonna cast an American, he cast a Canadian in that role, Bill Shatner. Europe was to be represented a uh European, and uh Scots are uh famous for being shipbuilders uh in history. So he was to be a Scotsman, Montgomery Scott. We called him Scotty, and he cast another Canadian in that role, Jimmy uh Dewin. And he became a very good friend, a drinking buddy. And uh at one of our drinking sessions he told me that uh I'm gonna be be famous as a uh Scotsman, but really between you and me, I'm really Irish. But he said, I've already drunk enough of the libation of Scotland to play a Scotsman. That was Jimmy Doan, good sense of humor and how to uh use uh the diversity in his life to kind of echo uh Gene's interest in the diversity. And uh that huge continent uh uh Africa was to be represented by in the pilot film, which was what uh I was up uh to be uh being considered for, uh he cast an African-American man, Lloyd uh Haynes. But while the pilot was being considered, he got cast as a lead in uh another TV series as the principal uh high school uh story, and so he uh dropped out I did not know that. Yeah, but that gave him the opportunity to uh rethink that. You know, uh the other issue was uh the advancement of uh women in American society, so he thought an African-American woman, and he came uh across Michelle Nichols, who was more than she and she was uh diversity uh personified in one because she was uh of African ancestry, but she had French ancestry as well, and she had Cherokee ancestry. When you really study her face, you can see the uh Native American uh uh features and uh in her nose, and uh uh so he cast uh an African American woman who embodied uh the diversity of North America, Michelle Nichols. But the Asian character, someone to represent Asia, huge part of this starship Earth. Was a real challenge for him. First of all, he couldn't find an apt uh name for this character because Asia is a huge chunk of this planet. Every Asian uh surname is nationally specific. Tanaka is Japanese, uh, Wong is Chinese, Kim is Korean, and he didn't want to suggest uh that turbulent twentieth century history of Asia or colonization, as you know, Japan uh had colonized uh Korea, a brutal colonization, and so uh he was trying to find some Asian name that suggested all of Asia, the diversity of Asia. He had a map of Asia pasted on his wall in the in his office, and he was staring at it, and he uh saw a body of water just west of uh the Philippine Islands called Sulu Sea. And he said, Ah, the waters of a sea touch all shores, and he found the name for the character.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 45:24

In interviewing, he thought, very wisely, very intelligently, he wanted to cast me. I'm of Japanese ancestry. And so he gave uh uh the Sulu character a Japanese first name. And so that's how he, in the details of the storytelling, he was trying to uh work in that philosophy, and he came up with the phrase uh infinite diversity and infinite combination will give you strength. Not only that, but it makes life enterprise that much more engaging, interesting, and enlightening. We learn from each other, uh the cultural histories, uh, the customs, and so forth. And so he gave a lot, you know, all this, all these thoughts into uh uh building uh the Starship Enterprise. And uh I was completely overwhelmed and impressed with by this uh man's uh thinking. Later on, you know, during the course of our relationship, uh I learned more about him. After um uh the uh war, he worked for Pan Am, and that's the uh connection there. His real passion was uh writing for television, television series. And he was married and he had a baby coming, and he needed a job. So uh he became uh a policeman, which gave him that kind of opportunity to experience Los Angeles, and uh he had a beat in downtown Los Angeles, and his partner in his uh uh policing uh foot patrol was uh an African American, and that man himself was extraordinary. He went from being a policeman to a city councilman, and then ran for mayor of Los Angeles, didn't make it the first time, became the mayor of Los Angeles the second time, uh, a man named Tom Bradley. And so uh, you know, he was a mixture of a lot of things, uh, a beat policeman, and he beat uh he was a beat policeman in the downtown area, uh Civic Center, Little Tokyo is in that area. He knew the history of Little Tokyo, and so he was a fascinating man on being interviewed. I was just uh transported by his telling me about himself in the uh interview. And so that's the kind of man that I was blessed to be working with for those uh two two decades. Uh he was he was a big man in every sense, physically big, tall, uh he had a big vision, but he also had a big appetite, which is good. Uh he devoured life and he devoured food. And that was to be a challenge that he could not overcome. And to see him slowly uh deteriorating, um when by the time we were doing uh the feature films, he would come on the set to visit, but he had that um shuffle that uh he had a cane, but also that uh ill person's uh shuffle. He was a big, you know, you took big strides. Uh he was a physically big person, but to see that man reduced to that shuffling ailing man was uh heartbreaking to see an extraordinary uh extraordinary life fading right before your eyes. And uh his son became a good friend, Rod Rottenberry. Uh but he came very, very late in Jean's life, and uh uh Rod really didn't know his father, so you know he b uh became friends with me and he wanted to kind of extract as much as I knew about Gene Roddenberry so to know know his father because he really he was too young uh young while he was a little boy growing up, and when he really wanted to know his father, he was gone. So uh it was a real uh uh experience of a life uh that I got to share with uh Gene and uh and my colleagues uh in varying uh degrees shared that. I aggressively embraced that and uh I cons consider him a a friend as well as my boss and uh my colleague. So that's you know, that's my Pan Ham connection. He worked for Pan Ham before he came to Hollywood.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

Let's uh let's switch gears for a moment and talk about your life. You have a new book coming out called Rhymes with Tekay. Tell us a little bit more about this new project.

SPEAKER_03 51:10

Well, I've been um writing about my life. Uh I don't know whether you've read uh They Called This Enemy or My Lost Freedom.

SPEAKER_00 51:20

I have indeed, yes. You have? I actually I wasn't gonna bring this up, but I might as well. Um when I was 14 years old in 1994, I was waiting for the package from Walden books at the mall. Uh I was in the store waiting for your first autobiography to the stars. Oh, thank you. As a as a youngster at that time, I was uh I was amazed by the whole Japanese American internment camps and also very angry. And uh I wrote a couple papers in high school about it.

SPEAKER_03 51:57

Well, uh so you know my my uh first uh autobiographical uh writing, and so I've been writing about uh you know my childhood uh imprisonment uh unjustly. It was uh in fact, uh President Reagan finally in 1988 apologized for that unjust uh incarceration because of the activism that came from the Japanese American community. My generation, my parents' generation, was so wounded and so impoverished that after the war they were too busy just trying to survive to find a job. My father's uh first job after we were released from camp was as a dishwasher in a Chinatown restaurant. Only other Asians would give us a job, and at that menial uh uh jobs, uh, they they're the ones that suffered the most, and they didn't just didn't have the time to actively uh advocate for justice uh at that time, just to feed the children and keep them clothed and educated. Uh my father was a block manager in uh both camps that we were in, and uh so in that sense he was something of a leader. He represented our bloc to the camp administration, brought down uh the commands from the administration. There were a lot of internal problems, so he knew a great deal about uh turmoil uh within the camps. I was too young to really understand all that, but as a teenager, I peppered him with questions after dinner, had many after dinner conversations, and he often quoted uh uh President Abraham Lincoln's uh Gettysburg Address uh speech, the part that goes uh a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. He said those are noble ideals. That's what makes American democracy great. But therein also lies the weakness of American democracy because it's a people's democracy, and people are fallible human beings, they make mistakes, even presidents make mistakes. He said during the thirties he was an admirer of President Roosevelt. He inherited a nation that was plunged into a horrible, deep economic depression, and the spirit of America was broken. People lining up in soup lines for a bowl of soup, and as a president, he had to galvanize the country, and he said to them, There's nothing to fear but fear itself. And that brought the people and the economy back up. But when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and the nation was swept up by more hysteria and racism, seeing us as equal to the enemy. When we were Americans, born, raised, educated, and loyal, and yet because of our face, uh, they were driven by the hysteria of the time. And this great president that my father admired signed executive order 9066, which ordered all Japanese Americans on the West Coast to be imprisoned. And because he saw that the West Coast of the United States was just like Pearl Harbor, it was open, unprotected, and vulnerable. And the people that bombed Pearl Harbor that looked just like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor lived on the West Coast of the United States, Washington State, Oregon, California. And it was a sweeping order. There was no uh gradation, shading, uh, any anything. We were to be rounded up. A hundred and twenty-five thousand eight hundred and eighteen Japanese American. This is a latest count of that was rounded up at gunpoint. I I remember I was five years old at the time, but I remember how terrifying that was to see my brother and I were staring out the uh the uh uh uh front window at our neighborhood, and suddenly we saw two soldiers marching up our driveway, carrying rifles with shiny bayonets.

SPEAKER_00 57:15

It's it's one of those difficult chapters of American history. I call it uh difficult history. To the young people that are listening, what can we learn from this stain on American history with the Japanese-American internment camps? What's your message to them?

SPEAKER_03 57:33

Well, there's an important lesson to be learned from that chapter. And you know, the thing is, even in the Japanese-American community, there are uh, as I said, uh the uh my parents' generation, but uh they're my real role models. They're the ones that made me understand uh as I was a teenager. Uh my father was exceptional. He he talked about it when I asked questions, and we had many, as I said, after-dinner conversations. Oh, he he he's the one that in many ways taught me about activism, but there were many Japanese Americans of my parents' generation that didn't talk about it. They felt ashamed. The shame is the government's, not ours. And and so there's a whole generation of younger Japanese Americans who know little, if nothing, about their own family history. When we did allegiance on Broadway, these couples uh uh uh husband and wife, or maybe young people dating, would come backstage to tell me how moved they were and that their parents or grandparents were in camp. And I'd say, Oh, which camp were they in? You know, to personalize the story. And their faces are blank. They don't know which camp they're so just to help them out, I'll say, were they in Arkansas, Wyoming, Idaho, Arizona? They don't know. And that's why, you know, I put a lot of emphasis in in uh in my um writings on that internment story. Uh it's an American story, and all Americans should know something about it, as they know about our history of slavery. But I when I realized there are Japanese Americans who know next to nothing other than just that their parents or grandparents were in camp. Uh I needed to get that story out to uh to uh uh to uh other Japanese Americans. And I emphasize to them don't be ashamed. The shame is not your parents or grandparents. And so and so the activism came from our generation, and uh uh we lobbied and went to Washington and uh uh talked to a congressman, and uh it was uh uh uh uh the um in 1980 that Congress put together a commission to gather information as if they needed information. It's all there in Washington, and they created this commission, and in 19 uh 1 they held hearings, and I testified at uh one of those hearings, and uh uh uh that that testimony itself was such a move just sit sitting there listening to the other old people who went down and talked about it for the first time, and many broke down crying. I mean, I've I got a little choked up myself, and then I got I had blood rushing to through me. Uh equally old, elderly people, uh, white-haired, frail, went down and they testified, and they were reciting the very thing, the very phrases that I read about and heard about. Why were the Japanese in the fishing industry on the coast that's so vulnerable? Those are the arguments they used to indict us. Why were the Japanese farming right near the high tension wires? Those were the only land that Japanese could do, uh all the desirable land was taken by you know white uh farmers. My maternal grandparents were in farming in the Sacramento Delta. He grew hops and strawberries. It's all those racist and ignorant uh phrases that I heard over again in 1981 at sitting in the hall listening to the other uh uh testimonies. And in 1984, the commission came up with uh their findings. They said the uh imprisonment of Japanese Americans was uh based on four topics. One was war hysteria, two was uh racism, and three the failure of political leadership. And this commission's finding went to the White House, and in 1988, Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, which said that it was a grievous mistake, and uh authorized the payment of $20,000 to all the surviving people that experienced that imprisonment. And in my in my family's uh case, my father, who bore the pain and the anguish and the horror of the internment of most, had passed in 76. And my mother, as is surviving widow, uh did not get his portion. And mine, I was uh five to eight, eight and a half. Uh uh, and so you know, I felt my my money was uh not earned. And at that same time we were uh uh campaigning to build uh the Japanese American National Museum in Danton, Los Angeles, and my entire $20,000 check uh went into the founding of uh that museum.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:24

Thank you very much for sharing this very emotional, important, and sad part of American history. For our listeners, the website for the Japanese American National Museum is janm.org. Again, that website is janm.org. If you live in or visiting Los Angeles, we encourage you to visit. George, let's circle back to your new book, Rhymes with Take. Tell us more about this new project.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:57

Uh, what is uh it rhymes with Takay about? I've been writing about my childhood, but that I'm gay. I've been closeted most of my adult life. I didn't come out until I was uh 68 years old because I wanted to be an actor. And no, there was no way that Hollywood would have hired me if it was known that I'm uh I'm gay. Uh I I remember from my teenage days, I was in love with Tab Hunter. Do you remember that name?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:33

Uh I I don't remember him, but I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:36

No, you're too young to he's past now. He was a blonde, good looking, sexy actor, under contract to Warner Brothers, and uh almost every uh movie that came from Warner Brothers with a leading young leading man role, uh Starred Tab Unner, Damn Yankees, Battlecry. He was my idol. I wanted to have a career like him. But one of the scandal sheets uh of the of the time exposed him as gay, and his career ended. He disappeared. And that was an object. I was a teenager by that time. That was an object lesson for me. You can't aspire to be an actor and be known as gay. And so I've been closeted until I was 68. I I was an activist on so many other issues, uh civil rights uh issue, justice for Japanese Americans. I uh and obviously the uh gay issue was a big uh uh political issue, and and uh uh with after um uh Stonewall uh b uh bold brave uh determined LGBT uh people came out and started lobbying. I was silent, didn't participate at all while active in the civil rights movement or uh justice for Japanese Americans, I was silent. And uh so uh I I decided it's about time I I spent my boyhood behind American barbed wire fences, but I spent the the the bulk of my adult life in prison behind invisible barbed wire fences uh on the gay issue. And so I thought uh for the title of my book, I'd make the people, the a book buyer, uh play a little game. It rhymes with taquet. Rhymes with taque. Day may say gay. Oh, I get it. So that's why it's uh titled It Rhymes with Tay. It's my it's the uh the chunk of my life that I spent hidden in prison behind my self-imposed barboy offense.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:32

Well, to our listeners, uh, it uh comes out later this year in June. There is a link in the episode description to pre-order the book on Amazon. Let's circle back to uh Star Trek for a moment. Some of our listeners are fans, in full transparency, I am, so this is kind of a blend between my history work and my personal uh fandom.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:55

Well, Star Trek is a little bit of history too. Very true, yes. It's almost uh 60 years old, and I think that's history.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:05

Yeah, absolutely, and what it represented in the 1960s. I mean, everyone's saying, Oh, well, Star Trek's woke today. It's been woke since 1966, uh, in all of the things that you were part of, Michelle Nichols, yourself, and what that represented, uh, Walter Koenig and his character being Russian on the bridge of the Enterprise. Um, all of that had during the Cold War? Yeah, during the Cold War. I mean, it it's all fascinating. Uh, and it's fascinating that Gene Roddenberry's philosophy has is has endured and also evolved. For some of our listeners that may not have been properly introduced to Star Trek, can you talk about what makes Star Trek so special and revered and maybe share some stories about the fans you've met over the years?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:53

Well, I'm still doing Star Trek conventions and Star Trek cruises. Next month I'll be doing a Star Trek cruise uh fun out of Tampa. Uh so it's still a part of my life. But the fans that I meet and the fans that recognize me share the same color hair or no hair altogether.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:22

And for our listeners, I do have a gray beard, so I may be in that category.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:27

You have the decency to have some uh gray in your lower facial. Uh many people of my generation have no hair at all. Uh, but those are the people that that I go to conventions with, and we share a lot of talk about what it was like seeing uh Gene Roddenberry's uh storytelling happening in our society in the 20th and 21st century. And uh even our headlines today uh could be made into Star Trek episodes. That's the kind of uh vision that Gene Roddenberry had and understanding that he had of the human condition. So uh Star Trek is uh a show that's more than just entertainment. It makes you think, and and that's that makes uh uh being an audience, a participant, you're thinking and relating it to our society and what uh uh we can do to contribute to making it a better society. Gene was an extraordinary man.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:45

And I would be remiss not to mention that we have something else in common. Uh, as you are an honorary member of the 501st Legion, an organization I'm involved with. You've been a part of Star Trek for decades. What was it like to be embraced by the Star Wars community?

SPEAKER_03 1:12:07

Well, I tell people we uh Star Trek worked for peace, but uh Star War is uh space fantasy, and uh uh uh when uh you have war you're f fighting for uh an issue, and uh Star Wars has good war against bad people who uh see a better world against those that want to conquer each other. So in that way, we're related. I'd like to think Star Trek is more pure though.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:47

You've had a very successful acting career since the late 1950s, and that is a testament to your incredible talent and professionalism, but there's more. You've also been an activist for most of your life, even running for elected office for LA City Council in 1973. You brought public attention to the Japanese American internment history and lobbied government officials for recognition and restitution. You became a role model for the LGBTQ community since 2005 and a vocal proponent of gay marriage, all while having a successful career as an actor, even crossing over to another popular franchise with a guest starring role in Star Wars The Clone Wars, but that's not all. In the 2010s, you became a social media powerhouse and pop culture icon. And I realize this list is just scratching the surface, and there's a lot more. With all of these incredible achievements, looking back at your life today, how does all this make you feel? And how do you hope history will remember George Decay?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:02

Well, I'm a Japanese American, but primarily an American who um believed in a participatory democracy, and I participated, and hopefully I was able to make some contribution.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:23

And looking back at all your achievements, how does that make you feel? You're a role model for LGBTQ plus kids all over the country and the world. How does that make you feel?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:38

It makes me feel like I made a contribution that my life uh has some meaning for our society and hopefully for the uh society that I I leave behind. Uh I'm eighty-seven years old, just a few months from turning eighty-eight. So I'm counting uh the birthdays that I'm gonna be celebrating. I've celebrated a lot of birthdays, eighty-seven. Uh in April I'll be seven celebrating my eighty-eighth. So there'll be uh hopefully more uh uh birthdays, but uh they're probably gonna be uh less than all ten fingers on my hand. So I hope that uh I've done some things that uh that I've been able to live through and uh leave something that uh will contribute to making uh a better, healthier, more democratic society.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:56

Excellent. One last thing. So uh Pan Am's tagline in the 1980s was you can't beat the experience. But so I would I would like to ask the great George Decay to do he is a master of humor and comedy. If he can do you can't beat the experience on Pan Am with his oh my, that would be a great send-off to this episode.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:24

Pan Am, you can't beat the experience. Oh my.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:32

Thank you very much for all of this and your time. I really greatly appreciate it. Again, Rhymes with Takay is his new book that will be coming out uh later this year, and there is a link in the episode description to pre-order. You're a good conversationalist. You let me ramble. I try. I try. Thank you very much, George. Live long and prosper. Live long and prosper to you. Pan Am was a pioneer in air travel and still stands as one of the most iconic and innovative airlines in aviation history. That legacy lives on at the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York, where you can explore the rich history of the aircrafts and individuals at the heart of the company known as the world's most experienced airline. For more information about the Pan Am Museum, check out our website at www.thepan Amuseum.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. As was once a tagline in one of our commercials, we would greatly appreciate your support to help the Pan Am Museum continue making the going great. You can also support the museum by shopping on our online store for all things Pan Am accessories, apparel, jewelry, books, models, and posters. We want to hear from you. If you have a question for us or want to share your story, our email address is podcast at the Pan Ammuseum.org. We're gonna close out this episode with the theme from Star Trek. As flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world, thank you for flying, Pan Am