Portfolio Tag: Nonfiction

Before Star Trek became a sprawling television dynasty, Lee Goldberg was there with a tape recorder and a deadline, talking to the people who were building—and rebuilding—the franchise in real time.

He interviewed actors, writers, directors, producers, and craftspeople across the franchise’s first great eras—from the original series and the feature films to the launch and evolution of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He spoke with Gene Roddenberry about creating a television phenomenon, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley about living in the shadow of iconic roles, Kirstie Alley about becoming—and then ceasing to be—Saavik, and a new generation of writers and directors about reinventing Star Trek for television.

These are not retrospective conversations polished by decades of hindsight. They were reported in the moment, while movies were opening, episodes were being made, and the future of the franchise was still uncertain.

Drawn from articles originally published in Starlog, Electronic Media, and other outlets—along with previously unpublished reporting—THESE ARE ARE THE INTERVIEWS captures the ambitions, arguments, frustrations, discoveries, and creative risks behind one of television’s most enduring universes.

More than a collection of interviews, it is also the record of a young writer learning his craft by questioning the people who had already boldly gone where he hoped to follow.

The 1980s were the golden age of genre movies.

It was a decade that gave us unforgettable science fiction, fantasy, horror, and action films—and introduced a generation of visionary directors whose work continues to inspire filmmakers today.

In THE FANTASTIC EIGHTIES, bestselling author and journalist Lee Goldberg goes behind the camera with the filmmakers who created those movies. Drawn from rare and previously hard-to-find interviews originally published in Starlog, Fangoria, The Los Angeles Times Syndicate, The UCLA Daily Bruin, and other publications, these conversations capture the directors at the height of their careers, discussing their creative inspirations, production challenges, special effects breakthroughs, studio battles, and the making of the films that defined an era.

Featuring interviews with John Carpenter, Michael Crichton, Richard Donner, William Friedkin, Tobe Hooper, Peter Hyams, John Korty, George Lucas, Richard Marquand, W.D. Richter, Fred Schepisi, Jeannot Szwarc, Paul Verhoeven, Wes Craven, Robert Zemeckis, and many others, THE FANTASTIC EIGHTIES is an essential time capsule for movie lovers and anyone fascinated by how great genre films are made.

Before Lee Goldberg became an prolific television writer-producer-showrunner himself, he was a young journalist trying to understand how television really worked.

Throughout the 1980s, Goldberg covered the industry from both sides of the screen. He interviewed the writers, producers, directors, and actors behind some of the decade’s most memorable shows, while also reporting on the business forces reshaping television itself: the rise of first-run syndication, the growth of cable, the revival of old series, and the birth of Fox as America’s fourth broadcast network.

Collected here are his articles & interviews, written at the time, on Cheers, Hill Street Blues, Fame, The Twilight Zone, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Ray Bradbury Theater, Remington Steele, The Greatest American Hero, The Paper Chase, Airwolf, The Hitchhiker, St. Elsewhere, L.A. Law, and many more—along with reporting on Stephen J. Cannell Productions, The Arthur Company, Fox, and the changing economics of television. He talked to actors (Pierce Brosnan, Daniel J. Travanti, Jimmy Smits, Ted Danson, William Shatner, etc), writer/producers (Ray Bradbury, Gene Roddenberry, Rockne S. O’Bannon, Phil DeGuere, Harlan Ellison, Steven Bochco, etc), studio executives, and network leaders to truly go behind the scenes in this tumultuous decade for television.

What makes these pieces distinctive is that they were written as events were unfolding, before anyone knew which shows would become classics, which experiments would fail, or which changes would transform the industry.

For Goldberg, these articles were more than journalism. They were an education in the craft and business of television—an education he would soon put to use as a television writer and producer himself.

Channeling the Eighties is both a time capsule of a remarkable decade in television and an inside look at an industry in the middle of reinventing itself.

Before Lee Goldberg became a television writer-producer, he went looking for the people who knew how great television was made.

In CREATING PRIMETIME, Goldberg sits down with the legendary writers, producers, and creators who built some of the most enduring series of the 1950s through the 1980s. Stephen J. Cannell, Steven Bochco, Roy Huggins, Sherwood Schwartz, Kenneth Johnson, Michael Landon, Sam Rolfe, Rockne S. O’Bannon, and others discuss the art and business of creating television: developing characters, breaking stories, battling networks, surviving cancellation, reviving beloved shows, and keeping a series alive week after week.

These interviews capture television at a pivotal moment, when the showrunner was becoming the central creative force behind a series. They also document Goldberg’s own apprenticeship in making television. As a young journalist, he asked the questions of someone determined to learn the craft. Years later, he would apply those lessons as writer and producer on many series, including SeaQuest, Monk and You’re Killing Me, as the co-creator of Hallmark’s Mystery 101, and as a showrunner on Diagnosis Murder and Martial Law.

CREATING PRIMETIME is an inside look at how classic television was conceived, written, and produced by the showrunners who made it.

In FADE IN, the writers behind some of the most memorable stories on film and television reveal what really happens between inspiration and what you see on screen. They talk candidly about battling studios, rewriting other people’s work, adapting beloved books, protecting characters, sharing credit, losing control—and ultimately seeing what they imagined come brilliantly or horribly to life.

The lineup includes Ray Bradbury, Stephen J. Cannell, Michael Crichton, Bob Gale, Dan O’Bannon, Gene Roddenberry, Robert Zemeckis, and the writers behind the James Bond movies, RoboCop, Fletch, Back to the Future, Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, and many more.

Lee Goldberg conducted these interviews as a young entertainment journalist, years before becoming a #1 New York Times bestselling author and a television writer-producer on shows like SeaQuest, Diagnosis Murder and Monk. These conversations were more than assignments. They showed him the ingenuity, frustration, compromise, and sheer persistence that’s required to turn words on a page into something millions of people will watch.

Sharp, funny, revealing, and often brutally honest, FADE IN captures screenwriters talking about their craft while the work, and the battles behind it, were still fresh.

In the early 1980s, Lee Goldberg was a young freelance reporter covering Hollywood and talking with actors at every stage of their careers.

Michael J. Fox was only beginning to grasp what sudden fame might mean. Tom Selleck was testing whether television stardom could carry him into movies. Raquel Welch, already an international icon, was fighting to regain control of a career Hollywood had tried to define for her. Roger Moore was wondering whether it was time to give up his license to kill. Robert Englund was still a working character actor, unaware that Freddy Krueger was about to change his life. They are joined by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jeff Goldblum, Louise Fletcher, Christopher Lloyd, Billy Dee Williams, Molly Ringwald, and many more actors caught at equally revealing moments in their lives.

Goldberg would later become a successful television writer-producer (Diagnosis Murder, SeaQuest, Monk, etc) and a #1 New York Times bestselling novelist of over 50 books. But here, through these interviews, he’s beginning to learn how performers think, what fame costs, and how much an acting career depends on the choices they make—and the choices that are made for them.