Biography
Gene L. Coon (also credited as Lee Cronin) was an American screenwriter, television producer and novelist. Born on 7 January 1924 in Beatrice, Nebraska, he served in the US Marine Corps during the Second World War and the Korean War before studying radio communications and entering television writing in the mid-1950s.
He wrote for numerous series including Zorro (1957), Have Gun – Will Travel (1957), Rawhide (1959), Wagon Train and Combat! (1962). Coon joined the production of Star Trek (1966) as a writer and producer from the middle of the first season, contributing episodes and developing key elements of the series such as the Klingons, Khan Noonien Singh and aspects of the United Federation of Planets and the Prime Directive. He continued to write for the third season under the pseudonym Lee Cronin while under contract elsewhere. He died on 8 July 1973 in Los Angeles.
