John Meredyth Lucas

John Meredyth Lucas was a child of Hollywood. He was the son of screenwriter Bess Meredyth and was adopted by her husband, legendary filmmaker Michael Curtiz. After serving in World War II, Lucas--unsurprisingly--joined the ranks of the film industry. He was hired by Warner Bros. as a script clerk, often working on Curtiz's films. An aspiring writer and director, Lucas had his first screenplay, "Dark City," produced in 1950, with Charlton Heston as the moody lead. The vast majority of Lucas's work was on television, however, and he was creatively involved with many successful shows of the 1960s and '70s, including the medical drama "Ben Casey" (as a producer) and the crime series "Mannix" (as writer and director). Lucas's work on the original "Star Trek" series, with its far-reaching influence and rabid following, brought him more recognition than the rest of his work. He wrote four episodes, beginning in the second season of the classic sci-fi show, and produced 10 in all. In the late '70s, Lucas wrote, directed, and produced for the religiously themed TV series "Insight." Continuing in this vein, Lucas wrote and directed "Yeshua" in 1984, a documentary series chronicling the history of Israel in relation to the life of Jesus. Lucas wrote a memoir, "Eighty Odd Years in Hollywood," which he completed just before his death in 2002.