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Robert Justman, producer of TOS and TNG, passes away |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Sunday, 01 June 2008
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 Our thoughts and prayers again go out to the family of another Star Trek legend, Robert Justman. The producer of Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation succumbed to Parkinson’s disease at the age of 81. Justman was brought on board for the original Star Trek pilot, ‘The Cage,’ back in 1964, as an associate produced under Gene Roddenberry.
Justman’s death comes within days of receiving the news that two other Star Trek legends, TOS director Joseph Pevney and Star Trek theme composer Alexander Courage, had also passed away.
Robert Justman’s son, Jonathan Justman, said “There seems to be a big Star Trek convention and everyone is going. Everyone is getting beamed up.”
Born Robert Harris Justman, he came into our world on July 13, 1926, in Brooklyn, New York, to parents Lena and Joseph Justman. Robert’s father was a successful produce vendor in New York and California and also owned a movie studio in Los Angeles.
During World War II, Justman served in the Navy as a radio operator. After the close of the war, he attended UCLA and in 1950, started working for his family’s Motion Picture Center studio (which was eventually purchased by Desilu Studios, which produced Star Trek). Justman worked on hundreds of films and television episodes while at the studio, working his way up from production assistant to associate producer. Projects he worked on included Adventures of Superman, Apache, Kiss Me Deadly, Mission: Impossible, Northwest Passage, Red Planet Mars, and The Outer Limits.
When Justman started with Star Trek in 1966, he was just an associate producer. He moved up the ladder to technical consultant and then co-producer until Star Trek was cancelled in 1969. Compared to today’s television shows, the production crew for Star Trek was incredibly small, with Roddenberry, Justman, and co-producer John Black handling most of the production needs, from casting to set design to scripts.
Even though Star Trek did not do well in its initial run, over the next two decades it developed a considerable fan following and was resurrected on the silver screen, and in 1987, on the small screen with the syndicated series Star Trek: The Next Generation. Still under the watchful eye of Roddenberry, Justman was brought on board as a supervising producer, along with Rick Berman (who would later move to executive producer and helm the later spinoff series). Speaking with the Los Angeles Times, Berman said, “I can’t tell you how nurturing this guy was to me. He was like a mentor and a father. He was extraordinary.”
Just as with the original series, Justman had a hand in everything with The Next Generation. Justman even was the strongest proponent of the casting of Patrick Stewart as the legendary Captain Jean-Luc Picard, a casting that Gene Roddenberry initially opposed. Having set Star Trek on a steady and true course, Justman retired after the end of the first season. In 1996 he partnered with Herbert Solow to write Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, which chronicled the creation of the original Star Trek series. Even though Justman had not been involved with the production since the first season, starting in the sixth season the Shuttlecraft Justman could be seen used in The Next Generation, named after him by then-executive producer Berman.
Justman also served as a uniformed volunteer with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for more than 20 years.
Robert Justman is survived by Jaqueline, his wife of 51 years; his sons Jonathan and William; daughter Jennifer; sisters Estelle Osborne and Jill Roach; brother Anthony; and five grandchildren.
Services arrangements are pending.
[via: Los Angeles Times]
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