James Goldstone, 68; Directed ‘Star Trek’ Pilot

In “Star Trek” lore, the name James Goldstone might not rank with Spock or Kirk or that of the show’s creator, Gene Roddenberry. But fans of the legendary television show will always recall that he was the man who directed the pilot episode and then walked away.

Goldstone, a veteran director of television and feature films, died Friday of cancer at his home in Shaftsbury, Vt. He was 68.

A native of Los Angeles, Goldstone received his bachelor’s degree in English from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and master’s degree in drama from Bennington College in Vermont. He began his career as a film editor after serving in the Army at California’s Ft. Ord in the early 1950s.

He went on to become a screenwriter, story editor, professor of film studies and director.

Of his experience with the “Star Trek” pilot, Goldstone said years ago that he was hired not because he had any special knowledge of science fiction but because he had done a couple of episodes of “Outer Limits” and knew Roddenberry from working on the “Highway Patrol” series.

Goldstone said he had never bothered viewing the final version of the “Star Trek” pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” nor had he seen any of the 38 episodes that followed, because he didn’t enjoy watching television.

But he said his “Star Trek” experience was enjoyable.

“It was fun creating from the bottom up, building characters and story premises you could relate to on a human level,” he said long after the series had ended.

But his distaste for working in weekly television was legendary. He reportedly was offered a percentage deal to stay with “Star Trek” but turned it down because he found a weekly series monotonous.

Goldstone directed theatrical releases, including “Red Sky at Morning,” “Winning” and “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.” He won a directing Emmy in 1981 for the TV movie “Kent State,” and was nominated in 1970 for “Clear and Present Danger,” another TV movie. Other television movies or miniseries to his credit included “Studs Lonigan,” “Calamity Jane” and “The Sun Also Rises.” He also directed the television pilot for “Ironside.”

In 1988, Goldstone and his wife, Ruth, moved to Vermont, where he was active in the arts community, directing plays for the Oldcastle Theatre Company in Bennington and serving as head of the Vermont Film Commission. He was also a visiting professor in film at the Columbia University School of the Arts and was on the Dartmouth College Film Advisory Board.

But he realized that of all his creative accomplishments, one would endure in the pop culture consciousness. “The pilot of ‘Star Trek’ will be my epitaph,” Goldstone said years ago.