Donna Cooner Popular Books

Donna Cooner Biography & Facts

Eugene Lee Coon (January 7, 1924 – July 8, 1973) was an American screenwriter, television producer, and novelist. He is best remembered for his work on the original Star Trek as a screenwriter, story editor, and showrunner from the middle of the series' first season to the middle of the second. Along with series creator Gene Roddenberry, Coon is given credit for the show's idealistic tone and for creating several key story and world-building elements that would become important parts of the ongoing franchise. Life and career The eldest son of U.S. Army Sgt. Merle Jack "Pug" Coon and decorator Erma Gay Noakes, Eugene Lee Coon was born in Beatrice, Nebraska, on January 7, 1924. At four years of age, young Gene showed talent, singing on the radio at WOAW-AM in Omaha. He knew 24 songs, including one in French and one in German. In his youth, Coon was a member of the Gage County 4-H Club and the Boy Scouts of America. He later attended Omaha Technical High School and participated in Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps, also playing in the school band. During this time, he was also a teenaged newscaster for KWBE (AM) in Beatrice. Coon later moved, with his parents and younger brothers, Merle Jack Coon Jr. and Bloise Newell Coon, to Glendale, California. Another brother died at 10 years old when they still lived in Beatrice. His father found employment there working with poultry, and Coon transferred to Glendale High School. During World War II, Coon served stateside in the United States Marine Corps from 1942 to 1946. Thereafter, he remained in the Marines as a reservist while studying radio communications at Glendale Junior College, where he performed in a production of The Night of January 16th. Following additional studies at the University of Iowa, he returned to active duty during the Korean War in 1950. He received additional training as a war reporter, and ran a pharmacy and built houses. He wrote about many of his experiences in the novels Meanwhile Back at the Front and The Short End of the Stick. Upon his demobilization in 1952, Coon found work first as a radio newscaster before turning to freelance writing under the mentorship of Los Angeles Times reporter Gene Sherman. From 1954 to 1959, Coon operated a pharmacy at the intersection of Beverly Boulevard and North Ardmore Avenue; during this period, Sherman covered his pharmacy exploits in the page 2 "Cityside" column for the newspaper. Sherman also allowed Coon to have a guest spot promoting Meanwhile Back at the Front in the column Sherman wrote for The Farmer's Market, using the pen name Dick Kidson. Beginning in 1956, Coon was primarily involved in scripting teleplays for popular Western and action television shows, including Dragnet (1951), Wagon Train (1957), Maverick (1957), and Bonanza (1959). At Universal in the early 1960s, he turned McHale's Navy (1962) from a one-hour drama into a successful 30-minute sitcom. Together with the writer Les Colodny, Coon floated the idea for The Munsters (1964), as a satirical take on The Donna Reed Show (1958), to MCA chairman Lew Wasserman. The result of this last, whose format was worked out by Allan Burns and Chris Hayward and whose characters and situations were developed by Norm Liebman and Ed Haas, was yet another hit show, under the creative auspices of Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher. MCA, then the parent company of Universal Studios, produced the show through its Revue TV and Kayro-Vue Productions banners. Star Trek His Wagon Train scripts contained strong moral lessons concerning personal redemption and opposing war, and he later repeated very similar themes in his Star Trek scripts. (The latter series, though it owed much to C. S. Forester's novels about Horatio Hornblower and Jonathan Swift's satire Gulliver's Travels, was sold to the NBC television network using the unofficial nickname of "Wagon Train to the stars".) Coon joined the original Star Trek series during its first season; David Gerrold credited him with being a skilled showrunner before Coon left in the middle of the second season. Coon was responsible for many rewrites of Star Trek scripts. His credited creations for Star Trek include the Klingons and the Organian Peace Treaty (in "Errand of Mercy"), Khan Noonien Singh (in "Space Seed", where he adapted a Carey Wilber story), Zefram Cochrane (in "Metamorphosis"), the advancement and the definition of the Prime Directive in "The Return of the Archons" and "Bread and Circuses", respectively, the official naming of the United Federation of Planets itself in "Arena" (in which he inadvertently plagiarized a Fredric Brown story), and the official naming of Starfleet Command in "Court Martial". Since he also had the responsibility of revising scripts, he worked uncredited on many other episodes. He also mentored the young Gerrold and helped him polish the script for the episode "The Trouble with Tribbles". Other popular Star Trek episodes that he wrote included "The Devil in the Dark" , "A Taste of Armageddon", and "A Piece of the Action". He is credited with much of the character development of Star Trek's characters, much of the humor of Star Trek, and the "bickersonesque" disagreements between Spock and McCoy. Following arguments with Roddenberry over the tone of the installment "Bread and Circuses", partly a satire on the medium of television, Coon left the writing staff and designated John Meredyth Lucas as showrunner. After announcing to Lucas that he was leaving, Lucas, who had already written the installments "The Changeling" and "Patterns of Force" for the program, quoted Coon as saying, "Why the hell don't you take over? You produced The Fugitive and Ben Casey and that shit". Lucas suspected Coon may have been secretly diagnosed with cancer, but he never definitely learned whether this was the case. Coon contributed to four scripts for the third season under the pseudonym of Lee Cronin, as he was by then under contract to Universal Studios. Post–Star Trek Following his period with Star Trek, Coon produced the Universal Studios series It Takes a Thief, starring Robert Wagner, during which he mentored Glen A. Larson. He also continued to write for Kung Fu and The Streets of San Francisco. In 1973, he served as co-writer with Gene Roddenberry on the NBC-TV movie The Questor Tapes. The movie was to serve as a pilot for a new series, but Roddenberry balked at a decision by NBC to eliminate the character of Jerry Robinson, Questor's human companion/mentor. (Coon died before the pilot aired in early 1974.) Although Coon turned down the opportunity to work on Star Trek: The Animated Series, he continued to work with Roddenberry, co-writing Genesis II and the proposal for Spectre. He also founded UniTel Associates, one of the earliest production companies aimed at the home video market. Coon was known as one of the fastest writers in Hollywood, and he often rewrote a script for shooting overnight or over a weekend. He had a dry sense of humor,.... Discover the Donna Cooner popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Donna Cooner books.

Best Seller Donna Cooner Books of 2024

  • Get Lucky synopsis, comments

    Get Lucky

    Lila Monroe

    Fall for the hot and hilarious romcom spin on 'The Hangover', perfect for fans of Tessa Bailey, Ali Hazelwood, and Emily Henry! What happens when you wake up in a hotel s...

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    The Four Loves

    C. S. Lewis

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    His Girl Next Door

    Khardine Gray

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    Death at Hazel House

    Betty Rowlands

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    School of Potential

    W.J. May

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    His Own Heaven

    Jennie Kew

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    Margaret Morrison

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    The Odyssey

    Homer

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    Dracula

    Bram Stoker

    An Apple Books Classic edition. Few characters have seized readers’ imaginations quite like Count Dracula of Transylvania, the hero of Bram Stoker’s classic. The 1897 novel put vam...

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    All Fired Up

    Kathryn Shay

    Captain Jarek Zenko, a war veteran and firefighter, meets Lacey Roth at a bar one night. They don’t share their real identities, even when they retreat to a hotel. When they meet t...

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    The Target

    Lexy Timms

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    Man In The Water

    Jon Hill

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    Becoming Lady Dalton

    Carrie Lomax

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    A Bookshop to Die For

    M.P. Black

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    Awaken Me

    Jenna Jacob

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    Ben Leighton

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    Silver Santa

    Lacey Silks

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    Little Women

    Louisa May Alcott

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    Whiskey Girl

    Melissa Belle

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    Think and Grow Rich

    Greg Habstritt & Napoleon Hill

    Think and Grow Rich is one of the most popular success book of alltime, having sold more than 60 million copies since it was first published more than 70...

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    Coffee Girl

    Sophie Sinclair

    Mackenzie "Kiki" Forbes finds herself in a pickle. Either become her snarky sister's nanny, or move halfway across the country to work as assistanttothestylist of a ...

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    The Honeymoon Homicide

    J. R. Mathis & Susan Mathis

    Enjoy this SmallTown Murder Mystery Featuring A Unique Sleuthing Couple I'm Father Tom Greer, a Catholic Priest in a smalltown parish who never expected this . . . When I came...

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    Ines Johnson

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    Jordan Hollis

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    Emily Brontë

    An Apple Books Classic edition. If you’ve only ever seen Wuthering Heights on screen, you may have an image of Catherine and Heathcliff as the ultimate starcrossed lovers. But that...

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    Teased by Fire

    Molly O'Hare

    From USA Today bestselling author Molly O’Hare comes an enemiestolovers, older brother’s best friend, romantic comedy with a curvy, antisocial, supernaturalobsessed, allyearround h...

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    Roma Cordon

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    Christmas in Sweetbriar Cove

    Melody Grace

    Celebrate the holidays in Sweetbriar Cove with this festive romance collection, containing two sizzling smalltown holiday stories perfect for fans of Tessa Bailey, Sophie Kinsella...

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    Roxy Sloane

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    Rogue Alpha

    Kimber White

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    Once Upon A One-Night Stand

    Zoey Locke

    At first sight, there was electrifying chemistry.  So why not go for it? After all, Lynx Grove, the city's most eligible bachelor, wants to claim her, at least for th...

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    A Green Kind of Witch

    Sierra Cross

    Cinderella crossed with Mean Girls.   That's what Hazel's daily existence feels like. Born to a family of elegant yet shallow Beige Witches, seventeen y...

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    Meditations

    Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

    Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161–180 CE, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.

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    My Paper Heart

    Magan Vernon

    One piece of paper can change everything After my parents received the letter I failed out of college, they didn't ask questions. They just sent me to work for my great aunt i...

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    A Christmas Carol

    Charles Dickens

    An Apple Books Classic edition. It’s Christmas Eve in Victorian England. While some families don’t know where their next meal will come from, Ebenezer Scrooge sits in his large hom...

  • The Holy Bible - King James Version synopsis, comments

    The Holy Bible - King James Version

    King James

    Holy Bible King James Version Few Sample Paragraphs from The Holy Bible eBook, Genesis (OT) 1 Gen. 1 IN the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was with...

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    Just Me

    Lexy Timms

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    The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

    L. Frank Baum

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    Finding Cinderella

    Colleen Hoover

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    Pride and Prejudice

    Jane Austen

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    Eternal

    W.J. May

    She will fight for what is hers. When the king is murdered, Katerina, his only daughter, must flee for her life. She finds herself on a strange and dangerous path. Alone for the fi...

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    Tempting the King

    Jessa York

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    The Stoic Mind

    Addy Osmani & GoLimitlesss

    Discover the timeless wisdom of Stoicism in a modern context with "The Stoic Mind," an enlightening visual guide by Addy Osmani and GoLimitlesss. This rich exploration co...

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    You Are Kind

    Michael Gordon

    A little kindness goes a long way. How can you help encourage your kids to be kind from a young age? Teach kindness to preschoolers Acts of kindness can be fun, easy, and make a ...

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    Salvation

    Meghan O'Flynn

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    The Three Little Pigs

    Mark Lesky

    Classic fairy tales, legends and folk stories in short version without violence retold with lovely illustrations in simple language. Perfect for reading aloud to small chi...

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    Good Guy

    Kate Meader

    He's a Special Forces veteran making his pro hockey debut. She's a dogged sports reporter determined to get a scoop. She's also his best friend's widow . . . Fa...

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    Dream Psychology

    Sigmund Freud

    An Apple Books Classic edition. Written by the founding father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud’s 1899 book is the definitive text on learning to interpret dreams. Freud’s groundbr...

  • The Cupcake Cottage synopsis, comments

    The Cupcake Cottage

    Jean Oram

    NHL player Maverick Blades could fall in love with anyone... But he had to fall for a woman who falls under the Bro Code as untouchablehis best friend’s beautiful ex, DaisyMae Ray....

  • Peace on Earth synopsis, comments

    Peace on Earth

    Maia Ross

    Crime never takes a holiday. Why should Irma? Irma Abercrombie is an energetic retiree with a shadowy past, a mean right hook, and a profound love of Christmas. Surrounded by seaso...