Death
Coon was in progressively poorer physical health as the 1960s began to wane, and following his and Roddenberry's arguments over the tone of the installment "Bread And Circuses," a satire on the very medium of television itself, he recommended to John Meredyth Lucas that the latter take over as showrunner of Star Trek; Meredyth Lucas, who had already written the installments "Patterns Of Force" and "The Changeling" for the program, quoted Coon as saying, after announcing to him (Meredyth Lucas) that he (Coon) was leaving, "Why the hell don't you take over? You produced The Fugitive and Ben Casey and that shit." Meredyth Lucas suspected Coon might have had cancer by then, but he never definitely learned whether this was the case.
Coon died of cancer of the throat and lungs in 1973. He was 49 years of age.
Read more about this topic: Gene L. Coon
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“If thee thy brittle beauty so deceives,
Know then the thing that swells thee is thy bane;
For the same beauty doth, in bloody leaves.
The sentence of thy early death contain.”
—Sir Richard Fanshawe (1608–1666)
“Every American, to the last man, lays claim to a “sense” of humor and guards it as his most significant spiritual trait, yet rejects humor as a contaminating element wherever found. America is a nation of comics and comedians; nevertheless, humor has no stature and is accepted only after the death of the perpetrator.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)