I even dream of work: Interview with Susan Sackett (1976)
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | I even dream of work: Interview with Susan Sackett |
| Interviewer: | Lee E. Staton |
| Interviewee: | Susan Sackett |
| Date(s): | late 1976 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom(s): | Star Trek |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
I even dream of work: Interview with Susan Sackett was published in Star Trekkin' #7, a zine that was published in very late 1976.
Susan Sackett was Gene Roddenberry's personal assistant, and fan coordinator.
Topics Discussed
- Lincoln Enterprises
- Majel Roddenberry
- her book Letters to Star Trek
- a newsletter, Inside Star Trek, which Sackett took over from Ruth Berman (seven years earlier) in May 1976
- her job is her life
Excerpts
Well, basically I'm an executive secretary. I handle all of Gene's correspondence, I answer quite a bit of it for him when he's unable to, I run the office, and be sure everything we need is here. I also do a lot of personal things for him such as his Christmas shopping, which I've just completed. Just little things, but it's more than that, too. It's like I'm a family member. He and Majel and Rod (Gene, Jr.), I consider my family, and I have dinner there a couple of times a week. And I've babysat on occasion. Plus the newsletter, which I also try to squeeze in. Sometimes I have to do it on weekends.
The Lincoln Enterprises newsletter, I would say, takes a week to write and put together, that's the creative part of it. Then there's the busy part of it, the busy work, which includes typing up all of the orders onto Scriptomatic cards, putting them together by zip code, running the newsletter so that the addresses print out in zip code order, and tying them into the proper categories for bulk mailing, tying up all the bundles. That part of it takes a good two days, just the tying of it. The typing of the cards takes days and days, and I try to get over there when Gene's out of town and do that. So when I get my secretary, she will be in charge of the busy part of it.
I've done the whole thing alone and it amounts to 4,000 subscribers. It's kind of involved and it takes up-a lot of time. I have spent many Saturdays and Sundays in here doing it and I take them home on weekends to tie them, because I don't have time to sil here and do it in the office. So that keeps me quite busy.
[regarding her new promotion]:And what it amounts to is basically what I've been doing all along, except that we have added staff, Diana (Funaro), and so I sort of oversee the office and that sort of thing. That is a that promotion.
The other thing, which could be possible - and Larry Isenberg, our executive producer, is the one behind the push for this — I would be more or less a fan coordinator. They haven't come up with a title for the job - I kind of like production associate.
And what I would be doing would be I would still do some things for Gene (Roddeenberry), 'cause I refuse not to work for him and with him, but I would not do so many secretarial things such as typing, and I would have more responsibility in dealing with the fans, meeting with some of the groups around the country, possibly in other countries, promoting the movie, and setting up some fan clubs, seeing how they run, seeing what I can do to get PR materials to them, visiting occasionally some of the conventions on behalf of Paramount, finding out what's going on....
It would be, it would be a full-time job practically. The only things I would still do for Gene would be sort of his personal things that I've always handled, such as some of his checks, and some of his personal mail. I would still get to handle and read all of his mail and find out what's going on, 'cause I like to stay on top of everything. That sort of thing. I'll probably be getting my own secretary, they've promised me.
I couldn't give you an exact count [of fans I keep in close correspondance]. I would say I've got two or three in England, there's a girl in Israel, there's one in Brazil, I've got two in Japan, and a couple in Australia. Those are the foreign ones.
In the United States I've got all the people that are high up in the Welcommittee, like Helen Young, Carole Brownell, Shirley Maiewski, and some of the fans in general around the country that I've just sort of begun corresponding with. There's a girl in Maryland, I write to Kitty Canterbury up in Seattle, a fellow by the name of Law rence Fury in Idaho. It's hard for me to remember all these. Occasionally these letters come in and I try to an swer them individually and it takes a lot of time. That's why I'm looking forward to this other position because I'll have more time to specialize in that rather than squeezing it in here and there.
I'm a big Star Trek fan. I never missed an episode when it first aired. Maybe one or two. But I watched the show when it first came on, and when I came out here to Hollywood to teach in 1968, one of my big dreams was to visit Paramount Studios. At that time it was (and still is) a closed studio, and I knew nobody. And the only reason I wanted to come here, of course, was because Star Trek was made here. I had a friend who was working as a temporary secretary at the time, and I said "isn't there any way you can get me over there on the lot?" and she said "no, it's closed, and that's it." And I never dreamed I would end up working here....
[And then] a friend of mine at NBC heard that Majel Roddenberry was looking for somebody, and I said "Who's Majel Roddenberry?" I knew the name Roddenberry, I hadn't realized that she was Majel Barrett who had married Gene Roddenberry - and I thought "no, I don't want to work in the mail order company" since she was looking for somebody at Lincoln, and finally I just couldn't stand being out of work anymore, I was broke.
I went on a game show to earn some money, and had a garage sale and sold everything I owned, practically. So what the hell. I called her up and she asked me how fast I could type, and I told her my speed, and she said, "You know, Gene is looking for a secretary." It turned out that Ralph, his present secretary at the time, was anxious to go back to Warner Bros, because he had pension benefits. So I went up to the house that day - he was working out of the house, having just completed "Planet Earth" - and he hired me. It was his birthday, August 19, 1974. Of course, he and Majel fought over me for the next two weeks (laughter) because they both wanted me to work for them and I stayed with him. And every now and then she still fights for me.
[Gene's new show, Spectre] takes place on earth, it's science-fiction, and right now the script is being written for that, too. He's written the story already. He has somebody working on the script. which I guess will be a co-script. And CBS, I guess, is interested in seeing it. They like the story idea, and based on the script it could go to a pilot, and then, of course, a series, hopefully.
What we're really anxious for now is for "Spectre" to become a series. Majel is really pushing this in the new Lincoln catalog. There's been a lot of active response to the idea and, of course, nobody's even seen the show yet. And everybody's excited about it.
Originally it was written to be a pilot. It's being done as a two-hour TV movie of the week strictly on that basis without a hint of series to come.
However, what we're trying to do is get a write-in campaign to NBC, and Lincoln is pushing for that. So if they get enough attention and enough letters they will consider it as a pilot and consider it as a potential series.
[Regarding the future of Star Trek]: I would say there's a good possibility that there would be several motion pictures. Of course, the contingency would be whether this one is successful. As far as my involvement, I will be involved in anything that Gene Roddenberry is involved in. This is my number-one priority in my life. The thing that is, really, sort of disappointing to me now, is that he's doing a film ("Spectre") in England and I'm not going to be able to be there to do it because they just don't have the money in the budget. I've known him as a writer and I haven't seen him as a producer. This is the first production since I've worked for him. But other than that, anything else he does — and he's got some other pilots in the works. I plan on working with him in any capacity that he finds the need for me. With Star Trek going on the studio is thinking ahead to sequels and everything else to the motion picture.