Harve Bennett

Harve Bennett (born Harve Bennett Fischman on August 17, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American television and film producer and screenwriter. He is best known for producing and writing or co-writing the second through fifth films in the "Star Trek" film series.

Early years

As a young boy, Bennett was one of the kids on the radio program Quiz Kids, which introduced him to the field of show business. By the time Bennett reached college age, the radio business—aside from music radio—was dwindling, and so he turned to the world of film. He entered the University of California, Los Angeles and graduated from their famous film school. Following his graduation from college, Bennett began his career as a production executive. He first worked at CBS in New York City and later moved to the programming department of ABC. At ABC he rose to become Vice-President of Programming for a time.

Move to production

Following his time with ABC, Bennett left to move into the production side of the entertainment industry. His first project was to develop a television show with producer Aaron Spelling called "The Mod Squad", which Bennett produced for three years.

Following The Mod Squad, Bennett moved to Universal Studios where he produced a variety of television series and miniseries. The best known of these series are probably "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Woman". Other series and mini-series he produced at Universal include "Rich Man, Poor Man", "The Invisible Man (1975 series)", and "Gemini Man".

Bennett then moved to Screen Gems where he continued producing for television. He projects at Screen Gems included the series "Salvage 1" and the mini-series "The Jesse Owens Story" and "A Woman Called Golda" (which was Ingrid Bergman's final role).

"Star Trek"

While working at Screen Gems, Bennett was also brought to Paramount Pictures to work in their television division producing TV shows. Only a few weeks into his television deal, he was called to a meeting with then top executives of Paramount Barry Diller and Michael Eisner, along with Charles Bluhdorn who was then head of Paramount's parent Gulf+Western. Bluhdorn, dissatisfied with the results of "", was looking for someone new to take over the next "Star Trek" film.

According to Bennett, Bluhdorn asked him what he thought of the first Star Trek film and, upon Bennett's answer that he found it to be boring, Bluhdorn asked him if he could make a better picture and if he could do it for less than $45 million (the pricetag of the first film). When Bennett said that he could, Bluhdorn said "do it" and he had the job.

To prepare for the job of producing a "Star Trek" film, Bennett first screened all 79 episodes of the in a projection room at Paramount. He was particularly drawn to an episode entitled "Space Seed" which featured a young Ricardo Montalban in the role of genetically enhanced supervillain Khan Noonien Singh. At the conclusion of the episode, Khan and his followers are exiled to an uninhabited planet, and Kirk and Spock wonder what will become of them. This gave Bennett the "hook" he was looking for, and led him to develop a sequel to the episode.

Bennett's idea formed the beginnings of what would become "". Bennett himself developed the original story premise, and then worked with screenwriter Jack B. Sowards on the early drafts of the screenplay. Nicholas Meyer was later introduced to Bennett and completed the final drafts of the script, as well as directing the film with Bennett as executive producer and Robert Sallin as producer. "Star Trek II" proved to be an enormous success, both in terms of the box office receipts and the fan response.

Following on the success of "Star Trek II", Bennett served as producer on the next three "Star Trek" films: ', '—which stands to this day as the most successful of the Star Trek films—and "". In addition to serving as producer, Bennett also wrote "Star Trek III", co-wrote the story and screenplay for "Star Trek IV", and co-wrote the story for "Star Trek V". Bennett also made cameo appearances in "Star Trek III" (as the voice of the flight recorder) and "Star Trek V", (as a Starfleet Chief of Staff Admiral who gives Captain Kirk his orders). [The Star Trek V character's title can be seen in the credits.]

Following "Star Trek V", Bennett developed an idea for a sixth "Star Trek" film that would take a different approach from the previous films. Titled "The Academy Years," it would have focused on the characters of Kirk and Spock when they were much younger and cadets at Starfleet Academy. It would have delved into the early relationships between these characters, and shown how they developed such a close friendship over the years. While William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy would have had cameos at the beginning and end of the film to "bookend" the story in flashback form, new actors would have portrayed most of the roles in the film, including the young Kirk and Spock.

Although Paramount was initially enthusiastic about the idea, they were ultimately leery of producing a "Star Trek" film without the established actors that fans had come to know and love. Also, Martin Davis who at the time was the head of Gulf & Western, wanted a film featuring the original cast to mark "Star Trek's" 25th anniversary in 1991. Paramount offered Bennett the opportunity to produce this film with the original cast, even offering to produce his academy film afteward, but Bennett declined citing multiple reasons including a lack of story ideas for the requested film and the rushed time frame in which the film would have to be completed in order to coincide with "Star Trek's" 25th anniversary.

This marked the end of Bennett's association with the "Star Trek "franchise, and shortly thereafter he left Paramount.

Later works

Since producing the "Star Trek" films, Bennett wrote the TV movie "" (1992). He co-created and produced the science-fiction television series "Time Trax" (1993–1995), and produced the animated miniseries "Invasion America" (1998).

Bennett is now "semi-retired." While the "reboot" movie for the "Star Trek" franchise is indeed about Kirk and Spock at Starfleet Academy, Bennett is not involved in the film.

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