Entertainment
These Two ‘Star Trek’ Legends Are Getting Their Own Action Figures for the Very First Time [Exclusive]
2026 marks Star Trek‘s 60th anniversary, and to celebrate, Nacelle is making action figures of the two people who helped make it all possible, back in 1966. Nacelle’s 1/10-scale Star Trek action figures have spanned across multiple eras of Trek, from The Original Series to The Next Generation to Enterprise, but this time, they’re getting into Star Trek prehistory to make action figures of these two behind-the-scenes legends for the very first time. Collider is proud to exclusively reveal that a two-pack of Gene Roddenberry and Lucille Ball will soon be available as part of Nacelle’s Star Trek line.
Roddenberry’s contributions to Star Trek are legendary: the concept of the series and its utopian view of the future came from the mind of Roddenberry, who would go on to help bring the franchise to the big screen in the 1970s, then took it a century into the future with The Next Generation. He died in 1991 at age 70. Ball, a TV legend in her own right, ran Desilu Studios, who produced The Original Series in the 1960s; she died in 1989 at 77. Says Roddenberry’s son, Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry: “We’re thrilled to be partnering with The Nacelle Company to honor my father and Star Trek‘s 60th. To have him immortalized in this way alongside the woman that opened new frontiers for women in entertainment brings us tremendous pride.”
How Did Lucille Ball Help Create ‘Star Trek’?
Lucille Ball had starred in the pioneering sitcom I Love Lucy, and founded the production company Desilu with her husband and co-star, Desi Arnaz. By 1966, she’d divorced Arnaz, and had also bought him out of Desilu, becoming the first woman to run a major television studio. She was interested in Roddenberry’s Star Trek proposal and commissioned a pilot: “The Cage“, which starred Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike and Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock. Desilu took the pilot to NBC, who rejected it for being “too cerebral.” However, Ball was sufficiently invested in the concept to commission a second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Hunter declined to appear in the second pilot, and was replaced by William Shatner as Captain James Kirk. NBC was pleased with Roddenberry’s second effort, and the show went into production; while “The Cage” would not be aired in full until decades later, much of it was used in a later two-part episode, “The Menagerie.” Desilu, which also produced shows like Mission: Impossible, Mannix, and The Untouchables, was absorbed into Paramount in the 1960s.
Ball would go on to have another Star Trek connection. Her daughter, Lucie Arnaz, is married to actor Laurence Luckinbill, who played Spock’s long-lost brother Sybok in 1989’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
Nacelle’s Star Trek action figures of Gene Roddenberry and Lucille Ball will be available for pre-order soon. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
- Release Date
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1966 – 1969-00-00
- Showrunner
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Gene Roddenberry
- Directors
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Marc Daniels, Joseph Pevney, Ralph Senensky, Vincent McEveety, Herb Wallerstein, Jud Taylor, Marvin J. Chomsky, David Alexander, Gerd Oswald, Herschel Daugherty, James Goldstone, Robert Butler, Anton Leader, Gene Nelson, Harvey Hart, Herbert Kenwith, James Komack, John Erman, John Newland, Joseph Sargent, Lawrence Dobkin, Leo Penn, Michael O’Herlihy, Murray Golden
- Writers
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D.C. Fontana, Jerome Bixby, Arthur Heinemann, David Gerrold, Jerry Sohl, Oliver Crawford, Robert Bloch, David P. Harmon, Don Ingalls, Paul Schneider, Shimon Wincelberg, Steven W. Carabatsos, Theodore Sturgeon, Jean Lisette Aroeste, Art Wallace, Adrian Spies, Barry Trivers, Don Mankiewicz, Edward J. Lakso, Fredric Brown, George Clayton Johnson, George F. Slavin, Gilbert Ralston, Harlan Ellison