Star Trek: The Original Series was the inaugural entry in the well-worn franchise. It introduced a generation of television viewers and science-fiction fans to Captain James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock, famously played by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. However, initially the role of the Enterprise's captain wasn't going to go to Shatner. Actor Jack Lord, known for playing in a plethora of other roles -- including being part of the James Bond franchise, was set for the captain's chair, but disagreements in salary and ownership of the franchise kept Lord from claiming the role of Captain Kirk.
Who Is Jack Lord?
John Joseph Patrick Ryan, known by his stage name of Jack Lord, was a prominent actor in the 1950s and 1960s. His biggest claims to fame during this era were his roles as Steve McGarrett in Hawaii Five-O and as James Bond's original Felix Leiter. He was also the protagonist in Stoney Burke.
Beyond acting, he had his own history with ships and vessels, having served in the U.S. Army Corps during World War II. One ship was destroyed by a German submarine, stranding Ryan on a lifeboat for 16 hours. After surviving the harrowing experience, he pledged to change his life, taking the name Jack Lord to signify this.
This combination of military and acting experience would have seemingly made him the ideal man for the job as Kirk. In fact, Lord was actually franchise creator Gene Roddenberry's original pick to play Kirk, but it was Lord's ambitions that kept him from landing the role, thus allowing Shatner to famously fill it.
Why Was Jack Lord Not Captain Kirk?
The role of Kirk came about when Star Trek's pilot had to be reworked. This meant jettisoning the original pilot with Christopher Pike as the captain and starting over from scratch. Thus the role that Roddenberry personally wanted Lord for was the series' new captain, James Tiberius Kirk. Due to his extensive resume as an actor, as well as possibly foreshadowing how much of a hit Star Trek would become, Lord wanted 50 percent ownership of the show's rights.
This was outside of the norm for the time, and it was essentially Lord trying to make sure the endeavor would be worth his while if the show failed. Roddenberry was unwilling to agree to those terms, and Lord wasn't cast as Kirk. However, he would go on to have the very successful role as the lead in Hawaii Five-O, which was in many ways another landmark series and lasted for twelve years on the air.
After that series ended, Lord was cast in a failed pilot for another Hawaii-set show before retiring from acting, and he would pass away in 1998 at the age of 77. His usual heroic roles were more in the vein of the aforementioned upstanding Pike than the somewhat roguish Kirk, so perhaps it's for the best that he didn't receive ownership of half of the franchise.