SERVICE FOR `TREK' DESIGNER.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

Friends and family members gathered in the San Fernando Valley Saturday at a memorial service for Matt Jefferies, the film and television art director who created the original starship Enterprise.

Jefferies, who had cancer, died of a heart attack Monday at Sherman Oaks Hospital. He was 81.

``Everyone who knew him admired him beyond words. All through the illness, he never complained,'' said Penny Juday-Fredrickson, a close friend who was at the service.

Jefferies and his wife, Mary Ann, were philanthropists who raised money for the Motion Picture & Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, friends said.

``Any time they had extra money, it went to the hospital,'' said Juday- Fredrickson.

Jefferies worked as a set designer for a number of films in the late 1950s, including ``Bombers B-52,'' starring Natalie Wood and Efrem Zimbalist Jr., and he served as art director for such television shows as ``The Untouchables,'' ``Little House on the Prairie'' and ``Dallas.''

``Star Trek'' creator Gene Roddenberry had Jefferies design the Enterprise before the television series debuted in 1966, and Jefferies remained with the show as art director for many years.

``I worked with him on every episode of the original (Star Trek) series,'' said Bob Justman, a friend and colleague. ``He was an indispensable part of our team.''

Jefferies had lifelong interest in aviation and spent holidays and weekends at an apartment he built in a hangar at Santa Paula Airport.

He earned the Bronze Star as a flight engineer and co-pilot on B17 bombers during World War II.

The memorial service was held at St. Charles Boromeo, a landmark Catholic church known for its beauty near the motion picture and television studios in the San Fernando Valley.

The family suggested that donations in Jefferies' memory be made to the Motion Picture & Television Fund, 22212 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills, CA 91364.

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