CAN I MAKE THIS THE TOP TEN FAVOURITE MOMENTS? I’M MAKING THIS THE TOP TEN FAVOURITE MOMENTS.
6. ’Kelley recalls: “When I was doing the series, I was quite a bit huskier…and Shatner was always with the barbells, and he’d come in [flexing and posing], and every day when I got off, I’d go and take the makeup off, and you strip to the waist and get all this stuff off. I’d come back through. He’d be sitting in his little chair, you know…I’d flex, and I’d walk by him every day. One day he says “Look, cracker-ass, why don’t you knock that off?”…I called him bubble-butt.”’
7.
8. “”The other cast members weren’t slouches either. One day, during a particularly intense confrontation between McCoy and Spock, DeForest Kelley leaned forward and kissed Leonard Nimoy on the nose. Leonard just stared at him, shocked, then realized what he had done and broke up. But it didn’t end there. They couldn’t do a retake. Every time Leonard got close to DeForest and looked him in the eye, he broke up laughing again. And the effect was contagious. Pretty soon no one on the set could keep a straight face. Leonard and De were too conscious of their nose-to-nose position, they couldn’t stay in character long enough to do the shot. Finally, Joe Pevney, the director, gave up. They had to move to another set and pick up some other shots””
9. That one time during a convention with Nimoy where they were to read out a short story written for a Star Trek contest. And at the mention of the late Enterprise, they both paused and put their hands over their hearts—and De did a double-take, before hopping (yes, hopping) over to Nimoy’s podium to correctly re-position his hand on his lower abdomen, where the vulcan heart is (properly) located.
10.
Carolyn~ AND THAT TURTLENECK.
“during a particularly intense confrontation between McCoy and Spock, DeForest Kelley leaned forward and kissed Leonard Nimoy on the nose.”
This is important.
ALSO #9 I HAD NEVER HEARD ABOUT #9
i’m gonna illustrate that nose kiss and nobody is going to stop me
De Kelley… you are irreplaceable. I will always remember and love you…
Ohmygod now I know where all the bones with a turtle memes came from!
After two doctors from two pilots failed to take, it was obvious that the role of chief medical officer on the Enterprise was going to have to get a serious re-examination. DeForest Kelley had actually been at the top of Roddenberry’s short list for the position dating back to “The Cage,” but director Robert Butler suggested John Hoyt for the role of Dr Phil Boyce. By the time a second pilot was in the early stages of production, Kelley was filming the pilot of the other show that Roddenberry was working on, Police Story.
Police Story didn’t get picked up, so both Kelley and Grace Lee Whitney found themselves hired for Star Trek. Kelley would replace Paul Fix, whose Dr. Piper had failed to make much of an impression. In Leonard “Bones” McCoy, the producers, writers and directors had found the missing piece of the puzzle, a personality and character that would balance out Kirk’s commanding drive and Spock’s cool, alien detachment. Bones acted as an everyman, and his place outside of the traditional command structure meant that he could be more frank and even provide a voice for the audience on occasion.
Watching the show now, it’s remarkable how effortless Kelley’s performance looks, even by modern viewer’s standards; there’s nary a moment that isn’t pitch-perfect. His avuncular nature and friendliness were apparent on-screen and his very human reactions to the more outrageous moments of the series helped sell the unbelievable. Sadly, he wasn’t well-compensated for his sterling work, especially in the first season, when he made $800 per episode. His agent worked hard, though, and the second season’s star billing came with a hefty raise to match Nimoy’s $2,500 per installment. (Shatner was getting $5,000.)
“What I want, as a co-star, is to be counted in fully. I’ve had to fight for everything I’ve gotten at Star Trek from a parking space at the studio to an unshared dressing room, and sometimes the patience wears raw,” he said in a 1968 TV Guide interview.
Even as Kelley was taken for granted by accountants, producers and the media — Roddenberry attempted to send him along with Nimoy and Shatner to the Today show in 1967, only to be told that he “wasn’t needed” — his reputation on the set was nothing short of stellar. Always happy to do another take, unfailingly polite to the various craftsmen around the soundstage and seldom heard complaining openly, Dee Kelley was widely considered the best-liked member of the cast, even as the series moved into film and beyond.
Kelley had the lion’s share of the memorable scenes. He had his work cut out for him as the living vessel of a Vulcan’s essence. He recalled what it was like to work for his old on-screen nemesis. Tongue in cheek, he described the dynamics between Kelley the actor and Nimoy the director: “That was the worst three months of my life, and the man is intolerable. He’s Vulcan. I was a basket case when I worked with him.” Kelley remembered the Vulcan director: “In a scene where I am supposed to be grieving … I went in and raised hell about the scene.” McCoy watched over the empty body of Spock, and the camera closed in. “This is a true story so help me…. He has his eyes closed, can’t see anything ‘cause he’s dead. He doesn’t know what I’m doing. I swear in the middle of the take, the right eye opened. The eyebrow went up—to see what I was doing!”
—From Sawdust to Stardust by Terry Lee Rioux, Pocket Books, 2005, p. 257.
