De-Day June 11, 1999: The Day DeForest Kelley Died

 

The Day DeForest Kelley Died

“Oh, God. This is it…”

It’s nearing noon on June 11th, 1999.

“De’s going to die. Today.”

I knew it when I left that morning to have dental stitches removed and to run an errand for the Kelleys (I mailed off their tax returns, because nothing is certain except death and taxes) but he was awake, lucid, and insisted that I go, even when I tried to talk him out of it…

“I can put off my stitch removal to another day.”

“No, you go…”

I walk back into the hospital somewhere between 11:15 and 11:30 and a nurse near the entrance tells me, “Oh, thank God you’re back. I think he’s waiting for you. Hurry!”

I start to run down the hallway toward his room.

“Don’t run! Don’t run!” she  calls after me.

I run anyway.

He’s peaceful, in a coma.

Carolyn has accepted it. (She tells me that while I was out she had told him she loves him and that he can go.)

I’ve accepted it intellectually. Emotionally, I’ll never quite get there.

Pastor David Grant is in the room, too.

I’ve read that people in comas can often hear, so I sit next to De’s bed and take his hand to reassure him. “It’s okay, De. I’m back. Your taxes are on the way. We’ll take good care of Carolyn. ” The next sentence is hard: “Go with God whenever you feel ready. It’s okay.”

The pastor prays over him:

“The Lord bless you and keep you;
 The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
 The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.” 

Then the Lord’s Prayer.

While we wait, the pastor asks Carolyn to share some of her favorite memories of their life together. She ponders for a moment. “There are just so many…”

Then she giggles, child-like, delighted.

I look over at De, thinking, “If he heard that, it’s going to be easier for him to go…if he hears her giggling over some of their best times together.”

Carolyn talks. I watch the pulse in De’s neck grow less frequent and less pronounced.

At 12:15 Pacific Daylight Time, he passes.

But there’s no time to grieve. The hospital tells me it will be releasing a statement about his death at 3 pm, so I have just three hours to call twelve people on De’s list and let them know before the news hits the airwaves: his closest friends, nephews, people he served with in the Army Air Corps…

None of them knew  he was even sick; he never told them.

But before I do that, the hospital asks me who will be the designated spokesperson for on-air interviews.

Oh, God! Not me, that’s for sure! I’m barely holding myself together as it is…

I quickly decide, “AC Lyles at Paramount.” I give them his number.  Of course AC. He’s a showman. He had handled interviews like these many times–when his friends Jimmy Cagney and Ronnie Reagan died… He can do it. He also happens to be DeForest Kelley’s oldest Hollywood friend. He was the publicist for De’s first motion picture Fear in the Night.That’s how they met.

My stomach is in knots as I dial the phone numbers De wrote down for me to call.

“Oh, my God!”

“What happened?”

“He never told us!”

I have to leave some of the messages on answering machines. I call him “Mr. Kelley” when I do, and quickly explain that De asked me to call so the news wouldn’t be a shock to them when they heard it on the news…

Then, when I ask Carolyn about a memorial service, she says, “De didn’t want one.”

I say, “I know, but that’s going to be impossible. There will be one at Paramount. AC has already told me, and he wants a list of guests from us.”

Carolyn says, “I’m not going. I can’t. I’d be too upset.”

I say, “I understand.”

She looks relieved, and says, “Let’s look through our  phone book (the one she had painstakingly typed up and written out in  beautiful calligraphy) and decide who to invite…”

We do that. It takes hours.

Then I go into De’s room and pack up his gear. His body is still there. I’ve called The Neptune Society to come, but they don’t show up until almost 4 p.m.

When they do, I’m there to help get him onto the gurney. I say, “Be careful. I know he can’t feel it, but…”

The fellow says, “Oh, believe me, I will. I always do. And this… this is the most honored I’ve ever felt. I picked up Sam Yorty (mayor of Los Angeles) when he died, and that doesn’t even come close to this…”

As we wheel De’s body out of his room and down the corridors to the man’s vehicle, nurses and other staff (all of whom fell in love with him despite their best efforts and training) stand at respectful attention along the way, saying, “Goodbye, De,” “Take care…” “What a wonderful man..” and other heartfelt accolades.

I can barely keep it together. (Now I wonder why I felt it necessary to even try to keep it together–but I had to go back to Carolyn and felt I had to be  strong for her. She was dry-eyed and handling it commendably, so I thought I should follow suit.)

I was running on willpower alone.

I headed home at about 11 that night. As I left Carolyn’s room, habit kicked in and I turned to the left, thinking, “I’d better go tell De goodnight, too…” and then I remembered…

After all that had happened that day, I still turned left. The raw emotion of the day caught in my throat.

I drove home, teary-eyed, weary as all get out, but turned on the news to see what was being said about his passing. I could tell the news anchors were deeply affected and caught off-guard by the news.

And there was a vigil at his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the star I’d been polishing since he received it on December 18th, 1991. His fans were there in abundance, and reporters were asking them to share their memories of him.

I thought, “I should be there…” I desperately wanted to be with people who “got it” (as fans!) so I could cry with them. But I was too freaking exhausted.

Later, when Terry Rioux interviewed  Richard Arnold for her bio of De From Sawdust to Stardust about the day of De’s passing, and he told her he was at a convention when the news came in, and how the whole place  just dissolved into tears and hugs when he told them, I started crying.

I told her, “This is going to sound so stupid, I know it will…but I feel cheated.”

I quickly explained, “I know I was where I needed to be, even wanted to be, when he died, but I  didn’t get a chance to fall apart and truly grieve in the moment. I had too much to do… I would have been able to cry with everybody else. I had to cry alone.”

I guess a lot of fans did, unless they happened to be at conventions that day…

The date of De’s passing will always return these memories to me. But it will also remind me that “he isn’t really dead as long as we remember him.”

And I will never, ever forget the man. He shaped and possibly even saved my life with his wonderful way of being in the world. No one who ever met him feels much differently than I do.

DeForest Kelley was a  treasure.

 

 

                    

 

For countless happy, uplifting memories of De, buy DeForest Kelley Up Close and Personal: A Harvest of Memories from the Fan Who Knew Him Best.