DeForest Kelley Centennial Birthday January 20 2020

January 20, 2020 will be the centennial birthday of actor DeForest Kelley. It’s a milestone he probably wouldn’t have lived to see, even had he survived the cancer that took him from us at age 79 on June 11th, 1999, but we will never know now.

 

He might have given Shatner a run for his money in the age race to 100. He was certainly in good health otherwise–not to mention sharp as a tack, funny as hell, and sweet as a sunrise on a warm spring day.

 

Alas… all we are left with are the sweetest of memories, those of us who got the chance to meet him up close and personal.

 

Well, that’s far from true, isn’t it?

 

YouTube and Amazon have large libraries of  De’s acting career for those of us who knew and loved him and for people who fell in love with him later, either because they weren’t born yet or because they were so young that they weren’t able to see an interview with him or meet him at a Star Trek convention or in a grocery store or bank or pharmacy in Encino/Sherman Oaks, where he lived with his beloved wife of 54 years (Carolyn) and shopped for whatever they needed.

 

But De’s acting career might have been the least interesting thing about him, even though he was a terrific actor. Anyone who knew “the real McCoy” couldn’t escape that conclusion.

 

To witness this mild-mannered, gentlemanly, soft-spoken human being channeling ruthless killers like Toby Jack Saunders in Apache Uprising or brooding or cowardly ne’er do well characters in a hundred other portrayals was a real eye-opener. Those of us who knew him personally believed he deserved Oscars and Emmys for many of those performances. We still do!

 

So I sit here on a Sunday morning in January pondering what else there is left for me to say that I haven’t already said about my mentor and dearest of friends DeForest Kelley as we approach the Centennial of his birth.

 

I think many of his friends and coworkers in the business said it best in the shortest amount of time in the tribute below, but it still isn’t enough…

 

 

What DeForest Kelley left us is more than a body of work. He left us a legacy of love not unlike Mister Rogers, but in a more grown-up setting. He was kindhearted, sassy, gentle, uproariously funny and a true sweetheart.

I probably said it best when I wrote the following letter to him on the occasion of receiving his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame:

 

Excerpt from DeForest Kelley Up Close and Personal:

A Harvest of Memories from the Fan Who Knew Him Best

 

From the Chapter: STAR TREK CEREMONIES — 1991

 

Sue had asked her club members to send De cards and notes of congratulations for his upcoming star ceremony on the Walk of Fame scheduled for December 18 that year, so she could send them to him and Carolyn as part of their anniversary package. Carolyn called to tell me how choked up De was by the sentiments expressed therein, from all the fans who had responded to Sue’s request.

 

The card that I had sent De read: “Great men may be among us…but none compare to you.” I had taped a few small photos of De, De and me, and De and Carolyn inside the card and then written, “Congratulations on your STAR and for remaining the wonderful person you are! Love, Kris.” On the empty, inside facing page, I had quoted the trailer from Trek VI: “They have been our guides, our protectors, and our friends.” Beneath that, I had written, “How very fortunate I feel! Most fans have had only the reel McCoy as their guide, protector and friend—and are grateful. I have had DeForest Kelley as ‘all of the above.’ Your caring has transformed me into someone worthy of being cared about. Thank you. God Bless you. I love you.” For the accompanying letter, I created a special letterhead on my PC. The heading was respectfully engraved, “YOU DESERVE ALL OF LIFE’S GOOD THINGS. YOU ARE ONE OF LIFE’S GOOD THINGS.”

 

The letter read:

 

Dear, Dear De,

 

Where do I begin?

 

Your star ceremony affords me the opportunity to get really serious (for once) and to pour out to you all the love, pride and respect you’re engendered – seemingly FOREVER.

 

So where are the proper words to adequately express any of it?! sigh I’ll try…

 

Your skill as an actor is exceeded only by your skill as a wonderful human being. In a way, I wish I had met you first in the way that I met Tippi – without knowing much, or caring much, about “who” you were as an artist. Why? Because it took me so long to get OVER seeing you primarily/chiefly as “my FAVORITE actor” with all the accompanying jitters and shyness and paranoia that that “awesome” perspective entails. It took a long time before I could genuinely relax in your presence and appreciate you as a real, flesh and blood human being who is special despite what you do for a living (instead of because of it).

 

That’s what I first responded to in Wenatchee in ’68 upon scrutinizing you from the sidewalk (before introducing myself): your genuine niceness. I stood fidgeting on the sidewalk, gauging whether or not you were going to disappoint me if I approached you for an autograph and a smile. (My initial fear was, “Do I really want to risk being turned off by an actor I’d really love to keep on liking?” It had happened before!)

 

Well! After studying the situation for several long minutes, it became abundantly apparent that you and Carolyn were very nice people. So that’s when I gathered the courage to step forward and open my mouth—and hope my heart wouldn’t leap out of it and land on the floorboard of your convertible!

 

You deserve the star—and I mean this in the “old-fashioned” way: You deserve the honor to the degree for which stars were originally bestowed, not in the way they are too-often awarded nowadays (as a publicity gimmick). Your career has spanned (don’t say “Ouch!”) nearly five decades. You’re genuinely one of Hollywood’s decent, honorable guys (there might be four or five others, but their names escape me at the moment ☺). You do good deeds (quietly, which makes them even “gooder,” ‘cause they’re not done for the sake of publicity). You’re a gentlemen star (who’s an accomplished and convincing “bad-ass” only in the movies). You meet, exceed and annihilate the criteria for being awarded an “old- fashioned” star. In fact, I can easily envision you being named MAN OF THE YEAR, no problem…no exaggeration…no stretch of the imagination. I think the Creator (the real “Big Bird of the Galaxy”) delights in you and sees you in the same way He sees Yosemite or a healthy new bud on a rose bush: as a damn’ fine piece of workmanship, if He does say so Himself…

 

I don’t know what else to say…how else to express how proud I am of you… how lucky I feel to have “fallen” for you…how blessed I am to know you well enough to know I’m right about all of the above! You are an inspiration to me. “When I grow up” — I want to be just like you.

I love you, De.

Kris

###

And these were my brief remarks at DeForest Kelley’s memorial service at Paramount on June 23rd, 1999. (AC Lyles gave me a chance to speak, he told the audience, because De asked him to. AC did the rest of the service. AC told me to speak for about a minute.)

“In my opinion, DeForest Kelley was the kind of man God had in mind when He created Adam. If there were more DeForest Kelley types in this sad old world, it would be the paradise we all wish it was.

“When I think of De, the following Shakespeare passage always comes to mind:

 

I will miss him every day of my life. He was a civilizing influence that is very much missing in today’s world. I wanted to grow up to be just like him, and I missed the mark by a mile. But he loved me anyway…and that means the world to me. I’m still trying to grow up to be just like him. (A fool’s errand.)

 

There was only one DeForest Kelley.