Book Review - From Sawdust to Stardust

From Sawdust to Stardust:
The Biography of DeForest Kelley, Star Trek's Dr. McCoy
By Terry Lee Rioux
Pocket Books, 2005
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III

The number of books linked, in one way or another, to the Star Trek universe must surely be as numberless by now as grains of sand on the beach. Terry Lee Rioux’s biography of DeForest Kelley is one of the latest, and it is considerably overdue, when you consider the fact that there has been at least one biography, autobiography, or memoir covering William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Walter Koenig, and Star Trek’s creator, Gene Roddenberry.

Kelley, of course, is best known to viewers of the first of four Star Trek TV series – and the attendant spin-off movies – as Dr. Leonard H. “Bones” McCoy. But it should go without saying that Kelley didn’t spring from the womb fully formed as Dr. McCoy. He only took on this, the biggest role of his life, when he was forty-six years old, or well over halfway through his life. At the time, Kelley was so frustrated by the acting business that he was actually giving serious thought to retiring. Then came Star Trek.

Though it is very well researched and a quick read, many readers will probably find themselves skimming through the first third of Rioux’s book, the section that concern’s Kelley’s pre-Star Trek years. Kelley was born Jackson DeForest Kelley in 1920, the son of an Atlanta-area Baptist preacher. A good student and an accomplished singer, he was already performing on local radio in his teens.

Before long, young DeForest decided that he wanted to be a movie star. He was influenced in this, undoubtedly, by his free-spirited Uncle Herman, who lived in Long Beach, California. Kelley – “De” to his friends and colleagues - visited his uncle in 1937. Two years later he returned to California to pursue his dream of making it as an actor. He worked the usual array of struggling actor jobs, while developing his skills in local theater and radio.

Kelley continued to hone these skills during a hitch in the World-War II-era military. Part of his time was spent in southern California, working in front of and behind the cameras, which churned out training films.

At war’s end, the young thespian met and soon married his lifelong love, Carolyn Dowling. He also signed on as a contract player with Paramount Pictures, at a time when the contract system was on the verge of being dismantled.

Kelley’s first feature role was in an undistinguished melodrama called Fear In The Night. It was a low-key debut and not the stuff careers are made of. The next two decades were tough ones for Kelley. He found occasional work in movies and in the fledgling medium known as television. He also moved to New York City for a few years to pursue opportunities that never quite seemed to pan out, and did summer stock in Pennsylvania.

Rioux relates in painful detail this struggle to survive and to get the coveted big break. Eventually Kelley began to pull down reasonably steady work playing the heavy in a string of Westerns – some worth remembering and others, which have rightfully been consigned to the cinematic dustbin. Kelley began working in westerns so often that he reached a point where he was typecast as a black-hat wearing bad ass – as Rioux puts it, his “forte was the bad hombre, and his genre was the Western.”

During this time, Kelley worked with a struggling actor named Leonard Nimoy on the TV series, The Virginian. He also had a fateful meeting with producer, Gene Roddenberry. He worked with the latter on a series that was to have starred Kelley, but which never made it past the pilot stage.

A few years later, Roddenberry was launching Star Trek, which he conceived of as a “Wagon Train to the Stars,” a reference to a then popular TV western series. He remembered a veteran character actor named DeForest Kelley and offered him the role of a peculiar, pointy-eared alien being named Spock. Kelley declined.

Roddenberry made another offer and the rest – as they say – was history. History, in this case, consisted of a mere three seasons until sagging ratings brought about the demise of the original Star Trek series – or TOS, as fans know it. After that, came another lean decade for Kelley – one of the low points here was a role in the giant-rabbits-run-amok flick, Night of the Lepus - until work began on the first Star Trek movie.

By this time, Star Trek was a bonafide phenomenon, with a capital P, and Kelley had finally achieved the stardom he had so long desired. But perhaps it was because he came to success so late in life that Kelley seemed relatively unfazed by it.

He preferred, as Rioux emphasizes over and again, to live a quiet – and very private – life, with his wife and their beloved pets in a modest Los Angeles home. These interludes of calm were only broken up by his duties – conventions, movie roles etc. – as one of television’s best loved third bananas.

Readers who come to this work expecting Rioux to dish up juicy insider Star Trek dirt are bound to be let down. The author certainly doesn’t deny that the Star Trek world was beset by conflicts and ego clashes, but she chooses to emphasize Kelley’s role in all of this turmoil.

Over and again, Rioux portrays Kelley as a conciliator and calming influence, not to mention a well-mannered Southern gentleman and a genuinely nice guy. At times, one cant help wondering if the author talked to anyone who had a bad word to say about her subject.

Of course, the Star Trek juggernaut shows no sign of winding down, even to this day, but DeForest Kelley did. He continued to work in Star Trek movies, even as his health was on a downswing. In 1997, Kelley was diagnosed with cancer. He died two years later, attended by friends and survived by his wife.

Kelley left instructions that his remains be cremated and the ashes cast into the Pacific Ocean. Normally such a fact would not be worthy of mention, but in Kelley’s case, there were many who speculated that he did so in order to avoid having his grave defaced with Dr. McCoy’s infamous three-word catchphrase. Out of respect for the departed, I’ll refrain from mentioning it here - but you know the one.

(Copyright 2007 - William I. Lengeman III)