Visit YellowBalloonPublications.com for Lots of DeForest Kelley-Related Updates and Information

Please visit YellowBalloonPublications.com for lots of DeForest Kelley-related updates and information!! I'm writing blogs there now!

And since this is the 50th anniversary of Star Trek I'm doing a lot of interviews and podcasts about De's career and my decades-long friendship with him and his wife Carolyn.

I have an audio version of DeForest Kelley Up Close and Personal: A Harvest of Memories from the Fan Who Knew Him Best.

Listen to/see the interviews and order the audio version of the book EXCLUSIVELY at YellowBalloonPublications.com.

De ya there!

Watch DeForest Kelley In Some Great Interviews Here:

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?sk=&sc=1-25&qpvt=deforest+kelley+interview&q=deforest+kelley+interview%20&FORM=msnhal#

Update -- and a Brand New Kelley Story to Enjoy!

Finished a 20 hour, $500 project today and started another one. WOO HOO!

Also went to the movie today with the wee ones again. Wendy, Jamie, Casey and I saw Horton Hears a Who, a Dr. Seuss classic that's even better with the voiceovers of Jim Carrey, Steve Carrell and Carol Burnett. I've seen the movie before, but twice is not too many times. I'd probably enjoy seeing it a third time, and a fourth, way down the road sometime. Very clever, very well done.

I fertilized the lawn and watered it today since the temperature was slated to reach only 75 degrees today and tomorrow. After that it's soaring into the 90's again. I wish it would stay 75 for the next four days, but that isn't going to happen. My garage sale is Friday and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m...

If I think I can survive it, I want to help out at the northbound Rochester rest stop (south of Olympia) on Monday from 6 a.m. to noon or 2. Don't know if I can make it past 10 though, if the temperature is going to skyrocket. I dehydrate and overheat very easily these days. The rest area is in the trees, so that should reduce the temperature by 15 or 20 degrees, I think. I'll call Vernita on Sunday and see how they're faring. I just need a little encouragement to know I won't die doing a good deed. (It's a fundraiser for the women's ministry at CFAN. They're offering free coffee to travelers and accepting donations.)

What else? My hair is getting too long. I have given it four months to hang down to the lower part of my jaw, but I just can't handle it anymore. I tug on it all the time and it feels like straw. I don't think it looks that much better on me, either, although others disagree. I just don't want to have to mess with it, and so I don't, and then it looks like I don't mess with it, so shorter is better for me. I'm gonna get it chopped off next time I go in. Yes. And the sooner the better.

The baby birds are almost too big for their nest anymore. I'll catch a few more photos of them -- better ones this time, I hope -- before they fly away. I expect they'll start thinking about that in the next week or so.

Yesterday I took photos of the garden and of Jackie with its first fruits -- an armful of zucchini and a quart or more of peas. We had mushrooms and zucchini for dinner last night with peapods on the side. Scrumptious. There's nothing like homegrown produce. And those peas are producing so fast it's hard to keep up.

Guess that's about it for now. Oh... I owe you a new De story, don't I? *sigh* OK... Here you go..

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Trekker Treat

The Kelley Home

A friend and I were going to knock on A.C. Lyles' Bel Air door one year at Halloween time dressed in the most pathetic (by design) rabbit costumes possible, and say we were there to audition for a sequel to De's movie NIGHT OF THE LEPUS (a.k.a. in fandom as Attack of the Killer Bunnies), which AC produced and directed. (I was also AC's star polisher at the time, so he knew me and my friend well enough that he wouldn't call Bel Air Security or shoot us when we arrived at the door.)

We fashioned ears out of white panty hose/leotards and placed cardboard into them so that when we pulled them onto our heads, they'd look really, really dumb! (Again, by design.)

We got mens white BVDs/briefs and pulled those on over white jogging pants and glued gaudy, misshapen bunny tails onto them. We had something on for t-shirts but I don't recall now what those looked like. (That's why I wish I could get to my journals or the unedited version of HARVEST OF MEMORIES right now... but I can't.)

Ready, set... all that remained was to call AC's wife to make sure they'd be home so we could surprise him with this outlandish stunt.

We called. The phone rang. Martha Lyles picked up the phone, listened, laughed, and then said, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this but AC isn't even in town right now. He's back on the east coast campaigning for President (George Herbert Walker) Bush. I'm sorry you went to all that trouble for nothing."

Deflated, disappointed, and frustrated, we hung up. Then my friend perked up noticeably. I asked, "What"?'

She said, "Let's do it to De."

I said, "No way."

She said, "Oh c'mon! It was his movie, too -- and we've spent a small fortune here on these asinine costumes."

I repeated: "No way. Absolutely -- no -- way -- in -- hell with you catch me in the Kelley neighborhood in these getups."

"Why not?"

"Because I visit there. His neighbors think I'm sane. No way am I going to give them any other way to think of me."

My friend moped... and moped... and moped... until I began to consider her dumb idea.

She saw that and perked up again, like a dog about to be tossed a bone or a ball.

Damn...

"All right..."

She jumped up.

"All right," I repeated, "but it goes against everything I believe in. I can act like an idiot in Bel Air, because nobody knows me there, but Sherman Oaks is different..."

She already had the door open against the possibility that I might back out on the idea.

We went...

We drove to the Kelleys address, got out of the car... My friend grabbed a handful of Science Diet kibble and held it tightly in one fist. That did not bode well at all, but I had no idea...

We walked up to the front door of the Kelley abode and knocked.. waited... knocked again...

Suddenly we heard the garage door open "behind" us. (Take a look at the configuration of the Kelley home in the photo above, and you'll see where the front door is -- to the left side of the garage up a little walkway -- and you'll know what I mean.) We turned to face the street and the direction from which the sound of a garage door opening was emanating.

Around the corner came De, blocking our escape. He didn't look any too happy. He threw a look across the street to see if any of his neighbors were witnessing the atrocity, and saw they weren't. That seemed to relieve him. But he still didn't look overjoyed to see us.

My friend fake-hopped over to where he was, fist of Science Diet kibble held under her tail, and when she got to him, she "crapped" it onto the sidewalk and said, "Oh, Mr. Kelley, I'm so excited to see you again!"

Fastidious De looked down at the bouncing, rolling kibble, frowned, and knelt down to begin retrieving it. I was mortified. My friend (by now she was quickly becoming my former friend, for having dragged me into this embarrassing fiasco) knelt, too, and started to help him pick up the fake poop, but De would have none of it. He stood back up, frowned like the great badass actor he was, and pointed toward his front door. "Get inside the house. Now. Get. Inside. Now."

It was as close to Toby Jack Saunders as I ever saw him get in real life.

We. Went. Inside. The. House. No further questions asked. Yes, sir, Mr. Kelley!

Once inside, a cheery voice called out, "Hi, girls! Come on back!"

We scurried to the work room, where Carolyn sat. She howled when she saw us. "What on earth are you two up to now?" she asked.

I quickly said, "We were going to go trick or treating at AC's and do a NIGHT OF THE LEPUS number on him, but he's back east campaigning for the President..." I glared at my friend so she'd finish the story, but she didn't... so I added, "So 'we' -- cough cough -- decided we shouldn't waste our efforts and ... came here instead."

oh please, oh, please, Carolyn, figure this one out and realize that it was not my idea!

By this time De came into the house, into the workroom, and joined Carolyn in a chair across from us. I decided he really wasn't mad; he had just been "portraying" pissed.

He looked at both of us sitting there in our pathetic costumes and shook his head. Then he offered, "You know, in those rabbit ears, you two look a little bit like nuns."

My friend laughed and replied, "No one has ever thought of me as a nun before!" and De retorted, "I'm sure of that!"

I was blushing horribly and since I was dressed all in white, it showed.

That's the first and last time I ever trick or treated at the Kelley home. And it was under duress, I can assure you.

Still... as I revisited it again just now, I was laughing so hard and so loud that Jackie came over to see what was happening over here... so it's a memory that I treasure to my toes now!

I tell you... we were insane back in the good old days of yesteryear...

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If any of these blog posts give you a grin or anything else of value please tweet them! Thank you!

The DE-Mented (Crazy About De) Side of Me...

This afternoon Dr. Mary Jo Robinson and I spent a couple hours watching convention tapes of De. It was a lot of fun and reminded me of his fun, funny side and all the ways we frequently cracked each other up before life became so blasted serious and precarious toward the end of his time on earth. I have been living in the aftermath of his loss for so long that I more or less laid the humorous memories aside, other than the couple dozen or so that I put into the first book I wrote about him (DeFOREST KELLEY: A HARVEST OF MEMORIES).

Then I got an email from Mary Doman today (whose essay in the newest book about De, ENDURING LEGACY, is nothing short of fabulous) telling me that she hopes I'll still write the book about De that I intended to write before I got the idea for ENDURING LEGACY; a book that tells "the rest of the story" of my fun association with the Kelleys: all the silly, fun stuff I edited out of the first tome so that readers

a.) would be able to lift the blasted thing and

b.) not have to pay an arm and a leg for it

Talk about perfect timing.

But... another book? Eegads...

A book is hard work, really hard work, even when they're labors of love. And I barely broke even on the other two I wrote about De, not because they aren't good, not because people who read them don't love them, but because the mass media folks couldn't care less about letting people know they exist! (The reviews at Amazon are mostly 5-stars and at Payloadz they're 100% 5-stars and the e-book is still #1 in the non-fiction category nearly two months after its debut.)

And publicizing via the social media route is so time-consuming that if I did that as often as I "must" to keep the information out there, I'd wind up bleary-eyed for my day job (copy writing at Elance), at which I have to be very, very sharp to keep earning glowing reviews and additional clients! So it's kind of a Catch-22: I can write good books, but where do I find enough hours in the day to multi-task (Elance work and viral networking, plus life as a homeowner, yard mower, weed puller, vegetable gardener, sister and auntie) and still stay sane and viable? It's a pickle!

So, since I need to make money if I'm going to be investing significant time writing more about De (this time totally humorously), Mary suggested that I "blog" the stories going forward and when I have enough of them down in black and white, I can compile them into an e-book and offer them for sale. This way, she says, I'll only be investing the time I usually invest in blogging and won't need to take time away from my real job to make headway on it.

Hmmm... Sounds totally do-able.

But...

Doesn't logic suggest, Mr. Spock, that if people can get stuff for free (via this blog) they probably won't bother to buy the same stories in e-book form later?

Mr. Spock : "Not necessarily. Many people glean postings from their blogs and create viable e-books with the information. However, if memory serves, most of them are 'how-to' or technical books."

Oh joy... (Vulcans sure can be wet blankets at times...)

Mary says she will buy one, for sure! So I have one confirmed buyer! The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step!

So now I'm going to ask YOU: If I do as Mary suggests, and you get to read all (or almost all) of my previously-unpublished funny De-related tales for free right here on my blog in the days and weeks to come (off and on), would you, too, be willing to buy a compilation of the same material if it's offered for under $5 at some time in the future, to share with friends and/or to keep for yourself in one convenient volume?

I need some encouragement, here. I don't need to make a killing, but I do need to know that people would value a De-based (debased?!) book of humor enough to buy it at some point... and tell others about it... and purchase a few extras as gifts, even...

(Hey, you could do the same thing with the two existing De books, too, and the other three really good books I've written that aren't De related.)

[No pressure! wink, wink]

Whaddaya say?

Let me hear from you! Would you help support this "starving artist" if I blog my best stuff before publishing it? LET ME KNOW!

A Humor Sampler

(no real-life anecdotes included, yet, but I have a bunch of them!)

A never-before published limerick that I wrote and sent to the Kelleys:

It isn't all a bad dream -

I'm as stuck on you as I seem.

If you had your druthers,

You might prefer others -

Or even the transporter beam!

A never-before-published poem I wrote about the RowDE Cowboy:

(based on a real incident)

Now, De was a cowboy with flair

He rode side-by-side without care

'Til one day, while dismountin'

He spurred he next mount an'

Spent half of the scene in midair!

Song I co-wrote to the tune of Yellow Rose of Texas:

(semi-raunchy ranch humor)

De is De Rowdy Cowboy

We girls just love to love

His eyes are even bluer

Than Texas skies above

You can talk about Roy Rogers

Or the dudes from Lonesome Dove

But De's the only cowboy

That we will ever love.

My mama told me not to love

A man with big blue eyes

He'd only steal my heart away

And tell me lots of lies

But let him tell me all those lies

and lead me to the straw

'Cause De's the sexiest cowboy

That I have ever saw!

Can you tell I started out as a silly, starry-eyed teenager?

Yup! And it was a lot of fun!

Then I grew up

and life got seriouser and seriouser...

but we still laughed and laughed

right up until the end.

It sure beat crying!

"Return with us now, to those thrilling days of yesteryear.

The RowDE Cowboy rides again!"

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If any of these blog posts give you a grin or anything else of value please tweet them! Thank you!

Link to the DeForest Kelley/Kris Smith Interview...

In case you missed the interview, you can access it here. It's two hours long, so sit back and relax! (Get a tissue first, though! Some of it is mighty poignant...)
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/NoriegaDOTBiz/2009/06/04/Kristin-M-Smith-beams-in-for-a-visit

One of My Articles to Appear Tomorrow...

Author Pat Bertram (More Deaths Than One and A Spark of Heavenly Fire, available from Second Wind Publishing, LLC; Bertram's website URL is http://patbertram.com/) is scheduling a Facebook Event for tomorrow.

For the event, she'll be publishing my newest article, Writing a Memoir, and then will be opening up the forum for its readers (mostly writers) to send me questions.

If you're interested, here's the link:
http://ptbertram.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/deforest-kelley-a-harvest-of-memories-my-life-and-times-with-a-remarkable-gentleman-actor/

Let me know what you think afterward, please!

I Met DeForest Kelley 41 Years Ago Today....

Flashback, May 4, 1968

Wow! I just realized it's May 4th.

I met DeForest and Carolyn Kelley for the first time on May 4, 1968, 41 years ago today. Never would I have dared to dream, on that special day, that this meeting was a God appointment and that the Kelleys would figure into my life in the way they have and always will.

It seems like a fairy tale dreamed up by a school girl. But DeForest Kelley and his wife Carolyn helped make it all come true for me, as they did for so many others.

I have a three ring binder here at home containing copies of De's important papers. I have the list he wrote for me of the addresses and phone numbers of his closest friends and relatives, the people he wanted me to call as soon as he passed away so that I could give them the sad, unexpected news and they wouldn't have to find out on the radio while driving home or on the TV after they got home. I have a copy of his personal address and phone book. He wanted me to have all this for the biography I never wrote. (I loaned it all to Terry Lee Rioux so she could do the honors, because I'm an anecdotal writer, not an historian.) I have lots more... andI will find an appropriate repository for all of these artifacts -- a museum that "gets" and truly honors his importance -- and pass it along to them when I'm sure I have found the right one. Terry is helping me decide because she's the historian. I just pulled it out of my archives because I remembered that on the cover of this (very sentimental to me) three-ring binder is a poem I found and placed there, because it pretty much says it all. It reads, in part...

FOR YOU

by Martha Snell Richardson

The things you loved I have not laid away

To moulder in the darkness, year by year;

The songs you sang, the books you read each day

Are all about me, intimate and dear.

I do not keep your chair a thing apart,

lonely and empty, desolate to view --

But if one come a'weary, sick at heart --

I seat him there and comfort him for you.

I do not go apart in grief and weep,

For I have known your tenderness and care.

Such memories are joys that we may keep,

And so I pray for those whose lives are bare...

Perchance so much that now seems incomplete

Was left for me in my poor way to do,

And I shall love to tell you when we meet

That I have done your errands, dear, for you.

OK, I'm in tears. This poem reveals the soul of what my two books about DeForest were written to accomplish: I wanted to finish the loving errands that sickness compelled De to leave undone, to let his fans, his friends and his co-workers know that he loved them more than they would ever be able to accept or realize.

He was simply and truly sum'pin' else, my friends.

The PR is LIVE Now!

WOO HOO! The press release for my new book, The Enduring Legacy of DeForest Kelley: Actor, Healer Friend has been LIVE since midnight at PRWeb and the book has already received three five-star reviews (highest possible rating) at Payloadz.

Gosh, I love it when a plan comes together!

There have already been 4,700 views of the press release. A significant percentage of viewers have also printed out the press release for follow-up. Perhaps with the new movie coming out this week I have finally released a PR that won't be swallowed up (God forbid!) in the way the PR for the first book was. (DeForest Kelley: A Harvest of Memories came out just weeks after September 11th, 2001 and not even I was interested in thinking about much else in the aftermath of that tragic day.) I'm glad I had the insight to release it this week just before the debut of the newest TREK incarnation and not wait until the actual 10th anniversary of De's passing (June 11th, 2009). That would have been too sad a day to do it, anyway. Why not announce it when the puppies are bouncing over a new TREK movie, so it can do double duty?

I will be going to Facebook and listing an announcement on the De Kelley fans pages there, and on some of the STAR TREK sites as well.

Thanks to all of you who worked like the Energizer bunny to get the word out in advance of the PRWeb release. Because of you, the outlay for the PR ($100) is already halfway paid off! That means that 10 people downloaded the book before the PR even went live at PRWeb.

Keep at it! If you visit a De or Trek website that doesn't have a blurb about the new book, please send them the PR and let them deal with it, if you would be so kind!

Thanks!

Here's a copy of the official PR from PRWeb (you can cut and paste it wherever you like in the TREK/De Kelley realm as long as it, or something about the new e-book, isn't already there:)

New DeForest Kelley Book Debuts During Tenth Anniversary of Star Trek Actor's Passing

Kristine M Smith, author of DeForest Kelley: A Harvest of Memories (2001), celebrates the late actor's enduring legacy in a new e-book

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) May 3, 2009 -- In the first edition of a newly-released 61-page e-book, The Enduring Legacy of DeForest Kelley: Actor, Healer, Friend, DeForest Kelley's former personal assistant Kristine M Smith has compiled the memories and reminiscences of nearly two dozen fans and friends whose lives were blessed and changed forever by the career or kindness of the late actor who portrayed Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the original Star Trek television series and motion pictures.

On the back cover of the new e-book, available via Payloadz.com, Smith writes, "I was going to write a book about all the things I had to leave out of my first book about De (in order for readers to be able to lift the blasted thing!), but then got to thinking that enough of my own story has already been told. I don't want anyone getting the impression that I was the only fan that DeForest and Carolyn Kelley took under their wings, because that simply is not true. The Kelleys were emotionally invested in their fans. They loved them, appreciated them, respected them - and it always showed."

The e-book reveals that many of Kelley's fans went on to become doctors, nurses, medical technicians, social workers, and other helping professionals. One even went so far as to become a space nurse for NASA. Still others continue to impact the world as writers, actors and teachers. All have realized the impact that the iconic "Dr. McCoy" has had on their lives. Smith says, "The legacy of the reel McCoy has blessed the world with some very real McCoys who continue to boldly go where few have gone before, making a difference every step of the way."

Smith adds, "One goal of the book is to encourage other Kelley and Star Trek fans to 'go thou and do likewise.' De was always most proud of fans who took their inspiration from the series and elected to use it to help others. Another goal is to present the e-book as a keepsake to new DeForest Kelley fans who are too young to remember when he was among us. I don't want anybody to miss out on his unique and continuing influence."

Author Kristine M Smith's blog is located at http://almostfamousbydesfault.blogspot.com/. Her copywriting service business URL is http://kristinemsmith.elance/com. She can be reached at KRISTINEMSMITH (at) MSN (dot) COM.

# # #

Mary Doman is the First Purchaser of ENDURING LEGACY AT PAYLOADZ.COM

Mary Doman

in Southern California

(Garden Grove, to be exact)

is the first owner of the new book,

THE ENDURING LEGACY OF

DeFOREST KELLEY:

ACTOR, HEALER, FRIEND.
Congratulations, Mary!


And if you think THAT'S special,

just wait till you read HER contribution in the book!

It'll blow you away... in the absolute nicest way.

Mary has also disseminated the PR as far away as Australia!

Go, Mary, go!

What a team De Kelley folks are!

Stay tuned! I expect there will be updates all weekend!

DeForest Kelley's Home Still Exists -- in Cyberspace!

Although the Kelley home was sold and torn down following Carolyn's passing in 2004, the realtors who sold it have kindly left the listing in existence. So if you ever wondered what kind of home the Kelleys had, you'll be surprised to discover how small it was and how un-Hollywood-like.

http://tours.tourfactory.com/tours/tour.asp?t=205550&home=www.JerryKeller.com&slink=-1&sReferer=&r=http://www.google.com/search?sourceid%3Dnavclient%26ie%3DUTF-8%26rls%3DGGLR,GGLR:2005-52,GGLR:en%26q%3D15463%2BGreenleaf%2BStreet%252c%2BSherman%2BOaks%252c%2BCalifornia

When furnished, it was the most comfortable-feeling home I ever walked into. It felt familiar and "like home" the moment you entered.

I wish it hadn't been razed to make way for a McMansion, but buyers aren't sentimental in the least, in most cases. In fact, they may not even have known whose home they were buying...

Alas...

But do enjoy the only tour you will ever have of the home!


P.S. I'm very much looking forward to finding out what Karl Urban has done with the reel McCoy this time around. I'll be seeing the movie opening weekend (next weekend) and blogging about it afterward. I expect good things, based on all I've read, seen and heard.

P.P.S My newest De Kelley book, the first edition of THE ENDURING LEGACY OF DeFOREST KELLEY: ACTOR, HEALER, FRIEND will be ready in time for the tenth anniversary of De's passing (June 11th, 2009). In fact, except for a final proofreading and deciding on its "carrier" (Payloadz or Clickbank), it's ready NOW! So get the word out, and let Trek folks and reporters know that I'm available for phone interviews about it...

Thanks!

Surprise, Surprise! One of My Poems is in the Current Issue of the Shambala Newsletter!

I was mighty pleased -- and wildly surprised -- to open the latest issue of the Shambala newsletter and find one of my poems (LEO) emblazoned across the inside front cover! Tippi placed it on her own editorial page and wrote around it, so yes, it's a major honor!

If you go to the following URL, you can register as a member of Shambala and help out this worthy cause... and they'll promptly send you the current newsletter, chock full of great stuff, including my heart-rending poem about the status of lions from ancient Greece to now!!!

http://www.shambala.org/

I volunteered at Shambala for a number of years and cannot recommend a non-profit organization more highly than I can Shambala.

If you love captive wild animals (or their wild counterparts, living free) and want to help Tippi's wild ones thrive in luxurious, open fields (she rescues them), logon today and find out more about her and her Roar Foundation.

You'll be glad you did. Prepare to be wowed: Bill Dow's photos of Tippi's wild wards are breath-taking!

TrekToday Runs Info On My Upcoming Book...

Here's the link...


http://www.trektoday.com/news/210208_02.shtml

And Trekmovie.com got into the act, too!

http://trekmovie.com/

"Remember..." An Excerpt From My Next DeForest Kelley Book

Several people sent me "I remember De!" messages yesterday on what would have been his 88th birthday. I tried to locate an earlier essay that was published in newspapers, called REMEMBERING DeFOREST KELLEY, but it's on a disc that's unaccessible right now, so instead, I'll give you a sneak-peek of my next book,THE ENDURING LEGACY OF DeFOREST KELLEY: ACTOR, HEALER, FRIEND.


Following is the working draft of the intro to the ACTOR section of the book. It's copywrited, but if you'd like to use it for publicity purposes at any of the STAR TREK or DeForest Kelley websites, just let me know and also append this: "Author Kristine M Smith's first book about DeForest Kelley is DeFOREST KELLEY: A HARVEST OF MEMORIES, garnering 5-star reviews at Amazon. She is seeking additional contributors to her next Kelley book, of which the preceding has been a preview. Fans, friends and co-workers are encouraged to tell their stories of meeting or knowing De -- or of simply loving him from afar. Send your reminiscences to Kris at KRISTINE M SMITH AT MSN DOT COM."



Fans are undoubtedly familiar with De’s portrayal as Dr. McCoy on the original, iconic STAR TREK® television and motion picture series. This is probably the way most of today’s fans became fans, watching him interact with the crew of the Starship Enterprise. As we all know, McCoy’s on-again, off-again irascible tendencies covered a heart of gold that was sold out to his patients, to his mission, and to his crewmates (yes, even Spock). There was no doubt about that. Time and again, he offered his life for theirs, as they had for his.

A television host in Colorado, a huge fan of Westerns, once regaled De and his Good Day Colorado audience with an almost “word-for-word” recreation of some of De’s lines from “Warlock,” a better-than-most Western starring Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark, and Anthony Quinn. Pretending to be De’s character Curly Burne in the movie, the host did a fast draw, then stopped short when he realized his opponent (Fonda) had out-drawn him. Much to De’s delight, the host flailed helplessly as he “backed down” from the confrontation he had engendered, and then jumped to another aspect of the same scene. “And just before that, where you’re trying to goad him into this gunfight, you say, ‘Oh, them pearly handles of yo’s … they’re enough to blind a man’s eyes. You really ought to stop polishing them that way, por favor, you know, the way you always do… Someone ought to just take them pearly handles from you and rough them up a bit, you know?”

When the host finished his faithful rendition of the scene, De’s eyes shone and his grin was as wide as Colorado itself. He took a brief look into the studio audience – the largest audience for that particular show, ever, filled as it was past capacity with TREK fans imported from a STARLAND convention nearby – and he laughed. “You know,” he told the show host, then pointed at his fans and said, “They know! If this wasn’t a television show, I could tell you a story about that very scene…” And he left it there. The show host undoubtedly asked for, and received, “the rest of the story” backstage.

For those who haven’t heard it:

Days before the scene was filmed, the director had told De that the Princess of Greece, Princess Sofia, would be on the soundstage the day he was scheduled to shoot the scene. De thought he was joking, because this particular director had a dry sense of humor. “I thought maybe he meant Sophia Loren.”

Sure enough, when the day arrived a very real Princess Sofia and her large entourage gathered on the upper part of stairway in the “saloon” where the filming of this scene was about to take place. The visitors to the set were out of camera range.

“At first,” De recalled, “I was very nervous – not necessarily because the Princess and her people were there, but because in this scene I had to do a fly-away – that’s a move with a gun where I flip it and it goes into my holster, with any luck at all – and I had been practicing this move, but it was nowhere near certain I could get it on the first take, or even the second.

“Henry Fonda was away that day – Tyrone Power had passed away the week before and Fonda was at his funeral – so his lines were read to me. In this scene, I’m supposed to goad Fonda into a fight, and when I do, his gun is out of the holster in a flash and I realize I’m done for unless I back down, so I quickly, and as humbly as this hombre can, back down. I do the fly-away and it goes in perfectly; a big relief to me. Then I start backing away, with a little wave to Fonda, toward the bat-wing doors, and… this wasn’t in the scene… I trip backward over a chair! As I went over, I called out, ‘Oh, shit!’

“Well, you could have heard a pin drop. All of a sudden I remember Princess Sofia and her people are standing on the staircase watching this whole thing! So I crawled out through the bat-wing doors on my knees! And on the other side of the doors, the director looks down at me and says, ‘De, I’ll bet you sat up all night trying to think of what to say in front of the Princess of Greece.’

“As it turned out, Princess Sofia didn’t know what that word meant. But when I went to the commissary for lunch that day, everyone stood up and applauded me! It was all over the lot what I had said in front of the princess!”

Okay, now you know about the outtake. Go and rent or buy the movie and see what De, a conscience-ridden bad guy hanging with the wrong crowd, does when confronted with the enormity of his gang’s depravity. In a way, he becomes the hero of the motion picture, in my opinion. ‘Nuf said.

Curly Burne in Warlock was one of De’s very few good-natured bad guys. Most of his portrayals were so cussedly ornery and demonic that he was often hired to snarl at the likes of Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, Audie Murphy, the Lone Ranger and the Bonanza boys. If you haven’t seen his other portrayals, you are missing out on some of the best acting ever in Westerns. (A top-notch and complete filmography of De’s entire acting career can be found at Karen Halliday’s website: http://www.klhalliday.com/DeKelley/Index.htm. Check it out, rent some of the films at your local video store, and feast your eyes on ACTOR DeForest Kelley If you don’t have Internet access, ask a friend to download the site for you, or visit a library to download it.)

Be forewarned, however: Before watching any of De’s Westerns, you may have to divorce yourself from any knowledge of Dr. McCoy (and that takes some doing!) in order to truly appreciate his pre-McCoy portrayals. Remind yourself beforehand that McCoy had not yet been created and that De’s cowboy portrayals were the rationale the network had for believing that STAR TREK’s audience could never “buy” DeForest Kelley as good guy Doctor McCoy, which is why he wasn’t in the first pilot of STAR TREK. You will understand their concern after seeing him in these earlier roles!

In my opinion, De deserved a Best Supporting Actor award for a number of his bad-guy portrayals in motion pictures, among them: as Toby Jack Saunders in APACHE UPRISING and as Wexler in THE LAW AND JAKE WADE. And a Best Supporting Actor television award wouldn’t have hurt for his role in THE HONOR OF COSHISE, a BONANZA episode. The fact that De’s character bites the dust in so many of his Westerns – whether soon or late – just underscores that his scoundrels had to die or the audiences would have gone home with nightmares, and the tales told -- most of which were morality plays in disguise -- would have fallen flat!

De was asked at numerous conventions about how he managed to portray scoundrels so ably, when he was obviously such a gentleman. He said, “When I was a boy growing up in Georgia, there was a Sheriff who looked as though he couldn’t wait to find someone stepping out of line so that he could shoot him. He just looked like a snake to me; coiled and ready to strike. He was one of the role models for some of the heavies I played. I figured if I could capture that sheriff’s ominous aspects, my portrayal would be convincing.”

When De was in the hospital the last few months of his life, he related that one of his and Carolyn’s best friends for over 60 years had told them, years ago, that she would never believe De in a bad guy role and so that’s why she had never gone to see him in one. “When she said that, I became a bad guy right in front of her, just to show her I could do it. Well, I when I did, it scared her so badly that she started to cry! So I started to cry! I had to apologize! I wanted to convince her I was an actor, not scare her half to death! It was just awful…”

In APACHE UPRISING, an AC Lyles film, De portrayed a sociopath, Toby Jack Saunders, a man so void of decency and conscience that he exuded malevolence from every pore. The role haunted De even years later. He reflected, “I sat up half the night last night” (in the hospital) “thinking what a no good son of a bitch Toby Jack was. In the script, he was supposed to ride into town and when the town mongrel came out to wag a barking hello, I was supposed to pull out my gun and shoot him. Well, that was too much for me. I told AC I couldn’t do that. I told him I would establish his character some other way.”

He did! I had a nightmare about that hombre after seeing APACHE UPRISING!

De was one of very few actors in the late 40’s and early 50’s with a “crossover” career, working in motion pictures as well as in the new medium of television. For the most part, motion picture actors felt it was “beneath them” to work in television. As a struggling young actor, De wasn’t allowed the luxury of that lofty an opinion of himself; his focus was on keeping a roof over his and Carolyn’s heads. His list of credits from the 40’s 50’s is mind-boggling: he appeared in over 100 different series episodes, as well as in fifteen motion pictures, mostly as heavies, ne’er-do-wells and scoundrels.

Occasionally he appeared in a role as a hapless fellow falsely accused of a crime (in motion pictures, FEAR IN THE NIGHT and ILLEGAL, and in television, the Bonanza episode THE DECISION). The despair, anger or panic he showed in these portrayals was spot on. Viewers could vicariously experience this poor fellow’s dilemma as we sweated for him, hoping against all hope that his innocence would be discovered before the executioner could do his fatal job. In the case of ILLEGAL, our hope is dashed. Seconds after his execution, the truth is found out, too late to save him. The consequences are agonizing for the star of the show, Edward G. Robinson, who suffers the tortures of the damned for the rest of the picture. De’s role in this movie is small, but pivotal.

Another small but powerful role in RAINTREE COUNTY captures the attention of the audience as De -- the only Southern soldier seen in the film in a seminal role -- rides in on a horse and is felled by a bullet. For the next ten minutes or so De’s unnamed character plays with Lee Marvin’s mind in an attempt to get him to let down his guard long enough so that De can shoot him and escape to get help before he bleeds to death. The charm and easy attitude of De’s character is utterly captivating. The audience begins to hope that these two enemies will bury the hatchet and strike some kind of mutually-acceptable deal that will allow them both to survive the intersection of their lives as soldiers. Alas, it is not to be… and the men meet their end in a sudden showdown that is both a surprise and an outrageous obscenity to the audience.

 “What a shame,” we sigh – and then we realize the sentiment is the epilogue for the entire sorry history of the Civil War in which men like these, with personalities and potential for greatness, fought and perished. These two men embody, in a palpable way, the obscenity of war. In other times, they would likely have been fast friends and would probably have been willing to lay down their lives for each other…

Many of De’s roles were small, but very few of them were insignificant. The power of his performances proves the adage, “There are no small parts, only small actors.” Any time De appeared in anything, his character seemed to be the true north for that particular type of human soul. He got inside his characters and breathed life into them. His heavies were not cardboard caricatures; they were people largely unaware that they were deviating from a norm; they were simply responding to cards that had been dealt to them since childhood. Their stories and actions were made perfectly understandable given their wounded psyches, and no word of exposition had to be written to explain them; we just knew because De-the-actor seemed to know.

De made bad guys bad, but he also made a number of them somehow pitiable, fearfully and wonderfully accessible. He allowed us to inhabit them as easily as we could the hero of the piece, not happily, not willingly, but with a sense of morbid curiosity, the way we examine mothers who drown their children or Hitler or Ted Bundy, people who irrationally embarked on workable plans to carry out successive, horrible deviant behaviors. We don’t know how they got there, and we realize that if we understood them we would be just as whacked out as they were, and yet we try to figure out their pathology as if figuring it out would make us safer.