DeForest Kelley

DeForest Kelley wasn't chasing stardom when he arrived in California.

His angular face and sharp gaze pigeonholed him early in tough-guy roles. In 1947 he starred in Fear in the Night, a small film noir classic in which he played a man who believes he has committed a murder. It was his first real break after serving in World War II.

His father was a Baptist preacher from Georgia who never understood his son's artistic direction. But Kelley insisted on making a living on movie sets and left home with just five dollars.

The Dirty Boots Villain

During the 1950s he specialized in playing the villain. He appeared in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1957 as Morgan Earp and appeared in dozens of Westerns. His delivery was dry and direct, far from the warmth he would show years later on television.

That era was a string of wide-brimmed hats and sun-soaked showdowns. Kelley took on a series of small contracts in B-movie productions because studios valued his ability to look dangerous without saying a single word.

And the gamble paid off.

In 1966 producer Gene Roddenberry asked him to join the cast of Star Trek to bring Dr. Leonard McCoy to life. At first Kelley hesitated because he preferred to keep riding horses on set, but the pay was steady and the project seemed unlike anything he had done before.

The Heart of the Enterprise

The lead trio relied on a strange chemistry. Spock was logic and Kirk was boldness. Kelley was the heart of the group, the man who always reminded everyone that the crew of the ship were not machines. His arguments with the Vulcan fueled the show's emotional engine for decades.

The original series was canceled in 1969 after just three seasons. That hiatus created serious financial problems for him.

The actor found that casting directors only saw him as the doctor of a starship. He spent years attending fan conventions to pay the mortgage on his house in Sherman Oaks, because job offers were scarce.

But the fan phenomenon grew unexpectedly.

The release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979 revived his big-screen career. Kelley put on the uniform again for six more feature films. In 1987 he made a brief appearance in the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, playing a McCoy who was 137 years old.

The Poet's Retirement

It was his last major appearance in the franchise.

Away from the spotlight, he was a simple man who loved gardening and wrote poetry in private. He never chased the fame of magazine covers and preferred the quiet of his home with his wife, Carolyn Dowling, to whom he was married for 54 years without ever being apart.

In 1991 he filmed Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, his final farewell to the big screen. From that point on, his public appearances declined sharply due to a gradual decline in his health.

DeForest Kelley died on June 11, 1999 at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills. The official cause of death was stomach cancer. His ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean at the actor's express request.