DeForest Kelley On...     Kelley Filmography Home    

DeForest Kelley On...

the Star Trek Series: General Comments

Did he enjoy it?
If he had it to do all over again...
Being Typecast
Cast Chemistry
Defending Their Characters
Shenanigans on the set
Cancellation

Did he enjoy doing Star Trek?
Do I think I'll ever get sick of doing Star Trek? No, I don't think so because I think somewhere probably in the very near future that we probably will not be doing it a lot longer. I think that what they're thinking is to probably move us out eventually down the line and get someone else. I have never tired of doing Star Trek. In fact, Star Trek has spoiled most of us. We were like a repertoire company when we were doing the series and we were doing things that we enjoyed doing. And even though some of the shows were not up to what we wanted to do, there was always something interesting in each script which made it nice to come to work. It was not like going into a detective series or this kind of thing, a western... anything that you knew was all going to be the same. Star Trek was different and we all enjoyed working in it. I feel that we're very fortunate to have been a part of this show.
[Convention: Midcon, England, September 1986, transcribed in Guyer, 1993.]

If he had it to do all over again...
They asked us, if we had to go back in time, would we do Star Trek, as actors, knowing how it had affected all our lives. And this was before Star Trek IV, and Leonard looked over at me and said, “You first.” I gave it a lot of thought because, you never know what will... Before I did Star Trek, it wasn’t that I was setting the world on fire, but I was a solid working actor and I was crossing over – I was going from motion pictures to television and back, which is a very difficult thing to do. And I had it really rolling on my side. And you don’t know, I may have fallen on my face and never worked again, but I didn’t really think that way. But I gave it a lot of thought. And I said, yes, I would do it again. Then, of course, old Sourpuss said he would do it again.
[Convention: Los Angeles, 10/25/87]

Being Typecast
People have asked me, you know, about Star Trek and how I feel about it having typecast all of us, so to speak – and I have told this before and I say it again – that if I had not had the career as a young man that I had from Paramount pictures at the end of the golden era, to experience all of that, and had not done what I’d done in my own little way; if I had just gone into the show like, say, the New Generation, and I hadn’t done anything before, and then that had happened to me, I would have thought, My God, what did I miss? But I feel so fortunate to have had the experience that I had in the motion picture business, that Star Trek just became cream on top of the coffee for me.
[Convention: Los Angeles, 10/24/87]
Cast Chemistry
The sensitivity that played between the lines between the characters that...How did it come about? I'm going to say something that seems a little bit conceited or egotistical. I don't want it to sound that way. I think that we were very fortunate. Gene Roddenberry was either a genius or a very lucky man when he put the three together in the first place. As you know, you've seen good stories on television that would be a good story, but the chemistry is not there with the people. That's what I'm saying. With the three of us... and, as I've said, William Shatner is a very bright man and has a great story sense, and he's a hell of a good actor. And so is Leonard Nimoy. So I think when the three of us got together, we saw that we had a decent piece of material and instead of running it through as they do on Star Trek, we would oftentimes sit down and work it over, take the time, the moments to play those relationships, to gather the warmth that's there, the time to make it. What we were doing is trying to play real human beings in a very bizarre situation. And that was the charm of Star Trek. Everyday problems still exist. Even in that futuristic soci­ety, the human foibles are still there and the problems are going on. And that's what we tried to portray, that warmth and that great under-standing, which rather set it apart, made it a little different than the ordinary show.
[Convention: Midcon, England, September 1986, transcribed in Guyer, 1993.]
Defending Their Characters
I don't know, directors sometimes... we had bad reputations among directors in Hollywood. Bill, Leonard and I did because we'd fight with them, you know. We didn't want to do what they... we really felt that we knew what we wanted to do more than they wanted to do and they all got to hate us. That's the reason none of us worked, really. We had so many directors who came through that, I'm sure, said, "I'll never direct that show again with those guys." But, I don't know, we weren't really that bad, but we did know how the characters reacted to each other and should react, and what they would do and what they wouldn't do, and what they would say and what they would not say. And many times I have given dialogue to William Shatner that was more suitable for his mouth than mine and he has done the same thing for me, but very rarely. (laughter)
I'm kidding about Bill an awful lot. Really, I'm very fond of him. I really am. I'm kidding. (applause) I do the same thing with Leonard.
[Convention: Midcon, England, September 1986, transcribed in Guyer, 1993.]

Shenanigans On the set

It says, "To the greatest doctor in the galaxy." (applause) I certainly thank you. You know what? They used to call me the Galactic Quack. (laughter)
[Convention: Anaheim, 6/21/86, transcribed in Guyer, 1991.]

Oh, who cracked up most? I don't know. All of us did from time to time. It was fairly even, you know. There was no particular one who cracked up. I think Bill and I.... Bill can be a very funny man. He can be an extremely funny man. And I have gotten in such a bad situation, they had to separate us. That's true. I did one show with him where I had done his off camera stuff for his close-up and then as they re-set the scene, it was time for Bill to come back. In the meantime, something had happened which escapes me now... it was a long time ago... I just remember that I was so broken up about it, he comes back out and stood opposite the camera to feed me my lines and I said, "Take him away. Get him out of here." And I had the dialogue director read it. I would have never gotten through it. But I think we had more trouble than Leonard and myself, really.

[Convention: Midcon, England, September 1986, transcribed in Guyer, 1993.]

There were some practical jokes played during the series, a number of them. I don’t know, there were some silly things, like when I bought a new car, they... some of the crew came out and put nuts in the hubcaps, and I’d get on the freeway, you know, something’s wrong, pull into a station... They were taking Leonard Nimoy’s bicycle that he rode around the lot, and tied it up above, where the lights were. He’s wondering where his bicycle went, it was over his head all this time.

[Convention: Dearborn, 7/19/87]

Was I involved in a car accident? Yes, we had a very serious accident. I had bought a new Thunderbird, that was in 1968. I still have that Thunderbird. True. Leonard bought a new 1968 Buick. And we parked side-by-side outside the soundstage for work, Leonard, Bill and myself, the three of us. And I got off early one day just around noon, and I’d left the wheels of my car turned toward Leonard’s Buick, and I was in a hurry to get off the lot and I stepped on it and I went right into his new Buick. True story. Leonard is coming around the corner when this happened, on a bicycle. [Aud: did he fall down?] I swear to God, and he fell off of it. You want to see a funny sight, two actors out exchanging insurance. That’s the accident.

[Convention: Los Angeles, 10/24/87]

The funniest [blooper]? I don’t know, there were so many funny ones. An awfully funny one was when they were shaking the ship around and Majel and I had a little skirmish going on there. It just so happened Gene Roddenberry was on the set that day, too. [rolls eyes] They hadn’t been married very long. It didn’t make such a hit with him at the time. He’s since become very broad-minded.

[Convention: Los Angeles, 10/25/87]

Cancellation When the show was cancelled in ‘69, what our plans were? No, not really. We’d been working very hard for three solid years. Star Trek was a tough series to do, I’ll have you know. We worked long, hard hours and it was unique in as much as we had so many special effects to deal with. And we all really tried so hard to make it the show that it was, not just the actors, the entire crew right down to the guy who swept the floor, everybody felt a part of that show. And that’s really what it takes to make a show with that kind a feeling about it. Naturally, it was a tremendous personal disappointment to us. But, I don’t know, I had been free-lancing for many years before that, and I thought, well, it’s back out in the field again. That’s all you can think about, you know. There was nothing... except a sense of depression of not having fulfilled our mission of five years, anyhow.
[Convention: Dearborn, 7/19/87]