About the character:
Doctor Leonard 'Bones' McCoy (2227) is the chief medical officer
on board the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 and a good friend of captain
James T. Kirk. He is a very
moral person, and would like to see the best in people and values
life as a gift. He is not afraid to speak up, which is intensified
by his short threshold of tolerance, which manifest itself when
he discusses the issue about being a human in relation to logic
with the vulcan Spock or when
he is to prevent captain James T. Kirk to do something irrational.
About the actor:
DeForest Kelley is born in Atlanta in the state Georgia 20 January
1920 as the son of a Baptist minister. He gets to sing in the fathers
choir, but finishing high scool he visits an uncle in Long Beach,
Californien, while he is there joins a troupe of actors. In the
1940s he is discovered by a talent scout from Paramount, that leads
to a screening and later on a contract.
His breakthrough comes with the movie "Fear in the Night", where
he plays a man who may or may not have commited a murder. Soon more
movies follows and for a short period of time he moves to New York,
where he mostly has theatrical work. In 1955 he returns to Hollywood
where he continues to appeare in movies.
When DeForest Kelly in 1966 is going to be in the TV series "Star
Trek", he gets his biggest success ever as doctor Leonard 'Bones'
McCoy. A character he is voicing in "Star Trek: The Animated Series"
and later on acting in the six movies produced from 1979 to 1991
and a single guest appearance in one scene in the "Star Trek: The
Next Generation" episode "Encounter at Farpoint" (Part 1) [PILOT]
in 1987.
In liaison with the release of "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered
Country" in 1991, he says:
"The one thing I always dread about critics’
reviews of the Star Trek movies is they first review us. We’ve heard
it a hundred times, that Bill’s getting fat and I’m looking like
death."
Saying, journalists did not review the movie as a movie but reviewed
the actors with application of being too old to play their characters.
At this point DeForest Kelley is 71 years old, William Shatner and
Leonard Nimoy 60.
In april 1999 DeForest Kelley was send to the Motion Picture and
Television Fund hospital in Woodland Hills, California, but three
months later, friday the 11th of June, the beloved actor dies after
a lingering illness of cancer in the stomach. DeForest Kelley was
79.
"He was one of a kind, a great friend and
a very important part of a collection of personalities. He had the
humanist point of view in the show. It fit him very well. He brought
a decency and sensibility that made you want to have him around."
Leonard Nimoy,
stated the same day.
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Star Trek
1959: "Rawhide"
- tv series