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DeForest Kelley said Star Trek was ''a mixed blessing''
His career never had that second chapter.
Before he was Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy on Star Trek: The Original Series, DeForest Kelley was typically cast as the heavy. Kelley paid his bills by playing villains for nearly a decade before he boarded the Enterprise. Like many actors, he found villains to be more interesting, and thus more pleasurable to play. However, in many of the scripts Kelley was given, he knew that when justice was served, and his character died, his paycheck would be cut a little shorter than that of the heroic actor.
His fortunes changed with Star Trek, as Dr. McCoy was one of the show's chief protagonists. While he was often irritable, Bones was never the bad guy, unless some outerspace gimmickry interfered with his brain or possessed his body.
While Star Trek was easily the highest-profile role in his career, Kelley's close association with the series made it difficult for him to get cast later in life.
"I don’t know… it seems like Hollywood has an unhappy faculty for putting someone in a slot," Kelley said during a press junket for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
"They figure, 'He’s there. That’s what he does best.' They forget about your background and what you’ve done and how you started out and how you got to where you are."
Sure enough, for the rest of his life, Kelley's filmography mostly involved Star Trek-related projects. In total, he was only in nine episodes of television where he didn't play Dr. McCoy. His last role was as a voice actor in The Brave Little Toaster. If Star Trek brought him his greatest success, it also cost him a varied career.
"It’s been a mixed blessing," said Kelley. "I’ve enjoyed the role tremendously and, as the years have gone by, I have considered myself very fortunate to be a part of this show, which has become the phenomenon that it has. Many actors never get the opportunity to even be in a successful series, and here I have had the opportunity to be a part of what has become something most unusual in this country. So I have to look at it with all gratefulness."
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