Deforest Kelley

In the forty-year history of Star Trek®, none of the television show's actors are more beloved than DeForest Kelley. His portrayal of Leonard "Bones" McCoy, the southern physician aboard the Starship Enterprise™, brought an unaffected humanity to the groundbreaking space frontier series. Jackson DeForest Kelley came of age in Depression-era Georgia. He was raised on the sawdust trail, a preacher's kid steeped in his father's literal faith and judgment. But De's natural artistic gifts called him to a different way, and a visit to California at seventeen showed a bright new world. Theater and radio defined his early career -- but it was a World War II training film he made while serving in the Army Air Corps that led to his first Paramount Studios contract. After years of struggle, his lean, weathered look became well known in notable westerns and television programs such as You Are There and Bonanza. But his work on several pilots for writer-producer Gene Roddenberry changed his destiny and the course of cultural history. This thoroughly researched actor's life is about hard work and luck, loyalty and love. It is a journey that takes us all...from sawdust to stardust.

This life story of DeForest Kelley, best known for his role as Dr. "Bones" McCoy in the classic "Star Trek" television series and subsequent feature films, takes readers into the story of his tragedies and triumphs.

If not for a question I couldn't answer back in 2000, this book probably would never have been written. When DeForest Kelley's biographer Terry Lee Rioux asked me, "How did you go from being a fan-on the outermost reaches of fandom-to being at Mr. Kelley's bedside when he died?" I was struck speechless. Finally, I responded, "I have no idea. That's something only De could answer. I can't speak for him." Terry persisted: "You know the answer. You just have to connect the dots..." The question pestered me. My 30-plus year association with DeForest Kelley had all just seemed so miraculous to me. That's because I still hadn't come to grips with the reality that De and Carolyn Kelley weren't just being kind to one of their most ardent fans. I had become a friend. Terry's question led me to re-visit the scores of journals and four behemoth three-ring binders that I had filled with the conversations I had painstakingly recorded after each visit and call. You wouldn't think-as crazy about the Kelleys as I was-that I would have forgotten a single moment. But I had. This is how I discovered, for the very first time, the path that our friendship took. My hope is that my precious journey will bring you as close to meeting "the real McCoy" up close and personal as I was blessed to experience.

JACOB'S LADDER

In 1989 alone, for example, there were some forty-five major motion pictures which were sequels or part of a series. The film series phenomenon crosses all genres and has been around since the silent film era. This reference guide, in alphabetical order, lists some 906 English Language motion pictures, from 1899 to 1990, when the book was initially published. A brief plot description is given for each series entry, followed by the individual film titles with corresponding years, directors and performers. Animated pictures, documentaries and concert films are not included but movies released direct to video are.

Be they actors, comedians, singers, dancers, or talk show hosts and personalities, everyone from George Burns and Milton Berle to Jack Benny and Jackie Gleason to Sid Caesar and Caesar Romero ignited their own particular brand of “man-erisms.” In the process, they each inspired their own particular brand of audience to cheer them on—whatever their guise. This book will explore and celebrate the men who invented manliness, and became stars in the process.It also profiles such teenage heartthrobs as Leave it to Beaver's Tony Dow and The Partridge Family's David Cassidy, stars who left an indelible impression on a generation of young girls.