I’m no longer a spring chicken and, although I plan to live a great deal longer, there are no guarantees.

 

So, recently, I have been thinking of what will become of my Kelley archives and treasures: the many things the Kelleys had me choose from the always-arriving sample boxes that Paramount’s Consumer Products department sent them, plus the sixty-plus items of De’s clothing that I chose for myself (with his blessing before he passed away) OR that I boxed up and squirreled away when Carolyn told me she couldn’t face going back home and finding De’s clothes still in his closet. She knew De had invited his closest friends over to take what they wanted, but there were still items that no one had taken. She asked me to choose more and then donate, or toss, whatever was left.

 

I said I would.

 

But when it came to donating or tossing them after I had selected a few more items, I just couldn’t. I had seen him in most of them — even had pictures of him in many of them — and it felt like a second death to consign them to anonymity or the trash bin! So, I stored the rest away.

 

 

It wasn’t until years later that I opened the bins again (there were two of them) and peeked inside. The scent of the Kelley home wafted out and threw me back into their lives and home. I have kept them closed ever since, to keep the aroma intact as much as possible.  I have not washed them, for fear of eradicating the scent. I have not hung them up. They have just been sitting in bins.

 

And it occurred to me that they will end up being anonymously donated upon my death unless I do something with them NOW.  So, I decided to make a way for De’s most committed fans to get some of them. I don’t want to contact Sotheby’s auctions: I want these pieces to go to fans without having to pay an arm and  a leg for them.  I want people like me, on limited incomes or with student loans, who would love to have something that De owned and wore.

 

So, I teamed up with Heidi Smith, who is dear friend and an old hand at ebay, to “make it so.”  She has been working hard to create a site that shows you what’s available and for how much.

 

Naturally, the iconic clothes — the ones he wore on stage at conventions, or to receive his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,  and the infamous blue-and-white striped shirt (the signed one) are NOT going for peanuts, if I can bear to part with them at all.  If I can’t get what I believe those are worth, I will definitely keep them.

 

But the rest of the bunch (including another unsigned blue and white striped shirt) — his workaday clothes (some with holes in them from catching them on rose bushes, some with stained collars or armpits from working hard, etc. even though they were washed whenever he got them dirty) will be affordable for MOST Kelley fans.  And the ones that don’t sell, I will find homes for among the De fans I know who are on such limited incomes that there is no way they could buy something.

 

Our goal (Heidi’s and mine) is to get these treasures into the hands and homes of people who will truly cherish them for years before they decide to do something like this to pass them along to, if they too have no one in their family who’s as much a De fan as they are.

 

I also have literally hundreds of Kelley 8 x 10’s (some of them signed) and some smaller images that have been out of circulation for a very long time. I’m not sure how we’ll handle those yet, but I will know pretty soon and let you know. I also have historical career items (reviews from Variety of many of his earliest motion pictures, newspaper clippings from various states, magazines, etc.) to find homes for…

 

I need to start down-sizing if I’m going to be moving to Costa Rica or a smaller abode before I croak. Now’s the time to start, and I’ve decided to start with the Kelley stuff because I deeply care about where they will end up if I don’t get pro-active about finding them their next homes.

 

If you’re interested, the link to the auction page (the first ten items — mugs, plates and action figures that De and Carolyn gave me) will go live on Thursday and the website URL to direct you to the auction will be DeForestKelleyCollectionDOTcom.