20-Something DeForest Kelley, Long Beach CA 1940’s
This week’s #DeForestKelley Tuesday Teaser Question is “What message did #DeForestKelley leave on Kris’s voicemail machine in response to a #StarTrek-centric outgoing message that she put on her phone?” Join the fun at http://on.fb.me/1TJWDHp before January 8th to learn more!
How DeForest Kelley Helped Save Two Worlds (No, Really!)
The first time DeForest Kelley helped save the real world, he wasn’t yet 25 years old. The second time he helped save the #StarTrek world, he was older & bolder.
Not many years before the final curtain brought DeForest Kelley’s life to a close, he spent some quality time sharing his wartime military adventures with Ron Reagan Jr. in a documentary, Hollywood at War. Truthful to the bone, De shared with Reagan that part of his job as an Army Air Corpsman during World War II was producing and appearing in Navy training films to show servicemen how to survive plane crashes, keep them from inadvertently divulging military secrets to civilian spies (“loose lips sink ships”), avoid sexually-transmitted diseases, and more. After mentioning the STD film to Reagan, he grinned and admitted, on camera, that the STD one was designed to scare the daylights out of romantically-inclined military men, but then confessed, “It sure scared me—but then you’d get a few beers in you, and sometimes you’d forget!”
After the war, Kelley heard from veterans who wrote to tell him that the films which his military band of brothers had produced were instrumental in keeping them alive and well.
One little-known fact is that DeForest Kelley was an accomplished sketch artist, which is how he ended up getting transferred from Roswell, New Mexico (where he was an air traffic controller on base and ostensibly in line to become a tail gunner) to Culver City. In Culver City, he was engaged in a top secret mission—built inside a gigantic sound stage—to re-create a massive topographical relief map of Japan. The map was constructed so cameras could be flown over it to show airmen what Japan would look like as they approached it in their planes. Part of Kelley’s job was painting this realistic super map. The result was so genuine-looking that airmen who were trained using it said that when they flew over the actual Japanese terrain that it depicted, it seemed as if they had been there many times before; the approach almost seemed routine. They knew exactly where they were and where they needed to be to deliver their payloads.
Forty-some years later, DeForest Kelley saved another world—this time involving hundreds of fans who had flown to or gathered in Houston to attend an all-hands-on-deck cast members #StarTrek convention. There were just a few problems: the convention organizers hadn’t taken in enough money to pay the celebrities’ appearance fees, fans were unceremoniously (erroneously) shooed from their hotel rooms, and all hell broke loose.
When the Trek celebrities arrived, they were confronted by panicked, frantic fans. Some of the celebrities wanted to fly home; “no pay, no appearance”. Not Kelley. He felt worse for the fans than he did for himself or anyone else. He fully recognized and honored the people who were ultimately responsible for his paychecks—Star Trek fans—so he approached producer Harve Bennett (who he knew had clout with the government, the military, and the powers-that-be at Paramount), explained the situation, and said (according to Bennett’s memory) “’You’ve got to do something!’ We did something—and became friends for what I know is life. DeForest Kelley is a really great guy!”
Bennett arranged rooms for the exiled fans. But that was just the beginning. De had to convince some of the other stars to stay and play without pay. And because there was no program, per se, De and Harve took over and emceed the entire event. Gratis. Because that’s just the kind of men they were.
Harve Bennett ever after referred to this particular Houston convention as The Con of Wrath, but he was well aware that they saved the day for Star Trek fans who would have been left high and dry, holding the bag otherwise.
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Note: If you attended the Houston “Con of Wrath” and find anything in this article that doesn’t ring true, please reach out to Kris (email address below) right away to let her know. She heard a snippet of this story from Harve Bennett at DeForest Kelley’s star ceremony and more from a volunteer who attended the convention and heard the back room negotiations between Kelley and other stars, but there might be additional information that’s missing. I can include it in an updated version, if you’ll let me know what it is.
