Monday, January 12, 2009

Alternate De, Cheers and Myrtle photo


Here's an alternate pose of DeForest posing with Cheers the Schnoodle, and Myrtle the turtle. Just adorable!

I found this photo in the August 24th 1968 edition of TV guide, accompanying an article entitled: "Where is the Welcome Mat?" (author not named)

The article begins with how the trade papers still, after two seasons of Star Trek, will list only Nimoy and Shatner as the stars. Kelley has had to fight for everything; a parking spot, an unshared dressing room, a line of dialogue after standing without a word for 12 pages.

The article goes on to describe Kelley as posessing a yankeeized soft Georgia accent, and "sounding remarkably like a testy David Brinkley. He is immensely popular with his fellow actors and crew and remembers the birthdays of the technicians children." A script girl's mother took ill and De was the first to send flowers. Kelley laughs at the thought of being a "teenage sex symbol" and his hobby is the tending of 59 rose bushes at his comfortable Sherman Oaks home. Continuing a Southern tradition, he cooks black-eyed peas with red-eyed gravy on New Year's Day for luck in the ensuing year. He cherishes the day when his name ran for the first time in a TV Guide crossword puzzle. His wife, Carolyn, clipped the page and framed it to hang on the wall. "It's not an Oscar or Emmy," says De Kelley, "but to an actor, it's something."

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this site, the pictures, and your devotion to the memory of a genuinely good man.

Bottom line, De was simply the best--he was the heart of 'Star Trek'. He was gracious, loving and humble, in spite of the way he was treated. It's no surprise that Majel Barrett said that Kelley's death was the most significant one that would ever happen to 'Star Trek', except for Gene Roddenberry's.

He reminds me of Sirach 44: 9-15(from the Roman Catholic Apocrypha). The chapter talks about famous men who earned praise from their peers during their lifetime and left impressive monuments and memorials.

Then it talks about people like the Kelleys, who lived quietly, genuinely cared about and for De's fans, created a loving community of close friends, and influenced many people to pursue careers in service of others:

9] And there are some who have no memorial,
who have perished as though they had not lived;
they have become as though they had not been born,
and so have their children after them.
[10] But these were men of mercy,
whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten;
[11] their prosperity will remain with their descendants,
and their inheritance to their children's children.
[12] Their descendants stand by the covenants;
their children also, for their sake.
[13] Their posterity will continue for ever,
and their glory will not be blotted out.
[14] Their bodies were buried in peace,
and their name lives to all generations.
[15] Peoples will declare their wisdom,
and the congregation proclaims their praise.

Me

J. Rosemary Moss said...

Beautifully put, Womanwarrior!

And what a beautiful post--I love the picture of De Kelley with Cheers and Myrtle. Thanks for sharing it!

~Rose

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Rose!

I love the pictures, too.

De looks like he was a lot of fun to be around.


Me

Lisa Hamner said...

Thank you, Womanwarrior!

Lisa Hamner said...

Thank you, Rose!