How Did Deforest Kelley Make A Living During the 70s?

[Nuveena]

Reading this thread was a relief. I was reading Kelley's Wikipedia bio last night- it gives a pretty bleak portrait of his post-Trek work (Night of the Lepus, "de facto retired from acting," etc.) and life before his death. So I get the impression from this thread- what I can decipher as being likely true, anyways- is that De made a comfortable living off of a Trek pension, conventions, personal pursuits, the occasional Star Trek movie, or money from his earlier acting work. Not a bad life, I'd say.

Still sucks he was so badly typecast, he was a talented man.

 

[Bad Atom]

I think it's ironic that he was originally typecast as the "heavy" in Westerns, which almost prevented him from being on Trek in the first place.

 

[Noname Given]

In a related note, I remember reading a bio piece on Shatner that said TOS allowed him to buy a sports car. After TOS, he wound up LIVING in that car for a time, since he couldn't find work.

Somehow that just seems wrong. But that was the Hollywood system back then (no residuals and such as they exist today).

Well, to be fair, he lived in his car because his wife divorced him near the end of the series (she was tired of him being gone 18 hours a day - even though he WAS working during thise hours) and took the kids; and in those days, with the kids in tow, the wife usually got WAY MORE than 50%. It's said she got the house, the majority of Shatner's savings, and even part of his retirement fund.

 

[Botany Bay]

I have read that Deforest Kelley semiretired from acting after Star Trek ended in 1969, and that he started writing poetry.

But how did he make a living until TMP in 1979?

Doing dinner theatre, collecting unemployment benefits and convention appearances.

He was an incredibly lovely guy, and his friends have speculated he was deeply hurt by the ending of TOS, just as he'd finally begun to have some success. His world was his wife, and she made sure that they squirreled away the money from the good times.

I cannot tell you how much I regret never getting to meet this man, he is proof that you don't have to walk all over people and backstab your way to success in life. There's a great book about De called "From Sawdust to Stardust" and this thread has inspired me to go read it again