DeForest Kelley was born in Atlanta Georgia January 20, 1920. He graduated from highschool at 16 and went on to sing at the church where his father was a baptist minister.At seventeen he made his first trip outside the state to visit an uncle in Long Beach California, he intended to stay for 2 weeks but ended up staying a year. Upon returning home he told his parents he was moving to California to become an actor . His mother encouraged him but the idea didn't go over well with his father. In California Kelley was spotted by a Paramount scout while doing a Navy Training film. He went on acting in many westerns and eventually played the role of Dr. Leonard McCoy which changed his life forever.
Before landing the role of Dr. McCoy, he was offered the choice to play Mr. Spock. Is one of only 32 actors or actresses to have starred in both the original Star Trek up to and including Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and then in one of the spin offs. He was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. Made both his first ('The Corbomite Manoeuvre') and last (_Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)_) 'Star Trek' appearances with Nichelle Nichols. Shortly before his death he won the "Golden Cowboy Boot" award, honoring his earlier work in westerns. Played one of the Earp brothers in the film "Gunfight At OK Corral" and faced the Earps in an episode of Star Trek. Also played Ike Clanton in episode "The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" on "You Are There" (1953). Was the only original Star Trek cast member never to write an autobiography. The Star Trek: Enterprise character, Admiral Maxwell Forrest played by Vaughn Armstrong, is named after him. Of the four main Star Trek cast members (the others being William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and James Doohan), he is the only one who never appeared in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. or The Outer Limits. Reportedly disliked doing the animated Star Trek series because he was never recording his lines at the same time as William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. Kelley did not like this because he never got to interact with them and develop any rapport, which made reading his lines all the more difficult. He told close friends that he always felt more comfortable in westerns then he did in science fiction. Was the first primary cast member from Star Trek to pass away. A veteran of television and film Westerns, Kelley has portrayed two different participants in the legendary 1881 OK Corral gunfight between the Earps and the Clantons. In 1955, he played Ike Clanton in an episode of the TV show "You Are There," and in 1957, he played Morgan Earp in the film "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral." Shortly after Mr. Kelley's passing, "He's dead, Jim" was forever memorialized by being added in tribute to Dr. McCoy for two 1999 video games. "StarCraft: Brood War Expansion" and "Shatner-oids" a spoof of the classic Atari game "Asteroids". The tagline "I'm a doctor, not a..." has been quoted in almost every incarnation of Star Trek on film and television.