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"Oh Lucifer!
Oh! Laisse-moi rien qu'une fois
Glisser mes doigts dans les cheveux d'Esmeralda"
--"Belle", Notre Dame de Paris

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*needs a new sig, but hasn't run across anything good*

However, when we look back on his years as Leonard McCoy and his one liners, it could only make you smile.

"God damn it, I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker"

RIP Mr Kelley, and thank you for all you have given us.

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The public has spoken. Common sense has prevailed. We have been returned what was wrongly taken away from us. All hail COCO POPS!!

But although everyone dies, not everyone leaves behind as powerful a legacy as De, and only a lucky few are missed by so many around the world.

Flags at half-mast then, and let's remember his irreplacable contribution to Trekdom.

Rest in peace, dear Bones.

*bows head*

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"Everything I needed to learn in life I learned from Optimus Prime."

Rule #2 : No matter how evil your enemy is always show him mercy when he attempts to surrender.

Dammit Jim, I�m a corpse, not an actor:

that�s how my friend the Dark Chef broke the news. Given the Chef's catastrophic health problems - the man has seen the black blade of the Reaper pass over his head a few times, only to bounce back with his cheer and spirit redoubled - I thought he was referring to himself. But he was talking about Bones, McCoy, DeForest Kelley.

This was not a death that took the Trek world by surprise, since everyone knew he was frail, riven by the mortal fissure for many years. I think he was a smoker, one of those devotees of unfiltered gaspers - in which case 79 is an accomplishment, and we salute him. I remember reading some article - TV Guide, perhaps, an interview done during the original Star Trek years. He was photographed in his living room, grinning that crooked sardonic smile. It was not a warm smile, but you suspected the man behind it was kinder than the smile suggested. Some people have great smiles that mask their personality; his didn�t seem to do his personality justice. I may be wrong; I'd like to be right.

Anyway, he was sitting in his living room, surrounded by ghastly modern art, wearing a neck scarf from the Jack Lord collection of fey affectations, wife beside him, talking about his passion: roses. He said the usual kind words about the fans and the show, and the reader - however devout - must have known he being kind, since the stars of these shows never quite grasp the object of the fan�s devotion with the same fervor as the fan. They�re like these odd gods who have a dim idea that a religion has been organized around them. They appreciate the attention, they like the offerings, but please, let�s not sacrifice any goats.

When Star Trek went off the air I was bereft: this was the end. And I watched for all appearances of the actors on other shows. Bones did a Friday night drama a few months after Trek went off, and of course I watched it. You expected him to be, well, him; you wanted the actor to acknowledge his old character, inhabit it again. In fact you invested in the actor characteristics and qualities he didn�t have. That�s natural when you�re a kid, I suppose; you know grown-ups are all acting, but they�re acting roles in which they believe, roles that say something true about their essential character. As a kid one of my favorite shows was �My World and Welcome To It,� based on the work of James Thurber. I invested William Windom with all the Thurber qualities I gleaned from the books. (I missed the most essential Thurberian qualities, since I was only 12.) That Windom should intersect with Trek in my favorite all-time episode - well, you could ask for no more. (To this day when I see that episode, something in the back of my head says �this is the episode where Thurber is driven mad by a giant steel cornucopia.�) Likewise Bones. As an adult, you feel for these fellows, typecast forever, but acting is a job; jobs mean money; Trek wasn�t just the wagon train to the stars, but the gravy train to the bank. DeForrest Kelley was in six movies that made a lot of money, and was loved by millions for one role only. Every ordinary good actor should be so lucky.

This is the point where people drag out their own memory of meeting the fellow. I met him in Washington, DC at the press conference for the Smithsonian Trek exhibit. He was frail then. He grinned broadly, a wrecked wrinkly grin that now fit his ruined what-the-hell face. The only thing I said to him was �thank you,� because really, when you edit the fan�s fervor down to its hottest essence, that�s what it should be about. It�s not about how much we love them - they know that, and if they�re smart it probably frightens them a little. It�s about what they did that made us love them. Thanks.

I�ve no doubt that the Zipper - the electronic news ticker in Times Square - said �STAR TREK BONES DEAD AT 79.� In 70 years, will it announce the expiration of the kid who played the Darth-to-be in Episode One? For that matter, would it announce the death of Riker in 40 years? No; DeForrest Kelley had a certain critical-mass celebrity that might not be possible nowadays. His character was forged in the days of network hegemony, and stayed around long enough to exploit every new iteration of mass media. This is an odd point in cultural history: every single demographic bracket is split up, catered to, cossetted, reinforced.

But everyone knows who Bones McCoy was. Everyone.