Dr. McCoy of ‘Star Trek’ finally makes it to real outer space, thanks to Tacoma super fan

Tacoma resident Kris M. Smith has never met an extraterrestrial but she does have her own man-from-outer-space story.

It began when “Star Trek’s” Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy landed at the Apple Blossom Festival in Wenatchee in 1968 and it ended in 1999 when veteran actor DeForest Kelley, who played the character, died with Smith at his bedside.

But, as it is so often in the “Star Trek” franchise, there’s a sequel.

Later this year, Kelley’s DNA will blast into outer space along with other fellow deceased “Star Trek” actors’ remains, thanks to a lock of hair that Smith clipped from the actor at his widow’s urging.

Apple Festival

Smith, a Tacoma native, was an introverted student at Cle Elum High School in the mid-1960s when she became a fan of the science fiction TV series. “Star Trek” was considered groundbreaking for creator Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future as well as a racially diverse cast.

Smith found Kelley’s portrayal of Dr. McCoy relatable and when she learned he was making an appearance at the Apple Festival she traveled to meet him on May 4, 1968.

Kelley arrived by car, not in the starship Enterprise.

“He was just such a dear, dear man,” Smith said of the meeting. “Like salt of the earth kind of guy.”

Smith wrote a story on her celebrity meeting for her creative writing class. Her teacher urged her to send it to Kelley. She never expected a response back.

She got one almost immediately.

Kelley sent Smith’s story to a New York-based magazine for publication, where it was quickly accepted.

“That was the beginning of my writing career,” Smith said.

Smith took up a brief correspondence with Kelley but quit after Smith’s mother told her to stop bothering the busy actor.

Reconnected

Smith joined her family’s restaurant development business and traveled the country in the 1970s. Though she was still a “Star Trek” fan, she concentrated on work. She even missed the reboot of the franchise in 1979 when the first “Star Trek” motion picture came out with the original cast, including Kelley.

It wasn’t until a “Star Trek” 20th anniversary convention in Spokane in 1986 when she met Kelley again. He remembered her.

“What happened to you?” Kelley asked Smith.

From that point forward, Kelley and his wife Carolyn, took an interest in Smith.

“They didn’t just disappear from my life,” Smith said. “They stayed involved and kept encouraging me.”

At the couple’s urging, Smith moved to Hollywood in 1988. Kelley helped her with housing and work.

“It was just something no fan would ever believe could happen,” Smith said of her friendship with Kelley.

In the late 1990s, Kelley was diagnosed with cancer and Smith became more crucial to the couple. Smith’s boss at Warner Bros. studio, where she worked as a secretary, gave her time off to assist Kelley.

“The last month of his life I was pretty much there all the time,” Smith said. He died June 11, 1999. The lock of hair that is central to Kelley’s trip to space was procured that day.

“Mrs. Kelley asked me to take a couple of locks after he passed away because she wanted something that was physical from him and so I got a lock and she got a lock,” Smith said.

Closer to space

In the years that followed, Smith wrote a memoir on her friendship with Kelley, “DeForest Kelley Up Close and Personal: A Harvest of Memories from the Fan Who Knew Him Best” and moved back to Tacoma in 2004, where she now works as a freelance copywriter.

Meanwhile, the gap between fiction and reality in space travel has narrowed. Commercial space companies have entered what was once the sole province of NASA and other government agencies.

Some Trekkers, as “Star Trek” fans are sometimes referred to, became major players in business. Paul Allen, the late Microsoft co-founder and Seahawks owner, named his development company Vulcan, after the the Roman god of fire — and the fictional home planet of “Star Trek’s” half alien/half human first officer, Mr. Spock.

NASA named its space shuttle prototype “Enterprise” and in 2021 “Star Trek” actor William Shatner spent a few minutes weightless aboard Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket, becoming the oldest person to reach space at age 90.

One last trip to the final frontier

In August, Celestis Inc., a company that engineers memorial payload launches into space, announced it would be sending up “Star Trek” actress Nichelle Nichols’ ashes and her DNA. Nichols died in July.

Also scheduled to be onboard The “Enterprise Flight” are the ashes or DNA of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, actor James “Scotty” Doohan, special effects guru Douglas Trumbull and others in 150 flight capsules.

“And I thought Dr. McCoy should be on that mission,” Smith said. “And I realized I had a lock of his hair.”

Smith contacted a friend who is acquainted with Celestis management and the company quickly agreed. Smith sent half of her lock to the company.

Although it’s still not scheduled, the rocket will launch later this year, Celestis said in a statement.

United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket will first deliver a payload that will land on the moon and then place the Star Trek crew into a solar orbit in interplanetary space. The payload will then be named “Enterprise Station”.

Transporter

In the “Star Trek” series Kelley, in character as McCoy, often expressed his dislike for the ship’s transporter which dematerialized people into energy and then rematerialized them unharmed — usually — on a planet’s surface.

“I signed aboard this ship to practice medicine, not to have my atoms scattered back and forth across space by this gadget,” McCoy says in one episode.

Now, Kelley and Dr. McCoy will finally get to the final frontier with 21st century technology and without that troublesome equipment.

“He’s bypassing the transporter entirely this way,” Smith said.