Benecia 75 Atlanta Convention
Interview with De and James Doohan in Atlanta. Transcript below.
Host: We’re already talking with DeForest Kelley and James Doohan, they’re in town for the Star Trek convention and it’s called Benecia ’75. It’s being held at the Sheraton Biltmore, and you must; I’ve gotta ask just straight out, do you just get sick of hearing about Star Trek?
James: Well as a matter of fact, no, because the fans really are fantastic! And it’s just uh, it’s great to be part of it. As I was saying to De a little while ag,o here we are, it’s a modern classic. And uh, you know, thirty years from now, I can assure you there will be Star Trek fans and um, my grandchildren will be watching and say, “Gee, that’s granddad!” you know…or, “That’s Grandda!”
Host: Yeah, that’s the way you say it, heh…but judging by the age of the co-chairma- [Cuts off here]
Host: Many, many fans, twenty, thirty years from now. But, you know, you look back on something like Batman, and you take Adam West’s career, how they identified him so much, I mean do people come up and call you doctor?
De: Yeah, we were talking about that on the way over here. Our careers have taken a peculiar twist. The first few years after Star Trek, we were not really affected career wise, so much. Until it really started to open up in syndication. And for some reason, I believe, uh, my feeling, I-I happen to know that we became very identified with the show. Leonard and Jimmy and I know that I am right there too. And I-I…it’s been kind of a hassle to shake off. It’s just really kind of beginning to shake off a bit for me now, now that we’re planning to do a motion picture.
Host: That is in the works as it’s already been written, part of it?
De: It’s being written now, and was turned in last week by Gene Roddenberry, so he’s at Paramount now.
Host: And he’s the original writer for Star Trek?
De: He was the creator, yes.
Host: The creator…now, how many…do you recall off hand how many episodes you did?
Host: And you participated in all of them?
James: Ah, see, the number has changed. I thought it was 75, somebody said 79, now it’s 78.
Host: I think you’re right, see now you know a real Trekkie would know right away, and say there were so many.
(?) They do, they know more than I do!
De: Is that right, Steve?
Host: See? He pry does more research than you did.
James: Well, some of them know every script by heart!
James: And I was just saying that when the movie comes out, six months afterwards, and maybe two months, maybe two weeks after, the uh…we are gonna run into people who know every line of the movie! And uh, they’re gonna have a million questions to ask us then, I said ‘we better be on our toes!’
Host: Now part of this convention will be people discussing Star Trek with you, right? So you’ll have to know a lot of answers…
De: Yes, this is one of many conventions that are being held all over the United States and Europe too. Jimmy has attended one it’s beginning in Europe now. He attended one in England, and is going to attend another in England. I attended one in, a mammoth one in New York a couple of years ago, I'd never seen anything like it. I think they had expected something like 8000 people, and they stopped registering people at 15,000. A total of 25,000 people showed up in New York and every mid-town hotel was packed. And these people range in age from 6 years old to 70. It’s kind of a wild thing, it’s just mushroomed into syndication.
Host: With all that interest in it, really, when it gets back to the time when it was canceled, what actually did happen there? Why was it canceled?
De: Well, I don’t know what Jimmy’s version, you hear so many different versions.
De: Uh, we, uh, we-we broke every fanmail record in the history of NBC in the second year. Oddly enough, you know who held it?
De: You think of all the people on television, The Monkees had the biggest fanmail write in and we broke their record in the second year. But we were never high in the ratings, the Nielsen rating. It never reflected that popularity.
James: We were big in the cities, what they call the 30 cities rating, but over the, uh, whole national rating, we just went right down to, like, number 55.
De: So that’s why it was dropped.
Host: That’s amazing. Then when it was dropped, there was a big national campaign to bring it back, right? I mean, literally hundreds of thousands of letters.
De: That’s right, that was at the end of the second year it was, and it was brought back the third year by mail.
Host: Now that’s never really happened that something’s been canceled and public demand has brought it back.
Host: As much as the television networks say they reflect the public taste, that has never actually happened.
James: Most of the people at NBC liked the show, but they also like ratings. Y’know, so what are you going to do? That’s uh, but now of course, they’re astounded but I’m sure that NBC will probably get first choice at putting it on the air when it’s uh…you know, is no longer a feature movie and becomes a television movie.
De: Well, Star Trek would’ve come back, but once it hit syndication, it became such a money maker that everyone eventually was paid off, you know, on the reruns, so it’s all gravy. So they’ve made a fortune in syndication.
Host: It’s still in about a hundred markets now, isn’t it?
De: Oh, more than that, more than that.
Host: Now, see people, that’s a lot of markets when you take something into syndication.
De: I think the last count was about a hundred sixty something markets.
Host: Probably that show, and probably Lawrence Welk shows are the two biggest syndicated successes.
De: It’s a phenomenal thing, and uh, it’s- no one really has a pure explanation for the popularity of that show.
Host: Now, when you go to the conventions, you say you’ve been to one, and you’ve been to one, does sometimes uh, Leonard Nimoy or, uh William Shatner…most of the cast participate?
De: Participate, yeah. Not only that, we also appear at universities. I was in New Orleans, end of April, at Tulane University, with Leonard, the college students all over the country are wild about it and we go there.
Host: Have you ever sat down and tried to analyze why it was so popular, or why like, James Dean is still popular and why Star Trek people are still enamored with Star Trek?
De: Well, I can give you my version, which is, you can take it for what it’s worth.
De: Everyone has a different idea about this, but my feeling is that it was a show that presented a positive attitude, and it did not have a negative viewpoint and I think the youth of America was ready to hope for something and this is the…kind of the life that they foresee. And as hackneyed as it might sound, what we might call the last frontier and um…uh, I believe it is, and I believe we’ve only begun, we’re just beginning to touch what’s out there. And this is the hope, this is the future for these young kids, it wakes them up.
James: I think it’s very appropriate, on July 4th, even though I’m a Canadian, but I have always lived on the border so I know quite a bit about the United States, but I think it’s very appropriate that because, really-this is the only country, in the world, that things can happen. Y’know, this is where it can happen and you see it happening, and it’s happening because of, uh, the rights that are allowed in this country. You’ll also, as you say, get things like Watergate but uh, you also get other things and they are starting to show, as De says, it’s the last frontier, but here you have the means.
Host: Right, and wasn’t part of Star Trek essentially, to showing how people of very differing types of background try to get along, and they had their problems and they either circumvented them or solved them or-
De: Right, I, I think of Star Trek too, and-and uh, was more or less a merchant of peace, rather than a merchant of arms. And I think this is deeply appealing to practically everyone.
Host: That’s been reflected, I guess, in the success of the animated version, too. It uh, I understand, talking to Steve that it did receive an Emmy in 1974 as one of the best children’s shows.
Host: So it had adventure and excitement, but it didn’t have that violence that parents criticize.
De: That’s right, that’s right, no violence really. Stun force.
James: Yeah, put it on stun.
Host: See, when you get those futuristic things, you can question whether something works like that. Now what, when you’re talking about the turns of your careers, uh, have you been doing mostly theater or television?
De: I’ve done some theater, and I’ve done very little television in the last year. I expect to do some when I get back. I’m going to do Patrick Shelly (?) and um, another show. But uh, hopefully, and talking to Roddenberry, he seems to expect to go rather quickly with this show.
Host: Most of the original cast?
De: Yes, they’re all here and available at this time.
Host: Have you ever found in your experience since Star Trek went off, do you feel a job hasn’t been offered to you that you would fit into the role very well because of your identification with Star Trek? Do you feel that?
James: Oh, yes, that’s uh, that definitely has happened to us.
De: It’s a good thing we saved our money.
Host: Now, your time has been taken up with what, uh, stage things, screen things…
James: Yes, stage and television, and I have been to, as you say, a lot of universities too. And uh, I’ve been to a lot of these Star Trek conventions.
Host: Was your training originally on the stage?
Host: Are you still going back to the old-
James: Well, I really prefer stage, but you just can’t make a living at it, if I could get 40 weeks work a year, on the stage, I would be delighted to have it. But uh, you can’t do it, you know, when you have children you just can’t make enough money on stage.
Host: It’s hard to uh…well, people aren’t going to the theater it seems, save Broadway.
James: Stage is for single people. Single actors!
Host: I’ll have to ask you, how many dependents must you support, do you have a large family?
James: I have four children and I have one grandchild.
Host: Well then, you have to keep working.
Host: Unless you can get your…they’re growing up though, get them out to work. Now, originally, you’re from here, right?
De: Yes, I started my stage career here.
Host: Well, do you recall your first show? What was your show here in Atlanta?
De: I appeared in…uh, no point in you know, trying to not date myself, because that’s obvious, but of course you have makeup on.
Host: Well see, I’m [unintelligible] and I don’t want them to know ten years from now that I’m over the hill.
De: I used to be with a little thing called…you’re doing alright…the Sunset Kiddie Club WSB, and I started there in radio as a child singer. And then I, it’s been so long ago I don’t know how it happened, but I won an engagement at the Paramount Theater here. And I did a week at the Paramount Theater with Lou Forbes, singing, so. My father was a minister, and we, uh, I lived all over Georgia. I lived in Woodville, and Conyers, and Athens, and all kinds of little places.
Host: Then when you say, when you worked at Paramount, how old were you, a teenager then?
Host: Did you aspire to be a singer then?
De: Well, I started in church, doing solo work, y’know, and duet work with my father, who was musically inclined, and it looked like I was heading in that direction through no choice of my own. Y’know, it was just falling into place. Then I went to California as a teenager, and I liked it so then I stayed. And I joined a little theater group in Long Beach just to meet some kids, you know, to…just to meet somebody.
Host: Let’s face it there’s always a cute girl at one of those.
De: I don’t have to tell you that. And then studios became interested in me, and it was all quite by accident. That’s the way it started.
Host: Right from Georgia.
Host: So you get back here fairly frequently?
De: I haven’t been back here now for about, I think it’s been about 4-5 years, I have a nephew here, Gene Kelley, I came back for his wedding, and I don’t know whether it was five years ago or four.
Host: Well his wife will know.
De: My memory is…is failing me.
Host: How did you gravitate down from Vancouver, James?
James: Well, I was born in Vancouver, lived there about six years, my father was moved east to a place called Sarnia, Ontario, which is a, uh…my father was a research chemist, and uh, worked for an oil company. Then when I was 19, I got into World War II, and when I came out, I was going back to college, I was going to go be a dentist! Then, all of a sudden, just like practically overnight, I was taking a drama school in Toronto, then six months later I had won a two-year scholarship to the neighborhood playhouse in New York City and the I taught there for 3 years after that, and before you know it I was hooked into the business. You know, I never had any great desire as a child to be an actor, you know, it’s…sometimes you just gravitate into these things and before you know it, you’re in, you’re hooked and that’s all you know.
Host: Well, and you’re accomplished in what you do, and you can’t change careers after you’ve been doing something fifty years.
James: Yes, but sometimes you look back and go “Well how did I get into this?”
De: I wanted to tell you how much I’ve been watching your show this morning and I think it’s delightful. And the chair and co-host are absolutely brilliant. And uh, the newsman, his name is Roy, I was sitting there, looking at him and you know, you remind me of Spock and McCoy. You’ve got your own [unintelligible].
Host: Thank you, thank you. We have our fun, and sometimes I think we have our-
De: He’s pretty tough to handle, isn’t he?
Host: Right, well he’s living in the future! Cause he doesn’t want to admit his past. But Jean tries to keep us together, but she’s about given up.
De: You’re a delightful trio.
Host: Well thank you very much, and I’m sure people are gonna find both of you very interesting and very agreeable and lots of fun. For the next three days starting today, the Sheraton Biltmore, uh, that’s the Star Trek convention and it’s titled Benicia 75. And DeForest Kelley and James Doohan will be there. In fact, registration starts at around 11 o’clock, there will be all kinds of films, even some Star Trek bloopers I understand!
Host: In all the good ways.
De: They’re really worth seeing, heh.
Host: Thanks for coming, I hope you both have a really nice day in Atlanta, it was really a pleasure. We’re gonna take a quick break, stick with us.
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