FROM SAWDUST TO STARDUST The Biography of DeForest Kelley, Star Trek’s Dr. McCoy

A book by TERRY LEE RIOUX

THIS IS A DeFOREST KELLEY BOOK – NOT A STAR TREK ONE!

A review from Anne Richardson

I am the former president of DeForest Kelley’s Australian fan club, as some of you may know. I am very sorry to read reviews that seem dedicated to kicking the author of FROM SAWDUST TO STARDUST in the teeth. I read and enjoyed the book immensely. I feel it is an essential compliment to Kristine M Smith’s captivating personal history with DeForest Kelley (DeFOREST KELLEY: A HARVEST OF MEMORIES). Any true Kelley fan will need both books to fully encapsulate a three-dimensional picture of the man, and redundancy of material is non-existent between the two books except in instances where Smith’s book is quoted by Rioux’s. The two books cannot be compared – they are like apples and oranges – but they enhance each other wonderfully and both enchanted me, but in different ways.

SAWDUST is well researched, thoughtful and methodical and tells so much of Kelley’s earlier history that it reveals a different man behind the one that I, along with so many others, knew and loved. I enjoyed Smith’s book ‘more’ only because it detailed De personally as a friend, mentor and morale booster, and so for me, of the two books, HARVEST was the “I can’t put this down” page turner adventure. Rioux’s book is more scholarly and reveals the fact that not only McCoy, but Kelley himself, was a Healer of truly mythological proportions. I know De better and love him even more as a result of having read SAWDUST and HARVEST.

Those wishing for a preponderance of STAR TREK reflections may be disappointed, as seems to be the case with some of the reviews given the book. But anyone wishing to know the man himself, aside from TREK – how he lived, interacted with others and what kind of legacy he left to his friends and fans alike should find these books to be “just what the doctor ordered”.