| 19th | Top fictional scientists and engineers |
 DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy in "Shore Leave" (1967) |
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| Species | Human |
|---|---|
| Home planet | Earth |
| Affiliation | United Federation of Planets Starfleet |
| Posting | Chief Medical Officer, USS Enterprise and USS Enterprise-A |
| Rank | Lieutenant commander Commander Admiral |
| Portrayed by | DeForest Kelley (1966-1991) Karl Urban (2009) |
Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy is a character in the Star Trek media franchise.[1] First portrayed by DeForest Kelley in the original Star Trek series, McCoy also appears in the animated Star Trek series, seven Star Trek movies, the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and in numerous books, comics, and video games.[2] Karl Urban assumed the role of the character in the 2009 Star Trek film.[3]
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McCoy was born in 2227,[2] attended the University of Mississippi,[2] and is a divorcé.[4] In 2266, McCoy was posted as chief medical officer of the USS Enterprise under Captain James T. Kirk.[2] McCoy and Kirk are good friends, even "brotherly".[5] The passionate, sometimes cantankerous McCoy frequently argues with Kirk's other confidante, science officer Spock,[1] and occasionally is bigoted toward Spock's Vulcan heritage.[6] McCoy often plays the role of Kirk's conscience, offering a counterpoint to Spock's logic.[1] McCoy is suspicious of technology,[7] especially the transporter;[2] as a physician, he prefers less intrusive treatment and believes in the body's innate recuperative powers.[1] The character's nickname, "Bones", is a play on sawbones, an epithet for physicians.[8]
Kirk orders McCoy's commission reactivated in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979);[2] a resentful McCoy complains of being "drafted".[9] Spock transfers his katra—his knowledge and experience—into McCoy's mind before dying in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982).[2] This causes mental anguish for McCoy, who in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) helps restore Spock's katra to his reanimated body.[2] McCoy joins Kirk's crew aboard the USS Enterprise-A at the end of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).[2] In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), McCoy and Kirk escape from a Klingon prison world, and the Enterprise crew stops a plot to prevent peace between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire.[2] Kelley reprised the role for the "Encounter at Farpoint" pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), accepting the minimum Screen Actors Guild payment for his appearance.[10] DeForest Kelley's 1999 death led to a DC Comics story chronicling McCoy's death.[citation needed]
In the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Survivor", McCoy mentions he has a daughter. Chekov's friend Irina in the original series episode "The Way to Eden" was originally written as Dr. McCoy's daughter Joanna, but changed before the episode was shot.[11]
In the 2009 Star Trek film, which takes place in an "alternate, parallel" reality,[12] McCoy and Kirk become friends at Starfleet Academy, which McCoy joins after a divorce that he says "left [him] nothing but [his] bones." This was used to explain McCoy's nickname of "Bones," since "sawbones" is no longer current slang for a medical doctor. McCoy later helps get Kirk posted aboard the USS Enterprise.
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had worked with Kelley on previous television pilots,[13] and Kelley was Roddenberry's first choice to play the doctor aboard the USS Enterprise.[14] However, for the rejected pilot "The Cage" (1964), Roddenberry went with director Robert Butler's choice of John Hoyt to play Dr. Philip Boyce.[15] For the second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (1966), Roddenberry accepted director James Goldstone's decision to have Paul Fix play Dr. Mark Piper.[16] Although Roddenberry wanted Kelley to play the character of ship's doctor, he didn't put Kelley's name forward to NBC; the network never "rejected" the actor as Roddenberry sometimes suggested.[14]
Kelley's first broadcast appearance as Doctor Leonard McCoy was in "The Man Trap" (1966). Despite his character's prominence, Kelley's contract granted him only a "featuring" credit; it was not until the second season that he was given "starring" credit, at the urging of producer Robert Justman.[17] Kelley was apprehensive about Star Trek's future, telling Roddenberry that the show was "going to be the biggest hit or the biggest miss God ever made".[5] Kelley portrayed McCoy throughout the original Star Trek series and voiced the character in the animated Star Trek.[1]
Kelley, who in his youth wanted to become a doctor,[18] in part drew upon his real-life experiences in creating McCoy: a doctor's "matter-of-fact" delivery of news of Kelley's mother's terminal cancer was the "abrasive sand" Kelley used in creating McCoy's demeanor.[19] Star Trek writer D. C. Fontana said that while Roddenberry created the series, Kelley essentially created McCoy; everything done with the character was done with Kelley's input.[5] The work itself was "grueling" for Kelley.[20]
"Exquisite chemistry" among Kelley, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy manifested itself in their performances as McCoy, Captain James T. Kirk and science officer Spock, respectively.[21] Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura, referred to Kelley as her "sassy gentleman friend";[21] the friendship between the African-American Nichols and Southern Kelley was a real-life demonstration of the message Roddenberry hoped to convey through Star Trek.[21]
For the 2009 prequel film Star Trek, writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman saw McCoy as an "arbiter" in Kirk and Spock's relationship.[22] While Spock represented "extreme logic, extreme science" and Kirk symbolized "extreme emotion and intuition", McCoy's role as "a very colorful doctor, essentially a very humanistic scientist" represented the "two extremes that often served as the glue that held the trio together."[22] They chose to reveal McCoy befriended Kirk first, explaining the "bias" in their friendship and why he would often be a "little dismissive" of Spock.[22] Urban said the script was "very faithful" to the original character, including the "great compassion for humanity and that sense of irascibility" with which Kelley imbued the character.[23] Urban trained with a dialect coach to create McCoy's accent.[23]
McCoy is someone to whom Kirk unburdens himself and is a foil to Spock.[17] Grace Lee Whitney, who played Yeoman Janice Rand, described McCoy as Kirk's "friend, personal bartender, confidante, counselor and priest".[24] Urban said McCoy has a "sense of irascibility with real passion for life and doing the right thing", and that "Spock's logic and McCoy's moral standing gave Kirk the benefit of having three brains instead of just one."[25] Jennifer Porter and Darcee McLaren wrote that McCoy is an "unintentional"[6] example of how "irrational prejudices and fixations, wishful thinking and emotional reasoning, denial and repression, and unresolved neurotic disturbances" compromise "scientific rationality" in Star Trek.[26]
Kelley said that his greatest thrill at Star Trek conventions was the number of people who told him they entered the medical profession because of the McCoy character.[27]
The Guardian called Urban's performance of McCoy an "unqualified success",[28] and The New York Times called the character "wild eyed and funny".[29] Slate.com said Urban came closer than the other actors to impersonating a character's original depiction.[30]
McCoy frequently declares someone or something deceased with the line, "He's dead", "He's dead, Jim", or something similar; the phrase is considered a catchphrase of the character.[31][32][33] The line has entered popular culture as a general metaphor, with uses as diverse as descriptions of an unresponsive electronic circuit,[34] an example of how to add an audio file to function as an alert sound in a computer system,[35] and an illustrative quote regarding how to know if one's opponent has been destroyed in an action hero game.[36] MIT Literature Professor Henry Jenkins cited Dr. McCoy's "He's dead, Jim" line as an example of fans actively participating in the creation of an underground culture in which they derive pleasure by repeating memorable lines as part of constructing new mythologies and alternative social communities.[37] Kelley joked that the line would appear on his tombstone.[33]
Another of Star Trek's catchphrases is McCoy's recurring "I'm a doctor, not a(n)..." statements.[38] He says this in a number of episodes when he must perform some task beyond his medical skills, such as the "classic moment" when he is confronted with the unusual silicon-based Horta alien in "Devil in the Dark" (1967), saying, "I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer."[39] Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and The Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager both use variations of the line, which has also made its way into many others shows such as Doctor Who,[40] Stargate Atlantis[41], Robot Chicken [42] and Friends. DeForest Kelley himself parodied the phrase for a Trivial Pursuit commercial ("How should I know? I'm an actor, not a doctor")[citation needed] and on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In ("I'm not a doctor, I'm a convicted murderer").[citation needed]
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Star Trek collectively refers to an American science-fiction franchise spanning six unique television series (which comprise 726 episodes) and eleven feature films, in addition to hundreds of novels, computer and video games, fan stories, and other works of fiction — all of which are set within the same fictional universe created by Gene Roddenberry during the mid-1960s. Since its debut, Star Trek has become one of the most popular names in the history of science fiction entertainment, and one of the most popular franchises in television history.
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This is a disambiguation page; that is, one that points to other pages that might otherwise have the same name. If you followed a link here, you might want to go back and fix that link to point to the appropriate specific page.
  | IMDB segment about the Doctor - "Star Trek: Voyager" (1995) - Trivia |
| | Karl Urban Confirmed as the new Leonard "Bones" McCoy - TrekWeb.com - Karl Urban Confirmed as the New Leonard "Bones" McCoy |
| | Leonard McCoy - Leonard McCoy - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki |
| | "Encounter at Farpoint" - "Star Trek: The Next Generation" Encounter at Farpoint (1987) |
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