Movies - TV
The Failed Gene Roddenberry Show That Got DeForest Kelley His Star Trek Role
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
In 1960, DeForest Kelley appeared on "Alcoa Theater," an hour-long anthology drama series that featured new characters every week, in the episode "333 Montgomery Street."
Initially intended to be a pilot for a legal TV series, the show wasn't picked up and the pilot was repurposed. The episode was written by "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry.
In Kelley’s 1986 interview for "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," he talked about "333 Montgomery Street" and how it put him in Roddenberry's orbit.
Roddenberry and Kelley worked together for the first time on "333 Montgomery Street" in 1960, and then again in a pilot for another unsold TV series called "Police Story."
"Police Story" may have tanked, but the fact that Kelley was playing a kindly, decent character instead of nasty guys got the studio's attention as it proved the actor's range.