10 Star Trek Actors Who Suffered From Typecasting

At this point, it might seem like we have something against the actors of The Original Series. The unfortunate reality is that the "curse" or "double-edged consequence" of being in Star Trek, as The New York Times phrased it in 1991, affected (certain) members of its very first cast the most.

DeForest Kelley's career is a tale of two halves. Having got his start as one of the leads in the 1947 film Fear in the Night, he went on to appear in several other films and TV shows before landing the legendary role of Doctor Leonard McCoy. After 1969, what the New York Times' piece further qualified as the "lifetime Starfleet commission" of typecasting befell Kelley, who didn't work much at all outside of Star Trek until his untimely death in 1999.

The other edge of that allegorical sword was the beginnings of fandom as we know it today in the late 1960s and into the 1970s. With that, Kelley also managed to make a living from appearances at Star Trek conventions. Moreover, for a man who had wanted to be a doctor in the real world, but whose family could not afford to send him to medical school, Kelley inspired many through his fictional physician to take up the profession, a fact he was rightly proud of. That's a fine way to be typecast, after all.