Leonard McCoy

Dr. Leonard H. McCoy, known as "Bones", is a character in the American science-fiction franchise Star Trek. McCoy was played by actor DeForest Kelley in the original Star Trek series from 1966 to 1969, and he also appears in the animated Star Trek series, in six Star Trek films, in the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and in numerous books, comics, and video games. A decade after Kelley's death, Karl Urban assumed the role of McCoy in the Star Trek reboot film in 2009.

McCoy was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2227. The son of David McCoy, he attended the University of Mississippi and is a divorcé. McCoy later married Natira, the priestess of Yonada, as recounted in the episode "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky". In 2266, McCoy was posted as chief medical officer of the USS Enterprise under Captain James T. Kirk, who often calls him "Bones". McCoy and Kirk are good friends, even "brotherly". The passionate, sometimes cantankerous McCoy frequently argues with Kirk's other confidant, science officer Spock, and occasionally is annoyed by Spock's Vulcan heritage. McCoy often plays the role of Kirk's conscience, offering a counterpoint to Spock's logic. McCoy is suspicious of technology, especially the transporter. As a physician, he prefers less intrusive treatment and believes in the body's innate recuperative powers. The nickname "Bones" – chosen before the character was named – is a play on sawbones, a 19th century epithet for a surgeon. In the 2009 Star Trek film reboot, when McCoy first meets Kirk, he complains that his ex-wife took all their shared assets following their divorce: "All I got left is my bones", implying this was the origin of the nickname.

When Kirk orders McCoy's commission reactivated in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979); a resentful McCoy complains of being "drafted". Spock transfers his katra—his knowledge and experience—into McCoy before dying in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). 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. McCoy continues to serve on Kirk's crew aboard the captured Klingon ship in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), McCoy (through the intervention of Spock's half-brother Sybok) reveals that he helped his father commit suicide to relieve him of his pain. Shortly after the suicide, a cure was found for his father's disease, and McCoy had carried the guilt about it with him until Sybok's intervention.

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. Kelley reprised the role for the "Encounter at Farpoint" pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), insisting upon no more than the minimum Screen Actors Guild payment for his appearance. McCoy had attained the rank of admiral in the Trek timeline when this episode was aired, and he is stated to be 137 years of age. He went on to become chief of Starfleet Medical, with a special rank known as branch admiral. The fictional book Comparative Alien Physiology was written by McCoy, and was required reading at the Starfleet Medical Academy through the 2370s.

In the 1973 Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Survivor", McCoy mentions he has a daughter, Joanna. Although Chekov's friend Irina in the original series episode "The Way to Eden" was originally written as McCoy's daughter, it was changed before the episode was shot.

In the 2009 Star Trek film, which takes place in an alternate, parallel reality, McCoy and Kirk become friends at Starfleet Academy, which McCoy joins after a divorce that he says, "left [him] nothing but [his] bones." This line, improvised by Urban, explains how McCoy earned the nickname Bones. McCoy later helps get Kirk posted aboard the USS Enterprise. He later becomes the chief medical officer after Doctor Puri is killed during an attack by Nero. McCoy remains aboard to see the Enterprise defeat Nero and his crew, with Kirk becoming the commanding officer of the ship.

The Guardian called Urban's portrayal of McCoy in the 2009 film an "unqualified success", and The New York Times called the character "wild-eyed and funny". Slate said Urban came closer than the other actors to impersonating a character's original depiction.

Kelley had worked with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry on previous television pilots, and he was Roddenberry's first choice to play the doctor aboard the USS Enterprise. However, for the rejected pilot "The Cage" (1964), Roddenberry went with director Robert Butler's choice of John Hoyt to play Dr. Philip Boyce. 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. Although Roddenberry wanted Kelley to play the character of ship's doctor, he did not put Kelley's name forward to NBC; the network never "rejected" the actor, as Roddenberry sometimes suggested.