Kellam de Forest, TV researcher who advised Star Trek on the Gorn and stardates, has passed away at 94

(L-R) William Shatner as James Kirk and Bobby Clark as the Gorn captain in Star Trek “Arena”

JANUARY 27, 2021 - Kellam de Forest, a key researcher and technical advisor for Star Trek: The Original Series, passed away on January 19th due to complications from COVID-19. He was 94 years old. A memorial piece, written by NASA historian Glen Swanson and published in The Space Review, shared some of the fascinating details of his life from an interview he did with de Forest in December of 2019.

A native of Santa Barbara, de Forest moved to Los Angeles in the early 1950s and created the Kellam de Forest Research Company (dFR), which performed legal and historical research for television productions. Initially a one-man operation, by the time dFR worked with Star Trek, it had grown to a small team.

During their time with Star Trek, dFR made numerous contributions to the series, such as creating the format for the well-known “stardate”. In Swanson’s interview, de Forest shared that “The Cage”, Star Trek’s pilot episode, included a dating system based on the Gregorian calendar. It was de Forest who suggested that using the Julian calendar would not only be more precise, but more futuristic. This insight led to the numerical stardate format still in use on Star Trek today. 

If it were not for dFR, it’s very possible that “Arena”, the Original Series season one episode featuring the Gorn, might not have been produced. Swanson noted that a Peter Sloman, a researcher with dFR, had discovered a very similar story from American fiction author Frederic Brown. Brown’s story was also named “Arena”. “As a result there was some scurrying around thinking what to do,” de Forest said in the interview. “They eventually contacted the author, bought the story rights and went ahead with the production of the episode.” Aside from Star Trek, de Forest worked on other hit shows such as Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone and countless others.

After retiring from the entertainment industry, de Forest returned to Santa Barbara, becoming an outspoken advocate for the preservation of the historical and cultural heritage of the area. He is survived by his three children, Ann, Carmaig, and Elizabeth and their spouses, with six grandchildren. Please join me in sending condolences to his family.

Update 29 January 2021 by Alison Pitt: A previous version of this article asserted that de Forest Research was a one-man operation, when in fact it was a small team for Star Trek. Rona Kornblum and Peter Sloman did much of the early research, taken over later by Joan Pearce. You can read more on the discussion of de Forest Research on Memory Alpha.