My Name is Kelly and I am an Alcoholic

I was out of town, so had not been checking in with the forum, but thought as a 'friend of the family' I could shed some light on the earlier discussion regarding Bob's impressions of Kelly post 'I Spy' (and I can promise none of them included Eddie Murphy as Kelly Robinson Heavyweight Champion of the World suddenly being recruited as a spy by Dubya).

When Bob spoke about Kelly being a drunk who had to have the booze kept from him, and a "kept man", these were the circumstances in which we found Kelly at the beginning of Bob's original 'I Spy' feature script (one version of which featured Kelly actually pursuing his twin brother, another of which featured one of the best scenes Bob ever wrote, in which Kelly and Scott, riding astride elephants side by side in the jungle, discuss their 'Johnson' problems).

The idea of the screenplay was that both Kelly and Scott quit the department because they were in extreme disagreement with their government's politics (which more or less was consistent with their attiutude on the show, especially towards the end) but without Scotty by his side, Kelly really had nothing but the tennis and his immature approach to women and relationships to keep him going and so, eventually succumbed. Also Bob based his observations on certain Tennis Pros he knew, who were paid a lot of money to give lessons to debutantes, and had more or less given up on their own ambitions. In the script, we learn that Kelly's wife, owner of the hotel where they live in San Francisco, also has a predilection for young girls; he catches her in bed with a girl and she says, "Join us, darling", and he is violently ill. This raised the stakes, so that his situation was so dire that only Scott could pull him out of it. He hated the idea in the "I Spy Returns" script that Kelly had become a "suit" -- he never believed in it -- or in anything else in that script, for that matter.

I think, too, he was commenting on his own prediliction for spirits when he made this comment about Kelly, and it also resonates with his oft-repeated statement that he never had more fun in his life than he did with Bill/Scotty -- including all the years with his various wives.

Hope this serves to clarify,

MBF