Shatner Rules (4 page)

QUIZ

This simple quiz will test your understanding of the Shatner Rules so far. Please use pencil in case you need to erase.

 

1. Would you like to take a quiz?

 

Yes_____

No_____

O
kay, they don't all have to be funny. This one is important. Especially for an actor.

I was on Broadway in the play
A
Shot in the Dark
in 1961, along with Julie Harris and Walter Matthau. It was a French farce that was later retooled as an Inspector Clouseau film for Peter Sellers. And by “retooled,” I mean “un-Shatnered.”

The play was directed by the legendary director Harold Clurman, who became something of a legendary pain in the butt to me. He didn't like my performance in the show, and always told me I was “playing the charm” rather than acting. What's worse—he wouldn't tell me what “playing the charm” actually meant.

These kind of tensions make for rocky performances, and early in the run of the show, during previews, I “dried” on stage. What does that mean? It means, um . . . what does it mean . . . now . . . it, um . . . wait for it . . . it means, um . . .

Again—not all these rules are jokes! Forgetting your lines is a terrifying thing for an actor. I was onstage, completely lost, and the only sound I could hear was the beating of my heart. And the sound of Harold Clurman in the audience, gasping in exasperation with me, rising up from his seat in the first row, and stomping all the way up the aisle in anger. At least his tantrum distracted the audience from the actor on stage who had drawn a lengthy and devastating blank.

I might have been playing the charm, but I seemed unable to
turn on
the charm, especially when it came to Harold Clurman. This was especially hard on me because I had long admired his work with New York's legendary Group Theater in the 1930s. He directed the first production of Clifford Odets's
Golden Boy
, whose main character, Joe Bonaparte, was a character I strongly identified with as a teen. He's a violinist who is seduced by the big-money world of boxing. As a kid who loved acting but who hid it from his football pals, I could clearly identify with the conflict of straddling both worlds. Now, my experience with Clurman had me straddling the two worlds of employment/unemployment.

(NOTE: While I tried my best to keep my thespianic desires secret from my football chums, I was exposed as an actor by a high school history teacher who knew I had the bug and who tasked me with reciting Marc Anthony's act 3, scene 1 speech from Shakespeare's
Julius Caesar
to the entire class. Everyone was staring at me with great suspicion as I walked to the front of the classroom and tore into the speech, but by the time I bellowed, “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!” all my teammates were standing up and crying havoc themselves. Seriously, there was almost a mini riot.)

I didn't forget my lines again during the rest of the run of
A Shot in the Dark,
but an evening or two after I metaphorically “dried,” I literally “dried” on stage during previews. My throat began to tickle, and soon I had a full-fledged coughing fit on stage. Fortunately, my hacking was drowned out by the familiar sound of Harold Clurman having a coronary and throwing another stompfest in the audience.

I vowed this was never going to happen to me again, so the evening before our opening night, I took the prop guy aside, pointed to a desk my character sat at during the show, and told him, “Make sure there is a glass of water in that desk every night.” If I felt a coughing fit coming on, I could always stroll over to the desk, open a drawer, and take a sip. A
charming
sip, mind you, so as not to disappoint my director.

The play was a hit, and ran for nearly four hundred performances at the Booth Theatre on West Forty-fifth Street in New York. And I think it was during performance 399 that the tickle hit me in the throat again.

I was doing a scene with my beloved costar Julie Harris (who tried her best to get Clurman to like me) when the tickle hit, and remembering my instructions to the prop guy, I sauntered on over to the desk for my throat-saving swig. I kept the coughs at bay as Julie delivered her line, opened the drawer of my desk, and produced the glass of water.

The glass of water that had been placed in the desk nearly a year before.

About half the water had evaporated, leaving a thick, white crust in its wake. At least it looked like a white crust, having been obscured by a year's worth of theater dust. The water that was left was greenish, covered in a film, and—believe it or not—bubbling slightly. I felt like one of the witches in
Macbeth
with this toxic, green, bubbling brew in my hand.

My stomach muscles tightened, to keep the coughs—and my lunch—down. Julie had finished her line and turned to me. If I opened my mouth then, I would have gotten two, three words out before everything fell apart in a hacking cough. I could almost hear Clurman warming up for his tirade.

I put the glass to my lips and I swallowed every last drop of sludge. I placed the glass down, and slapped my hands on the desk—once, twice, three times. Julie saw what I had done and looked at me with horror. I could feel the thick water clinging to the sides of my throat as the sludge made its way down, contaminating my insides in its wake.

I swallowed hard, opened my mouth, and . . . no tickle. Gone. The toxic brew had done its job. I was able to proceed. With aplomb. With dignity. With bearing. And . . . with . . . charm!

(NOTE: What emerged from my insides shortly after the curtain was anything but charming.)

N
ever go to bed angry. Unresolved anger can destroy even the strongest of relationships. And for God's sake—unresolved anger has no business being at anyone's wedding! And I've had four weddings. I'm an expert.

Which brings me to the story of the marriage of my old
Star Trek
colleague George Takei, who played Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu.

There's been a great deal of enmity between George and me. He's been saying mean things about me for nearly forty years now. That's nearly Star Trek (Two) Generations! Criticizing me publicly, in every venue imaginable! He says that I have a “big, shiny, ego!” Well, actors have big egos. If mine is shiny, it's because I tend to it very carefully and lovingly.

Perhaps George's needs a good polish.

To be fair, George is not the only veteran of the USS
Enterprise
who has hard feelings. Walter Koenig has been vocal about his disdain for me, James Doohan was not a fan, and Nichelle Nichols told me—while I was interviewing her for my book
Star Trek Memories
—that she detested me. Set phasers to Awkward!

All this animosity! I guess I could blame myself, but the things I really blame . . . are the Star Trek conventions.

There, I said it.

Now, the conventions have been good to me over the years, I enjoy going to them. I smile politely when a fellow comes up to me and asks for my autograph in the native Klingon tongue.

(NOTE: When someone speaks to you in Klingon, say “
nuqjatlh?”
It's Klingon for “huh?” That usually wraps up the conversation pretty fast.)

But in the early days, I didn't attend them. Wouldn't go near them.
Star Trek
was a job I did for three years, it ended, I moved on. I fear my fellow cast members did not, and were hopelessly stuck in Stardate 2999.9 and operating on the Prime Directive of “Hate Bill.”

The supporting cast, some of whom I wouldn't see for days or even weeks at a time during our initial filming schedule due to the size of their roles, would later attend the conventions and be greeted with cheers. Fans would tell them that their characters should have been given more to do! Had their own series!

Now, had they been the
stars
of
Star Trek,
they
would
have been there every day on set. Like I was. And Leonard. And DeForest Kelley. And maybe they would have gotten their own shows.

And I'm all for spin-offs, but they never happened.

FAILED
STAR TREK
SPIN-OFFS

Montgomery's Ward
: Montgomery “Scotty” Scott retires to run a haggis shop and is forced to raise an irascible teenager named Lulu. He threatens all her boyfriends with “opening up a big can of fully activated phaser bank!”

Uhura-Who?
: Uhura suffers amnesia, sits around, and monitors the frequency of a nearby ATM machine.

Warp & Windy:
Mr. Sulu tries his hand as a weatherman at a small-town television station. His catchphrase? “There will be rain this weekend. Engage Slickers!”

And I believe the adoration of these supporting actors at conventions led to a mutiny against their beloved captain. There were allegations that I stole lines from cast members, close-ups, someone's lunch out of the fridge. No comment on that last one.

And I have apologized time and time again for whatever it was I supposedly did. In the press, on the television, in the pages of my books, and in person.

But there is one thing I will not apologize for. There is a hierarchy in show business, which I did not invent. The stars get the preferential treatment. That's how it is. The people who are paid less, based on billing, get less attention. The main character in
Star Trek
was James T. Kirk. He narrated the show. He was . . .
captain
of the ship upon which the stars were trekked! And traditionally, the stars of shows and films get more lines, more close-ups, and a slightly larger dressing room.

My costars, however, seem to have crossed into a mirror universe due to a transporter malfunction, and they have flipped this hierarchy. Once, while posing for a publicity photo for one of the
Star Trek
movies, the photographer dared put me/Kirk front and center. And I very clearly heard Jimmy Doohan exclaim, “Why is he always up front? I'm tired of being in the back!”

Keep in mind, Jimmy didn't have a Scottish accent in real life, so remarks like that sounded much less charming.

I have also been accused of “counting” lines. I won't dignify this with an explanation, but if you count the lines of any given
Star Trek
script (not that I have), you can clearly see that Kirk has more lines than Scotty. Or so I have been told. Because Kirk is the main character. Not ego. Fact.

That's what I've been up against. And no one has held it against me more than George Takei.

George buys into the stolen close-ups/lines stuff, and he also claims I kept his character from getting his own Federation starship in the movies. I remember a conversation we had quite clearly, as it was right before we shot one of the films.

 

GEORGE:
Bill, they're giving me my own starship.

WS:
Why would you want that? All the action's on the
Enterprise
.

GEORGE:
But . . . it will be
my
starship.

My statement that “all the action's on the
Enterprise
” later somehow constituted my ruining the commission chances of George/Sulu. George Takei obviously believes I'm a man of tremendous, limitless power. No wonder I have such a big, shiny ego!

Anyway, George announced he was going to marry his longtime partner, Brad Altman, in 2008. I was very happy for him; it's always wonderful when someone finds true love. And then promptly afterward, George announced I was not invited to the wedding.

Should that announcement have been his first priority? Should that have even been an announcement?

Shouldn't he have been busy picking out a wedding DJ? Buying the rings? Constructing a William Shatner piñata for the reception?

Well, needless to say, the only invitation I got from George was an invitation to a knock-down, drag-out fight in the tabloids. He later flip-flopped and said that I
had
been invited, but that I failed to RSVP.

What can you do when confronted with such bizarre behavior? I just shrugged and said, “Oh my!” (There, George, I stole
that
from you. Happy?)

George managed to generate a great deal of publicity for his marriage, and the wedding party looked like the speaker's schedule at a Star Trek convention. Walter Koenig, Ensign Pavel Chekov, was George's best man, while Lieutenant Uhura, Nichelle Nichols, was maid of honor. I can only assume that Yarnek, the rock creature, performed the ceremony and the Green Slave Girl from Orion was the ring bearer.

These three actors have been engaged in a long-running plural marriage, tied together in blessed bonds of acrimony. Toward me. The wedding party featured a triumvirate of people who hate me. All sharing George's special day.

FUN FACTNER:
If the Sulu from the animated Star Trek cartoon had gotten married, he would never have invited Chekov to his wedding because Chekov wasn't even in the cartoon! (Seriously, George! Walter and not me?! Come on!)

I had questions for these three. And like most people who have questions, I have a national television show on which to ask them.

I asked George to be a guest on my program
Raw Nerve
, which is about to return for its third season on the Biography Channel. In fact, all the episodes are available on iTunes for $1.99 each. Why don't we take a break in our narrative so that you, dear reader, can go and catch up on this edgy and offbeat celebrity interview series? Go ahead. I'll wait here.

FUN FACTNER:
The
Baltimore Sun
said that
Raw Nerve
was “the most intriguing conversation you will find on the tube.” That's a not a fact really . . . just my shiny ego talking again. But really, you should check out
Raw Nerve
.

George would have been terrific on
Raw Nerve
, but he did not seem to think so. He thought he was going to be sandbagged or something, and refused to appear on my show and talk it out. Since he is a regular on
The
Howard Stern Show
, I even sweetened the deal by saying we could conduct the interview in the Stern studio—presumably while surrounded by lesbians and little people in bondage gear. Nothing.

So I did the next best thing and asked Walter onto the show. And I promised we would both have the same exact number of close-ups throughout the interview. He agreed, and we sat down.

I got right to the subject of the wedding. I asked him, “Do you know George that well?”

“No,” he replied.

No?

Ideally your best man is your most trusted companion in the whole world. He is the man who holds the rings, ushers the guests, and makes the toast. The best man should be the best friend!

I continued, incredulous. “You were his best man. How did that work?”

He looked at me, and paused. I then asked one of the toughest questions I have ever asked on
Raw Nerve
.

“Walter . . . what the fuck?”

FUN FACTNER:
“Walter . . . what the fuck?” is William Shatner's “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

He said, “Yeah, you're right. ‘What the fuck?' I think he used me.”

Walter was used. George added “special guests” to his wedding party, not “friends.” It was a branding opportunity. And, like usual, I got branded
CLOSE-UP STEALER
right in the middle of my forehead.

Let me make it clear: George, Walter, Nichelle, Bruce Mars (who played Kirk's nemesis Finnegan in the classic episode “Shore Leave”), I don't know what I did. I apologize. (And honestly, I don't know if Bruce Mars had any hard feelings. Just covering my bases.)

The fact of the matter is, we're all going to die soon. Honestly. We're all really old people. Don't you want to go out with having less enmity than before? This feud is the damnedest thing I've ever seen.

I still have hope that we can all be friends, and put everything behind us. I would have loved to have gone to your wedding, George. I had an inscribed copy of my memoir
Up Till Now
ready to give you as a gift. (I took the liberty of picking that gift out myself. For some reason it wasn't on your registry.)