William Shatner and Colleagues Look Back at Highlights of His Career to Celebrate His 89th Birthday

Journeys to ‘The Twilight Zone’

Last year, we had the opportunity to talk to Bill about his voice role in The Steam Engines of Oz, and one of the questions asked was about the endurability of L. Frank Baum’s world of Oz, which led him to make a comparison to some of his other work.

“Part of the appeal,” he offers, “is the adult knowledge that behind everybody lurks somebody else. That’s as intriguing a truth as some of the stuff that I’ve done that I have no explanation for why they remain such perennials. Star Trek is one example, of course, but what is the reason that a couple of episodes of The Twilight Zone I’ve done are always among the most popular and played all the time?”

Specifically, he’s referring to the episodes “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” which casts him as a man recovering from a nervous breakdown who continually sees a gremlin on the wing of the plane he’s flying on, trying to destroy it. Naturally everyone thinks he’s crazy, but the final shot reveals that he was actually the most sane of everyone. Then, in “Nick of Time,” he becomes obsessed with a fortune telling machine to the point where he’s afraid to make a move without its “advice.”

“There are eternal truths in each of them,” he says. “Truths like the fear of flying, or someone who is superstitious and can’t get beyond the superstition. And, again, L. Frank Baum’s truth of other people lurking behind the one that’s presented to society. That’s intriguing, and is perennial, because every child of three or four knows that you present one face to daddy and mommy, and another to Billy.”

The Original ‘Star Trek’

Jeffrey Hunter had starred in the first Star Trek pilot, “The Cage,” but refused to come back to shoot the second ,”Where No Man Has Gone Before,” which led to the eventual series. William Shatner stepped in to play the role of Captain James T. Kirk. “They showed me the first pilot and said, ‘Would you like to play the part? Here are some of the story lines that we plan to go with; you can see the kind of production we have in mind,'” he recalls. “I thought it was an interesting gamble for myself as an actor to take, because I’ve always been fascinated by science fiction. I liked the production; I liked the people involved with the production, and so I decided to do it.”

The late Leonard Nimoy, who, while playing Spock had worked with Hunter and Shatner on the pilots, was very aware of the difference between the two of them. “During the series,” he said, “we had a failure in an episode called ‘The Galileo Seven.’ The Spock character had been so successful that somebody said, ‘Let’s do a show where Spock takes command of a vessel.’ We had this shuttlecraft mission where Spock was in charge. I had a tough time with it. I really appreciated the loss of the Kirk character for me to play against and comment on. The Bill Shatner Kirk performance was the energetic, driving performance, and Spock could kind of slipstream along and make comments and offer advice; give another point of view. Put into the position of being the driving force, the central character, was very tough for me, and I perceived it as a failure.”

Family Feud

In its original run, Star Trek was not a giant hit. In fact, it kind of limped across three seasons in terms of ratings, but the people who watched were passionate about it (saved from cancelation by a massive letter-writing campaign from the fans in season two). But what happened is that the Spock character quickly grew in popularity, eclipsing Bill’s Captain Kirk and, as a result, creating tension between what had become the show’s two leads. Herbert F. Solow, the executive in charge of production, explains, “Actors are very competitive people, and when you get a man who is the star of the show and he’s contracted, paid and billed as the star of the show, there’s always going to be friction. Happily, the guys kept it under control, so internally there was some friction, but as far as the outside world was concerned, we all did our best.”

While Bill and Leonard would ultimately iron out their differences, over the decades many disparaging comments were made by actors playing supporting cast members regarding their captain, like Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, Walter Koenig and George Takei. But Bill reflects, “If the original concept of the show was still in effect and the series was still going today, the situation would be exactly the same. There are people whose names and parts are above the title and people who aren’t. That’s the nature of the business and that’s the way these stories are told.”

Life in the ’70s

While he never fully stepped away from Star Trek following its 1969 cancellation — voicing the Kirk character on the 1973-74 Saturday morning animated series and attending numerous conventions that were springing up everywhere — Bill spent much of the ’70s making frequent guest star appearances on different shows, participated in TV game shows, starred in some pretty awful movies (Big Bad Mama, The Devil’s Rain and Kingdom of the Spiders immediately come to mind), and even had his own short-lived series, Barbary Coast, which co-starred Doug McClure and ran from 1975-76. That show stars Bill as government agent Jeff Cable, with Doug playing conman and gambler Cash Conover, and together they take on criminals and foreign spies in the Old West. An inspiration for the series was the ’60s hit The Wild Wild West. 

Of that period, a candid Bill has said, “There was a time before Star Trek when I wouldn’t accept a role that I didn’t think worthwhile enough to play. Then, because things are so cyclical in show business, I needed to take those roles. There even came a point when I thought, ‘I don’t know if I’m ever going to break through to get those roles that I think I should be playing.’ That was just before Star Trek. Star Trek hit. And after Star Trek I had the opportunity to play a few of those things that I thought should be coming my way. But, I was in a financial bind and had to accept a lot of things that I wouldn’t have done in an earlier day.”

The Rebirth of ‘Star Trek’

Star Trek came to an end in 1969, but it was born again 10 years later in the form of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a $44 million (in 1979 dollars) production that spawned five additional films featuring the original series cast. In this modern age of reboots and sequels this may not seem like a big deal, but back then it was extraordinary. The first film — which was coming out of the shadow of Star Wars, released in 1977 — celebrates its 40th Anniversary on December 7.

“Our area is pure science fiction,” Bill muses. “Star Wars was a science-fiction cartoon. Great science fiction is an illumination of the human condition in a future environment under different terms. We always had a quality of believability going for us as well as a certain chemistry. I felt a tremendous obligation not to let down the reputation of the old series while we were filming the movie.

“It was a strange feeling,” he adds, “full of complex, even conflicting emotions. Ten years of my life suddenly had been swept away just as though they never had existed. I knew it was 1979, but it seemed like 1969 was just yesterday. Time seemingly stood still since I had taken my place on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise and uttered those now familiar words, ‘Captain’s log, stardate…’ I felt exhilarated, gratified, nostalgic. At the same time, there was a tinge of disbelief and a bit of concern. I guess each of those feelings was traceable to the fact that all of us had waited so long for this to happen. It was difficult, after so many false starts over a number of years, to realize Star Trek was really back.”

This film would be followed by Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).

‘T.J. Hooker’

Wikipedia describe this show’s initial concept like this: “The background of Sergeant Thomas Jefferson ‘T.J.’ Hooker is that he, up until recently, was a plainclothes LCPD Detective Sergeant whose partner was killed in the line of duty while he and Hooker were trying to stop a bank robbery. An angry Hooker becomes motivated to rid the streets of criminals like those who murdered his partner. Thus, he decides the only way to do so is return to his former position as a uniformed patrolman.” Doing so, he begins training young officers, most notably Officer Vincent ‘Vince’ Romano (Adrian Zmed), Officer Stacy Sheridan (Heather Locklear) and Officer Jim Corrigan (James Darren).” The show started off much grittier than it remained.

Writer Stan Berkowitz, who served as the show’s story editor for its final season, recalls, “We were told that at the very beginning of the series the premise was that T.J. hooker was a guy who had come up from being a street cop and was high in the department hierarchy. And then for some reason, and I was never told what the reasoning was, he decided he would become a street cop again, go back to his roots. And that was it. But when I got in, he had long been riding on the hoods of cars.

“There’s certain actors who are chameleons and who just vanish into a part,” he adds, “but there are others who are movie stars or TV stars, and Shatner is certainly one of them. When people turn on the TV, they want to see William Shatner, which is unfortunate in one way, because he has much more range than in him than people know. But you did not see that range on T.J. Hooker. He had the kind of charisma like a John Wayne or James Garner, both of whom play the same guy doing different things. Steve McQueen was always Steve McQueen, right?”

‘Get a Life!’

There was a time when Bill took himself pretty seriously, but he suddenly began to have fun with his own image. That became apparent when he semi-spoofed Kirk in Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), and particularly when he hosted Saturday Night Live in 1986 and appeared in a sketch in which he addresses the fans at a Star Trek convention, which he preceded by admitting he was probably going to get himself into a lot of trouble for. And he did.

“You know, before I answer any more questions,” he tells the fans who have been asking him the most anal retentive questions imaginable, “there’s something I wanted to say. Having received all your letters over the years, and I’ve spoken to many of you, and some of you have traveled… y’know… hundreds of miles to be here, I’d just like to say… get a life, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it’s just a TV show! I mean, look at you, look at the way you’re dressed! You’ve turned an enjoyable little job, that I did as a lark for a few years, into a colossal waste of time!… I mean, how old are you people? What have you done with yourselves? You, you must be almost 30… have you ever kissed a girl? I didn’t think so! There’s a whole world out there! When I was your age, I didn’t watch television! I lived! So … move out of your parent’s basements! And get your own apartments and grow the hell up! I mean, it’s just a TV show dammit, it’s just a TV show!”

It goes on from there, the fans being devastated by his outburst, until the guy running the convention hits the stage and show him his contract. Shatner changes his tune and blames the outburst on the evil Captain Kirk from the original series, and the fans applaud. It is a great skit!

‘Rescue 911’

From 1989 to 1996, Bill served as host of the reality series Rescue 911, which focuses on firefighters, police, paramedics and ordinary people as they respond t0 real 911 emergency phone calls. Despite the fact the show wasn’t intended as an instructional series, reportedly viewers used what they watched to save over 350 lives. During the show’s run, 45 different countries mounted their own versions.

‘TekWar’

In 1989, William Shatner authored (along with Ron Goulart) an original sci-fi novel called TekWar, which became a cottage industry in its own right, spawning a total of nine books, two comic book series, four TV movies, 18 episodes of a weekly show and a video game. TekWar introduced ex-police officer Jake Cardigan, accused of murdering his partners while under the influence of Tek, a drug-like virtual reality experience that is oftentimes fatal in its addiction. As a result of this supposed crime, Cardigan is placed in cryogenic freeze for a 15-year sentence, but freed after four by the influential Bascom, who wants him to work for the Cosmos Detective Agency. Partnered with Sid Gomez, Cardigan goes up against one Tek lord after another in each subsequent adventure while simultaneously trying to repair the rifts between he and his wife and son, clearing his name and getting on with his own life.

It was during the production of 1989’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, on which he made his feature directorial debut, that Bill began to create what would become his first work of fiction, TekWar. That novel was an attempt to blend elements from two of his most popular television series, Star Trek and T.J. Hooker, resulting in a unique science fiction adventure. He does, however, admit that he may have been influenced just a little too much by Star Trek in terms of his creation’s futuristic setting.

“When I sat down to write the novel,” he explains, “I followed my instincts rather than any conscious desire.  It was almost as though I didn’t believe anything more would come of it than my doodling around with the story. As a result, I wasn’t too careful about where I set it. Since I was working on a Star Trek movie at the time, I set it instinctively, almost, in the general time of Star Trek. So the novels are set 200 years from now and the world that I imagined was a world that I probably had absorbed from various contacts, pictures, paintings and covers of magazines and other science fiction that I had read from the multitude of sources that one gets their imagination from. I had a generalized feeling of the world of Tek, but what I was concentrating mostly on was this policeman whose life was torn asunder by the various things that had happened to him.”

The basic concept of the Tek “drug” came about, Shatner says, “by the fact that I put a television set in a wall in my bedroom and used it — and use it — as a means of going to sleep. In the middle of the night when the dark hangs heavy, to light a candle was to open the television set so that the television, in a way, is something I’ve become accustomed to using both for information, of course, but to sleep as well. It’s almost something I try not to do, because I do it so often. As a result, I extended the drug effect into a totality of drug, in that the television miniaturized can then become your fantasy and your fantasy becomes real. In that case, it would become difficult to even leave your house, which is what happens to a Tek user in addition to getting their neurons scrambled. That’s the lure of Tek, that your fantasy world can be better than your real world.”

‘Star Trek: Generations’

In 1987 while the original series cast was still making movies, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry oversaw a new series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, which, among other things, introduced Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean Luc Picard (who will be the subject of a new series debuting later this year on the CBS All Access Streaming service). Following a very successful seven season run, Next Gen made the leap to the big screen and 1994’s Star Trek: Generations brought the two captains together. And not without the media reporting that the actors playing them simply did not get along.

“They’re so mean-spirited,” says Bill “that they would prefer to tell a lie, a total fantasy, about two people disliking each other than to tell the truth about something as equally interesting, that two people did like each other. Why wouldn’t that be as interesting as the fantasy of us fighting on the set, which is ludicrous?”

Admits Patrick Stewart, “Bill had a bit of a brutal reputation that precedes him, particularly in his relationship with his colleagues and I was uneasy about that. But when we finally sat down together it was perfect, because it gave us the opportunity to really talk. We didn’t talk about career. We certainly didn’t talk about Star Trek. We talked about very personal things and it was the foundation to help us to work so well together when the movie began. He has become a good friend.”

The Death of Captain Kirk

Most significant about Generations was the death of Kirk, which Bill had a harder time handling than the fans. “It took me some time to think about how I wanted to play the scene and it required some self-examination,” he explains. “So it was very emotional for me. My coloring of the scene is based on my experience. All those thoughts we face only in our most stressful moments I had to think about, because I wanted to play the death of the character as honestly as I could. I forced myself to look at what it would feel like to die, how I would like to die, my fear of dying and what Captain Kirk would feel when he looked across the threshold. So I put that all together.”

At that point, the audience had been following Star Trek for nearly 30 years, but Bill didn’t feel that same sort of connection. “It hadn’t been 30 years of playing the character for me,” he notes. “It was three years doing the series, then 10 years go by and we do a movie for a few months, then we do a movie every two or three years for a couple of months. So it was all very intermittent, although the Star Trek comet trailed behind me. But to have people think of the character as an entity and to mourn the death as though it was a real person, that’s really gratifying.”

Author, Author

Besides TekWar, beginning in 1995 Bill started writing Star Trek continuation novels which resurrected Kirk and furthered his story, as well as several original sci-fi book series and numerous non-fiction books. In detailing his “process,” he explains, “My writing is done mostly through dictation. I’m totally computer illiterate. I don’t even type. I’m frustrated by my inability to type fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. But there’s a creative process in my head. I’m not aware of how it works, but I become less astonished at what comes out of my mouth as time goes on. A little Dictaphone machine is very handy. What money buys you is someone to transcribe your notes. It doesn’t buy you the ideas. It doesn’t buy you charisma. I lay out the basic building blocks; where the novel will start, where it ends, what the theme is. My collaborators connect the dots and then I’ll reconnect the dots.”

‘Free Enterprise’

Produced in 1998, Free Enterprise is the ultimate fan love letter to Bill. The film, details Wikipedia, “deals with the mid-life crises of its two main protagonists, Mark (Will & Grace‘s Eric McCormack) and Robert (Rafer Weigel), fictionalized versions of the film’s director and producer/writer. The two friends struggle with adult career and relationship problems, all the while defiantly clinging to the geeky science fiction pop culture of their youth and  seeking advice from their greatest hero, William Shatner.”

The film’s producer and writer, Mark A. Altman, who is co-host of the popular Star Trek podcast, Inglorious Treksperts, explains, “The idea behind Free Enterprise was to do a film like Play It Again, Sam was with Humprhey Bogart being a fictional muse to Woody Allen. We approached Bill in the hopes he would be flattered playing a character that was such an inspiration to these young men and obsessed fans. But Bill was uncomfortable playing an icon and man who was a flawless, inspiration. Instead, he asked that we portray him as a real man with foibles and feet of clay. ‘Tear me down,’ he said which, of course, we did with gleeful abandon in the vein of My Favorite Year. We were thrilled that he embraced the role with such gusto and verve. Bill became far more than just an inspiration, but a friend and we’re forever indebted to him for taking a leap of faith and being part of what was an incredible adventure.”

As to his perception of the actor before and after the project, he reflects, “Both Rob Burnett, the director, and myself grew up worshipping Captain Kirk and by extension William Shatner. We realized there was always the danger that our perception of him would suffer working with him based on his reputation. But if anything, our experience working with him was remarkable and he proved to be an inspiring collaborator and a delightful creative risk-taker that was willing to try anything for a laugh, had great ideas and was relentless in promoting the film from all the late night talk shows to film festivals and even the beaches of Cannes, where he donated the film’s bomber jacket he wore to Planet Hollywood. Ultimately, I can’t imagine a better experience making one’s first movies. I’ve done many films and TV shows since, but none were more rewarding or satisfying than working with Bill Shatner on Free Enterprise.”

Legally Speaking

There are few who expected the comedy-drama series Boston Legal to have the impact that it did on Bill’s career, but it was massive. The show, a spin-off of David E. Kelley’s The Practice, stars James Spader as Alan Shore, introduced in season eight of the preceding series, who goes to work for the law firm of Crane, Poole & Schmidt. Bill plays Denny Crane, a renowned attorney with 50 years experience who claims he’s never lost a case and tends to announce himself constantly. Bill connected with the audience in a big way, the actor bringing home the 2005 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries, or TV Movie.

Appearing at Paleyfest at the time, Bill comented, “I feel as I walk through my life like I’m parting the ways and there are people on all sides saying, ‘Denny Crane.’ And it used to be, ‘Beam me up, Scotty.’ Now I’m educating them to say, ‘Beam me up, Denny Crane.’ It’s the most popular a public thing I’ve ever done, including Star Trek.The response from people on the street everywhere has been enormous. I’ve never been connected with something as popular and as dynamic. The passion that people respond to the show with is enormous.

“It combines the finest of humor and an intense meaning,” he added. “It’s about issues that are addressed by the authors, by these wonderful people who write the show to whom all credit belongs. It is that balance between issue and comedy that I think makes the show so popular and makes the show so good.”

There’s No Stopping the Shat!

As anyone who has seen (or heard — check out the podcast at the top of this page) Bill, it’s obvious that the man will simply not slow down as he moves from one project or endeavor to another. Following Boston Legal, he starred in the 2010-11 sitcom $h*! My Dad Says, hosted 30 episodes of Weird or What?, a reality series exploring stories of the bizarre; and appeared on dozens of different TV shows and movies.  At 88 years old, he’s still going strong.

“From my point of view,” he offers, “I’m grasping opportunities because you never know when it all might stop. Some people have said to me that time runs out for all of us and I should slow down. But is time going to run out any sooner or slower if I don’t do this? In fact, people who slow down — people who retire, to use that word — die. But to me, I’m more alive and more sensual in the full meaning of that word — aware of my senses — now than I ever have been, because of all the things that are going on.”