Shat Upon
I enjoyed William Shatner's autobiography, Up Till Now, though with all its digressions, it seemed to be written by a guy who has ADD.
He says in his intro most of the stories he tells will be at his expense. But along the way, he notes Lorne Greene couldn't act (maybe true, but should Shatner be saying this about anyone?), Frances Nuyen was crazy and Leonard Nimoy was an alcoholic.
He also notes he never understood why the cast of Star Trek couldn't stand him.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:28 AM
4 Comments:
You left his heheheh comments on Angie Dickinson not being a natural blonde.
I actually think these observations say more about the Shat than about those he comments on (its ridiculous to say Lorne Greene can't act- maybe he relied on a deeply sonorous voice, but acting is about relying on certain strengths) and insights into shatner are sort of the point of the effort. A ridiculously self-centered self-important blowhard who is enormously entertaining (to me at least) when he is at his worst (and he knows this).
[I like his explanation on why the Star Trek crew didn't like him- he was the star and they were the little people and the years of conventions and adulation gave them an exaggerated sense of self-importance after the fact. ]
I like his explanation on why the Star Trek crew didn't like him- he was the star and they were the little people and the years of conventions and adulation gave them an exaggerated sense of self-importance after the fact.
There is some truth in the second part of that sentence. I have a deep emotional connection to ST:TOS, but I don't objectively believe that Nichols or Barrett or Whitney or even Takei would be remembered today for their acting skills alone.
Yet even Lieutenant Leslie has a fan following -- in fact, a guest appearance by Leslie in Star Trek: New Voyages was considered significant. Forty years from now, hardcore Lost fans might remember Paolo and Nikki, but they certainly won't remember the actors who played the lineless 815 survivors!
However, even if the second half of the sentence is true, the first half is absurd. If the minor actors hated Shatner because of his talent and success and the fact that he was a huge star, they would hate Nimoy too. But they don't. Why not? The reason is obvious: Nimoy hasn't spent four decades publicly and privately dissing them.
It's funny you should mention Lieutenant Leslie, since I just watched the remastered "Obsession" today and was thinking about him.
Anyway, I don't know exactly what happened back on the original show, but you hear stories. And a lot of people seem to claim Shatner was vain and didn't particularly care about the other actors. Even Leonard Nimoy didn't like how Shatner tried to make everything about himself.
To be fair to Shatner, he did a good job and, in fact, helped Nimoy. As Shatner notes in his book, if Jeffrey Hunter had been the lead, Nimoy would have had nothing to play off, but Shatner's swashbuckling Kirk was perfect.
Also, to be fair, Shatner was an honest-to-goodness star, at least as far as TV was concerned. He was a guy who was regularly offered work on stage and screen, and I'd say the only one in the cast who was capable of carrying a series. He might have been arrogant, but he was right in recognizing he was the center of the show.
I completely agree. Shatner's acting is often mocked, but that's partially because his acting style (which is somewhat stage-influenced, in an era when news announcers still used artificial inflection on a regular basis) is a thing of the past. He was a great lead, and he knew how to hand the microphone to someone else on camera when it was time to do so.
If Shatner had been cast as a lieutenant and Takei, or Nichols, or Doohan, or Koenig had been cast as the captain, the show would have been awful.
But that doesn't mean it's okay for him to say so.
Basic etiquette dictates that the star of the show claim that "This show succeeded because of our wonderful team," and then the minor cast can say, "No, it succeeded because of you."
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