Posted on 09/05/2010 10:29:32 AM PDT by Nachum
He’s late. He calls to explain. “A mix-up,” he says, and then, “I read all your stories.” Pause. “You. Are. A. Grrreat. Writer.” Another pause. “What’s your name?” I tell him. He says, “Of course it is.” I ask what his name is. “MY NAME? I. Am. William. Shatner!”
Well, yes, but which William Shatner? The child actor from Canada, descended from Eastern European rabbis? The 23-year-old Shakespearean whom Sir Tyrone Guthrie called the Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s most promising actor? The young actor who made his debut on Broadway two years later, in 1956, in “Tamburlaine the Great,” then appeared in his first Hollywood film, “The Brothers Karamazov,” with Yul Brynner in 1958 and starred on Broadway in “The World of Suzie Wong” that same year and “A Shot in the Dark” in 1961? That actor was mentioned in the same breath as his contemporaries Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Robert Redford — until, without explanation, his career faded before it bloomed.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I hate the Times. But that was a fantastic profile.
Rocket Man!
http://www.ubu.com/outsiders/365/2003/055.shtml
[PS this is a great site with lots of, uh, unique songs and artists (Van Morrison singing you've got ringworm!)]
One of my favorites.
The best reason to watch Boston Legal was to see if Denny was going to pull one of his guns out again.
8^)
I think it's because Shatner really doesn't give a rusty rat's ass whether the reporter likes him or not. He strikes me as a very confident person who likes himself and who figures if somebody doesn't like him, so what?
Shatner's response to the questioning was to let loose an obscenity. So Stern and Robyn jumped on Shatner and told him he couldn't cuss on the air. Shatner said he was sorry and Stern started in on the girlfriends again.
Shatner then let out another obscenity. This time Stern explained to Shatner all of the trouble he was in with the FCC and he asked Shatner pretty forcefully to cut it out with the obscenities.
Shatner then said to Stern (paraphrasing here): "So Howard, let me see if I understand this. If you ask me questions I don't like and I then let out a string of cuss words, you'll get fined? Hmmmm." At that point, Stern knew he was in trouble and told Shatner he would stop asking the uncomfortable questions. Bottom line, Shatner is a pretty clever guy.
VERY FUNNY!
Have you ever watched "Free Enterprise"? The DVD I rented had edited scenes in the "special features." There was one where he's talking about what it's like to be so famous, how he was going down the street one day and saw a burning house and heard people outside crying that kids were still inside, so he braved the flames and went inside to try to find them. Onlookers oohed and ahhwed, "Captain Kirk!," as if they were looking to him for a solution, for leadership. He goes inside and nearly kills himself looking for the kids, can't find them, and finally comes back out. Turns out somebody else had retreived the kids in the meantime, and he ended up feeling like a first class idiot. It's an interesting and moving scene, and I wonder if it actually happened or if it was just in the script of the very excellent "Free Enterprise." I thought it had a strong ring of truth. Then again, maybe it was just Shatner being a good actor.
By the way ... what did Seinfeld say to shut Stern up? The more I see of Jerry Seinfeld, the more I like him. He seems like a very level-headed guy with good priorities.
One of the sponsors was an insurance company which advertised that they could get insurance for you no matter how bad your driving record was. So Seinfeld went off on a riff about how the insurance company was practically begging drunk drivers to sign up with them. And then Seinfeld started in on Stern, asking him whether that was really the kind of sponsor Stern wanted for his show.
When Stern shut that line of questioning down, Seinfeld then started asking Stern about a cellular phone company which advertised on Stern's show that they could hook you up to their cellular network no matter where your phone came from. Seinfeld pointed out that this feature would only be attractive to people who were trying to make phone calls on stolen cellphones.
From there it got even uglier. Seinfeld had prepared a list of Stern advertisers and he started going thru that whole list questioning the products of each advertiser along with the respective claims that were being made on their behalf. Once Seinfeld got to the 5th or 6th advertiser, Stern shut the interview down.
I’ve always been a huge Shatner fan. The hoity-toity give him a hard time about his acting, but I think he’s excellent in just about anything.
If you want to see the Shat at his best, check out his show “Shatner’s Raw Nerve”. He interviews guests and I swear his style of questioning is 10 times more interesting than any other interviewer. He even interviewed Rush on the show and was very respectful.
Shatner is a good guy.
That. Was. Hilarious.
Thanks for the report! Yep, Seinfeld, like Shatner, knowns how to play life on his own terms. Pretty clever!
By the way, I’ll have to check out that Free Enterprise DVD. Thanks for the tip.
There’s a sci-fi ping list? How the heck could I have missed that? Sign be up please!
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