I. Want. Fries.

September 4, 2010 6:52 AM

Pat Jordan from the New York Times meets William Shatner: James T. Kirk TJ Hooker author Priceline Spokesman ("and shareholder") horse buff at a farm Starbucks Gas Station horse park Tony Roma's mall equestrian ground

“I always did assume they were laughing at me. Lately it’s come to my attention they are laughing with me.”

A subtly poignant interview of a cultural visionary hero icon has-been phoenix one-man universe.
posted by nickrussell (60 comments total)

Shatner's curiously complex cultural role was also sized up by the late lamented Fametracker five years ago:

Most stars are lucky to have a three-phase career: young heartthrob; blowsy superstar; Austin Powers cameo. Or some careers play out this way: heartthrob; handshakes; U.S. President.

By that yardstick, Shatner's had ten careers. He's had twenty. He's had entire careers before breakfast. You could tell your life story twice in the time it would take him to tell the story about that one time he pantsed DeForrest Kelley. Shatner has conquered. He was cool, then he was nerd-cool, then he was kitsch, then he was kitsch-cool, then he was knowing-wink cool, then just plain cool again, and now he's something better than cool. He made himself a punchline with such debonair cunning that -- guess what? -- the man is not a punchline anymore.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:02 AM on September 4, 2010 [4 favorites]

I was going to flag this for needless editorializing, but after reading the article I see that it's actually a pretty good representation of what the author has to say about Shatner.

I was also going to point out that the article's career summary at the beginning completely leaves out TJ Hooker, but then it does get mentioned later on.

I guess I will finally just have to say that I don't ever want to order in a restaurant with Shatner.
posted by hippybear at 7:11 AM on September 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Shatner became an actor at 6, he said, when he realized he could “make people laugh and cry.” He grinned. “Sometimes they laughed when I played drama and cried when I played comedy.”

I unapologetically adore this man.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:21 AM on September 4, 2010 [17 favorites]

Recently read Shatner's autobiography. It was really fascinating. He is an amazing person. I officially love him. When I grow up I want to be just like him. Thanks for the post.
posted by Splunge at 7:22 AM on September 4, 2010

No mention of his music? I'd've loved to have heard how his rendition of Mr Tamborine Man fit into the chronology of the development of the William Shatnee character.

But I enjoyed the article.
posted by ericost at 7:23 AM on September 4, 2010

There was also this interview in GQ, which I quite enjoyed.

William Shatner then interrupts himself. To scream.

"MY GOD!"

The greenroom has a flat-screen television, and something there has caught his eye. I look. Monkeys. Monkeys in cowboy hats. And chaps. With crops. Riding Chihuahuas. Chihuahuas outfitted with saddles.

They're racing.

"MY GOD!" Shatner exclaims again. "IT IS MAGNIFICENT! YES!"

posted by adamrice at 7:24 AM on September 4, 2010 [42 favorites]

The man was BORN to play Denny Crane.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 7:27 AM on September 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

I've always been impressed how he has been able to create a good living for himself by just being himself.
posted by zzazazz at 7:30 AM on September 4, 2010

“I’m a couple of steps slow.” He added, “I dream about running lightly, sailing through the air.”

Oh, I... I seem to have a speck of dust in my eye.
posted by fleetmouse at 7:34 AM on September 4, 2010 [3 favorites]

I had a strange sense of deja-vu reading this interview, but adamrice explained why. I could easily read a different zany interview with Shatner every week and consider myself content.
posted by BrotherFeldspar at 7:39 AM on September 4, 2010

I laughed my way through that interview, just what I needed this morning. Thnx!
posted by dbiedny at 7:39 AM on September 4, 2010

“A pro takes the job knowing it’s not a great role, just a paying job. But every word has music in it. My satisfaction is trying to reach that music.”

That's a nicely accurate self-summation. This was a great profile of him.
posted by zarq at 7:42 AM on September 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

I had a strange sense of deja-vu reading this interview, but adamrice explained why.

Heh. I had the same exact feeling.

Oh, Shatner. You know you've arrived when your name is a verb used to indicate an overwrought, scenery-chewing line reading. I love you, man.
posted by Gator at 7:55 AM on September 4, 2010

What are you afraid of?
Failure?
So am I
Has been implies failure
Not so
Has been is history
Has been was
Has been might again

No matter what people may say against him, I loves me some William Shatner.
posted by bwg at 8:12 AM on September 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

What struck me the most is how Shatner loves to order other people's food at restaurants. "He'll have the [blank]" when the person in question (mainly the interviewer) wanted something completely different. I'm ok with all of Shatner's idiosyncrasies, but this one I found very odd and rather controlling!
posted by kuppajava at 8:16 AM on September 4, 2010

People who live in celebrity bubbles all their lives have idiosyncrasies that come with that territory. It's a benign one, form what I've seen of other celebrities. Shatner is refreshingly honest and self-effacing, compared to a large number his peers -- giving his fellow diners a hard time at dinner for the sheer fun of it is probably just a little game that he knows he's playing.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:21 AM on September 4, 2010 [4 favorites]

Agree with Devil's Rancher, especially in light of the "I was trying to torment you" comment earlier.
posted by nickrussell at 8:23 AM on September 4, 2010

“I always did assume they were laughing at me. Lately it’s come to my attention they are laughing with me.”

Goddamn, goddamn.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:39 AM on September 4, 2010

No mention of his music? I'd've loved to have heard how his rendition of Mr Tamborine Man fit into the chronology of the development of the William Shatnee character.

Est-ce que c'est nécessaire de conjuguer le verbe?
posted by Sys Rq at 8:44 AM on September 4, 2010

"Man...needs....a challenge!" -James T. Kirk, Captain, USS Enterprise
posted by Mental Wimp at 8:46 AM on September 4, 2010

You can't parody a man who is a parody of himself.
posted by tommasz at 9:28 AM on September 4, 2010

I’m glad this post is back up. It’s a great profile. Shatner comes across as very self-aware.

Kuppajava wrote, “What struck me the most is how Shatner loves to order other people's food at restaurants. "He'll have the [blank]" when the person in question (mainly the interviewer) wanted something completely different. I'm ok with all of Shatner's idiosyncrasies, but this one I found very odd and rather controlling!”

What I found interesting about this is that awhile back there was a metafilter post on Russell Crowe, and in the linked article, Crowe did something very similar: “The following day we met at a restaurant of his choosing, me in my best three-piece suit and hat, him in sweat suit and cap. He hoped I didn't mind, but he'd called ahead and ordered food for both of us. He was sure it would be to my liking.”

What is the social significance of this move? Is it a dominance display?
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear at 9:33 AM on September 4, 2010

Post forget to include Twilight Zone icon, singer, Rescue 911 narrator, Denny Crane and Dad That Says $#*!

A little over 5 years ago, I got to write a piece on "The Top 10 Overrated Stars", carefully noting that that my choices were not BAD, just not as GREAT as too many people think they are. Shatner was #1, and the editors even commissioned a caricature of him for an illustration. A while back I proposed doing a "reconsidered" article, partly because the Shat's run on Boston Legal has pretty much taken him off the Top 10 (but "$#*! My Dad Says" might put him back up there).
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:44 AM on September 4, 2010

Oh, I see that his Wikipedia page has not yet been updated with the latest oddity in a very odd life: Shatner is also now on the relatively short list of people whose horses have been immortalized as a Breyer horse model.

Shatner's superstar Standardbred horse All Glory's portrait model was released at BreyerFest this summer.

(Surprisingly, the intersection between the two sets "Shatner fans" and "Breyer collectors" is a lot bigger than I would have thought.)
posted by ErikaB at 10:13 AM on September 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

I can't resist posting my Shatner theory again here: Shatner is not the only actor who realized people were enjoying his bad work ironically and become cool by having good humor about it.

The genius of Shatner is that he hammed up the so-bad-it's-good shtick so hard it was again the kind of bad work you could enjoy ironically, which he recognized and had good humor about, making it cool again. And he just repeats this cycle over and over, becoming more awesome with each turn of the wheel.
posted by straight at 10:14 AM on September 4, 2010

Shatner just never stops working. I hear Free Enterprise 2 might happen. And feature the Old Spice guy...
posted by anthill at 10:37 AM on September 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

“I always did assume they were laughing at me. Lately it’s come to my attention they are laughing with me.”

Now, this is true. Then, no way. And thank all gods for that.

The early Star Trek stuff is excusable on the level that so much 60s TV was excusable. The medium was still growing, the show was done on the desperate cheap, the overall modus seemed to be: let's keep throwing shit against the wall, some is bound to stick. So Star Trek just was what it was, a product of its goofy time.

But come TJ HOOKER, we have ourselves a whole darned universe of bad, which would not be so fucking great if those involved were aware of just how BAD this bad was. They'd start mugging, figuring ways to give the audience a sly wink, back this up with off-screen personas that played to the so-bad-it's-good crowd -- TJ did none of this (Shatner himself, the whole cast in general). Onscreen and off It was a straight ahead serious enterprise that so absurdly sent up all aspects of 1980s COP CULTURE that it still stands as a masterpiece of 20th Century truth-speaking.

And now I'm wishing I had some old radio tapes I could access, from a local campus show back in the 80s where the two hosts would do a weekly TJ HOOKER UPDATE. At first, it was just straight up, straight-faced beat-by-beat summaries of the most recent shows, which were hilarious in their own right. But they got more creative as they went along. Eventually, TJ and his intrepid team were doing James Bond level world saving stuff, enlisting celebrity help from the likes of Mary Lou Retton, Peter Uberoth, Jane Fonda, Alan Alda etc, whilst taking down super villains like William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Malcolm X (who they hadn't figured out was dead yet). And every episode would end with TJ hanging out on the beach with a bunch of nubile teens, rapping with them about the perils of drugs.

Anyway, that was then. This is now. Mr. Shatner has grown, I believe, to grasp the immense absurdity of which he was part. And to his credit, he's figured out a way to let it fuel him, which, if that's not genius/success in this post-post-modern culture, I don't know what is.

But he'll never top what he did on TJ HOOKER with an entirely straight, entirely sincere face. No one will.
posted by philip-random at 10:41 AM on September 4, 2010 [3 favorites]

The Shatnericon.
posted by stargell at 10:51 AM on September 4, 2010

Quoted again, because it's so good:

"A pro takes the job knowing it’s not a great role, just a paying job. But every word has music in it. My satisfaction is trying to reach that music."

Pretty much the opposite of Orson Welles with the frozen peas.
posted by AkzidenzGrotesk at 10:51 AM on September 4, 2010

As a horse owner I got a kick out of this line.

Never buy anything that eats while you sleep.

Truer words have never been spoken.
posted by COD at 10:52 AM on September 4, 2010

Incubus is "forgettable"? How about: full-on German Expressionist Esperantoid Awesomeness?
posted by meehawl at 11:04 AM on September 4, 2010

The Shatnericon.

When I first read this, I thought it said ShatnerCon. And then I thought, That would be awesome, why ISN'T there a ShatnerCon? And then I Googled it to see if there is, in fact, a ShatnerCon, and there isn't, BUT, somebody wrote an insane "action novel" about a terrorist bombing (perpetrated by Bruce Cambell fanatics) that takes place at a ShatnerCon causing a rift in reality that results in all the characters ever played by Shatner manifesting in our world and intent on killing him. Shatner.

So thanks, stargell, for bringing this to my attention.
posted by Gator at 11:05 AM on September 4, 2010 [9 favorites]

philip-random- watch TJ Hooker again, but in this context: it is all a flashback. He is either in a nuthouse, or on a psychologist's couch, or at the end of a bar, or testifying in his own defense, retelling these stories of his former "glory" to anyone who would listen. The stories we are watching are the warped memories of someone who has lost touch with reality in one way or another.

In that context, the show is a tour-de-force, a dramatic triumph.


The only thing I don't like about Shatner is that there is a bit of revisionist history going on. Surely, he was playing Kirk and Hooker "straight". There was no wink to the audience that says "I'm just goofing around." Sort of like Jerry Lewis in that respect. Not that this detracts from the The Shatner image, just that he is chewing the scenery just like before but in a different context.

I'm not sure if it has been re-mentioned here, but these interviews are fantastic. You get a glimpse of the absolutely frenetic, never want to get old, wants to do everything guy in there a bit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cGKc4bG2Jg
posted by gjc at 11:12 AM on September 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Shatner's career trajectory seems oddly synchronous to my own life experience. As a six year old, he was my hero, Captain Kirk. As a fifty year old, i see him just lean back, take it all in, and say, And they PAY me for this... He just goes out there, does his shit, and takes the money. He NEVER seems to have taken himself TOO seriously (go back and watch some of the more "dramatic" episodes of Star Trek, he knows EXACTLY what he's doing...) and besides, with a nickname like "The Shat," how can you rally go wrong?!
posted by OneMonkeysUncle at 11:29 AM on September 4, 2010

He hoped I didn't mind, but he'd called ahead and ordered food for both of us. He was sure it would be to my liking.

From MFK Fisher, D is for Dining Out, very occasional emphasis added:

"""
However, there are occasions on which one must do so, and one of these was the time I took a Very Important Person to dinner. He had often entertained me and various glamorous groups with lavish simplicity in his home … I thought it would be a compliment to him to cook him dinner for him myself, as soon as I got a place to cook it in. But no: I was tipped off with elaborate tact by his wife, his secretary, and the secretary of his immediate superior in the studio, that he felt bad, in fact terrible, that I had not "entertained" him. All right, I said, all right, forgetting my disappointment in a deliberate campaign to do the thing as nearly as possible as I thought it should be done in a public eating place.

I telephoned the restaurant the day before and asked for a table in accord with my friend's local importance. This obviated standing in line, which is ignominious no matter how diplomatically the line may be spread through the bar by a good headwaiter.

Then I ordered the meal, to be served to four people. It was dictated by what I could remember of my honored guest's tastes, just as it would have been in my home. He boasted of being a meat-and-potato boy, a hater of fancy sauces, a lover of Scotch in moderation, and a shunner of any but chilled pink wine. Very well: smoked samlon, a small rack of lamb, potatoes Anna, Belgian endive salid, and tray of Langlois Blue, Rouge et Nour Camembert, Wisconsin Swiss, and Teleme Jack cheese; Scotch or sherry first, and then Louis Martini's Gamay Rosé. It was not my idea of a perfect meal, but it could be eaten with no pain.

By ordering in advance I avoided another horrible barrier to decent dining out: the confusion that inevitably follows the first showing of menu cards to more than two people at once.

The waiter waits. The diners ponder, stutter, variously flaunting their ignorance or their pretensions to knowledge. They mutter and murmur into the air, assuming Godlike clarity of hearing on the part of the poor harried servant and disregarding entirely the fact that they are guests at a table. The men usually blurt some stock familiar order. Women hum, sip their cocktails, and change their minds at least twice after the waiter has scrawled on his pad. There is a general feeling of chaos, and nobody seems to realize that if the same human beings were invited to any normal home they would not dream of giving their orders so confusedly and arbitrarily, nor would the hostess dare leave her guests thus tenderly exposed. No, a good meal inside or outside the private circle should be ordered in advance (or at least ordered with great firmness by the host at table in a restaurant), to avoid this distressing welter of words and the resultant unrelated odors, plates, servings, when a group has gone helter-skelter through a menu.

The third thing I did was to see the headwaiter and tip him. And since I knew the restaurant and the good relations therein between the various professional levels, I left another tip with him for the man who would take care of us come eight o'clock.

The final step: I arranged for the bill to be mailed to me. There are few things more boringly painful about public dining, to my mind, than the obligatory plunging and grabbing and arguing that are taken as a matter of course at the end of a meal. If men are present they look on it as an insult to their virility to let a woman pay. If women are eating together, they simply outshriek ach other, and the noisiest bears off the check in expensive but curiously rewarding triumph. I feel rebuffed, when I have invited anyone of no matter what sex to dine with me, to have the bill snatched gallantly from me, just as I would feel insulted if after dining in my home a guest slipped a bill under his plate for the groceries I had used.
"""

Admittedly, things have changed since Fisher wrote (waiters no longer wait while one orders, for instance). And it seems relatively unlikely that Crowe and Shatner acted from Fisher's motives. Nevertheless, the above method strikes me as downright civilized.
posted by kenko at 11:29 AM on September 4, 2010 [6 favorites]

St. Alia of the Bunnies: "The man was BORN to play Denny Crane."

Actually, the article makes it pretty clear that Denny Crane was born so that Shatner could play him.

Jasper Friendly Bear: "What is the social significance of this move? Is it a dominance display?"

I think so. There's a scene in "Get Shorty" where DeVito's character riffs on this curiosity of Hollywood culture ("Never order off the menu").
posted by mwhybark at 11:33 AM on September 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

... and then he (a big movie star playing a big movie star) proceeds to order for everyone. I'm guessing this is indeed common behavior in the world of BIG STARS (I even had it done to me once by a punk rock superhero; Vietnamese food and he knew exactly what he was doing). Errol Flynn probably started it way back when, thus establishing himself as the Dominant One (or more likely, it was some handsome prince back in the 16th Century). Then, later on somebody that had it done to them is now far enough up the fame and heaviness measure to start doing it to those they're eating with. And so on. The convention is struck.
posted by philip-random at 11:49 AM on September 4, 2010

The only thing I don't like about Shatner is that there is a bit of revisionist history going on

You've met humans that don't do this?!
posted by zarah at 12:00 PM on September 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

Shatner played Kirk seriously (both comedic and tragic moments) -- and he was damned good. Some people don't like that he was a bit stagey (being trained to theatre, it's not surprising -- it was also a more common acting style then). But compare him to the other people in Star Trek, and other action shows of the time, and he was clearly a cut above the rest. (My heart hurts to say this, but he is a better actor than Nimoy).
posted by jb at 1:44 PM on September 4, 2010

In The Making of The Trouble With Tribbles David Gerrold relates that Shatner was well regarded and highly respected, and it was considered quite a coup for a rather experimental series like Star Trek to snag him.

I must say I love Shatner's philosophy and pretty much live that way myself, if not to the hilariously overboard degree Shatner manages. In a thousand years very little of what any of us have done will matter, but at the end of a day or the end of a life, whether you're an actor or a computer programmer, if you can look back and say you left people happier than they would have been had you not been there and got paid for your effort, it was a good period of time.
posted by localroger at 2:11 PM on September 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

I read this morning and it cleared up something I had wondered about for awhile. I was living near Lexington for a few years (until this summer, in fact) and had seen the show of his wife's art work next to the Tony Roma's mentioned in the article. Coincidentally, I had gone to Joseph-Beth's Bookstore (also next to Tony Roma's) the night that the show opened. William Shatner was there, wearing a blue jeans shirt and sweat pants. He was talking to various matronly women about the flower photographs. I had assumed it was artwork from his wife that had died in Lexington. I didn't know that he had remarried.

I really wanted to go in and tell him how much my Mom loved him as Denny Crane and try to make it seem as if I had never heard of any other role he had done.

My Mom did love Denny Crane.
posted by Slothrop at 2:17 PM on September 4, 2010

I read the article this morning, obviously... Sheesh... Sorry.
posted by Slothrop at 2:18 PM on September 4, 2010

I like Shatner a LOT but I just wish he would quit signing his tweets! It's annoying.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 2:30 PM on September 4, 2010

Gator, my pleasure, but I was going for more of a play on this.
posted by stargell at 2:38 PM on September 4, 2010

St. Alia of the Bunnies: The man was BORN to play Denny Crane.

Mwhybark: Actually, the article makes it pretty clear that Denny Crane was born so that Shatner could play him.

From the article: William Shatner the man was playing William Shatner the character playing the character Denny Crane, who was playing the character William Shatner.
posted by marsha56 at 2:53 PM on September 4, 2010

There was that metatalk thread about the patron saints of metafilter...surely Shatner would be near the top of the list?
posted by maxwelton at 2:55 PM on September 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh, sure, he's transformed himself into an endlessly fascinating cultural phenom, but he's no Liberace.
posted by rdc at 3:08 PM on September 4, 2010

I was part of the student committee at McGill that got the building's name changed (went to a student referendum). Right after we won, a very cagey Shatner was interviewed by the CBC's National. Sadly, at the time he seemed to think we were trying to hit him up for cash, as McGill's own buildings policy was clear - no renaming unless the person in question was dead or donating a sizable fortune to the university.

Hasn't stopped him in the years since, however - at the FanExpo in Toronto a week ago he led with the name change. Which is nice, we just thought it would be a cool thing to do.
posted by northtwilight at 4:11 PM on September 4, 2010

Someone contact Shatner and give him an honourary MeFi account.

Imagine. The. Possibilities.
posted by bwg at 5:38 PM on September 4, 2010

Shatner has much better things to do than to hang out with us.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:41 PM on September 4, 2010

Maybe so, but oh, the hilarity!
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:58 PM on September 4, 2010

If anyone doubts Shatner's acting ability, in the goofiest of Star Trek episodes, his sheer expression of "what the fuck?" here is amazing.
posted by Snyder at 7:24 PM on September 4, 2010 [3 favorites]

I guess I will finally just have to say that I don't ever want to order in a restaurant with Shatner.

Yes. You. Do.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:45 PM on September 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Just don't order tea, earl grey, hot, unless you really wanna get pistol-whipped with a TOS phaser. The Shat don't take kindly to Picardies.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:31 PM on September 4, 2010

Some of Shatner's cheesiest work helped make this utterly brilliant. More than the sum of its parts, indeed.
posted by maudlin at 5:39 AM on September 5, 2010 [2 favorites]

I actually find THIS brillianter.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:33 AM on September 5, 2010 [2 favorites]

One of the things I really enjoy about TOS (and that many who watch it with me hate) is that the stagecraft is so old school stage play, very much Shakespearian and old Greek. It was the infancy of color television and still a very young time for TV itself, so pretty much everything was being shot as if it were a stage play. Given then themes and archetypes of Trek, it rings to me like Sophocles, Homer, Aeschylus.

Viewing it in that context, Shatner's work is very, very strong among a pretty strong cast.

They seem overwrought and goofy against today's TV storytelling, but it's really pretty classical and Shatner shines in a classical Hero role.

Now he just rules. I'd eat whatever he ordered for me... And I like Scotch!
posted by zoogleplex at 12:30 PM on September 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

He also narrated Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie. Basically gratuitous videos of nukes going off; both great fun fun and horrifying. And with Shatner narrating, you. Can't. Go. Wrong.
posted by BungaDunga at 1:12 PM on September 5, 2010

One of the things I really enjoy about TOS (and that many who watch it with me hate) is that the stagecraft is so old school stage play, very much Shakespearian and old Greek. It was the infancy of color television and still a very young time for TV itself, so pretty much everything was being shot as if it were a stage play. Given then themes and archetypes of Trek, it rings to me like Sophocles, Homer, Aeschylus.

The overwrought acting of Star Trek may have been a reaction of sorts to an earlier foray into televised science fiction: Behold the spectacularly awful Captain Video.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:29 PM on September 5, 2010

Really enjoyed the interview, but I can't get out of my head the idea that Alex Lifeson is becoming Shatner!
posted by TedW at 1:55 PM on September 5, 2010