He himself refers to it as “that period”.

William Shatner’s first wife, Gloria, was filing for divorce. NBC was unhappy with Star Trek’s ratings and cancellation loomed. Other acting jobs were not forthcoming. And the former Captain of the starship Enterprise was now living in a truck bed camper in the San Fernando Valley, trying to keep some money coming in.

He hustled guest star roles on now-forgotten series like Paris 7000, The Storefront Lawyers and The Name of the Game. He went on quiz shows like The Match Game and Tattletales and did some TV commercials for a Canadian supermarket chain called Loblaws.

And it was somewhere during the early part of “that period” that Bill Shatner went on The Mike Douglas Show and sang “It Was A Very Good Year.”

Composed in 1961 by Ervin Drake for The Kingston Trio, “It Was A Very Good Year” later earned Frank Sinatra a Grammy Award for Best Male Vocal Performance in 1966.

Told from a middle-age man’s point of view,the song recalls the kinds of women that the singer’s been with during various periods of his life: “small-town girls on the village green”, at 17; “city girls who lived up the stairs” at 21; “blue-blooded girls of independent means” at 35.

William Shatner, middle aged, living in a camper, accepting gigs beneath his talent, must have felt every bit his age when this was recorded at a Philadelphia TV station.

We know now that Shatner had a lot to look forward to: The Star Trek movies, T.J. Hooker; Rescue 911; his self-created  sci-fi franchise, TekWar; books (non-fiction and fiction), more movies, more TV, Boston Legal, plus writing, producing, directing, a Golden Globe, two Emmy Awards and the kind of global fame and hero-worship that few people have known.

But back then, during “that period”, William Shatner had no clue what was ahead for him. And you can feel that in his song…

Tags: Boston Legal, NBC, Rescue 911, Star Trek, T.J. Hooker, William Shatner
Posted in Shatner Observatory

The year 1978 had been a busy one for William Shatner.

It was three years after his big comeback television series, The Barbary Coast, had failed. It was one year before Star Trek: The Motion Picture revived interest in him.

That year of 1978, William Shatner appeared in the ABC mini-series How The West Was Won and played Paul Revere in the syndicated TV movie, The Bastard. Shatner also appeared in two obscure independent films, Land of No Return and The Third Walker, plus two more TV movies, Little Women and Crash.

But Shatner’s most stellar performance that year was as host and musical guest of the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films’ annual Science Fiction Film Awards show.

This syndicated Shatner spectacular was co-hosted by Karen Black (Burnt Offerings, Capricorn One) and featured an odd mix of presenters like Charlton Heston, Wolfman Jack, Buster Crabbe, Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Quincy Jones and Brenda Vaccaro.

But it was William Shatner, with his floppy-tied tuxedo. tiny cigarette and beat poet growl, that wowed the crowd in Miami’s Coconut Grove with his singular interpretation of the Elton John/Bernie Taupin song, Rocket Man.

Here now is Karen Black introducing Bernie Taupin introducing William Shatner and his song. It runs 5:12, Make sure you stick with it until the end…

Tags: Karen Black, William Shatner
Posted in Shatner Observatory

I recently wrote a piece here about producer David L. Wolper and mentioned that one of the series that he produced was Police Woman for NBC. Starring Angie Dickinson as sexy LAPD detective sergeant Pepper Anderson, Police Woman ran for four seasons and liberated the airwaves for other two-fisted, female-anchored action dramas of the era (Charlie’s Angels, Get Christie Love!, Amy Prentiss, Wonder Woman, The Bionic Woman, Cagney & Lacey). It also provided guest-star work for actors like…William Shatner.

Yes, you’ve stumbled into The Shatner Observatory.

William Shatner appeared in “Smack”, the eleventh episode of Police Woman’s first season (December 6 1974). On “Smack”,  Mr. Shatner worked with director John Newland, who had previously directed the actor in episodes of The Defenders, The Bold Ones and Star Trek.

But what we’re interested in today is the collaboration between William Shatner and Angie Dickinson. Thirty-six years after “Smack”, that single Police Woman episode marks the last time that Mr. Shatner and Ms. Dickinson would act with one another. And here’s the really interesting part: The actor and actress, in twin careers that have each spanned fives decades, appeared with each other only three times…and all within one year.

Three months before their 1974 Police Woman, Mr. Shatner and Ms. Dickinson shared the big screen (and a couple of nude scenes) in a low-budget, Roger Corman Bonnie and Clyde riff, when Big Bad Mama was released in September of 1974.

And it was at the beginning of that same year (January 23 1974, to be precise) that had Bill and Angie appearing with Andy Griffith and Robert Reed in the ABC Wednesday Movie of the Week presentation, Pray for the Wildcats.

Again, in over 50 years in the same business, William Shatner and Angie Dickenson only worked together three times, and all roughly within one single 12-month period. Strange, no?

Certainly no stranger than this clip from Pray for the Wildcats. Shatner plays one of three advertising executives who get bullied by potential client Andy Griffith into risking their lives on motorcycle trip through Mexico. Mr. Shatner doesn’t have much to do here, but check out his white-sideburned wig and the enormous pause he takes before delivering the last word of his line. And what’s that bit of business he’s doing with his glasses..?

Forget Leno vs. Conan. I’m much more interested in Shatner vs. Takei.

That’s right. I said it.

It all began on Tuesday, January 12 2010, when the dish array atop the Shatner Observatory locked on and pulled down the signals of Sirius XM Satellite Radio and The Howard Stern Show. And the word coming down from on high was this:

Howard Stern agreed, live on the air, to guest-host William Shatner’s Raw Nerve interview show on Bio for the express purpose of mediating the long-standing feud between Star Trek’s William “Admiral Kirk” Shatner and George “Captain Sulu” Takei.

The feud goes back decades. Basically, it started when George Takei started to make it known that William Shatner possesses “a big, shiny, demanding ego” and that ego emboldens an entitled William Shatner to treat other actors (i.e Takei) like so much set-dressing.

Over the years, Takei’s accused Shatner of being rude on the set; of line-counting; of “tanking” takes to make scenes unusable; of treating Takei and his fellow Star Trek supporting actors (James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig) like glorified day-players and extras.

Mr. Shatner’s always shrugged it off, noting that he (Shatner) starred in all 79 Star Trek shows, while Takei appeared only in a handful of scenes in just 51 of the episodes. To Shatner, the characters of Kirk, Spock and McCoy were Star Trek. They were the series stars and their character drove the stories. All those other people on the bridge of the Enterprise? They were there, Shatner said, “to do what they do.”

There have been other hurt feelings. Takei was miffed because Shatner didn’t come to his wedding. Shatner claimed that he never got an invitation. Takei was irritated that Shatner didn’t call Takei inquiring about the missing invitation. Shatner released a YouTube-rant declaring that Takei must have “some kind of psychosis.”

Mind you, these are grown men. In their seventies.

Is it any wonder, then, why Howard Stern would agree to leave behind his Sirius XM channels and Howard-TV pay network to re-enter the mainstream media in the form of Bio (Bio!) for the singular purpose of playing referee at The Big Kirk/Sulu Smackdown?

I personally cannot wait. But wait we must. Schedules have to be cleared, contracts need to be signed, the Raw Nerve set has to be re-configured before Mr. Stern can knock some sense into those two maniacs.

In the meantime, let’s all enjoy this, four minutes and fifty seconds of William Shatner’s own unique view of the Shatner/Takei feud…

“What I’ve done will be puzzled over
and studied and followed forever…”

William Shatner

Thus far in my career, I’ve been offered the opportunity to direct William Shatner twice. And twice, I turned it down. And that’s not because I don’t like William Shatner. Just the opposite. I embrace any and all things Shatnerian.

Whether Bill’s brought his talents to bear as an actor, writer, director, producer, singer, talk show guest, talk show host, commercial pitchman, game show guest, game show host, spoken word performance artist or anything else, I’ve been part of his audience.

Justifiably famous worldwide as a cultural icon, William Alan Shatner never fails to entertain. He just might be the Most Fascinating Human In The Galaxy.

And that’s why I turned down the chance to work with Mr. Shatner those two times. I simply did not want to alter my perception of him. Good collaboration or bad, I didn’t want to walk away having had Mr. Shatner humanized or demonized or anything else-ized in my eyes.

But now, within the safe confines of Cyclops Central, I get to keep an eye on William Shatner from a safe distance. Welcome to the Shatner Observatory, a regular feature devoted to Kirk, Hooker, Crane and everybody and everything that William Shatner embodies.

To kick off the feature, here’s a piece from the 1996 MTV Movie Awards. It features Mr. Shatner reprising his personas from Star Trek, T. J. Hooker and Rescue 911 in a parody of the crime film Se7en.

It is, as you might expect, Shatnerrific.