 Nerine Shatner Friendly House
This non profit organization is one of the nation's first residential
homes for women recovering from alcohol and substance abuse.
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Hollywood
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Horse Show
For the past eleven years, William Shatner has spearheaded the HCHS
which features some of the best western reining riders in the country
while simultaneously raising money for charity.
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William
Shatner also
Supports:
 March
of
Dimes Canada
 The Jewish
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Post subject:
 Posted: May 10, 2008 - 06:39 PM
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From RecordOnline.com...
No... pause in William Shatner's career
By Germain Lussier, May 09, 2008
Everything that William Shatner does becomes iconic in some way.
Captain Kirk? Of course. A spot on the Twilight Zone? Classic. Albums of spoken word music? Far from common. Even his hyperactive spokesman for Priceline.com has become instantly recognizable.
And that's not even mentioning his Emmy-nominated and Emmy-winning performances on Boston Legal, The Practice and various other television shows.
Basically, the former leader of the Starship Enterprise hasn't been out of the public eye in decades. And though Shatner has a trademark vocal style and classic good looks, really, it's his ability to make fun of himself that's kept him so relevant for so long.
All of those projects and more are sure to be discussed in Up Till Now: An Autobiography, a book he's written that will be released this week. Shatner will discuss the book and more as he speaks at the 92nd Street Y, Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street, NYC, at 7:30 p.m. Monday.
Tickets are $30. Call 212-415-5500 or visit www.92y.org
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.d ... NTERTAIN08
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Post subject:
Posted: May 11, 2008 - 12:24 PM
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From DailyMail.co.uk
In bed with Captain Kirk ... William Shatner tells of his 40-year Star Trek
By WILLIAM SHATNER
Last update at 22:13pm on 10th May 2008
One morning, shooting a Star Trek movie in the desert, I had a very early call.
So I told the wardrobe girl: "Give me my uniform and I'll put it on at the house so I don't have to come in any earlier for wardrobe. I'll just wear it to the set."
So at 4am I was racing across the desert to our location. I was way over the speed limit, figuring there wasn't another car on the road in the entire state.
It turned out there was one other car -- and it had lights and a siren.
Scroll down for more...
Turn phasers to stun: The handsome captain stands in front of his ship in his TV heyday
I got out of my car, dressed in my uniform. The police officer looked me up and down, frowned and asked: "So where are you going so fast at this time in the morning?"
I told him the truth: "To my spaceship."
He sighed. "OK, go ahead," he said, before adding the Vulcan blessing: "Live long and prosper."
I was born in Canada in 1931. My father Joseph was in the clothing business. It was my mother Ann, an elocution teacher, who encouraged me to act.
I acted throughout my teenage years and then travelled to America with a successful theatre production company and started working in television and movies.
By the mid-Sixties, I was the veteran of many shows. My then wife, Gloria, and I were living in Los Angeles with our three daughters and I wasn't earning enough to support my family.
In 1965, I did a series pilot at Paramount for a show called Star Trek and a TV network picked it up.
Before our first show was broadcast, the cast met the media.
Leonard Nimoy played a Vulcan called Mr Spock. When he was asked about his character, he responded that we were doing something very different to the typical science-fiction story. "This is an intelligent character, a scientist, a being with great dignity."
Scroll down for more...
Rivals: Shatner and Leonard Nimoy have lunch on the Star Trek set
As the same reporters watched the next day, we filmed a scene in which Spock was lying in a bed in the sick bay, green blood dripping from his head.
I rushed in and asked urgently, "What happened, Spock?" to which the "being with great dignity" replied: "Captain, the monster attacked me!"
On September 8, 1966, for the first time we entered "Space: The Final Frontier". The reviews were not great. Show business magazine Variety said: "William Shatner . . . appears wooden."
Wooden? Me, wooden? Not that I took it personally, of course.
I barely even remember reading that review, sitting at the kitchen table on a rainy morning, eating three eggs while Gloria, dressed in a pale green cotton top, got our daughters ready for school.
As a professional actor, those things don't bother me. And that review has continued to not bother me for more than four decades.
Over the next few weeks Leonard's character began receiving most of the attention.
Spock fan clubs were formed and the network sent Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry a memo wondering why Spock wasn't in every story.
I've often heard it said that acting is not a competitive sport -- but never by actors. The truth is, every good actor has an ego.
I was supposed to be the star but Leonard was getting more attention than I was. It bothered me.
Leonard and I argued early on.
Scroll down for more...
Lust in space: In 1966, Shatner and Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Uhura) shared the first inter-racial screen kiss on American TV
The process of getting Spock's ears just right had been difficult and expensive, and Leonard was grateful to the head of make-up, Freddy Phillips, for doing a good job.
When a magazine wanted to do a photo story about his make-up process, featuring Freddy, he agreed.
One morning I found the photographer in the make-up room snapping away.
I didn't like that at all; I was concerned all my little makeup secrets were going to be revealed. I asked someone: "What's this photographer doing in the make-up room?"
The photographer quietly left. Leonard and Freddy waited for him to return but he didn't.
Leonard came to my trailer to confront me. "Did you order the photographer out?" he demanded. "Yes," I admitted. "I didn't want him there."
"It was approved by Roddenberry. It was approved by the head of the studio. It was approved by publicity," said Leonard.
"Well, it was not approved by me!" I retorted.
Leonard and I didn't get along. On the set he remained aloof. He claimed this was partly to maintain the character's integrity. Spock was an outsider and Leonard worried if he got too friendly with the cast he might close that distance.
But perhaps the other reason that Leonard remained aloof is that he was an alcoholic.
As he admits: "I was in bad shape. I would go home every day and drink.
"On weekends I would tell myself I'll have a beer at ten o'clock. By two o'clock I was drinking hard liquor and by five o'clock I'd passed out."
Early one afternoon in 1967, as we were filming an episode called "Devil In The Dark," I received a call telling me my father had died.
While I was at the funeral, Leonard filmed a scene in which Spock had to perform a mind-meld with a wounded alien, during which he felt the creature's intense pain.
When I returned, the set was sombre. I wanted to relieve the tension and let people know I was OK.
I had to figure out how to react to Leonard's mind-meld. I told him: "Show me what you did."
He explained: "Well, I went over here and I put my hands on her and I said, 'Pain, pain, pain.'"
I shook my head. "It was bigger than that. Can you show me exactly what you did?"
As a favour, Leonard did the scene. He didn't just go through the motions, he felt the emotion. He screamed out: "Pain. Pain. Pain."
And I said glibly: "Can somebody get this guy an aspirin?"
I thought everybody would have a good laugh, but Leonard was furious. He thought I'd betrayed him for the amusement of others -- that I had toyed with his commitment to his character.
He told me later that he thought I was a real son of a bitch.
However, the show was successful, as we realised when key phrases we used became more and more popular.
I'd walk through an airport and people would say, "Beam me up, Scotty" or "Live long and prosper".
On other shows comedians were promising to "boldly go where no man has gone before" and travelling at "warp speed."
Nevertheless, the show was cancelled after three seasons. In January 1969 we filmed the final episode.
I assumed the day we finished shooting Star Trek was the end of my association with Captain Kirk.
During the three years I'd worked on the show, Gloria, who was an actress, and I had separated.
The fact that each week new and beautiful women showed up on the Star Trek set didn't help.
(My second wife Marcy was also an actress. That marriage lasted 17 years, but the reality of some marriages is that a husband and a wife can grow apart.)
I now had three children and an ex-wife to support and I was just about broke. I even lived out of a pick-up truck for a while.
I needed to earn money, fast ...
After Star Trek I made some awful movies. There has been considerable discussion among the true Shatner aficionados about precisely which one was the worst I ever made.
The Horror At 37,000 Feet, in which I get sucked out of a plane while carrying a lit torch into the baggage compartment to confront a druid ghost, has its supporters.
Meanwhile, Paramount sold Star Trek cheaply to local American stations.
Old fans didn't want to miss an episode and they introduced new fans. The ratings were terrific. And then other countries began buying it.
We did a wonderful episode entitled "The Trouble With Tribbles." Tribbles are adorable balls of fur that rapidly reproduce, reproduce, reproduce.
That's what happened to Star Trek. It just kept tribbling.
For reasons that many wise men have tried for many years to explain, Star Trek eventually became arguably the best-known, most enduring and influential television series ever produced.
At the core of it there was one simple truth: it was fun.
Star Trek became a sun with great gravitational pull that drew people to it, where they could meet other people just like themselves. Wearing costumes.
The first unofficial Star Trek convention was held in the Newark, New Jersey, public library in March 1969. A small group of fans sang folk songs inspired by the show, showed slides of the Enterprise set and enjoyed a brief lecture about the connection between Star Trek and science.
By the early Eighties as many as 400 Star Trek conventions were held annually.
I didn't want anything to do with them. I didn't want anything to do with a group of obsessives who paid to get together to talk incessantly about a TV show that had been cancelled. It wasn't logical ...
I attended my first Star Trek convention in New York, in November 1975. The money they offered me was ... do I dare? Yes, I do! Out of this world!
The organisers told me, just be yourself -- Captain Kirk.
I walked on stage to thunderous applause. They responded to my slightest smile. It was an actor's dream.
After that I attended conventions, often with Leonard -- and we eventually became best friends.
We were treated like rock stars. I was told there were female Trekkies who kept lists of all the cast members with whom they'd slept. I was told this!
During much of this time I was single and I had opportunities to be with many women -- and I grasped a great many of them. Never at warp speed.
Admittedly, there were times when the woman I was with said: "So this is what it's like to be in bed with Captain Kirk."
That was definitely a downer, in every sense of the word.
Paramount finally got around to making a Star Trek movie in the late Seventies.
Almost half the budget for Star Trek: The Motion Picture was spent on special effects.
The problem was the plot. Nothing happened.
Roddenberry wanted the Enterprise to be the star of the movie so the film was replete with tedious shots of the Enterprise flying through space.
There goes the Enterprise. Here comes the Enterprise. Whoops, there it goes again.
Nevertheless, it was a commercial success and Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan opened in 1982 with the largest weekend gross in movie history.
Several films later, when I had been James Tiberius Kirk for almost 30 years, Paramount asked if I was willing to play his death scene.
The executives believed they might make more money with Patrick Stewart's Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his Next Generation crew.
As I prepared for Kirk's final scene, I had to remind myself that this was just another performance. And I was able to do that right up until the morning of the shoot.
Kill Kirk? What are they, out of their minds? Why did I agree to this?
Gradually, I calmed down.
I die saving the universe. For my final scene I had to leap from one side of a collapsed bridge to the other. The bridge collapses and Kirk falls to his death.
My last line, was: "Oh... my..." but I had written some other lines.
When I leapt on to the bridge I said: "Captain on the bridge," which was the way I had always announced my presence on the bridge of the Enterprise.
And when the bridge collapsed on me I said: "Bridge on the captain." Those lines were cut.
I went home that night with a great sense of satisfaction. I didn't feel it was the end of an era, just the end of a character.
And then I sat down and wrote a 40-page treatment for a story in which Kirk comes back from the dead.
Scroll down for more...
Tragic couple: Shatner and Nerine in 1996
My wife was dead -- and I was the only suspect
I met Nerine Kidd, the model who became my third wife, when I was in Toronto directing an episode of Kung Fu.
Ironically, as it would turn out, we met in a hotel bar.
I was struck instantly by her beauty and I fell in love with her. We were together six years before we talked about getting married.
For much of that time she was able to hide her alcoholism. Unless she had been drinking very heavily, she didn't show it on the surface.
When she drank she would get a little meaner. I didn't like it, but because I loved her I accepted it.
Leonard Nimoy's personal experience of alcoholism now came to play a central role in my life and it helped us bond together in a way I never could have imagined in the early days of Star Trek.
After Nerine and I had been to dinner with Leonard and Susan Nimoy one evening, Leonard called and said: "Bill, you know she's an alcoholic?" I said I did.
I married Nerine in 1997, against the advice of many and my own good sense. But I thought she would give up alcohol for me.
We had a celebration in Pasadena, and Leonard was my best man. I woke up about eight o'clock the next morning and Nerine was drunk.
She was in rehab for 30 days three different times. Twice she almost drank herself to death.
Leonard took Nerine to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, but she did not want to quit.
One Monday -- August 9, 1999 -- I left the house to visit my grandchildren.
Nerine had been drunk the night before. As I was backing out of the driveway, she stopped me and asked me to let her come along.
"I can't," I said. "Nerine, you've been drunk so many times in front of the kids that they're fearful and I don't want to go through that scene. I'll be back in the evening."
Then I added, more from habit than anything else: "Please don't drink."
As I put the car back into reverse she said softly: "Please don't leave me, Bill."
I kept going. I spoke to her several times during the day.
By 8:30pm I was driving home. My daughter Melanie called and said she was unable to contact Nerine by mobile and asked me to call the landline. There was no reply.
The pool where Nerine died in 1999
When I got home about 9:30pm the house was quiet. I called her name several times. I began to get a strange feeling.
The phone rang -- it was a female friend of Nerine's from AA.
"I don't know where she is," I told her. "I can't find her." The friend asked if I had checked the pool -- I put her on hold and went to look.
The pool area was dark, although part of it was dimly illuminated by lights higher up.
I looked into the pool, and in the gloom I saw a dark shape in the deep end.
I took several steps backwards to try to avoid the horror in front of me.
I turned my back on the pool as I picked up the phone to speak to Nerine's friend. She told me to call 911.
The operator asked if I had pulled Nerine out of the pool. I said I hadn't.
"I want you to take her out of the pool right now," said the operator.
I had enough breath for one deep dive. I remember screaming as I pulled her towards the shallow end: "What have you done?"
I remember every second at the pool side. I put my finger in her throat to try to breathe life into her. I couldn't believe this was really happening.
The emergency services arrived within minutes. My daughters came quickly. Reporters and news crews gathered outside the front gate.
What appeared to have happened is that Nerine had been drinking outside by the pool -- a broken bottle had been found -- slipped and hit her head, and blacked out.
The post-mortem examination found her blood-alcohol level was more than three times the amount considered legally intoxicating -- and there were traces of Valium in her system.
The police officer in charge had said: "I have to tell you, if there was any hint of foul play, you're the first suspect."
Maybe he didn't actually use the word "suspect", but that certainly was his inference.
"What are you talking about?" I said. "This is the woman I loved more than my life. I wouldn't hurt her."
That night, the shock and the grief were overwhelming, and along with that came the knowledge and the fear that I was alone again.
Very early the next morning I walked down the driveway to make a statement to the mob of reporters.
I told them: "My beautiful wife is dead. Her laughter, her tears and her joy will remain with me the rest of my life."
It was so clear what had happened that night; but that didn't stop people from asking those terrible questions. Did Shatner kill his wife? It was insane.
Within a few days of Nerine's death I learned the National Enquirer was going to run a story asking, basically: "Did he or didn't he kill her?"
I wanted to get the true story out as quickly as possible.
We called the Enquirer and offered them a deal: "Don't run that story. Instead, we'll give you the exclusive story of what happened that night."
In exchange, they contributed $250,000 (£123,000) to what would become the Nerine Shatner Foundation, which helps addicted women.
I guess the question asked most often was why did I call 911 before diving into the pool to try to save her?
It took me years to fully understand, and even then it was only because of my fourth wife, Elizabeth.
Every year on August 9, Elizabeth and I would go up to the pool in the evening. The moon is in the same position, the lights are the same.
On one of those nights I suddenly knew. The water in the pool had been still.
And somehow I had known that whether I dived in and rescued the body and then called 911, or called 911 and then did so, it would have made no difference.
I don't think you ever get over an event like that. You deal with the grief, you then absorb the substance and it becomes part of you.
I had believed the force of my love for her was enough to effect a cure, but, to my sorrow, I learned sometimes love is not enough.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/f ... ge_id=1879
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Post subject:
Posted: May 11, 2008 - 08:11 PM
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From PittsburghLive.com...
Boston Legal Heads for War Between Friends
By Mike Hughes, GANNETT NEWS SERVICE, Sunday, May 11, 2008
As this wobbly TV season began, Boston Legal was in a state of hyper-readiness.
It started writing early, started filming early. Strike or not, it would have a season.
The result? Legal made 20 episodes, just two short of a full season. And it plans to wrap up with two key ones:
• Denny Crane (William Shatner) is a possible Republican presidential nominee. "He gets vetted by a panel," producer Bill D'Elia says. "He goes for his physical in a unique way."
• The two friends -- Alan Shore (James Spader) and Denny -- are on opposite sides of a court case involving a proposed secession from the Union.
Barring a late change, the show has its Denny-for-president episode Wednesday, and the Alan-vs.-Denny episode on May 21.
"If we're cancelled, it's a great place to end the series," Shatner says, while working on the latter episode. "And if we're picked up, it's a great way to end the season."
It is, at least, a jolt. "The subject matter, which is patriotism, has such meaning to both characters that it pulls them apart," Shatner says.
That splits a friendship that has sparked the show. In the first three seasons, Spader won two Emmys (best actor); Shatner (supporting actor) won once and was nominated twice.
"The friendship between Denny and Alan is unique," D'Elia says. "We sort of captured light in a bottle with Bill and James."
That started in the final season of The Practice, when creator David Kelley tried a drastic makeover. He dropped most characters and inserted Alan -- unethical, disgraced, but a courtroom winner.
As that season was ending, Alan was fired and moved to a firm with an offbeat boss.
"I thought it was the most wonderful, outlandish character I had ever seen," Shatner says. "(Kelley) was trying to either inject new blood or make a spin-off."
Shatner, now 77, agreed to do the transition episodes, but nothing more. "I'd done several series before, and I certainly didn't want to do another."
Then he relented. The Practice folded and Boston Legal zoomed, with Alan and Denny as a celebration of opposites.
"One is an arch-conservative, one is a liberal," D'Elia says. "(And) the characters are so physically different."
Alan is button-down and precise; Denny is full of gusto, unaware of his flaws. "We knew it would be funny," D'Elia says.
And the role was given to a guy known for dead-serious characters in Star Trek and T.J. Hooker.
D'Elia says he was confident Shatner could do it. He had been funny in commercials and had drawn an Emmy nomination in 3rd Rock From the Sun, for playing the Big Giant Head. "He says, 'I want to play a character who is just full of himself.'"
Shatner also says he was confident. "I was a light comedian in Canada for five or six years, before I came here."
Well, semi-light, anyway.
Back in 1954, Shatner -- a Montreal native, fresh from McGill University -- joined the Stratford Festival for its second season of Shakespearean plays. He was soon a young lover in "Taming of the Shrew," a plotter in "Julius Caesar" and more.
Separately, the festival and Shatner would find fame.
"What I learned from my early theater days was a sense of discipline," he says. "You do what needs to be done; you learn the lines."
In the early days, he studied those lines in the bathroom of a Stratford home where he had rented a room. These days, his world is plusher, but his lines are still written by a master -- Shakespeare then, Kelley now.
"It's dazzling," D'Elia -- who also produced Kelley's Chicago Hope and Ally McBeal -- says of the Kelley touch.
"The ability he has to take an issue and examine it from both sides is amazing. And to make it be about the characters -- that's what's impressive."
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsbu ... 66701.html
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Post subject:
Posted: May 11, 2008 - 08:14 PM
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From the New York Post...
IN MY LIBRARY
May 11, 2008
Memoirs -- the final frontier? Perhaps, but then it's hard to imagine the enterprising William Shatner ever slowing down. Even at 77, the former Captain Kirk is in perpetual motion -- breeding horses, hawking airfare tickets and starring in TV's Boston Legal.
Somehow, he's managed to sit still long enough to turn out Up Till Now, which, with characteristic modesty, he calls "one of the funniest, most moving autobiographies I've ever read."
"My life has been pretty much an open book," he tells The Post's Barbara Hoffman "This is the closed book version." He'll read snippets from it tomorrow at the 92nd Street Y.
Oddly, for someone who's written sci-fi novels, Shatner's more of a spy guy. "I read mostly on airplanes," he says, and he's likely to have a John Le Carre book along for the ride, calling his novels "some of the best writing for intrigue and excitement."
Here are a few other books that have turned him on, if not beamed him up altogether.
Ragtime
by E.L. Doctorow
"Handles the passage of time better than any novel I've ever read. Doctorow was able to push us forward backward and stay in the present and keep it clear. He's one of my favorite writers."
Citizen Hughes: The Power, The Money and The Madness
by Michael Drosnin
Fascinating story about a man who started bad -- and went worse.
Riding Into Your Mythic Life: Transformation Adventures with the Horse
by Patricia Broersma and Jean Houston
An interesting treatise about horses and mythology. Strangely enough, my daughter saw it and thought I might want to read it just based on the title. It's a nonimpressive book except for the subject matter -- having myth be part of your life, giving it a broader meeting.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
by Mitch Albom
Recommended to me by Jon Voight during his interview on my new talk show, Shatner's Raw Nerve. I finished reading it in one sitting. It's very spiritually stimulating.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/05112008/po ... 110300.htm
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Post subject:
Posted: May 12, 2008 - 01:00 PM
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Post subject:
Posted: May 12, 2008 - 07:58 PM
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From Macleans Magazine...
Interview with William Shatner
'Tombstone? Well, I'm not going to have a tombstone. I'm going to be tossed in the air. Ashes, tossed like a salad.'
KATE FILLION, 7 May 2008
Q: Up Till Now, your new autobiography, is very funny.
A: I'm sure it's my co-writer, he's very funny. I'm somewhat dour.
Q: Well, you did have that reputation, but you've remade it, through self-deprecation and even self-parody. Did you change, or was it just your public image that changed?
A: We all evolve. I think what's happened the last several years is that I've become "Shatner," a sort of synthesis of these various characters I've played.
Q: Did you actively set out to rebrand yourself?
A: No, the audience synthesized it themselves. I'm not doing things with the thought, "This will change people's minds." When an actor says, "And then I showed them this side of me," I don't understand that, nor do I behave in that manner. I see an interesting project and put myself into it and don't think of the consequences. Since I don't know what you like, I can't please you, I can only please myself and hope that you will like what I've done and go with me.
Q: You started acting classes in Montreal when you were really young. Did you learn anything useful?
A: To avoid rapacious women. I learned that at the age of 6.
Q: Did you always feel you were going to be famous some day?
A: I was already famous in my family. I was the only son, and that gave me a great taste for fame. But no, I never felt destined for anything.
Q: You did a lot of light comedies when you first starting acting full-time, in Ottawa and Toronto, before going on to serious dramatic roles. Is it harder to make people laugh or cry?
A: If you know what you're doing, and the writing is good, neither is hard at all. But laughter is not only good for the person laughing, it's good for the person who's making you laugh.
Q: You say the first time you really felt like an actor was the night you stood in for Christopher Plummer as Henry the Fifth, at Stratford. Did --
A: Wait a minute. That's the first time I felt like an actor?
Q: Chapter one. "That was the night I knew I was an actor."
A: I think I've got to rewrite that chapter.
Q: Did you ever feel anything was beneath you as an actor?
A: Only the earth.
Q: But you poke fun at some of the projects you've done, like making a film entirely in Esperanto. Did you ever feel you were condescending while you were doing something?
A: No, I was just grateful for the job.
Q: You had a reputation among some of your Star Trek co-stars for being a stage hog. Do you think it was true?
A: No, it's not true, and in its perspective of 40 years ago, even bringing it up is amazing.
Q: But you bring it up in your book.
A: I know I do. I refer to it. But it's astonishing to me that the whole thing is still being talked about.
Q: How did you overcome your envy, when Spock became such a popular character though your character, Captain Kirk, was initially supposed to be the lead?
A: You grow out of it and see the logic.
Q: The logic of why people liked Spock?
A: That, and the illogic of fate. As you become more knowledgeable about the way things work, you can lose the negative emotions.
Q: You and Leonard Nimoy weren't close while you were doing Star Trek, but you are now. How did that happen?
A: I weaseled up to him and tried to be an amusing fellow. And he kept rebuffing me. I kept buying him meals. Then he relented and took me into his embrace.
Q: You've worked with a lot of famous actors, from Montgomery Clift and George C. Scott to Heather Locklear and Sandra Bullock. Who was the most fun to work with?
A: Leonard Nimoy and James Spader.
Q: Who was the biggest pain in the ass?
A: Leonard Nimoy. He's so intelligent, he corrects everything I say. But then, his ass has slipped, and it's not as big a pain now.
Q: At what point did you embrace the fact that you'll always be identified as Captain Kirk, rather than fighting it?
A: I don't know that that's true.
Q: So many actors identified with a particular role complain about not wanting to be remembered that way on their tombstones, but you --
A: Well, I'm not going to have a tombstone. I'm going to be tossed in the air. Ashes, tossed like a salad.
Q: At the moment, you're going full tilt though. You have a CD and a documentary about to come out.
A: The CD is already out. It's a recording of an edited version of Exodus. The magnificence of it is 350 voices in a chorale group and a 72-piece orchestra and new symphonic music and myself as narrator, and all told it's a glorious production. The documentary, Gonzo Ballet, is about the making of a ballet based on six songs from Has Been.
http://www.macleans.ca/homepage/magazin ... _9982_9982
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Post subject:
Posted: May 13, 2008 - 04:02 AM
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From Variety.com...
Boston Legal set for fifth season
ABC, Kelley still in talks on Mars
By MICHAEL SCHNEIDER, Posted: Sun., May 11, 2008, 12:52pm PT
The verdict is in, and Boston Legal will indeed be back on ABC next fall.
Show had been at the center of a tug-of-war between ABC and David E. Kelley Prods.
At issue: ABC wants to greenlight the pilot Life on Mars, but Kelley owns the rights to the show (an adaptation of the BBC drama of the same name).
Kelley has expressed his intention to leave Mars (Daily Variety, May 7) -- but in order for the show to continue without him, first needed to negotiate his departure.
That's where Kelley's beloved Legal comes in. Show has a loyal, but small audience -- and wasn't a lock to return for another season.
But insiders now say that a deal has been reached between ABC, Kelley and 20th Century Fox TV, and Legal indeed will be back for a fifth season.
Mars, meanwhile, hasn't been officially ordered to series yet -- but a deal appears to be imminent. ABC did not confirm the pickup.
Critically acclaimed Legal stars Emmy winners James Spader and William Shatner as litigators Alan Shore and Denny Crane. Cast also includes Candice Bergen and John Larroquette. Bill D'Elia exec produces with Kelley.
Once Kelley's departure is finalized, ABC Studios is expected to join 20th Century Fox TV as a co-producer on the drama. Also, October Road exec producers Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec and Scott Rosenberg are in line to take over as showrunners.
Kelley first began developing the U.S. adaptation of Mars in 2006, when he obtained the rights.
At the time, ABC gave the show a put pilot commitment, with Kelley set to write the script and exec produce.
Life on Mars, which was in contention for last year, but rolled to this development season after Kelley couldn't find a proper lead for the show.
Jason O'Mara was eventually tapped last summer to play the lead, a 21st century detective who somehow finds himself transported to the 1970s -- where he encounters a serial killer who may have something to do with the present-day abduction of his girlfriend.
Kudos Film and TV, which was behind the original, is also a producer on the U.S. version.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR111798 ... 4&cs=1
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Post subject:
Posted: May 13, 2008 - 09:10 PM
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From the New York Post...
STARSHIP SEX WITH CAPT. KIRK
May 13, 2008 -- WOMEN who slept with William Shatner sometimes had an out-of-this-world fantasy -- they'd pretend they were being beamed up to ecstasy by the commander of the Starship Enterprise. The Star Trek legend tells Page Six his partners would dramatically gasp, "So, this is what it's like to be in bed with Captain Kirk!" Shatner -- whose autobiography, Up Till Now, hits stores today -- laughed, "You can't imagine how much of a downer that is in every sense of the word." The Canada native also recalled his bizarre first day in 1950s New York, where he'd arrived to try to make it as an actor. "I was wandering around Times Square and this guy says, 'I'm going to Radio City Music Hall, would you like to come?' And I said, 'Oh, yes' -- [I thought] wow, New York is everything I heard it was going to be! We're in the audience, I'm a young hot-blooded Canadian and out come the dancing girls, a plethora of women -- and I feel his hand brush my knee. I thought, well, it's an accident, then I felt it again. What the [bleep]? I got up and ran out."
http://www.nypost.com/seven/05132008/go ... 110588.htm
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Post subject:
Posted: May 14, 2008 - 12:49 AM
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Post subject:
Posted: May 14, 2008 - 01:24 AM
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From the Toddspell Blog...
William Shatner, Superstar
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
My sister spent the weekend in Paris and is now in Cannes for the film festival. I might have been envious yesterday, maybe even today. But not now. For now, I have just returned from an interview and book-signing by William Shatner. Cannes, I pine for you no more.
I am not a trekkie*. As I write this, I actually own no Star Trek movies (though I do want movies I through 4) nor do I own any seasons of any of the TV series (though I want the original series). I'm apathetic towards the Next Generation (though I do like Patrick Stewart) and did not care for the series that came after. All this aside, I have always been a fan of Shatner, whether on Trek, the Twilight Zone, T.J. Hooker, or whatever he happens to be in. In short (too late!), I'm a fan of the man, not of a particular role.
Actually, that's not quite true. The particular role I am an unequivocal fan of is Shatner as himself, a role he has honed over the years Whether this persona is real or public face, he does it so well that it hardly matters. I will never know the man himself. This is enough. Tonight, Shatner put on a virtuoso performance of himself.
Shatner has a wonderful sense of humor. Clearly, the man appreciates himself but he never lets it get in the way of his self-effacing comedy. He's a great story-teller. I was, as the entire audience seemed to be, drawn into his narrative. He really seems to be talking to us not at us. It sounds easy but it isn't. Many of these interviews come off as lectures. This one did not.
The interview was a solid 90 minutes and I was enthralled by all of it. I could have listened for another 90 minutes easily. I like his easy speaking style so much I might buy the audio version of his book just to hear him tell it rather than read it. I liked listening to him that much.
After the interview, there was a book signing. I bought two copies of the book (one for me, one for a friend) and he signed both. I told him I enjoyed his talk and appreciated his work. He thanked me. I left the auditorium a happy, happy man.
I only found out about this thing at the last minute. Being a work night, I had a tough internal debate over going. What finally swung me round was this: Shatner is 77 years old. While he has been an amazing workhorse in recent years, you never know when he'll call it a day. If I didn't go to this signing, would I get another chance? If I didn't go and no other chance came, would I always be kicking myself for not going? It was a no-brainer: I had to go.
The interview took place at the 92nd Street YMCA. In the auditorium, they did not allow photographs and, at the signing, it was tough to get an open look at the man. I did manage one shot and a snap of my signed book. For your viewing pleasure:
http://toddspell.blogspot.com/2008/05/w ... rstar.html
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Post subject:
Posted: May 14, 2008 - 10:28 AM
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Post subject:
Posted: May 14, 2008 - 10:20 PM
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From WashingtonPost.com...
Horrors! Enough to Wake the Living Dead
Filmfax Covers the Ghoulish in a Retro, Cheesy Kind of Way
By Peter Carlson, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, May 13, 2008; Page C08
"Monsters Crash the Pajama Party"?
Yes!
"Werewolves on Wheels"?
Absolutely!
How about "Teenagers From Outer Space" and "Evil Brain From Outer Space" and "I Married a Monster From Outer Space"?
Yes, yes and yes! You can buy all of these timeless classics of the modern cinema on DVD from those wonderful folks at Filmfax magazine, each for only 15 or 20 bucks! But wait, there's much, much more! You can also buy "Fiend Without a Face" and "Devil Girl From Mars" and "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" and...
Oh, sorry about that. I guess I got a little carried away there.
I'm supposed to be writing my usual high-tone scholarly textual analysis of the articles in Filmfax magazine and here I am getting all excited about the ads. Filmfax has page after page of ads for DVDs of the kinds of films you just don't see on Turner Classic Movies -- movies like "Monster A-Go-Go" and "Saturn Avenger vs. the Terror Robot" and "They Saved Hitler's Brain."
But the thing is: In Filmfax, the articles and the ads are, as they say in the quality lit-crit biz, all part of an organic whole, a veritable Weltanschauung. Filmfax, which bills itself as "The Magazine of Unusual Film, Television & Retro Pop Culture," is the bible of B-movies, Kama Sutra of kitsch, the Bhagavad-Gita of so-bad-it's-good cheesiness. For 23 years, Filmfax has been covering the auteurs who created movies such as "Invasion of the Bee Girls" with the same reverence that Cahiers du Cinema reserves for Jean-Luc Godard.
In the current issue, which is the 117th issue of this influential cinematic quarterly, the cover story is an interview with actor William Shatner about his role in the 1962 Roger Corman film "The Intruder." It's an unusual piece for Filmfax because Shatner is actually, you know, famous. Most Filmfax interviewees are utterly obscure, except to the kind of fans who know everything there is to know about the cast and crew of "The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism."
See the complete article at WashingtonPost.com ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02931.html
http://www.filmfax.com/
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Post subject:
Posted: May 15, 2008 - 04:30 PM
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From ABC News...
Read an Excerpt: 'Up Till Now'
Actor William Shatner Opens Up About His Star-Studded Career in New Autobiography
May 15, 2008
You might know him from "Star Trek." Or, perhaps you remember him from his award-winning role in "Boston Legal." Or maybe he just looks familiar from those Princeline.com commercials.
Whichever it is, you surely recognize his face, as he has one of the best-known mugs in show business.
Now actor and TV icon William Shatner is telling all in his new autobiography: "Up Till Now."
You can read an excerpt from "Up Till Now" below:
I was going to begin my autobiography this way:
Call me ... Captain James T. Kirk, or Sergeant T.J. Hooker, or Denny Crane | | | | |
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