What a load of Sh*tner! (Up Till Now: The Autobiography - William Shatner)

Member Name: thedevilinme

Product:	Up Till Now: The Autobiography - William Shatner
Date:	06/08/09 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The experience is over

Disadvantages: Tedious man

Now I'm not a Trekkie in any way and not a big fan of William Shatner either but he's certainly an interesting chap to want to know more about, why we read biographies in the first place. I watched the early Star Treks like everyone else as a kid and didn't switch off the New Generation when it came on after school in the late 80s, a far superior model to the original iconic series for me. But I do respect the sci-fi show was breakthrough stuff of the time and has changed the face of television in many ways. The other reason I read this book is there was nothing else worth getting out of the library as it hammers down in this 'BBQ summer'.

Shatner, post Star Trek, strikes me as one of those actors/showbiz types that thinks he's a cool guy off the back of that kudos and so plays up to that, yet doesn't realise most people mock him for that persona. I wouldn't say he was sad or anything and has led an exciting life but some of his behaviour is rather egotistical and occasionally darn right silly of late, learning Esperanto and bear fighting to name but two. Who will ever forget his version of 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', (a youtube classic), his bizarre screeched mix of Shakespeare and the Beatles making even howling dogs cover their ears!

The opening of the book is a man in denial: he is Captain Kirk and will always be captain Kirk and the rest of his CV is irrelevant, but yet he crams as much of his varied life in the book as possible to prove there's more to him than Kirk. TJ hooker was Captain Kirk playing a cop and however much he talks about his early career on the stage and on TV before Star Trek he will always be Kirk, which for some reasons he both loves and hates that Shatner legacy at the same time. I would be proud to be Kirk. It was a good performance and ahead of its time.

From a Canadian-Jewish background a vain and good looking lad didn't want to go into his father's retail business and so set his sights on the stage. After getting a job as a manager of a small Canadian community theatre he eventually got into Roger Corman style B-Movies and big theatre performances in the 50s and 60s, always working with big stars but never the star. Early Broadway audiences were moved by his performances-they got up and walked out, jokes Shatner. The film Judgment of Nuremburg, a star packed 60s movie about Jewish persecution in the war, would elevate his status near the end of the 60s but he was still very much the co-star and destined not to be a movie star he so wanted to be.

Then came Star Trek, and like The Simpson's, Shatner never winning an Emmy for the original Star Trek role of Kirk, both shows judged too subversive for their time, but Leonard Nimoys Spock picking up three of the coveted TV awards, something that still rankles with Shatner today.

Creator Gene Rodenberry described his show as 'the search for intelligent life on the other side of the screen', then, as today, its core audience the geeky and the loners. Rather surprisingly the book isn't all about Star Trek though and not stuffed with loads of anecdotes from the series, which is rather refreshing, most of the Star Trek comment around Shatners fragile relationship with the cast, especially Nimoy, 'Bill' never realising at any point how much that cast hated him and his constant egotistical antics on the show, although Shatner claims he made it up with Nimoy.

For years Shatner refused to go to Star Trek conventions as he hated being typecast as Kirk and so known only as the actor who played Kirk in acting circles, very serious about his other work, which this book pretty much covers every hour of that other work, tediously so, ranging from his infamous Priceline.com adverts in America to the most obscure C-Movie, again Shatner angst over why he never became a movie star in the truest sense etched in the text. Ten years after Star Trek was surprisingly cancelled after only three series he would start doing conventions, but only because he was offered a very big cheque and the legend was wilting.

His TV comedy career began in the later years as the self parodying began, his ironic role as the very appropriately named 'Big Giant Head' in John Lithgow's excellent 'Third Rock From the Sun' TV series earning Shatner his long awaited Emmy. But the real comedy was the music career, bizarre folksy albums like The Transformed Man and Spaced Out, littering the bargain bins of charity shops, and the mildly acclaimed 'Has Been', in conjunction with the Benfolds Five, actually doing good business. In recent years Shatner has found regular employment in Boston Legal and has mellowed as a man and a hopeless musician as his latter years catch up on him in the form of a very fat face and more chins than a Chinese phone book.

-The Author-

David Fish has had 15 books in the NY Times best seller list and is the only writer ever to have works on fiction, non fiction and reference books offered simultaneously in the Book of the Month Club, an American institution of excellence.

-The Conclusion -

If you love Star trek then you will have probably read this and worship the ground your captain walks on. If you don't like Shatner then you won't be reading this book as he hardly makes you like him in it, a guy you just can't tell when he's being ironic or serious. It's a long read too considering his career and it does alienate you with all the detail to pretty much everything he's ever done on screen. Do we really care if he was in Incubus and who the cast were?

I don think I really found out anything new about him in the book, other than his alcoholic wife died by drowning in their swimming pool, the press cruel enough to accuse him of drowning her, that's how much respect they have for him, the lack of that respect really playing on Shatners ego throughout this book. But he has set himself up as this self-parody and he has to die by that sword, and the more he plays up to it the more ridiculous he gets.

There's no mystique to Shatner, just another TV ham who wants to be famous, showbiz riddled with handsome born people like him that just don't like the indignity of hard work and a proper job, Will getting lucky with Star Trek and the rest is history, a history tediously laid out here. I wanted to like Shatner and so read this book in that small hope. I dislike him even more now, a very rare feat indeed for an autobiography...

Summary: TV Ham...