Shatner to Revisit Khan in Greensboro

William Shatner has portrayed James T. Kirk, a fictional space traveler on television and in film since 1966, and five years ago he became the oldest real-life human to travel into outer space. Now his course is set for planet Tanger where on Wednesday, April 15, Astronaut Shatner will discuss his alter ego’s most famous screen villain.

Shatner was born into a Jewish Canadian family in 1931, and grew up in a province where he was bullied by anti-semitic youth on an almost daily basis. Young Shatner successfully defended himself in so many fist-fights that he was given the nickname, “Tuffy”.

Bill was drawn to acting at an early age, appearing in a number of stage productions and TV dramas in Canada before landing a role as Ranger Bob on the Canadian version of Howdy Doody, a popular children’s TV show. He played that character from 1954 to 1959. Broadway, television and film roles followed including an appearance on an iconic 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone in which his character is an airline passenger who believes an alien is tearing the plane apart. From that point forward, Shatner gained steady work as a guest star on television programs like Gunsmoke, Dr. Kildare, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. until landing the lead role in Star Trek which ran for three seasons on NBC. He would go on to star as the title character in TJ Hooker, the scene-stealing Denny Crane in Boston Legal, and would reprise his role as James T. Kirk in seven Star Trek films. His latest big screen triumph was in 2021’s Senior Moment, co-starring Jean Smart and Christopher Lloyd. Along the way, Shatner has authored 45 books including  William Shatner and You, which will be released later this year. Bill turned 95 on March 22, and has showed no signs of slowing down as he drives from city to city to regale audiences with stories from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

I first met Bill twenty years ago when my wife Pam and I visited the set of Boston Legal. We reconnected by phone last week to talk about his upcoming event at the Tanger Center in Greensboro.

JL:  Before we talk about your “Wrath of Khan” event, I want to pay you a compliment, but I’m not trying to suck up to you.

WS: You can suck up. There’s nothing wrong with sucking up to me. [laughs]

JL: I’ve been interviewing celebrities for 56 years and I’m only an expert in one things

WS: Sucking up! [laughter] You’re an expert in sucking up and it releases the tension [laughter].

JL: You’re crude.

WS: Sucking up is a lost art.

JL: Anyway, Shatner’s Raw Nerve, which you hosted from 2008 to 2011, was THE best interview program in the history of television, and you were the best interviewer. I mean that sincerely.

WS: Thank you so much. That may be the nicest compliment that I’ve ever had because I loved doing that show, and I love talking to people and opening them up, and you know what I mean by that. To hear the secret stories that people carry with them and are all too anxious to tell you about them given the right circumstances, was a joy of my life.

JL: You’ll be live on stage on April 15 here in Greensboro to show and discuss Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Why did you pick that film to present?

WS: Well, I went out with that a couple of times last year and it was a very successful film. It may be the most successful of all the films I was in, and it was a great piece of entertainment. And my memory of it is good.

JL: What can we expect that night?

WS: What we’ll do is play the film for people who paid admission, and it’s a terrific film with refurbished sound and color. And then I come out on stage and sit around and talk with the audience for an hour or more, taking questions. What I’m finding is like talking to you. By talking with an audience, it brings us to a connection, where somebody asks me a question, and I say, “Why did you ask me that question?”, then we get onto a whole other subject. It turns out to be a lovely evening’s entertainment. And I’ve enjoyed it and the audience seems to enjoy it.

JL: I agree that Khan is considered the best Star Trek film, but it was in Star Trek: Generations that fans loved seeing you riding your own horse, after all, you did cameos in a lot of TV westerns. So, tell me, once you achieved some clout in Hollywood, why didn’t you ever make a Bill Shatner western film?

WS: Well, I never felt I had the ability to do that, I mean look at someone like Robert Evans, and even though he had big hits like The Godfather and Love Story, he still had a terrible time trying to get films made. Now I love performing in front of the camera and making films, and I’ve had a great time, but I don’t think I ever had the clout to say, “I want to make a Western.” But as you said, I was in a lot of Westerns. In fact, I learned to ride horses from stuntmen. I mean I learned a lot of stuff by making films including how to roll off a horse. There’s a thing called the “Flying W” they used to do where you twist the horse’s head and that was the cue for him to fall to his side. Well, my leg was under him and I broke my leg. But the horse got up, I got up and I finished the take shaking with pain, and then they took me to the hospital.

JL: No wonder your childhood nickname was “Tuffy”.

WS: Yeah, I was fighting for my life in those days.

WS: I’ve already pre-ordered my copy of your new book, William Shatner and You. Let’s remind folks what it’s about.

WS: Josh Brandon had the idea and brought it to me, and it was “Why don’t we interview people who are interested in Star Trek?”  Instead of my interest in Star Trek, let’s get THEIR interest in Star Trek. So, I interviewed about 30 people. I came across the strangest, most interesting people that are part of this book, and I never expected it to be anything like it is. The people I’ve met are just extraordinary. They have that secret little germ of truth inside them that makes them fascinating, which is in everybody if you can get to the germ of truth.

JL: You have a birthday coming up, and as a fellow senior citizen, I went back the other day and watched Senior Moment which was a delightful film.

WS: Thank you.

JL: At one point in the film your character says to Lloyd’s character, “Why do you hang around with old people?” That put me in mind of something my dad kept saying even into his 90’s. He would say, “I hate old people”. So how old is old? How do you know when you’re old?

WS: You know that’s a great question. The answer to which for me is, you see these heads of studios appointing the creative people who are 25, 30 years old. I mean God, those are kids who’ve only made maybe one film. How do they know what films are going to be successful? And then it occurred to me that everywhere I go, kids who are 10 to 21 have now assumed a haircut that covers everything from their eyebrows back. I mean you can’t see their face [laughs]. All these kids have their hair brushed in front of their eyes, and it’s all the rage, and I, the old guy, I’m saying, “God that is stupefying. You can’t see their face”. But the young guys who are appointed by the heads of studios are saying, “Hey we hired that actor because his hair is in his face [laughs].” So, when you begin to mock somebody with a different haircut than you, you’re an old person. That and having to sit down all the time [both laugh]. That’s my instant analysis. 

William Shatner may be sitting down more these days, but he is the farthest thing from old. He’s like the Energizer Bunny who keeps going and going. His mind is quick, he is a brilliant conversationalist, and he is constantly curious about the human condition. I like to think Bill described himself best at the end of Star Trek II, as Captain Kirk ponders the loss of his best friend, whose body has just been jettisoned to the Genesis planet where life springs from lifelessness. Asked how he feels, a melancholy Kirk replies, “I feel young.”

For more info visit WilliamShatnerTour.com. For tickets to William Shatner Live on Stage, visit TicketMaster.com.