Shatner On The Past And Being Remembered

William Shatner is appearing in many places promoting his new autobiography and taking the occasional shot at some of his former Star Trek co-stars.

As reported by NYMag.com, Shatner realizes that his behavior caused his coworkers, even Leonard Nimoy to dislike him. "Well, I'm not sure what the rest of the cast were fussing about, and I didn’t know about it until long after the show," said Shatner. "But as for Leonard and I, I probably was a little too full of myself and thought maybe I should be getting some of his good publicity. I may have been jealous, or envious, or both. But then time took care of all that. Now Leonard and I are like brothers.

In an appearance on the Howard Stern Show as reported by TrekMovie.com, Shatner admitted his guilt yet again. When asked if he treated his co-stars like he had treated a director (Shatner had mocked the director while recording a voice-over), Shatner said, "Looking back I may have, it was terrible of me. I took that too far and I very well may be guilty of all this."

Shatner denied deliberately ruining a scene in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan where Sulu was promoted. He did have a message for Takei though. "Here is my feeling about those poor people. There is something pathological about forty years later. I am supposed to have done something. Maybe I did. I have no recollection. But hey, isn't it time to let go? Let it go. He's seventy-something years old, he's going to die soon, I'm going to die soon. Hey man it's a long journey, forget about it. Come on George have a good time. Move on."

When asked if he had slept with Nichelle Nichols, Shatner denied it, saying, "She had enough activity on her own."

Shatner had complaints for more than his Star Trek co-stars. He gave J.J. Abrams a pass on not having Shatner in the movie. "...I think they had story problems and didn't know how to solve it. But I am not peeved, just disappointed. And J.J. Abrams is such a great movie maker that I would have love to have done something." But he felt that Rick Berman wanted to kill off the Kirk character for his own reasons. "...in a way I think the producer [Rick Berman] was trying to kill the character off because it was a legacy of the old guard and this guy was head of the new guard with Patrick [Stewart] and 'The Next Generation'. So I think he was trying to kill as many antecedents, like a lion killing the cubs."

Even though Captain Kirk is a household word, Shatner is under no illusion that he will be remembered long after he is gone, according to an article at People. "I'm not going to be remembered any more than anyone else," said Shatner. "Maybe on the day there will be a little more fuss than, say, some guy in Poughkeepsie. Fame and remembrance are so fleeting. None of us is remembered. Some of the great names I grew up with, five years after they were dead, no one remembered them. The Pharaohs have the pyramids. But we don't remember the Pharaohs, we remember the pyramids."

To read more, head to the articles located here, here and here.

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