It still makes me sad that Shatner and Nimoy were estranged when Nimoy died?

In Shatner’s mind, everyone loves him and sees no fault at all in asking his costar and a friend he calls a brother participate in something like that. On the other hand, I don’t believe Nimoy would have returned the sentiments and would have had Shatner be simply invited but not be a part of the ceremony. Nimoy strives to have a life outside of his work and be on good terms with his fellow actors. Shatner’s ego burned down many bridges but Nimoy kept his standing.

 

It is all very sad.

Elsewhere here, an individual is using some deleted TMP scenes and adding to them.

I remember a Memory Wall still, with them both in suits. Sitting together, yet looking miles apart...a Waiting for Godot moment.

 

I saw them together in Vegas in 2009. They acted like they were best friends.

 

"I gave him his career. Leonard owes me so much that it's uncountable by anyone else but me. I'm counting." ~ William Shatner

 

From what I can find, that was a joke Shatner told in a making-of film for Star Trek IV.

A joke.

But drop the context, and you really have something.

 

It was no joke to Shatner when he started counting lines and made demands in their contracts that whatever the other one got, they got.

 

You need a quick history lesson, and I don't think it's only you, so I'll go over some of it.

In 1965, Guy Williams was supposed to be the lead, the hero character, of Lost in Space. He took the job with the understanding that it would be his show. But before he knew it, a supporting actor leapt to prominence and became the star. Guy Williams suffered the humiliation of changing places with a supporting actor.

The industry noticed. TV's leading men and their agents took a look at this, and in some cases they asked for contract clauses to protect themselves from the same fate.

On Star Trek, William Shatner was hired to play the lead, a role he rightly expected to keep, but it quickly emerged that Leonard Nimoy was getting a lot of audience response. It looked like the same situation as Lost in Space was shaping up. Shatner and his agent asked for and got a minimum of equality with Nimoy's scripted line counts. Not supremacy for Shatner, just nothing less than equality. This not only protected Shatner's hard-earned career, it also had the beneficial effect of protecting Star Trek from any danger of becoming The Spock Hour.

TV stardom is a huge achievement for an actor, and it can be lost if it isn't looked after and protected. These are facts of life. Successful people in general want to keep being successful. But Shatner's critics paint a picture in which he alone, in Hollywood, was concerned with his star status (yeah, right). And he alone was the only actor in the industry to wear a hair piece (six of the regulars on TOS wore hair pieces, that we know of). But Shatner, oh, he was the great villain of show business.

 

Guy Williams was never demoted in terms of being the “star.” He was still top billed and paid as such. Lost in Space wouldn’t have flown at all without a character like Dr. Smith to hone in conflict. He naturally became the most interesting character because he wasn’t a perfect flawless character they made the Robinson family out to be. Jonathan Harris’ situation is very unique in the business. It’s hardly ever encouraged for an actor to ad lib as much as he did, but the producer Irwin Allen told him to “do more.” Plus, Williams was able to use his downtime to play the stock market so he could live a very comfortable retirement in Argentina because he was Zorro, so he was far off from needing to feel embarrassed for the show did for his career. His costars may have other sentiments since it was harder for them to continue working after staying on a show that continually dropped in quality.

This was never the case on Star Trek. Shatner never had that luxury as he’s still working and making himself relevant in whatever he’s doing. Hecwas threatened by the overwhelming amount of fan mail Nimoy was getting and the natural response to that was to develop his character more by showing his home planet and meet his parents. Everyone involved in the creative process of the show knew the show worked best when their three lead characters (Kirk, Spock and McCoy) were together and that’s what would keep them on the air and working. Shatner pointing out the line count was just another hurdle for them to overcome when it was already difficult to make it on air every week. The network probably wanted a Spock Hour show, but Roddenberry and the other producers knew naturally not to succumb to that, but Shatner’s best interest is never about the show, but himself. He didn’t care if Nimoy got less lines than him for a show. So much for “equality.”

 

Seriously. Is it part of the enabling statute creating the movement that anti-Shatnerism must be so doggedly tiresome?

 

William Shatner has a lively personality -- one where people will either love him or hate him -- that can rub people the wrong way; while Leonard Nimoy was very serious and wouldn't take it well if he felt wronged. So it was inevitable that they'd reach a point where wouldn't get along, unfortunately.

TOS only lasting three seasons, and then the cast sporadically getting together for a few months every few years for the movies later on, is probably what managed to help them make Star Trek on-and-off for a quarter-century. They weren't around each other long enough to hate each other. If TOS lasted 10 or 15 seasons, things could've easily deteriorated to a point beyond repair. Especially when it came to the issue of who was the real star of the show.

 

Apparently it's possible to know the general context but disagree on what to take away from it, where Shatner was concerned.

HOW dare you, Sir? BAH!!

 

Billing is contractual. The billing order for Lost In Space was settled in contracts when the cast was signed to the pilot, so as long as Guy was on the show he was going to be the first name on the credits even if he didn't appear at all. Since Harris was added later he could not be placed anywhere but at the end of the credits, hence his asking for a Special Guest Star billing to make him stand out. Bonanza treated all four leads (Green, Roberts, Blocker and Landon) as equal, and their contracts called for the order to rotate from episode to episode so they all effectively had equal billing. (TNG had the leads locked in as the #1 and #2 positions with the rest of the regular cast listed alphabetically.)

I dunno where anyone here is coming up with what Shatner's contract said. Has anyone actually seen it?

 

I saw them at the same event. They were close and buddying it up during the photo ops.

Funerals are difficult events for all and it’s up to the family who is grieving to set it up in real time. Things go wrong all the time. I really would not read too much into this given the relationship I saw in person.

 

Even Harris’ ridiculousness landed him as a celery.

Nimoy kept close to Shatner and naturally wanted to keep a genuine relationship between the two of them positive as it would have severely hurt the franchise is to were as distanced as Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis became. A good example of how these two’s attitude is how they interacted with the fans. Nimoy was very open and genuine to have people tell him how much his character meant to them. Shatner thinks it’s enough to just have a fan stand next to him like he’s a cardboard cut out and doesn’t say a word. Nimoy was a giver and Shatner was a taker.

 

But he played it as a thoughtful, adult celery concerned with the meaning of his existence. It was implied that he had a complicated, unresolved conflict with Tybo the Carrot. They explored Stockholm syndrome and the intersectionality of oppression faced by plant-human hybrids, something nobody else on television was talking about. Hardly kid stuff. CBS had to swallow hard before deciding to air the episode.

 

There is zero indication that Shatner renegotiated his contract during the run of the series. There’s also no evidence that Shatner’s contract included a clause about line counts. If that were the case, you’d almost certainly see it mentioned in memos to freelance writers, and it would be hard to explain an episode like “The Tholian Web.”

(I’ve seen the back-and-forth correspondence from the negotiation of Shatner’s contract, but the document itself is not in the papers at UCLA.)

 

Harvey, you're a letter-of-the-law guy. You like to zero in on things with precision. If you re-check my post, you'll see that I never said Shatner got a new contract in place:

They got an understanding. And Shatner could do that because he had a lot of clout on the show. I'm not making huge, improbable claims here. I'm not asking you to believe in witchcraft or the hollow Earth theory. I'm just saying what clearly happened.

 

Some have such a massive bug up their butts about Shatner. Without him--the man who created a character that helped sell Star Trek as a regular series--there would be no ST franchise, no spin-offs...and no Trek-based message board where some whine and/or attack the man 24/7/365.

 

That’s exactly something Shatner would say. Nimoy at least had the courtesy to say it was THEIR contribution that made Star Trek the success it became. Shatner didn’t contribute anything to his character development other than just applying his style of acting to the role. Nimoy’s Spock developed wildly from his inception. He knew that if Shatner was going to play it big, he would have to balance it out by toning down his character. Could you imagine Spock from The Cage standing next to Shatner’s Kirk? Too much!

 

Spock was definitely a work in progress. The second and third episodes had Shouty Spock. Good times.