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

Or striking this pose (from "Mudd's Women"):

 

That’s why they say the Venus drug is not a cheat. It’s a miracle!

 

Notice how you missed:

No one ever claimed ST was sold only because of his perfoemance, but there is no doubt it went a long way in giving the series the charismatic lead that was necessary to make the weekly fiction sell. That was never going to happen with any of the other actors considered to take the captain's role post-Hunter.

That is beyond historically inaccurate. Everyone--including Nimoy and Roddenberry have said time and again that Shatner brought a lot of himself--his personal perspectives, beliefs and approaches to the role which fleshed it out and made it feel like a real, distinctive character. I've read the early notes about the character who would become Kirk, and if it was executed as written, there would be no Kirk as the TV world would know him. To even suggest "Shatner didn't contribute anything..." is more of the wildly irrational hatred of the man who yes--helped sell TOS as a series.

 

That many? I know about Shatner and Koenig, and I imagine that Nichelle Nichols, Majel Barrett, and Grace Lee Whitney wore a number of wigs as their characters, but who else wore a hairpiece? I don't think I've ever seen pictures of Doohan, Kelley, or Takei with thinning hair.

 

I could be wrong, but I have this thought in the back of my mind Kelley wore a hairpiece, too.

 

That was my number six. And there's an even greater chance that he wore a rug in the movies. But I'll admit we don't really know.

 

I think its in "Who Mourns For Adonais" or maybe not when they have everyone else scuttle behind some rocks when the Enterprise shoots the temple. Kirk justs jumps over the rock to safety. Is that a Shatner thing? Does the director/script say go behind the rocks to the cast and Shatner decides to spectacularly jump over the rocks or is it written in the script to make Shatner look cool? I just can't imagine Pike or any of the other captains being so physical unnecessarily (except maybe Archer).
And if the writers write Shatner Kirk-Fu and and his other physical stuff is it because of Kirk being the hero or because Shatner is playing him and that's what he contributes to the character amongst other things?

 

Ian Wolfe (Mr. Atoz) had a Starlog interview, and he said Shatner carefully worked out their fight scene in such a way as not to injure the older man. It was appreciated. And Shatner "had quite a bit of say" as to how his scenes were shot.

When Shatner performs flying drop kicks in "Spectre of the Gun" and "The Paradise Syndrome," it seems obvious to me that he was the one who came up with that stuff. I feel all but certain that jumping over the rock in "Who Mourns" was his idea, and he probably arranged where the other actors would scurry to, to set up that moment.

You can call it vanity, but it worked for the show. Kirk's manly but graceful, catlike athleticism played very well to young boys watching. We had a four-foot (at most) fence in our side yard when I was a kid, and I taught myself to leap over it head first and land in a "Charlie X" shoulder roll. The grass was pretty soft. I did it once to retrieve a ball, and a guy who wasn't even a fan said "That looked like Star Trek!"

Nowadays the "unnecessary shoulder roll" is a subject of parody from its over-use in shoot-em-up movies. But Shatner was perfect at that kind of "cool move" staging.

 

From what I've seen and heard over the years DeForest definitely wore a rug but evaded the ribbing due to his nice guy personality!
JB

 

There's no direction for them to take cover in the scripts I have, but there may be in revisions. Maybe that action was made up once the set was decorated.

 

There's no cool, catlike way to play that scene as written. Bill's flair for the dramatic probably came to the rescue and he asked for the rocks, specifying that one be strong enough to stay still when he vaulted over it. It became a much better scene.

Also, they spelled Kiptin wrong.

 

You are presuming a lot there.

 

Be aware that that comes from William Wyndham's recollection of his experience while filming the TOS season 2 episode "The Doomsday Machine"; and per his recollection BOTH Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner word line counting and complaining.

Also remember at that time there was an ongoing question in Leonard Nimoy's mind as to who was the star of the series at that time.

It was such a hot button topic that it wasn't until season 3 when Gene Roddenberry handed the executive production range to Fred Frieburger, that he finally answered the question in front of both lead actors - and his answer was that William Shatner was now and had always been the star of the series. At the time Leonard Nimoy was very unhappy with that revelation.

And William Shatner was also not afraid to show Kirk getting bested when it fit the story. The one that stands out to me is the bitch slap by Michael Ansara (as the Klingon Captain Kang) In the opening segment of the TOS S3 episode "Day Of The Dove":

My point? If William Shatner was such a prima donna about his image on screen; he probably wouldn't allow such a scene to be filmed.

 

Some people place their Desilu / Norway-branded Spock-colored glasses on and only see Shatner counting lines, or making demands when history had long revealed Nimoy flexing his own star muscles on TOS.

 

William Windom.

 

Doh my bad. That's what happens sometimes when you're posting from a phone with autocorrect, and you don't catch it.

 

Windom wasn't in any scenes that featured both Kirk and Spock, and due to this most days Shatner and Nimoy would not have been on set at the same time, so one wonders how he became aware of this.

 

You don't get agents involved with informal agreements.

But, allowing for that detail, your narrative supposes that Shatner had an agreement (informal or otherwise) that guaranteed he would have more scripted lines than anyone else and...what's your evidence of that? "The Tholian Web" is a clear example of a show where Nimoy and Kelley each have far more scripted lines than Shatner does.

You can see from the memos that the staff approached the show from the clear perspective that Kirk was the protagonist. They were constantly asking how to make Kirk more of an active character, how to make sure he was the decision-maker and leading the action. But they weren't asking writers to give him more lines in order to make good on Shatner's deal.

Which is not to say that Shatner wasn't counting his lines.

 

They(Shatner and Nimoy) probably weren't doing it in front of each other. While William Windom didn't have scenes with them together, if you remember the episode he had a number of scenes with William Shatner In the auxiliary control room set; and then a lot of scenes with Leonard Nimoy on the bridge of the Enterprise set.

I'm sure he got an earful of William Shatner complaining about the number of lines Nimoy had in the script when on the set with Shatner; and then he saw Nimoy doing the same thing on set while Windom was working on the set with him.

Neither actor would be complaining to the other about the number of lines each had; they'd be complaining to the crew as they're doing their scenes - and I'm sure both would have read the entire script and thus they would know how many lines each of them had compared to the other.