Up Till Now: The Autobiography

over-the-top into it, and my performance had to be modulated—so I only kicked Jane Curtin in the pants once!
    What was truly nice is that the writers included several inside Shatner gags in the script. For example, knowing that Lithgow and I had played the same Twilight Zone character—the man on the plane who sees the monster at twenty thousand feet, in my opening scene Lithgow asked me if I’d had a good flight. “It was horrible,” I said. “I looked out and saw something on the wing of the plane.”
    Lithgow’s mouth fell open and he exclaimed, “The same thing happened to me!”
    Later when I was trying to woo Jane Curtin I told her, “I’m a rocket man, you know.” And then I asked her if I could help her jettison her pants. And in one of the final scenes which took place at ahigh school junior prom—did I mention that I got to dump a whole... oh, sorry—during this scene the police asked me if I had seen any kids with Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
    I had a great time doing the show. And apparently it was so popular that they brought Big Giant Head back for several additional shows. To my great surprise and pleasure—and I’m not kidding here—I was nominated for an Emmy Award as the Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. After working in television for forty years, even considering the great success of Star Trek and Hooker and 911, this was the first time I’d been nominated for an Emmy. Yes, I had been nominated for other awards; I’d won a science-fiction Saturn as Best Actor for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and I’d been nominated for several awards for TV’s first interracial kiss—I’d kissed Nichelle Nichols in a 1968 episode—as well as a Razzie. I’d even been honored as the subject of an entire art show—about seventy-five artists created original pieces about me for an exhibition and book called The Shatner Show —with a portion of all proceeds donated to the Hollywood Horse Show. It is an astonishing collection, with pieces made from an extraordinary variety of materials— including a bust made of LEGOs and another one of clay, limestone, artificial ferns, and plumbing pieces. So I’ve seen myself in plastic and plumbing, but I’d never even been nominated for an Emmy. And at that point in my life, considering the events of the past year, just to be nominated was quite an honor and I truly appreciated it.
    But I really wanted to win. I mean, I really wanted to win. I’m not going to pretend I was satisfied with the nomination. I wanted to take home that little sucker. So I very carefully looked over my competition. The other nominees for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series were... imagine a drumroll here, please, but hold your applause...John Ritter! Charles Nelson Reilly! Woody Harrelson! And Mel Brooks! Mel Brooks? I was nominated for a comedy award against Mel Brooks? What chance did I have? That’s sort of like being nominated for Best Appearance on Money against Abraham Lincoln. I attended the awards but I didn’t write an acceptance speech. Guess who won? Mel Brooks!
    Whether it was 3rd Rock or just my time, again, rather than my career coming to a gentle end as I feared, I began being offered better roles than I’d played in years. The Shatman was back! I was “hot.” I was in demand! For example, I was given a full hour to peddle my wares on The Home Shopping Network during which I set sales records that have yet to be broken.
    Okay, that I am kidding about. I have appeared on just about every television channel in history—I’ve even been an answer on Jeopardy —but I have never been invited to appear on the Home Shopping Network. It would seem to me that Bill Shatner and the Home Shatner Net... Shopping Network would be a perfect match. Perhaps I might appear on there selling...this book. I could appear on HSN selling my autobiography, which claims I’d never appeared on HSN! The tabloids would love that story! It would be great publicity for HSN—and me.
    But one of the roles I did accept was to play a beauty-pageant organizer in Sandra Bullock’s movie Miss Congeniality . This is a comedy in which the awkward FBI agent Bullock goes undercover as a Miss United States contestant. Obviously it was pure fiction, Sandra Bullock could never be awkward. And in addition to working with Sandra Bullock—and for her because she was the producer—this was the first time I’d worked with Candice Bergen. I’d always admired her work, among