Up Till Now: The Autobiography

dirty dogs.” And other people started laughing.
    This group of people loved it—with one exception. This man was a farmer, a big, powerful guy with tremendous dignity. I wanted him not to be angry—and he was fucking angry. “You mean you played us the fool all along . . .” His body language was far worse than his words—he was turned halfway away from me and his arms were locked in front of him. We had learned what each of our principals wanted—one man had dreamed his whole life of going to Hawaii, we sent him and his family to Hawaii. A woman needed money forher efforts to adopt her grandson, we helped finance her successful effort. Our ingénue desperately wanted to bring her horse to Riverside but couldn’t afford it, we paid to board the horse for a year. Another cast member wanted to see Paris, we gave him a trip there. Each person received either gifts or cash worth several thousand dollars. But when we reached our farmer, he had left. He didn’t want anything to do with us.
    I felt awful. Just dreadful. That night we were meeting with the entire town to reveal our secret to them. The local members of our cast had kept our secret. And as they arrived they were greeted by their neighbors with a red carpet and cheers. And at the end of the line was the farmer—with a big smile on his face. As we found out, he’d gone home and discussed it with his family, who convinced him our prank was harmless and fun. The citizens of Riverside took the joke good-naturedly—particularly when we told them we would be contributing one hundred thousand dollars to the town treasury. In addition, our crew and actors raised an additional thirteen thousand dollars which was used to buy books for the elementary school.
    Spike TV eventually ran the show as a miniseries and it received very good reviews. Several reviewers specifically pointed out my success at self-parody, writing that finally I’d “got it.” Of course, that just proves once again that my acting skills had not dulled—I was not doing self-parody. That was...William Shatner!
    The movie death of Jim Kirk turned out to be a new beginning to my career, but I believed completely that Nerine’s death was the end of my married life. And perhaps it also meant that I would never again have an intense loving relationship with a woman. If there was one thing I had proved, it’s that marriage just didn’t work for me. And as difficult as it was for me to deal with that particular reality, it was pretty obvious that I was doing something wrong.
    And honestly, for a long time after Nerine’s death I had little interest in women. The concept of dating at that point in my life did not seem very appealing to me. To fill some of the enormous loneliness I was feeling in those months I found considerable solace just being with my horses. In the early 1980s we were filming an episodeof T.J. Hooker where we needed a police car with its siren whining to race through a horse barn. We ended up in a barn where saddlebreds were stabled. I had been involved in a minor way in a quarter horse breeding operation, but as I stood in the barn that day looking at these magnificent animals I was...I was stunned. It was an enchanted moment. Looking across a crowded barn I fell in love with saddlebreds. One look and I was smitten. Saddlebreds are works of art. These horses are bred to be beautiful and to move beautifully. These horses are an esthetic delight and the pleasure they give your eyes is magnified by the grace of their movement.
    Well, that day I had discovered a new passion. These were obviously the most magnificently proud beasts on earth. I thought it was impossible to look at them and not want to fill fields with them. There was one in particular that just mesmerized me. I asked the owner its price and when he named it, I said flatly, “I’ll buy him.”
    The next day I flew home to Los Angeles. I called a trainer I knew and asked him to handle all the details for me. He called me a short time later. “You know that horse you bought two days ago for X dollars?” Yeah? I said all excitedly . “Well, now the price is two-X dollars.”
    Welcome to the horse breeding business, Bill.
    Actually, raising the price was illegal. In that business the price you name is the price. Period. But I was so naïve I decided I probably hadn’t heard them correctly. I was so in lust with this horse that I was willing to pay almost anything. And so I did.
    I was taken for a