Up Till Now: The Autobiography

would like to do about it. I was left completely on my own to develop this character, which is right because that’s why they hired me. So my first reaction to it was to laugh. Denny Crane a homosexual? Now that’s funny, soldier. I had no idea how to play it. I didn’t know how to deal with it and that kind of scared me. Do you like this guy or not like him? Is he sardonic or not sardonic? I needed an emotion to color my words and I didn’t know it yet, I didn’t know Denny Crane wellenough to know how he would react. But I learned. As Denny Crane went through a variety of sometimes very unusual experiences, from being caught in a passionate embrace with a blow-up doll made up to resemble his partner, played by Candice Bergen, to falling in love with the midget daughter of a former girlfriend, I learned who he is. Denny Crane was once a great lawyer and at times is still at the top of that game. He is a great reader of human nature, which gives him a great advantage. And he reads people with the skill of a great poker player.
    Each decision we made further defined the character. In the first episode an old friend sadly told Denny Crane that his wife was having an affair and he was asking Denny to investigate. “I want you to find out what’s going on,” he said.
    As it turned out Denny Crane knew exactly what was going on— because he was the one with whom she was having the affair. When this friend found out he pulled a gun on Denny Crane and threatened to kill him. Rather than pleading for his life, or warning the man of the consequences, Denny Crane became the aggressor. “Go ahead, pull the trigger. Because that’s the way Denny Crane should go out. It’ll be front-page news in The New York Times .” Great writing, strong character definition—but my question was, how do I play it? I knew what Kirk would do, and Hooker. I wanted to walk around my desk and confront this man; I wanted to be bold, get up right in his face. I wanted to show him that a mere gun doesn’t scare Denny Crane. That seemed the right response to me. But our director, Bill D’Elia, strongly believed Denny Crane would sit behind his desk defiantly and say quietly and resolutely, “Go ahead and pull the trigger . . .”
    We argued about it. Voices got raised. We stood toe-to-toe. Mano a mano. Actor-to-director. The creative process at work. Loudly. He followed me back to my dressing room, both of us defending a position that we knew might not even be the best answer. Finally I agreed to do it his way. It worked, and further colored the character.
    Although certainly it didn’t work as well as walking around the desk and confronting him.
    Scene by scene Denny Crane was shaped. David E. Kelley’s writing fed my performance which further fed the writing which enhanced my performance which was reflected in the writing... Everything I’d learned in my career went into his creation, so when I read a line the underlying emotion had to come from the life I’d invented for him, rather than from my own life. When Denny Crane is asked by Alan Shore if he’s lonely, for example, I could say no and mean it or I could say no and mean, yes, I am desperately lonely. But in order to do that I had to say it with the conviction of an arrogant lawyer whose attitude is, I can convince a jury that anything I say is true. An actor’s choice is to say the lines as he or she thinks they should be said, or say them through the filter of their character’s life. And the more I learned about Denny Crane the more he was able to speak for himself. Although, truthfully, Liz believes that sometimes I experiment with Denny Crane at home. And as he is a broad exaggeration of what I am, and she knows me so well, it’s difficult for her to separate Shatner from Crane.
    But there was one thing that I insisted Denny Crane was not— Captain James T. Kirk. In one of our first scripts I had a line in which I insisted members of the firm call me “Captain.” I told D’Elia, “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer not to say this line. I don’t want to be called Captain.”
    D’Elia agreed. “I bet I know why.” I smiled and nodded, and then he asked, “Okay, so how about Commander?”
    Admittedly, by the end of our second season I was feeling so comfortable in Denny Crane’s expensive suits that while talking to my partners I did describe myself as “the captain of the ship.” And in another episode Alan Shore did refer to sealice as “cling-ons,”