Up Till Now: The Autobiography

Boston Legal , I knew that the only way I could make this work was to make it absolutely real. I remembered being a kid more than seventy years ago and watching a boy masturbating. I’d never seen anything like that before; his eyes were turned inward and he was totally self-absorbed. I can’t remember that kid’s name or the circumstances, but I’ve never forgotten that look. And so I tried to do that with the doll. I became totally absorbed in that doll, and anything else—the closet door opening and the one of us being discovered together— came as a shock.
    What makes Denny Crane such a wonderful character to play at this point in my life is that we share so much. When Denny Crane talks about his own mortality and his recognition that he is older now and has lost some of his powers, there might be some of my life sneaking in. I do think about those things, I wonder about them. I’m never far from the fear of old age or senility or being incapacitated by a stroke. I’ve tried to bring the realities of my life into my performance. Fortunately, my ability to focus allows me to learn my lines as easily now as I did when I was twenty. So I don’t have any problem memorizing lines—although I do wish the producers would use cards or a prompter. For some of the other actors, of course.
    There is a scene I had with Candice Bergen during which this once legal lion showed... well, at least hinted at his vulnerability. Denny Crane and Shirley Schmidt were in her office, sitting on her couch. Shirley just happened to ask me about the fishing waders I was wearing. “I may not be the lawyer I once was,” I explained. “But I can still fish circles around all of you. Sometimes I just like to wear them to—”
    She interrupted me, interrupted Denny Crane! “When I was in high school I was captain of the debate team... and miserable over being cut from the cheerleading team. I went out and bought my own outfit, complete with pom-poms. Sometimes I’d dress up, look at myself in the mirror...it somehow made me feel better.
    “Years later, after I became a lawyer, even a partner, every once ina while if I was feeling particularly low, I’d pull out that costume. And put it on.”
    “I did exactly the same. Not with a pom-pom, but—”
    Shirley shook her head. “You’re just determined not to let me have a vulnerable moment, aren’t you? You want to hog them all for yourself.” She paused, maybe even sighed. “Denny, we’re getting older, we can no longer fit into our outfits. But we’re not over. Not by a long shot. You’re not over.”
    With each line another layer of Denny Crane gets peeled away. “You know what used to make me feel better than anything?...It was back when we were... us. And you’d put your head on my—”
    “Denny!”
    “I was going to say shoulder. That felt better than anything.”
    “Oh. I remember you’d sing, ‘You Are My Sunshine.’ “
    Sing? There are sentimental sides of Denny Crane that get revealed at the oddest times. Perhaps that’s one reason he’s become so popular. “Could you do that for just a minute? Put your head on my shoulder?”
    “Denny.”
    “I just want...to remember.” She pauses, and then lays her head gently on my shoulder. It’s a beautiful moment. And then I say softly, “This feels... can you put on the cheerleader...”
    “Don’t push it.”
    And the ending, of course, is perfect. I get to sing. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. . . .” Fade to black.
    There was no specific direction for that moment, just a suggestion in the script that it be meaningful. But as we did it I realized it was coming from the longing the character had for Shirley, for their past together, as he held her. And at that moment, without meaning to, I had slipped into not the suit, but the skin of the character.
    There is one trait I’ve given Denny Crane that no one has recognized. Many years earlier, when I was having dinner with Edward G. Robinson, I asked him, “Are you aware that you go... nyeh ?”
    He wasn’t. “I go nyeh ?”
    “Yes, you go nyeh .”
    So every so often, as a paean to my hero Edward G. Robinson, Denny Crane will throw in a little, “Nyeh.”
    I love the thought that David E. Kelley had decided to write the character for me after seeing me doing a Priceline.com commercial. Remember, one of the primary reasons I was hired to do those commercials was because a copywriter remembered—and loved—my 1968 album, The Transformed