Up Till Now: The Autobiography

large office and told him, “I trust you’ll be comfortable in this room, sir.”
    To which he responded, “Captain, I have no doubt that the entire state of Maine would be comfortable in this room!”
    Working with a great star like Spencer Tracy, an actor I’d watched with awe while growing up in Montreal, was absolutely thrilling for me. I loved Spencer Tracy. However, acting with me was obviously less thrilling for him. After Spencer Tracy had flawlessly delivered a stirring ten-minute summation I asked him, with all the arrogance of youth and the confidence of a stage actor, “Did you memorize all of that?”
    I did not know that Spencer Tracy had started his career on the stage. He just looked at me, that’s all, just looked at me and never spoke to me again. I’m sure he thought, who the hell is this young punk thinking I came to the set unprepared? Or that I didn’t think he could memorize his lines.
    Burt Lancaster played a proud former Nazi judge who accepted responsibility for his actions, giving it the full teeth-gritted Burt Lancaster. We shot his scene in one day. But when we came to work the next morning we were told that Mr. Lancaster wasn’t satisfied with his performance, he wanted to do a retake. He knew he could do better. And then he gave exactly the same teeth-gritted Burt Lancaster performance he’d done the day before. That’s better, he said, and went home happy.
    I remember Richard Widmark’s intensity and Judy Garland’s fragility and Montgomery Clift. Montgomery Clift played a mentally incompetent German civilian who had been sterilized. He fidgeted and stammered and continually shifted in the witness chair. I thought he was brilliant, not knowing then that he had been addicted to pain-killing drugs and had become an alcoholic after being disfigured in a terrible car accident about five years earlier. What I thought was his performance was his pain. Of course I knew nothing about any of that at the time.
    Some of the concentration camp footage that we had been shownprivately was included in the film. By this time Americans knew about the concentration camps, but nothing could have prepared them for seeing these atrocities. Distributors wouldn’t touch The Intruder because of its provocative story, but Judgment at Nuremberg was considered one of the most important films Hollywood had ever made. It was showered with awards. It won two Academy Awards and was nominated for nine more—including Best Picture, which was won by West Side Story . Maximilian Schell won for Best Actor; Judy Garland, Spencer Tracy, and Montgomery Clift were nominated and I... and I...this film did not make me a star. It made me a paid actor and when it was done I started looking for work again.
    There is one advantage to not being a star. Every young actor gets warned about the dangers of being typecast. The reality of the profession is that once you’re perceived to be a specific type or character it’s very difficult to play other roles. Burt Lancaster played Burt Lancaster. John Wayne, John Wayne. It’s very good advice, although it has little to do with the reality of life for most actors, which is, basically, work. I was very lucky early in my career. I was able to move easily between the stage, television, and movies. I could play comedy and drama, I could be the leading man or a supporting player, and I was offered a broad variety of parts. Part of the reason I was becoming better known was what people perceived to be an unusual. Speech. Pattern. Apparently I was becoming known for. Pausing, between words, in. Unusual places. People have commented that it calls attention to the. Words, I’m saying. It provides a different kind of emphasis on a line. I have no idea where that. Came from. Possibly it came from the fact I was working so often in so many different types of plays and television program and movies that at times I did need to hesitate to remember my next words. Possibly, that’s just an assumption, but the reality is that I don’t even hear it. I can mock the idea. I understand people hear me speaking. That way. They’ve even put a name to it, calling it Shatnerian. As in, ah yes, the character spoke with true Shatnerian eloquence.
    But it’s certainly nothing I’m doing intentionally, nor do I do it inreal life. I have seen several William Shatner impersonators speak in that. Clipped. Punctuated manner. Okay, if people recognize the impersonation as me, then it must be me.