Up Till Now: The Autobiography

group was scheduled to race Tuesday night. Cowher went first. He spun out and hit the wall; the $500,000 car was badly damaged. We waited more than an hour for a replacement car; finally Cowher made his run and established his time. Gabrielle Reece had posted some very fast times in her practice runs, but during her run she also spun out and almost hit the wall. Now it was my turn.
    I was wearing a completely fireproof jumpsuit and a large bulbous helmet with a face mask that covered my entire head. When they tried to strap me in I realized something was wrong. This car had been set up for Cowher and Reece, two very tall people. My feet didn’t reach the pedals. And the seat wouldn’t move. The only thingthat did move was the telescoping steering wheel. But the wheel in the car was too large, so they replaced it with a much smaller wheel that was sticking into my gut, much smaller than any steering wheel I was used to. By then it was one o’clock in the morning, I was tired, and the lithium lights shining down on the filthy windshield made it difficult to see clearly.
    In minutes I was going to be driving faster than 160 mph with a steering wheel jammed into my belly and pillows stuffed behind me to push me forward so I could reach the pedals on a track I could not see clearly.
    This was crazy and I knew it. I thought, what am I doing here? I could be killed.
    I put my foot down on the accelerator and took off. I’ve learned in karate that your chi is below your belly button and as you do any physical activity you release it in explosive breaths. I’ve done that many times. My intention was to blow out my chi by yelling as I went around those turns.
    Actually, I believe that my exact words as I raced around the corners were “Whooooooooooooooooooooo. Whooooooooooooooooooooo.” I was not blowing out my chi, I was trying to contain my fear. I was seeing death. I knew I was going to die. I could barely control the car, I couldn’t see where I was going, and I was driving faster than 160 mph. I never should have been in that situation. Drivers have told me about the feeling of Zen they’ve experienced in which they are one with the car. I didn’t get that feeling, instead I felt like a foreign body that the car was trying to eject.
    I finished my three official laps. I never learned my time; I was disqualified for a technical violation. But later I wondered why I had taken that risk. I risked my life for a television program? I did it, I realized, because the cameras were rolling. Believe me, if those TV cameras had not been there I wouldn’t have risked my life. But the cameras were there; this was a show, a performance. This was my job. And as I had been taught by my father, I was there on time and ready to go to work.
    It was my mother, Ann Shatner, who encouraged me to act. Shesent me to acting school; she never missed a performance. She went with me to audition for radio roles and when I didn’t get the part she would call the producer, Mr. Rupert Kaplan, to scream at him for not hiring me. Unlike some mothers she didn’t follow me to college when I attended McGill—she didn’t have to, we lived two miles from the campus.
    My mother might accurately be described kindly as ditzy. Her own family had been relatively well off and she was somewhat spoiled; the contrast between this lovely young woman who had so much and a hard-working man struggling to bring his family over from Europe must have been extreme. My mother had a great dramatic flair. She wanted her life to be big and loud. When we went for dinner, for example, she would quite often inform the waiter that it was her birthday. I still get embarrassed thinking about it. She would sit there beaming while the rest of us were cringing as the waiters gathered around our table to loudly sing “Happy Birthday.” I’m certain people would look at our table and wonder why this entire family was looking down and not singing “Happy Birthday” to that lovely woman. What a reputation we must have had: that Shatner family won’t sing “Happy Birthday,” imagine that. My mother had more birthdays than anyone in the world.
    She always took great pleasure in my success, and even more pleasure in sharing it. I can still hear her saying those memorable words, “I’m William Shatner’s mother.” I can still hear it because she never stopped saying it. Everywhere she went. If she got on an elevator before the doors closed she would say, “Hello