Up Till Now: The Autobiography

value of a dollar and that’s what he taught me.
    I was standing in the showroom looking at different types of coffins. What do I know about coffins? What features are included? What options are available? I knew nothing at all about coffins. And as I looked at the rows of coffins beautifully displayed I could sort of hear my father’s voice, telling me, “What, Billy, are you kidding? Forget about that lead-lined stuff, what am I going to do with that? Just get me a nice simple wooden coffin.” Which turned out, of course, to be the most reasonable.
    I bought that coffin and my father lay in it. During the funeral service, as the rabbi was giving the eulogy, I turned to my sister sitting on my right and I said, “Joy, Daddy would have been very proud of me. I got a great deal on his coffin.”
    She thought about that for a few seconds. “Why?” she asked. “Was it used?”
    I laughed, then turned to my left and told that to my other sister. She passed it along and soon most of the people in the chapel were laughing while we were grieving for this wonderful man. It struck me then how grief and laughter fit so easily side by side, and I never forgot it.
    Many years later, in August 1999, I was sitting shiva for my third wife, Nerine Shatner, who had died tragically. For those who don’t know, it is an important aspect of Jewish tradition that after the death of a loved one his or her family sits shiva for a week. During that time friends come to the house to pay their respects and console the family. There’s always a lot of food, people tell stories about the deceased, and often there’s loud laughter. It’s a truly wonderful tradition that really helps people get through the extraordinary pain that comes with the loss of someone you love.
    During this period I was standing in my kitchen with several good friends, thinking about the eclectic group of people who were there at that moment. I opened the refrigerator door and this idea came to me: what if a group of struggling young comics agreed to show up at the homes of Hollywood celebrities sitting shiva where they knew they would get a very good meal and perhaps meet an agent? Basically,they plan to use the occasion of sitting shiva to audition for whoever was in the house. Nobody walks out on shiva.
    I turned from the refrigerator and within two minutes had expounded an entire outline of a story about grief and laughter. I continued developing that concept for several years and by 2007 I had a very good movie script that I began producing.
    So should anyone ask you where great ideas come from, you now know the answer: great ideas come from William Shatner’s refrigerator.
    Obviously I don’t know where ideas come from, but I do believe everyone has a unique vision. Given the freedom to create, everybody is creative. All of us have an innate, instinctive desire to change our environment, to put our original stamp on this world, to tell a story never told before. I’m absolutely thrilled at the moment of creativity—when suddenly I’ve synthesized my experiences, reality, and my imagination into something entirely new. But most people are too busy working on survival to find the opportunity to create. Fortunately, I’ve been freed by reputation, by the economics of success, and by emotional contentment to turn my ideas into reality. I’ve discovered that the more freedom I have to be creative, the more creative I become. Rather than diminishing as I’ve gotten older, my creative output is increasing.
    The concept of The Shiva Club, as I’ve named this movie, is a simple one: grief can be funny. But it’s as much about dealing with mortality, a subject I’ve spent considerable time thinking about. And I’ve come to realize that among those things I most value about life is the joy of discovery. Whether it’s the taste of food or wine, the taste of friendship, of the woman I love, of an adventure, or the taste of the thrill—all are wonderful tastes of life. I know that the people who live the longest and the richest lives are looking ahead and not behind. So I immerse myself in new experiences, I dive as often as possible into the river of life. I don’t understand the concept of retirement. It’s not a bad thing to savor your memories, it can be wonderful and warming, but not at the cost of losing your excitement about the future.
    I don’t want to die, yet I continually put myself in truly dangerous situations. I seem to have an on-off