Up Till Now: The Autobiography

started working in television and the movies I was cast almost exclusively in dramas. So the recognition I earned came as a serious actor. There weren’t a lot of laughs in Judgment at Nuremberg , for example.The audience got used to me as a Shatnerian actor. It was only much later in my career that once again I got the opportunity to do comedy. Shatner doing comedy? And when I discovered that I got laughs by poking fun at myself, I gleefully poked and prodded and pushed and pulled at myself. You see, ladies and gentlemen, I understood the psychology that enables people to find humor in the presentation of a somewhat rigid character remaining completely oblivious to the changing cultural scene around him. I got the joke. Actually, I created the joke—and I loved sharing it with the audience. We’re all in this together! But still, I maintained some standards.
    And then, with thirty million people listening, Howard Stern invited me to join him in the homo room.
    Certainly one of the greatest fears of an actor is public humiliation. Oh please, whatever happens don’t let me be embarrassed tonight. Being humiliated—being emotionally stripped naked in front of the world—is one of the worst things any human being can experience. To avoid humiliation people often refuse to take risks, and in response to it people—and even countries—have gone to war.
    Every actor has their own way of dealing with it. I stopped reading reviews of my performances years ago, and I’ve rarely watched shows I had done so I wouldn’t be upset by a director’s edit that didn’t come out my way. For many years the fear of being humiliated had prevented me from attending any Star Trek conventions. I spent several years thinking it was some kind of stupid game that people were playing, they were sharing a great joke, and if I took the show and my work seriously I would become part of that joke. I wasn’t willing to risk that. Then I was told that fifteen thousand peoplewere going to attend a convention in New York and I was offered a substantial amount of money.
    I decided to attend the convention. I didn’t prepare a speech, I was just going to answer questions. And then when I walked on stage and felt the massive love from that audience all my fears disappeared.
    Several years later I was promoting my first TekWar book, the beginning of a new science-fiction series I’d created. I’d done a lot of radio interviews, all of them pretty much the same: please buy my book. And then I was scheduled to appear on The Howard Stern Show . I didn’t really know who Howard Stern was, I think I listened to his show once before going on. What I didn’t understand was that Howard had his own set of rules. He was limited only by what he could get past the FCC, so in those years he had very few constraints. What I did not realize was that he had planned terribly offensive things to do with me to see how far I would go. His program revolves around the humiliation of his guests to some degree—he likes to bust balloons of pomposity. He sought to jar me, to flummox me, and, I suppose, to humiliate me, by attacking my image.
    The radio show and its audience were his turf. He was the bad boy, the street fighter; I came in as a married man, a father, with a reputation, an image, and a career to protect. After this brief interview I had to go back to the shows I was doing in a different world, so I was limited in my ability to fight back. “William Shatner’s a little nervous,” Howard began. “He’s a big star and he doesn’t want to embarrass himself.”
    That’s when he invited me to join him in the homo room. “It’s a better place to conduct the interview,” he explained. “The only other guy we brought down here is like Dee Snider from Twisted Sister. He freaked out and tried to run out, but he handled it.”
    What do I do? He had challenged me to risk my professional image. Am I stupid enough and egotistical enough and curious enough to find out whether I can put the gloves on with him or not? If I agreed to join him in this fantasy I was risking offending many people who didn’t understand Howard Stern, but if I refused I would be seen as an uptight visitor from another world, a man who took himselfmuch too seriously. In front of thirty million listeners I was about to be humiliated.
    I told Howard’s sidekick, Robin, “If you hear screams for help . . .” and decided to go along with him on this fantasy trip. Meanwhile trying