Up Till Now: The Autobiography

him. He became hysterical. The next day he was sent home, wrapped in blankets in the backseat of a car.
    What had I done? I felt terrible. Awful. That had not been my intention. But I was also astonished. Once again I had seen the extraordinary power of words to evoke great emotion. Look what I could do! Just by saying some words!
    I acted throughout my childhood. When Dorothy Davis established the Montreal’s Children Theatre we put on our plays at the Victorian Theatre in the park and on local radio. For five years I saved damsels on Saturday Morning Fairy Tales, even if I wasn’t quite certain what a damsel was. What eight-year-old doesn’t want to be Prince Charming? Or Ali Baba? Or Huck Finn? I got to be them all. Acting was playing. I was being me being someone else. It came easily to me. I crashed my sister Joy’s sweet sixteen party, for example, costumed as an old man. Joy had no idea it was me, no idea. She came over to me and said, politely, “Excuse me, but I don’t think I know who you are.” When she got close enough and looked into my eyes, she knew. But the concept that I could do this as a profession, that I could earn...
    Oh, excuse me. I just have to go star in another movie with Sandra Bullock for a little while. Here, please hum along with a song I wrote with Ben Folds and I’ll be back in a few sentences:
I know what she’s gonna do;And I can’t wait for her to do it. She knows me and I know her; what I hate and what I prefer. Dum de dum, dum de um. I know her scent, I know her touch; where to hold her and just how much.
My lady belongs here and so...
    Okay, I’m back. Where was I? Growing up, the concept that I could continue to do this playing as an adult was not something that occurred to me. It was just something that I loved doing. In high school I played football and acted in school plays and for the first time I allowed myself to dream. Under my photograph in my senior yearbook I finally admitted it out loud: I wanted to be an actor. Not that out loud of course, not loud enough for my father to hear me.
    While still in high school I got my first real job in the theater—as a stage manager. I was fifteen years old and I had absolutely no experience. Looking back, I suspect I got the job because I was young andgood-looking and oh so terribly naïve. A well-known French male singer was starring in a play at the Orpheum Theatre, which housed all the touring companies. It was thrilling for me. I was in the theater; backstage, but inside the theater. The actor was tall and good-looking and early in the run he asked me if I wanted to join him for dinner.
    Well, I thought, I must be a great stage manager. The star of the show has asked me to have dinner with him. Naturally I accepted his invitation. As we left the theater that night he asked me if I had a jacket with me. “No,” I admitted.
    “That’s fine,” he said casually. “I’ve got a jacket that’ll fit you in my hotel room.”
    Welcome to show business, Shatner. The strongest memory I have of that night is being chased around the bed. Football season had recently ended so I was in good shape and strong. I stayed out of his reach. Incredibly, I didn’t even know what he wanted. I was unaware of homosexuality. I didn’t know that men could be attracted to other men. It was not something spoken about in middle-class Jewish homes.
    What happened that night changed my attitude toward women for the rest of my life. I understood the anger and frustration that a woman feels when she says no, and means no, and the man believes she is saying yes.
    Acting had become my passion. I was hungry to stand before an audience and perform. I accepted every opportunity offered to me. When I was sixteen I got a part in a production of Clifford Odets’s Waiting for Lefty being done at a Communist organization meeting hall in Montreal. Every serious young actor wanted to do meaningful theater, even if we didn’t understand the meaning. I didn’t know anything about Communism, but I knew the history of Clifford Odets and the Group Theatre. I remember being on stage, looking nobly to the ceiling, my fist raised, screaming, “Strike! Strike!” And the audience—my God, they went out of their minds! “Strike! Strike!” When the audience responded I could feel the power of my performance. Me, little Billy Shatner from the west end ofMontreal, not quite Westmont, holding this audience in my hand. Strike! Strike! It was magnificent,