At Home in the Universe with Shatner
Biographical fascinating look into the life and times of WIlliam Shatner includes exclusive original interviews with Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Jason Alexander, Geoff Rovere, his daughters and others - all fully licensable. Good profile of the Stark Trek phenomenon. Outtakes of interviews available as well.
Shatner: The narrow margin between reality and imagination, unreality, how close those two things are in my life, maybe I thought I was captain kirk.
Leonard Nimoy: There may be a lot of Bill in Kirk and vice versa but he is not Kirk, nor am I Spock really, Y’know we’d play around with these titles and we joke about it, but the fact is he is an artist.
Daughter: There is definitely um, a huge piece of my dad that I don’t know if anybody knows.
Jason Alexander: There’s a rumour mill about Shatner a mile and a half long, and it goes from the sublime to the ridiculous, and from the glorious, to the villainous.
Geoff Rovere: It was calculated at a certain point that William Shatner was probably known by one quarter of the people of the planet because his role as James D Kirk in Star Trek.
ON SCREEN TEXT: William Shatner : AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE
00:00 – Shatner walking on ground of his farm
Narrator: William Shatner, it might be true that more a billion people know the face, but not many can claim to know the Man, Shatner has a secret sanctuary north of Hollywood in the high sea area? It’s a place where few people, and know cameras, have boldly gone before.
00:01:45 on farm stops to talk to camera and views of the beautiful grounds
Shatner: Welcome, to my home [laughs] I found this place about 20 years ago, I came along a Country Road, I walked into that field of waist high grass, I looked around and that was all, I said er “this is the placeâ€, and I went to buy it immediately.
2:00 – walking and pointing to the grounds and Native American sculptures he has added to the property.
C’mon I want to show you something I’ve done here. As I cleared some of the Brush near the river, I found holes in the granite where the Indians have mashed the acorns, and then I began to hear about and understand, and that Indians had live to up to 50, no a 100 years ago. I have put into solidity my imagining of what the Indians were like, when they lived on this property.
3:00 – at the beautiful stream and talks about his communing with his land and why he never will sell the place in his lifetime
Here’s the twilight time, not the twilight zone. There was a time in my life when I didn’t
have any money, I had done well, then I was err divorced and I didn’t have any money. And I needed to sell this place, and I sat right there, one summer’s evening, half crying because I knew I had to sell this place, and on one of those rocks, a lizard came, and the lizard stood on the rock, and as the water hit the rock, it splashed up, and the lizard was grabbing globules of water and that’s how the lizard drank it’s water, and I sat looking at it with nobody around, I was naked, in the water, alone, naked, watching a lizard drink and I thought, I cannot, I will not, I must never, in my life time, sell this place.
I love the philosophy of me and the earth being one, I love to lie on the grass and listen to
the earth grow, and I love this farm as I I keep trying do it better, planting more trees, find ways of growing things without hurting anything else.
00:04:30 – views of people walking along the streets of Montreal
Narrator: While Shatner earned his fame and a modest fortune in the United States, he remains a Canadian Citizen, he was born in montreal in 1931, and returns to his home town for the first time in many years.
Shatner: I was one of the very few Jewish families living in this neighborhood ,and the kids used to jump me, because I was Jewish, and I got into fights everyday with two or three kids jumping me at the same time, and I used to win, most of them, and they-all the kids would stand around yelling “fight fight fight†and I’d have to struggle.
00:05:00 – goes to visit the house he was born in and gets tour indoors
This first house right here is where I was born and brought up and would play. Im going to go to that house now, and see if there’s anyone there, and ask to go in.
[Shatner Speaks in French briefly to owner of the house.] House Owner: Are you putting me off or is this true?
Shatner: It’s absolutely true.
House Owner: Absolutely, fantastic.
Shatner: yeah, and I lived in the room just before- is there still a kitchen at the far - at the end?
House Owner: Yes, it’s changed quite a bit. Shatner: And the first room is it still a bedroom? House Owner: Why don’t you come in and see: Shatner: That was my room.
House Owner: Yes. Shatner: Can I come in? House Owner: Please do.
Shatner: (To Camera) Is this wild? House Owner: (laughs)
Shatner: (to owner) We’ve got… (laughs) This should be good.
House Owner: I have a son that’s going to be thrilled.
Shatner: Oh well I, this was my living room. This was the living room, this is where I cut, cut up…
House Owner: How many years ago? Shatner: I was born…
Owner: So that’s about 20 some years ago.
Shatner: Right, it was at least a, and in there, in there there was a sofa, right here, and my parents bought the sofa, and this was during the time they were very poor, and they had just bought the sofa and I had a pair of scissors,
Owner: Uh huh.
Shatner: and I cut up, I don’t know why, I... House Owner: Did you?
Shatner: I cut up the sofa, and hid it behind pillows. (House Owner tuts disapprovingly/jokingly) Shatner: Then, over here….
House Owner: That’s why the pillows were so comfortable. Shatner: Over here was, this, this was my parents room, Owner: Meet my wife.
Shatner: How do you do? excuse the…
I was born here, I used to live here, I used to play with my dog, and I used to play in there, I used to jump over that fence.
Owner’s Wife: You were born here? Shatner: I was born in this house yes. Wife: But you are so young it is impossible! Shatner: It is impossible.
Wife: Yes! because we, we’re… Owner: My wife Elizabeth.
Shatner: I want you to get a close up of his wife Elizebeth’s head (laughs) Owner’s Wife: (mumbles) …. Stained glass….
Shatner: What a beautiful, look how beautiful your work is! Owners Wife: (giggles) ‘I’m sorry!
Shatner: (French) Una artist!
Owner’s Wife: Artist, That’s true (Indecipherable few words…)
Shatner: Absolutely! Yes this was my bedroom right here. This was my bedroom. Come here...
Owner’s Wife off camera: That’s why… (Indecipherable few words…)
00:07: - photos of Shatner as a young boy with family and he tells story about his being a mischievous young boy
Shatner: Come here, this was my bedroom, I had a bed right here, and that was the window I jumped out off, into the laneway down below. I would get out of the house, and I, I lived with my sister Joy, and erm sometime later my sister Farla came along. Err so Joy and Farla, and me, and my parents, and my dog.
This was, thank you so much, I’m sorry for the disturbance. Owner: Not at all…
Wife: Noo!...
Owner: … It’s a, it’s a surprise
Wife: … (Indecipherable)... Perfect day! Shatner: Thank you same to you!
My parents also bought a new dining room set, and they also at some point at some time later bought me a tool set, i took the saw, and I sawed all the legs off the table, leaving it standing on the table, sat down for dinner, and the table collapsed...
Son: That’s pretty bad Shatner: And so did my father. Son: I like it…
Shatner: I was terrible.
Owner: Don’t give all these ideas to my son. Shatner (laughs) Thank you mr. McBigger! Owner’s Wife: Nice to meet you! Thank you... Owner: It’s a pleasure.
Owner’s Wife: … so much. Shatner: Bonjour Madame!
Owner: (Something Indecipherable) Shatner: Thank you.
Wife Off Camera: … Anytime.
Shatner: That was, that was wild! I enjoyed that. Tobias: And you saw…
Shatner: Yeah, y’see how small that house is?
00:08:00 – shot of a corner of Montreal where there used to be a movie theater, Shatner as a young boy, his memories of how the neighborhood has changed
The Theater has gone. Oh my god! It’s the Club Medical Sportif. Yeah the Monklin theater was a movie theater I spent my life in this mo- movie theater, I, I saw all the movies that came out in those years at the Monklin Theatre. And it’s gone.
I first read science fiction right in there, which is now a restaurant, was a book store.
Narrator: The book store is gone, so to the movie theatre, but not the child in William Shatner. From the very start he was a shooting Star. Quick, energetic, confident, and not just a little a brash.
00:08:50 – shots of him as young boy intercut with his memories of growing up while sitting in limo – talks about going to drama school
Shatner: The greatest city in the world. And now I get back into my Limo, makes it even a better city (laughs). I had a grand time in the Monklin movie theatre, then there was a drugstore right next door, I grew up in that drug store, going from sodas, asking for a soda, to trying to get the courage up to ask for a condom. (laughs) This is where I went to children’s drama school. That house over there, was a studio of Dorothy Davis and Violette Walters. I was a natural, and I was like one of the only boys as well, so I was playing all the hero roles, I was Prince Charming in Snow White, and I had to kiss the 6 year old girl, even then, my blood was stirring. I remember the first day I was there, and Violette Walters, who was very grandamn? was talking like that. She was a diva, and I thought well, that’s the way actors move, like that, so I tried, to be a diva. This was, Violette Walters. Six.
Seven.
10:10 min approx. – talks about his feelings of wanting to become an actor
Tobias: And you walked like that?
Shatner: Well, that’s the way you walked! When you were- then I learnt to do, the walk.
Narrator: And it’s also when little William Shatner got his first inkling of the sheer powe