There he was, live, in person, one of the most recognized actors on the planet. Denny Crane, eccentric lawyer. T. J. Hooker, enthusiastic cop. The delusional airplane passenger Bob Wilson in the classic Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.”
And oh yeah: Captain James Tiberius Kirk, intrepid starship leader.
Author. Producer. Director. Singer. And oh yeah two: Citizen astronaut, the oldest person to travel into space.
There he was, just a week into his 95th year, looking healthy and happy, seemingly beamed onto the stage at the Grand Ballroom of Bartle Hall, sitting on a comfy chair at the 27th Planet Comicon Kansas City, Saturday, March 28, in front of over 1,000 adoring fans, talking about life and his love story with horses and Kansas City.
“This city brings forces on me, so many layers of joy, of people and success and working so hard with horses and being successful at it,” he says. “It’s the layers of feeling that I have about Kansas City. That’s my way of introducing you to me in Kansas City. Hello everybody.”
His horse passion started curiously enough with a scene in T.J. Hooker. “It called for me to drive a squad car up and down, chasing the bad guy,” he says. “There was a barn with rows of horses in their stalls. And the horses were going crazy because of the police sirens and all that activity. Except for a group of horses that were the most beautiful horses I’d ever seen. They were alert, they were listening, they were brave. And those were American saddlebred horses. I was off to the adventure of a lifetime with these horses.”
Shatner has competed in multiple American Royal championships in Kansas City, most recently in 2012, which attracts top national and world-level competitors. He helped develop the “Shatner Western Pleasure” class, which is a specialized saddlebred competition format. “I’ve been to the Royal, winning championships on those horses, because my passion, my love, is to come to Kansas City and compete in the Royal. It was so glorious in Kansas City, at the Royal. Kansas City is that to me.”
Shatner went on to talk about his work in raising money for the American Red Cross, and doing a public service announcement for Tourette’s syndrome. When asked about his legacy, he says that term is misunderstood by many. “Even if you write your name in gold, you put it on a building, sooner or later, the gold comes off, or the next person in line takes it off. But there’s no legacy,” he says. “To me, a legacy is a Boy Scout helping an old lady across the street. Doing a good deed, helping somebody do something. That reverberates, that good deed, like a stone in the pond, and the waves continue long after you’re dead. That good deed is your legacy.”
The cultural icon wrapped up by talking about his work on a heavy metal rock album—“it’s about things I hate and I fell in love with it”—and his brush with cancer three years ago—stage 4 melanoma, now gone. “The whole adventure of life is taking place as a result of not only being alive, but in being diagnosed with cancer—that’s what can happen. But the joy of life that you tend to think of, like barbecue and Kansas City, wow, occupies you no matter what else is going on. I’ve had such a giant life. Can there be anything better than eating an ear of corn in Kansas City? That’s the joy of life, and that’s what I feel. Life is all we have.”
