FLASHBACK to James Doohan's interview with Howard Stern
Unsurprisingly, the interview goes into Doohan's real life feud/animosity with William Shatner:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8NuakzhS7o
So did every discussion with Doohan. He had a serious hard-on for Shatner. A real shame.
shareI know that the answer is much more complex than this, but I naturally wonder why Jimmy Doohan kept working with Bill Shatner if he thought that the guy was jerk, even before Star Trek? I'm guessing that they were at best, business acquaintances but not "friends" in the traditional sense. They kept working together, because they knew that they would make the most amount of money and be their most successful together. Simply put, Doohan I want to believe, had to swallow his pride because he knew that you couldn't make the original (in the sense that it would immediately most people to it) Star Trek without William Shatner and/or Leonard Nimoy.
shareI met Doohan while he was making appearances around college towns back in late 1985. He made it clear he was not awash in cash back then. I remember the comment he made about his garage being in need of work. I don't think he had a contract in place for STIV when I talked to him but at that point it seemed like it was in the books for production. All in all he seemed like a genuinely warm person but not everybody's fate as an actor is to have success after success and maybe that is what ate at him. Still I am happy that I got to shake his hand. I had ample time to talk to him versus a convention setting.
share