Leonard by William Shatner Page B

o’clock. I got there on time, no Jim Coburn. Eight o’clock, I’m made up, ready to go, on the set, no Jim Coburn. I heard through the buzz that he had overslept. That was unheard of that an actor would hold up a television company. We scrambled and did some other things. I thought, oh this poor guy just ruined his career. We finished the episode and Jim Coburn’s next job was in the movie The Magnificent Seven . He became this big hot star and I remember saying to myself, I was on time; where’s my stardom!”
    Leonard was not a star, he never got top billing, but he worked regularly. He took whatever was offered. On the first of his three appearances on Broken Arrow, for example, he played a Native American accused of a hanging crime—and he had no lines. He spent most of the show sitting in the prisoner’s dock listening silently to testimony.
    Like the majority of actors, Leonard continued to work at other jobs to support his career. In addition to teaching acting and driving a cab, at various times he ran a vending machine route, delivered newspapers, was a movie usher, and even worked in a pet shop selling exotic fish. It was never an easy life, and as he pointed out, “I went a long time before I could make a living as an actor. Before Star Trek, I spent about fifteen years in Los Angeles looking for work as an actor, and during that time, I never had a job that lasted any longer than two weeks.”
    Those were the “character-building years,” as Leonard later referred to them, and every person who has ever tried to earn a living in this profession can relate to that—and knows how hard it is to maintain the dream. Even he admitted that at times he would be very unhappy, very angry. Those feelings are part of an actor’s life; you see people you’ve worked with, people whose talent you doubt or you know aren’t as good as you, get parts that you should be playing or on occasion even become stars. At times, you begin to wonder, Why not me? It often is more frustration than jealousy, but you just keep going. It affects every part of your life. Sometimes, though, that frustration explodes. Leonard’s wife Sandi once told an interviewer, “We had terrible fights. There were times he wanted to give up acting and take a sensible job, and I wouldn’t let him.” Believe me, every struggling actor’s family can relate to Sandi when she continued, “Leonard wasn’t much fun in those days. And I didn’t always appreciate what a strong husband and father he was.”
    Few of those small roles gave Leonard a chance to really apply his talents, so he found other ways to exercise his skills. In 1962, he and his good friend Vic Morrow optioned the movie rights to a play they had done in a small theater on Santa Monica Boulevard, Jean Genet’s Deathwatch . It wasn’t exactly a hot commercial property. Rather it was a complex, highly emotional story that takes place in a jail cell in which two prisoners are fighting over the affections of the third inmate, who happens to be a killer. He had gotten wonderful reviews in that play and often credited it with getting him noticed in the industry, and after that, he began working a lot more often. It marked the first time he was able to earn enough as an actor to cut back on his other jobs. Following that, his performance onstage in Genet’s better-known play The Balcony consolidated his growing reputation as a talented young actor.
    Leonard and Morrow somehow raised $125,000 from small contributors to shoot the film. Just think about that: Leonard was working several jobs and barely earning a living, yet his respect for his profession and his passion for honest and emotional storytelling was so profound that he spent his energies—and probably most of his money—getting this project completed. I can’t imagine that anyone believed this film was going to be a commercial