Boldly going

STUDIO CITY, Calif. – The SUV pulls to an abrupt stop on Ventura Boulevard. In the middle of the westbound lane is a man in a loud shirt, his body coiled with energy, darting across traffic toward a strip mall.

It’s lunchtime. Good sushi is across the street. And a guy like William Shatner is not about to be stopped by something as mundane as traffic.

Why did William Shatner cross the road? Why has he ever? To get to the other side. To see what’s out there. To find out stuff and inhale the universe in his singular Shatnerian way. It’s the story of his life – and the lives of the characters he has breathed, spoken and shouted into existence over a 50-year performing career.

It’s the story of “Boston Legal” bombast Denny Crane, racing to experience all life’s pleasures before Alzheimer’s drags him toward darkness. It’s the story of the Priceline Negotiator, that discount-travel maniac who barnstorms across the planet to get us better deals. It’s the story of James T. Kirk, the wise and womanizing starship captain who led a crew of 23rd-century explorers across interstellar backroads.

And it’s the story of Shatner himself – a man governed by his passions and interests, a man who crosses new roads every day, gleefully ignoring those who dismiss him and conquering frontiers he never dreamed possible. A cultural phenomenon who, despite tales of his galactic ego, seems strikingly down to Earth as he shapes and basks in the third golden age of his career.

“I’m trying to fill the cracks in the bricks that have been written. I’m the mortar,” he says. “That’s what an actor should be doing.”

Yes, he’s been pilloried over the years – perhaps justifiably here and there – for his roundhouse method-actor style, for his apparent obliviousness of his own over-the-topitude, for his primal, all-encompassing Shatnerness.

But being snide about William Shatner is so 1997. He is 77 now, post-post ironic, doing precisely what he wants to – and, finally, no longer terrified about making a living. “Live life like you’re gonna die, because you’re gonna,” he sang a few years ago.

After the brutally honest 2004 album “Has Been” with Ben Folds, after the Emmy in 2004 and the second Emmy in 2005 and the new autobiography this spring, if you’re still stuck parodying Shatner’s staccato delivery and making T.J. Hooker toupee cracks, the joke, friend, is on you.

‘He dives in’

“Lemurs,” William Shatner is explaining through mouthfuls of sushi, “are primitive animals of many varieties.”

You name the subject, he’s fascinated. Global warming. Asian soap operas. The sentience of fish. Afghan politics. The turkeys he deep-fries in a “multimedia show” every Thanksgiving. And his timeless loves – his wife Elizabeth, his three daughters and his racehorses.

To sit and talk with Shatner over a meal is its own multimedia show. You start by marveling about the familiar voice you’re hearing. By and by, you begin paying attention to what he’s saying, which is a theme park of topics. This is a guy who, in his new autobiography “Up Till Now,” rhapsodizes about a gas station where he found “the best tire air I’ve ever encountered.”

He has a conversational style – a cognitive style, even – of starting slowly, navigating his way into a topic and, in the course of a single sentence, transforming from cool introspection to full-on oratory.

This much-scorned, steam-gaining delivery is the product of a man thinking something through and finding conviction along the way. With Captain Kirk, it went like this: “Risk – RISK is our business. THAT’S what this starship is all about. That’s why we’re a-BOARD her!”

With Shatner, it goes like this: “We can’t wait for something dire to happen before this democracy decides to gird up and FIGHT global warming. We’re on … a collision course … with HIStory!” (This is followed quickly by, “Shall we order something else?”)

Joining us for lunch is Brett Keller, chief marketing officer at Priceline.com, where Shatner has been frontman for a decade, urging people to name their own price. Both sides have benefited: Priceline got an iconic figure, and Shatner got a forum upon which to surf back into the collective consciousness.

In the latest Priceline ads, Shatner bursts forth as the Priceline Negotiator, a mashup of James Bond and Ron Popeil who will do anything to help people broker better deals.

“You’re a celebrity (and) you’re asked to do a 30-second television spot. It’s not the most glamorous thing in the world. But he dives in,” Keller says. “You either love him or you hate him, and I think most people love him.”

Captain Ubiquitous

He has always favored unusual paths. You don’t make an entire horror movie in Esperanto (“Incubus,” 1964) otherwise. You don’t open an equestrian camp to help disabled Israeli and Arab children get along. And you certainly don’t serenade George Lucas by dancing with stormtroopers while singing a personalized version of “My Way.”

Let’s even put this on the table: William Shatner is vulnerable.

Stop smirking. Do you have the guts to get out there and whisper gently to the public about the night you found your wife dead in your swimming pool? Do you possess the chops to portray a lawyer who’s slowly losing his mind? Would you record a dramatic reading of Exodus backed by the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra while knowing you’ll be heckled by guys who, 40 years later, are still maligning your version of “Mr. Tambourine Man”?

With these choices, Shatner has carved himself a unique place in the culture. Hate him or love him, rarely has an entertainer straddled giggles and glory so adeptly. And rarely does a performer have three distinct careers, each building on the last:

“Shatner No. 1: I’m a Very Serious Actor. This one played tortured men in two “Twilight Zone” installments, portrayed a slick racist in 1962’s “The Intruder” and created the role of the iconic Captain Kirk in the original “Star Trek.”

“Shatner No. 2: I Laugh At Myself And You Can Too. There were hints of this Shatner earlier, but he really jumped into self-parody in a 1997 film called “Free Enterprise,” in which he played a heightened version of himself. Then came his appearance as the alien leader on “Third Rock From The Sun” and his first Priceline ads, which cast him as a zeitgeisty, lounge-lizard joker.

“Shatner No. 3: We Laughed Until We Cried, the most sophisticated Shatner of all.

For years, it was assumed that Shatner equaled Kirk. Then came Denny Crane, a Boston law firm’s fading rainmaker. Denny is loudmouthed, sexist, self-obsessed and terrified at what age is stealing. Only his much younger colleague, Alan Shore, understands the panic behind the bluster.

This Shatner combined the serious and the comic in the most unusual way. “I’ve obviously had those instruments at my call,” he says, “but the opportunity to use them wasn’t there.”

As he was winning Emmys, Shatner ventured back into the admittedly narrow niche of spoken-word singing – a pantheon in which he had been roundly denounced – and paired up with Folds for the audaciously named “Has Been.” He joined musical stalwarts like Henry Rollins and Joe Jackson to sing – and sometimes write – a concept album about age and regret. People, skeptical people, called it honest and moving.

Something’s going on with Shatner, some odd alchemy. He’s mined a vein of cultural coal that transcends ubiquity. He’s been pitchman, legend, action figure, in-joke, cover boy, game-show host, cultural signpost, embodiment of a bright future.

“Shatner is THE epitome of the post-ironic, 21st-century American cultural attitude,” says Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University television and pop-culture historian.

Or put it another way. One of Shatner’s daughters and her husband like to play a game: Get through an entire day without seeing an image of Dad somewhere in public and you win.

Usually, no one does.

‘Nothing I can’t do’

Midmorning on the “Boston Legal” set, where Denny Crane is proposing marriage to a sexy Montana cattle rancher.

With each take, more dimensions emerge in Shatner’s performance. He lends personality to Denny’s nose, eyes, lips as he tries to release the ache of a fading giant trying to get the girl. By the final take, the scene is heart-wrenching.

The mutual devotion between Denny and James Spader’s Alan Shore is extraordinary. Rare is the honest male TV friendship; most buddy scenes are dispatched with testosterone and awkwardness. But Denny and Alan are like lovers without the attraction; they work to understand each other – not unlike another deep friendship, that of Kirk and Spock.

“It’s a friendship based entirely on communication and empathy,” Shatner says.

Why does Denny Crane work so well? Some of it is David E. Kelley’s writing, but some is sheer Shatnerness.

“He brings to the moment everything you know about him,” says David Fisher, who collaborated with Shatner on the new autobiography. “We know what he’s been through. We know the ridicule he’s received, we know the plaudits he’s received. He’s been part of our lives for so long.”

Shatner as Kirk may be a memory. The character died in 1994’s “Star Trek Generations” and will be played in next year’s J.J. Abrams reboot by the young actor Chris Pine. Other than that, all things seem possible.

“I have all of the hungers and passions and desires of when I was 20,” Shatner says. “There’s nothing I can’t do.”

After all this time, he lives life like he’s gonna die, because he’s gonna. But when the time finally comes to take that trip, don’t be surprised if William Shatner tries to name his own price.