By April MacIntyre Oct 23, 2008, 16:43 GMT
"Star Trek" legend William Shatner seems genuinely mystified over the apparent dislike of him by co-star George Takei.
Why George? Is he that bad? Can't you bury the hatchet? 01/17/2008 - William Shatner - "Star Trek: The Tour" Press Conference and Preview with William Shatner - Queen Mary Dome - Long Beach, CA. USA © Albert L. Ortega / PR Photos
Shatner, star of "Boston Legal", has made a video that reveals the elder actor's dismay at the bad blood and ill-will between the two men.
Shatner questions the motives and reasoning behind Takei's alleged snub, not inviting the actor to his wedding to his long-time partner. Shatner wonders why Takei has held on to such bad feelings over perceived slights that are 40 years old.
The public airing of this happened allegedly because Takei didn't invite him to his recent California wedding. This was on the heels of Takei slamming the 77-year-old Capt. Kirk star's alleged gargantuan ego, chastising him in a memoir for hogging the camera on "Star Trek."
"The whole thing makes me feel badly, poor man," Shatner said in the video. "There is such a sickness there. It's so patently obvious that there is a psychosis there. I don't know what his original thing about me was."
"I didn't read his [Takei's] book that was printed many years ago, but apparently I didn't let somebody have a close-up. I literally don't know him," Shatner said.
"I presume he can remember all these terrible things I must have done when I said, 'Hello' or something to him," Shatner said.
"You would think there would be an epiphany at some point, where George might have said, 'Poor Bill Shatner. He's such a lonely, desperate, unhappy man that he did all these terrible things to me.'"
Coming clean in 2005 and announcing he was gay, Takei was booked as a guest speaker at Shatner's "Comedy Central" roast in 2006.
Takei claims Shatner was invited. "It is unfortunate that Bill was unable to join us for our wedding as he indeed was invited to attend," Takei insisted on his Web site Wednesday in response to Shatner's video.
"He has continued to speak badly about me for all these years," Shatner continued. "Obviously, hiding his homosexuality - talk about festering and not living the truth of your life and feeling badly about yourself - and being fearful somebody would find out about this terrible, terrible secret, so he thought.
Attending Takei's wedding were fellow Trekkies Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura, and Walter Koenig, who was Chekhov on the series.
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