William Shatner Hid A Personal Tragedy To Finish Star Trek's The Devil In The Dark
In the "Star Trek" episode "Devil in the Dark" (March 9, 1967), Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and his Vulcan crewmate Spock (Leonard Nimoy) visit a distant mining colony where the Federation gets a fictional ore called pergium. This mining colony is in trouble. A mysterious monster has been stalking the caves and tunnels deep underground, attacking and killing the miners. When Kirk and Spock investigate, they discover the monster is a thing called a horta, a pulsating mound of rubbery living rock capable of excreting powerful, bone-melting acids.
Kirk, when he threatens the horta with his phaser, finds that it reacts and stands its ground. He senses that the creature is sentient and asks Spock to mind-meld with it. The horta, they find, is indeed sentient and has been protecting its young. The curious spheroid rocks found throughout the tunnels are actually the horta's many eggs; the creature was killing humans who were interloping into its nesting territory. It seems that hortas, as part of their natural life cycle, go extinction once every 50,000 years, save for one who is left to oversee the next generation's hatchlings. It was important that this horta keep this life-cycle uninterrupted.
One of the supporting players in "Devil in the Dark" is Lieutenant Leslie (Eddie Paskey), one of the many recurring background characters on "Star Trek." Paskey rarely has spoken dialogue, but he appears in 68 episodes of the series — usually as Lieutenant Leslie, but sometimes as other ancillary Enterprise crew members, and often as Shatner's stand-in. Paskey, who passed away in 2021, revealed a previously-unknown fact about "Devil in the Dark" while speaking with StarTrek.com in 2003. It seems that Shatner patiently played out the scenes as directed, only to leave the set to attend his father's funeral.
William Shatner's father
William Shatner's father, Joe Shatner, was born in Romania in 1898 and died in Miami in 1967 at the age of 68. He was buried in his adoptive home in Montreal, Quebec, where the young William was born. The Shatner family was originally named Schattner, but the spelling was changed by Joe's father, Wolf Schattner. Joe was survived by 12 siblings.
William Shatner began acting in the early 1950s when he was in college. By the 1960s, he had moved to the United States to pursue a career. He landed the "Star Trek" gig in 1966, helping to invent Captain James T. Kirk, an indelible pop culture figure. Kirk was a bit stern, logical, and often very judicious; he's not the reckless cowboy his pop reputation would have you believe. Shatner, it seems, needed to work through a cloud of sadness on "Devil," as he had to leave the set to attend his father's memorial.
Paskey recalled the shoot well, but couldn't tell that Shatner was in mourning. In his own words:
"As soon as we wrapped with that show, Bill left. We came to find out that as he shot all day long, he was preparing to get on an airplane to go home — his father just passed away. No one knew until he was actually gone. And, y'know, that says a lot for the dedication of the man."
Joseph Shatner didn't live a public life; little information can be found about him on the internet. William Shatner, meanwhile, had three children who got to meet Joe before his death.
Given the breakneck pace of TV filming, William Shatner likely had to be back at work the next week to shoot more "Star Trek," unable to pause to mourn. As Paskey noted, he was incredibly dedicated.