Why did his co-stars hated him on Star Trek?

I always got the impression that Shatner was a tad obnoxious and self-important.

Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed him in T.J. Hooker and Star Trek.

A man should never wear bigger boots than he needs.

One reason Nimoy gave was that he went to everything of Shatner's but Shatner never went to anything of his. This included Nimoy's star ceremony and ultimately his funeral. I don't know all the reasons but they apparently held grudges for years. My cousin helped set up a show for the cast members years after the show ended and they had to build a whole separate stage because not one of the cast members would share a stage with Shatner.

I was not there, so I can’t say for sure!

All I know is what I read. Some of the actors really savaged Shatner in their books and comments. But he never responded in kind.

It seems to me that part of the problem was that the actors portraying Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, etc. forgot that they were supporting players and not really “co-stars” who could demand equal time.

Back then most hour shows had a leading star or two and everyone else had supporting roles. With the advent of shows like Dallas, Dynasty, Hill Street Blues, St Elsewhere, etc., more shows had ensemble casts.


Next Generation was an ensemble cast. Picard may have been the Captain, but he was not the focus of every episode. All the characters were focused on in various episodes. There were many episodes when Picard was hardly even present. Data had many storylines. So did Riker, Troi, Geordi, Worf, and to the dismay of many fans, Wesley Crusher😫. LOL




I think the original Trek actors rewrote history in their minds and decided they were co-stars who had their roles diminished by Shatner. He didn’t write the episodes!

Also, Spock became a huge breakout character. Even Gene Roddenberry said that many episodes were written for Spock that might have gone to other characters. Spock was so popular, especially with women.

Leonard Nimoy got tons of fan mail. William Shatner even admits to some jealousy at first. He wrote in one of his books that he said to Roddenberry, “I finally get a TV show and you had to come up with this Spock character!” (I am paraphrasing)

George Takei should not complain. He was slated to have a bigger role on the show’s second season. But he went off and made The Green Berets. It wasn’t Shatner’s fault that he wasn’t around for half the season.

Jealousy.