Free Shatner Rules by William Shatner

was a secret that Leslie Stevens decided to keep to himself.
    But the story spoke to me—on that level that doesn’t really require a language. It was an allegorical tale in which I played a soldier arriving in a mysterious town to heal my battle wounds with the water from a miraculous spring. Demons lurked within the shadows of the village, preying on the souls of the narcissists who would exploit this fountain of youth. Kind of trippy. Watching
Incubus
might impair your ability to operate heavy machinery.
    Leslie felt that the only people who needed to know about his Esperantan epic were the world’s two million Esperanto speakers. Why? Because every last one of them would buy a ticket to see this film, virtually guaranteeing a big profit!
    Well, not necessarily, especially if you give the world’s Esperanto speakers the shaft. Word is, some Esperantists reached out to Stevens to help with the production, and he rebuffed them. (Imagine the brief thrill some Esperantists felt when the possibility emerged that they might make some money from their ability to speak this language fluently.)
    Forget the experts! Leslie Stevens alone was going to make the first movie ever shot in Esperanto—including directing the action in the language—and he was going to do this in a lightning-fast eighteen days, not including the ten days his actors had to learn their lines. Phonetically.
    (NOTE: Learning . . . things . . . phone . . . et . . . i . . . cally . . . is easy . . . for . . . William . . . Shatner.)
    Incubus
eventually debuted at film festivals around the world. And while Esperanto speakers believe in uniting people under the banner of a common language, they aren’t big believers in uniting their pals for movie night, and the film—despite some glowing reviews—quickly sank without a trace. The original print was destroyed in a fire, and it was considered a “lost” film. Most people forgot about poor, hopelessly bold and experimental
Incubus
. Except those people touched—
by its curse
!
    Yes, some people believe there’s a curse attached to
Incubus
.
    True, some tragic elements did unfold after the film wrapped. Milos Milos, the Hungarian actor and bodyguard who played the Incubus, died in a murder/suicide around the time of the film’s release. Ann Atmar, who played my character’s sister, committed suicideas well. Other actors suffered kidnappings, murders; Leslie Stevens’s company went bankrupt. I promptly started on
Star Trek
.
    Which—was not a curse; it was a blessing.
    How did I escape the
Incubus
curse?
    Well, it’s complicated, but . . . I’d better write the rest of this in Esperanto.

    FUN FACTNER: If you want to know what William Shatner just said, go to WilliamShatner.com.
    After being lost for many years, a print of
Incubus
was found in France (of course) in 1999. The SyFy Channel restored it and released it on DVD. Mo Rocca of
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
on Comedy Central interviewed me at the time, heralding me as a “great foreign film actor” and “the top Esperanto box office draw.”
    (NOTE TO SELF: Update business cards.)
    Rocca also had a focus group of Esperanto speakers watch the film, who had unkind things to say about my Esperantan pronunciations.
    Well, to them I say, “Kiss my butt.”
    (That’s actually the same in Esperanto as it is in English. We are all of us, in the world, united by certain commonalities.)

QUIZ
    Which celebrity did not attended the premiere of
Incubus
at the San Francisco Film Festival in 1966?
    A. Roman Polanski
    B. Sharon Tate
    C. William Shatner

C, William Shatner. I had something else going on. And judging from the fact that the curse might have extended itself to the people who did attend, I consider myself lucky.

CHAPTER 11
RULE: Balls Are Important, but Stones Are Money
    M y wife and I were in New York to attend a black-tie charity gala a few years ago. We were both dressed to kill, but a sudden, sharp pain in