I thought of this the other day. Recently when Leonard Nimoy passed, there were these silly (and sometimes, hysterical) insults of William Shatner because he announced he could not attend the funeral. He was in Florida for a charity event and felt obligated to not run out on it, especially since he believed — and no one seemed to doubt this — that Nimoy would have understood and endorsed that decision.
Still, Shatner was pilloried across the 'net by folks who insisted that he could do the charity event and then hop on a plane and be back in L.A. in time to pay his respects to his Trek co-star. Some seemed to not bother checking the schedule of flights from Palm Beach to LAX, which is not a hard thing to do online. Others insisted Shatner should have just sprung for a private jet or perhaps gotten Donald Trump, who was involved in the charity dinner, to arrange it.
These people were all wrong. Why? Because none of them knew when the Nimoy funeral was. They all assumed sometime between Noon and 2 PM. Ah, but the Nimoy family wanted to thwart the Westboro Baptist Assholes who had announced their intention of picketing the ceremony. To accomplish this, the time and place of the funeral were kept secret from the press.
The where was easy to figure out. Even I guessed it: Hillside Memorial. Nimoy was Jewish and that's where most Jewish folks in L.A. are buried. (Jack Benny was buried there. Al Jolson was buried there. Even a few Evaniers are buried there.) The Westboro Baptists were ready to gather with their stupid signs just before Noon so they'd be poised and ready to offend at a 12 PM or 2 PM memorial.
But it didn't do them any good. Only invitees knew the funeral was at 9 AM that morning.
Shatner obviously knew it. Even a private jet would not have gotten him there in time but in order to protect the secret, he didn't explain why he couldn't fly back in time. He didn't even point it out after the event. He just swallowed the attacks and whatever damage the whole thing may have done to his reputation.
We hear all these tales of arrogance and ego about William Shatner and I have no idea how much truth there is in them. Some, I assume. But this time, it seems to me the guy was a mensch. Even if he'd even Tweeted, "Those of you criticizing me have no idea when the funeral is," he'd have given it away.