Book: MAKING IT SO: A MEMOIR
Author: Patrick Stewart
Published by: Gallery
Price: Rs 1499
For a Star Trek fan — this reviewer is one — the chapters on the iconic television show, Star Trek: The Next Generation, in this memoir of Patrick Stewart — the fabled Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise — come quite late in the book. But Stewart spills the beans, several of them, in these chapters, making the wait worthy for ‘Trekkies’ — fans of the series — a global fraternity that includes, Stewart informs us humbly, Tom Hanks and Frank Sinatra. For instance, we now know why Tasha Yar, an adolescent crush for many, was killed off in the first season: Denise Crosby, who brought Yar to life onscreen, abandoned ship, so to speak, because she was unhappy with her role. Gates McFadden (Dr Beverly Crusher), we learn, was fired too (mercifully, both ladies returned to the show). The secret of Picard’s woodenness with Wesley Crusher, the Enterprise’s youngest crew member, which was so apparent to viewers, is explained as well: “I felt that the teen-on-the-Enterprise concept was a little gimmicky…”
Stewart is perhaps the most candid in this part of the memoir, examining his transition from a monastic, method actor to someone who begins to loosen up and be receptive to, and also wonder at, his growing fame. It is this candidness that the reader misses in Stewart’s chronicling of his long and rewarding acting career; the reminiscences of his years in theatre, while being faithful to facts and chronology, could have done with a little more depth and reflection.
But that is perhaps the only drawback in an otherwise accomplished work. Stewart’s depiction of his early years in provincial England — the poverty, hardship, strained family ties, and lots of determination — is especially poignant. What makes the serious Shakespearean actor even more endearing is his sparkling, self-deprecatory wit: not many celebrities can laugh at themselves for being ignorant about Sting or, still better, even Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek and the man to whom Stewart owns his global fame.
