Denny Crane

File:Shatner as Denny Crane.jpg

Denny Crane, played by William Shatner.

Denny Crane is a fictional lawyer on the television show Boston Legal. The character first appeared on the final season of The Practice, and is portrayed by William Shatner.

Crane, a founding partner in the show's fictional law firm, Crane, Poole & Schmidt, is portrayed as an idiot savant. He often punctuates his statements by announcing his own name, "Denny Crane!" On a case involving seniors and prescription drug prices, he forgot the details of the case and gave an opening statement that caused a mistrial, to his client's benefit. He then finally took seriously Alan Shore's suggestion that he might have Alzheimer's and went to get tested for it. Late in the first season, he admitted to Shore that he had been taking a type of amphetamine drug to help him focus on trial procedures; he later stopped taking the drug. Early in the second season, Crane began referring to his mental condition as a manifestation of mad cow disease.

Near the end of the first season of Boston Legal, Crane's colleague Lori Colson filed a complaint about his behavior, which senior partners Shirley Schmidt and Paul Lewiston were ready to use to try to push him out of the firm. At this point, the show went on hiatus so Grey's Anatomy could premiere. When "Grey's" became such a hit, ABC decided to push Legal back until September. While Colson's complaint was briefly addressed early on in the second season, its resolution is still unclear.

Crane is a staunch conservative Republican who strongly opposes gun control, claiming that "it's for communists." Crane keeps a wide variety of loaded guns in his office. He feels that "elevators are for Democrats" and he only takes the stairs. In one episode, when he is representing the United States in court, he refers to the Attorney General by first name as "Alberto."

Crane and Shore are close friends despite their great political differences, and Boston Legal often closes with a scene of the two enjoying a cigar and a Scotch on the balcony of the law firm, talking over events that had happened in the episode.

Crane is at times portrayed as extremely unethical; in one episode, he convinced a judge to drop all charges against his nymphomaniac client by playing on the judge's self-esteem problems stemming from his being a virgin. He also has at many times made remarks about sleeping with people's wives. He once claimed that he had an orgy with Schmidt and Barbra Streisand. Schmidt then told him that she had hired a male Streisand impersonator.

Crane has also bragged that he has never lost a case, claiming that his record is 6,134-0.

Another lawyer, Donny Crane, was believed to be Denny's illegitimate son; the product of an affair with an anonymous woman. Denny, however, confessed to Shore that when his mother slapped him with a paternity suit, he settled, and Donny's mother later admitted that he wasn't the father. Many jokes were made about the closeness of Donny and Denny's names. Just like Denny, Donny Crane also uses his own name as an exclamation at inappropriate times.

An avid rifleman, Crane claims to be a Marine Corps veteran, but he couldn't remember whether he was a pilot or a sniper in an episode where he shot a man who was threatening to shoot Shore. Crane had Tara open the intervening door by yelling "Pull" (as in skeet shooting), after which he shot the assailant. In another second-season episode, Crane was forced against his will by a judge to provide pro bono representation to an accused child rapist/killer. The killer privately bragged to Crane about having committed the crime, and Crane "accidentally" shot him twice in the leg with a gun he had somehow smuggled past courthouse security in his briefcase. This incident landed Crane one of his numerous appearances on Larry King's cable-TV talk show. In another episode, Denny is threatened to shoot his therapist in the shoulder, which he proptly does. Later on he, fires upon the man again in court when Alan is threatened.

Crane's expertise, skill in media manipulation and reputation have made him the public face of Crane, Poole & Schmidt -- far more often than any of the other senior partners would like. His aggressive personality, massive ego, excessive libido and eagerness for the limelight have caused him to lose five wives, the most recent after only three hours of marriage when he was caught having sex with a catering server in the coatroom at his own wedding reception. But as a name partner and the firm's resident rainmaker, he cannot be removed from the firm without great difficulty and economic risk (as he often points out, "My name's on the door").

In a breaking of the "fourth wall," it occasionally seems as though both Denny and Alan Shore are aware of themselves as characters in a television show. Examples of this are when Alan greets Denny at the end of one episode with the remark, "Ah, there you are. I've hardly seen you this episode" and at the end of another, entitled "Squid Pro Quo", when Denny and Alan anticipate what to expect from a sexy new attorney, Marlene Stanger played exquisitely by Parker Posey, and Denny sums up with the amusing remark "I can't wait to see her next week."