Biography

William Shatner

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Overview

Born
March 22, 1931 · Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Nicknames
- Bill
- Billy
Height
5′ 9″ (1.75 m)

Biography

William Shatner has notched up an impressive 70-plus years in front of the camera, displaying heady comedic talent and being instantly recognizable to several generations of cult television fans as the square-jawed Captain James T. Kirk, commander of the starship U.S.S. Enterprise.

Shatner was born in Côte Saint-Luc, Montréal, Québec, Canada, to Anne (Garmaise) and Joseph Shatner, a clothing manufacturer. His father was a Jewish emigrant from Bukovina in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while his maternal grandparents were Lithuanian Jews. After graduating from university, he joined a local Summer theatre group as an assistant manager. He then performed with the National Repertory Theatre of Ottawa and at the Stratford, Ontario, Shakespeare Festival as an understudy working with such as Alec Guinness, James Mason, and Anthony Quayle. He came to the attention of New York critics and was soon playing important roles in major shows on live television.

Shatner spent many years honing his craft before debuting alongside Yul Brynner in The Brothers Karamazov (1958). He was kept busy during the 1960s in films such as Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and The Intruder (1962) and on television guest-starring in dozens of series such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), The Defenders (1961), The Outer Limits (1963) and The Twilight Zone (1959). In 1966, Shatner boarded the USS Enterprise for three seasons of Star Trek (1966), co-starring alongside Leonard Nimoy, with the series eventually becoming a bona-fide cult classic with a worldwide legion of fans known variously as "Trekkies" or "Trekkers".

After "Star Trek" folded, Shatner spent the rest of the decade and the 1970s making the rounds, guest-starring on many prime-time television series, including Hawaii Five-O (1968), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969) and Ironside (1967). He has also appeared in several feature films, but they were mainly B-grade (or lower) fare, such as the embarrassingly bad Euro western White Comanche (1968) and the campy Kingdom of the Spiders (1977). However, the 1980s saw a major resurgence in Shatner's career with the renewed interest in the original Star Trek (1966) series culminating in a series of big-budget "Star Trek" feature films, including Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). In addition, he starred in the lightweight police series T.J. Hooker (1982) from 1982 to 1986, alongside spunky Heather Locklear, and surprised many fans with his droll comedic talents in Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), Loaded Weapon 1 (1993) and Miss Congeniality (2000).

He has most recently been starring in the David E. Kelley television series The Practice (1997) and its spin-off Boston Legal (2004).

Outside of work, he jogs and follows other athletic pursuits. His interest in health and nutrition led to him becoming spokesman for the American Health Institute's 'Know Your Body' program to promote nutritional and physical health.
- IMDb mini biography by: firehouse44@hotmail.com

Family

Spouses
Children
Parents
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Trademark

Clipped, dramatic narration.
Captain James T. Kirk on Star Trek (1966) and seven of the Star Trek films.
Voice like a radio disc-jockey.

Trivia

Shortly after the original Star Trek (1966) series was canceled, his wife Gloria Rand left him and took a lot of money with her. With very little money and his acting prospects low, he resided in a pick-up truck camper until continually acting in bit parts led into higher-paying roles.
Recorded a special message for the crew of NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-133 that woke up them at 3:23 a.m. (EST), March 7, 2011. The message included the Star Trek theme song along with Shatner's narration: "Space, the final frontier. These have been the voyages of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Her 30 year mission: To seek out new science. To build new outposts. To bring nations together on the final frontier. To boldly go, and do, what no spacecraft has done before.".
Auctioned a kidney stone to GoldenPalace.com for $75,000. The money went to Habitat for Humanity, a charity that builds houses for the needy.
Is an expert equestrian (horse rider), which was put to good use in Star Trek: Generations (1994). Co-star Sir Patrick Stewart, despite his classical background, had very little experience with horses, so Shatner helped teach him. One of Shatner's tips was to wear pantyhose under his pants, to reduce chafing.
In 2001, he married Elizabeth Shatner (Elizabeth Anderson Martin), 30 years his junior. She is a horse trainer who had lost her husband to cancer in 1997. Their grief (Shatner was a widower) and their love of horses drew them together. They reside in Southern California and in Kentucky.

Quotes

[When asked if he wore a hairpiece] It's a question that I find like asking somebody, "Did you have a breast implant?" or "When did you get your lobotomy?".
[When asked if he was a fan of technology] I love technology. Matches, to light a fire is really high tech. The wheel is REALLY one of the great inventions of all time. Other than that I am an ignoramus about technology. I once looked for the 'ON' button on the computer and came to find out it was on the back. Then I thought, anyone who would put the 'on' switch on the back, where you can't find it, doesn't do any good for my psyche. The one time I did get the computer on, I couldn't turn the damn thing off!
I am not a Starfleet commander, or T.J. Hooker. I don't live on Starship NCC-1701, or own a phaser. And I don't know anybody named Bones, Sulu or Spock. And no, I've never had green alien sex, though I'm sure it would be quite an evening. I speak English and French, not Klingon! I drink Labatt's, not Romulan ale! And when someone says to me "Live long and prosper", I seriously mean it when I say, "Get a life." My doctor's name is not McCoy, it's Ginsberg. And tribbles were puppets, not real animals. PUPPETS! And when I speak, I never, ever talk like every. Word. Is. Its. Own. Sentence. I live in California, but I was raised in Montreal. And yes, I've gone where no man has gone before, but I was in Mexico and her father gave me permission! My name is William Shatner, and I am Canadian!
We were basically one and the same, although Jim [Kirk] was just about perfect, and, of course, I am perfect.
What he tells his kids about money: Don't buy anything on time, and that includes cars and houses. (Money magazine, 2007)