william shatner star trek years

William Shatner

William Shatner is best known for his distinctive voice and his roles on 'Star Trek' and 'Boston Legal.'

Who Is William Shatner?

Actor, director, author, singer William Shatner is best known for his roles on Boston Legal and Star Trek .

Born on March 22, 1931, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Shatner started his career as a child performer in radio programs for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. As a student at McGill University, he continued to pursue acting. Shatner spent his summers performing with the Royal Mount Theater Company. He graduated from the university in 1952 and joined the National Repertory Theater of Ottawa. Working with Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Shatner also appeared in productions at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario.

Early Stage and Screen Roles

In 1961, Shatner had a small part in the Holocaust drama Judgment at Nuremberg , playing an army captain. He had a lead part in The Intruder (1962) as a racist who fought against school integration. On the small screen, Shatner had his first series, For the People , in 1965. He starred on the short-lived drama as an assistant district attorney in New York City.

'Star Trek' Series and Films

The following year, Shatner took on the role that made him famous around the world. As Captain James T. Kirk on Star Trek , he commanded the U.S.S. Enterprise , a starship traveling through space in the twenty-third century. Kirk encountered all sorts of unusual aliens and challenging situations during his journeys. Accompanying him on these adventures was his loyal crew, which included first officer Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and medical officer Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley). The science fiction series created by Gene Roddenberry premiered on September 8, 1966, and lasted for three seasons.

During the run of the show, Shatner also made an unusual career move. He recorded an album, The Transformed Man (1968), which featured spoken word versions of contemporary pop hits. Already known for his dramatic, but earnest delivery of his lines on Star Trek , Shatner recorded renditions of such songs as the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."

Not long after the album, Star Trek was canceled. The show, however, continued to live on in syndication and became even more popular. Star Trek became a Saturday morning cartoon that ran during the mid-1970s, and it was resurrected a live action film in 1979. Returning to the role of Kirk, Shatner starred in Star Trek: The Motion Picture . The film's warm reception by film-goers showed how much affection the public had for the old series. At the beginning of the film, Kirk has become an admiral, Bones has retired, and Spock has returned to the planet Vulcan. But the three return to work on a new version of the Enterprise to solve a crisis involving a mysterious cloud that has destroyed several spaceships.

In the sequel Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Kirk has to overcome an old adversary out for revenge, Khan Noonien Singh (Richardo Montalban). He followed with Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).

The next chapter in the Star Trek film series received a lukewarm reception. For Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), Shatner not only returned as Kirk, but made his debut as a feature film director as well. The film, unfortunately, received some fairly negative reviews. Movie critic Roger Ebert called it "a mess," involving "not much danger, no characters to really care about, little suspense, uninteresting ... villains, and great deal of small talk."

Not matter what the reviews said, the Star Trek film series continued at warp speed. The next installments were Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) and then Star Trek Generations (1994). In Generations , the members of the original Star Trek hand the baton to the cast of the spin-off series Star Trek: The Next Generation , marking the end of Shatner's starring role in the franchise.

TV and Movie Roles

't.j. hooker'.

In 1982, Shatner took on a new leading television role in T. J. Hooker , as a veteran police officer who returns to a street beat. The supporting cast included Heather Locklear and Adrian Zmed as younger officers who work with and look up to Shatner's character. Unlike the original Star Trek series, T. J. Hooker was immediately popular with television audiences.

Shatner remained a fixture on television even after T. J. Hooker went off the air, becoming the host for Rescue 911 in 1989. This was an early entry into the reality television genre, featuring reenactments of emergency situations.

'The Practice,' 'Boston Legal'

On the big screen, Shatner appeared as a beauty pageant host in Miss Congeniality (2000) and its sequel Miss Congeniality 2 (2005), with Sandra Bullock . In 2003, he made a guest appearance as a talented, but eccentric lawyer on The Practice . His turn as Denny Crane brought him his first Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2004. He had been previously nominated for his guest appearance on the science fiction sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun in 1999.

The Practice creator David E. Kelley created a spin-off series, Boston Legal , featuring Shatner's character Denny Crane in 2004. Law partner and master litigator Crane acts as a mentor of sorts to Alan Shore (played by James Spader). For his work on the series, Shatner won his second Emmy — this time for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series — in 2005. More nominations in this category followed in 2006 and in 2007.

'Shatner's Raw Nerve,' 'Weird or What?'

In 2008, Shatner began work on Shatner's Raw Nerve, a celebrity interview program on the Biography Channel. He then worked on another Biography Channel project entitled Aftermath with William Shatner , which focused on the stories of ordinary citizens who became overnight celebrities, and also hosted the supernatural-themed Weird or What?

'$#*! My Dad Says,' 'Better Late Than Never'

In 2010, Shatner returned to sitcom TV in the short-lived $#*! My Dad Says , based on a Twitter feed of the same name. He began hosting the U.S. version of the stop-motion series Clangers in 2015, and enjoyed some success with the reality-travel series Better Late Than Never the following year, alongside Henry Winkler , George Foreman and Terry Bradshaw .

'The UnXplained' on HISTORY

Shatner is the host and executive producer of the HISTORY nonfiction series The UnXplained , which premiered on July 19, 2019, at 10 pm ET/PT. The series tackles subjects that have mystified mankind for centuries, from mysterious structures and cursed ancient cities to extraterrestrial sightings and bizarre rituals.

“It’s an intriguing show that will offer viewers credible answers to questions about mysterious phenomena, while also leaving other theories left unexplained," Shatner said.

Shatner has experienced great success as an author. During the writers' strike of 1987, he transformed a screenplay idea into a novel. The result was TekWar (1989), a work of science fiction featuring a middle-aged private detective working in the twenty-second century. More Tek titles followed and were later adapted for television.

Additionally, Shatner worked with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens to create a series of Star Trek novels, and launched the Quest for Tomorrow and Samuel Lord science fiction series.

Also a veteran of nonfiction, Shatner co-authored Star Trek Memories (1993) and Star Trek Movie Memories (1994) with Chris Kreski. He and Kreski also worked together on Get a Life! (1999), a look at the whole Star Trek fan phenomenon. The actor went on to pen several nonfiction books with David Fisher, including Up Till Now: The Autobiography (2008) and Live Long And...: What I Learned Along the Way (2018).

Marriages and Personal

From 1956 to 1969, Shatner was married to Canadian actress Gloria Rand. The couple had three children together. Shatner married actress Marcy Lafferty in 1973. That marriage ended in divorce in 1996. Shortly thereafter, he married model Nerine Kidd. Kidd's life came to a tragic end in 1999, when she accidentally drowned in a pool at the Shatners' home in Studio City, California.

After such a tragic loss, Shatner was able to find happiness again with his 2001 marriage to Elizabeth J. Martin, a horse breeder. In late 2019, it was reported that the 88-year-old actor had filed for divorce.

As part of his own love of horses, Shatner started the annual Hollywood Charity Horse Show to raise funds for children's charities in 1990.

In late 2017, Canadian Governor General Julie Payette appointed Shatner an Officer of the Order of Canada for his contributions to popular culture and his charity work.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: William Shatner
• Birth Year: 1931
• Birth date: March 22, 1931
• Birth City: Montreal
• Birth Country: Canada
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: William Shatner is best known for his distinctive voice and his roles on 'Star Trek' and 'Boston Legal.'
• Astrological Sign: Aries
• McGill University

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: William Shatner Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/actors/william-shatner
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: December 11, 2019
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
• The line between making a total ass of yourself and being fundamentally funny is very narrow.

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William Shatner reflects on 55 years of 'Star Trek' — and that controversial 'SNL' sketch

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When Captain James T. Kirk originally set foot on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise , his mission to explore the final frontier was only supposed to last five years. Instead, the Federation starship's pioneering voyage launched a fleet of Star Trek TV shows, movies and ancillary content that has endured for 55 years and counting. Even though William Shatner 's official tour of duty with Starfleet ended in 1994's Star Trek: Generations , he'll forever be connected to the franchise he once commanded alongside creator Gene Roddenberry and beloved crew mates like Leonard Nimoy , George Takei and Nichelle Nichols. (Watch our Star Trek Day video interview above.)

Funnily enough, though, one of Shatner's most famous Trek moments didn't occur in an actual Trek series or movie. Thirty-five years ago, on Stardate 12.20.86, the actor hosted Saturday Night Live and took center stage in a notorious skit penned by Robert Smigel, John Vitti and George Meyer. (Shatner himself credited Bob Odenkirk and Judd Apatow in his 1999 memoir, Get a Life! ) The sketch found Shatner visiting a Star Trek convention and lecturing obsessed fans (played by Jon Lovitz, Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon) to — say it with us now — " Get a life !"

The dismayed looks on the faces of SNL 's fake fans mirrored the reaction within actual Trek fandom, where that sketch proved as troublesome as a loose Tribble aboard a Constitution-class starship. After all, here was Kirk himself mocking fans over their passion for the very thing that transformed him into a TV icon. While it may not have been the writers' intention, the sketch cemented the idea in the pop culture consciousness that Trekkers were a group to be ridiculed.

Over three decades later, Shatner is keenly aware that his "get a life" gag rubbed Trekkers the wrong way. But he also remains tickled by the jokes that the SNL writers penned for him. "I understood [the controversy], but I also understood that it was so amusing that most people would laugh, which they did," the actor tells Yahoo Entertainment now. "Some people didn't, and I'm sorry. But it was meant in fun. And I advise you to laugh."

One person who has a hard time laughing at the sketch is Roddenberry's son, Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry. In a separate interview, the CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment — who was 12 years old when the episode   aired — says that he has a complicated relationship with Shatner's SNL appearance. "I don't love it," he admits. "But I can also let go and maybe give it a loose chuckle."

Roddenberry adds that he never discussed the sketch at length with his father, but believes the Star Trek creator's deep affinity for the franchise's fans would have made it difficult for him to let go and laugh. "He truly loved the fans," the younger Roddenberry notes. "He always gave them credit and loved them and knew that they were the ones that kept Star Trek on the air. So I don't think he would've appreciated the comment. However, Saturday Night Live is about pushing boundaries and satirizing social situations, so looking at it from that point of view, that is a very valid and funny joke."

"My father and I have a personal connection to the fans," Roddenberry continues. "My experience has been that people have been inspired by Star Trek to do great things. Sure, they wear a Klingon costume on the weekend, but they go on with their lives during the week. They aren't these crazy, lost individuals who didn't know the difference between reality and Star Trek ."

Today, of course, fandom is a force that's celebrated rather than mocked. As a result, Roddenberry feels that Shatner's "get a life" moment has been supplanted by more loving Trek send-ups like the 1999 comedy favorite Galaxy Quest . "I don't think [that sketch] has an impact anymore. That was then. So I'm not upset about it, but if I'm being honest, I don't appreciate that comment. Galaxy Quest is an example of a humorous, beautiful love letter to fans. I love that kind of humor and poking fun at Star Trek and fandom in a loving way. It's just the whole 'get a life' thing."

Shatner's SNL sketch isn't the only notable Trek anniversary happening on this particular Star Trek Day, which celebrates the launch date of the original series, Sept. 8, 1966. We spoke with the former captain-turned-admiral-turned-captain, as well as Roddenberry, about some of the seminal moments in the franchise's long, prosperous history.

Star Trek: The Original Series (Stardate 09.08.66)

Let the Starfleet record show that Shatner wasn't technically the first actor to sit in the Enterprise 's captain's chair. Jeffrey Hunter preceded him in Roddenberry's first pilot episode, "The Cage," which NBC declined to air. (Portions of "The Cage" were later incorporated into the two-part Season 1 episode "The Menagerie," and the pilot was finally released in full in 1986.) After parting ways with his first star, the creator stumbled upon Canadian-born Shatner, who had parlayed his success as a stage actor at his native land's renowned Stratford Festival into a burgeoning TV career in Hollywood.

Captain Kirk took command of the Enterprise in Roddenberry's second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before." While that episode sold NBC on making Star Trek an ongoing series, it wasn't viewers' first encounter with the Enterprise crew. Instead, the show launched on Sept. 8, 1966 with "The Man Trap" — the sixth episode to be filmed and the first to air on network television. Written by George Clayton Johnson, "The Man Trap" finds Kirk and his officers facing off against a space monster that feeds on the salt contained in human bodies.

"We laughed at that one," Shatner says of that supposedly fearsome foe. "Imagine! I was at Stratford and this is a what?! It sucks the salt? OK, it sucks the salt out of your body. Different rules now."

The actor may have found the monster amusing, but sci-fi fans were immediately taken with Star Trek , gifting the show with a small, but devoted viewership that encouraged the network to keep the Enterprise flying for three years. But the secret heroine of Trek 's longevity was none other than comedy legend Lucille Ball, whose production company, Desilu Productions, financed the series and kept the money flowing even as Trek tried and failed to cross over into the mainstream. That connection between I Love Lucy and Star Trek is something that never fails to delight Trekkers.

The legendary actress, comedian, and producer Lucille Ball was born #OTD in 1911. She'll always have a special place in my heart, for without her there would be no #StarTrek pic.twitter.com/OmrSmqupnG — Rocketgirl 🚀 (@Rocket_Grrrl) August 6, 2021

Did you know that without the financing and rigorous support of Lucille Ball, Star Trek would likely not exist? Lucy pushed hard for the network to greenlight Star Trek. The pilot episode was shot at Desilu studios, as was the “2nd Pilot”. — JMBERMAN (@jmbwithcats1) September 6, 2021

I can’t imagine Lucille Ball and Star Trek being related, but you learn something new every day! — Andrew R P (Vax 1 done) (@AndrewRP12) September 3, 2021

For his part, Shatner thinks that Ball's contribution to the franchise's history is limited to production those first three seasons. "[Desilu] put the money behind the beginning of Star Trek , so they were peripherally involved," he says. "But the resurrection of Star Trek was made by other people. I met [Lucille Ball] once, and she was a beautiful woman and a great comic. But I don't think she was quite as functional as you point out." (Ball passed away in 1989.)

Roddenberry, on the other hand, proudly considers Ball to be an honorary Trekker. "When anyone asks me when I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall the most, it would have been the first introduction between my father and her," he remarks. "My father had pitched the show to many of the networks and they all turned him down. She was the one willing to take the risk, and I've got to give her credit for saying: 'We're going to do something different. We're going to give this show a shot and screw anyone who doesn't think it's right for television.' That's my vision of her, and I'ld love to see that dramatized one day onscreen."

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Stardate: 11.26.86)

The month before his SNL appearance, Shatner led the Enterprise crew on their fourth big-screen mission, The Voyage Home , which remains the franchise's funniest movie. And it would have been even funnier had the filmmakers succeeded in their rumored plan to cast former Not Ready for Primetime Player Eddie Murphy in a major role in the time-traveling adventure. Screenwriter Steve Meerson shared that secret with The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the film's 30th anniversary in 2016, and apparently it was news to Roddenberry and Shatner as well.

"I hadn't heard that about him," confesses Shatner, who later made a cameo in Murphy's 2002 comedy, Showtime . "I don't know whether that was true or not. If it was, I don't remember!" Roddenberry can't corroborate Meerson's account either. "I've heard the same thing, but I can't tell you anything more because I simply don't know," he says. "That was still an incredible movie." ( Star Trek IV is newly available in a just-released 4K box set of the first four Trek movies . )

Fortunately, Shatner does recall one of the film's most laugh-out-loud moments, when Spock uses the Vulcan nerve pinch to quiet down an unruly bus passenger. Asked whether he and Nimoy — who also directed the movie — knew how hilarious that scene was going to be when they shot it, Shatner indicates that they suspected they were onto something. "[The way] it was written, with the proximity of him and [us] and the music we didn't understand, we understood it was meant to be humorous, yes."

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Stardate: 12.06.91)

The final voyage of the original Enterprise crew premiered in theaters in December 1991, two months after Gene Roddenberry passed away. And his son admits that his family's loss made The Undiscovered Country a difficult watch for many years. "That was an incredibly raw and emotional time, so I didn't pay too much attention to it originally." But the younger Roddenberry adds that he recently revisited the movie, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that its storyline — which finds Kirk having to help the Federation broker peace with the Klingons — resonates well in the present day,.

"Kirk's son was killed by the Klingons, so he has this hatred for them," Roddenberry explains. "Now there's an opportunity for humanity and Klingons to come together, and the challenge of him overcoming that [hatred] is incredibly powerful. And it's incredibly important to have that message today, because we're in such a divisive time. Being empathetic to someone even if you disagree with what they're saying is the backbone of Star Trek ."

For Shatner, the most rewarding part of making The Undiscovered Country was finally getting the chance to act onscreen opposite fellow Canadian and Stratford Festival alum Christopher Plummer, whose Shakespeare-quoting Klingon general tried to undermine the peace effort. The two actors were both born in Montreal a year apart, and rose through the ranks together. (Plummer died in February at the age of 91; Shatner celebrated his 90th birthday in March.) "Chris and I were a double helix," he says now. "I followed him through the channels of theater, radio and live television. We met at Stratford, and I was his understudy for Henry V ."

"We were good friends from a distance, because he was always somewhere else" Shatner continues. "I admired him, and respected him. It was so much fun to finally be associated with him on [ The Undiscovered Country ]. I had a great time."

Shatner officially passed the Star Trek baton to The Next Generation crew in Generations , with Kirk's divisive death capping off the climax of that movie. And while he has yet to reprise the role onscreen, he's open to the idea of revisiting the Enterprise in the same way that Nimoy's Spock became part of the rebooted Trek film franchise launched by J.J. Abrams in 2009. "When I saw that movie, I called [Leonard] and said, 'Leonard, you know you're old when you go back in time and you're still old,'" Shatner remembers. "He didn't laugh!"

Star Trek: The Original Series is currently streaming on Paramount+ and Netflix.

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Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Captain Kirk (Shatner) in the classic  Star Trek episode "The Man Trap"

The classic  Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" was a breakthrough role for Shatner

Heather Locklear and James Darren costarred with Shatner in T.J. Hooker

William shatner on his classic tv roles, from  twilight zone to  star trek, the emmy-winning actor boldly goes for a trip down tv memory lane..

William Shatner 's decades-long relationship with fame began on the theatrical stage as a young Canadian actor before American television helped turn him into one of the medium's most noteworthy stars. 

With roles like the traumatized airline passenger aboard the classic Twilight Zone   episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," and, of course, his most famous part — S tar Trek 's Captain James T. Kirk — Shatner would spend more than five decades becoming a load-bearing column of pop culture. His landmark career, with all its considerable peaks (winning two Emmys for his role as attorney Denny Crane on The Practice   and Boston Legal ) and valleys (the cancellation of Star Trek ), is the subject of his latest documentary, You Can Call Me Bill . The doc, directed by Alexandre O. Phillippe, weaves key moments and events from Shatner's life and profession with the 93-year-old actor's preoccupation with his own mortality — which seems sparked by his recent trip into space at the age of 90 on Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin rocket.

In the documentary, a vulnerable Shatner reflects on his talents by saying: "Every human being is limited by who they are." If his industrious career is any indication, he seems to be the exception to the very limits he speaks of. With the pending release of You Can Call Me Bill on VOD April 26, Shatner spoke with the Television Academy and reflected on some of his most memorable TV roles and experiences. 

Television Academy: I know it's been a long, long time, but how was your experience working with the late director Richard Donner on  The   Twilight Zone episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet?" 

William Shatner:  I had come from live television out of New York and Donner was a very prolific director. I had worked with him several times prior in live television. So we were more or less friends, pretty good acquaintances. So when he called, it was like an old buddy saying, "Let's do this thing." And when I read it — I was of two minds. I mean, it could be laughed at. And then when I saw the suit that the Czechoslovakian acrobat was dressed in, I thought, "Well, I hope this isn't laughed at." This is good for laughs, at least.

The last thing we shot was the last shot of the episode, where my character is being carried away on the stretcher. And [while shooting], I remember thinking: "I hope that everybody takes this thing the way it was meant to be [taken] and not laugh at it." Since we're talking about it more than 60 years later, my hope seems to have come true.

Moving on to T.J. Hooker ,  1982 was a significant year for your career — with this series airing March 1982, ahead of the June premiere of the feature film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . How did the role of Hooker, which was a significant departure for you at the time, come about?

Well, before the exigencies of television got ahold of it, it was meant to be about a cop who hadn't progressed into the modern police age. So, the complex idea for  T.J. Hooker was this cop trying to work himself into the modern age. At its best, the show did that. And, at its worst, it was a good cop show. 

The series went from ABC to CBS for its fourth season. Can you recall why that change happened and how that impacted you? 

I wasn't aware. I just knew it was happening, to the best of my recollection. As long as it went on the air — on   somebody's air —   I was happy.

And T.J. Hooker  afforded you opportunities to direct, as well. How was directing television different — or maybe more exciting for you — than, say, directing feature films, like your feature directorial debut, 1989's  Star Trek V: The Final Frontier ?

Well, in television directing, the common knowledge is you're good for [getting] one artistic shot a day. Meaning a director gets that shot and you're busy doing close-ups for the rest of the day — just getting in and getting out. So I would try to take advantage of that time to set up a good shot —  whether the camera was moving, or whether it was an artistic shot where I'd want the lighting a certain way. It all took time, and I had to ration the importance of [getting] that shot that I would have thought of that morning or the night before. And I would fight to get it in, and then stick to getting fairly close shots from then on in the interest of time. So, when I got to direct a feature, I was armed with the knowledge of how to save time while filming.

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William Shatner reflects on his new film, 'Star Trek,' space travel and not attending Leonard Nimoy's funeral

A new Variety interview reveals more intriguing facets of the charismatic 'Star Trek' actor as his SXSW documentary debuts.

By any standard of measurement, William Shatner has led a wonderful life. 

The 91-year old actor who gained fame by gallivanting around the galaxy as Captain James T. Kirk in " Star Trek " for three decades chronicles it all in the new documentary "You Can Call Me Bill," which premiered March 16 at the SXSW festival.

Produced by XYZ Films and directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, this revealing portrait has Shatner musing about mortality, nature, space travel and more. It covers the span of his prolific career, from early days aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise on TV and in feature films, and his popular small screen runs with series like "T.J. Hooker" and "Boston Legal."

On the eve of the documentary's world premiere in Austin, Texas, Variety connected with Shatner to learn more about his take on life and death, his legacy, Leonard Nimoy's funeral, a favorite role and rocketing to space with Jeff Bezos' spaceflight company, Blue Origin .

Related: William Shatner launches to space on Blue Origin's New Shepard (photos)

Here are select excerpts from that recent Variety interview :

"I've turned down a lot of offers to do documentaries before," when asked about his reasons for making the documentary. "But I don’t have long to live. Whether I keel over as I'm speaking to you or 10 years from now, my time is limited, so that's very much a factor. I've got grandchildren. This documentary is a way of reaching out after I die."

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"Time and time again, I've come across some interesting thought or idea," Shatner said regarding any new insights gleaned from the new film's creation. "That can be because of a thoughtful interviewer sparking something in me. In the movie, I didn't just want to go on about 'I did this or that when I was 7' or 'this is my favorite color.' I'm trying to discover something I've never said before or to find a way to say something I've said before in a different way, so I can explore that truth further. 

"The sad thing is that the older a person gets the wiser they become, and then they die with all that knowledge. And it's gone. It's not like I'm going to take my ideas or my clothing with me. Today, there's a person going through some of my clothes in order to donate or sell them, because what am I going to do with all these suits that I've got? What am I going to do with all these thoughts? What am I going to do with 90 years of observations? The moths of extinction will eat my brain as they will my clothing, and it will all disappear."

"When Leonard Nimoy died a few years ago, his funeral was on a Sunday," Shatner recalled when his controversial absence from the ceremony is brought up. "His death was very sudden, and I had obligated myself to go to Mar-a-Lago for a Red Cross fundraiser. I was one of the celebrities raising money. 

"That event was on Saturday night. I chose to keep my promise and go to Mar-a-Lago instead of the funeral, and I said to the audience, 'People ask about a legacy. There's no legacy. Statues are torn down. Graveyards are ransacked. Headstones are knocked over. No one remembers anyone. Who remembers Danny Kaye or Cary Grant? They were great stars. But they're gone and no one cares.' But what does live on are good deeds. If you do a good deed, it reverberates to the end of time. It's the butterfly effect thing. That's why I have done this film."

Related: William Shatner says Earth looked 'so fragile' from space on Blue Origin flight (video)

On the subject of whether or not Shatner has a favorite role over the course of his career, the legendary icon responded by saying that he just tries to have fun on set. 

"I just did a commercial for a watch that I designed," he said. "It has a face with a telescope, a sun, the Milky Way . And the watch company did this whole science fiction background for me to talk about it. Well, there's a part of the commercial where they use CGI to have a meteorite land next to me. I ad lib, 'That’s a lot of meteorite .' That was a pretty funny improv. I did that on Monday, and that's become one of my favorite moments."

— William Shatner moved to tears by space launch with Blue Origin

— For William Shatner, early 'Star Trek' was far from glamorous

— 'Star Trek' movies, ranked worst to best

Shatner's spaceflight aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft back in 2021 was an emotional reckoning for the actor, author and director.

"When I came out of the spaceship I was crying , just sobbing, and I thought, 'Why am I crying?   What’s going on?' I'm in grief. What am I grieving about? Oh sh*t, I'm grieving about the world, because I now know so much about what's happening. I saw the Earth and its beauty and its destruction. It's going extinct. Billions of years of evolution may vanish. It's sacred, it's holy, it's life and it's gone. It's beyond tragic."

Click here for the full revealing (and slightly somber) Variety interview with William Shatner to celebrate the debut of "You Can Call Me Bill" at SXSW on March 16. 

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Jeff Spry is an award-winning screenwriter and veteran freelance journalist covering TV, movies, video games, books, and comics. His work has appeared at SYFY Wire, Inverse, Collider, Bleeding Cool and elsewhere. Jeff lives in beautiful Bend, Oregon amid the ponderosa pines, classic muscle cars, a crypt of collector horror comics, and two loyal English Setters.

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William Shatner

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William Shatner, OC ( born 22 March 1931 ; age 93), an Emmy Award-winning Canadian actor, became most famous for portraying Captain James T. Kirk of the starship USS Enterprise in all 79 aired episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series , 21 of the 22 episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series , and the first seven Star Trek movies . He also directed and co-wrote the story for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier . His image also appeared in Star Trek Beyond , in a photograph that was among Spock 's possessions bequeathed to his alternate reality counterpart .

In addition, Shatner appeared indirectly (through archive footage) in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode " Trials and Tribble-ations " and his archive voice-over was used in the Star Trek: Enterprise fourth season episode " These Are the Voyages... ". He has also voiced the role of Kirk in a number of video games and he is the credited author for a series of Star Trek novels involving Kirk, the first of which was The Ashes of Eden . (His primary "ghost" writers are Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens .)

Outside of the Star Trek franchise, Shatner is well-known for his roles on several other television shows, including Bob Wilson in the "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" episode of The Twilight Zone , the title character on the 1980s police drama series T.J. Hooker , and his Emmy Award-winning portrayal of famed attorney Denny Crane on the ABC drama The Practice and its spin-off, Boston Legal . He is also remembered for hosting the informational program Rescue 911 from 1989 through 1996 and is currently recognized as the official spokesperson for Priceline.com , having appeared in advertisements for the company since 1998. Prior to his work on Star Trek , he starred in Incubus , one of a handful of movies to be filmed entirely in the constructed language known as Esperanto.

In 2021 , Shatner was a passenger on private spacecraft company Blue Origin's second human spaceflight, NS-18, becoming the oldest human ever to fly into space. This makes him one of a select few Star Trek performers to have actually been to space, along with Mae Jemison , E. Michael Fincke , and Terry Virts , although unlike them, he was a space tourist rather than an astronaut.

• 1 Biography
• 2 Early career
• 3 Playing James T. Kirk
• 4.3.1 Denny Crane and Boston Legal
• 5 Musical career
• 6 Book writing
• 7.1.1 Novels
• 7.1.2 Non-fiction
• 7.2 Documentaries
• 7.3 Video games
• 7.4 Discography
• 9.1 Additional appearances
• 10 Star Trek interviews
• 11 External links

Biography [ ]

Shatner was born in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood of Montreal , Quebec, Canada, to a Conservative Jewish household. A native English speaker, he is also fluent in French.

He received a Bachelor of Commerce degree from McGill University in Montreal, where the Student Center was unofficially renamed "The Shatner Center" in the 1990s in a student popular election. As of 2014, a flimsy sign was hanging in the lobby, but the university administration had not officially accepted the name change.

Famous for his clipped, dramatic, and often-imitated narration and dialogue delivery, Shatner has become one of the most recognizable stars in Hollywood. In a career spanning five decades, he has become a household name not only for his role as James T. Kirk , but also for playing T.J. Hooker in the series of the same name, the host of Rescue 911 , and for his Emmy Award-winning role as legendary but senile lawyer Denny Crane on Boston Legal . He is also an accomplished writer, producer, director and host. On 14 December 2006, Shatner was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame for his many accomplishments in the field of television.

Shatner has three daughters: Leslie , Lisabeth , and Melanie . All are from his first marriage to Gloria Rand, whom Shatner married in 1956 but divorced in 1969, following the cancellation of Star Trek. Shatner subsequently married actress Marcy Lafferty in 1973. Shatner and Lafferty remained together until their divorce in 1994. Shatner then married Nerine Kidd in 1997, but this marriage ended tragically with Kidd's death in a drowning accident in 1999.

He is currently married to Elizabeth Martin, who shares Shatner's passion for horses. They live together in Los Angeles, California. In his spare time, he plays paintball and tennis and is a professional horse breeder. In this latter profession, he founded the annual Hollywood Charity Horse Show in 1990, which he continues to host.

Shatner has been awarded the Order of Canada, one of the highest civilian honors in the country, and has received two Emmys for his work on Boston Legal . He is also commemorated on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto, and has two honorary degrees to his name from McGill University and the New England Institute of Technology. On 29 April 2014, Shatner received NASA's highest civilian honor, the Distinguished Public Service medal. [2]

Early career [ ]

Shatner began his screen acting career in Canadian films and television productions, including the role of Ranger Bob during the first year of the popular children's show Howdy Doody . He was also seen in a 1952 episode of Omnibus with future Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country co-star Christopher Plummer , who also hails from Montreal. In fact, Shatner would eventually be Plummer's understudy at the Stratford Shakespearan Festival's 1956 production of Henry V, where Shatner had to take Plummer's role for a performance when he was ill, giving the younger actor his major break in his career.

One of Shatner's earliest American television appearances was a 1956 episode of The Kaiser Aluminum Hour called "Gwyneth," in which he co-starred with Joanne Linville , who played the title role. Shatner later reunited with Linville in episodes of The United States Steel Hour and The Defenders before co-starring together in the Star Trek episode " The Enterprise Incident ".

Shatner ultimately landed several guest roles on the TV series Studio One in 1957. His first appearance on that program was in a 1957 two-parter entitled "The Defender" (featuring Ian Wolfe ), which served as the basis for the aforementioned TV show The Defenders , on which Shatner had a recurring role (albeit as a different character than the one he played on Studio One ). The following year, Shatner landed his first American film role, playing Alexi Karamazov in 1958's The Brothers Karamazov . Among his co-stars in this film were future TOS guest stars David Opatoshu and Harry Townes .

On Broadway, Shatner performed with his future " Elaan of Troyius " co-star France Nuyen in The World of Suzie Wong , with Nuyen playing the title role. This play ran for a total of 508 performances from 14 October 1958 through 2 January 1960. Shatner's performance won him a Theatre World Award in 1959. He and Nuyen performed an excerpt from the play on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1958. His next Broadway play was the comedy A Shot in the Dark , which ran for 389 performances between October 1961 and September 1962. Fritz Weaver joined the cast late in the run, replacing actor Walter Matthau.

In the meantime Shatner continued co-starring with a number of future Star Trek guest-stars in several popular American television programs throughout the 1950s and '60s, including Playhouse 90 (with James Gregory ), Kraft Television Theatre (with Richard Kiley ), Outlaws (with John Anderson , John Hoyt , and Ken Lynch ), Naked City (with Theodore Bikel and Lou Antonio ), The Dick Powell Show (with Frank Overton ), The Nurses (with Stephen Brooks and Madlyn Rhue ), 77 Sunset Strip (with Brian Keith ), Route 66 (with Glenn Corbett and Louise Sorel ), Burke's Law (with Michael Ansara and Bill Catching ), The Outer Limits (with Lawrence Montaigne , James B. Sikking , and Malachi Throne ), Twelve O'Clock High (with Robert Lansing , Frank Overton, and Bert Remsen ), and The Big Valley (with Bill Quinn and Jason Wingreen ). He even appeared along with his future co-star Leonard Nimoy in a 1964 episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. called "The Project Strigas Affair." He also appeared with George Takei (as well as Keye Luke and Abraham Sofaer ) on Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre that same year.

Other popular TV shows Shatner appeared on during this time include Alfred Hitchcock Presents , Thriller , The Fugitive , Gunsmoke , and The Virginian . He also had a recurring role as Dr. Carl Noyes on Dr. Kildare in early 1966, during which he co-starred with Bruce Hyde and Diana Muldaur – both of whom he was reunited with on Star Trek. Most notably, however, he starred in two episodes of The Twilight Zone , both written by Richard Matheson , including the famous "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", in which he played Bob Wilson, a man released from a mental hospital who seemingly suffers a relapse aboard an airliner after seeing a creature on the plane's wing.

Shatner also continued acting in films during the 1960s. In 1961, he appeared as Captain Harrison Byers, the aide to Judge Dan Haywood, in the classic Academy Award-winning drama Judgment at Nuremberg with future TOS guest actor Rudy Solari . That same year, he had the starring role as a revolutionary and controversial high school teacher in The Explosive Generation , and the following year he starred as a bigot in the Roger Corman classic The Intruder (with George Clayton Johnson ). He then appeared as a preacher in 1964's The Outrage (co-starring Paul Fix ).

1965's low budget horror film Incubus stars Shatner. The film was believed to be lost for some years, until a copy was found in France. Its main point of interest, other than Shatner's starring role, is that it is entirely filmed in Esperanto , a constructed language, which has very rarely been used onscreen. The pronunciation of the language by the actors has been criticized by fluent speakers; Shatner's has been compared to Montreal French.

In 1968, while Star Trek was still in production, he starred in the dual role of brothers Johnny Moon and Notah in the Western White Comanche . He also did a television movie entitled Perilous Voyage in 1968, again working alongside Louise Sorel. For unknown reasons, NBC sat on this film for eight years, not airing it until 29 July 1976.

Shatner's first television series, the crime drama For the People , aired in 1965 but failed to gain the attention needed to keep it on the air past the initial thirteen episodes. Also in 1965, Shatner played the title role in a pilot, Alexander the Great , which co-starred Robert Fortier and featured music by Leonard Rosenman . However, the pilot was not picked up for a series. (It was finally aired on television in 1968.) Fortunately, however, Shatner gained a new opportunity for stardom when, that same year, he starred as Captain James Tiberius Kirk in the second pilot for a show by Gene Roddenberry called Star Trek , " Where No Man Has Gone Before ".

Playing James T. Kirk [ ]

Stardom was not immediate for Shatner or the rest of the Star Trek cast. Ratings for the series were low and, after only three years, resulted in its cancellation in 1969. But that same year, the Apollo 11 moon landing transformed the vision of interplanetary travel from fantasy to a more realistic possibility. Star Trek reruns gained new popularity and thrust Shatner and the cast into television immortality.

By 1973 Star Trek had gained an extensive amount of popularity thanks to reruns. There was such a high demand for more Star Trek that a new animated series was put together, reuniting most of the original cast members to lend their voices to their now famous characters. The series lasted for two seasons, with Shatner voicing Captain Kirk in all but one of the 22 episodes. Although the animated series came to an end in 1974 , Trek had still not died; pre-production began on a new, live-action Star Trek series in 1977. Although this new series was never made, it resulted in the first Trek feature film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture , in 1979 . And, for the first time in ten years, Shatner was back, in the flesh, in the role that had made him famous.

Shatner continued playing the Kirk character through the next six features, concluding with his character's demise in 1994 's Star Trek Generations . Although Shatner enjoyed working on the film, he later displayed regret at having Kirk killed off and commenced to look for the opportunity to once again play the legendary Starfleet captain, although he did play him during a pre- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country period for video cutscenes along with Walter Koenig and George Takei for Interplay's Starfleet Academy in 1997. He did not appear in 2009 's Star Trek , however. [3]

In 2006, a commercial for DirectTV aired in which Shatner reprises his role as Captain Kirk, complete with a Trek film Starfleet uniform. The commercial takes place during the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country but it has Kirk stepping out of character to promote DirectTV.

Shatner has also reprised the role of Kirk – albeit, in voice over only – for the video game Star Trek: Legacy . Also giving voice to their respective captains in this game are Patrick Stewart ( Jean-Luc Picard ), Avery Brooks ( Benjamin Sisko ), Kate Mulgrew ( Kathryn Janeway ), and Scott Bakula ( Jonathan Archer ).

Shatner was contacted about a possible role in Star Trek Beyond . Along with Shatner, Leonard Nimoy was also rumored to appear before his death in 2015, in a scene with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto , as the future alternate reality versions of the characters. [4] This did not come to fruition.

Post-TOS career [ ]

In the aftermath of Star Trek 's cancellation Shatner continued to work steadily in film and television; because his marriage to Gloria Rand had failed, he was no longer living to pursue his career as a direct result, but instead pursuing his career to live. The year after Trek 's apparent demise, Shatner starred in the made-for-TV movies Sole Survivor (which also featured a former Star Trek co-star, John Winston ) and The Andersonville Trial (with John Anderson, Harry Townes , Whit Bissell , Robert Easton , Dick Miller , Kenneth Tobey , and Ian Wolfe). He also made guest appearances in such shows as The F.B.I. (with Lawrence Montaigne), The Name of the Game (with William Smithers ), Storefront Lawyers (with Robert Foxworth ), Ironside (with Gene Lyons , Barbara Anderson , Roger C. Carmel , Barry Atwater , and Robert Ito ), The Sixth Sense (written by Gene L. Coon ) , Mission: Impossible (with Barbara Anderson), Barnaby Jones (with Darleen Carr , Vince Howard , and Lee Meriwether ), Mannix (with Yvonne Craig and Phillip Pine ), The Six Million Dollar Man (with Alan Oppenheimer ), Kung Fu (with Rosemary Forsyth , Keye Luke, and France Nuyen), Petrocelli (with Glenn Corbett, Susan Howard , David Huddleston , and Susan Oliver ), and Police Story (with Dean Stockwell ).

In 1971 he co-starred with Barry Atwater , Robert Hooks , and Michael Strong in the TV movie Vanished and with Bruce Davison in the pilot movie for Owen Marshall, Counsellor at Law . The following year, he was reunited with his " Miri " co-star Kim Darby in the science fiction telefilm The People . He also co-starred with Anthony Zerbe in the TV version of the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Hound of the Baskervilles . He had several more TV movie credits throughout the 1970s, including Incident on a Dark Street (1973, with Robert Pine ), Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973, with Darleen Carr, France Nuyen, and Paul Winfield ), Indict and Convict (1974, with Susan Howard), The Tenth Level (1975, with Stephen Macht ), Columbo: Fade in to Murder (1976, with his former Trek co-star Walter Koenig ), The Bastard (1978, with Kim Cattrall , John Colicos , John de Lancie , William Daniels , James Gregory, and Alex Henteloff ), Little Women (1978, also with John de Lancie), Crash (1978, co-starring Adrienne Barbeau , Ron Glass , George Murdock , and then-wife Marcy Lafferty ), and Riel (1979, with Christopher Plummer).

In 1975 Shatner became the star of another series, a Western comedy-drama called Barbary Coast . However, the series was canceled after its first season. Afterward, Shatner starred in two TV mini-series, both of which co-starred fellow Star Trek performers: 1977's Testimony of Two Men , with Theodore Bikel, Jeff Corey , John de Lancie, and Logan Ramsey , and How the West Was Won , with Robert DoQui , Fionnula Flanagan , Brian Keith, Ed Lauter , Ricardo Montalban , George D. Wallace , and Morgan Woodward .

During this time, Shatner appeared in a three cult feature films: the very adult 1974 action film Big Bad Mama , co-starring Dick Miller and Noble Willingham , the 1975 horror movie The Devil's Rain , and the 1977 sci-fi/horror picture Kingdom of the Spiders , co-starring wife Marcy Lafferty. Another movie from the 1970s was titled Want a Ride, Little Girl? This film, also called Impulse and I Love to Kill , and in which he again co-starred with wife Lafferty, has been so critically condemned that Shatner himself has come forward and said that it was a "bad time" for him, and he has also denied being able to remember why he agreed to join its cast.

Unlike many actors who have become identified to specific characters in film and television, Shatner has been able to escape typecasting and continued to find roles outside the realm of Trek which have also been popular; this is due at least in part to, as having been pointed out above, his having pursued his career to live rather than his living to pursue his career. From 1982 to 1986, he starred in the title role of T.J. Hooker , a hard-boiled police officer. That series also starred Star Trek: Voyager guest star Richard Herd and frequent Star Trek: Deep Space Nine guest star James Darren . (Shatner later reunited with Richard Herd for a 1994 episode of seaQuest DSV .)

It was during the 1980s that Shatner began an acting trend that lasts to this day: making fun of himself and of his role as Captain Kirk, the popularity of which he had trouble understanding. An early example of this came with his role as Lunar Base Commander Buck Murdock in the 1982 spoof Airplane II: The Sequel , which had him poke fun at many of the quirks and mannerisms of Kirk and Star Trek in general. (Marcy Lafferty also appeared in the film, as did Bruce French .)

In 1986 Shatner hosted Saturday Night Live and took part in an infamous sketch in which he told Star Trek fans to " get a life !" The appearance later became the subject of an autobiographical account by Shatner, chronicling his relationship with the Star Trek fandom.

Outside of Star Trek , Shatner continued to act in Canadian-made films (such as 1980's The Kidnapping of the President and 1982's Visiting Hours ) and American-made TV movies (such as 1988's Broken Angel , with Roxann Dawson and Brock Peters ). In 1989 Shatner became the host of the popular documentary series Rescue 911 , which lasted from 1989 to 1996.

It was in the 1980s that Shatner geared towards directing. In 1989 having already directed multiple episodes of T.J. Hooker , Shatner directed Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , for which he also co-wrote the story. This came as part of a deal made between him and co-star Leonard Nimoy several years earlier; Nimoy was able to direct two earlier Trek films only if Shatner was also allowed the opportunity to direct one later. The result was lukewarm, earning negative criticism and low box office proceeds. Nonetheless, Shatner was not deterred and continued directing for television and for films he had written.

1990s and 2000s [ ]

Continuing his trend towards "lampooning" himself Shatner starred as the villain in yet another spoof, National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 , in 1993. James Doohan also made a gag appearance in his beloved role of Scotty (albeit, as a 20th century police officer in charge of repairing the police station's cappuccino machine), while F. Murray Abraham , Whoopi Goldberg , and Charles Napier also had cameos.

Loaded Weapon 1 was followed in 1998 with the popular Free Enterprise (written/produced by Mark A. Altman and directed/co-written by Robert Meyer Burnett ), a Star Trek -themed black comedy in which Shatner played a caricature of himself named, aptly enough, "Bill." He is currently set to film a sequel to Free Enterprise . reprising his role as "Bill."

In 1998 Shatner became the spokesperson for "Priceline.com." The earliest of this company's commercials, in which Shatner strummed a guitar and spoke "songs" advertising Priceline in front of a bemused audience, gained much notoriety and earned him somewhat of a come-back in show business. He continues to perform for Priceline commercials, which he at first did in voiceover. More recently, he has been seen as the "Priceline Negotiator." He did appear in two Priceline.com commercials with Leonard Nimoy as well, and one with Robert Pine.

In 1999 and 2000 Shatner had a recurring role as "The Big Giant Head" (aka Stone Phillips) in the sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun . This role led to the actor's first Emmy nomination, that of Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series, in 1999.

In 2000, Shatner appeared in the popular comedy Miss Congeniality as Stan Fields, the aging host of the Miss United States Pageant. This role ultimately led to Shatner becoming the host of the real thing – the 50th Annual Miss USA Pageant – in 2001. Also in 2001, Shatner lent his voice as Mayor Phlemming in the combination animated/live action hit comedy Osmosis Jones with Rif Hutton and Herschel Sparber lending their voices as well. Shatner reprised his role as Stan Fields in the 2005 sequel, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous opposite Diedrich Bader and Enrique Murciano . Continuing his experience as a master of ceremonies, Shatner was the chairman for the 2001 specials Iron Chef USA and Iron Chef USA: Holiday Showdown . In late 2006, he hosted the short-lived ABC game show Show Me The Money .

Shatner's popularity has also earned him cameos in such films as Showtime (in which he spoofs his T.J. Hooker character as well as himself) and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story in which he played the chancellor of the dodgeball tournament. Shatner later made an appearance in the 2008 comedy film Fanboys , which also featured Christopher McDonald in a supporting role. Additionally, Shatner has lent his voice to a number of animated films, including Osmosis Jones (2001) and Over the Hedge (2006). In Shooting Stars (aka Shoot or be Shot , 2002), he played a deranged script writer; the film also features Voyager and Enterprise actress Julianne Christie .

In 2002 Shatner and the rest of the original Trek cast (minus DeForest Kelley and James Doohan) lent their voices to their animated selves in a popular episode of Futurama called "Where No Fan Has Gone Before." That same year, Shatner wrote, directed, and co-starred in the independent science fiction film Groom Lake . Also starring in the film were fellow Trek performers Dan Gauthier and Tom Towles .

Shatner voices the sun's core in the 2010 computer-animated film Quantum Quest . The film's main protagonist, a photon named Dave, is voiced by Chris Pine , who stars in 2009's Star Trek as an alternate-continuum incarnation of James Kirk , the role whose "Prime Continuum" incarnation Shatner originated in the 1960s. Also lending their voices to Quantum Quest are Star Trek alumni Jason Alexander , Robert Picardo , and Brent Spiner . [5] [6]

Shatner later starred on the CBS sitcom $#*! My Dad Says (pronounced "bleep"), based on Justin Halpern's popular Twitter feed. But that program's run was short; it was cancelled without completing its only season.

Shatner played the author Mark Twain in an episode of "Murdoch Mysteries" called "Marked Twain". [7]

Denny Crane and Boston Legal [ ]

In 2004 Shatner made his debut as legendary but eccentric attorney Denny Crane on The Practice , earning an Emmy Award as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. He reprised the role of Crane in the spin-off series Boston Legal , which also starred former DS9 cast member René Auberjonois . For the last two seasons of the show, Auberjonois was replaced by Shatner's Star Trek III co-star, John Larroquette , although Auberjonois made continued recurring appearances.

Shatner won another Emmy for playing Denny Crane in 2005, this time as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, for his work on Boston Legal . He received another Emmy nomination for the role in 2006, although he did not win. He was awarded a fourth Emmy nomination for playing Denny Crane and his third nomination in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2007. The award, however, ultimately went to Terry O'Quinn for his role in J.J. Abrams ' Lost . In 2008, Shatner was again nominated for an Emmy Award for Boston Legal .

In 2005, Shatner won the Golden Globe as Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for Boston Legal . In 2007 Shatner was nominated for a second Golden Globe.

Shatner starred as Denny Crane on ABC's Boston Legal for four years, from 2004 through 2008. The series ran for its fifth and final season in the fall of 2008, with the two-hour series finale airing 8 December 2008. Because of Shatner's involvement, the writers of the show often threw in puns and in-jokes related to Star Trek , usually delivered by Shatner himself.

Besides former series regular René Auberjonois and more recent regular John Larroquette (whom Shatner worked with on Star Trek III: The Search for Spock ), other Trek performers with whom Shatner has worked on the show include Henry Gibson (as a peculiar judge whom Denny Crane refers to as "nansy-pansy" and "namby-pamby"), Joanna Cassidy (who played Denny's lover and his brief eighth wife), and the aforementioned Jeri Ryan (as an actress with whom Denny, of course, becomes infatuated). DS9 actor Armin Shimerman also had a recurring role, as did Ethan Phillips of Voyager fame, although neither shared scenes with Shatner. Scott Bakula had a guest spot on the series, as well but he also did not share any scenes with Shatner.

Musical career [ ]

Between 1967 and 1970 both William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy recorded covers of famous songs for MCA, which were later collected in the album "Spaced Out: The Best of Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner."

Shatner is also (in)famous for his rendition of the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," as well as his spoken word cover of Elton John's "Rocket Man (I Think It's Gonna Be A Long Long Time);" both were featured on an album titled The Transformed Man .

"William Shatner Live" was released in 1977, and includes references to the then-upcoming Star Trek film.

In 2004, he returned to his musical career with a new album, titled Has Been , produced by musician Ben Folds, who previously worked with Shatner on his own first solo album, Fear of Pop . The lead track Common People is a cover of a Pulp song, but much of the other content is co-written by Shatner himself. It features guest performers such as Joe Jackson, Lemon Jelly and Henry Rollins.

Exodus: An Oratorio in Three Parts features Shatner doing a Biblical reading, accompanied by the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.

2011's Seeking Major Tom is an album of cover versions, mostly themed around science fiction, or space, with some exceptions, such as his version of "Bohemian Rhapsody". There is one song by Shatner, co-written with Adam Hamilton, called "Struggle".

In 2013, he released Ponder the Mystery , which features guest appearances from the likes of Mick Jones of the Clash, Rick Wakeman, and Tony Kaye of Yes.

Book writing [ ]

Following the death of Kirk in Star Trek Generations , Shatner has written, with the assistance of Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens , as stated above, a set of nine novels, chronicling the resurrection and subsequent adventures of Kirk in the 24th century. His tenth novel, Star Trek: Academy - Collision Course , shows his own views of how the Star Trek universe began.

He has also written a series of novels called TekWar . These novels, for which one of his inspirations was Marie Winn 's book The Plug-In Drug , ultimately became the basis for a TV series and a number of telefilms, which Shatner himself directed, starred in, and served as executive producer. There was also a comic series titled TekWorld , inspired by his writings.

Other projects and appearances [ ]

Shatner appeared on the USA Network's and the World Wrestling Federation's Monday Night RAW to promote TekWar , where he was involved in an altercation with Jerry "The King" Lawler . Shatner personally inducted Lawler into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2007. He later guest hosted the February 1, 2009 episode of RAW , which included a segment with Trek alumnus the Big Show . Shatner was, himself, inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame's Celebrity Wing with the Class of 2020 .

Shatner participated in the 2001 Star Trek Edition of the game show Weakest Link , along with LeVar Burton , Denise Crosby , Roxann Dawson , John de Lancie , Robert Picardo , Armin Shimerman , and Wil Wheaton . He lost, but not before showing host Anne Robinson what his Trek character was most "known" for: his way with women.

Shatner opened the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony for Star Wars creator George Lucas on June 9, 2005, beginning the segment with "Star Trek changed everything ."

In 2005, Shatner starred in the reality mini-series, Invasion Iowa, which took place in Riverside , Iowa, the future birthplace of James T. Kirk. In addition, Shatner hosted two specials for The History Channel in 2006, Comets: Prophets of Doom and How William Shatner Changed the World .

In August 2006, Shatner was the guest of honor at the Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner . His chair of honor was his captain's chair from the original Enterprise . This event was hosted by "roastmaster" Jason Alexander (a huge Star Trek fan and one-time Voyager guest star who credits Shatner as an inspiration for his becoming an actor) and had a number of comedians (including another one-time Voyager guest, Andy Dick ) taking jabs at Shatner, joking about his life and career. Among the "roastees" were Shatner's TOS co-stars Nichelle Nichols and George Takei, while Trek alumni Clint Howard (reprising his role as Balok , now middle-aged and addicted to tranya ) and Sarah Silverman left recorded messages for Shatner. In attendance at the event were Shatner's Boston Legal co-stars René Auberjonois and Mark Valley, TNG actor Brent Spiner , and Voyager actress Jeri Ryan . In September 2011 Shatner followed up on his appearance in the Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen , this time as one of the roasters. This outing was hosted by "roastmaster" Seth MacFarlane . MacFarlane, an unapologetic " Trekkie " himself and having missed out on Shatner's own roast, made use of the opportunity to take several swings at the illustrious Star Trek actor after all.

Since his own roast, Shatner has appeared in two music videos with Jason Alexander for country music star Brad Paisley – "Celebrity" and "Online". Both have referenced his singing career and "Online" also has several Star Trek references. In the latter, Shatner plays Alexander's father, while Voyager guest-star Estelle Harris plays his mother, as she memorably did on Seinfeld .

Shatner currently hosts his own offbeat celebrity interview show for A&E Television's revamped "Bio" channel entitled Shatner's Raw Nerve , which premiered on 2 December 2008. Among the guests he has interviewed so far are his Star Trek co-star Leonard Nimoy and TNG guest star Kelsey Grammer .

In addition, Shatner made frequent appearances on NBC's The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien . He first appeared as a guest on the show, but he has since made cameos to recite the resignation speech and the Twitter posts of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin as though they were poetry. Most recently, he recited quotes from Levi Johnston , the father of Palin's grandson.

Shatner is also featured in the introductory video for Conan O'Brien's "In the Year 3000" segment. In the video, Shatner's disembodied head "floats" across the screen while introducing the segment: " It's almost like a cosmic ride into the millennium. That far-off reality that is the year 3000. It's the future man. " In the 13 November 2009 episode, the video was altered to include Shatner's TOS co-star George Takei, who destroys Shatner's head by firing " phasers " from his eyes and " photon torpedoes " from his mouth. After destroying Shatner's head, Takei remarks " Mmm, delicious! " and laughs maniacally.

In February 2011, Shatner appeared in an episode of the History Chanel series American Pickers where he and his wife asked the show's stars Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz to find items for their new Kentucky vacation house.

In 2009, Shatner produced and starred in a film called William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet , a documentary about a ballet set to his album Has Been , which was produced by Ben Folds. The award-winning film received critical acclaim and had a successful film festival run. The film had a multi-platform television premiere in July 2011 through EPIX, a joint venture between Paramount Pictures, Lions Gate, and MGM.

In 2017, Shatner guest-starred in an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic , entitled " The Perfect Pear ", in which he voiced the character of Grand Pear , the maternal grandfather of Applejack . Prior to the airing of the episode, Shatner had teased his role through a number of Twitter posts. He also proclaimed himself a "Brony" in 2016, and went on to state that the character of Rainbow Dash was his favorite.

The same year featured Shatner cast alongside fellow iconic 1960s television actor Adam West, as Two-Face and Batman respectively in the animated film Batman vs. Two-Face . The film also featured Julie Newmar and Lee Meriwether , who co-starred with both actors in their respective series'.

In 2021 , private spaceflight company Blue Origin announced that Shatner would be a passenger on its second human flight, NS-18 . The flight was originally scheduled for 12 October 2021 , and (after a day's weather delay) launched on 13 October 2021 . Shatner, then 90 years old, became the oldest human to go to space (in the process belying his alter ego's "galloping about the cosmos is a game for the young" quote in The Wrath of Khan ), [8] [9] as well as becoming the very first major Star Trek contributor, be it cast or production crew, to do so – alive that is, as the ashes of both Gene Roddenberry and James Doohan were spent into space after their respective deaths. But Shatner is, strictly speaking, not the very first (living) Star Trek -affiliated person to go into space, as three real-world astronauts with actual cameo appearances (as opposed to those only featured in utilized archival footage) in live-action Star Trek under their belt, had already preceded him, as had Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos incidentally, on his company's 20 July 2021 first human flight NS-16; " Trekkie " Bezos had a cameo role in Star Trek Beyond .

In 2023 , Shatner was among those inducted into the San Diego Air & Space Museum's International Air & Space Hall of Fame. [10]

• The Ashes of Eden
• Dark Victory
• Captain's Peril
• Captain's Blood
• Captain's Glory
• Academy: Collision Course
• Academy: Third Class

Non-fiction [ ]

• Get a Life!
• Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man
• Shatner: Where No Man...
• Shatner Rules
• Star Trek Memories
• Star Trek Movie Memories
• Up Till Now: The Autobiography
• I'm Working on That
• Spirit of the Horse: A Celebration of Fact and Fable

Documentaries [ ]

• How William Shatner Changed the World
• Mind Meld: Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime
• The Captains
• The Captains Close Up
• William Shatner Presents: Chaos on the Bridge
• William Shatner's Star Trek Memories

Video games [ ]

• Star Trek: 25th Anniversary
• Star Trek: Encounters as Kirk
• Star Trek: Judgment Rites as Kirk
• Star Trek: Legacy as Kirk
• Star Trek: Tactical Assault as Kirk

Discography [ ]

• "How Insensitive" / "Transformed Man" (Decca Records, 1969)
• The Transformed Man (Decca Records, 1969)
• William Shatner – Live! (Lemli Records, 1977)
• Captain of the Starship (K-Tel Records, 1978) Reissue of "Live!" album.
• Shatner once bought a horse from the father-in-law of Scott Bakula , who played Captain Jonathan Archer on Star Trek: Enterprise .
• Shatner suffers from tinnitus , along with the late Leonard Nimoy, reportedly due to a special effect explosion on the set of the Star Trek episode " Arena ". [11] Shatner has since then become involved with the American Tinnitus Association. [12]
• On 28 March 2013, a humorous advertisement for the Star Trek video game depicted Shatner "fighting" a Gorn in a parody of this episode. [13]
• Actor John Lithgow , whom Shatner worked with on 3rd Rock from the Sun , essentially played Shatner's character from the Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" when it was remade for Twilight Zone: The Movie in 1983. A reference to this was made in an episode of 3rd Rock in which Shatner played role of "The Big Giant Head". When asked how his flight was, Shatner's character explained that it was horrifying: " I looked out the window… and I saw something on the wing of the plane! " to which Lithgow exclaimed, " The same thing happened to me! "
• Several costumes worn by Shatner were sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay, including a grey jumpsuit from Star Trek: The Motion Picture [14] and a white undershirt. [15]
• Shatner is referenced in The Canadian Conspiracy mockumentary (1985) and the satirical movie Canadian Bacon (1995) in a list of Canadians supposedly trying to take over the USA by infiltrating its media. If Geneviève Bujold had been kept for the role of Kathryn Janeway , then he would have been one of two Montreal natives to have played a Star Trek captain.

Appearances as Kirk [ ]

Shatner appeared as Kirk in

• Star Trek: The Original Series : every episode except for " The Cage "
• Star Trek: The Animated Series : every episode except for " The Slaver Weapon "
• TAS : " The Slaver Weapon " (main title voice footage)
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
• Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
• Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
• Star Trek Generations
• Star Trek Beyond (photo only)
• DS9 : " Trials and Tribble-ations " (archive footage)
• ENT : " These Are the Voyages... " (archive voice footage)
• ST : " Ephraim and Dot " (archive voice footage)

Additional appearances [ ]

Star Trek interviews [ ]

• TNG Season 5 DVD special feature "A Tribute to Gene Roddenberry " ("Gene Roddenberry Building Dedicated to Star Trek's Creator"), interviewed on 6 June 1991

External links [ ]

• WilliamShatner.com – official site
• William Shatner  at MySpace.com
• William Shatner at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• William Shatner at Wikipedia
• William Shatner at the Internet Movie Database
• William Shatner at the Internet Broadway Database
• William Shatner at the Notable Names Database
• William Shatner at TriviaTribute.com
• Transcript of the Saturday Night Live "get a life" sketch
• Interview at the Archive of American Television
• William Shatner at SF-Encyclopedia.com
• 2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

• More to Explore
• Series & Movies

Published Apr 23, 2014

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: William Shatner, Part 2

William Shatner moves at a pace that would exhaust most people half his age – and Star Trek ’s legendary Captain James T. Kirk turned 83 years old in March. Last year, he starred in Shatner’s World , a one-man stage show that played on Broadway and toured the country. That’s now a movie… with Shatner’s World set to play for one night only in 600-plus theaters on Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. local time, presented by Fathom Events and Priceline.com.

Shatner will also host his annual Hollywood Charity Horse Show on April 26. And, not at all shockingly, there’s more, lots more: he’s got a new album, Ponder the Mystery , out now, not to mention a book on the way (it’s called Hire Yourself ), another Star Trek documentary in the works, plenty of convention appearances lined up and two new TV projects in development. StarTrek.com recently caught up with the man himself to discuss all those aforementioned enterprises and more. Below is part two of our exclusive conversation; click HERE to read part one.

Your latest book is Hire Yourself . What inspired that?

SHATNER: The fact that people over 50 are being rehired at a much slower rate because they want more. They want more, but they have more to offer. And in many cases, they’re failing to be rehired. Corporations are hiring younger people with less experience and less knowledge and paying them less. So I’m advocating… hire yourself.

The 50th anniversary of the original Star Trek series is almost upon us. For you, it was one job that lasted three years. Some people might call it a failed series or, at best, semi-successful. So how surreal has this all been for you, that Star Trek snowballed into what it’s become?

SHATNER: It is surreal. It has an aura of unreality about it. It’s a phenomenon. There’s never been anything like it before. If you talk in 50-year terms, then we need to go another 50 years before we think there’s something like it again, but we’ll all be dead, so we won’t know. So we can safely say that (in our lifetimes), it’s never happened before and it will never happen again.

We ran a story recently on StarTrek.com in which we commented on some of your best non- Star Trek work and asked readers to share their thoughts on the matter. We were talking about your acting, but people included other things, too, so the list encompassed The Brothers Karamazov, Judgment at Nuremberg , your episodes of Twilight Zone and Columbo, Rescue 911, The Andersonville Trial, Airplane 2: The Sequel, Third Rock from the Sun , and, of course, Boston Legal . We know you tend to joke about not remembering things, but in all seriousness, what of your non- Trek work are you proudest of?

SHATNER: My attitude towards what I do as an actor is more about hitting a moment. Did I play that moment with honesty and with truthfulness and in character? Did I hit the right notes? So that breaks itself down into moments, and that means that every one of the shows and movies you mentioned I may have hit a moment that resonated in me and for other people. Certainly the ones I can remember the best are from Boston Legal , when there moments when I thought I’d brought to life a line within the character dimensions, moments that were truthful, that conveyed the meaning, that had layers of meaning, so that if you were to see it again, you’d think, “Maybe he meant ‘Hello’ in a different way.” So I don’t break those things down into, “That was my favorite,” because everything I have done has something about it that I really like. That includes the commercials I’ve done for Priceline.

We had people state the case for T.J. Hooker

f that more as a guilty pleasure than as some of your fine e of your finest work, but you may disagree…

SHATNER: I did have moments there, too. And I will give you an instance of a moment. I directed quite a few of the T.J. Hooker s. One of my shots is used in the opening sequence, and that is a silhouetted policeman – which happens to be me – running down a tunnel. The cinematographer wanted to light the tunnel and I said, “No, leave it in shadow.” And it was dramatic. It paid off. I felt exultant having conceived the shot, fought for the shot, made the shot and that people agreed with me by using it not only in the show, but as part of the opening credits.

And many fans pointed out that Airplane 2 , in which you pretty much spoofed Kirk, sent you down the comedy path. How much of your performance was ad-libbed?

SHATNER: A lot of it was ad-libbing. To hear a laugh… Here’s the delineation of the situation. You do something on the set and a year later you see it in a film. I went to see Airplane 2 , and one of the lines that I’d ad-libbed, which I forget now, but which I knew when I did it I had timed correctly, got a huge laugh in the movie theater. So I felt terrific, warmed by the reaction to the delivery of that one line a year later.

We talked about some of your new endeavors, but there are actually more. If you have a few more minutes for us, let’s go through them. One that most people probably have not heard about yet is The Shatner Project . What is that?

SHATNER: The Do-It-Yourself Network, DIY, is shooting me and my wife as we renovate our house. We’re having a terrific time. And they’re making what I say in the beginning part of the show is a perfectly fine house into a much better house. But I fought the change for quite a while. This is my house in L.A.

And what else do you have going on?

SHATNER: The Hollywood Charity Horse Show is on April 26. We’ve raised several million dollars for charity. We usually raise between $300,000 and $400,000 a year and I’ve been doing it for nearly 30 years, so it’s the millions of dollars that we’ve raised. Wynona Judd will be coming to sing for us. If people go to www.horseshow.org , they can contribute $1 or $5 or $10 even if they can’t come to the show. Every penny goes to the charities. We have a private donor who takes care of the expenses. So every dollar goes straight to children and veterans.

My album, Ponder the Mystery , is out there now. I’m inordinately proud of Billy Sherwood’s work and my own. I’ve also sold an interview show called Brown Bag Wine Tasting . It’s been on my website, but a company has bought it, so we’re going to make some more. It’s me interviewing people. Talking to people, it can take time for them to warm up. My insertion, if you will, is a sip of wine from a brown bag. We analyze the wine and then the guests talk about themselves, and they’re mostly man on the street people rather than celebrities. They’re literally man on the street; they’ll be walking by and I’ll accost them and start talking to them.

Visit StarTrek.com to read part one of our exclusive interview with William Shatner, and check out his official site at williamshatner.com . Also, go to fathomevents.com for details about a Shatner's World screening near you.

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93 Years of Shatner

A tribute to an irrepressible TV star’s ability to live long and prosper.

William Shatner, who turns 93 today, will always be best remembered for playing Captain James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek series. Star Trek ’s creator Gene Roddenberry deserves a lot of credit for the enduring popularity and influence of the program, but it was Shatner who made the main character indelible. By the 1990s, a lot of people had begun to think of Shatner as a shameless ham—the TV actor who overplayed every role. Indeed, he was so good at playing Kirk that he was hired to do so as both a pitchman for the online travel agency Priceline and in TV shows such as The Practice and Boston Legal , in which, as a New York Times Magazine profile once noted , “William Shatner the man was playing William Shatner the character playing the character Denny Crane, who was playing the character William Shatner.”

If that sounds a bit confusing, it is probably because no actor has ever really had a career quite like Shatner’s. Scroll through his credits at the Internet Movie Database and you’ll discover that he has played himself in a wide array of projects: an episode of The Big Bang Theory , the 2002 film Showtime (starring Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy), an episode of Futurama , the 2009 film Fanboys , a Bruno Mars music video , Shatner’s own spoken-word video for It Hasn’t Happened Yet , an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air , the 2012 film Horrorween (in which Donald Trump also appeared as himself), the TV series Hashtaggers , and so on.

If you watch episodes of the original Star Trek now, Shatner may seem to be overacting. This is also true of many of his 1960s and ’70s guest-starring appearances. But Shatner wasn’t really hamming it up. He only appears to be doing so nowadays because our TVs have gotten so much bigger and their pictures have gotten so much clearer. In the 1960s, like most American families, my family owned a single TV set, which was only capable of producing black-and-white images, and it was minuscule by today’s standards (23 inches measured diagonally). It sat in our basement family room and got mediocre reception (this was long before satellite and cable television made TV images much sharper). If someone turned on an appliance in another room, it could cause the TV screen to grow fuzzy. If someone walked on the floor overhead, it could mess with the reception.

Sometimes, in order to get a clear picture, you had to toy with the “rabbit ears” (a pair of antennae) on top of the TV. Many 1960s TV sets had tinfoil connecting the two ears of the antennae. Sometimes, just the way the electrical cord was draped or coiled behind the TV could alter the picture. If the wind outside blew strong enough to cause the big antenna on our roof to vibrate, the screen could grow fuzzy. TVs were so temperamental back then that, in order to operate them, you had to be handy with knobs that read “horizontal hold,” “vertical hold,” “contrast,” and so forth. It’s possible that my current, flat-screen plasma TV has control buttons like that, but I haven’t used any of them in the ten years that I’ve owned it. And rabbit ears appear to be a thing of the distant past. 

In other words, TVs were small in the days when Shatner went to work in Hollywood, the picture and sound quality was often poor, and to top it all off, most of us in the Baby Boomer generation were raised to believe that it was dangerous to sit close to a television while watching it. Tech journalist Ian Bogost of the Atlantic recently wrote an essay titled “Your TV is Too Good for You,” in which he noted:

Years ago, sitting too close was the problem. If you’re old enough to remember watching cathode-ray-tube sets, you may have been enjoined to give them space: Move back from the TV! The reasons were many. Cold-War-addled viewers had developed the ( somewhat justified ) fear that televisions emitted radiation, for one. And the TV—still known as the “boob tube” because it might turn its viewers into idiots—was considered a dangerous lure . Its resolution was another problem: if you got close enough to the tube, you could see the color image break down into the red, blue, and green phosphor dots that composed its picture. All of these factors helped affirm the TV’s appropriate positioning—best viewed at a middle distance—and thus its proper role within the home. A television was to be seen from across the room. … The media theorist Marshall McLuhan famously described television as a “cool” medium, one that provides somewhat meager sensory stimulation, as opposed to a “hot” medium such as cinema, which intensely targets the eyes and ears.

My parents kept the TV in the basement because it was the only space big enough for us to watch it from a distance. The first and second floors of the house were divided into a variety of small rooms, but the basement was one long and empty space. Our family would gather in the basement on Saturday nights to watch TV, my parents in chairs about ten feet from the TV while my siblings and I sprawled on a sofa and chairs behind them. My parents weren’t being greedy, hogging the best spots in the room—they were protecting the eyes of their children by keeping them a good 15 feet from the screen, and it was often difficult to follow everything happening in a program from that distance.

Shatner seemed to understand all this better than just about any other TV actor of his era. While a lot of TV actors were trying to mimic the mush-mouthed vocal delivery of big-screen movie stars like Marlon Brando or James Dean, Shatner went in the opposite direction. He enunciated his words carefully and broke his sentences into bite-sized pieces, making each clause a separate unit of delivery. He would speed up his cadence at times, and then bring it to a near halt. Shatner’s unique speaking style has been parodied countless times. Among living actors, probably only Christopher Walken’s line delivery has generated more parodies. One of the more memorable Shatner impersonations was delivered by actor Jesse Plemons on the “ USS Callister ” episode of Black Mirror , which was both a loving homage to the original Star Trek and a spoof of its excesses.

Most viewers under the age of 50 probably have a difficult time appreciating what Shatner was doing back in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. But when I was growing up, it was always a treat whenever Shatner appeared on one of my favorite programs. I knew that, even sitting ten feet or more away from a tiny screen, I’d get a performance that would fill the room.

Critics appreciated what Shatner was doing in those early years. In June 1958, Shatner co-starred with Rod Steiger in an episode of CBS’s Playhouse 90 called “ A Town Has Turned to Dust ,” which was written by Rod Serling and directed by John Frankenheimer. Time magazine’s reviewer wrote:

The result was far better than anyone … had a right to expect. Director John Frankenheimer caught the drought-heightened tension of the desert town, William Shatner was terrifyingly convincing as the rabble-rousing shopkeeper bent on avenging his hurt pride, Steiger made the drunken sheriff both scruffy and appealing, as Serling intended. Seldom has the hate-twisted face of prejudice been more starkly depicted.

In the New York Times , reviewer Jack Gould noted that “A Town Has Turned to Dust” contained “two of the season’s superlative performances by Rod Steiger and William Shatner.” Those performances were all the more impressive for being broadcast live. In the early days of television, actors had just one chance to get a performance right and Shatner excelled at it.

William Shatner was born in Montreal in 1931. Television first became a widespread phenomenon in the late 1940s, just as he was reaching adulthood. He was born at exactly the right time to become one of the new medium’s first new stars. Many of the stars of TV’s first decade or so were has-been movie actors, such as William Boyd ( Hopalong Cassidy ), George Reeves ( Adventures of Superman ), Robert Young ( Father Knows Best ), and Lucille Ball ( I Love Lucy ). Others came to television from radio, and the transition was not always easy. Shatner had a small role in a 1951 Canadian film called The Butler’s Night Off . In 1958, he gave a well-received performance in director Richard Brooks’s The Brothers Karamazov , and in 1961, he appeared in Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg . But most of Shatner’s pre- Star Trek work was for television. He and Leonard Nimoy (who played Mr. Spock on Star Trek ) actually appeared together in a 1964 episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E .

Back then, a lot of people were predicting that Shatner’s career would soon follow the trajectories of Steve McQueen’s and Paul Newman’s, which began in the theater, then moved on to television, and eventually carried them to movie stardom. But it never happened. That 2010 New York Times Magazine profile notes that :

The great movie roles weren’t coming his way, so in the ’60s, waiting for stardom, he took parts in forgettable movies like The Outrage and Incubus ; guest roles on TV dramas like Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone ; parts on TV serials like Route 66 and Gunsmoke and Dr. Kildare . At 35, he was a working actor who showed up on time, knew his lines, worked cheap and always answered his phone. In 1966, he accepted a starring role in a sci-fi series called Star Trek , joining a no-name cast, some of whom later accused him of being pompous, self-aggrandizing, clueless and insufferably William Shatner, which became his greatest role once he finally accepted the fact of it.

It’s easy to understand why many of Shatner’s Star Trek castmates might have resented him. With the exception of Nimoy, none of the others gained the kind of iconic status that Shatner enjoyed as a result of his association with Star Trek . His performances were big and showy and often overshadowed the performances of those who worked with him. But Captain Kirk was the show’s main character, and he was written to be big and showy. A more subtle performance might have gotten the program cancelled after a single season.

Kirk’s closest associate/friend is Spock, a half-human/half-Vulcan whose father’s alien race values logic above all else and suppresses all emotion. In order for Spock to appear truly alien, he needed to be paired with a human who embraced all of the emotions—anger, fear, joy, anguish, love—with reckless abandon. Spock and Kirk were one of the great odd couples of a 30-year period in which TV embraced many such double-acts (Lucy and Ricky, Felix and Oscar, Samantha and Darren Stevens of Bewitched , Major Nelson and Jeannie in I Dream of Jeannie , Ilya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. , Gil Favor and Rowdy Yates on Rawhide , Laverne and Shirley, etc.). If Shatner had toned down Kirk, Nimoy’s Spock would not have been as intriguing or as interesting as he became. Shatner certainly chewed a lot of scenery on Star Trek but his approach succeeded spectacularly. Unfortunately, Hollywood didn’t really appreciate how successful the show had been until it was cancelled, went into syndication, and became an entertainment juggernaut.

Science-fiction novelist Tony Daniel has written two novels set in the world of Roddenberry’s original series. Both Devil’s Bargain (2013) and Savage Trade (2015) feature Kirk, Spock, and other original crew members of the Starship Enterprise, which makes Daniel something of an authority on the original series and Shatner’s role in it. I emailed him to ask if any Shatner performances particularly impressed him. “One that’s generally considered good is the Harlan Ellison-based episode ‘ The City on the Edge of Forever ,’” he told me, “where [Kirk] goes back in time and has to decide whether to let Joan Collins live or die. It was like a little Twilight Zone stuck into Star Trek .” Daniel also noted that Shatner “was good with interacting with comic villain types, like Harry Mudd (the ‘ Mudd’s Women ,’ and ‘ I, Mudd ,’ episodes). He never just played the straight man, but brought a hint of roguish understanding to the lovable villains Kirk dealt with. What I liked most were Kirk’s love affairs. Shatner always played them in believable fashion. My favorite of these is ‘ Requiem for Methuselah ,’ where he falls for the android Rayna Kapec. It’s like a little Bladerunner in 49 minutes.”

The original Star Trek embraced the idea of Kirk as a romantic lead. Later iterations have strayed from that artistic choice, which Daniel thinks was a mistake. “One of the great strengths of the original series (which the later series utterly lost) was the depiction of sexuality. Characters were male and female. They were attracted to one another when appropriate, and showed it. It spoke to and formed many a boy’s archetypes of sexuality in the 1970s and 1980s, when we all saw it via watching afternoon reruns after school. While cartoonish and a bit sadomasochistic at the time, and very 1960s, it was far truer to our underlying forever-fixed human nature than the sexless 1990s shows. Shatner was particularly good at playing a guy with a healthy sex drive, that is, a normal adult male.”

It isn’t just a coincidence that names like Richard Matheson, Harlan Ellison, and Rod Serling crop up frequently in discussions of Shatner’s career. Academics frequently celebrate the work of various American literary schools—the American ex-pats of the so-called Lost Generation, the writers of the Harlem Renaissance, the Beats—but few literary salons have influenced American popular culture as profoundly as the Southern California fantasists who were all brought together by Rod Serling for his Twilight Zone series and later worked on other fantasy and sci-fi shows, including Star Trek .

The best known of these were Serling himself (who wrote 92 Twilight Zone episodes) and Ray Bradbury (who only wrote one but was a mentor to many of the other writers). Charles Beaumont (who wrote 22 episodes of The Twilight Zone ), Richard Matheson (14), and George Clayton Johnson (five) all had strong connections to Shatner. Johnson wrote episode one of the original Star Trek , “ The Man Trap .” Shatner starred in two of Matheson’s Twilight Zone episodes. He also starred in two live dramas written for television by Serling prior to the creation of The Twilight Zone . And he starred in an episode of the HBO anthology series The Ray Bradbury Theater .

Shatner also starred in the 1962 Roger Corman film The Intruder , which was scripted by Charles Beaumont. Both Shatner and Bradbury were good friends of Beaumont, who, like a character in The Twilight Zone , succumbed to Alzheimer’s in 1967 at the age of 38. In 2015, when Penguin Classics published Perchance to Dream , a collection of Beaumont’s short stories, they added an introduction by Bradbury and an afterword from Shatner. Shatner notes that The Intruder was a pro-integration story that was shot in southern Missouri in the early 1960s, at a time when the local population (or at least the white members of it) were mostly anti-integration. The cast and crew lived in constant fear of attack by the locals. The experience bonded Shatner and Beaumont and they remained friends after returning to LA.

Shatner notes that the founding members of the Southern California fantasists—Beaumont, Matheson, Bradbury, etc.—originally referred to themselves (for unknown reasons) as the Green Hand. The name never really caught on. But Shatner is probably the only actor who starred in productions written by nearly every member of that group. Although Shatner has written or co-written more than two dozen books, his greatest contribution to pop-fiction is probably the work he did on programs like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek to help popularize writers such as Matheson, Beaumont, Johnson, and the others.

The Times profile of Shatner notes that, “After Star Trek was cancelled in 1969, he appeared in more schlock movies— Big Bad Mama , The Devil’s Rain —and as the lead in a TV series, Barbary Coast , that never caught on. So he guest-starred on game shows: The Hollywood Squares , Celebrity Bowling , not even a regular among C-listers.” This isn’t actually fair to Shatner, and it elides a great deal of his best acting work. Some of the programs he guest-starred on may have been mediocre— Medical Center , Ironside , Owen Marshall: Councilor at Law —but the performances rarely were. What’s more, Shatner also did guest work on some of the best-known shows of the era, such as Hawaii 5-O and Mission: Impossible , programs that are still part of viable franchises.

Recently, my wife and I binged some episodes of Barnaby Jones on Amazon Prime. Our TV screen is now 35 inches (modest by today’s standards), our picture is generally razor sharp, and we sit only about eight feet from the set. Barnaby Jones , which starred Buddy Ebsen as an elderly Los Angeles private detective, ran on CBS-TV from 1973 to 1980. Shatner guest-starred on the program’s second episode . We hadn’t watched an episode of Barnaby Jones since the 1970s, and the pilot episode, which guest-starred William Conrad and Bradford Dillman (among others) was entertaining enough. All of the performances seemed properly modulated to one another. But in that second episode, “To Catch a Dead Man,” most of the performances seemed to pale in comparison with Shatner’s.

Unlike, say, Columbo or The Rockford Files , Barnaby Jones wasn’t prestige 1970s television. It was just another slightly above-average TV detective show. The plots were predictable and the characters were generally underwritten. Shatner’s character is a rich man named Phillip Carlyle who fakes his own death in order to start over under an assumed name with his mistress. We are told almost nothing of importance about Carlyle but Shatner manages to make him memorable. It isn’t just his line delivery that stands out. His facial expressions, his body language—everything about the character is eye-catching. Shatner’s highly animated performance pairs particularly well with Ebsen’s trademark laconic style. We enjoyed it tremendously, but we also noted with regret that younger viewers, seeing it for the first time, would likely find Shatner’s performance to be campy.

And sadly, on a big-screen TV with a crisp picture and excellent sound, Shatner’s performance does seem over the top. On the pilot episode of Barnaby Jones , Bradford Dillman’s villain was largely unmemorable. And viewed on a tiny TV set back in 1973, the villain would have been practically an afterthought. Nowadays, watching it on a 35-inch high-def TV, Dillman’s performance is just fine. His character (a Bobby Kennedy wannabe) is as poorly written as Shatner’s was, but the actor’s boyish good looks and slight smarminess come across in a way that wouldn’t have been nearly as effective 50 years ago. A lot of well-known actors appeared as guest stars on Barnaby Jones —Margot Kidder, Roddy McDowell, Don Johnson, Ed Harris—but none of them ever made a bigger impression than Shatner.

Shatner’s performance in “ Nightmare at 20,000 Feet ” helped to make it one of the most memorable episodes of The Twilight Zone (although Richard Matheson’s script deserves much of the credit). He was also the star of a Twilight Zone episode called “ Nick of Time ,” now regarded as a classic. In Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination , author Nicholas Parisi writes, “‘The Howling Man’ aired on November 6, 1960. The Following week, Serling’s ‘Eye of the Beholder’ debuted. And one week later came Matheson’s ‘Nick of Time.’ This three-week period likely constituted the pinnacle of the series.”

Shatner’s performance in a season-five Columbo episode called “ Fade In to Murder ” is a great piece of meta-fiction. He plays an actor named Ward Fowler who has become famous as the star of a fictional TV series called Detective Lucerne and is now such a big star that he can make all kinds of ridiculous demands of the studio and the program’s producers. This was an inside joke. Peter Falk was in the final year of a five-year contract as Lt. Columbo, and was eager to leave the series and make movies. At least, that was his claim. He used the program’s enormous popularity to negotiate a huge pay raise and then continued to play Columbo for another two seasons (later the program would be resurrected by a different network and Falk would return for more episodes, but many fans consider only the episodes made between 1968 and 1978 to be canonical).

In his book The Columbo Phile , author Mark Davidziak notes, “Shatner’s portrayal helps a good deal here. The glimpses of his Detective Lucerne remind us of how phony most television detectives are. His Ward Fowler, though, is a character with several intriguing shadings.” In his book Shooting Columbo , author David Koenig writes that Ward Fowler is “played to the hilt by William Shatner.” And in The Columbo Companion , a blogger known as The Columbophile writes: “Shatner and Falk really seem to hit it off. Both are blessed with an inherent likability which they put to excellent use in several scenes. Perhaps the best example is when Fowler finds Columbo in his trailer trying on his trademark hat and shoes. Their interchange feels charming and authentic … the chemistry between leads is unmistakable.”

Shatner would return to Columbo 18 years later, in 1994, in an episode called “ Butterfly in Shades of Gray ,” in which he played Fielding Chase, a bombastic rightwing radio host. The producers wanted Chase to be an enormous blowhard, patterned after Rush Limbaugh. But by now, TV screens were bigger and picture quality was much better and Shatner must have instinctively understood that if he played the character as broadly as the producers wanted him to, the performance wouldn’t work. Instead, according to David Koenig, “He tried to channel Firing Line ’s William F. Buckley, Jr. … ‘I tried to do his voice and his arrogance of personality,’ Shatner revealed.” Shatner’s choice was the right one. The character is bold and brash but he also comes across as intelligent and believable, something that a Limbaugh lampoon probably couldn’t have achieved.

Much of Shatner’s best guest-star work was done during his wilderness years, between the cancellation of the original Star Trek in 1969 and its triumphant revival on the big screen ten years later in Star Trek: The Motion Picture , directed by Robert Wise, one of Hollywood’s most bankable filmmakers ( The Day the Earth Stood Still , The Sound of Music , West Side Story , etc.). Despite a lukewarm critical reception, the film set a record for opening-weekend receipts at the box office and was the fifth highest grossing movie of 1979, although its huge budget ($44 million) made it less profitable than many of the year’s other big hits, such as Kramer vs. Kramer (made for $8 million) and The Amityville Horror ($4.7 million). Nonetheless, the film revived both the franchise and Shatner’s star power. It was followed by five sequels, released between 1982 and 1991, the first of which, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , also set a record for opening-weekend receipts and is still widely regarded as the best Star Trek film of all time.

Shatner wasn’t the type to sit around and relax between film roles, so he also took on the starring role in a TV action drama called T.J. Hooker , which debuted in March 1982, less than three months before the release of Star Trek II . He played the title character, a former police detective in a fictional California city (clearly meant to be Los Angeles) who goes back to being a patrol officer after his partner is killed. Hooker has plenty of Captain Kirk in him, but he is older than Kirk, divorced, despondent over the loss of his former partner, and thus Shatner often (but not always) tones down the theatrics for which he was famous, turning Hooker into a sadder but wiser version of Kirk. What’s more, Kirk was clearly intended to be the sexiest character on Star Trek, but on Hooker, Shatner is supported by much younger and more attractive actors, particularly Adrian Zmed, as Hooker’s new patrol partner, and Heather Locklear, as a rookie cop whom Hooker helps train and mentor.

Prior to landing a role on T.J. Hooker , Zmed had plenty of theatrical experience, having appeared in Grease and other stage musicals, but in 2016, he told an interviewer for Las Vegas Magazine that it was Shatner who taught him how to act for the TV cameras:

I learned so much just watching him ... it’s a very different energy on camera than onstage. Instead of reaching the last person 50 rows away from you, you’re reaching someone three feet in front of you, which is really daunting. ... His camera technique was just incredible. He was so relaxed and all. I learned so much in terms of the moment, on how you readjust your energy, how you get efficient with camera technique. And just the stories. When he directed, he would mentor me. I do consider Bill a mentor, no question about it.

T.J. Hooker isn’t remembered as a landmark television program but it was actually more commercially successful than the original Star Trek . It ran for five seasons and generated 91 episodes, while Star Trek ran for three seasons and 79 episodes. However, neither of these programs provided Shatner with his longest-running TV stint. Between 1989 and 1996 Shatner narrated 186 episodes (plus two specials) of a nonfiction program called Rescue 911 , which recreated real-life incidents that led to calls to 911 emergency dispatch centers around the country. It was the opposite of prestige TV, a low-budget program that appealed mainly to indiscriminate TV viewers, but Shatner committed to it as enthusiastically as he did to all of his projects.

As noted by the New York Times profile, Shatner had a working-class sensibility and hated to turn down any paying work. Later, he would appear in five seasons (101 episodes) of Boston Legal , which was created by David Kelley as a spinoff of his successful legal drama The Practice . British barrister and writer John Mortimer was brought in as a consultant on Boston Legal , and he seems to have injected Denny Crane (Shatner’s character) with some of the characteristics of his famous fictional barrister Horace Rumpole. Both are older men who think highly of their legal skills, are largely dismissive of their colleagues, and prefer performing in front of a jury to the actual nuts and bolts of case law and judicial procedure.

Had Shatner been born in 1962 rather than in 1932, he would have been reaching his prime just as the so-called “second golden age of television” arrived with the debut of The Sopranos in 1999. His approach to television would almost certainly have been very different than it was back in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. He might have taken his place among actors like James Gandolfini (born in ’61), Bryan Cranston (’56), Bob Odenkirk (’62), and Jon Hamm (’71), all of whom embodied iconic characters of the era. Instead, Shatner is often unfairly written off as a second-rater.

Nevertheless, Shatner may have indirectly helped usher in the era of prestige television. Not all TV authorities believe that prestige TV began with The Sopranos . As Wikipedia notes : “Stephanie Zacharek of The Village Voice has argued that the current golden age began earlier with over-the-air broadcast shows like Babylon 5 , Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (both of which premiered in 1993), and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997).”

Both Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine are heavily indebted to the original Star Trek . J. Michael Straczynski, who created Babylon 5 , was trying to create an “anti- Star Trek ”—a show similar to Roddenberry’s original but with science that actually worked and interplanetary politics that were more complex and believable. He even occasionally employed some big names from Star Trek —writer D.C. Fontana and actor Walter Koenig, for instance—to channel some of its energy. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , as the name indicates, is an actual spinoff of Roddenberry’s original (although some have accused it of being a rip-off of Babylon 5 ). Even Buffy , with all of its alien creatures and over-the-top villains, seems to owe something to Star Trek . Shatner may not have been a big part of the second golden age of television, but Star Trek itself seems to have been.

Shatner guest-starred in some of the best TV shows of the 1970s and some of the silliest. But whether he was playing a role in Police Story or The Six Million Dollar Man or Mannix or Hawaii 5-0 or Mission: Impossible or Kung Fu , he was usually the best thing in it. In Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 film Sunset Boulevard , Gloria Swanson plays Norma Desmond, a silent film star whose career is in decline. When William Holden’s character tells her, “You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big!” Desmond responds, “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.” Something similar has happened to Shatner’s great TV performances of the mid-20th century. Nowadays, they seem overly large and elaborate. But it isn’t the performances that have gotten too big, it’s the television sets.

Alas, the only people likely to appreciate that fact now are aging Baby Boomers like me, who grew up watching him on tiny, snowy screens ten feet away. He brought us high-definition, widescreen, full-color performances despite the fact that he was working in an era of small, balky, black-and-white TV sets. And that probably explains why he has lived long and prospered.

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William Shatner on His Biggest ‘Star Trek’ Regret – and Why He Cried With Bezos

From Captain Kirk to ‘Boston Legal’ lawyer Denny Crane, the 92-year-old THR Icon reflects on career reinvention and what could lure him back to the captain’s chair.

By Aaron Couch

Aaron Couch

Film Editor

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When writing about a legend who’s still working as a nonagenarian, it’s almost obligatory to include a line about how they are seemingly busier than ever. William Shatner , 92, may no longer be on set 12 hours a day for the roles that made him the first Comic-Con celebrity ( Star Trek ), or that transformed him into a late-career regular at the Emmys podium ( The Practice , Boston Legal ), but it’s difficult not to marvel at the pace at which he lives his life. 

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Now, Shatner is the subject of the crowdfunded documentary You Can Call Me Bill (in select theaters March 22, his 93rd birthday), a meditation on his life, career and mortality. 

The Montreal-born actor began performing at the age of 6 at camp and never stopped, transitioning from Canadian radio dramas to Broadway to 1950s TV Westerns. He’s been an omnipresent pop culture fixture since 1966, when he was cast as Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek under unusual circumstances never seen again in Hollywood. NBC had a pilot that didn’t work, but the network wanted to try again with a mostly new cast. Where the original pilot was a somewhat dry affair, Shatner brought much-needed humor to the Enterprise. 

Though the show was canceled after just three seasons, it earned a cult following in syndication, and Shatner reprised the role for seven feature films. 

His comedic chops led him to the Saturday Night Live stage — 38 years later, people still ask him about a sketch in which he mocked Star Trek fans with the exasperated line “Get a life!” — as well as multiple Emmy wins playing lawyer Denny Crane on David E. Kelley’s ABC procedural The Practice and then Boston Legal , which concluded after four years in 2008. And he has penned books, released albums and directed documentaries.

During a Zoom conversation in early March, Shatner discussed why Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , his first and only theatrical feature as a director, was the biggest regret of his career; that history-making Star Trek kiss with Nichelle Nichols; and what could lure him back to the captain’s chair.

Some say acting is a way to find the love they aren’t getting elsewhere. Was that true for you?

I’m sure it’s true. I spent a very lonely life in my younger years. Being able to join a cast and be a part of a group of people, I’m sure that was an element in my starting to be an actor when I was very young.

Though you acted throughout childhood, you got a practical degree, a bachelor of commerce, from McGill University in Montreal. Was the plan to use that degree? 

But as an actor, you do have some control, right? You understudied for Christopher Plummer on Henry V in 1956, and he once said, “Where I stood up to make a speech, he sat down. He did the opposite of everything I did.”

I had no rehearsal. I didn’t know the people. And it was five days into the opening of the show [when Plummer got sick]. The choreography was one of the other things that I didn’t know. I was in a macabre state of mind. So that had nothing to do with “I stood where he sat.” [It was, rather], “I’ve got to move around the stage somewhere. I think I’ll sit down here, I’m exhausted!”

You worked with director Richard Donner on the classic Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” which was in fact a nightmare for him, as it was technically complicated and the shooting days were halved. Did you sense the pressure he was under?

It’s complicated. When you get those science fiction choices: The guy is dressed in a furry little suit and you say, “Well, why isn’t the suit aerodynamic? Why is it a suit that’ll catch every breeze that blows?” What kind of logic do you use in any science fiction case? When I looked at the acrobat [Nick Cravat, who played a gremlin terrorizing Shatner’s character from the wing of a plane], I said to myself, “That isn’t something you’d wear on the wing of a 747,” but then again, what do you wear on the wing of a 747? So yeah, it was complicated in that way.

He was in the military, and he was a policeman. So there was this militaristic vision of “You don’t make out with a fellow soldier.” There are strict rules and you abide by the rules. Around that, [the writers] had to write the drama. But within that was the discipline of “This is the way a ship works.” Well, as Star Trek progressed, that ethos has been forgotten [in more recent shows]. I sometimes laugh and talk about the fact that I think Gene is twirling in his grave. “No, no, you can’t make out with the lady soldier!” 

The writers of Star Trek: The Next Generation butted heads with Gene when he was alive. 

The fights that went on, to my understanding, were big, because the writers had their difficulties. “We need some more material.” “We need to get out of here. It’s claustrophobic.” 

When you joke that Gene is twirling in his grave, you mean he wouldn’t approve of onscreen romances between crewmates on the later shows?

Yes, exactly. I haven’t watched the other Star Trek s very much, but what I’ve seen with glimpses of the Next Generation is yes, the difficulty in the beginning, between management, was all about Gene’s rules and obeying or not obeying those rules. 

You and Nichelle Nichols are credited with the first interracial kiss on TV. Is it true that you pushed to make every take real, despite the network asking for faked takes so they would have the option?

After three seasons, NBC cancels Star Trek in 1969, and you find yourself broke, doing summer stock theater on the East Coast. Did you think acting might be over at that point? 

I’m broke, living in a truck, sleeping in the back and trying to save that money so I could support my three kids and my [ex-]wife, who were living in Beverly Hills. The only thing that ever occurred to me was, “I can always go back to Toronto and make something of a living as an actor there.” I never thought, “Oh, I’ve got to become a salesman.” It never occurred to me from the age of 6 to do anything else. Which is weird because [today] I hear it all around me: “God, I can’t make a living anymore [as an actor].” And that’s true. People with names can’t make a living under the circumstances that the business has fallen into. 

In 1979, Paramount needed an answer to Star Wars , so it revived Trek in the form of movies. Then T.J. Hooker came along a few years later. What did you get out of the show?

It was a terrific show. It had all kinds of drama. I got to direct several of the episodes. And some of my shots are in the opening. I was totally involved, committed to the writing, committed to the directing. You’re running all the time. You’ve got to make decisions and you don’t have enough money.

I wish that I’d had the backing and the courage to do the things I felt I needed to do. My concept was, “ Star Trek goes in search of God,” and management said, “Well, who’s God? We’ll alienate the nonbeliever, so, no, we can’t do God.” And then somebody said, “What about an alien who thinks they’re God?” Then it was a series of my inabilities to deal with the management and the budget. I failed. In my mind, I failed horribly. When I’m asked, “What do you regret the most?,” I regret not being equipped emotionally to deal with a large motion picture. So in the absence of my power, the power vacuum filled with people that didn’t make the decisions I would’ve made.

You seem to take the blame, but outside observers might say, “Well, the budget wasn’t there. You didn’t get the backing you needed.” But in your mind, it’s on you.

Paramount+ is rumored to have tossed around ideas for you to reprise your role, à la Patrick Stewart in Star Trek: Picard . Is that something you would entertain? 

Leonard [Nimoy] made his own decision on doing a cameo [in J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek ]. He’s there for a moment, and it’s more a stunt that Spock appears in a future. If they wrote something that wasn’t a stunt that involved Kirk, who’s 50 years older now, and it was something that was genuinely added to the lore of Star Trek , I would definitely consider it.

Did hosting SNL feel like a breakthrough, in terms of showing what you could do with comedy? 

That was a new show then, it was a big sensation, and hosting it was good. They really wrote comedy for me. I played comedy since I was 7. There is a timing. There is a way of characterizing a line. It’s a kind of spiritual thing playing comedy, letting the audience know they’re open to laugh.

After decades in the industry, you achieved your greatest critical success in your 70s playing Denny Crane on Boston Legal . What was the genesis of Denny? 

In 2021, at age 90, you became the oldest person to go to space. Upon landing, you had a tearful exchange with Jeff Bezos. How have you processed that? 

I was weeping uncontrollably for reasons I didn’t know. It was my fear of what’s happening to Earth. I could see how small it was. It’s a rock with paper-thin air. You’ve got rock and 2 miles of air, and that’s all that we have, and we’re fucking it up. And, that dramatically, I saw it in that moment.

What are your thoughts on legacy? 

At Mar-a-Lago, I was asked to help raise funds with the Red Cross. I had to be at Mar-a-Lago Saturday night, and Leonard’s funeral was Sunday morning. I couldn’t make both. I chose the charity. It just occurred to me: Leonard died. They got a statue up. It’s not going to last. Say it lasts 50 years, 100. [Someone will say], “Who is that Leonard Nimoy? Tear the statue down, put somebody else up.” But what you can’t erase is helping somebody or something. That has its own energy and reverberation. That person got help — and then is able to help somebody else. You’ve continued an action that has no boundaries. That’s what a good deed does

This story first appeared in the March 14 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe .

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William Shatner boldly went into space for real. Here's what he saw

Joe Hernandez

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket system lifts off from the launchpad carrying 90-year-old Star Trek actor William Shatner and three other civilians near Van Horn, Texas, on Wednesday. Mario Tama/Getty Images hide caption

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket system lifts off from the launchpad carrying 90-year-old Star Trek actor William Shatner and three other civilians near Van Horn, Texas, on Wednesday.

Blue Origin's second human spaceflight has returned to Earth after taking a brief flight to the edge of space Wednesday morning.

Among the four passengers on board — there is no pilot — was William Shatner, the actor who first played the space-traveling Captain Kirk in the Star Trek franchise.

Canadian actor William Shatner, who became a cultural icon for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek franchise, speaks at a convention in 2019. Michele Spatari/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Canadian actor William Shatner, who became a cultural icon for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek franchise, speaks at a convention in 2019.

"The covering of blue. This sheet, this blanket, this comforter that we have around. We think, 'Oh, that's blue sky,' " an emotional Shatner said after returning to Earth.

"Then suddenly you shoot through it all of the sudden, as though you're whipping a sheet off you when you're asleep, and you're looking into blackness, into black ugliness."

At age 90, Shatner is now the oldest person to fly into space.

"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, diverting myself in now & then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me," he said in a tweet after landing.

William Shatner dresses as Capt. James T. Kirk at a 1988 photo-op promoting the film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier . Bob Galbraith/AP hide caption

William Shatner dresses as Capt. James T. Kirk at a 1988 photo-op promoting the film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier .

The rocket system, New Shepard, took off around 9:50 a.m. CT from a launch site near Van Horn, Texas.

Joining Shatner on the flight was a Blue Origin employee and two paying customers.

Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who owns Blue Origin, was on-site for the launch and shook the hands of all four passengers as they boarded New Shepard. The rocket is named after American astronaut Alan Shepard.

William Shatner is bound for space, but the rest of us will have to wait

The entire suborbital journey lasted about 10 minutes. On part of the trip, the four passengers experienced weightlessness.

The capsule topped out at an apogee altitude of 351,000 feet (about 66 miles up). It then fell back to Earth, landing under a canopy of parachutes in the West Texas desert.

Blue Origin launched its first human spaceflight in July , with Bezos and three others on board.

Wednesday's flight came about two weeks after 21 current and former Blue Origin employees wrote an essay accusing top executives at the space company of fostering a toxic workplace that permits sexual harassment and sometimes compromises on safety. Blue Origin denied the allegations.

• William Shatner
• blue origin

William Shatner

• Born March 22 , 1931 · Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• Height 5′ 9″ (1.75 m)
• 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: [email protected]
• Spouses Elizabeth Shatner (February 13, 2001 - 2020) (divorced) Nerine Kidd (November 15, 1997 - August 9, 1999) (her death) Marcy Lafferty (October 20, 1973 - December 11, 1996) (divorced) Gloria Rand (August 12, 1956 - March 4, 1969) (divorced, 3 children)
• Children Melanie Shatner Leslie Carol Shatner Lisabeth Shatner
• Parents Joseph Shatner Ann Shatner
• Clipped, dramatic narration.
• Captain James T. Kirk on Star Trek (1966) and seven of the Star Trek films.
• Voice like a radio disc-jockey.
• 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.".
• His clipped, dramatic delivery of his lines, peppered with dramatic pauses, is often referred to as "Shatnerian".
• 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.
• 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.
• [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)
• Kingdom of the Spiders (1977) - 20,000 plus 7 1/2 percentage of the gross

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William Shatner As Captain Kirk Is Why Quentin Tarantino Likes Star Trek

• Quentin Tarantino's Star Trek movie idea was inspired by his love for William Shatner's portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk.
• Tarantino's film would have involved time travel to 1920s Chicago, ignoring J.J. Abrams' alternate Kelvin timeline in the newer Star Trek films.
• J.J. Abrams' admitted "nobody likes the Kelvin timeline" to Quentin Tarantino, which could be a factor in the delay of Star Trek 4.

William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk is the reason why director Quentin Tarantino likes Star Trek . Tarantino grew up as a fan of Star Trek: The Original Series , which originally aired on NBC from 1966-1969 - an era the Academy Award-winning writer and director immortalized in his 2019 film Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood . Tarantino's Star Trek fandom led to his developing his own Star Trek movie , although that project didn't move forward.

Quentin Tarantino's Star Trek movie would have been based on the Star Trek: The Original Series season 2 episode, "A Piece of the Action", where Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the Starship Enterprise beamed down to a planet with a culture based on 1920s gangsters. Tarantino's Star Trek would have involved time travel , however, with Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and his USS Enterprise crew actually voyaging to Chicago of that era. As intriguing as Quentin Tarantino's "hard-R" Star Trek movie might have been, the director changed his mind about making it and moved on.

Quentin Tarantino recently changed his mind about The Movie Critic as his tenth and possibly final film as a director, and he's working on a different idea.

Star Trek: The Original Series Cast & Character Guide

William shatner is why quentin tarantino likes star trek, it all boils down to james t. kirk for quentin tarantino.

Quentin Tarantino appeared as a guest on Happy Sad Confused podcast in 2019 to promote Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood . Host Joshua Horowitz, who is also a lifelong Star Trek fan, veered the conversation to Tarantino's Star Trek movie idea, and the director revealed that the source of his Star Trek fandom boils down to William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk . Read his quote below:

Somebody asked me, What is it about Star Trek that you like? Easy. William Shatner. I love William Shatner as James T. Kirk. Thats why I like Star Trek. The reason I like Star Trek more than Star Wars is William Shatner isnt in Star Wars. William Shatner especially as - well, I actually like William Shatner in almost everything - but William Shatner as James T. Kirk is that is my connection. That is why I like it.

Quentin Tarantino also said the reason he enjoyed J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (2009) movie so much is because, "I thought Chris Pine did a fantastic job not just playing Captain Kirk, but playing William Shatner’s Captain [Kirk]. He is William Shatner. He’s not just another guy, he’s William Shatner’s Captain Kirk." Tarantino also praised Zachary Quinto's performance as Spock and the whole cast embodying the iconic characters from Star Trek: The Original Series . But Quentin made it clear that his 'in' for Star Trek is William Shatner's Captain James T. Kirk .

It's safe to say Kirk epitomizes what a Star Trek Captain should be to Tarantino.

Quentin Tarantino's love of William Shatner's James T. Kirk is no surprise as the director grew up with a fascination of 1960s and 1970s film and television. Star Trek only grew in popularity after it was canceled by NBC and moved to syndication, and that first generation of Star Trek fans, counting Tarantino among them, idolized Shatner's heroic and iconic portrayal of Captain Kirk . Quentin's appreciation of Shatner's acting talent extends to his other roles, but it's safe to say Kirk epitomizes what a Star Trek Captain should be to Tarantino.

Listen to Quentin Tarantino on Happy Sad Confused podcast below:

Quentin Tarantino Didnt Understand Star Trek Movies Kelvin Timeline & Neither Does J.J. Abrams

Tarantino's star trek movie would have ignored the kelvin timeline.

Quentin Tarantino also lashed out against the alternate Kelvin timeline in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movies on Happy Sad Confused podcast. Abrams' Star Trek films are set in a parallel reality which allowed his reboot to rewrite Star Trek history going forward. This included an encounter with Khan Noonien Singh (Benedict Cumberbatch) in Star Trek Into Darkness that occurred years earlier than it does in Star Trek: The Original Series . However, the concept of an alternate timeline eluded Tarantino , as he complained to Joshua Horowitz in his quote below:

I still don't quite understand, and J.J. can't explain it to me, and my editor has tried to explain it to me and I still don't get it... About something happened in the first movie that now kind of wiped the slate clean. I don't buy that. I don't like it. I don't appreciate it. I don't... F** that... I want the whole series to have happened, it just hasn't happened yet. No, Benedict Cumberbatch or whatever his name is not Khan, all right? Khan is Khan. And I told JJ, like, 'I don't understand this. I don't like it.' And then he was like, 'Ignore it! Nobody likes it. I don't understand it. Just do whatever you want. If you want it to happen the exact way it happens on the series it can.'

Quentin Tarantino didn't quite grasp that J.J. Abrams' alternate Kelvin timeline means that everything that Star Trek: The Original Series still happens in its original reality , and Abrams' movies are set in a separate Star Trek universe with the same characters living different lives. Tarantino revealed that if he'd made his Star Trek movie, he would have ignored the Kelvin timeline and treated his movie as if it was happening in Star Trek' s Prime universe as an ersatz prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series.

Quentin Tarantino is right that Benedict Cumberbatch was miscast as Khan since his Khan is the same character as played by the late Ricardo Montalbn.

J.J. Abrams admitting to Quentin Tarantino that even he doesn't understand the alternate Kelvin timeline and that "nobody likes it" is amusing. It could also represent one of the reasons why it's been so difficult to get Star Trek 4 off the ground. Abrams' Kelvin Timeline conceit now seems to be more of a burden than a benefit, especially since Star Trek 's original universe is thriving in Paramount+'s various Star Trek TV series. But if Star Trek 4 does happen, as long as Chris Pine continues to evoke William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk , it sounds like Quentin Tarantino will enjoy Pine's performance.

Source: Happy Said Confused podcast

Star Trek: The Original Series is streaming on Paramount+

Cast Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, William Shatner, George Takei, Leonard Nimoy, Deforest Kelley, James Doohan

Network NBC

Streaming Service(s) Paramount+

Franchise(s) Star Trek

Writers Gene Roddenberry

Showrunner Gene Roddenberry

Where To Watch Paramount+

Did 90-Year-Old William Shatner Say This About Going to Space?

Known for his role as captain kirk on “star trek,” the actor went into space for real in 2021., madison dapcevich, published nov. 27, 2023.

About this rating

The quote often attributed to the actor is not verbatim, but the context and majority of its content is, for the most part, accurate.

Known for his role as Captain Kirk in the hit science fiction series “Star Trek,” William Shatner also became the oldest person to visit space for real in 2021. Of his time spent orbiting Earth, the 90-year-old Canadian actor described his "life-changing experience" in a personal essay written for The Guardian in 2022.

Excerpted quotes from the publication have been shared in various iterations across social media posts in the time since its initial publishing, including the below post on X shared on Dec. 23, 2022, which had been viewed more than 1.1 million times:

Please spend a minute reading this note from William Shatner, the actor from Star Trek: “Last year, I had a life-changing experience at 90 years old. I went to space, after decades of playing an iconic science-fiction character who was exploring the universe... pic.twitter.com/SnjmCMOaDI — Danijel Višević (@visevic) December 24, 2022

Though the context of the above attribution is accurate, the above post – and several others – paraphrased Shatner’s original essay, adding and omitting words and phrases. Because of this, we have rated this claim as Mostly True.

After he went to space on Oct. 13, 2021, aboard Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, Shatner described his time above Earth in a Dec 7, 2022, article titled, “ My trip to space made me realise we have only one Earth – it must live long and prosper .”

Last year, at the age of 90, I had a life-changing experience. I went to space, after decades of playing a science-fiction character who was exploring the universe and building connections with many diverse life forms and cultures. I thought I would experience a similar feeling: a feeling of deep connection with the immensity around us, a deep call for endless exploration. A call to indeed boldly go where no one had gone before. I was absolutely wrong. As I explained in my latest book, what I felt was totally different. I knew that many before me had experienced a greater sense of care while contemplating our planet from above, because they were struck by the apparent fragility of this suspended blue marble. I felt that too. But the strongest feeling, dominating everything else by far, was the deepest grief that I had ever experienced. While I was looking away from Earth, and turned towards the rest of the universe, I didn’t feel connection; I didn’t feel attraction. What I understood, in the clearest possible way, was that we were living on a tiny oasis of life, surrounded by an immensity of death. I didn’t see infinite possibilities of worlds to explore, of adventures to have, or living creatures to connect with. I saw the deepest darkness I could have ever imagined, contrasting starkly with the welcoming warmth of our nurturing home planet. This was an immensely powerful awakening for me. It filled me with sadness. I realised that we had spent decades, if not centuries, being obsessed with looking away, with looking outside. I played my part in popularising the idea that space was the final frontier. But I had to get to space to understand that Earth is, and will remain, our only home. And that we have been ravaging it, relentlessly, making it uninhabitable. …

The entirety of Shatner’s essay, which Snopes has archived, can be viewed here .

Facebook . https://www.facebook.com/groups/alluoxofficial/posts/3497164990496627/. Accessed 21 Nov. 2023.

--- . https://www.facebook.com/in2wildfestival/posts/last-year-i-had-a-life-changing-experience-at-90-years-old-i-went-to-space-after/5658848797496279/. Accessed 21 Nov. 2023.

“Https://Twitter.Com/Visevic/Status/1606554876648951808?Lang=en.” X (Formerly Twitter) , https://twitter.com/visevic/status/1606554876648951808?lang=en. Accessed 21 Nov. 2023.

““Last Year, I Had a Life-Changing Experience at 90 Years Old. I Went to Space, after Decades of Playing an Iconic Science-Fiction Charact...” Quora , https://thegreatmysteriestold.quora.com/Last-year-I-had-a-life-changing-experience-at-90-years-old-I-went-to-space-after-decades-of-playing-an-iconic-scienc. Accessed 21 Nov. 2023.

Rivera, Enrique. “William Shatner Experienced Profound Grief in Space. It Was the ‘Overview Effect.’” NPR , 23 Oct. 2022. NPR , https://www.npr.org/2022/10/23/1130482740/william-shatner-jeff-bezos-space-travel-overview-effect.

Shatner, William. “My Trip to Space Made Me Realise We Have Only One Earth – It Must Live Long and Prosper.” The Guardian , 7 Dec. 2022. The Guardian , https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/07/william-shatner-earth-must-live-long-and-prosper-aoe.

By Madison Dapcevich

Madison Dapcevich is a freelance contributor for Snopes.

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William Shatner turns 93: His No. 1 secret to longevity and newly-revealed health scare

William Shatner is taking the famous "Star Trek" motto “Live long and prosper” to new heights.

The actor, who turned 93 on Friday, March 22, remains energetic and galactically busy almost 60 years after he became famous as Capt. James T. Kirk on the classic sci-fi series.

Shatner is the star of a new documentary, titled “You Can Call Me Bill.” On April 8, he’ll give a talk in front of 60,000 people at Indiana University Memorial Stadium ahead of the total solar eclipse . And he’s sailing to Antarctica on a cruise in December.

He's doing all of this on top of an already full schedule appearing at “Star Trek” fan events across the country.

What’s the secret to his longevity? When TODAY’s Craig Melvin asked him, Shatner suggested not letting people know his real age.

“Don’t tell anybody,” he said during an appearance on the show on March 18 as the co-hosts wished him a happy birthday. “I’ve always got a birthday coming up,” he added with mock frustration.

“You’ve never stopped working, you’ve never stopped staying current, you seem to reinvent yourself,” Al Roker noted.

How has William Shatner aged so well?

The actor believes luck is a big part of longevity.

“My life has been so lucky — I’ve been so fortunate in terms of health, which is really the basis of everything,” he told NBC News in 2018. “Your health and your energy is partially your doing, but partially accidental — genetic and accidental.”

In his memoir “Live Long and… : What I Learned Along the Way ” he advised people to remember the basics: Don’t smoke, stay active, eat sensibly and get as much sleep as you need.

Then, there was his ultimate No. 1 secret for longevity: “Don’t die. That’s it; that’s the secret. Simply keep living and try not to slow down,” the actor wrote.

Along with staying busy, he credits his enthusiasm for life as a factor. When the phone rings, say yes, he advises others.

“You should be looking for joy anywhere, whether it’s a hot bath or a good friend or a piece of cheese . There’s joy everywhere,” he told Dr. Mehmet Oz.

Shatner finds joy in horses, dogs, family, adventure and food, he said at the red-carpet premiere of his documentary released on birthday.

“I’m curious about everything,” he noted. “You’ve got to cherish each day.”

He flew on board Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket and capsule in 2021, making him the oldest person to go to space at 90.

The actor advises people to keep their inner child alive no matter their age and avoid regrets.

“Recently when my granddaughter was worried about going to cooking school in Italy, I said to her: ‘Think of your journey as a movie. You’re the main character, go have a good time and make a great movie,’” Shatner told The Times.

William Shatner’s health

The actor recently revealed he’s a skin cancer survivor after he felt a lump near his right ear and was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma, according to Managed Healthcare Executive , an industry publication.

The spot was removed and Shatner was treated with immunotherapy, he said at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology on March 10. Shatner didn’t disclose when the episode happened.

In 2016, Shatner received a prostate cancer diagnosis after his PSA level — the marker for the disease — suddenly rose, but he later learned it was a false alarm.

“That was really scary,” the actor told NBC News. He said he’d been taking testosterone supplements and once he stopped, his PSA level returned to normal.

Shatner lives with tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, after he was exposed to a loud blast during the filming of “Star Trek.” He was able to find “effective management tools, and today considers himself habituated to the sound,” according to the American Tinnitus Association .

As he ages, the actor keeps thinking about his mortality.

“I don’t have long to live,” told Variety in 2023. “Whether I keel over as I’m speaking to you or 10 years from now, my time is limited, so that’s very much a factor.”

A. Pawlowski is a TODAY health reporter focusing on health news and features. Previously, she was a writer, producer and editor at CNN.

Blue Origin Shatner Launch Highlights From William Shatner’s Blue Origin Rocket Trip to Space

The 90-year-old actor who played Captain Kirk and three others went to the edge of space in a tourist spacecraft built by Jeff Bezos’ company. “It was so moving to me,” Mr. Shatner said.

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William Shatner Blasts off to Space on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Rocket

At 90 years old, the actor william shatner became the oldest person to travel to space and cross the kármán line. the “star trek” star traveled to space with three other passengers on a mission that lasted about 10 minutes..

“T-minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 — command engines start — 2, 1.” “The rocket is climbing towards an altitude, we’re aiming just over the Kármán line, the internationally recognized line of space of 100 kilometers that is about 328,000 feet, and a gorgeous view down the rocket. And there they are, over 328,000 feet, over 100 kilometers. Welcome to space, the newest astronauts on board our crew capsule. And here come the mains. Oh, what a flight.” “Stand by touchdown. Stand by touchdown.” “Stand by touchdown.” And the capsule touched down. Welcome back. The newest astronauts, Audrey Powers, William Shatner; our customers, Glen de Vries and Chris Boshuizen. What a day for you. Welcome back.” [cheering]

Daniel E. Slotnik

A slew of private spaceflights are planned for the months ahead.

More private space missions are scheduled in the coming months, an indication of how the wealthy are increasingly able to buy trips into orbit, or just to the edge of space.

Yusaku Maezawa , a Japanese fashion mogul, plans to spend 12 days at the International Space Station , and document the experience, starting on Dec. 8. The trip was arranged by Space Adventures , a company that facilitates private jaunts to space, working with Roscosmos , the Russian space agency.

Mr. Maezawa and his production assistant, Yozo Hirano, will travel to the station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Mr. Maezawa has long had extraplanetary aspirations . In 2018, he signed up for a flight with SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company, in the hope of one day traveling around the moon, a flight that may be years from occurring.

In February, 2021, three private astronauts will also fly to the space station in a Crew Dragon capsule made by SpaceX and booked by the company Axiom Space . Michael López-Alegría, a retired NASA astronaut and Axiom vice president , will join them as the mission’s commander.

The three passengers will stay aboard the station for 10 days, and have each paid $55 million for the opportunity.

Another forthcoming private spaceflight with Virgin Galactic , Blue Origin’s main competitor in suborbital space tourism, will carry passengers who are not relying on their private wealth for tickets. Instead, the customers work for the Italian government.

Two are officers from the Italian Air Force and a third is an Italian scientist. The purpose of the trip, which is billed as Virgin Galactic’s first commercial research mission, is to study the effects of the transition from gravity to microgravity on the human body and other payloads.

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The crew took questions from reporters and television crews for roughly 20 minutes before posing for photos with Blue Origin employees on the launch pad.

Bezos has ambitious plans for Blue Origin beyond tourism.

Blue Origin wants to go to the moon, build larger rockets and, according to Mr. Bezos, eventually move all polluting industries off Earth and into space.

The company is developing New Glenn, a reusable rocket that will be able to send nearly 100,000 pounds of satellites and other spacecraft into low-Earth orbit. The rocket’s debut launch, planned for late next year, has been delayed for roughly two years.

It is producing engines, known as BE-4, that will power New Glenn. And as another line of revenue, the company is selling those engines to its potential rival, United Launch Alliance, a rocket company co-owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin that has contracts to launch many NASA and Pentagon spacecraft to orbit and beyond.

Blue Origin is also developing a moon lander in a partnership with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper, a company that worked on flight software for the Apollo missions. The lander, called Blue Moon, is designed to ferry astronauts to and from the lunar surface. Blue Origin pitched Blue Moon to NASA for a $6 billion contract, but the agency, facing a funding shortfall, decided it could only afford to select a lower bid pitched by Elon Musk’s SpaceX instead. Blue Origin is suing NASA to overturn the decision.

“I wish I had broken the world record in the 10-yard dash, but unfortunately it was how old I was,” Mr. Shatner said, responding to a question from a BBC reporter on how it felt to be the oldest person to go to space.

During a live TV interview with a CNN reporter on the landing pad, Mr. Shatner said he felt his trip was more than tourism and something much deeper. “Everyone needs to have the philosophical understanding of what we’re doing to Earth,” he said.

At a brief press conference at the pad where the New Shepard booster landed, Glen de Vries, one of the paying customers, said the crew “had a moment of camraderie” when they reached space. “We actually just put our hands together,” he said. Ms. Powers said “we wanted to memorialize being together, there.”

“And then we enjoyed the view as much as we can,” Mr. de Vries said

David Streitfeld

Back on Earth, Shatner and Bezos have a Kirk-Spock moment.

William shatner is brought to tears describing his trip to space, the actor who played captain kirk in “star trek” told jeff bezos his visit to the edge of space in the blue origin rocket was the most profound experience he could imagine..

Just unbelievable, unbelievable. I mean, you know, the little things — but to see the blue color whip by, and now you’re staring into blackness, that’s the thing. The covering of blue is — this sheet, this blanket, this comforter, this comforter of blue that we have around, we think, “Oh, it’s blue sky. And then suddenly, you shoot through it all of the sudden as though you’re whipping a sheet off you when you’re asleep. And you’re looking into blackness, into black ugliness and you look down, there’s the blue down there and the black up there. And it’s just — there is Mother Earth, comfort. And there is — is there, death? I don’t know — was that death, is that the way death is? Whoop, and it’s gone. Jesus. It was so moving to me. What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine. I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened. I just — it’s extraordinary, extraordinary. I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I don’t want to lose it. It’s so — so much larger than me and life. And this is now the commercial, everybody — it would be so important for everybody to have that experience.

A half-century ago, a television show told young people that space travel would be the coolest thing ever. Some of them were even inspired to work toward that goal. Science fiction met reality on Wednesday as one of those fans, now one of the richest people in the world, gave the show’s leading actor a brief ride up into the ether.

The mission went according to plan. The aftermath appeared unscripted, and all the better for it.

William Shatner, eternally famous as Captain James T. Kirk on the original “Star Trek,” returned to Earth apparently moved by the experience beyond measure. His trip aboard Jeff Bezos’ rocket might have been conceived as a publicity stunt, but brushing the edge of the sky left the actor full of wonder mixed with unease:

It was unbelievable … To see the blue cover go whoop by. And now you’re staring into blackness. That’s the thing. The covering of blue, this sheet, this blanket, this comforter of blue that we have around us. We say, ‘Oh that’s blue sky.’ And then suddenly you shoot through it and all of a sudden, like you whip the sheet off you when you’re asleep, you’re looking into blackness.

Mr. Shatner was talking to Mr. Bezos immediately after exiting the capsule with the three other passengers. The others greeted their family and friends. Champagne corks popped. There was lots of laughter, high-spirited relief. But Mr. Shatner, a hale 90 standing in the West Texas dust, talked about space as the final frontier:

You look down, there’s the blue down there, and the black up there. There is Mother and Earth and comfort and there is … Is there death? I don’t know. Was that death? Is that the way death is? Whoop and it’s gone. Jesus. It was so moving to me.

Mr. Bezos listened, still as a statue. Maybe he was just giving Mr. Shatner some space, but it was a sharp contrast to his appearance after his own brief spaceflight in July when he flew the same spacecraft as Mr. Shatner. Then, he held forth from a stage, rousing condemnation from critics of the vast company he founded as he thanked Amazon’s employees and customers for making it possible for him to finance his private space venture.

Or maybe Mr. Bezos was just acting naturally. His role model has always been the cool, passionless Mr. Spock rather than the emotional, impulsive Captain Kirk. Amazon, which prizes efficiency above all, was conceived and runs on this notion.

When he played at “Star Trek” as a boy, Mr. Bezos has said , he would sometimes take the role of the ship’s computer. Amazon’s voice-activated speaker Alexa was designed as a household version of the “Star Trek” computer, which always had the answer to every question.

The word “death,” repeatedly mentioned by Mr. Shatner in his post-flight monologue, is rarely thought of as a selling word for space tourism, which is after all what Blue Origin is promoting. But the actor did supply a positive endorsement.

“Everybody in the world needs to do this,” he said.

Astronauts and space agencies congratulate William Shatner on his trip to space.

After Blue Origin’s latest launch, much of the initial reaction focused more on William Shatner’s introduction to outer space than the particulars of the flight or issues with the company behind it .

Space agencies, celebrities and astronauts said they were thrilled to see Mr. Shatner, who is 90 and known to generations of science fiction fans as Captain James T. Kirk on the original “Star Trek” television series, become the oldest person to enter space.

Twitter accounts for the U.S. Space Force and NASA both congratulated Mr. Shatner, in messages that included emojis of the Vulcan hand gesture that means “Live long and prosper.”

“You are, and always shall be, our friend,” NASA’s message said, paraphrasing what Spock, Captain Kirk’s longtime first officer, said to Mr. Kirk as he died in “ Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan .”

Sue Nelson, a science journalist who wrote a book about Wally Funk , the woman who became the oldest person in space on Blue Origin’s first crewed launch in July, wrote on Twitter that she initially had “mixed feelings about today” because “William Shatner is about to break my friend Wally Funk’s short lived record.”

Ms. Nelson, a “Star Trek” fan, later said that she loved Mr. Shatner’s emotional reaction upon landing.

“He’s right of course,” she said on Twitter . “The Earth’s atmosphere is fragile. Space travel is extraordinary.”

Astronauts congratulated Mr. Shatner, too. Garrett Reisman, a retired NASA astronaut, shared a photo of himself dressed as Captain Kirk.

“This is a picture of a guy who went to space pretending to be a guy who pretended to be a guy who went to space who has now gone to space,” Mr. Reisman said .

Another retired NASA astronaut, Nicole Stott, thanked Mr. Shatner on Twitter for sharing his “feelings of awe and wonder” after he left the capsule.

Mr. Shatner was emotional, and loquacious, after he returned to Earth. He embraced Jeff Bezos, who owns Blue Origin and flew on its voyage in July , and tried to capture the experience in words.

“What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine,” Mr. Shatner said, adding that “I hope I never recover from this, I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I don’t want to lose it.”

Joey Roulette contributed reporting.

How many tourists have made it to space?

Almost 600 people have been in space, and before Wednesday, 48 of them were private individuals who were not government employees, according to data compiled by Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer and spaceflight data tracker. A little over a dozen of those 48 were tourists, while the rest included researchers or employees of space companies, like Ms. Powers, the Blue Origin executive flying with Mr. Shatner on behalf of the company.

The NS-18 crew has increased the number of private spacefarers to 52.

The first space tourist was Toyohiro Akiyama, a Japanese television journalist who launched to Mir, the Russian space station, in 1990. He spent seven days aboard. Picked among 163 candidates, the Tokyo Broadcasting Service paid for Mr. Akiyama’s seat aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket, which until this year was the only vehicle that carried tourists to space.

Dennis Tito, an American engineer and businessman, became the first person to fund their own trip to space in 2001, launching to the International Space Station for an eight-day stay.

Other private individuals have gone to space, but they generally wouldn’t be construed as tourists because they were traveling on something like an official business trip. That includes the Russian film crew that launched to the space station last week. Yulia Peresild, a Russian actress, and Klim Shipenko, a film director and producer, are shooting scenes on the orbital laboratory as part of the first full-length feature film made in space. The crew is backed by Channel One Russia and Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency.

Blue Origin says the crew’s capsule reached a peak altitude of 65.8 miles after ascending atop New Shepard at speeds of up to 2,235 miles per hour. In all, the mission lasted 10 minutes and 17 seconds

The crew is expected to drive to the pad where the New Shepard booster landed to speak with reporters about their flight.

Jim McKinley

Mr. Shatner told Mr. Bezos, “What I would love to do is to communicate as much as possible the jeopardy, the vulnerability of everything.” He added, “This air which is keeping us alive is thinner than your skin.”

Blue Origin says its passengers are astronauts. The F.A.A. is not sure.

Blue Origin considers the customers who fly aboard the New Shepard spacecraft to be astronauts, but the Federal Aviation Administration, which formally grants governmental recognition to astronauts, has yet to say it agrees.

Since 2004, the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates how space companies run their launch sites, has awarded private crews aboard private spacecraft “Commercial Space Astronaut Wings” — small gold pins that officially designate a passenger as a “commercial astronaut.”

The pins are akin to the badges awarded to military pilots who reached space in the 1960s, and only a handful of private citizens have received the wings. Beth Moses, Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor, was the most recent recipient after her SpaceShipTwo flight to space in 2019 .

But all the private activity in space lately has spurred adjustments to the F.A.A.’s pinning process .

On the day Jeff Bezos, the founder of Blue Origin and Amazon, launched to space in July, the agency revised its criteria for awarding the wings, requiring individuals who go to space to be classified as a crew member, rather than just a spaceflight participant.

To be a crew member, the person must have completed training before their mission “on how to carry out his or her role on board or on the ground so that the vehicle will not harm the public,” the rules state. Crew members also must have “demonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety.”

Still, the head of the F.A.A.'s commercial space office also has discretion to grant an honorary astronaut status to anyone who flies to space and demonstrates “extraordinary contribution or beneficial service” to commercial spaceflight.

Blue Origin calls its New Shepard passengers astronauts and awarded its first crew — Mr. Bezos, his brother Mark, Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen — its own company-branded pins in a ceremony hours after their flight. The crews of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic flight in July and SpaceX’s Inspiration4 orbital mission in September received similar pins from those companies.

Blue Origin has submitted applications to the F.A.A. for a formal designation of the passengers as commercial astronauts, but it has yet to receive a determination, a company spokeswoman said. The F.A.A. declined to say whether Mr. Shatner or any of his fellow passengers could be classified as commercial astronauts.

After celebrations around the capsule, the crew lined up to get custom astronaut pins from Blue Origin. Mr. Bezos fastened the pins to each passenger. “OK, guys, we have four astronauts before you,” he said.

"I'm so filled with emotion with what just happened,” Mr. Shatner said to Mr. Bezos on the ground, breaking into tears. "I hope I never recover from this," he added.

Mr. Shatner was next to exit the capsule and began describing his experience to Mr. Bezos, “It’s indescribable,” he said.

Family and friends met the passengers outside the capsule as they exited. Ms. Powers, the Blue Origin vice president, emerged first, hugging her sister.

How much does a ticket to space on New Shepard cost? Blue Origin isn’t saying.

Blue Origin has declined to publicly state a price for a ticket to fly on New Shepard. The company is nearing $100 million in sales so far, Mr. Bezos has said. But it’s unclear how many ticket holders that includes.

“We don’t know quite yet” when Blue Origin will publicly announce a price, Mr. Bezos told reporters in July after his flight to space. “Right now we’re doing really well with private sales.”

Oliver Daemen, the Dutch teenager aboard Blue Origin’s first crewed flight in July, was occupying a seat that the company auctioned off for $28 million, a steep number that even shocked some company executives. Of that total, $19 million was donated equally to 19 space organizations.

Mr. Daemen, 18, wasn’t the winning bidder. His father, a private equity executive, was the runner-up in the auction and was next in line after the actual winner. That individual, who has not been named, plunked down $28 million before postponing their trip over a scheduling conflict, Blue Origin said at the time.

Tickets to the edge of space on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo were hiked to $450,000 in August, from $250,000, when the company reopened ticket sales after a yearslong hiatus.

Flights to orbit — a much higher altitude than Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic’s trips go — are far more expensive. Three passengers to the International Space Station next year are paying $55 million each for their seats on a SpaceX rocket, bought through the company Axiom Space.

Many wealthy customers and space company executives see the steep ticket prices as early investments into the nascent space tourism industry, hoping the money they put down can help lower the cost of launching rockets.

Mr. Bezos, dressed in the same flight suit he wore to space in July, joined recovery teams at the capsule and gave double thumbs-up to each crew member through the spacecraft’s windows. Recovery personnel set up steps by the hatch door to help the passengers exit.

Daniel Slotnik

Shatner scheduled a philosophical message to appear on Twitter as he soared into the skies.

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, diverting myself in now & then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.🚀 pic.twitter.com/ZY2Ka8ij7z — William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) October 13, 2021

The crew, waiting to be helped out of the capsule, “have all given the thumbs up that they are doing A-okay,” said Blue Origin's Ariane Cornell.

Recovery teams are racing toward the capsule while the crew waits inside.

The capsule has landed on the desert floor, kicking up a plume of dust and sand. "That was unlike anything they described," Shatner said on the way down.

At 90, William Shatner becomes the oldest person to reach ‘the final frontier.’

When William Shatner , 90, traveled to the edge of space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard on Wednesday he became the oldest person ever to reach such heights.

Mr. Shatner, whose name has been synonymous with space exploration since he played Captain James T. Kirk in the original “Star Trek” series more than half a century ago, became the first nonagenarian to cross the Kármán line, the widely recognized boundary between the atmosphere and space about 63 miles above the Earth.

Mr. Shatner became emotional when he emerged with three other passengers from the spacecraft’s capsule after it set down in West Texas and was met by the Blue Origin’s owner, Jeff Bezos.

The actor spoke of how the experience of seeing the blue earth from space and the immense blackness of outer space had profoundly moved him, demonstrating what he called the “vulnerability of everything.” The atmosphere keeping humanity alive is “thinner that your skin,” he said.

“I’m so filled with emotion with what just happened,” Mr. Shatner said to Mr. Bezos, breaking into tears. “I hope I never recover from this,” he added.

Mr. Shatner’s voyage came hot on the heels of one by Wally Funk , who at 82 was the oldest person to travel to space when she took part in a Blue Origin flight in July with Jeff Bezos, the company’s owner.

Ms. Funk excelled at tests for astronauts in the space program in the 1960s, before Mr. Shatner played Captain Kirk, but NASA did not allow women to become astronauts at the time.

John Glenn, who was the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962, also became the oldest person to reach space when he flew aboard a space shuttle mission more than 35 years later at the age of 77. Unlike Mr. Shatner or Ms. Funk, Mr. Glenn’s trip went to orbit, which requires a much more powerful rocket than the one powering Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft.

The youngest person ever to travel to space also flew on Blue Origin’s July flight. He was Oliver Daemen , 18, of the Netherlands.

The capsule is descending from space under three big parachutes. “How about that, guys?,” Audrey Powers was heard saying on the live stream.

The booster has touched down successfully, emitting a thunderous sonic boom across the desert.

About five minutes into the mission, the crew should have unbuckled from their seats and floated freely around their capsule in the weightlessness of space. So far, Blue Origin has not released audio or video from inside the spacecraft.

The crew is in space. The capsule has separated from the booster, continuing its ascent toward a peak altitude of around 66 miles above the Earth.

Blue Origin faces competition for space tourism flights.

Mr. Shatner probably won’t be the only celebrity flying to the edge of space on a privately built spacecraft. Virgin Galactic, the space tourism firm founded by Richard Branson, the billionaire entrepreneur behind the Virgin Group, has a waiting list of hundreds of wealthy customers who want a trip on the company’s SpaceShipTwo space-plane.

Like New Shepard, Virgin Galactic’s suborbital ship flies to the edge of space. But it begins its trek attached to a larger carrier plane that takes off from a runway like a commercial airliner. Once it reaches the right altitude, SpaceShipTwo drops from the carrier plane and fires its rocket engine, launching the rest of the way toward the brim of Earth’s outer atmosphere, giving tourists a few minutes of weightlessness in space before free-gliding back to land.

Mr. Branson flew to space aboard SpaceShipTwo in July, earlier than originally planned and nine days before Mr. Bezos flew New Shepard. His SpaceShipTwo flight, with two pilots and three company employees also on board, was seen as a move to beat his rival billionaire entrepreneur to space.

While Blue Origin’s commercial tourism business is underway, Virgin Galactic is largely pausing flights with paying customers until late next year. It may complete one more flight this month carrying passengers from the Italian air force.

The two companies also face competition, at least for the most well-heeled passengers, from Elon Musk’s SpaceX. For a much higher price, around $55 million in some cases, customers can launch to low-Earth orbit for a few days inside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, an acorn-shaped pod that is also being used to send NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. SpaceX launched its first fully private mission to space in September, sending four citizens on a three-day trip orbiting Earth. One of the passengers, Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur, bought the seats for his three crewmates.

Screen Rant

What happened to mirror universe captain kirk in star trek.

Star Trek: Discovery returns to the Mirror Universe, which raises questions about what happened to the Terran Empire's Captain Kirk after TOS.

WARNING: Contains SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery, season 5, episode 5, "Mirrors".

• In "Star Trek: Discovery", new information about the fate of the Mirror Universe Captain Kirk is provided by the return of the ISS Enterprise.
• Mirror Kirk may have faced execution or plotted violent opposition against Spock's peaceful reforms.
• A planned William Shatner comeback in "Star Trek: Enterprise" involving Mirror Kirk's return was shelved due to financial reasons.

Star Trek: Discovery has just brought back the ISS Enterprise from the Terran Empire, raising the question of what happened to the Mirror Universe's Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) after the end of Star Trek: The Original Series . In Discovery season 5, episode 5, "Mirrors", written by Johanna Lee and Carlos Cisco, and directed by Jen McGowan, the next clue to the Progenitors' treasure is found aboard the ISS Enterprise , trapped inside a pocket of interdimensional space. As Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Book (David Ajala) explore the Mirror Universe's version of the starship Enterprise , they learn more about what happened after TOS ' "Mirror, Mirror".

In "Mirror, Mirror", the Mirror Universe version of Captain Kirk switched places with his Prime Universe counterpart. While in the Mirror Universe, Prime Kirk inspired the Mirror Universe variant of Spock (Leonard Nimoy) to embrace the possibility of a more peaceful future. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine revealed that Spock's more peaceful approach led to the downfall of the Terran Empire at the hands of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance . However, DS9 was vague on what happened to the ISS Enterprise, Spock, and Kirk. While Star Trek: Discovery has now revealed the fate of the ISS Enterprise, the fate of Mirror Kirk is something of a mystery.

Star Trek: Discovery’s Burnham Fight Makes Michael Even More Like Kirk

What happened to mirror universe captain kirk after star trek: the original series.

Star Trek: Discovery reveals that the Terran High Chancellor was killed for trying to make reforms, which is presumably a reference to Mirror Spock . In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 23, "Crossover", it was confirmed that Mirror Spock rose to the role of Commander in Chief, and the peaceful reforms led to the Terran Empire being unprepared for war with the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. While Discovery seems to confirm that Mirror Spock was executed for this failure, it remains tight-lipped on the fate of Mirror Kirk after he was beamed off the USS Enterprise at the end of "Mirror, Mirror".

The fate of Mirror Kirk after Star Trek: The Original Series has spawned multiple comic books and novels over the years, including the Mirror Universe trilogy by William Shatner, and Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens.

Many speculated that Mirror Kirk was either imprisoned or put to death by Mirror Spock, even though that doesn't correlate with the Vulcan's attempt to make peaceful reforms . However, career progression in the Mirror Universe is ruthless, so it's certainly possible that Spock would have had Kirk executed, so he could take control of the ISS Enterprise to cement his rise to power. Another possibility is that Kirk survived, and was one of the many Terrans who objected to Mirror Spock's more peaceful reforms, perhaps even being the one who killed him in Star Trek: Discovery 's new version of events.

Mirror Kirk’s Aborted Star Trek: Enterprise Return Explained

Mirror Kirk was an integral part of a William Shatner comeback pitched for Star Trek: Enterprise season 4. In Shatner's pitch, co-conceived with writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Mirror Kirk was put to death by Spock following the events of "Mirror, Mirror", by being placed in the Tantalus Field. However, it would be revealed that the Tantalus Field didn't kill its victims, it placed them inside a pocket universe, where they would be discovered by Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and the crew of the Enterprise NX-01. Mirror Kirk and his comrades would then launch a hostile takeover of the Enterprise, pitting Shatner against Bakula.

Another pitch for a William Shatner episode of Star Trek: Enterprise would have seen him play the NX-01's unseen chef, who would be revealed as an ancestor of James T. Kirk.

William Shatner's return in Star Trek: Enterprise would have been a ratings smash, but it was nixed by Paramount . The reasons behind Paramount aborting Shatner's Star Trek return were said to be financial, with both Manny Coto and Rick Berman telling "The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek" by Peter Holmstrom that the actor's fee was more than Enterprise could afford. With the Mirror Kirk episode abandoned, the fate of Captain Kirk's Terran counterpart would have to remain a mystery. However, Star Trek: Enterprise did return to the Mirror Universe in a season 4 two-parter involving the USS Defiant from Star Trek: TOS .

Enterprise’s Mirror Universe Episodes Marked The Sad End Of The Star Trek Prequel

Star trek: discovery reveals what happened to mirror captain kirk’s enterprise.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5, "Mirrors" may not reveal the fate of Mirror Kirk, but it does reveal what happened to his Enterprise. Investigating the abandoned ISS Enterprise in search of Moll (Eve Harlow) and L'ak (Elias Toufexis) , Burnham and Book learn about what happened after Spock's reforms. Following the death of the Terran High Chancellor, a group of Terrans boarded the ISS Enterprise in search of the Prime Universe, perhaps inspired by the hopeful words of Prime Kirk in "Mirror, Mirror". The refugees were led by Mirror Saru (Doug Jones), who had become a resistance leader following Discovery season 1 .

Saru is one of the few Star Trek characters to be a good guy in both the Mirror and Prime Universes.

However, the ISS Enterprise became trapped in the interdimensional fold encountered by the USS Discovery in the 32nd century. Forced to abandon ship, the refugees made it through the wormhole into the prime Star Trek universe. One of the refugees was Dr. Cho, who became part of the Federation's team that investigated the Progenitors' technology alongside Dr. Vellek (Michael Copeman) and Jinaal . Dr. Cho is the only named refugee in Star Trek: Discovery , but it creates the fascinating possibility that Mirror Saru, and maybe even Mirror Kirk found their way to the Prime Universe in the 24th century.

Star Trek: Discovery streams Thursdays on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Discovery

*Availability in US

Not available

Star Trek: Discovery is an entry in the legendary Sci-Fi franchise, set ten years before the original Star Trek series events. The show centers around Commander Michael Burnham, assigned to the USS Discovery, where the crew attempts to prevent a Klingon war while traveling through the vast reaches of space.

Star Trek: The Original Series

Star Trek: The Original Series follows the exploits of the crew of the USS Enterprise. On a five-year mission to explore uncharted space, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) must trust his crew - Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Forest DeKelley), Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (James Doohan), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Sulu (George Takei) - with his life. Facing previously undiscovered life forms and civilizations and representing humanity among the stars on behalf of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets, the Enterprise regularly comes up against impossible odds and diplomatic dilemmas.

William Shatner Is Asking You to Re-Examine Your Life

The Star Trek pioneer says, "There's so much that is so miraculous and worthy of pondering," while discussing his documentary 'You Can Call Me Bill.'

The Big Picture

• Collider's Steve Weintraub speaks with Hollywood icon William Shatner about his documentary William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill .
• Shatner reflects on his expansive career, from Star Trek: The Original Series to countless new projects, his musings on mortality, the importance of environmental preservation, and tons more.
• William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill is now available to rent or purchase on VOD.

On his 93rd birthday, William Shatner 's contemplative documentary, You Can Call Me Bill , launched in theaters. The fan-financed doc explores the decades-long career of this science fiction pathfinder, in which the actor reflects on his life, Earth, and the meaning of our existence. This look backward and forward examines the man behind the myth, and his legacy across the globe, and it's going to be available at home soon. In honor of its VOD release, Collider's Steve Weintraub spoke with Shatner about everything from his formative time on Star Trek: The Original Series to his latest (and numerous) projects.

It's clear from this interview that Shatner's love and curiosity for life — that which You Can Call Me Bill highlights so poignantly — is simply a way of being for him. Every day he can find wonderment; like, for example, how he points out that we have "the Library of Congress and the London Library...all in your hand," when holding up his cell phone to the camera. If only we can remember to "be aware of [our lives] and its existence." Despite his involvement with a number of projects, like two new studio albums, his Netflix series The UnXplained , and plenty more to keep him busy, Shatner doesn't seem to miss an opportunity to appreciate his self-proclaimed "charmed life," which he seems to have dedicated to living to the fullest, appreciating his fans, going on adventures, and relaxing at home when his schedule allows.

Check out the full interview in the video above, or in the transcript below for more on what's to come from William Shatner, advice from the Captain Kirk actor, the importance of caring for our planet, the miracle of Star Trek , and even his thoughts on the adventure of death. And be sure to check out You Can Call Me Bill , which is now available to rent or purchase on VOD.

You Can Call Me Bill

Read Our 'You Can Call Me Bill' Review

William Shatner Is Looking to the Future in All His Endeavors

COLLIDER: Just like tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people on this planet, your work has inspired me and possibly led to me creating Collider due to my interest in sci-fi and everything else, so I say thank you.

WILLIAM SHATNER: You're welcome.

I have a million questions for you before I get into the actual film. I know you are busier than anyone else I know. I know that you are just always busy, so how many different things are you actually working on right now?

SHATNER: I've got a very popular show called The UnXplained . It's on Netflix and on Discovery. This week, two albums are coming out. There's a children's album which is sweet and available to kids of six, seven, to eleven and twelve, written about the interconnection of animals, mushrooms and trees. They speak to each other and sing to each other. I believe it's a delightful album. There’s also an album of my performance of songs that Robert Sharenow, Dan Miller and I wrote for the Kennedy Center. I did a performance at the Kennedy Center, which we filmed and recorded. That film and that recording is coming out now. There's this documentary that's releasing now. I've designed two watches. One is coming out now, the other watch will be about six months. I did a performance on Monday at the University of Indiana, 15 minutes before the eclipse. I did a performance of stuff I wrote, and I utilized the university band.

Then there's all kinds of businesses that I'm involved in — futuristic business. One business has invented the tricorder, so they can read one disease at a time, by reading your saliva. Then, there are other businesses. One, for example, — my life seems to be really charmed — is my image projected, a projection like in Star Trek , except obviously it's not my body. But it's such a complete 3D image, it seems real. And the way it's set up, I can see the audience, the audience can see me, and it's like I'm there. So, I joined that company. A week later, I got a call from Australia saying, would I appear in front of 4,000 ad campaign people? I said, “I can't fly to Australia, but I can project my image.” And she said, “That's better than you being there.” And so it goes. There are many more futuristic ideas that I'm backing because I like the idea of the fact that they may get better, they may have a future. And if not, it's a really delightful idea that I'm glad to be a part of.

Is the 'T.J. Hooker' Movie Happening With Its Original Star?

One other question before getting into the film. I heard rumblings — this might not be true — that there's some stuff going on behind the scenes about a T.J. Hooker movie. Is there any truth to that?

SHATNER: I have heard the same rumblings, but I think it's the writer's stomach. I think that's it. I don't know. Nobody's ever come to me to play some version of whatever they would think of.

What I think is great about the documentary is how it weaves so many of your performances through your talking. It's like a time capsule of your life, and I think it's really well done the way it uses all the different performances. What are you actually most excited for fans to see in the documentary?

SHATNER: You're looking at an actor who's done a lot of publicity for a lot of things over the years publicizing this film that's being released. But the film is a documentary about me, so if I say to you, “Isn't it wonderful?” I'm talking about me. “Aren't I wonderful? Aren’t I wonderful? That’s moved you? It’s different. I’m wonderful, aren’t I?” I can't say that. So I thought — whether it’s true or not — that if I didn't see it, I could talk about it more with some objectivity . So, we can talk about it, and I dimly recollect everything, not everything but the stuff we talked about, but I can't say what's good and what's bad because I haven't seen it. But from what I'm hearing, and all the great reviews we're getting, it's being well-received.

Oh, yeah. We gave it a positive review on the site, and we can be difficult sometimes.

SHATNER: That’s good, so some venture that gets a positive review really has earned it.

Yeah, we don't give them out unless it's earned.

Existentialism With William Shatner

One of the things that you get into in the film is you talk about your mortality. As I've gotten older myself — everyone thinks about their mortality — but for me, I always think about what will I miss when I'm gone?

SHATNER: Me too.

What will I miss out on? What are the answers to the big questions that will be discovered in 100 years that I won’t be here to experience?

SHATNER: Exactly.

You really do get into your mortality. Has that been like something that you've thought about for a long time?

SHATNER: It gets more and more strident the older you get. Every birthday, this voice gets louder: “You're gonna die!” But there’s a prior question, and that is, when do you know you're dying? Does a cough mean it's the end of your life? A headache? Some pain or ache that ordinarily you’d laugh off, or go to the hospital and say, “I got this ache?” How many people do we know who went to bed and didn't wake up? Or people who walked into a room and you heard a crash and they just died? And are they thinking, “Oh, jeez, I lost my balance,” or, “I'm dying?” I mean, how do you ask yourself the question, “Am I dying?” Because it may be just a nerve ending? So, that question has occupied me. If you get ill, you think, “I wonder that's gonna kill me?”

I know people that have gone to the hospital and they never came out. I'm sure you're in the same boat.

SHATNER: Exactly. Well, I wouldn't go in a boat, I'd go in a trailer.

[Laughs] Sure.

William Shatner Warns, "The Jeopardy This Earth Is In Is Very Real"

One of the things the film also gets into, and you talked about it when you went into space, is the fact that our planet is so precious and so finite. It feels like so many people on this planet just treat the earth as a garbage disposal, and I am desperate to get more people to give a shit. What can we do?

SHATNER: Yes. Give a shit, but do it in the toilet and not in the park.

[Laughs] Yes.

SHATNER: That's absolutely true. I had dinner with friends last night who just came back from Japan, and it reminded me of what's-his-name who was lauding Russia and how clean the subways are, and all the food, and the streets are so clean…Tucker Carlson. These people were saying, “We love our country, but coming from Japan where it's so clean and neat, and coming to the airports and the bus station, we're so ashamed of this garbage dump. You go along the freeway and you’ve got all kinds of terrible things lying on the side of the road.” It just requires our citizenry to be aware that the jeopardy that this earth is in is very real. All these things that are going extinct; even the things we know about that are going extinct, but when you find something that you didn't know existed went extinct, that's really sad. It took 3.8 billion years for that thing to evolve and it's gone, and nobody knew it was here or left. So, yes, it's a huge message that I keep talking about.

Have you actually been to Tokyo? I have, and I was stunned by exactly what your friends said. You could be in the oldest mall or the oldest building and it's cleaner than any bathroom in America.

SHATNER: We shot film down in the underground, because they don't speak English there and you get lost very easily. It's so clean. There's no garbage anywhere.

I thought it was amazing. It's like being on a different planet.

SHATNER: I don't know why we don't assign a lot of people, I know they have some, looking over the streets just picking up garbage and filling the potholes. Have you seen how bad the roads are?

Yes. My car also says that it has seen the road and how bad it is.

William Shatner Implores Us to Stay Endlessly Curious

Just ask yourself a question: “what am i doing".

One of the things that is also fascinating about you is that you've maintained this sense of curiosity about everything for what feels like your entire life, and I'll be honest, I have not been able to do that. What has been your secret to maintaining that attitude?

SHATNER: Well, I don't think it's a secret. You get used to everything. So, you pick up this thing here, and you make a call. The sense of extraordinary wonderment has long since left you that, in your hand, you have the Library of Congress and the London Library, and you're able to make a call to the ends of the earth — all in your hand. I mean, if you were to tell somebody prior to this invention, they'd say, “You're crazy. That's science fiction.” And prior to science fiction, they'd say, “I think we should shoot you. You're dangerous.” So, the wonderment of everyday life, of everything… I mean, I don't know how that phone works. Do you know how the phone works?

I do not know, except that I'm in love with it every day. I mean, it's changed the planet's life.

SHATNER: Absolutely. And there's no telling how many people are getting their education, learning to read, reading books. It might unlock all this potential that human beings have that [we] waste on war. So, if you can maintain this, “Where did this bread come from? My lord, it tastes good.” If you could just be aware of your life and its existence. You could find fault that you're not in a forest, living the natural life, but the life you can live here, of enlightenment and of kindness and of the poverty being eradicated, there's so much that is so miraculous and so worthy of pondering. Just ask yourself a question: “What am I doing? What am I doing? Get in the car.” What are you doing?

You have done an awful lot of conventions in your life. I have to know, do you have a preference between the cruise ship, Vegas, out-of-the-country? Are there certain locations that you're like, “Yes. Let’s do that?”

SHATNER: My basement would be great. I hate to leave home. It brings to mind, it’s not a convention but it’s a giant trip — I'm going to the Antarctic, Christmas week, with 250 people on a ship. There's still tickets available, and they're fairly expensive. It's a 10-day trip. It’s a voyage of a lifetime, and it's kind of Star Trek ie, and it has me and some other people who are identified in science fiction. It'll be enormously entertaining, but it leaves a couple of days before Christmas and goes to the Antarctic .

When you get offered something like that, is it an immediate yes? How much are you thinking about that before taking the trip? I mean, it's a big adventure.

SHATNER: I think that is a huge adventure to go to the Antarctic. They said, “Well, we'll pay you, and we'll give you cabins.” It was just so beautiful, the idea of spending 10 days with most of my family on that ship with those experiences — the polar bears and the penguins and the kayaks and the ice and the snow and the storms. So, that's gonna take place on Christmas Week.

I have done a cruise ship devoted to Star Trek with, I think, 2,000 people aboard the ship, and everybody interested in Star Trek . I never lose sight of the miracle of it. As much as it's sometimes, you know, “Hey, Captain Kirk…” and it's a little bit tedious, the miracle of Star Trek never leaves me .

It's what I said at the beginning, though. You and your fellow cast mates on the original show, and everyone who worked on it, influenced the entire planet, and it's not too often you can be a part of something like that. There are very few people on this planet that have done what you've done.

SHATNER: Well, it's, it's a phenomenon. Star Trek is a phenomenon with all its reiterations and people connected. It’s incredible.

Over the years, not so much anymore, but years ago there was a competition between whether or not you were a Star Trek fan or a Star Wars fan. There was always a little bit of a rivalry. Have you ever actually been asked to be on any Star Wars thing at all?

SHATNER: Not really. That would be taking it out of the reality of the show, and doing a gag, in the same way doing a cameo role is show-busy. It's not true to the nature of the show, so I've turned those down. But I don't look at any of the Star Trek s, including, I've got some buddies on The Next Generation , and I haven't really seen any of their shows. I just don't watch Star Trek . And there's a number of shows I've never watched that I'm in.

In All the Galaxy, William Shatner Just Wants to Be Home

Getting back to what I said earlier, which is, you've been fortunate to travel this world, is there a location on this planet that you've been to that really inspired you, or something that you really wanna tell people, “If you have the opportunity, you should go there?”

SHATNER: Well, the answer to where I want to go is my home. I've got a lovely home on a hill. I'm looking over the San Fernando Valley. I've got two dogs, they've got their places. We've got the house pretty much up to snuff, and it's a haven. Whenever I have to leave, it's onerous. But if you're suggesting what other place would I go, it would have to be where I didn't have to get dressed up. I could be like this and talk to people like I'm talking to you, and sort of do one-on-one, and have it very peaceful around me. It suggests Hawaii.

[Laughs] Hawaii is very nice, and not too far from California.

SHATNER: Right.

You have done so many different roles in your career. Obviously, many people have seen Star Trek , but if someone has actually never seen anything you've done before, what is the first thing you'd like them watching and why?

SHATNER: Well, I can't put a judgment on how good it was or how good I was in it, but when I'm asked a question about what I've done, I did a one-man show on Broadway, [ Shatner's World: We Just Live in It ]. The one-man show is literally that — no dancing girls, no music, no other entertaining aspects. It's you. Whether you're telling jokes or telling stories, it's you and the audience. I made that connection in New York, and I toured with quite a few places for some months afterwards. That's probably as tough an assignment and as well-worked out as it became. So that one-man show, there’s film on it. I haven't released it, actually, but there's a one-man show out there.

I’ve heard of this company called Legion M. Just something to think about.

SHATNER: [Laughs] Imagine somebody coming up and saying, “We're not gonna ask the public for financing, self-financing. We're gonna say to the public, ‘If you give us money, you're investing in the company. You'll invest in the movie you want to invest in, and in our company. As a result of which, if we make money, you'll make money. If we don't make money, none of us get paid.’” That's their premise, and I was struck by it. That was one of the reasons I decided to do this documentary.

And perhaps a way to release your one man show. Just a thought.

What Is StoryFile, and Why Should Future 'Star Trek' Fans Care?

A number of years ago, we actually spoke and you told me you had spent days recording answers to tons of questions so that one day, when you're not here anymore, people could actually talk with you, or something along those lines. How did that project turn out? Is it done? Have you seen a beta version of it?

SHATNER: It's done, and it's called StoryFile . I did five days in front of a camera, 3D and AI. They've put it into a housing, which you can press a button, ask a question and the machine answers whatever the question is. Since I fed that AI computer five days worth of answers to questions that I was being asked, it's likely that one of the questions you asked me has been asked and the machine will spout it out. If you ask a question that hasn't been asked, that machine will collate what has been answered in other questions, and, in all likelihood, provide an answer. So, it's question/answer.

Is it in person or is it something that they're still working on?

SHATNER: No, no. You can buy it.

You Can Call Me Bill is now on VOD. Check it out on Amazon.

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William Shatner in tears after historic space flight: ‘I’m so filled with emotion’

Star Trek actor, 90, says ‘I hope I never recover from this’ after becoming oldest human in space on Jeff Bezos rocket New Shepard

The Star Trek actor William Shatner declared himself “overwhelmed” at becoming the oldest human in space, at the age of 90, during a brief but successful second crewed flight on Wednesday of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship from the west Texas desert.

The Canadian, who for four decades played Captain James Kirk, the fearless commander of the USS Enterprise, broke down in tears at the landing site as he described to the private space company’s founder, the Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos , the profundity of his almost 11-minute leap to the stars.

“I hope I never recover from this,” Shatner said following his touchdown in the company of three civilian crew mates.

“I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened. It’s extraordinary, extraordinary. It’s so much larger than me and life. It hasn’t got anything to do with the little green men and the blue orb. It has to do with the enormity and the quickness and the suddenness of life and death.

“To see the blue color whip by you, and now you’re staring into blackness … everybody in the world needs to do this. Everybody in the world needs to see this.”

In a tweet Shatner programmed to post during his flight, he likened himself previously as “a boy playing on the seashore … whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me”.

Bezos, who has sold $100m in tickets for future rides and aims to dominate the fledgling space tourism industry, acted as chauffeur for Shatner and his colleagues on this morning’s short drive from Blue Origin’s crew headquarters to the launchpad in Van Horn. Blue Origin did not divulge their ticket prices for Wednesday’s flight. Shatner was invited to ride for free.

The 57-year-old billionaire Bezos, who was aboard the maiden crewed flight of his own spaceship in July, posed at the launch site for photographs and closed the hatch after the crew entered the capsule about an hour before the 9.49am CT (3.49pm BST) blast-off into the clear blue Texas sky.

“I guess that’s it, huh?” Shatner said, realizing he was about to experience real-life space travel after decades of fictional intergalactic voyaging.

Bezos, who used to pretend to be Captain Kirk when playing with his siblings as children, was also the first to greet the crew after their return, reopening the hatch and dipping his head into the capsule with the greeting: “Hello astronauts. Welcome to Earth.”

Blue Origin workers followed up by dousing the crew with champagne once they had emerged.

Wednesday’s flight, named Mission NS-18, the 18th flight overall for the capsule named for Alan Shepard, the first American in space in 1961, was pushed back a day from Tuesday because of strong winds, and further delayed from its scheduled time of 8.30am by unspecified rocket issues.

Shatner captured the mantle of oldest space traveler from Wally Funk, an 82-year-old former test pilot who flew with Bezos. “Together we’ll cross new boundaries and set new records. Godspeed,” said Funk, who trained as a Nasa astronaut in the 1960s but never flew, in a pre-flight message read to the crew.

“This is a pinch-me moment for all of us to see Capt. James Tiberius Kirk go to space,” Blue Origin launch commentator Jacki Cortese said before liftoff. She said she, like so many others, was drawn to the space business by shows like Star Trek .

Jeff Bezos’s brother Mark, a third member of the July crew, was more succinct. “You lucky bastards,” he said.

The US space agency Nasa also tweeted a good luck message to Shatner. “We wish you all the best on your flight to space. You are, and always shall be, our friend,” it said.

After separation from its booster rocket, the New Shepard capsule reached a maximum altitude of 66.5 miles, beyond the 100km (62-mile) Kármán Line recognized internationally as the boundary of space, giving the crew three to four minutes of weightlessness.

After reentering the atmosphere, the capsule fell back to earth and made a gentle touchdown guided by three parachutes almost 10 minutes and 30 seconds after lift-off. New Shepard’s reusable booster landed again safely after almost eight minutes in flight.

Shatner’s three fellow passengers were Audrey Powers, a Blue Origin executive; Chris Boshuizen, a former Nasa engineer and founder of the satellite earth imaging company Planet Labs; and Glen de Vries, chief executive of the clinical research firm Medidata Solutions.

Blue Origin aims to offer regular suborbital space rides for paying passengers from next year and has a booking form on its website for seats in the six-person New Shepard capsule.

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