William Shatner

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Birthday:

22 March 1931, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Height:

177 cm

William Shatner has notched up an impressive 50-plus years in front of the camera, most recently displaying 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, Montreal, Canada, to Anne (Garmaise) and Joseph Shatner, a clothing manufacturer. His father was a Jewish immigrant 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 on major shows in 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 as "Trekkies".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 Comanche blanco (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: 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' Programme to promote nutritional and physical health. Show less «

[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 ...Show more »

[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?". Show less «

[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 g...Show more »

[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! Show less «

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, Su...Show more »

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! Show less «

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)

On what money means to him: For the longest time, I could never get ahead more than a few hundred dollars, no matter how well I did or what ...Show more »

On what money means to him: For the longest time, I could never get ahead more than a few hundred dollars, no matter how well I did or what job I got, and no matter how hard I tried to pare expenses down. With three kids, it was always very, very tight, and it was always a scramble for what was my next job. So I learned never to go into debt because I don't want those monthly payments to preoccupy my thoughts. I never spend more than what I can afford, and I don't owe anything. Show less «

On his most memorable money mistake: When I was a young actor at Canada's Stratford Festival, one of the older actors told me that Canadian ...Show more »

On his most memorable money mistake: When I was a young actor at Canada's Stratford Festival, one of the older actors told me that Canadian uranium is the future and you must buy into it. So I bought it on Thursday with the entire $500 I had saved. The following day, the Canadian prime minister said the country would no longer buy uranium. I was wiped out. It actually hurt my performance on stage. Since then, I've led a very conservative financial life. Show less «

I'm not going to have a tombstone. I'm going to be tossed in the air. Ashes, tossed like a salad.

[on the popularity of Star Trek (1966)] It has action-adventure, with lots of fights and villains, so the kids like it. On another level, we...Show more »

[on the popularity of Star Trek (1966)] It has action-adventure, with lots of fights and villains, so the kids like it. On another level, we deal with a philosophical concept - that what's alien isn't necessarily evil - so we reach their parents. Many of our episodes deal with scientific concepts, so our program entertains the technicians and space scientists. And with the hippies, we have a far-out show. They think we're psychedelic. Show less «

[on the pyrotechnic opening to the 2012 Juno Awards] Sure there were flames, but if the drummer survived, what's the point?

[on the death of Leonard Nimoy] I loved him like a brother. We will all miss his humor, his talent and his capacity to love.