William Shatner

William Shatner, born on March 22, 1931, in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, is a Canadian actor whose career has spanned seven decades across stage, film, and television. He was born into a Conservative Jewish household to Ann (née Garmaise) and Joseph Shatner, a clothing manufacturer. The middle of three children, he has an older sister, Joy Rutenberg (1928–2023), and a younger sister, Farla Cohen (born 1940). His family's patrilineal surname was originally Schattner, anglicized by his grandfather Wolf Schattner. All four of his grandparents were Jewish immigrants from settlements in Ukraine and Lithuania. Shatner attended Willingdon Elementary School and West Hill High School in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and was an alumnus of the Montreal Children's Theatre. He studied economics at McGill University's Faculty of Management, earning a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1952. McGill later awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Letters in 2011, and the New England Institute of Technology granted him the same distinction in May 2018.

Shatner's acting career began while he was still a college student, with a small role in the 1951 Canadian comedy drama The Butler's Night Off, where he was credited as Bill Shatner. After graduating, he worked as an assistant manager and actor at the Mountain Playhouse in Montreal and the Canadian National Repertory Theatre in Ottawa before joining the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario. His festival work included a role in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, which led directly to his Broadway debut in 1956 in the melodrama Tamburlaine the Great. At Stratford he also appeared in a production of Sophocles's Oedipus Rex directed by Tyrone Guthrie, which introduced him to television audiences across Canada, and in Henry V, where he understudied Christopher Plummer as the king while playing the minor role of the Duke of Gloucester. When a kidney stone forced Plummer to withdraw from a performance, Shatner chose to present his own interpretation of the role rather than imitate his predecessor, a decision that impressed Plummer. Guthrie later recalled Shatner as the most promising actor his festival employed.

Shatner's Broadway career extended from 1956 to 2012. In 1959 he played the role of Lomax in The World of Suzie Wong, earning a Theatre World Award that year. He subsequently appeared in A Shot in the Dark and, decades later, returned to Broadway with Shatner's World: We Just Live in It. Before his Broadway breakthrough, he made his first appearance on American television in the children's program The Howdy Doody Show, where he created the role of Ranger Bob. His American television profile grew further with a leading role in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "The Glass Eye" during the series' 1957–58 season, and he appeared in two episodes of The Twilight Zone: "Nick of Time" in 1960 and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" in 1963.

Shatner is most widely recognized for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek franchise, a role he first took on in 1966 in the second pilot of the original Star Trek television series. He appeared as Kirk in all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series, 21 of the 22 episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series, and the first seven Star Trek feature films, with his final appearance in the role coming in Star Trek Generations in 1994. Outside of Star Trek, he played the title character in the television series T. J. Hooker from 1982 to 1986, hosted Rescue 911 from 1989 to 1996, guest starred on the detective series Columbo, and appeared in the 2000 comedy film Miss Congeniality. In seasons four and five of NBC's 3rd Rock from the Sun, he played the recurring character the Big Giant Head. From 2004 to 2008, he starred as attorney Denny Crane, first in the final season of The Practice and then throughout the entire run of its spinoff Boston Legal. That role earned him two Emmy Awards, one for each series. He also starred in both seasons of NBC's Better Late Than Never in 2016, 2017, and 2018, a travel series in which elderly celebrities toured East Asia and Europe.

Beyond acting, Shatner has pursued a career as a recording artist beginning with his 1968 album The Transformed Man. His recordings are characterized by dramatic spoken-word recitations of song lyrics rather than conventional vocal performances, with notable covers including the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man," and Elton John's "Rocket Man." His third album, Seeking Major Tom, released in 2011, was his most commercially successful and included spoken-word versions of Pink Floyd's "Learning to Fly," David Bowie's "Space Oddity," and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." Shatner has also authored books about his experiences in the Star Trek franchise, co-written novels set in that universe, and produced the TekWar science fiction novel series, which was later adapted for television.

In October 2021, Shatner flew aboard Blue Origin NS-18, a suborbital mission operated by Blue Origin. At 90 years of age, he became the oldest person to have flown in space at that time, and one of the first 600 individuals to do so. In 2024, Ed Dwight, also 90 but 48 days older than Shatner, flew on the suborbital Blue Origin NS-25 mission.