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Wililam Shatner is an actor best known for his role as Cpt. Kirk on StarTrek. He is the spokesperson for MyOuterspace.
William Shatner has cultivated a career that has spanned over 50 years as an Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor, director, producer, screenwriter, recording artist, author, and horseman. He is one of pop culture’s most recognizable figures, who has also established himself as a major Hollywood philanthropist.
Born in Montreal, Shatner developed an early interest in acting and started working professionally at the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) before reaching his teens. He found himself drawn to theater and eventually joined the Stratford Shakespeare Festival under Sir Tyrone Guthrie. Tamburlaine, one of the festival’s productions, moved to Broadway and Shatner was immediately noticed by the New York critics. He later returned to Canada and won the Tyrone Guthrie Award. During his time at Stratford, Shatner also wrote plays for the CBC. He moved to New York and was a part of television’s Golden Age, working on programs such as Playhouse 90 and Studio One. He made his film debut in 1957’s The Brothers Karamazov, followed by Judgment at Nuremburg and The Intruder. During the same period, he starred on Broadway in The World of Suzie Wong and A Shot in the Dark. He has since guest starred in several hundred television programs including classics such as The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Mission: Impossible. He also recurred on other staples including 77 Sunset Strip and Dr. Kildare before garnering an Emmy nomination for his appearances in 3rd Rock from the Sun.
In 1966, Shatner originated the role of “Captain James T. Kirk†in the television series Star Trek, which rocketed him to fame—but only after the show was cancelled and later re-launched in syndication. The series spawned a feature film franchise in which Shatner reprised the role of Captain Kirk in seven of the Stark Trek motion pictures.He has since appeared in other movies such as Airplane II: The Sequel, Loaded Weapon 1, Showtime and both installments of the Miss Congeniality franchise.
Shatner played the title role in the network television series hit T.J. Hooker before hosting television’s first reality-based series, Rescue 911, for six seasons. Since Rescue 911 first aired in 1989, over 300 lives have been saved by people who learned life-saving techniques from the show. He made his feature film directorial debut in 1989 with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (in which he also starred and helped conceive the story). Since then, he has directed several other features, television movies, and series. Most recently, he directed (as well as co-wrote, produced and starred in) Groom Lake, a picture about the mysterious area surrounding Roswell, New Mexico. Shatner was one of the first celebrities in Hollywood to recognize the importance of the Internet. Since April 1998, he has served as the spokesman for Priceline.com. His enduring appeal has proven to be an integral part of the company’s ad campaigns and brand marketing program. As the celebrity spokesperson for Priceline.com, he contributes his trademark sense of humor and entertaining style to the groundbreaking and humorous series of television and radio commercials. In September 2004, Shatner won an Emmy for his recurring role as eccentric law firm partner “Denny Crane†on The Practice, the David E. Kelley-created legal drama that finished its impressive run on ABC in 2004. Shatner has been reprising the role as a series regular on the hit ABC program Boston Legal. As a result, he won his first Golden Globe in January 2005 as well as another Emmy that September. He has been nominated twice since for Emmys and earned a second Golden Globe nod as well as a SAG Award nomination. Shatner traveled to Riverside, Iowa, which boasts itself as the “Future Birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk.†Shatner and a crew from Los Angeles filmed Invasion Iowa, a 2004 reality series in which an entire town was punked into believing that a sci-fi film was being shot there. Locals were hired on as cast and crew only to later discover that their reactions—not a movie—were being filmed. The series aired in March 2005 on Spike TV and was very well received by critics and audiences alike. Shatner’s Raw Nerve, which currently airs on the Biography channel, is his own edgy and off-beat celebrity interview series. In each episode, Shatner spends a half hour getting to know his guest on an intensely personal level and touch upon subjects not normally visited on other talk shows. Guests such as Valerie Bertinelli, Tim Allen, Jon Voight, Jenna Jameson, Jimmy Kimmel, and Kelsey Grammer have discussed topics such as addiction, grief, childhood, marriage, combat and parenthood. Shatner’s love and appreciation of music inspired him to go into the studio and record Has Been, a compilation of songs he recorded with such musical artists as Ben Folds (who also produced the record), Brad Paisley, Joe Jackson, Aimee Mann and Henry Rollins. The album features Shatner’s trademark vocalization and shows off his passion for poetry and lyricism. Has Been was released through Shout! Factory in October 2004. In March 2006, he produced and starred in a TV Land special entitled William Shatner in Concert, featuring highlights from concerts that he performed with several of Has Been’s guest artists. The music was woven into segments that followed Shatner in various everyday activities as well as some very special moments, such as the birth of one of his granddaughters. Early in 2007, the Milwaukee Ballet performed “Common People,†a dance presentation set to several numbers from Has Been. The event—as well its preparations—were filmed, and can be seen in the new documentary Gonzo Ballet. Spring 2008 marked the release of Shatner’s brand new recording, Exodus. In 2006, he produced and starred in another cable special, How William Shatner Changed the World, an Emmy-nominated documentary that aired on the History Channel and was based on his book I’m Working on That. The program goes in-depth to show how many of the gadgets used in the original Star Trek television series inspired and foreshadowed some of today’s technological staples such as cell phones and PDA devices.
Source: MyOuterspace
