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 Les frères Karamazov (1958). He was kept busy during the 1960s in films such as Jugement à Nuremberg (1961) and The Intruder (1962) and on television guest-starring in dozens of series such as Alfred Hitchcock présente (1955), Les accusés (1961), Au-delà du réel (1963) and La quatrième dimension (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 Hawaï, police d'état (1968), Docteur Marcus Welby (1969) and L'homme de fer (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 Rio Hondo (1968) and the campy L'horrible invasion (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, le film (1979), Star trek II - La colère de Khan (1982), Star trek III - À la recherche de Spock (1984), Star Trek IV - Retour sur Terre (1986), Star trek V - L'ultime frontière (1989) and Star trek VI - Terre inconnue (1991). In addition, he starred in the lightweight police series Hooker (1982) from 1982 to 1986, alongside spunky Heather Locklear, and surprised many fans with his droll comedic talents in Y a-t-il enfin un pilote dans l'avion? (1982), Alarme fatale (1993) and Miss Détective (2000).
He has most recently been starring in the David E. Kelley television series The practice: Bobby Donnell & associés (1997) and its spin-off Boston Justice (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.
