William Alan Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian double Emmy-, Golden Globe-, and Saturn Award-winning actor. He gained worldwide fame for playing Captain James Tiberius Kirk, captain of the starship USS Enterprise, in the television series Star Trek from 1966 to 1969, the animated series and in seven of the subsequent movies. He has written a series of books chronicling his experiences playing James T. Kirk and being a part of Star Trek as well as several co-written novels set in the Star Trek universe.

Shatner also played the title role as veteran police sergeant T.J. Hooker, from 1982 to 1986. He has since worked as a musician, bestselling author, producer, director, and celebrity pitchman, most recently as the "Negotiator" for the Priceline.com travel website. He currently co-stars as attorney Denny Crane on the television drama Boston Legal, for which he has won two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award.

Early life

William Shatner was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the son of Anna (née Garmaise) and Joseph Shatner, a clothing manufacturer. His paternal grandfather, Wolf Schattner, shortened the family name to "Shatner".[http://home.comcast.net/~pschattner/Schattner.html Schattner Genealogy Page ] Shatner's grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Poland and Hungary,http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c44_a11930/The_Arts/Books.html and Shatner was raised in Conservative Judaism. He attended Willingdon Elementary School, in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce in Montreal, Quebec, and earned a Bachelor's degree in commerce from Montreal's McGill University in 1952 .

Early stage, film, and television work

Trained as a classical Shakespearean actor, Shatner performed at the Shakespearean Stratford Festival of Canada in Stratford, Ontario. He played a range of Shakespearean roles at the Stratford Festival in productions that included Shakespeare's Henry V and Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great. Shatner made his Broadway debut in the latter. In 1954, he was cast as Ranger Bill on the Canadian version of the Howdy Doody Show.

Though his official movie debut was in the 1951 Canadian film entitled The Butler's Night Off, Shatner's first feature role came in the 1958 MGM film The Brothers Karamazov with Yul Brynner, in which he starred as the youngest of the Karamazov brothers, Alexei. In 1959, he received decent reviews when he took on the role of Robert Lomax in the Broadway production of The World of Suzie Wong. In 1961, he starred in the Broadway play A Shot in the Dark opposite Julie Harris and directed by Harold Clurman. Walter Matthau (who won a Tony Award for his performance) and Gene Saks were also featured in this play. Shatner also starred in two episodes of the NBC television series Boris Karloff's Thriller, "Grim Reaper" and "The Hungry Glass".