Full Name: William Shatner; Profession: Canadian actor, director, author, producer, singer, and recording artist with a career spanning seven decades across television, film, stage, and music; Nationality: Canadian; Born: March 22, 1931; Birthplace: Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Generation: Silent Generation (1928–1945); Chinese Zodiac: Goat (Metal Goat); Zodiac Sign: Aries; Age in 2026: 95; Marital Status: Divorced (married four times—first to Canadian actress Gloria Rand from 1956 to 1969, second to actress Marcy Lafferty from 1973 to 1996, third to model Nerine Kidd from 1997 to 1999, who tragically drowned in the couple's pool in Studio City, California, due to alcoholism, and fourth to horse breeder Elizabeth Anderson Martin from 2001 to 2020 with reported reconciliation in 2025); Children: Three daughters—Leslie Anne Shatner, Lisabeth Shatner, and Melanie Shatner, all from his first marriage to Gloria Rand; Description: William Shatner OC is one of the most iconic and enduring figures in the history of popular culture, a Canadian-born entertainer whose seven-decade career has spanned virtually every medium of creative expression and whose global cultural footprint is virtually unmatched among performers of his generation — born into a Conservative Jewish household in Montreal to Ann née Garmaise and Joseph Shatner a clothing manufacturer whose family roots traced back to Jewish immigrant communities in Ukraine and Lithuania, the young Shatner attended Willingdon Elementary School and West Hill High School and performed at the Montreal Children's Theatre before earning a Bachelor of Commerce degree from McGill University's Faculty of Management in 1952 after which he launched a stage career that took him from the Mountain Playhouse in Montreal and the Canadian National Repertory Theatre in Ottawa to the prestigious Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario where legendary director Tyrone Guthrie identified him as the most promising young actor in the company and where he understudied the great Christopher Plummer in Henry V memorably stepping in for a full performance when Plummer was felled by a kidney stone and impressing all who witnessed it with his boldness and originality, Shatner made his Broadway debut in 1956 in Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great and quickly built a reputation on American television with appearances on Alfred Hitchcock. Presents The Twilight Zone, where he starred in the now-legendary episodes Nick of Time (1960) and Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (1963), as well as Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). The Brothers Karamazov (1958) The World of Suzie Wong (1959 Broadway run for which he won the Theatre World Award) Roger Corman's The Intruder (1962) and many others before securing the role that would define his legacy and propel him to immortality—Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the starship USS Enterprise in Gene Roddenberry's groundbreaking science fiction series Star Trek, which premiered on NBC on September 8, 1966, and ran for three seasons and 79 episodes, transforming Shatner into a global superstar and earning him a place in television history not merely as an entertainer but as a cultural pioneer, given that the show tackled civil rights, war, and social injustice in ways that American network television had never dared before, and the interracial kiss between Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura played by Nichelle Nichols in the November 22, 1968, episode Plato's Stepchildren is widely cited as the first kiss between a white man and a black woman ever depicted on scripted American television. After the original series was cancelled in 1969, Shatner endured a period of severe professional hardship during which he was so financially reduced that he was forced to live in a truck-bed camper between theater engagements. He survived through B-movies, game show appearances, commercials for brands such as Loblaws and Oldsmobile, and guest spots on popular TV series before the resurrection of Star Trek, via a massive fan movement, brought him back to the bridge for seven feature films, beginning with Star Trek. The Motion Picture (1979) and culminating in Star Trek Generations (1994), in which Captain Kirk makes his legendary self-sacrificial final exit—Shatner himself directed the fifth installment Star Trek V The Final Frontier (1989), a contractual right he had negotiated to achieve parity with co-star Leonard Nimoy who had directed the fourth film; in 1982 he launched a second iconic television chapter as the tough veteran police sergeant T.J. Hooker which ran for five seasons and 91 episodes alongside Heather Locklear; hosted the long-running reality dramatic series Rescue 911 from 1989 to 1996; appeared memorably in the NBC comedy 3rd Rock from the Sun as the alien Big Giant Head earning an Emmy nomination; and delivered what many critics consider his finest dramatic work as the brilliantly eccentric attorney Denny Crane in the legal dramas The Practice (2003–2004) and Boston Legal (2004–2008) for which he won two Emmy Awards—one for each show—as well as a Golden Globe Award in 2005 and earned additional Emmy nominations through 2009, making him one of only a handful of actors ever to win Emmy Awards for playing the same character in two different television series. His other notable screen credits include Miss Congeniality (2000) and its sequel, Airplane II. The Sequel (1982), Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), the voice of Ozzie in DreamWorks' Over the Hedge (2006) and Kazar in Disney's The Wild (2006) and a later career arc that included the travel reality series Better Late Than Never (2016–2018), the supernatural documentary series The UnXplained on History Channel (2019–2023) and an appearance on The Masked Singer Season 8 in 2022 as the Knight. as an author Shatner created the hugely popular TekWar science fiction franchise with nine novels beginning in 1989, adapted into TV movies and a series a broad range of Star Trek Shatnerverse novels written with Judith and Garfield. Reeves-Stevens numerous non-fiction books include Star Trek Memories (1993), Up Till Now: The Autobiography (2008), David Fisher Leonard (2016), a deeply personal tribute to his late friend and co-star Leonard Nimoy, and Boldly Go (2022). As a recording artist, Shatner pioneered an idiosyncratic speak-sing performance style beginning with his 1968 debut album. The Transformed Man which featured his now-legendary dramatic recitations of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and Mr. Tambourine Man and continuing through a prolific discography including Has Been (2004, produced by Ben Folds featuring a legendary cover of Pulp's Common People with Joe Jackson) Seeking Major Tom (2011 featuring covers of Bohemian Rhapsody Space Oddity and Learning to Fly with collaborators including Brian May Peter Frampton Brad Paisley and Zakk Wylde) Ponder the Mystery (2013), Why Not Me (2018) Shatner Claus (2018), The Blues (2020, which reached number one on the Billboard Blues Chart) and Bill (2021). on October 13, 2021, at the age of 90, Shatner became the oldest human being ever to travel to space when he flew aboard Blue Origin's NS-18 suborbital mission making him one of the first 600 people in history to leave Earth's atmosphere and famously describing a profound and emotional experience of the overview effect upon his return. a lifelong equestrian, Shatner bred and showed American Saddlebred and Quarter Horses at his Belle Reve Farm in Kentucky, founding the annual Hollywood Charity Horse Show in 1990 to benefit children's charities and earning numerous championship titles and lifetime achievement awards from equestrian organizations. In recognition of his extraordinary contributions to popular culture, philanthropy, and Canadian national identity, Shatner was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2019 and holds honorary Doctorates of Letters from McGill University (2011) and New England Institute of Technology (2018) as well as a star on both the Hollywood Walk of Fame (awarded in 1983 as the 1,762nd star) and Canada's Walk of Fame. He is also a recipient of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Governor General's Performing Arts Award, and the Saturn Award for Lifetime Achievement (2025). He has been inducted into the Television Hall of Fame (2006) and the WWE Celebrity Hall of Fame (2020), among numerous other honors. Known for his sharp wit, his outsized personality, his unwavering work ethic, and his ability to reinvent himself across every era of entertainment, William Shatner stands as one of the most beloved and celebrated figures in the history of twentieth- and twenty-first-century popular culture and remains alive and professionally active as of 2026.