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William Alan Shatner (born on March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor
who gained fame for playing James Tiberius Kirk of the USS Enterprise in the
television show Star Trek from 1966 to 1969 and in seven of the subsequent
movies.
Shatner has written a series of books chronicling his experiences
playing James T. Kirk and being a part of Star Trek. He 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 notably for Priceline.com. He currently
co-stars as attorney Denny Crane on the television drama Boston Legal, for which he
has won an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award.
 Early life
Shatner was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada to Joseph Shatner, a clothing
manufacturer, and Anna Garmaise. All four of Shatner's grandparents were Jewish
immigrants from Eastern Europe; his paternal grandfather, Wolf Schattner, shortened
the family name to "Shatner". He attended Willingdon Elementary School, in
Notre-Dame-de-Grâce in Montreal, Quebec, and earned in 1952 a Bachelor's degree in
commerce from Montreal's McGill University (the Student Union building of which was
renamed The Shatner Building in 1993 following a referendum by the Student Union;
although used by many students, the name is not officially recognized by the
university, which still refers to the building as Student Union Building).
Family and other
ventures
Shatner has been married four times; to Gloria Rand from
1956 to 1969, Marcy Lafferty from 1973 to 1994, Nerine Kidd from 1997 to 1999,
and his current wife Elizabeth Martin whom he married in 2001. Shatner has
three daughters, Leslie Carol (b. 1958), Lisabeth Mary (b. 1960), and Melanie
(b. 1964), from his marriage to Rand. Melanie had a brief career as an actress
and is now the proprietor of Dari, an upscale women's clothing boutique. In
his spare time, Shatner enjoys breeding and showing American Saddlebreds and
Quarter Horses. Shatner has a 360-acre (1.5 km²) horse farm in Kentucky named
Bellreve, where he raises the winning horses.
He is Joel Gretsch's father-in-law; Gretsch is married to Shatner's daughter,
Melanie Shatner and father of his two grandaughters, Kaya and Willow.
On August 9, 1999, Shatner returned home around 10 p.m. to discover the body of his
wife Nerine at the bottom of their back yard swimming pool. Alcohol and Valium were
detected in an autopsy, and a coroner ruled the death an accidental drowning. The
LAPD ruled out foul play and the case has been long closed. Speaking to the press
shortly after his wife's death, a clearly shaken Shatner said that she "meant
everything" to him and he called her his "beautiful soulmate."
In 2000 a Reuters story reported that Shatner was planning to write and direct The
Shiva Club, a dark comedy about the grieving process inspired by his wife's death.
The project is still in pre-production. Shatner's 2004 album Has Been produced with
Ben Folds included a spoken word piece titled "What Have You Done" which describes
his anguish upon discovering his wife's body in the pool.
Source : Some of the information on
this page came from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU
Documentation License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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William
Shatner - Projector - Biography
