Topic: William Shatner

William Alan Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor, recording artist, and author. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T. Kirk, captain of the USS Enterprise, in the science fiction television series Star Trek from 1966 to 1969, Star Trek: The Animated Series from 1973 to 1974, and in seven of the subsequent Star Trek feature films from 1979 to 1994. He has written a series of books chronicling his experiences playing Captain Kirk and being a part of Star Trek and has co-written several novels set in the Star Trek universe. He has also authored a series of science fiction novels called TekWar that were adapted for television.

Shatner also played the eponymous veteran police sergeant in T. J. Hooker from 1982 to 1986. He has since worked as a musician, author, producer, director, and celebrity pitchman. From 2004 to 2008, he starred as attorney Denny Crane in the television dramas The Practice and its spin-off Boston Legal, for which he won two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. Shatner currently stars in the CBS sitcom $#*! My Dad Says.

Shatner was born in Côte Saint-Luc, a neighbourhood in Montreal, Quebec, the son of Anne (née Garmaise) and Joseph Shatner, a clothing manufacturer. He has two sisters, Joy and Farla. His paternal grandfather, Wolf Schattner, anglicized the family name to "Shatner". Shatner's grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Austria, Poland, Hungary, and Ukraine, and Shatner was raised in Conservative Judaism. He attended Willingdon Elementary School, in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG-Montreal) and Baron Byng High School, in Montreal, as well as West Hill High School in NDG. He is an alumnus of the Montreal Children's Theatre. He also attended McGill University in Montreal. The Students' Society of McGill University building on McTavish Street is popularly (though not officially) named "Shatner".