 This is the SF Productions podcast network This is our business. That's what the starship's all about. That's why we're aboard her From the pop culture bunker. I'm Nindy and I'm mark you can check out our audio podcast How I got my we've three comics on itunes or on our website SF podcast network comm Sign for another TV legend retrospective and this time. It's James Tiberius Kirk himself William Shatner Actor writer director musician and horse enthusiast William Shatner was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada to a Jewish family all his grandparents emigrated from Europe After getting a degree in economics He got a job as a business manager at the Canadian National Repertory Theater where he ended up training as a Shakespearean actor He moved on to Ontario's Stratford Shakespeare Festival playing roles in edifice rex Henry the Fifth and Tambor Lane the Great the latter becoming his first Broadway work his first film and TV work We're also in Canada in the film butler's night off in 1951 and Ranger Bob in their version of howdy-duty 1954 later getting a recurring role in the Canadian anthology series encounter Moving to America. He got a role in the film the brothers Karamazov in 1958 while doing a lot of live TV dramas and anthologies He got a regular role in a version of Nero Wolf, but it only lasted a few episodes He returned to Broadway and got good reviews in the world of Susie Wong and a shot in the dark He was originally considered to be in the same class as Paul Newman or Steve McQueen, but his work attitude He would always say yes Impacted a possible film career He did get a significant role in the film judgment at Nuremberg, but then went back to TV but he did happen to do two classic Twilight Zone episodes Nick of Time and Nightmare at 20,000 feet. There's a man on the wing of the plane as well as an Outer Limits episode called cold hands warm heart the latter might have indicated the Trajectory of his later career because he played a returning astronaut from Project Vulcan More TV guest roles followed along with a co-starring role on for the people as an assistant DA It only ran 13 episodes, but his co-star was a 24-year-old Jessica Walter in 1966 He starred in a very strange film called Incubus Leslie Stevens the creator of the Outer Limits wanted to do a moody other worldly film So all the dialogue is in Esperanto a constructed language with no native speakers cinematographer Conrad Hall would go on to win three Oscars for a butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid American Beauty and Road to Perdition But for some reason no expert on Esperanto was on the set and there are many mispronunciations The film was considered lost for decades, but a copy was found in France in 1996 Shatner was then cast in his signature role on Star Trek a show that would run for three seasons and typecast him for years He was of course the second actor to play the captain the first pilot starred Jeffrey Hunter Who then moved on to films and unfortunately died at a fairly young age? We could talk about Star Trek for several episodes and not even scratch the surface that we're not going to yes After the show's cancellation Shatner found very little work at one point He lived in a camper out on a beach and took any jobs he could to support his family He had actually divorced his first wife during the series. He's been married four times By the mid 70s. He was starring in schlock films like big bad mama The devil's reign and horror at 37,000 feet. He was also doing tv guest spots and game shows He was apparently the first choice to host family feud, but it went to Richard Dawson He also did commercials notably for promise margaret promise Jean Roddenberry the creator of star trek found a way to bring the show back In a way the animated series aired for 22 episodes on saturday morning tv with the voices of Shatner and most of the Original cast Walter canik aka check off was excluded to save money There are actually a few decent episodes due to the use of the original show writers But there is a lot of goofiness Shatner got another starring opportunity in the western slash secret agent show barbary coast But it only lasted 14 episodes from what i've seen of that. It was basically the wild wild west except in san francisco By the late 70s the omnipresence of star trek syndication had created a new generation of fans And a new trek tv series was in pre-production. It was called star trek phase two And then star wars hit the silver screen the tv show was scrapped and production began on star trek the motion picture by the way One of the reasons that the motion picture was the most expensive film to that point about 40 million dollars Is that it included the cost for the entire tv series Scripts have been written sets had been built costumes have been made casting was completed by the way Some of the scripts for that show ended up being reused in star trek the next generation And an attempted tv movie which ended up morphing into the theatrical film all of that was built into the cost of the movie This would lead to a series of seven films with shatner from 1979 to 1994 Suddenly shatner was a bankable star again, and he parlayed that into what is his second best known role tj hooker a police series which ran from 1982 to 86 He started his directing career there doing 10 episodes. He also directed the fifth film Which most considered to be the weakest of the set. He won razzies as both actor and director He followed that up as the host of documentary series rescue 911 Shatner then branched out as the author of a series of tech war sci-fi novels It's generally believed all were ghost written Which he turned into a series of tv movies and a short run tv series where he also made appearances He also wrote a series of autobiographies Mostly surrounding his work on star trek star trek memories star trek movie memories get a life up till now And many sci-fi novels Co-written with others he scored appearances in the sandra bullock miss congeniality franchise as a beauty pageant host And he actually hosted the real miss usa pageant during that time Two other movies during that period were osmosis jones and dodge ball A planned appearance on star trek enterprise was canceled along with the series His work as a pitchman for price line dot com got the attention of david e kelly Who created the eccentric attorney denny crane for his series the practice and spinoff boston legal with one me for shatner on each series Rumors of a shatner appearance in the jj abram star trek reboot were likely just that rumors There was also a short run cbs sitcom called Stuff my dad says playing the dad because you know a show based on a twitter account will be a hit He has also been a frequent narrator of tv and film documentaries and got involved in music videos and graphic novels Shander also had a number of interviews series none of which ran for more than a handful of episodes His latest tv project is better late than never where he and three other Legends henry winkler terry bredshaw and george foreman travel the world and act as ugly americans And of course we can't forget shatner the singer He's infamous for his spoken word performances covering famous songs to the point of many many parodies He did six original albums between 1968 and 2013 When he's not doing all of these things He's a champion horse breeder and presenter of quarter horses with a 360 acre farm in kentucky His various awards at least once we haven't already mentioned Two saturday awards and that's for science fiction one golden globe. He's in the tv hall of fame He got a nasa distinguished service medal the hollywood and canada walks of fame in the order of canada He is imdb credits 239 as an actor 18 as a writer 23 as a producer and 407 as himself At age 86 he's still going strong But the biggest joke on that new series is that shatner's gonna die in one of the countries they visit They're betting on it I don't know if i'd like that So if you like william shatner you should keep watching him He probably needs the money Yeah And in the meantime you can check out our audio podcast how i got my wife dream comics on itunes or on our website sfpodcastnetwork.com from the pop culture bunker. I'm indy and i'm mark. Thanks for watching