William Shatner biography

Together they tried to stop a villain named Soran from setting off a bomb that would wipe out a sun and an entire solar system with it. But, unfortunately, Kirk died while completing this mission.

New Directions

With the character of Kirk at an end, Shatner moved forward in new directions. He appeared as a beauty pageant host on Miss Congeniality (2000) and its sequel Miss Congeniality 2 (2005) with Sandra Bullock. In 2003, Shatner made a guest appearance as a talented, but eccentric lawyer on The Practice. His turn as Denny Crane brought him his first Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2004. He had been previously nominated for his guest appearance on the science fiction sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun in 1999.

The Practice creator David E. Kelley created a spin-off series, Boston Legal, featuring Shatner's character Denny Crane in 2004. Law partner and master litigator Crane acts as a mentor of sorts to Alan Shore (played by James Spader). For his work on the series, Shatner won his second Emmy—this time for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series—in 2005. Two nominations in this category followed in 2006 and in 2007.

In 2008, Shatner began work on Shatner's Raw Nerve a celebrity interview program on the Biography Channel. During the show's run, Shatner has spoken with a variety of guests, including Valerie Bertinelli, Rush Limbaugh and Jenna Jameson. In addition to hosting Raw Nerve, Shatner is working on another Biography Channel project entitled Aftermath with William Shatner. The program, which premiered in the summer of 2010, focuses on the stories of ordinary citizens who became overnight celebrities. Also in 2010, Shatner starred in the CBS sitcom $#*! My Dad Says, a show based on a Twitter feed of the same name.

In addition to acting, Shatner has experienced great success as an author. During the writers' strike of 1987, he transformed a screenplay idea into a novel. The result was TekWar (1989), a work of science fiction featuring a middle-aged private detective working in the twenty-second century. More Tek titles followed and were later adapted for television. More recently, Shatner has worked with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens to create a series of Star Trek novels.

Also a veteran of nonfiction, Shatner co-authored Star Trek Memories (1993) and Star Trek Movie Memories (1994) with Chris Kreski. He and Kreski also worked together on Get a Life! (1999), a look at the whole Star Trek fan phenomenon. His most recent work is Up Till Now: The Autobiography (2008) with David Fisher.

Personal Life

His personal life has been filled with many ups and downs. From 1956 to 1969, he was married to Canadian actress Gloria Rand. The couple had three children together. Shatner married actress Marcy Lafferty in 1973. That marriage ended in divorce in 1996. Shortly thereafter, he married model Nerine Kidd.