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Narrative
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"Has been implies failure. Not so. Has been is history. Has been was. Has been... might again."
One of the most charming largest hams of all time. Most well known for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek The Original Series, he has offered an assortment of impossibly intense, emotive performances, often including oddly placed emphasis and pauses. His recitation of the Preamble to the US Constitution in the episode "The Omega Glory" is legendary: "WEEEEE . . . the PEEEE-ple!— William Shatner, "Has Been"
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As if his broad over-acting weren't bad enough, he also saw fit to record an album of spoken-word readings of poetry and pop-song lyrics called The Transformed Man that has to be heard to be believed. His renditions of "Mr. Tamborine Man" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" are particularly legendary and inspired the Golden Throats compilations of bad celebrity music recordings. An equally jaw-dropping video rendition of "Rocket Man" became a favorite bit of nonsense for David Letterman years later. In recent years he has done this with speeches and writings by Sarah Palin and the father of her grandson, Levi Johnson.
An ego the size of his native Canada also did not help his reputation among his co-stars.
In more recent years, Shatner has redeemed himself somewhat by developing a sense of humor and being willing to poke fun at himself. This has included playing a ludicrous version of himself in the film Free Enterprise, and parodying his "musical" stylings in a series of commercials and a new, well-received recording with Ben Folds ("Has Been"). He also appears in the videos for the Brad Paisley songs "Online" ("What? I can't sing?"), and "Celebrity". ("I liked the end of the song. No, the end, when you stopped singing. I liked that part.")
Not to mention his famed "Get A Life" sketch on Saturday Night Live were he berated Trek fans for living in their parent's basement.
Shatner has also developed a moderately successful reputation as a writer, starting with two autobiographies about his time with Star Trek that may have started his redemption; in the books, he faithfully recounts the brutal interviews he held with his former co-stars, who, one after another, lambasted him for being such an overbearing jerk, and admits to being humbled by the experience. His latest book is an autobiography titled Up Till Now, which is actually really funny, partly because he spends a great deal of it mischeivously poking fun at himself, but mostly because Shatner is actually an extremely good (and funny) non-fiction writer.
Shatner also starred as a cop in TJ Hooker, and was one of the core cast of Boston Legal. He has also dabbled in Reality TV, hosting Rescue 911 and the UPN version of Iron Chef. His popular Tekwar novels were adapted into a short-lived series, in which he played a supporting role. On the A&E Channel in 2008 he began Shatners Raw Nerve, an intimate interview show (No studio audience) where he talks with guest much like a news interview but done in a much more casual and friendly setting.
He also got first billing on several Star Trek novels (known as the "Shatnerverse" as it apparently has its own continuity separate from that of other Trek novels) that were actually largely authored by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, though the later books of the series have more of Shatner's influence— and it shows. In these books Kirk comes Back From The Dead and becomes even more of a Marty Stu. Kirk was also a Marty Stu in the Shatner-directed Star Trek V The Final Frontier, which opens with
, in which all of Shatner's characters come into our world to destroy the original.
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