Bottom 30 (1980) Placing: #4
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William Shatner is a native Canadian.
Born on March 22, 1931, in Montréal, he grew up
and attended Verdun High School and then studied commerce at McGill University
before getting the acting bug. This eventually prompted him to move to New York
in 1956. He initially worked in such live television dramatic shows as Studio
One and The United States Steel Hour in 1957 and 1958, as well as on Broadway.
His big screen debut soon followed as Alexei in the 1958 version of Dostoyevsky's
The Brothers Karamazov.
Throughout the 1960s, Shatner worked mostly in television. His most memorable
appearance came in a 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone entitled "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,"
in which he plays a terrified airline passenger unable to convince the crew that
there's a mysterious gremlin tearing apart the wing. He also appeared in such
films as Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and the bizarrely experimental Esperanto-language
horror film Incubus (1963). In 1966, he got his big break, though neither he nor
anyone else knew it at the time. Shatner was cast as the macho starship captain
James Kirk on Star Trek, commanding a crew that included an acerbic doctor, a
Scottish engineer, and a logician with pointy ears, on a mission "to boldly go
where no man has gone before." However, the show lasted only three seasons,
considered by many to be high camp. After providing a voice on the even
shorter-lived animated series in 1973, Shatner must have thought Star Trek too
would pass. A costly divorce and a lingering diva reputation from Star Trek left
him with few prospects or allies, forcing him to take whatever work came his way.
But in 1979, after a decade of B-movie labor in such films as The Kingdom of
Spiders (1977) and a second failed series (Barbary Coast, 1975-1976),
Shatner re-upped for another attempt to capitalize on the science fiction series with
Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This time it caught on, though the first film was
considered a costly disappointment. With dogged determination, the producers
continued onward with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), at which point
fans finally flocked to the series, rallying behind the film's crisp space battles
and the melodramatic tête-à-tête between Shatner and Ricardo Montalban.
Shatner had to wrestle with his advancing age and the deaths of several
characters in Star Trek II and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984),
but by Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), the actor got to indulge in his more
whimsical side, which has since characterized his career. As the series shifted
toward comedy, Shatner led the way, even serving as director of Star Trek V: The
Final Frontier (1989), which many considered among the series' weaker entries.
During this period, Shatner also began parodying himself in earnest, appearing as
host of Saturday Night Live in a famous sketch in which he tells a group of
Trekkies to "Get a life." He also turned in a wickedly energetic mockery of a moon
base captain in Airplane II: The Sequel (1982). Shatner made one final appearance
with the regular Star Trek cast in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991),
then served as one of the crossovers to the new series of films in Star Trek:
Generations (1994), in which endlessly theorizing fans finally learned the fate of
Captain Kirk.
The success of the Trek movies reenergized Shatner's TV career, even if it didn't
immediately earn him more film roles. Shatner played the title role on the
successful police drama T.J. Hooker from 1982 to 1987, directing some episodes,
then began hosting the medical reality series Rescue 911 in 1989. Shatner returned
to the movies with another parody, Loaded Weapon I, in 1993, and in 1994 began
directing, executive producing, and acting in episodes of the syndicated TV show
TekWar, based on the popular series of Trek-like novels he authored.
In the later '90s, Shatner was best known for his humorously out-there/priceline.com
ads, but also guested on a variety of TV shows, most notably as the "Big Giant
Head" on the lowbrow farce Third Rock From the Sun. He also appeared as game show
hosts both in film (Miss Congeniality, 2000) and real life (50th Annual Miss
America Pageant, 2001). In 1999, Shatner suffered public personal tragedy when
his third wife, Nerine, accidentally drowned in their swimming pool. The champion
horse breeder and tennis enthusiast owns a ranch in Kentucky and remains active in
environmental causes.
Don Ralke (the producer of "The Transformed Man" LP) made the following notes
on the sleeve:
The idea of grouping the numbers together in pairs is to unfold multiple perspectives of the same subject,
like the two sides of a coin, tension and resolution.
For example, in King Henry The Fifth (track 1) the intense speaech inciting
the soldiers to battle is contrasted with the quiet and poignant aftermath of war in
Elegy For The Brave. The other parts follow in similar design:
Tracks 1 and 2: confident self-assurance - total psychopathic subversive
Tracks 5 ("Hamlet") and 6 ("It Was A Very Good Year"): a desire for death - the joy of living
Tracks 7 ("Romeo & Juliet") and 8 ("How Insensitive"): fresh young love - insensitivity
Tracks 9 ("Spleen") and 10 ("Lucy In The Sky"): utter dejection - super-elation
Transformed Man (track 11) stands alone because of its contrasting three-movement form:
earthly unreality - transitional awareness - contrast with divinity
There was another Shatner LP, a rare two-record set recorded live in 1978.
It's a recording of an appearance at some kind of a Star Trek convention just
before the first Star Trek movie came out (probably the lowest point in Shatner's
career). Half of it consists of Shatner answering questions from the audience
(where was the bathroom on the Enterprise?) and recalling inane stories from his
career. On the other half, he performs dramatic poetry interpretations,
including "Earthbound", "The Flight of Man" and a reading from H.G. Wells'
"War of the Worlds".
On the artwork for Transformed Man, Shatner appeared as Captain Kirk, in his full
starfleet uniform. Here, however, licensing restrictions prevented Imperial House
records from using any actual Trek material. Notice how Shatner is the captain of
the "Starship", not the "Enterprise", and how his shirt, while similar to the one
he wore on TV, lacks the official Star Trek insignia. If you look closely you
might also notice that the space rifle he's wielding is actually an
upside-down camera tripod -- talk about your low-budget photo shoots!
Links ...
Yahoo movies data entry on William Shatner
