This week co-hosts Bob Turner and Kelly Casto talk about the actor who played the Captain of the Enterprise, William Shatner, on this episode of 70s Trek. His portrayal of the unflappable, heroic captain has become iconic. While playing Kirk wasn't difficult for Shatner, working after the show went off the air was.
Early Life.
William Shatner grew up in Montreal, Canada and knew early on he wanted to be an actor. After college, he worked extensively on Broadway and in early television. During his early career, Bill Shatner was considered to be on the same career trajectory as Robert Redford.
Star Trek
When Star Trek's first captain, Jeffrey Hunter, decided not to return for the second pilot, Gene Roddenberry asked William Shatner to step in as the new skipper of the Enterprise.
When the show was picked up and went into production, Shatner remembers that it didn't feel like work. Instead, he considered the feeling that the cast and crew shared as being family.
After Trek
Shatner went through a lot around the time that the show was cancelled. Not only was he losing a steady job relationships from the show, but he was also going through a divorce. The long hours away from home took their toll on his marriage.
But his alimony was based on his Star Trek salary, so he needed to work and earn a paycheck. He took the steadiest job he could get: He signed on with a traveling play for the summer of 1969.
Trying to save money, he bought a used pickup truck with a collapsable camper and drove from town to town where the play opened next.
This living arrangement found him laying in his camper with a small black and white TV on his chest when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon on July 20, 1969. It leaves you with an ironic image: The former Captain Kirk had been reduced to watching the first real steps of man's exploration of space in the back of a used camper.
The 1970s
Shatner spent the years between 1969 and 1978 taking any acting job he could find. As a result he accumulated an impressive amount of work. In those years he worked on the following projects:
- 7 films
- 18 TV movies
- 2 mini series
- Guest-starred on 45 different TV series eoisodes
- Starred in one Prime-Time series, Barbary Coast
- And Voiced a children's TV show. Star Trek: The Animated Series.
He also worked on some of the most popular TV shows of the day:
- Hawaii 5-0
- Barnaby jones
- Six Million Dollar Man
- Medical Center
- Mission Impossible
- Marcus Welby, MD
- Mannix
- Ironside
- Kung Fu
- The Rookies
- Police Woman
- Police Story.
The Motion Picture
After several false starts, Paramount finally picked a script with which to move forward and produce a Star Trek film. Star Trek The Motion Picture went into production in 1978 and premiered in December 1979. It capped what had been a busy and frustrating decade for William Shatner.
But The Motion Picture paved the way for more movies and more success on the 1980s and the decades to follow. William Shatner proved he was a survivor in the 1970s. He overcame the obstacle of being type-cast and re-invented himself as a journey-man actor.
Ultimately, Shatner had the last laugh, re-inventing himself and finding success time and again throughout his career.
