William Shatner, the Canadian-born actor best known for his iconic role as Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek franchise, has seen quite a bit over the course of his 70-year career. At 90 years old, there’s not much Shatner has left to prove, yet he continues to break the status quo with every chance he gets.
With his upcoming Blue Origin space flight on October 13th, Shatner will become the oldest person in the world to travel to space, surpassing Wally Funk (82) and proving that he will always be prepared to “boldly go where no man has gone before!”
Although he played a spaceman on TV, Shatner still has reservations about his upcoming trip to the cosmos. He confessed at a New York Comic Con event last Thursday that he was “terrified.”
Take a look at the short video below, where Today explains the details surrounding his mindset.
A true entertainer, Shatner has transcended his celebrity status to become something much more eternal: a cultural icon. Whether or not you enjoy Star Trek, you’ve surely seen Shatner be an integral part of some of television’s most notable projects including The Twilight Zone, Boston Legal, and The Practice. And let’s not forget his tour de force performance as the Priceline Negotiator.
People worship him, others cosplay as him, and some even try to impersonate the eccentric actor. Shatner’s cadence and way of speaking has been lampooned for decades, and he still doesn’t understand why. Here he is reviewing a number of those impressions for Vanity Fair.
With a career as storied as his, it begs the question: how much is the Emmy Award winner worth?
According to Celebrity Net Worth, William Shatner has a fortune somewhere around $100 million dollars. That’s certainly enough to explore the world a few times over, if not the galaxy.
With that kind of money, you might wonder why Shatner would risk his life to travel to space, and the answer is because he wants to. Who wouldn’t? He’s seen it all, done it all, and now wants to go beyond.
That bold nature has landed him in some hot water over the years. Look no further than his participation in the first widely known interracial kiss on television. Airing in November of 1968 in the Star Trek episode “Plato’s Stepchildren,” Shatner and his co-star Nichelle Nichols risked massive backlash for their on-screen display of affection. Needless to say, their kiss was aired, and the entertainment industry was changed forever.
As it turns out, there was some backstage drama during the filming of the kiss as well, which Nichols detailed in an interview with the Television Academy. She even does an impression of Shatner’s reactions that day. It never ends!
Here she is talking to Good Morning Britain about what it was like to hear Martin Luther King ask her not to leave Star Trek when she was considering doing so.
As his costars can attest, William Shatner is a force to be reckoned with. We can only hope that he is around for years to come, providing his characteristic warmth and levity to everything he does.
As for his impending spaceflight, don’t worry about Shatner. Under pressure, he knows what it takes to be “cool.”
