Hey Trekkies! William Shatner, most known for his many onscreen appearances as Captain James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek TV series and several other endeavors afterwards, is celebrating his 88th birthday today.
Though he may be done with the iconic role now, Shatner has devoted the better part of his life in servitude of Kirk. While the original show may have ran for only three years in the 1960s with 80 episodes, it soon gained a cult following, and was brought back in movie form by popular demand.
Shatner would go on to play Kirk in seven Star Trek films starting in 1979 and ending with a sad and heroic death in Star Trek: Generations in 1994, nearly 30 years after the original show began. But Shatner refused to let Kirk die for good, resurrecting him in a series of his own novels.
Though Kirk is surely his most popular and influential onscreen role, and even now he’ll pop back up from time to time in some space-themed cameo (remember when Seth MacFarlane hosted the Oscars a few years back?), Shatner’s impact on the science-fiction genre is immeasurable, having also starred in one of The Twilight Zone’s most iconic episodes, as the only man who sees a beast on the wing of an airplane.
The Kirk role has been passed onto Chris Pine in the latest Star Trek films, and Shatner has already given his seal of approval on the young star. But the famous actor continues to hold an enormous amount of star power on his own, regularly appearing at Star Trek-themed conventions and voicing his opinions on the newer projects.
But just because we may have a new captain in the hot seat, nobody can deny him the honor of being the first to boldly go where no man has gone before. Happy birthday, William Shatner!
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