I really can’t let the day pass without celebrating the 90th birthday of the greatest Canadian export of all time, actor William Shatner. Sure, he’s an overacting, scenery-chewing ham, but c’mon, he’s awesome. He rescued Star Trek from being a total liberal preach fest by his shameless womanizing and wanton violation of the culturally relativist Federation prime directive, unlike that UN General Assembly wimp Piccard who succeeded him in the vastly inferior sequel series.
This early pic from a forgotten turn in a production of the Brothers Karamazov is classic:
And who can forget him on the Twilight Zone:
But the best and most obscure turn in his filmography was his appearance in the cult horror film Incubus, filmed not far from where I live, and the only movie filmed entirely in Esperanto:
And when you remember that he also spoke Klingon in one of the Star Trek feature films, it means he is likely the only actor who ever spoke two made-up languages. How you gonna top that?
As Jay Leno once joked, what would have happened in Star Trek IV if Captain Kirk had run into T.J. Hooker? One shudders and the cosmic interdimensional rip that might have occurred.
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