James shatner biography

A budding performer

William Shatner was born in Montreal, Canada on 22nd March 1931. His father was a clothing manufacturer, while his mother was a housewife who occasionally gave elocution lessons.

It was she who, in Shatner’s own words, gave him a push when he was around six years old. In an interview many decades later, Shatner recalled how he ‘went to a little school in a basement where a couple of women, not unlike my mother, were giving so-called acting classes’.

William shatner - age

This instilled an interest in performance, which continued even while Shatner studied economics at university. He acted in student productions, dabbled in local broadcasting, and joined a theatre company after he graduated.

A rising star

Shatner made his Broadway debut in a production of Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine in 1956.

A few years later, he landed his first major film role alongside Yul Brynner in a 1958 adaptation of Dostoevsky’s classic