We at TGD love Bill Shatner. Whether he’s hilariously interpreting a song like Rocket Man, leading the Enterprise, fighting the Gorn, performing spoken word on Broadway, or battling an army of tarantulas in the ‘70’s B movie classic Kingdom of the Spiders, it’s amazing that Bill’s still around at 82 and he’s showing no signs of slowing down.
Now The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Shatner will be honored in his native Canada, from the Stratford Festival in Ontario but not for his genre accomplishments. This time he’s being honored for his stage work. Yes, long before Shatner became Captain Kirk, he performed onstage in The Merchant of Venice and The Taming of the Shrew back in the ‘50’s in Toronto.
The mind boggles at Shatner performing Shakespeare, but as we all know, Shatner has tackled all kinds of performance art, whether it was playing the Captain of the Enterprise, or belting out Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, without any apparent fear of embarrassment. (You have to admire those cojones.) It’s also a trip to mention that Shatner is the third person to win this award. The other two recipients are Christopher Plummer and Maggie Smith. (Shatner was Plummer’s understudy in a revival of Henry V back in the ‘50’s.)
Again, it’s great that Bill’s still with us and still going strong. He’s absolutely a geek icon, and he’s been around long enough that he gets the joke, and can have a healthy sense of humor about himself. It’s good to have you around Bill, live long and prosper. (Yes, the easiest thing I could have ended this with, but I couldn’t resist.)
