When William Shatner isn’t lending his profound voice to commercials, starring in TV shows, appearing at Star Trek and comic conventions, recording an album or writing his 30-somethingth book, he is riding horses or motorcycles or raising money for kids and veterans.
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Starting this month, he brings his one-man show, “Shatner’s World: We Just Live In It,” to Joliet and a dozen other U.S. cities.
Peppered into his tour dates, which the Priceline.com celebrity spokesperson booked through the travel site, of course, are convention appearances to promote the memoir of his late “Star Trek” co-star Leonard Nimoy, “Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man,” publishing in February.
And in March he turns 85.
When asked how he tackles so many projects, the man of many words – whether written or spoken, these days profoundly “but. not. clipped.” as did James T. Kirk – laughed and paused and laughed some more.
“I don’t know how I do it. I really don’t,” Shatner said by phone recently from his production office in Los Angeles. “I’ve got good genes I guess.”
The grandson of Jewish immigrants and a native of Montreal, Quebec, Shatner started out at the National Repertory Theatre of Ottawa and at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival then branched into film and television, including “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “The Twilight Zone.” He created the role of Captain James T. Kirk on “Star Trek” in 1966 and starred in seven Star Trek feature films, directing one, from 1979 to ’91.
On television, Shatner starred in “T.J. Hooker” in the ’80s, hosted “Rescue 911” and won two Emmys and a Golden Globe as Denny Crane on “The Practice” and “Boston Legal.” Next up he’s set to travel Asia with Henry Winkler and others on the new NBC reality series “Better Late Than Never.”
Shatner, who’s done commercials for Crest, Oldsmobile, Molson, Wendy’s, Kellogg’s, DirecTV and several law offices and appeared in the movies “Airplane II: The Sequel,” “Loaded Weapon 1” and “Miss Congeniality,” also has written or co-written dozens of novels, including the New York Times best-seller “Up Till Now: The Autobiography,” the “Tek-War” series of sci-fi books and “Get a Life!” titled after the catchphrase from a “Saturday Night Live” sketch aimed at fans known as Trekkies. In 2015, he encouraged seniors to conquer technology and be self-employed with “Hire Yourself.”
Shatner’s albums – yes, albums – include “Has Been” (2004) with such guest artists as Joe Jackson and Henry Rollins and “Seeking Major Tom” (2011) with Sheryl Crow, Ritchie Blackmore, Peter Frampton, Michael Schenker and others. He also wrote the lyrics for the 2013 progressive rock album “Ponder the Mystery” with music by Billy Sherwood, Tony Kaye and Rick Wakeman from Yes. He also might have a role in “Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage,” a 100-city symphonic concert tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of “Star Trek,” coming to Chicago Theatre March 19.
“Between the book and the tour and the new NBC series I’m quite busy,” he said.
Tales from his long and varied career and of “love and death and gorillas and motorcycles and music and children and comedy” will be shared in “Shatner’s World,” which comes to Joliet’s Rialto Square Theatre on Jan. 23.
“What (attendees) will feel … what they will have … in that 2-hour period is a great deal of entertainment, a lot of laughter, a lot of tears,” he said. “It’s not really my life. It’s things that have happened to me, but not necessarily sequential. It’s a potpourri, but the general affect is a great deal of laughter. A one-line tag would be ‘saying yes to life.'”
“Shatner’s World” began as a request for a one-man show in Australia in 2011.
“I figured if it didn’t work in Australia, nobody would know. It turned out to be really successful,” he said. “I toured all of Australia, rewrote it, toured Canada and was asked by a Broadway producer to come to New York and rewrote the show again.”
Subsequent tours of “Shatner’s World” traveled the states and returned to Australia this past fall.
The last time Shatner was in town was June 2015 for an 8-day motorcycle ride with his fourth wife as passenger from Chicago to Los Angeles to promote the American Legion and raise scholarship funds. A longtime motorcycle enthusiast, Shatner helped design the Rivet, a 500-horsepower trike (a 3-wheeled motorcycle) fashioned after a B-17 bomber, with Aurora-based American Wrench.
“The challenge of doing something beyond yourself … goes … further than ‘enjoy,'” said Shatner, who is currently editing a documentary titled “The Ride” about 12-hour tests of endurance. “You’re lacerating yourself with these terrible things, the heat, the buffeting winds, the dry air, the scalding sun. But at the end, the joy of knowing you had accomplished all this was worth it.”
Shatner, a world champion horse breeder and competitive rider who has three daughters from his first marriage and grandchildren, also raises money for veterans and children annually through the Hollywood Charity Horse Show he founded in 1990.
“When I’m not working, I’m with the horses,” said Shatner, who has a horse farm in California. “I ride for two or three hours and my type of riding is rehearsing, running patterns and practicing for competition, not going for a walk in the woods.”
Vickie Jurkowski is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
William Shatner in “Shatner’s World: We Just Live In It”
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When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 23
Where: Rialto Square Theatre, 15 E. Van Buren St., Joliet
Tickets: $45 to $85, $200 with meet and greet, $30 extra for Suite Life pre-show package; available through the box office by phone and in person 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and through Ticketmaster
Information: 815-726-6600 or rialtosquare.com