William Shatner has notched up an impressive 70-plus years in front of the camera, displaying heady comedic talent and being instantly recognizable to several generations of cult television fans as the square-jawed Captain James T. Kirk, commander of the starship U.S.S. Enterprise. Shatner was born in Côte Saint-Luc, Montréal, Québec, Canada, to Anne (Garmaise) and Joseph Shatner, a clothing manufacturer. His father was a Jewish emigrant from Bukovina in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while his maternal grandparents were Lithuanian Jews. After graduating from university he joined a local Summer theatre group as an assistant manager. He then performed with the National Repertory Theatre of Ottawa and at the Stratford, Ontario Shakespeare Festival as an understudy working with such as Alec Guinness, James Mason, and Anthony Quayle. He came to the attention of New York critics and was soon playing important roles on major shows on live television. Shatner spent many years honing his craft before debuting alongside Yul Brynner in The Brothers Karamazov (1958). He was kept busy during the 1960s in films such as Juicio en Nuremberg (1961) and El intruso (1962) and on television guest-starring in dozens of series such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), The Defenders (1961), Rumbo a lo desconocido (1963) and La dimensión desconocida (1959). In 1966, Shatner boarded the USS Enterprise for three seasons of Viaje a las estrellas (1966), co-starring alongside Leonard Nimoy, with the series eventually becoming a bona-fide cult classic with a worldwide legion of fans known as "Trekkies". After "Star Trek" folded, Shatner spent the rest of the decade and the 1970s making the rounds guest-starring on many prime-time television series, including Hawai 5-0 (1968), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969) and Ironside (1967). He has also appeared in several feature films, but they were mainly B-grade (or lower) fare such as the embarrassingly bad Euro western White Comanche (1968) and the campy El reino de las arañas (1977). However, the 1980s saw a major resurgence in Shatner's career with the renewed interest in the original Viaje a las estrellas (1966) series culminating in a series of big-budget "Star Trek" feature films including Viaje a las estrellas (1979), Viaje a las estrellas II: La ira de Khan (1982), Viaje a las estrellas III: En busca de Spock (1984), Viaje a las estrellas IV - Misión: Salvar la Tierra (1986), Viaje a las estrellas V: La última frontera (1989) and Viaje a las estrellas VI: La tierra desconocida (1991). In addition, he starred in the lightweight police series T.J. Hooker (1982) from 1982 to 1986, alongside spunky Heather Locklear, and surprised many fans with his droll comedic talents in ¿Y dónde está el piloto? II (1982), Tiro mortal (1993) and Miss Simpatía (2000). He has most recently been starring in the David E. Kelley television series Los practicantes (1997) and its spin-off Boston Legal (2004). Outside of work he jogs and follows other athletic pursuits. His interest in health and nutrition led to him becoming spokesman for the American Health Institute's 'Know Your Body' program to promote nutritional and physical health.