How does it feel to be a heart-throb at 89? Bad for my blood pressure!
Shatner’s ready to star-date again
It was a five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, which rocketed him to true star status. But 50 years on and now 89, William Shatner is still looking for answers.
Today it’s the mysteries down here on Earth he is desperate to solve – not least the enigma that is a successful marriage.
He recently became a bachelor again after divorcing fourth wife Elizabeth, 61, after 18 years – to the amusement of some critics. Much has been joked about Captain Kirk wanting to boldly go where no octogenarian has gone before and sign up to eHarmony or Tinder.
But Bill, as he likes to be known, refuses to let the drama get to him.
“Nothing makes me sad at this age,” he says, when asked how he’s coping with the divorce fallout. Surely it’s been a difficult time? And has he something to say to his wife? “It’s all good here. It’s all good. I wish everyone well,” he says, shields very clearly to maximum.
He had been with horse trainer Elizabeth since 2001 until news broke that he had filed for divorce, four days after her brother died. The move was not as callous as it may at first sound, as it emerged they had been separated since February last year, giving Bill time back on the dating scene. And while he might be one year shy of 90, he’s still renowned as something of a hunk by many.
“A heart-throb at 89,” he chuckles. “How does it feel to be a heart-throb at 89? Well it heightens my blood pressure!”
Bill, who suffers from tinnitus, has had mixed fortunes with his health.
A horse-riding accident left him in a wheelchair for some time and he was incorrectly told he had prostate cancer
Fans feared he would be beamed up like one-time best pal and Spock co- star Leonard Nimoy, who died in 2015.
Bill is open about his fear of death, saying it’s a reason to keep working. He even tried rejuvenating stem-cell treatment – but “nothing much happened – I still have the aches and pains I had”.
He is definitely a survivor. From the original Star Trek series, creator Gene Roddenberry died 25 years ago, DeForest “Bones” Kelly in 1999 and James “Scotty” Doohan in 2005. George “Mr Sulu” Takei is doing well at 83, though he and Bill have never been close, while his friend Nichelle Nichols, 87, who played Uhura, has had a series of health problems.
“I haven’t been in touch with her for a long time,” laments Bill.
Born in Canada, now living in LA and Kentucky, Jewish Bill suffered antisemitic bullying as a child, and had been in showbiz a decade when he got the breakthrough role of Captain Kirk from 1966 to 1969. After Star Trek he struggled to find work and lived in a camper van before landing major roles in police series TJ Hooker and Boston Legal. He made seven Star Trek films and appeared in comedies such as Miss Congeniality and The Big Bang Theory. He is also a spoken word musician and voiceover artist, has written more than 30 books and Star Trek novels and has a host of producing and directing credits to his name. But his love life has been chequered. First wife Gloria Rand divorced him in 1969, and he split with his second, Marcy Lafferty, after 23 years in 1996. In 1997 he married Nerine
Kidd but in 1999, Bill got home to find her dead in his pool. A coroner found she accidentally drowned with a mix of alcohol and valium in her system.
Bill said in his 2018 book Live Long and…What I Learned Along The Way: “My grief was overwhelming. This was the type of pain that makes you think either I’m simply going to die or I’m going to kill myself.”
He has since thrown himself into his work. Before coronavirus, he filmed History documentary series The UnXplained, which explores strange phenomena such as aliens.
“I was reading about UFOs which I’ve always discounted,” he explains. “I was a cynic but as of late I’m less
sapproving. With new ways of hotographing, we’re seeing what the erson claims to have een. There was film of hat some air force eople saw and there’s no xplanation for it. What I on’t understand though why they don’t land in ont of 10 Downing Street r the White House.” He is not keen on urrent politics. Whether s Covid-19, Trump, or imate change, 2020’s arth is life, but not how e knows it. And as the Black Lives Matter protests show, 51 years after
Bill and Nichelle’s historic primetime interracial kiss, so much still has to change. “She’s a lovely lady, I was the envy of everybody on the set,” he recalls. “I was not unaware of the implications. Indeed a station in the Deep South didn’t play that episode. It was important and I was gratified to be part of that. I don’t understand any of this racism or anti-semitism. It shocks me. We’re all basically the same.” Bill also finds it illogical that world leaders don’t do more to solve climate change: “Why are none of us, especially the US, not doing something? It’s so fearful what is approaching us.”
If Bill can use his Star Trek legacy for good, he will. He recently began a £22.7billion Kickstarter campaign to pay for a water pipeline from Seattle to help California’s drought problems.
He says: “I don’t know why we – all the countries with technology – have not banded together to find a way of avoiding what’s coming.”
It sounds like a way for us all to live long and prosper.
■ William Shatner’s The UnXplained is on Tuesdays, 9pm, Sky History
She’s lovely ..I was the envy of everybody on the set ‘BILL’ SHATNER ON TV KISS WITH LT UHURA