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Happy 80th Birthday, William Shatner!
gregg writes "Today another geek legend celebrates a birthday. Best known for portraying Captain James T. Kirk, William Shatner has cemented himself into geek science fiction lore forever. Today he begins his ninth decade on this planet — yes, Captain Kirk is now 80 years old."
Seems like a nice enough guy, but man is that show painful to watch. I don't toss around the word "himbo" outside of a tanning salon very often, but it's pretty bad when Valerie Bertinelli has to talk down to you.
I guess at least his infamous ego seems to have ebbed a bit in his advanced years. But he still can't appreciate why Walter Koenig and others hated him in the Star Trek days. In his appearance on the show, Koenig looked like it was all he could do to keep from grabbing him and yelling "YOU STOLE ALL OUR LINES, MOTHERFUCKER!" It probably didn't help that Shatner kept saying stuff like "I'm sorry that you *perceived* me as being selfish or hostile to you back then."
Still, got to give the guy props for a great performance in Star Trek 2. I always wondered how Nicholas Meyer got it out of him. On the DVD commentary track I finally learned how he did it. He would do so about 10 throwaway takes. After about 10 takes, Shanter would get tired and stop trying to be Shatner (i.e. the pompous hero) and he would start to play around with the lines and actually act. Shatner didn't realize what a favor Meyer was doing to him at the time.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.