Browse and hear the complete Off the Road series at hawaiipublicradio.org/offtheroad.
Today it’s a ride on the Starship Enterprise with Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, as All Things Considered Honolulu Host Dave Lawrence continues our Off The Road series, hours of interviews and exclusive musical performances connecting with artists around the world, sharing how the pandemic and other crises have touched them.
Originally from Montreal, William Shatner has been a fixture in the entertainment world for decades, first on the big screen in 1951 in Canadian film “The Butler’s Night Off”, and also early on appearing in the 1958 film “The Brothers Karamazov” with the great Yul Brynner, among lots of other work, like appearing on Broadway in 1959 in “The World of Suzie Wong”, a role on “The Twilight Zone” in 1960, “The Outer Limits” in 1964, and that year a spot on the show "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.", alongside future co-star Leonard Nimoy. But all that would be dwarfed after achieving enormous fame and a place in science fiction and pop culture history with Star Trek, via his iconic role as Captain James T. Kirk. He’d reprise the 1960’s TV role through several Star Trek films that spanned decades themselves. And among many other gigs, William Shatner starred in T.J. Hooker in the lead role and as Denny Crane on The Practice and it’s spinoff, Boston Legal.
Along the way, starting in the late 60’s, with 1968’s The Transformed Man, he found his singing voice, providing dramatic interpretations to a wide range of songs, from covering the Beatles, to years later offering his unique take on holiday songs, to his latest release, The Blues, which sees him tackling blues classics alongside several legendary musicians, like Ritchie Blackmore, Brad Paisley, and Sonny Landreth. He explained how the project came together, and shared details about how he’s been quarantining to stay safe from the virus, among topics covered in our second chat with Bill, as he likes to be called.
MORE:
Hear the complete new interview:
See his new video for "I Put A Spell On You":
Hear his 2015 appearance on the show with Dave.
