Actor Shatner is Captain Kirk, Captain Kirk is Shatner. “We were basically one and the same, although Jim [Kirk] was just about perfect, and, of course, I am perfect,” Shatner once quipped. Star Trek would not have been Star Trek without his infamous lengthy dramatic pauses. His acting style has even engendered an adjective: “shatnerian”.

Provocateur Shatner and Nichelle Nichols shared the first interracial kiss in a US TV drama. Shown in 1968, the scene was cut in some states. Two scenes were shot – one a cutaway that only implied a kiss. Shatner sabotaged this version by crossing his eyes. On Kirk’s many liaisons, he said: “I’ve never had green alien sex, though I’m sure it would be quite an evening.”

Charmer Shatner’s sharp sense of humour is much admired. His self-mockery is a constant feature of Boston Legal, his ability to make light of blunt questions a wonder. Once asked whether he wore a hairpiece, he replied: “It’s a question that I find like asking somebody, ‘Did you have a breast implant?’ or ‘When did you get your lobotomy?’ ”

Singer At the height of Trek fever in 1968, he cut an album, The Transformed Man, in which he compared pop songs of the era with Shakespeare’s works. Shatner kept us waiting until 2004 for the equally ”ambitious” follow-up, Has Been, a starry collaboration with Ben Folds, which includes his version of Pulp’s Common People with Joe Jackson.

Cabaret act Inspired, perhaps, by his triumphant version of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and the like, Bill took to appearing live. One supreme moment came at the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards, when our hero performed a spoken-word, Method-masterclass version of Rocket Man to a stunned audience that included the song’s co-writer Bernie Taupin.

Bon vivant Shatner has a taste for the good life. At his horse farm in Kentucky he breeds race horses and when in Hollywood he is known to hide his feelings brilliantly at the celebrity-circuit poker table. Shatner is a YouTube star; he features in more than 2,500 clips, among them his parody of the film Seven.

Boston Legal, Thur, Living TV 10pm

UpTill Now, The Autobiography by William Shatner Buy the book

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