Live Long and Prosper
Captain James T. Kirk
himself will be in attendance at Comic Con Africa this year.
Actor William Shatner
will touch down on the motherland to spend some time with fans of the original
Star Trek show and films. Shatner has had a glorious career in Hollywood and
this will be the first time that most Africans will see the Captain of the USS Enterprise
right in front of them.
Shatner will make an
appearance at the event on 21, 22 and 23 September. Get your tickets for Comic Con Africa by
clicking the link below and let’s represent Namibia in numbers.
Shatner’s Captain Kirk
was charismatic, moral, just and headstrong. Brave enough to save a planet
under attack and charming enough to win over the most stubborn dissenters. Kirk stubbornly took
matters into his own hands, often disobeying orders, but was an inspirational
leader who pushed his crew, his ship and most of all, himself, to the limits of
what they could accomplish. He was also something of a womaniser, and in line
with Star Trek’s fight against the status quo of the time, he featured in one
of television’s first interracial kisses.
The science fiction
series created by Gene Roddenberry only lasted for three seasons yet thanks in
no small part to Shatner’s portray of Captain James T Kirk, the series did not
die. In fact, the opposite happened. The show continued to live on in
syndication and became even more popular.
Star Trek became a
Saturday morning cartoon that ran during the mid-1970s, and it was resurrected
in a live action film in 1979. Returning to the role of Kirk, Shatner starred
in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The film's warm reception by film-goers
showed how much affection the public has for Shatner and the series. Shatner
continues to lend his star power to Pop Culture this this day, and appeared in
the final season of The Big Bang Theory.
The show was also the
benefactor of one of the most successful fan-organized letter-writing campaigns
in TV history. 100,000 Trekkies wrote letters demanding the show stay on air,
and 200 students marched to show their support for the franchise which was then
retained for a further season.
Another of Shatner’s
most successful shows was Boston Legal, where he played the character Denny
Crane. Confident, crude, irreverent, and stubborn, he elicited strong feeling
in whoever met him. He founded the law firm Crane, Poole & Schmidt featured
in the show. He was flexible with his principles at work, but fastidious with
his personal scruples. Denny was very sure of his capabilities, and stated he
had won over 6,000 cases and would never lose a single one. He was a maverick,
and at the time of the show he was something of liability, yet always retained
his legendary status.
Before encountering
all sorts of unusual aliens and challenging situations, Shatner started his
career as a child performer in radio programs for the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation and continued to pursue his acting career while he was a student at
McGill University.
Shatner made his film
debut in 1958's The Brothers Karamazov with Yul Brynner. That same year, he
returned to Broadway for a two-year run in The Secret Life of Suzie Wong and
in 1959 won the Theatre World Award for his
performance. After a few successful acting roles on the big and small screen, on the 8 September,
1966 he landed the role of Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise in the
Star Trek that franchise, the role that made him synonymous with all things
Sci-Fi and pop culture.
He has written a
series of books chronicling his experiences playing Captain Kirk and being a
part of Star Trek, and has co-written several novels set in the Star Trek
universe. He has also written a series of science fiction novels called TekWar
that were adapted for television.
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