Bill (top row, third from right) with his Hebrew school graduating class at Shaare Zion Synagogue in Montreal, 1945. (Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)

A newspaper clipping, probably 1944 or ‘45, of Bill and co-star Elizabeth Kraminer in a Montreal Children’s Theatre production of Daddy Long-Legs. Bill played Jimmie McBride. (Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)

Bill, fifteen years old, in the summer of 1946. (Photofest)

Front and center, with fellow members of McGill University’s Radio Workshop. Bill was president of the organization. (Students’ Society of McGill University)

William Shatner, McGill University, Class of ’52. He graduated with a degree in economics for a career path he had no interest in pursuing. (Students’ Society of McGill University)

Bill (top) with William Hutt and Doris Chillcott in a 1952 Canadian Repertory Theatre production of Castle in the Air. (Library and Archives Canada)

Bill sporting a shiner in “The Black Eye,” a 1954 episode of CBC’s General Motors Theatre anthology series. (CBC Still Photo Collection)

1955: Co-starring on the CBC opposite Basil Rathbone in Billy Budd. Rathbone praised Bill’s use of “universal English.” (CBC Still Photo Collection)

Bill and Steve McQueen in “The Defender,” a two-part episode of Studio One that aired live on CBS in 1957. (CBS Photo Archive/©CBS/Getty Images)

Bill and Lee J. Cobb in the Studio One episode “No Deadly Medicine.” (CBS Photo Archive/©CBS/Getty Images)

Goin’ Hollywood: As Alexey in The Brothers Karamazov with Richard Basehart (Ivan) and Yul Brynner (Dmitri). (Photofest)

Bill and France Nuyen on Broadway in The World of Suzie Wong. They did not get along. (Photofest)

Bill returned often to Canada for television work, including these 1960 CBC appearances on The Well (top, opposite future Star Trek co-star James Doohan) and in Julius Caesar. (CBC Still Photo Collection/Albert Crookshank and Dale Barnes)

Sharing a scene with Judy Garland in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). The movie’s all-star cast featured Spencer Tracy, Marlene Dietrich and Burt Lancaster but did little to further Bill’s movie career. (Photofest)

Back on Broadway with Julie Harris and Walter Matthau in A Shot in the Dark, which ran for nearly a year and garnered Matthau a Tony Award. Bill’s role as Paul Sevigne morphed into Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) in the 1964 movie adaptation. (Bettmann/Getty Images)

Believe him or not: Hysterical Bob Wilson (Bill) and the furry gremlin no one else can see in “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” the classic episode of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone, which aired in 1963 with co-stars Christine White and Nick Cravat (as the gremlin). (CBS Photo Archive/©CBS/Getty Images)

Bill as white supremacist Adam Cramer, stirring up trouble in Roger Corman’s critically acclaimed (but little-seen) movie The Intruder, shot on location in the Deep South. Leo Gordon (right) co-starred. (Photofest)

Bill and Jessica Walter in the short-lived CBS legal series For the People. Its cancellation opened the door for Bill to star in the second Star Trek pilot. (CBS Photo Archive/©CBS/Getty Images)

You don’t say? Bill and Allyson Ames in the 1966 horror movie Incubus—inexplicably shot in Esperanto, a language none of the cast or crew understood. (Photofest)

The classic Star Trek lineup on NBC: Bill, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley as Capt. James T. Kirk, Spock and Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy. (CBS Photo Archive/©CBS/Getty Images)

Captain Kirk locks lips with Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) on the 1968 Star Trek episode “Plato’s Stepchildren”—TV’s first interracial kiss. (CBS Photo Archive/©CBS/Getty Images)

Bill and his first wife, Gloria, mid-1960s. They met a decade earlier on the set of Dreams, a TV play Bill wrote for the CBC. (ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo)

Family time: Bill and Gloria with daughters Lisabeth (left), Leslie and Melanie (in Bill’s lap) during the late-’60s run of Star Trek. (ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo)

The cast of Big Bad Mama: Bill, Angie Dickinson, Susan Sennett, Tom Skerritt and Robbie Lee. Bill and Skerritt came to blows during the shoot. (NEW WORLD/Ronald Grant Archive/Alamy Stock Photo)

Bill and his second wife, Marcy, on their wedding day in Los Angeles (October 1973). They stayed together for over two decades. (Bettmann/Getty Images)

The cast of T.J. Hooker, 1982: Bill (from left), Heather Locklear, James Darren and Adrian Zmed. The series ran for five seasons on ABC and (later) CBS. (ABC Photo Archives/©ABC/Getty Images)

‘Toon in: Bill provided Captain Kirk’s voice for Star Trek: The Animated Series, which ran for two seasons in the mid-1970s and featured most of the original Star Trek cast. It would be another fifteen years until they reunited on the big screen. (CBS Photo Archive/©CBS/Getty Images)

Guess who? Jeff Cable (Bill, left) goes undercover with Cash Conover (Doug McClure) on Barbary Coast, which lasted one season (1975-76) on ABC. (ABC Photo Archives/©ABC/Getty Images)

Bill tries his hand at comedy opposite Jonathan Winters and Robin Williams on a 1978 episode of Mork & Mindy. (AF Archive/Alamy Stock Photo)

Bill and Marcy in happier times at the L.A. premiere of The China Syndrome (1979). (Ron Galella/Getty Images)

Captain Kirk meets his end after battling evil Tolian Soran (Malcolm McDowell) in 1994’s Star Trek: Generations. Kirk’s final words: “Oh, my!” (Moviestore Collection Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo)

Bill and Nerine in 1996. They married the following year. (Jeff Kravitz/Getty Images)

Bill speaks to the press following Nerine’s death (August 10, 1999). (Associated Press)

Denny Crane and Alan Shore share a moment (and a customary cigar) in Boston Legal. Bill and James Spader’s on-screen chemistry was undeniable. (Craig Sjodin/©ABC/Getty Images)

A triumphant Bill holds his Emmy Award after winning for Boston Legal (2005). (Mathew Imaging/Getty Images)

Bill with his “brother,” Leonard Nimoy, in later years. They were not speaking at the time of Nimoy’s death and Bill was criticized for not attending his funeral. (Photofest)

As grumpy Ed Goodson on the short-lived $#*! My Dad Says (2011), the first sitcom to be adapted from a Twitter feed. (CBS Photo Archive/©CBS/Getty Images)

Bill was eighty when he was awarded an honorary degree by his alma mater, McGill University. (Canadian Press (Photostream)/Associated Press)

In 2012, Bill returned to Broadway for the fourth time, this time as the headliner, in Shatner’s World: We Just Live In It. (Walter McBride/Getty Images)

Bill with his fourth wife, Elizabeth. They’ve been married for nearly twenty years. (Paul Archuleta/Getty Images)

Rocket man: Showing his playful side with an onstage visit with frequent musical collaborator Brad Paisley at the 2015 CMA Awards in Nashville. (Taylor Hill/Getty Images)