William Shatner's appearance on Hollywood Home Game #5 of The World Poker Tour is widely considered amongst viewers of the show to be amongst the high points of the series. Just like everything else in his life, just because Bill has fun with doesn't mean he doesn't take his poker seriously.
William Shatner first became an American television institution by creating the character of Captain James T. Kirk for the groundbreaking sci-fi series Star Trek in the 1960s. Then in the 1970s he re-invented himself as the tough "good cop" T.J. Hooker. The 1980s saw him reassuming the mantle of Admiral James T. Kirk in the popular Star Trek movie franchise, followed by experiments with being a film director and then a writer of science fiction with his best-selling TekWar series. Then in the late 1990s, he essayed the role of raucous, right-wing lawyer Denny Crane for the popular legal drama The Practice, which he would reprise in come the next millennium on Boston Legal, finally earning himself an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in 2004. Somewhere in there he also managed to sandwich being the spokesman for Priceline.com, being voted the worst singer of Beatles songs ever, and breeding and showing American Saddle Horses and Quarter Horses, as well as being a reoccurring character on the classic TV shows Howdy Doody, 77 Sunset Strip, Dr. Kildare, Star Trek: the Animated Series, Barbary Coast, and 3rd Rock from the Sun. Shatner's substantial television appearances also include such shows as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Playhouse 90, Twilight Zone, Thriller, Burke's Law, The Outer Limits, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Defenders, The Virginian, Twelve O'Clock High, Big Valley, The Fugitive, Gunsmoke, The Name of the Game, Mission: Impossible, The Sixth Sense, Hawaii Five-O, Six Million Dollar Man, Ironsides, Kung Fu, Police Woman, The Rookies, SeaQuest DVS, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Muppets Tonight, Futurama, and Columbo. His film credits include such feature films as Billy Budd (1955), The Brothers Karamazov(1958), Julius Caesar (1960), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Incubus (1965), Alexander the Great (1968), White Comanche (1968), The People (1972), Go Ask Alice (1973), Big Bad Mama (1974), The Devil's Rain (1975), Kingdom of the Spiders (1977), Little Women (1978), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Visiting Hours (1982), Star Trek: the Wrath of Khan (1982), Airplane 2: The Sequel (1982), Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), Loaded Weapon 1 (1993), Tekwar: the Movie (1994), Star Trek: Generations (1997), Free Enterprise (1998), Miss Congeniality (2000), Osmosis Jones (2001), Showtime (2002), American Psycho 2 (2002), Groom Lake (2002), Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), and Miss Congeniality 2 (2005).
