The man who was the face of Star Trek throughout the original series and the first six Trek movies has hit a milestone in his own life! William Shatner, a.k.a. the iconic Captain James Kirk, turned 90 on March 22, and unsurprisingly has received a ton of birthday wishes from fans and friends. He has boldly gone into his ninth decade on Earth, and while real life hasn't yet caught up to Star Trek, Shatner responded to all the well-wishers on a platform that definitely didn't appear in the original series: Twitter.
To respond to all the birthday wishes he received on Twitter, William Shatner busted out the emojis to go along with a message that is both funny and grateful. The Star Trek icon shared:
Apparently enough people don't have better things to do on William Shatner's birthday than take a couple of moments to send some happy thoughts his way! The fact that it doesn't take all that much time to shoot off a tweet without several drafts doesn't mean that Shatner wasn't ready to crack a joke and share his gratitude that so many people were thinking of him on his big day. He does have a lot to celebrate, after all! Nobody can deny that he has lived long and prospered by his 90th birthday.
While William Shatner may not be too likely to reprise his role as James Kirk despite having fond memories of filming that have lasted long after he last played the character, some others in the Star Trek family have remembered him on his 90th birthday. Embracing the comedic tone of Shatner's tweet, some of them didn't treat their happy birthday greetings with two much seriousness!
Jonathan Frakes played Commander William Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the spinoff movies, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Star Trek: Picard, and even Lower Decks. Frakes has also been a prolific director in the Star Trek franchise, including in the two latest series, Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard. Hilariously, Frakes chose an image of William Shatner's Christmas album, called "Shatner Claus," for the birthday wish. "Shatner Claus" was released in just 2018, so it's a pretty recent addition to Shatner's list of accomplishments.
LeVar Burton, a.k.a. Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation, shared a Trek-tastic image that really emphasized his comment that William Shatner is part of the franchise family. The photo shows Burton, Jonathan Frakes, Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, and more in addition to Shatner himself. As for Spiner, he had a message for Shatner as well, although he also mentioned a couple of other famous folks with birthdays on March 22:
Neil deGrasse Tyson may not be a member of the Star Trek family, but he's definitely known for his interest in space as the final frontier. He made sure to wish William Shatner a happy birthday as well, complete with a photo of the two of them together:
I can't say that I've done the math for how 90 trips around the sun translates to 52,600,000,000 miles in three days with Warp Factor 1, but I feel comfortable taking his word for it! But there are many aspects of William Shatner's career that are quite memorable, and not all of them involve Star Trek. Just check out his cover Elton John's "Rocket Man," which you may just never forget after seeing it once:
All of this said, my personal favorite birthday greeting that William Shatner received in honor of turning 90 was one that he retweeted, and it came from none other than Priceline. Shatner made a name for himself as the spokesman for Priceline for years, and the travel site was sure to celebrate him:
Happy birthday to William Shatner for his 90th birthday! He has been active on social media even if he isn't likely to return to Star Trek in front of the camera, doing everything from roasting former Dancing with the Stars host Tom Bergeron for his taco costume after a stint on Fox's The Masked Singer to getting himself involved in Star Wars on Twitter. He seemed to have fun hitting 90 on social media, and hopefully found the perfect way to celebrate off of social media as well.
