Shatner set for Banff TV festival honour

William Shatner, the Canadian acting veteran whose career has spanned Stratford to Star Trek, is to be honoured for his career at the upcoming Banff World Television Festival.

The 78-year-old Montreal-born Shatner will be in Banff, Alta.,to receive the festival's lifetime achievement award in June, to lead a master class and to discuss his career, organizers announced in a statement Tuesday.

CallingShatner "one of the most celebrated pop-culture icons in the 21st century," festival executive director Peter Vamos said the actor's ability "to keep pace with the times, leverage the latest industry and technology trends, and inject humour every step of the way have been the keys to an unbelievably successful, decades-long career."

Seen Sunday performing a tongue-in-cheek ode to Canada during the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Shatner's upcoming projects include starring in a TV pilot based on the popular Twitter microblog Shit My Dad Says.

His resum spans television (Star Trek, T.J. Hooker, Boston Legal, 3rd Rock from the Sun), theatre (Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Broadway), film (The Brothers Karamazov, The Intruder, Star Trek, Miss Congeniality) as well a host of notable spoken word performances.