Up Till Now by William Shatner with David Fisher; St. Martin's Press; 358 pages; $25.95.

This scintillating autobiography is full of anecdotes that will have the reader chortling over madcap scenes and self-deprecating asides. But this also is a double-level book in which an introspective side of William Shatner is evident as well, as he reveals his passions for acting, horses and dogs, his myriad adventures and his one deep tragedy.

Shatner recalls the first time he stood on a stage. He was 6, and he made the audience cry. It was at a summer camp for Jewish children, run by his aunt in the mountains near Montreal. She cast him in the play "Winterset" as a boy who has to leave his home and his dog. The play was performed on parents' weekend, and since the audience consisted primarily of people who had escaped the Nazis and had left everything behind, they were one with the little actor.

"Just imagine the impact that had on a six-year-old child. I had the ability to move people to tears. And I could get approval," Shatner writes, remembering the warm feeling as his father held him after the show.

He wonders where the need to please people came from. His family history gave no clues. The Shatners came from Eastern Europe, where several of his forbears were rabbis and teachers – but not actors. His father, was in the clothing business, manufacturing men's suits for French-Canadian stores. His father's hope that William, who earned a business degree from McGill University, would expand the clothing line came to naught. The younger Shatner had acted throughout his childhood in the Montreal's Children's Theatre, and while still in high school he got his first real job in the theater as a stage manager. At McGill, he'd spent more time in the drama department than going to class; he understood the value of money – but acting was more important.

Shatner's work ethic comes from his father, from whom he also learned the value of education, respect for others and to be on time and prepared to work. Shatner's friend Leonard Nemoy jokes about the fact that Shatner never stops working. That goes back to the very beginning of his career; he had to take anything that he was offered and the habit stuck. Now in his late 70s, he still is going strong. His credits include stage performances, movies, television, voice-overs, radio programs, Webcasts, videos, Star Trek conventions, game shows, writing books and songs, directing and producing, performing at concerts and appearing on talk shows and award programs, not to mention riding in horse shows.

During those hectic years, he had two failed marriages. As he looks back at these marriages to fellow actors Marcy Lafferty and Gloria Rand, he writes he thought that it was simple: He earned the money, his wife ran the house. At first, these marriages were successful, but he realizes he was not flexible enough to fulfill his spouses' needs for recognition on their own. His marriage to Narine Kidd ended tragically with her drowning, and he hadn't been able to get a foothold on life for ages. His health deteriorated, and his doctors were concerned that the stress was slowly killing him.

However, he is emotionally whole now. Eventually with much soul-searching and some trepidation, Shatner and a fellow horse lover and trainer, Elizabeth Martin, were married. Martin's husband had had cancer, and she'd nursed him for several years until his death. Shatner and Martin had gone through all the stages of grief before they met.

Shatner has a successful riding horse breeding business with a farm in Lexington, Ky. Among his various charities is showing and performing at celebrity shows. He is an excellent rider and loves his animals – all animals. Whether one thinks of William Shatner as Capt. Kirk in "Star Trek," police Sgt. T.J. Hooker in the show of the same name, Denny Crane in "Boston Legal" or the ubiquitous price negotiator in TV commercials, he uses his celebrity to help charities. In an extreme case, he sold a kidney stone suffered after an attack during "Boston Legal," for $75,000 to benefit Habitat for Humanity – a true but funny story, like so many that he recounts.

The book includes an index and a large number of black-and-white and color photos.

In addition to playing Capt. Kirk, William Shatner directed seven "Star Trek" movies and won two Emmys and a Golden Globe as attorney Denny Crane on "Boston Legal." He has three adult daughters. He lives in New York with his wife.

Co-author David Fisher is author of 15 New York Times best-sellers. He lives in New York with his wife, two teenagers, one dog and one cat.

An Excerpt

The heroic characteristics exemplified by Captain James Kirk – among them honesty, integrity, compassion, and courage – were easily transferable, making me a desirable commercial spokesperson. At the beginning of my career it was well known that real actors simply did not do television commercials. Actors acted, spokesmen spoke, period. It was considered an act of prostitution. Many stage actors would choose to starve rather than sell out, and a lot of them got the opportunity to do just that. I felt very much the same way, I was not for sale! Not that anyone was interested in buying, of course, but even if I had been offered a commercial I would have refused.

But in 1963 I co-starred with Paul Newman, Edward G. Robinson, Laurence Harvey, my friend Howard Da Silver, and Claire Bloom in "The Outrage," Martin Ritt's westernized remake of Kurosawa's "Rashomon." I played a disillusioned preacher who is told three different versions of a rape committed by a Mexican bandit played by Paul Newman. For me, the joy in making this film was the opportunity to work with Edward G. Robinson, whom I had long idolized as one of America's finest actors. One night he invited me to his home for dinner, and afterward took me out back where he had built a small round building that vaguely resembled New York Guggenheim Museum. This was his art museum and inside was arguably the finest private collection of French impressionist works in the world. He was passionate about it. As he showed these paintings to me he referred to them as his "children."

Coincidentally, a couple of days earlier I'd happened to see a coffee commercial he'd done. It had been jarring for me to see an actor of his stature doing a commercial, so I asked him about it. He looked at me, then pointed at a superlative painting by one of the masters. "That's why," he said.