Shatner’s singing a happy tune
If anyone has noticed the soaring share price of Priceline.com, it’s an easy bet that Canadian actor William Shatner had something to do with it.Unofficial word on Wall Street is that Shatner, who was initially paid in Priceline shares when he became pitchman for the Internet travel website startup in 1997, is now worth a cool $600 million.
No wonder he looked so happy singing a duet of Total Eclipse of the Heart on Lopez Tonight the other week.
Priceline’s shares, which at one point plummeted to $1.80 during the dot-com crisis in 2000, are now trading close to $300 apiece.
And although the company won’t disclose how many shares (or salary) Shatner receives, it’s presumed to be plenty.
After all, it’s Shatner’s personality driven ads for the website that has made it so popular.
As he approaches his eighth decade on the planet, Shatner has gone through more ups and downs than a freight elevator.
After starring in the iconic role of Captain Kirk on Star Trek in the late ’60s, he later could find no work and lived in a truck he’d park on the street in the San Fernando Valley area of L.A.
