William Shatner is richer than you.

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

Shatner’s singing a happy tune

By LINDA MASSARELLA, QMI Agency
Last Updated: May 2, 2010 2:00am

LOS ANGELES — 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. He earned food and gas money by making party appearances.

The quirky Priceline ads — with a new and funny Shatner karate chopping, dancing, negotiating, etc. — put him back in the public consciousness (yes, Shatner can do more than play a starship captain and a cop on TJ Hooker) and he ended up winning the role of the quirky lawyer Denny Crane — and two Emmys — on the show Boston Legal.

While we’re not saying money buys happiness, we have to admit life seems better lived in a lush house on a California beach than in a truck parked near a shopping mall.

I would let him do whatever he wants to me for a mere $10 million in cash.

 

[Dr Dave]

Good on him I say.

 

[Mentalist]

SIX HUNDRED MILLION?

Holy Shit.

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

Of course it's paper wealth -- if the stock tanks before he sells, he'll be worth considerably less.

 

[Mentalist]

It's still quite incredible considering he's banked that sort of vast wealth from starring in a bunch of cheesy adverts. Nice work if you can get it.

I wonder what caused him to take shares instead of money when he was first hired for the job. Fucking smart move either way. Priceline didn't negotiate that one very well.

 

[CaptainWacky]

I hope he uses this money to somehow extend his life by another 79 years. The world needs Shatner.

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

He should have himself cryogenically frozen in mid-2012, in case the world does end in Decemeber. That way, he and all the other frozen people will be left behind to thaw out and repopulate a new Shatner-based species.

 

[Dr Dave]

He could rule the world with Coco and company.

 

[Robert "Monkey" Loggia]

He should sell that shit NOW

 

[Dual]

He should diversify his portfolio.

 

[Robert "Monkey" Loggia]

You should diversify my BALLS

 

[Dual]

In all seriousness, with the normal quarterly trading volume of the Priceline stock at half of Shatner's take in it, if he dumped now, he'd cause it to utterly crash and lose a big chunk of his share. The wisest solution is to slowly, very slowly, sell off little pieces of it, reinvesting into a more diverse plan of investments.

 

[CaptainWacky]

I'm sure Shatner will take the advice of some 19 year old kid on the internet!

 

[WillsZenith]

clever way to force your stock price up, i see duals never sold shares eh....

 

[whisky]

Surely if he sells all his shares in one go they will all sell at the price they are at now, sure it might crash the price for other shareholders, but he will have his money.

Either way Doohan will be spinning in his grave.

 

[WillsZenith]

ok if I was a company wanting more investment in my company, I would 'leak' to wall street the current value of certain shares, greedy investors will gobble up thinking it a good investment, this in turn pushes the price up, shatner makes more money, so does the company....


its an old trick, shatner wont sell , not whilst it will still rise, and investor confidence will be at an all time high...

with all the slump in the holiday market it a classic move, to generate income.

 

[headvoid]

I wish they would let him do the Microsoft ads.

 

[curiousa2z]

boy, I bet he never imagined this happening when he played summer stock theatre in Montréal....

 

[Gagh]

I read this in the paper, and good on him. He asked for a small cash payment, and a percentage in shares (which apparently Priceline haven't disclosed). Those shares were worth $1.80 each in 2000. Now they're worth $300 each - the canny old beggar. Obviously, he hasn't sold them, so it's paper money, but if it were me, I'd be selling the lot. Even if they went up more, he or his family wouldn't lose much when you're supposedly getting the $600m estimate the press have put on him.