Mention the name William Shatner, and people automatically think of the iconic Captain James T. Kirk from the hit cult sixties sci-fi television series Star Trek and its myriad motion picture knock-offs.

Far fewer may think of him for his Emmy Award–winning turn on Boston Legal or as the TV commercial pitchman for Priceline. And it's a good bet nobody thinks of him foremost as being a Broadway star, but pre–Star Trek, Shatner appeared in two hit plays: The World of Suzie Wong in 1958 and A Shot in the Dark in 1961, and was considered one of the finest young theater actors of that time.

Born in Montreal, William Shatner began his stage career at the Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival. His actual Broadway debut was in a small role in Tamburlaine the Great in 1956. It was a condensed version of the two-part play by Christopher Marlowe written in the 1500s about the life of Central Asian emperor Timur. In this revival, directed and adapted by the esteemed Tyrone Guthrie, Timur/Tamberlaine was played by Anthony Quayle and Shatner was Usumcasane, one of the leader’s followers. The play was panned and closed after twenty performances, though Quayle and Guthrie did score Tony Award nominations.

Next up for William Shatner was a star-making role in the play The World of Suzie Wong by Paul Osborn and based on the novel of the same name by Richard Mason. In the play, directed by Joshua Logan, Shatner played Robert Lomax, a Canadian artist living in Hong Kong who falls for prostitute-with-heart-of-gold Suzie Wong, played by the beautiful French-Vietnamese actress France Nuyen. She had just impressed moviegoers playing Liat in the hit musical South Pacific (1958), also directed by Logan, and was making her Broadway debut. Because she still only spoke French, she had to learn her lines phonetically. The more time Lomax spends together with Suzie as he paints her, the more the smitten artist has to decide between her and the pretty blonde art dealer who has fallen in love with him.

The World of Suzie Wong received mixed reviews from the critics, but audiences loved it. Opening on October 14, 1958, it ran for 508 performances and closed on January 2, 1960. Shatner and Nuyen for the most part received very positive notices and both scored Theatre World Awards for Most Promising Newcomers of the 1957-58 season.

Film rights to The World of Suzie Wong were bought by producer Ray Stark for Paramount Pictures. Stark tapped Jean Negulesco (of Three Coins in the Fountain fame) to direct. Shatner lost out on the film version to Academy Award–winning movie star William Holden, but France Nuyen was tapped to reprise her Broadway role. Filming began on location in Hong Kong for about five weeks and then cast and crew went to England for interiors. However, Stark was duly unhappy with Nuyen and Negulesco and fired them both. British-Chinese actress Nancy Kwan, who played Suzie in the London production, was cast and Richard Quine was the new director. They all had to hightail it back to Hong Kong for complete reshoots.

The press had a field day speculating why France was let go—had she become ill, had she gained too much weight, had she become “impossible” to work with due to an unhappy love affair with Marlon Brando—this was just some of the outrageous speculation. France said in an interview with me, “All that was orchestrated by the production company. The producer had a [professional] liaison with the other actress. No one would hire me after reading the press that was trumped up against me. They said I was a drug addict, an alcoholic—everything you could imagine. I was as far from a drug addict as you can get. I never even take aspirin, for God’s sakes!”

Though Shatner missed this chance to work with France Nuyen again, they were reunited in the Star Trek episode “Elaan of Troyius” during the show’s last season. France acts up a storm as the primitive Elaan from the planet Elas, whose tears make any man weak to her charms. She is her planet’s delegate to make peace with the planet Troyius. However, the wild Elaan non-fatally stabs Troyius’s rep, throws temper tantrums, and refuses to allow Captain Kirk to settle any disputes. Her reckless behavior frustrates Kirk who takes her to task but he comes under the spell of Elaan as she sheds a tear just as marauding Klingons plan to attack.

Shatner changed gears with his next Broadway play. He followed the romantic drama The World of Suzie Wong with the satirical farce A Shot in the Dark. The comedy was adapted by Harry Kurnitz from the original French play and directed by Harold Clurman. William Shatner played an eager young magistrate named Paul Sevigne investigating the murder of a chauffeur working for the wealthy Beaurevers family. Prime suspect is the spirited Josefa, the hot-to-trot maid (Julie Harris) who readily admits that she was having an affair with the driver. The scene stealer and only one to nab a Tony Award nomination was Walter Matthau, as the urbane patriarch of the Beaurevers who too is infatuated with Josefa.

As with The World of Suzie Wong, A Shot in the Dark received middling reviews but audiences loved it. It opened on October 18, 1961 and ran for 389 performances closing on September 22, 1962. Shatner again lost out on the movie version. However, that is no surprise, since his character morphed into Inspector Clouseau (played by Peter Sellers) as a quick follow up to the immensely popular film that introduced his extremely popular comical inept detective, The Pink Panther. For the record, Julie Harris was replaced by Elke Sommer and Walter Matthau by George Sanders in the film as well.

As for William Shatner, when the play closed he relocated to Hollywood and began guest starring on many TV shows. He even landed his own series the very short-lived For the People in 1965 playing an Asst. DA. It was canceled mid-season making Shatner luckily available to take over for Jeffrey Hunter (who appeared in the first failed pilot) as the star of producer Gene Roddenberry’s new sci-fi creation Star Trek, which was picked up as a series on the second try with Shatner in the lead.