William Shatner has been boldly charting new frontiers as an entertainer for the better part of a century—but a few decades back, he had to fine-tune his experience of the world around him. The actor was diagnosed in the 1990s with tinnitus, a persistent buzzing, hissing, ringing or other tonal sound in the ear associated with hearing loss. And, he admits, it was a frightening experience.
“I realized that if you were given the choice of sight or sound, choose a faculty, most people would say, ‘Well, sight, sight, sight!’” Shatner told E! News’ Courtney Lopez in an exclusive interview. “It’s argumentative, because sound gives you a 360-degree [perspective]. Imagine never hearing music again.”
The sonorous performer has attributed his condition, which affects 10 to 15 percent of the population, to damage he suffered when a pyrotechnics effect exploded right next to him on the set of Star Trek in 1967, during filming of the episode “Arena
It wasn’t until years later, however, when he was on the beach—”a vivid moment,” he remembered—and kept hearing the whooshing sound of the ebbing waves, even when they were crashing back onto the sand, that he realized something was seriously wrong.
At first, when he didn’t yet know that tinnitus “literally is in your brain,” Shatner said, he tried wearing earplugs—but that just rendered him “almost deaf” for a few days. Eventually, he explained, “Your brain starts to assimilate the sound, like it would if you were living beside an airport.”
A doctor told him at the time that “it might not” get worse, Shatner said. “But,” he added, “of course it does, as you age.” Which, despite Shatner’s still-robust, we’ll-have-what-he’s-having zest for life, he eventually did. Technically
But the natural progression of the years has barely put a dent in his creative output. The two-time Emmy winner and stealth recording icon released his 11th album, Bill, in 2021, and his latest projects have included hosting the History series The UnXplained for four seasons and performing at the Kennedy Center.
Shatner is also still a competitive rider, specializing in quarter horses and American Saddlebreds. He didn’t ride as a child, he said, but “I took to horses as though I had always been there. There was a magic to it. And, of course, he’s been lucky enough to have been acting for almost his entire life, starting when he was 6 years old.
I’ve never done anything else,” Shatner said. “I’ve never driven a taxi, I’ve never waited tables. I’ve never taken an unemployment insurance check. I was always just trying to find something to do that entertains you.” Asked if he ever considered slowing down, he politely replied, “What does that mean?”
So, when presented with the chance to team with HearingLife for the company’s new “Live Life to Your Fullest” campaign to educate people about hearing loss and the importance of hearing tests, the 91-year-old jumped at it like it was an opportunity to orbit Earth in a rocket.
“Getting your hearing checked is critically important,” Shatner noted. “It’s as important as getting your health checked, your eyes checked. There’s a stigma attached to the hearing aid, so that stigma’s got to go. HearingLife is doing that.
Source: eonline
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