I suspect the key thing about Shatner's longevity is his obvious enjoyment of life. For example, he's currently recording a bunch of heavy metal albums. Of course he is not a good singer, but he couldn't care less, and has a great time doing it. He's always up for doing fun things, like getting blasted into space on a rocket.
The causative arrow could point in the other direction, here. Or both directions at once
> For example, he's currently recording a bunch of heavy metal albums.
Oh, any links?
And Patrick Steward didn't enjoy life?
It's really enticing to think that there's some nice controllable reason why some people live longer (assuming you don't smoke, do drugs to excess, etc.) but really it's mostly genetics and chance.
Good genes and he's always been a swimmer. He also apparently didn't carry any copies of the apoe4 gene.