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Leonard Nimoy

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Leonard Simon Nimoy (born March 26, 1931) is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer best known for playing the character Spock in the Star Trek franchise, beginning in 1966 with .

Contents

Life

Born in Boston, Massachusetts to Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants, Nimoy spent much of his early career in the 1950s doing small parts in B-movies, TV shows such as Dragnet, and serials such as Republic Pictures Zombies of the Stratosphere in 1952. In 1961 he had a minor role in The Twilight Zone episode "A Quality of Mercy". His Boston area heritage can be heard in his pronunciation, for example in his pronunciation of the word "rather" in Star Trek episodes.

Nimoy served in the U.S. Army Reserve, receiving final discharge in November 1955 as a Sergeant. According to the National Archives and Records Administration, Nimoy's U.S. Army service record was destroyed in the 1973 National Archives Fire.

Nimoy has long been active in the Jewish community, and is an adherent of Reform Judaism. One of his better-known roles was that of Tevye the milkman, in the musical Fiddler on the Roof, based on the series of short stories by Yiddish author Sholom Aleichem. In 1997 he narrated the documentary A Life Apart: Hasidism in America, about the various sects of Hasidic Orthodox Jews. In October 2002 Nimoy published Shekhina, a photographic study of women intended to visualize the feminine aspect of God's presence, inspired by Kabbalah (esoteric Jewish mysticism).

Career

Stage and screen

Nimoy as Spock in ' (TOS)
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Nimoy as Spock in (TOS)

Nimoy's most famous role is the half-Vulcan, half-human Spock from (TOS; 1966–69). He earned three Emmy nominations for playing this character.

In a strange twist of fate, Nimoy and William Shatner (who would go on to play Spock's commanding officer, Captain James T. Kirk) found themselves on the opposite side of the Iron Curtain in the 1964 episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., "The Project Strigas Affair". With his saturnine looks, Nimoy was predictably the villain, with Shatner playing a reluctant U.N.C.L.E. recruit. Nimoy went on to reprise Spock's character in a voice-over role in ', in two episodes of ', and in six Star Trek motion pictures featuring the original cast.

Following the cancellation of TOS, Nimoy played a spy called Paris in the hit television series from 1969–71. Although Nimoy said he enjoyed working with Peter Graves and other cast members, he regarded Mission Impossible as one of the low points of his career. He considered the work boring and unchallenging. He has often said there are times he barely remembers doing the show. It was during the run of the show that Nimoy fell deathly ill with a stomach ulcer. Only expert medical attention saved his life, and the symptoms to this day have not recurred.

Leonard Nimoy and Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
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Leonard Nimoy and Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

He co-starred with Yul Brynner and Richard Crenna in the Western movie Catlow (1971). Nimoy also appeared in various made for television films in this period such as Assault On The Wayne (1970), Baffled (1972), The Alpha Caper (1973), The Missing Are Deadly (1974), Seizure: The Story Of Kathy Morris (1980), Marco Polo (1982) and he received an Emmy award nomination for best supporting actor for the TV film A Woman Called Golda (1982). In 1973, Nimoy also appeared on an episode of the popular television series Columbo called A Stitch In Crime. He played a murderous doctor and was one of the few criminals that Columbo ever really became angry at. In the late 1970s, he hosted and narrated the television series In Search of..., which investigated paranormal or unexplained events or subjects. He also has a memorable part as a new-age psychologist in Philip Kaufman's remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It was during this time that Nimoy won acclaim for a series of stage roles as well. He has appeared in such plays as Fiddler On The Roof, The Man In The Glass Booth, Oliver, Six Rms Riv Vu, Full Circle, Camelot, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The King And I, Caligula, The Four Poster, Twelfth Night, Sherlock Holmes and My Fair Lady. When a new Star Trek series was planned in the late 1970s, Nimoy was to be in only two out of every eleven episodes, but when the show was elevated to a feature film, he agreed to reprise his role.

After directing a few television show episodes, Nimoy broke into film directing in 1984 with the successful third installment of the Star Trek film series ('). Nimoy would go on to direct ' (1986) and move beyond the Trek universe with Three Men and a Baby in 1987. Nimoy also did occasional work as a voice actor in animated feature films including the character of Galvatron in in 1986 and The Pagemaster in 1994.

Literary works

Nimoy has written two autobiographies, the first one called I Am Not Spock (1977). The title of this book was controversial, as many fans incorrectly assumed that Nimoy was distancing himself from the Spock character; however, Nimoy's stated intention was merely to remind the public at large that Spock and Nimoy were not one and the same. In the book, Nimoy conducts dialogues between himself and Spock.

Nimoy signing autographs at a Star Trek convention (circa 1978).
His second autobiography was entitled I Am Spock (1995), and this title was meant to communicate that he finally realized that his years of portraying the Spock character had led to a much greater identification between the fictional character and the real person. Over the years, Nimoy had much input into how Spock would act in certain situations, and, conversely, Nimoy's contemplation of how Spock acted gave him cause to think about things in a way that he never would have thought if he had not portrayed this character. As such, in this autobiography Nimoy maintains that in some meaningful sense, he really is now Spock, and Spock is him, while at the same time maintaining the distance between fact and fiction.

Nimoy has also written several volumes of poetry, some published along with a number of his photographs. His latest effort is entitled (2002). His poetry can be found in the Contemporary Poets index of [The HyperTexts.]

Music career

During and following TOS, Nimoy also released several albums of vocal recordings on Dot Records, including Trek-related songs and cover versions of popular tunes. These recordings are generally regarded as unintentionally camp, though his tongue-in-cheek performance of "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" received a fair amount of airplay when Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films were released.

In addition to his own music career he also directed a 1985 music video for The Bangles' "Going Down to Liverpool". He makes a brief cameo appearance in the video as their driver. This came about because his son Adam Nimoy (now a frequent television director) was a friend of Bangles lead singer Susanna Hoffs from college.

Current work

Starting in 1995, Nimoy began to narrate the Ancient Mysteries series on The History Channel including "The Sacred Water of Lourdes" and "The Last Days of the Romanovs". He also appeared in advertising in the United Kingdom for the computer company Time Computers in the late 1990s. In 2003, he announced his retirement from acting in order to concentrate on his photography, but has subsequently appeared in several popular television commercials with William Shatner for Priceline.com. He also appeared in a commercial for Aleve, an arthritis pain medication, which aired during the 2006 Super Bowl. Nimoy also provided a comprehensive series of voiceovers for the 2005 computer game Civilization IV.

Filmography

Director

Actor

Writer

Discography

See also: Leonard Nimoy discography (includes compilations and re-issues)

Trivia

Quotes

External links

 

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