| Name | Leonard Nimoy |
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| Birth date | March 26, 1931 |
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| Birth place | Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
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| Birth name | Leonard Simon Nimoy |
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| Occupation | Actor, film director, poet, photographer, singer, songwriter |
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| Years active | 1951– |
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| Spouse | Sandra Zober (1954–1987)Susan Bay (1988–present) |
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Leonard Simon Nimoy (, ; born March 26, 1931) is an American actor, film director, poet, musician, and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in 1966–1969, multiple films, television and video game sequels.
Nimoy began his career in his early twenties, teaching acting classes in Hollywood and making minor film and television appearances through the 1950s, as well as playing the title role to Kid Monk Baroni. In 1953, he served in the United States Army. In 1965, he made his first appearance in the rejected Star Trek pilot, "", and would go on to play the character of Mr. Spock until 1969, followed by seven further films and a number of guest slots in various sequels. His character of Spock generated a significant cultural impact and three Emmy Award nominations; TV Guide named Spock one of the 50 greatest TV characters. Nimoy also had a recurring role in and a narrating role in Civilization IV, as well as several well-received stage appearances.
Nimoy's fame as Spock is to such an extent that both his autobiographies, I Am Not Spock (1977) and I Am Spock (1995) detail his existence as being shared between the character and himself.
Early life
Nimoy was born in
Boston, Massachusetts, to
Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish immigrants from
Iziaslav, Ukraine. His father, Max Nimoy, owned a barbershop in the
Mattapan section of the city. His mother, Dora Nimoy (née Spinner), was a homemaker. Nimoy began acting at the age of eight in children's and neighborhood theater. His parents wanted him to attend college and pursue a stable career, or even learn to play the
accordion—which, his father advised, Nimoy could always make a living with—but his grandfather encouraged him to become an actor. His first major role was at 17, as Ralphie in an amateur production of
Clifford Odets'
Awake and Sing!. Nimoy took Drama classes at
Boston College in 1953 but failed to complete his studies, and in the 1970s studied photography at the
University of California, Los Angeles.
Nimoy served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army from 1953 through 1955, alongside fellow actor Ken Berry and architect Frank Gehry.
Career
Stage and screen
Nimoy's film and television acting career began in 1951. But after receiving the title role in the 1952 film
Kid Monk Baroni, a story about a street punk turned professional boxer, he spent most of the rest of his early career playing small parts in B movies, TV shows such as
Dragnet, and
serials such as
Republic Pictures'
Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952). This included more than fifty movies or television shows.
He played an Army sergeant in the 1954 Sci Fi thriller, Them!, and had a role in The Balcony (1963), a film adaptation of the Jean Genet play.
On television Nimoy appeared as Sonarman in two episodes of the 1957–1958 syndicated military drama, The Silent Service, based on actual events of the submarine section of the United States Navy. He had guest roles in the Sea Hunt series from 1958 to 1960 and had a minor role in The Twilight Zone episode "A Quality of Mercy" in 1961. He also appeared in Highway Patrol. Throughout the 1960s Nimoy appeared in a number of other TV series including Bonanza (1960), Two Faces West (1961), The Untouchables (1962), The Eleventh Hour (1962), Combat! (1963, 1965), Perry Mason (1963), The Outer Limits (1964), The Virginian (1965) and Get Smart (1966). He appeared again in the 1995 Outer Limits, again in the episode "I, Robot".
Nimoy and William Shatner first worked together in an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., "The Project Strigas Affair" (1964). Their characters were from either side of the Iron Curtain, though with his saturnine looks, Nimoy was predictably the villain, with Shatner playing a reluctant U.N.C.L.E. recruit.
Nimoy first worked with DeForest Kelley in an episode of The Virginian from season two titled "Man of Violence", with Kelley as the doctor and Nimoy as the patient.
Star Trek
Nimoy's greatest prominence came from his role in the original
series, as the half-
Vulcan, half-human
Spock. Nimoy formed a long-standing friendship with Shatner, who portrayed his commanding officer, saying of their relationship, "We were like brothers."The series ran from 1966 to 1969, and Nimoy earned three Emmy acting nominations for his work.
He 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. He played an older Spock in the 2009 Star Trek movie directed by J. J. Abrams.
Spock gave his Vulcan salute whenever greeting crew members, and it became a recognized symbol of the show identified with him. Nimoy created the sign himself from his childhood memories of the way kohanim (priests) held their hand when giving blessings. During an interview, he translated the Priestly Blessing which accompanied the sign and described it during a public lecture:
:May the Lord bless and keep you and may the Lord cause his countenance to shine upon you. May the Lord be gracious unto you and grant you peace.
Nimoy was asked to read the verses as part of his narration for Civilization IV (as the blurb read out upon "discovering" the technology Priesthood).
After Star Trek's cancellation
Following the cancellation of the original
Star Trek in 1969, Nimoy immediately joined the cast of the spy series
, which was seeking a replacement for
Martin Landau. Nimoy was cast as an IMF agent who was an ex-magician and make-up expert, 'The Great Paris'. He played the role from 1969 to 1971, on the fourth and fifth seasons of the show.
He co-starred with Yul Brynner and Richard Crenna in the Western movie Catlow (1971). Nimoy appeared in various made for television films 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), and Marco Polo (1982). He received an Emmy award nomination for best supporting actor for the TV film A Woman Called Golda (1982). He also had roles in Night Gallery (1972) and Columbo (1973) where he played a murderous doctor who was one of the few criminals with whom Columbo became angry.
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 character part as a psychiatrist 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 appeared in such plays as Vincent, 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, Equus and My Fair Lady.
Star Trek films
When a new
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 started film directing in 1984 with the film series. Nimoy would go on to direct the second most successful film (critically and financially) in the franchise to date after the 2009
Star Trek film,
(1986) and move beyond the Trek universe with
Three Men and a Baby, the highest grossing film of 1987. At a press conference promoting the 2009
Star Trek movie, Nimoy made it clear that he had no further plans or ambition to direct.
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Other work after Star Trek
In 1978, Nimoy played Dr. David Kibner in
Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He also did occasional work as a
voice actor in animated feature films, including the character of
Galvatron in
in 1986.
In 1991, Nimoy teamed up with Robert B. Radnitz to produce a movie for TNT about a pro bono publico lawsuit brought by public interest attorney William John Cox on behalf of Mel Mermelstein, an Auschwitz survivor, against a group of organizations engaged in Holocaust denial. Nimoy also played the Mermelstein role and believes: "If every project brought me the same sense of fulfillment that Never Forget did, I would truly be in paradise."
Nimoy performed as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in The Pagemaster in 1994. In 1998, he had a leading role as Mustapha Mond in the made-for-television production of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.
Starting in 1994, Nimoy began to narrate the Ancient Mysteries series on A&E; 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. He had a central role in Brave New World, a 1998 TV-movie version of Aldous Huxley's novel where he played a character reminiscent of Spock in his philosophical balancing of unpredictable human qualities with the need for control. Nimoy has also appeared in several popular television seriesincluding Futurama and The Simpsonsas both himself and Spock.
Nimoy appeared in Hearts of Space program number 142 – "Whales alive."
In 1999, he voiced the narration of the English version of the Sega Dreamcast game Seaman and promoted Y2K educational films.
In 2000, he provided on-camera hosting and introductions for 45 half-hour episodes of an anthology series entitled Our 20th Century on the AEN TV Network. The series covers world news, sports, entertainment, technology, and fashion using original archive news clips from 1930 to 1975 from the National Archives in Washington D.C. and other private archival sources.
In 2003, he announced his retirement from acting to concentrate on photography, but subsequently appeared in several television commercials with William Shatner for Priceline.com. He appeared in a commercial for Aleve, an arthritis pain medication, which aired during the 2006 Super Bowl.
Nimoy provided a comprehensive series of voiceovers for the 2005 computer game Civilization IV. He did the TV series Next Wave where he interviewed people about technology. He is the host in the documentary film The Once and Future Griffith Observatory currently running in the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater located at the recently reopened Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California.
In January 2007, he granted an interview to Fat Free Film, where he discussed his early career and the benefits of being typecast.
Nimoy was given casting approval over who would play the young Spock in the newest film.
On January 6, 2009, he was interviewed by William Shatner on Biography Channel's Shatner's Raw Nerve.
In May 2009, he made an appearance as the mysterious Dr. William Bell in the season finale of Fringe, which explores the existence of a parallel universe. Nimoy returned as Dr. Bell in the autumn for an extended arc, and according to Roberto Orci, co-creator of Fringe, Bell will be "the beginning of the answers to even bigger questions." This choice led one reviewer to question if Fringe's plot might be a homage to the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror", which featured an alternate reality "Mirror Universe" concept and an evil version of Spock distinguished by a goatee.
at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park]]
On the May 9, 2009 episode of Saturday Night Live, Nimoy appeared as a surprise guest on the skit "Weekend Update". During a mock interview, Nimoy called old Trekkies who did not like the new movie "dickheads". In the 2009 Star Trek movie, he plays the older Spock from the original Star Trek timeline; Zachary Quinto meanwhile, portrays the young Spock.
Starring with Will Ferrell in the TV-based movie Land of the Lost in June 2009, he voiced the part of "The Zarn", an Altrusian.
Nimoy is also a frequent and popular reader for "Selected Shorts", an ongoing series of programs at Symphony Space in New York City (that also tours around the country) which features actors, and sometimes authors, reading works of short fiction. The programs are broadcast on radio and available on websites through Public Radio International, National Public Radio and WNYC radio. Nimoy was honored by Symphony Space with the renaming of the Thalia Theater as the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater.
Nimoy has also provided voiceovers for the Star Trek Online massively multiplayer online game, released in February 2010, as well as for as the villainous Master Xehanort. Tetsuya Nomura, the director of Birth by Sleep, stated that he chose Nimoy for the role specifically because of his role as Spock.
Retirement
In April 2010, Nimoy announced plans to retire from acting after 60 years in the movie business, citing both his advanced age and giving
Zachary Quinto the opportunity to enjoy full media attention with the Spock character.
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep was his final performance.
Photography
Nimoy's interest in photography began in childhood; he still owns a camera which he rebuilt at the age of 13. His photography studies at UCLA occurred after
Star Trek and
Mission: Impossible, when Nimoy seriously considered changing careers. His work has been exhibited at the R. Michelson Galleries in
Northampton, Massachusetts}}
His second autobiography was I Am Spock (1995), communicating that he finally realized his years of portraying the Spock character had led to a much greater identification between the fictional character and himself. 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 the character. As such, in this autobiography Nimoy maintains that in some meaningful sense he has merged with Spock 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 titled A Lifetime of Love: Poems on the Passages of Life (2002). His poetry can be found in the Contemporary Poets index of The HyperTexts. In the mid-1970s Nimoy wrote and starred in a one-man play called Vincent based on the play Van Gogh by Phillip Stephens.
In 1995, Nimoy was involved in the production of Primortals, a comic book series published by Tekno Comix that involved a first contact situation with aliens, which had arisen from a discussion he had with Isaac Asimov. There was a novelization by Steve Perry.
Music career
During and following
Star Trek, Nimoy also released
five albums of vocal recordings on Dot Records, including
Trek-related songs such as "Highly Illogical", and cover versions of popular tunes, such as "
Proud Mary". In regards to how his recording career got started, he stated:
The albums were popular and resulted in numerous live appearances and promotional record signings that attracted crowds of fans in the thousands. The early recordings were produced by Charles Grean, who may be best known for his version of "Quentin's Theme" from the mid-sixties goth soap opera Dark Shadows. 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 The Lord of the Rings films were released.
In addition to his own music career he 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. He released a version of Johnny Cash's song "I Walk the Line".
Nimoy's voice appeared in sampled form on a song by the pop band Information Society in the late Eighties. The song, "What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy)" (released in 1988), reached #3 on the US Pop charts, and #1 on Dance charts. The group's self-titled LP contains several other samples from the original Star Trek television series.
Personal life
Nimoy has long been active in the Jewish community, and he can speak and read
Yiddish. 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
The Shekhina Project, a photographic study exploring the feminine aspect of God's presence, inspired by
Kabbalah.
Nimoy has been married twice. In 1954, he married actress Sandra Zober, whom he divorced in 1987.
In a 2001 DVD, Nimoy revealed that he became an alcoholic while working on Star Trek and ended up in rehab. Also in William Shatner's 2008 book , Shatner speaks about how later in their lives Nimoy tried to help Shatner's alcoholic wife.
Nimoy still has the last pair of Spock's ears he wore on the series, as a memento. He has said that the character of Spock, which he played twelve to fourteen hours a day, five days a week, influenced his personality in private life. Each weekend during the original run of the series, he would be in character throughout Saturday and into Sunday, behaving more like Spock than himself more logical, more rational, more thoughtful, less emotional and finding a calm in every situation. It was only on Sunday in the early afternoon that Spock's influence on his behavior would fade off and he would feel more himself again – only to start the cycle over Monday morning.
Nimoy also introduced the Vulcan nerve pinch in an early Star Trek episode "". Initially, Spock was supposed to knock out an evil Kirk in the Engineering room by striking him on the back of the head. Nimoy felt that the action was not in keeping with the nature of Spock's character, so he suggested the "pinch" as a non-violent alternative, suggesting that Vulcans have the ability to emit energy from their fingertips, which, if applied to the correct nerve cluster, could render a human unconscious.
He has remained good friends with co-star William Shatner and was best man at Shatner's third marriage in 1997. He also remained good friends with DeForest Kelley as well.
The Space Foundation named Nimoy as the recipient of the 2010 Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award for creating a positive role model that inspired untold numbers of viewers to learn more about the universe. An honor Nimoy did not receive, however, was the naming of asteroid 2309 Mr. Spock after his character, at least not directly. The asteroid was named by discoverer James B. Gibson after his pet cat, "Mr. Spock," said feline indeed being named after the Star Trek character.
Filmography
Director
Vincent: Based on the play "Van Gogh" by Phillip Stephens (1978–1981)
(1984)
(1986)
Three Men and a Baby (1987)
The Good Mother (1988)
Funny About Love (1990)
Holy Matrimony (1994)
episodes of Night Gallery, T.J. Hooker, The Powers of Matthew Star and Deadly Games
Writer
Bibliography
I Am Not Spock (1977)
Vincent: Based on the play "Van Gogh" by Phillip Stephens (1978)
(1979) (Contributions uncredited)
(1984) (Contributions uncredited)
(1986)
(1991)
I Am Spock (1995)
Shekhina photography (2005) (ISBN 978-1-884167-16-4)
The Full Body Project (2008)
Poetry
You & I (1973) (ISBN 978-0-912310-26-8)
Will I Think of You? (1974) (ISBN 0912310701)
We Are All Children Searching for Love: A Collection of Poems and Photographs (1977) (ISBN 978-0-88396-024-0)
Come be With Me (1978) (ISBN 978-0-88396-033-2)
These Words are for You (ISBN 978-0-88396-148-3)
Warmed by Love (1983) (ISBN 978-0-88396-200-8)
A Lifetime of Love: Poems on the Passages of Life (2002) (ISBN 978-0-88396-596-2)
Discography
:
See also: Leonard Nimoy discography (includes compilations and re-issues)
Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock's Music From Outer Space (Dot Records), (1967).
Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy (Dot Records), (1968).
The Way I Feel (Dot Records, Stereo DLP 25883), (1968).
The Touch of Leonard Nimoy (Dot Records, Stereo DLP 25910), (1969).
The New World of Leonard Nimoy (Dot Records, Stereo DLP 25966), (1970).
References
External links
Leonard Nimoy's personal website
Leonard Nimoy's entry at Startrek.com
Interview with Leonard Nimoy at hossli.com
Leonard Nimoy Poetry and Photography on The HyperTexts
Maiden Wine comprehensive site devoted to the musical career of Leonard Nimoy.
Interview with Leonard Nimoy by the Archive of American Television (2000)
Nimoy in Seattle for ComiCon
2010 Interview with Nimoy about his "Secret Selves" show at Mass MoCA
Media
Newsmaker of the Week: Leonard Nimoy (30-min. interview, free)
Archive of American Television Interview with Leonard Nimoy Nov 2, 2000 on Google Video
Category:American film actors
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Category:American poets
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Category:Antioch College alumni
Category:English-language film directors
Category:Jewish actors
Category:Dot Records artists
Category:Actors from Massachusetts
Category:Mission: Impossible
Category:People from Boston, Massachusetts
Category:American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent
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