Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Simon Nimoy (born March 26, 1931 – February 27, 2015) was an American actor who achieved international fame for playing Spock in the Star Trek franchise for almost 50 years; from two pilot episodes in 1964 and 1965 to his final film performance in 2013. Originating the role of Spock on Star Trek, he went on to play him again on the animated Star Trek series, the first six Star Trek films, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Nimoy also directed films, including Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), and appeared in several films, television shows, and voice acted in several video games.

Nimoy began his acting career in his early twenties, teaching acting classes in Hollywood and making minor film and television appearances through the 1950s. From 1953 to 1955, Nimoy served in the United States Army as a Staff Sergeant in the Special Services, an entertainment branch of the American military. In February 1965, he made his first appearance as Spock in the Star Trek television pilots "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before", and went on to play the character until the end of the production run in early 1969, followed by eight feature films and guest appearances in later spin-offs in the franchise. From 1967 to 1970, Nimoy had a music career with Dot Records, with his first and second albums being mostly recorded in character of Spock. After the original Star Trek series, Nimoy starred in Mission: Impossible for two seasons, hosted the documentary series In Search of..., and made several well-received stage appearances.

Nimoy's portrayal of Spock made a significant cultural impact and earned him three Emmy Award nominations. His public profile as Spock was so strong that both his autobiographies, I Am Not Spock (1975) and I Am Spock (1995), were written from the viewpoint of sharing his existence with the character. In 2015, Nimoy died after a long battle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). His death became international news and was met with expressions of shock and grief by fans, Star Trek co-stars, scientists, celebrities, and the media. An asteroid was named 4864 Nimoy in his honor. The documentaries For the Love of Spock (2016) and Remembering Leonard Nimoy (2017) were produced by his son and daughter respectively; the first covers his life and career, and the second covers his illness.

Early Life
Leonard Simon Nimoy was born on March 26, 1931, in the West End of Boston, Massachusetts, to Jewish immigrants from Iziaslav, Ukraine. His parents left Iziaslav separately, his father first walking over the border into Poland while his mother and grandmother were smuggled out of the Soviet Union in a horse-drawn wagon by hiding under bales of hay. They reunited after arriving in the United States. His mother, Dora (née Spinner; 1904–1987), was a homemaker, and his father, Max Nimoy (1901–1987), owned a barbershop in the Mattapan section of Boston. He had an elder brother, Melvin. He also had a cousin, Jeff Nimoy, a writer and actor.

As a child, Nimoy took miscellaneous jobs to supplement his family's income, including selling newspapers and greeting cards, shining shoes, or setting up chairs in theaters, and when he got older, selling vacuum cleaners. He also began acting at the age of eight in a children's and neighborhood theater. His parents wanted him to attend college and pursue a stable career, or even learn to play the accordion, so he could always make a living, but his grandfather encouraged him to do what he then wanted to do most, which was acting. Nimoy also realized he had an aptitude for singing, which he developed while a member of his synagogue's choir. His singing during his bar mitzvah at age 13 was so good he was asked to repeat his performance the following week at another synagogue. "He is still the only man I know whose voice was two bar mitzvahs good!" said William Shatner.

His first major role was at 17, as Ralphie in an amateur production of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing!, which dealt with the struggles of a matriarchal Jewish family similar to his during the Great Depression. "Playing this teenage kid in this Jewish family that was so much like mine was amazing," he said. "The same dynamics, the same tensions in the household." The role "lit a passion" that led him to pursue an acting career. "I never wanted to do anything else." Shatner has said that Nimoy also worked on local radio shows for children, often voice acting Bible stories, adding: Obviously, there was something symbolic about that. Many years later as Captain Kirk, I would be busy rescuing civilizations in distress on distant planets while Leonard's Mr. Spock would be examining the morality of man- and alienkind.

Nimoy took drama classes at Boston College, and after moving to Los Angeles, he used $600 he saved from selling vacuum cleaners to enroll at the Pasadena Playhouse. However, he was soon disillusioned and quit after six months, feeling that the acting skills he had already acquired from earlier roles were more advanced: "I thought, I have to study here three years in order to do this level of work, and I'm already doing better work"

In 1953, Nimoy enlisted in the United States Army Reserve at Fort McPherson Georgia, serving for 18 months until 1955, leaving as a Staff Sergeant. Part of Nimoy's time in the military was spent with the Army Special Services, putting on shows which he wrote, narrated, and emceed. One of his soldiers was Ken Berry, whom he encouraged to go into acting as a civilian, and helped contact agents. During that period, he also directed and starred in A Streetcar Named Desire, with the Atlanta Theater Guild. Soon after he was discharged, with his wife Sandi pregnant with their second child, they rented an apartment and Nimoy took a job driving a cab in Los Angeles.

Career
Nimoy spent more than a decade receiving only small parts in B movies and the lead in one, along with a minor TV role. He believed that playing the title role in the 1952 film Kid Monk Baroni would make him a star, but the film failed after playing briefly. While he was serving in the military the film gained a larger audience on television, and after his discharge he got steadier work playing a "heavy," where his character used street weapons like switchblades and guns, or had to threaten, hit or kick people. Despite overcoming his Boston accent, because of his lean appearance Nimoy realized that becoming a star was not likely.

He decided to be a supporting actor rather than take lead roles, an attitude he acquired from his childhood: "I'm a second child who was educated to the idea my older brother was to be given respect and not perturbed. I was not to upstage him ... So my acting career was designed to be a supporting player, a character actor." He played more than 50 small parts in B movies, television series such as Perry Mason and Dragnet, and serials such as Republic Pictures' Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952), in which Nimoy played Narab, a Martian. To support a wife and two children he often did other work, such as delivering newspapers, working in a pet shop, and driving cabs.

Nimoy played an army sergeant in the 1954 science fiction thriller Them! and a professor in the 1958 science fiction movie The Brain Eaters, and had a role in The Balcony (1963), a film adaptation of the Jean Genet play. With Vic Morrow, he co-produced Deathwatch, a 1965 English-language film version of Genet's play Haute Surveillance, adapted and directed by Morrow and starring Nimoy. The story dealt with three prison inmates. Partly as a result of his role, he then taught drama classes to members of Synanon, a drug rehab center, explaining: "Give a little here and it always comes back". He had guest roles in the Sea Hunt series from 1958 to 1960 and a minor role in the 1961 The Twilight Zone episode "A Quality of Mercy". He also appeared in the syndicated Highway Patrol starring Broderick Crawford, and as Luke Reid in the "Night of Decision" episode of the ABC/Warner Bros. western series Colt .45.

Nimoy appeared four times in ethnic roles on NBC's Wagon Train, the number one rated program of the 1961–1962 season. He portrayed Bernabe Zamora in "The Estaban Zamora Story" (1959), "Cherokee Ned" in "The Maggie Hamilton Story" (1960), Joaquin Delgado in "The Tiburcio Mendez Story" (1961) and Emeterio Vasquez in "The Baylor Crowfoot Story" (1962). Nimoy appeared in Steve Canyon (1959), Bonanza (1960), The Rebel (1960), Two Faces West (1961), Rawhide (1961), The Untouchables (1962), The Eleventh Hour (1962), Perry Mason (1963; playing murderer Pete Chennery in "The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe", episode 13 of season 6), Combat! (1963, 1965), Daniel Boone, The Outer Limits (1964), The Virginian (1963–1965; first working with Star Trek co-star DeForest Kelley in "Man of Violence", episode 14 of season 2, in 1963), and Get Smart (1966). He appeared again in the 1995 Outer Limits series. He appeared on Gunsmoke; in 1961 as Grice, in 1962 as Arnie and in 1966 as John Walking Fox.

Nimoy and Star Trek co-star William Shatner first worked together on an episode of the NBC spy series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., "The Project Strigas Affair" (1964). Their characters were from opposite sides of the Iron Curtain, though with his saturnine looks, Nimoy was the villain, with Shatner playing a reluctant U.N.C.L.E. recruit.

Nimoy was best known for his portrayal of Spock, the half-human, half-Vulcan character he played on Star Trek from the first TV episode, in 1966, to the film Star Trek Into Darkness in 2013. Biographer Dennis Fischer says it was Nimoy's "most important role," and Nimoy was later credited by others for bringing "dignity and intelligence to one of the most revered characters in science fiction."

The character became iconic, considered one of the most popular alien characters ever featured on television. Viewers admired Spock's "coolness, his intelligence", and his ability to take on any task successfully, adds Fischer. As a result, Nimoy's character "took the public by storm", nearly eclipsing the star of the series, William Shatner's Captain Kirk. Nimoy and Shatner, who portrayed his commanding officer, became close friends during the years the series was on television, and were "like brothers", said Shatner. Star Trek was broadcast from 1966 to 1969.

For his role as Spock, Nimoy was nominated three times Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, and is currently the only Star Trek actor to be nominated for an Emmy.

He went on to reprise the Spock character in Star Trek: The Animated Series and two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. When a new Star Trek series was planned in the late 1970s, Nimoy was to be in only two out of eleven episodes, but when the series was elevated to a feature film, he agreed to reprise his role. The first six Star Trek movies feature the original Star Trek cast including Nimoy, who also directed two of the films. He played the elder Spock in the 2009 Star Trek movie and reprised the role in a brief appearance in the 2013 sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness, both directed by J. J. Abrams.

Following Star Trek in 1969, Nimoy immediately joined the cast of the spy series Mission: Impossible, which was seeking a replacement for Martin Landau. Nimoy was cast in the role of Paris, an IMF agent who was an ex-magician and make-up expert, "The Great Paris". He played the role during seasons four and five (1969–1971). Nimoy had been strongly considered as part of the initial cast for the show, but remained in the Spock role on Star Trek.

He co-starred with Yul Brynner and Richard Crenna in the Western movie Catlow (1971). He also had roles in two episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1972 and 1973) and Columbo (1973), season 2 episode 6 entitled "A Stitch in Crime"; Nimoy portrayed murderous doctor Barry Mayfield, one of the few murder suspects toward whom Columbo showed anger. Nimoy appeared in 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 television film A Woman Called Golda (1982), for playing the role of Morris Meyerson, Golda Meir's husband, opposite Ingrid Bergman as Golda in her final role.

Personal Life
Nimoy was long active in the Jewish community, and he could 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. Reactions have varied from enthusiastic support to open condemnation. Nimoy said objections to Shekhina did not bother or surprise him, but he smarted at the stridency of the Orthodox protests, and was saddened at the attempt to control thought.

Nimoy was married twice. In 1954, he married actress Sandra Zober; they had two children, Julie and Adam. After 32 years of marriage, he reportedly left Sandra on her 56th birthday and divorced her in 1987. On New Year's Day 1989, Nimoy married his second wife, actress Susan Bay, cousin of director Michael Bay.

In 2009, Nimoy was honored by his childhood hometown when the Office of Mayor Thomas Menino proclaimed the date of November 14, 2009, as "Leonard Nimoy Day" in the City of Boston.

In 2014, Walter Koenig revealed in a Las Vegas Sun interview that Leonard Nimoy personally and successfully advocated equal pay for Nichelle Nichols' work on Star Trek to the show's producers. This incident was confirmed by Nimoy in a Trekmovie interview, and happened during his years at Desilu.

Nimoy has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On June 2, 2015, the asteroid 4864 Nimoy was named after him.

Death
In February 2014, Nimoy revealed publicly that he had been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a condition he attributed to a smoking addiction he had given up about 30 years earlier. On February 19, 2015, having been in and out of hospitals for several months, Nimoy was taken to UCLA Medical Center for chest pains.

On February 25, 2015, Nimoy fell into a coma, and died of complications from COPD at his home in Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, on the morning of February 27, at the age of 83. Adam Nimoy said that as his father came closer to death, "he mellowed out. He made his family a priority and his career became secondary." A few days before his death, Nimoy shared some of his poetry on social media website Twitter: "A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP".

Nimoy was buried at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles on March 1, 2015. The service was attended by nearly 300 family members, friends and former colleagues, as well as Zachary Quinto, Chris Pine, and J. J. Abrams. Though William Shatner could not attend, he was represented by his daughters.

Video Game Dubbing

 * Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (2010) - Master Xehanort