While scientists were exploring space in the 1960s, film and TV show directors began to produce space related movies and TV shows. As a result a large number of space-exploration movies/TV shows started to pour out, and among them was a very famous TV show titled Star Trek, a sci-fi series about a team of explorers aboard a spaceship, produced by Gene Roddenberry.
The vessel of the Star Trek staffed by a diverse crew, was on a voyage to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. Star Trek had its premiere on NBC Television on Sept. 8, 1966, and was aired in Sri Lanka as well. It was during the early 80s through the Rupavahini channel. As with other countries, the show gained in popularity and the main factor for it was its iconic character Spock played by Leonard Nimoy, an American Jew.
Who is Spock?
Spock is half-man, half-alien with pointy ears, upturned eyebrows and bowl haircut. He is maddingly logical and frustratingly dispassionate. His attempts to reconcile his resolute alien ‘Vulcan’) rationality with his human emotions struck a chord with viewers, and the character’s popularity rivaled that of the ostensible main protagonist, Capt. James T. Kirk (played by William Shatner).
Before the production when Roddenberry, the creator of ‘Star Trek’, was researching on each character, he wanted to portray Spock as an alien. So he included pointy ears to Spock and he also needed red skin for him. But the colour red proved problematic as most TVs in the mid-1960s were still black and white, so he dropped the colour. However, as a talented actor Nimoy himself could improvise some new things such as ‘Vulcan salute’ for Spock so that viewers could immediately perceive him as otherworldly.
Here, we should focus on the real character behind Spock who is Leonard Nimoy, as he was a hidden character most of the time in real life.
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy, in full, Leonard Simon Nimoy, was born on March 26, 1931, Boston, Massachusetts, US. He was the second son of Max and Dora Nimoy, Ukrainian immigrants and Orthodox Jews - his father worked as a barber. Nimoy grew up in a tenement in Boston’s West End neighbourhood. According to his biographical notes, he acted in local productions from the age of 8, winning parts at a community college, where he performed through his high school years. In 1949, after taking a summer course at Boston College, he traveled to California. Then he began auditioning for film and television parts and was cast in bit roles in such movies as ‘Queen for a Day’ (1951) and the serial Zombies of the ‘Stratosphere’ (1952).
Acting while serving
Leonard Nimoy assumed the starring role in the boxing melodrama ‘Kid Monk Baroni’ (1952) in which he played a disfigured Italian street-gang leader who becomes a boxer. In 1953 he was enlisted in the Army reserve. Yet, he continued to appear in productions during his free time while serving in the Army. Particularly, he presided over shows for the Army’s Special Services branch, and wrote and directed television and radio variety programs for the troops. He also directed and starred as Stanley in the Atlanta Theater Guild’s production of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’.
In this way, Nimoy served in the Army for two years, rising to sergeant and spending 18 months at Fort McPherson in Georgia before receiving his final discharge in November 1955. Thereafter, he returned to California, and worked as a soda jerk, movie usher and cabdriver while studying acting at the Pasadena Playhouse.
Television actor
Nimoy achieved wide visibility in the late 1950s and early 1960s on television shows like ‘Wagon Train’, ‘Rawhide’ and ‘Perry Mason’. Then came ‘Star Trek’. In 1958 he began taking acting lessons from blacklisted actor Jeff Corey and, later, teaching at his own studio.
He spent more than a decade making the rounds as a television guest actor on various programs, including ‘Dragnet’, ‘Sea Hunt’, ‘Bonanza’, ‘Rawhide’, ‘Perry Mason’, ‘The Outer Limits’, and ‘Gunsmoke’. One of these minor performances was a spot on the Gene Roddenberry-produced series ‘The Lieutenant’ (1964). This, in fact, led to the role with which he became synonymous: Mr. Spock.
Cancelled
‘Star Trek’ show was cancelled after three years in 1969 due to low ratings, but it developed an extraordinarily devoted following. Because of that, it was, later, spun off into an animated show, various new series and an uneven parade of movies starring much of the original television cast, including — besides Nimoy — William Shatner (as Captain Kirk), DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy), George Takei (the helmsman, Sulu), James Doohan (the chief engineer, Scott), Nichelle Nichols (the chief communications officer, Uhura) and Walter Koenig (the navigator, Chekov).
When the director J. J. Abrams revived the ‘Star Trek’ film franchise in 2009, with an all-new cast including Zachary Quinto as Spock, he included a cameo part for Nimoy, as an older version of the same character. Nimoy also appeared in the 2013 follow-up, ‘Star Trek Into Darkness.’
It is also noteworthy to mention that Nimoy returned to college in his 40s and earned a master’s degree in Spanish from Antioch University Austin, an affiliate of Antioch College in Ohio, in 1978. Antioch University later awarded Nimoy an honorary doctorate.
Other talent in Nimoy
 Leonard Nimoy |
Apart from acting in the ‘Star Trek’, Nimoy also directed the movies ‘Star Trek III: The Search for Spock’ (1984) and ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’ (1986), which he helped write. In 1991, the same year that he resurrected Mr. Spock on two episodes of ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation,’ Nimoy was also the executive producer and a writer of the movie ‘Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.’
He then directed the hugely successful comedy ‘Three Men and a Baby’ (1987), a far cry from his science-fiction work, and appeared in made-for-television movies. He received an Emmy nomination for the 1982 movie ‘A Woman Called Golda,’ in which he portrayed the husband of Golda Meir, the prime minister of Israel, who was played by Ingrid Bergman. It was the fourth Emmy nomination of his career — the other three were for his ‘Star Trek’ work — although he never won.
And he performed his talents as a singer as well. His first album was called ‘Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock’s Music From Outer Space.’ Though his speaking voice was among his chief assets as an actor, the critical consensus was that his music was mortifying. Nimoy, however, was undaunted, and his fans seemed to enjoy the camp of his covers of songs like ‘If I Had a Hammer.’
He also found his voice as a writer. First, he published two volumes of his autobiography: ‘I Am Not Spock’ and ‘I am Spock.’ Then, he published ‘A Lifetime of Love: Poems on the Passages of Life’ in 2002.
In later years, he rediscovered his Jewish heritage: In 1991 he produced and starred in ‘Never Forget’, a television movie based on the story of a Holocaust survivor who sued a neo-Nazi organization of Holocaust deniers.
Personal life
Nimoy married twice. His marriage to the actress Sandi Zober ended in divorce. Besides his second wife, Susan Bay, he is survived by his children, Adam and Julie Nimoy; a stepson, Aaron Bay Schuck; six grandchildren and one great-grandchild; and an older brother, Melvin.
Leonard Nimoy died at 83 on February 27, 2015, in Los Angeles due to the end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.