On February 27th actor, director, producer, photographer, author, and poet Leonard Nimoy passed away at the age of 83, from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Nimoy’s most famous role was that of Mr. Spock, a character who first appeared in the original Star Trek series that first aired in 1966 and ran for three seasons. Nimoy earned three Emmy nominations for the role, which he would reprise for the Star Trek film franchise that started in 1979 and spawned 5 sequels—two of which (Star Trek III: The Search For Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home) were directed by Nimoy himself.
Although best known for the character of Spock and the Star Trek universe, Nimoy was so much more. After the cancelation of Star Trek in 1969, Nimoy became a cast member of the hit show Mission Impossible for two years; after that he appeared in a variety of TV shows in guest starring roles, when in 1975 he got his own show once again, the documentary like program In Search Of… which explored strange events and happenings.
In addition to his work on the small screen, Nimoy was an accomplished stage actor. According to the website vulture.com the actor played the role of Tevye from the musical Fiddler on the Roof in 1974 and the part of Randle McMurphy from the dramatic play One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, also in 1974—just one year before Jack Nicholson played the part on film.
Beyond acting, Nimoy was also an accomplished photographer, singer (he released five albums in his lifetime, the first titled Mr. Spock’s Music from Outer Space), and writer. His two books, I Am Not Spock (from 1975) and I Am Spock (from 1995) were both best sellers.
Also, as stated in the vulture.com article “20 Cool Things Leonard Nimoy Did Other than Star Trek” Nimoy directed the smash hit from 1987 Three Men and a Baby (which was the highest grossing film of that year), and the controversial 1988 hit, The Good Mother.
But even with all of these accomplishments, it still always comes back to the character of Mr. Spock and the Star Trek series. Many times, it seemed like the character was bigger than both Nimoy and the show because of its immense popularity with viewers. In an article on slate.com titled “Remembering Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock, One of History’s Greatest TV Characters” by author Matt Zoeller Seitzhe, the writer states that, “A big part of the reason why the character of Spock—a “half-breed,” per Dr. McCoy’s slur, in some ways passing for human while staunchly insisting on his cultural Vulcan-ness—made such a powerful impact on viewers who felt, in one way or another, like outsiders.”
Nimoy himself said, “I once wrote that I was not Spock…But given the choice, if I had to be someone else, I would be Spock. If someone said, ‘You can have the choice of being any other TV character ever played,’ I would choose Spock. I like him. I admire him. I respect him.”
On the day of Nimoy’s death, tributes from fans and colleagues appeared all over the internet and on TV, from this country and around the world, with one even from President Obama who said, “Long before being nerdy was cool there was Leonard Nimoy…Leonard was a lifelong lover of the arts and humanities, a supporter of the sciences, generous with his talent and his time. And of course, Leonard was Spock. Cool, logical, big-eared and level-headed, the center of Star Trek’s optimistic, inclusive vision of humanity’s future. I loved Spock.”