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Leonard Nimoy

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Nimoy returned to the role of Spock in the 2009 movie Star Trek ; it was the first time he played the character on-screen since 1991 and was his first live-action film role since Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . He made a further cameo appearance as Spock in the 2013 sequel Star Trek Into Darkness , making him the only principal cast member of any Star Trek series to appear in eight of the films and (technically) the longest-serving of all Star Trek cast members, having played the role on and off over a period of forty-nine years, from 1964 to 2013. In addition to this he voiced Spock in the video games Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator , Star Trek: 25th Anniversary , Star Trek: Judgment Rites and Star Trek Online .

Footage of Nimoy's previous performances as Spock also appeared in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode " Trials and Tribble-ations ", as well as the Star Trek: Discovery episodes " If Memory Serves ", and " Unification III ". His image also appeared in Star Trek Generations in a photograph in Kirk's cabin in the Nexus and again more prominently in Star Trek Beyond in two photographs that were among Spock's possessions bequeathed to his alternate reality counterpart .

• 1 Biography
• 2 Early career
• 3 The Star Trek years
• 4 After Star Trek
• 5 Return to Star Trek
• 6 Other film and television works
• 7 Later projects
• 8.1 Additional appearances
• 9 Directing credits
• 10 Writing credits
• 12 Star Trek interviews
• 13 Bibliography
• 14 Music discography
• 15 Further reading
• 16 External links

Biography [ ]

Leonard Simon Nimoy was born in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, just four days after his Star Trek co-star William Shatner . Like Shatner, he was of Ukrainian-Jewish ancestry (his family name means "person who cannot speak" in Russian).

He entered Boston College on a dramatic scholarship, but dropped out and headed for the West Coast, knowing that, there, he would find more lucrative opportunities in the acting business. In 1954, he married Sandi Zober, with whom he had two children – Adam and Julie. In the early 1950s, Nimoy served as a member of the United States Army Reserve . He served for eighteen months in Special Services at Ft. McPherson in Georgia and received a discharge in 1955 as a sergeant . Unfortunately, Nimoy's Army personnel file was destroyed in 1973 , during a major fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

In the mid-1950s, Nimoy began appearing in various television guest shots. In 1963, Nimoy landed a guest role on The Lieutenant, a series created by Gene Roddenberry . Roddenberry was also developing a science fiction series at the time and thought Nimoy would be perfect for it. Although he was initially up for the role of the ship's chief medical officer, Nimoy accepted the role as a half-Vulcan/half-Human named Spock on Roddenberry's series, entitled Star Trek, which made his career and changed his life. Nimoy played the role on and off over a period of forty-nine years, from 1964 to 2013.

After the cancellation of Star Trek , Nimoy moved on to another Desilu/Paramount series, Mission: Impossible , playing the regular character of Paris for two seasons. He returned to the role of Spock in the first six Star Trek movies.

In a hospital scene in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , a voice can be heard paging " Dr. Sandi Zober ." His second wife, Susan Bay , starred in two episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , as Admiral Rollman in " Past Prologue " and " Whispers ".

In December 2002, Nimoy announced his retirement from acting and his plans to spend his retirement as a photographer. He came out of retirement to play the Prime Spock in J.J. Abrams ' Star Trek . Regardless, Nimoy thereafter enjoyed a new career in his senior years as a professional photographer, showing his prints all over the United States and throughout the world.

Nimoy, after being seen at New York City's John F. Kennedy Airport being pushed in a wheelchair with an oxygen cylinder, disclosed in a tweet on 31 January 2014 that he had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease . He stated that it was due to his many years of being an "Olympic champion smoker" and, though he quit around the time he filmed Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , the damage was done. Nimoy appeared on CNN's Piers Morgan Live on 10 February 2014 to discuss his condition. [1] [2]

Nimoy passed away on 27 February 2015 , as a result of his illness at the age of eighty-three. Several of his Star Trek co-stars payed tribute to Nimoy after his death. [3]

On 2 June 2015, NASA honored Nimoy when they named an asteroid after him, 4864 Nimoy. [4]

His son, Adam, made the 2016 documentary For the Love of Spock in Nimoy's memory.

His legacy continued through the 2017 documentary film created by his daughter, Julie, son, Adam, and narrated by John de Lancie , titled Remembering Leonard Nimoy , designed to raise awareness of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease . [5]

Early career [ ]

Nimoy began his Hollywood career with small roles in the 1951 films Queen for a Day and Paramount Pictures ' Rhubarb. Nimoy then played the title role in the boxing drama Kid Monk Baroni and played the Martian invader Narab in the science fiction serial Zombies of the Stratosphere (later edited and released as a feature, Satan's Satellites ), both released in 1952. In 1954, he made an uncredited appearance in the classic science fiction film Them! , as did Richard Bellis , Lawrence Dobkin , and William Schallert . Four years later, he had a supporting role in another science fiction film, The Brain Eaters.

In the mid-1950s, Nimoy began appearing in various television guest shots, with his first being a 1954 episode of Dragnet. (He would make a second appearance on this series four years later, with his " Amok Time " co-star Celia Lovsky .) Between 1958 and 1960 alone, Nimoy was seen on such classic television shows as Sea Hunt, Wagon Train (working with future Trek co-stars Roy Jenson , Susan Oliver , and Phillip Pine , as well as Nehemiah Persoff ), The Tall Man (two episodes, including one with Marianna Hill and Charles Seel , with a story credit by D.C. Fontana ), Outlaws (in an episode with Alfred Ryder ), The Rebel (with Arlene Martel ), and Bonanza (in an episode written by Gene L. Coon ).

Nimoy's subsequent TV credits include a 1961 episode of Rawhide and a 1963 episode of Perry Mason with Arthur Batanides , a 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone with Dean Stockwell (and concocted by Sam Rolfe ), a 1962 episode of Laramie with Michael Forest , and a 1962 episode of Sam Benedict with Paul Carr and Joanne Linville , as well as numerous episodes of the classic western series Gunsmoke, including one in 1963 with Bill Zuckert and another in 1966 with Richard Webb . He was also seen in a 1962 episode of The Untouchables , which, like Star Trek, was produced by Desilu before it became part of Paramount. In 1964, he appeared in two episodes of the classic sci-fi anthology series, The Outer Limits – "The Production and Decay of Strange Particles" with Joseph Ruskin , Barry Russo , Rudy Solari , Robert Fortier and Willard Sage ; and "I, Robot" with Peter Brocco , Marianna Hill, and John Hoyt . He also co-starred with Sally Kellerman in a 1966 episode of A Man Called Shenandoah.

His feature film credits during the 1960s consisted of a supporting role in the 1963 drama The Balcony (with Peter Brocco), an uncredited appearance in the acclaimed John Frankenheimer thriller Seven Days in May, and a role alongside Michael Forest and Robert Ellenstein in the 1966 drama Deathwatch (featuring music by Gerald Fried ). Nimoy also produced the latter film.

Nimoy first worked with his future Trek co-star DeForest Kelley (Doctor Leonard McCoy ) in a 1959 episode of 26 Men entitled "Trail of Revenge." Prior to Star Trek, he again worked with Kelley in a 1963 episode of The Virginian. Nimoy also appeared in two 1965 episodes of The Virginian, working with Michael Ansara , Hal Baylor , Richard Beymer , Rex Holman , Sherry Jackson , and Ken Lynch .

In 1964, Nimoy and his soon-to-be Star Trek co-star William Shatner worked together for the first time. This occasion occurs in the Joseph Sargent -directed episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. entitled "The Project Strigas Affair." In this episode, Nimoy and Shatner are on opposite sides, with Nimoy playing the right-hand-man of a diplomat attempting to initiate a war between the United States and the Soviet Union and Shatner playing the reluctant U.N.C.L.E. recruit who must help foil the diplomat's plot. In one climatic scene Nimoy pulls a gun on Shatner. Nimoy and Shatner began working together on Star Trek just two years later.

The Star Trek years [ ]

Late in 1963, Nimoy landed a guest role on The Lieutenant, a series starring Gary Lockwood and created by Gene Roddenberry . The episode he appeared in, entitled "In the Highest Tradition," co-starred Roddenberry's future wife, Majel Barrett . Roddenberry was also developing a science fiction series at the time and thought Nimoy would be perfect for it. Although he was initially up for the role of the ship's chief medical officer, Nimoy accepted the role as a half-Vulcan/half-Human named Spock on Roddenberry's series, entitled Star Trek, which made his career and changed his life.

Nimoy along with Majel Barrett had his first day for "The Cage" at the Desilu Culver Stage 15 on 17 November 1964 , performing color makeup tests inside the Menagerie set.

Nimoy as Spock in the second pilot, " Where No Man Has Gone Before "

The first Star Trek pilot, " The Cage ", was filmed in November and December of 1964 . Although the pilot was rejected by NBC , the studio allowed Roddenberry to produce a second pilot, which became " Where No Man Has Gone Before ". Many cast changes were made between the first pilot and the second, and Nimoy was the only principal cast member from "The Cage" to return for the second pilot. Following this pilot, Star Trek was picked up as a series.

During his time on Star Trek, Nimoy was responsible for many traits which have become associated with Spock or Vulcans in general, including the Vulcan salute and the Vulcan nerve pinch . For his supporting role as Spock, Nimoy was nominated for an Emmy Award for each of the show's three years. Despite this, it was while working on Star Trek that Nimoy became an alcoholic. He never drank during the day or during work, but the moment work was done, he would desperately want a drink; because of that, he also became suicidal and depressed. [6] Fortunately, Nimoy was able to attain remissions of these illnesses and continue his acting career.

Low ratings led to Star Trek 's cancellation in 1969 . Including the two pilots, Nimoy appeared in all 79 episodes of the series, the only actor to do so.

After Star Trek [ ]

After the cancellation of Star Trek , Nimoy moved on to another Desilu/Paramount series, Mission: Impossible , playing the regular character of Paris for two seasons (1969 – 1971). He joined the series as a replacement for the departing Martin Landau , who, ironically, was up for the role of Spock before Nimoy got the part. Lee Meriwether had a recurring role during Nimoy's first season on Mission: Impossible. Brooke Bundy and Alfred Ryder had roles in "The Controllers", the first episode shot with Nimoy. Many other past and future Star Trek actors appeared with Nimoy during his two seasons on Mission: Impossible, including Arlene Martel and David Opatoshu in the episode "Terror."

After Mission: Impossible, Nimoy starred with Lloyd Haynes , Malachi Throne , William Windom , and John Winston in the ABC Movie of the Week Assault on the Wayne (for Paramount Television ) and co-starred with Yul Brynner , Richard Crenna , and TOS guest actor Jeff Corey in the western film Catlow, both released in 1971. He then starred in three 1973 TV movies: an unsold pilot titled Baffled! (as a race car driver who has visions of people dying), Columbo: A Stitch in Crime (as a murderous doctor), and The Alpha Caper (co-starring James B. Sikking , Paul Sorensen , Victor Tayback , and Kenneth Tobey , and executive produced by Harve Bennett ).

In 1973, Nimoy was hired by Gene Roddenberry to star in the title role of his science fiction pilot (and possibly series) The Questor Tapes , however he got replaced by Robert Foxworth . Nimoy didn't receive a word from Roddenberry about him being dumped, and only found it out when he accidentally met Foxworth on the studio lot. [7]

Nimoy made his directorial debut with a 1973 episode of Night Gallery entitled "Death on a Barge," which featured one-time TOS guest actor Lou Antonio and future TNG guest actress Brooke Bundy . Nimoy cast Lesley Ann Warren, one of his Mission: Impossible castmates, in the lead role in this episode. He also appeared as an actor on Night Gallery, in a segment entitled "She'll Be Company For You," alongside Kathryn Hays , and directed by TOS cinematographer Gerald Perry Finnerman . Finnerman also photographed the aforementioned episode directed by Nimoy. Also in 1973, Nimoy made his Broadway debut in a revival of the play Full Circle, working with future Star Trek: Enterprise guest star Peter Weller .

In 1976, Nimoy began hosting a television series called In Search Of… , a syndicated documentary program dealing with topics such as Bigfoot and other monsters, Atlantis, Stonehenge, Jack the Ripper, and other unsolved mysteries. Although the series ended in 1982, the A&E Network and later A&E's The History Channel aired In Search Of… throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s.

Return to Star Trek [ ]

In 1973 Nimoy reprised the role of Spock for the first time since 1969, voicing the character in Star Trek: The Animated Series for Filmation . He only agreed to reprise the role after his demand that George Takei and Nichelle Nichols be hired back on the series were met. [8]

Although this series ended in 1974 after only 22 episodes, a new live-action series, Star Trek: Phase II , began production shortly thereafter. Nimoy, however, opted out of this series after learning that his role would be essentially a part-time one, and his character was replaced by a young Vulcan named Xon , who would have been played by David Gautreaux .

While Paramount was busy bringing Phase II to fruition, Nimoy moved on, continuing to host In Search Of… , appearing in the Broadway production of Equus, and starring in the 1978 remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, earning a Saturn Award nomination from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films for his work on the latter. By this time, production on Phase II had ceased and the pilot for that series was being turned into the first Star Trek film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture . Nimoy was ultimately persuaded to reprise Spock for The Motion Picture , after Robert Wise , on the urgings of his wife Millicent , had made it a prerogative for him to accept the director's position on that movie. ( Star Trek Movie Memories , 1995, pp. 87-88) As a consequence, Nimoy in turn replaced Gautreaux as the principal Vulcan character for the movie. The Movie debuted in the United States on 7 December 1979 and marked the beginning of a new era for Star Trek and for Nimoy.

Nimoy with Denise Crosby on the set of "Unification II"

Nimoy received a Saturn Award nomination for his portrayal of Spock in The Motion Picture . He went on to play Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , although he was at first reluctant to do so. Spock seemingly perished at the end of Wrath of Khan, but Nimoy returned to the role for four more films: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . He also directed and co-wrote the stories for The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home and executive produced and co-wrote the story for The Undiscovered Country. He earned Saturn Award nominations for directing The Search for Spock and for his performance in and direction of The Voyage Home.

In late- 1986 , Nimoy was asked by Paramount Pictures chairman of the board Frank Mancuso, Sr. to produce Star Trek: The Next Generation , planned to be launched by the studio the following year, however Nimoy refused the offer. [9]

In 1991 Nimoy reprised his role as Spock for the TNG episodes " Unification I " and " Unification II ". Due to his schedule, the second part was filmed prior to the first part as most of his appearance were in the second part. A few additional scenes of the first part were filmed during principal photography of the second part. Nimoy filmed his scenes for both episodes between Monday 9 September 1991 and Friday 13 September 1991 on Paramount Stage 8 , 9 , and 16 . The call sheet for Tuesday 10 September 1991 advised the transportation department to pick up Nimoy at his hotel at 5:10 am because of his makeup call at 5:40 am.

In 1994 , Nimoy was asked to appear as Spock in Star Trek Generations , the seventh Star Trek feature and the first to feature the crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The film's script originally had a role for Nimoy, but it was not to Nimoy's satisfaction and he declined the offer. Explaining his reason for turning down the film, Nimoy remarked:

Several costumes and costume pieces worn by Nimoy were sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay, including his headband from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home . [10]

Other film and television works [ ]

Between his work on the Star Trek films, Nimoy worked on numerous television projects. In 1981, he directed and starred in his own television adaptation of the one-man play Vincent, portraying Vincent van Gogh's brother, Theo. In 1982, he received his fourth Emmy nomination for his supporting role in the telefilm A Woman Called Golda and appeared in the mini-series Marco Polo, starring Kenneth Marshall in the title role and co-starring F. Murray Abraham and David Warner .

Also around this time, Nimoy directed an episode of William Shatner's new series, T.J. Hooker, reportedly in preparation for directing Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. ( Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (Special Edition) special features) He later guest-starred on the series, which also starred Star Trek: Deep Space Nine performer James Darren .

From 1982 to 1987, Nimoy hosted Standby… Lights! Camera! Action! , a Nickelodeon series featuring behind-the-scenes footage from then-current or upcoming films and interviews with film professionals who fit the theme of that episode. One episode focused on the making of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and saw Nimoy interviewing George Takei.

Nimoy later appeared in the James Goldstone -directed TV movie The Sun Also Rises, based on the Ernest Hemingway novel. He then worked with director Tim Burton to play the villain in the Faerie Tale Theatre production of Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp. Nimoy also lent his voice to the role of Galvatron in The Transformers: The Movie, the 1986 film based on the animated series. Among the others who voiced characters in the movie are Michael Bell , Roger C. Carmel , Walker Edmiston , Clive Revill , Frank Welker , and Orson Welles .

In 1987, Nimoy directed the hit comedy 3 Men and a Baby, his first non- Star Trek feature film. Subsequent films he directed were The Good Mother (1988), Funny About Love (1990, featuring Michael Bofshever and Celeste Yarnall ), and Holy Matrimony (1994, starring Jeffrey Nordling and John Schuck ); frequent Trek editor Peter E. Berger edited all three of these films. Nimoy's latest directorial effort was a 1995 episode of the short-lived UPN series Deadly Games, starring Christopher Lloyd .

Nimoy starred in the 1991 television drama Never Forget, directed by Joseph Sargent , and voiced the mysterious Mr. Moundshroud in the 1993 animated movie The Halloween Tree. In addition, he voiced Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the 1994 live-action/animated fantasy The Pagemaster, which also featured the voices of Patrick Stewart , Whoopi Goldberg , Frank Welker, George Hearn , Robert Picardo , and Christopher Lloyd. In 1995, Nimoy appeared on The Outer Limits under the direction of his son, Adam; a remake of the 1964 episode "I, Robot" (although Nimoy played a different character than he had in the original).

In 1993, Nimoy guest starred on The Simpsons episode " Marge vs. the Monorail ", and in 1997 guest starred again in " The Springfield Files ".

As a director, Nimoy was very much invested with the actors he directed, having been one himself, as was clearly evidenced by David Gautreaux, Nimoy had replaced as the principal Vulcan character on The Motion Picture ,

"Leonard and I had a meeting once when he called and asked me to down to Paramount . I thought it was because of Star Trek III . He had many roles to cast, and he wanted to meet with me. We had a nice long conversation, which is on videotape, because he recorded all of his conversations; it helps him remember actors. We chit-chatted for a good period of time, and then he came in with what I call the slider, which was, "How did you feel…how did it affect you…essentially, what did it do to your life when I came back and played Mr. Spock, thus removing your character?" I looked at him, wondering if he was trying to purge himself of something he had felt all this time. I asked him what he meant by that, and he said, "Well, you were a young man and this was a very big moment in your life. Did I remove that moment?" I looked at him, with a thousand thoughts running through my mind. My response was, "Look, I was young, but I wasn't brand new. I had been in this business, primarily in theater, for a good long time. For me Xon and Star Trek were like a play that opened and closed on opening night, which happens all the time in theater. I had, and continue to have, another life outside whatever Xon was or was not to be. He said, "That's very good. I was hoping you would say something like that." I had no idea that he put that much investment and thought into the belief that he had upset my life." ( Starlog , issue 139, p. 14)

Later projects [ ]

In 1996, Nimoy co-founded Alien Voices with John de Lancie and writer-producer Nat Segaloff. The audio production company/troupe produced several science fiction audio productions (including the two " Spock Vs. Q " audios) and a few televised specials for the Sci-Fi Channel : The First Men in the Moon in 1997 and The Lost World in 1998. Nimoy appeared in both of these films along with de Lancie, Ethan Phillips , and Dwight Schultz . William Shatner also starred in the first project; Roxann Dawson and Armin Shimerman had roles in the second.

In 1997, Nimoy played the Biblical prophet Samuel. His partner in the TNT movie was TNG guest star Maurice Roëves .

Nimoy shows his opinion of Spock at the 2007 Las Vegas Star Trek Convention

In 1998, Nimoy appeared in a made-for-TV adaptation of Aldous Huxley's book, Brave New World, along with Miguel Ferrer , Daniel Dae Kim , and Aron Eisenberg . He then voiced a trio of characters in the 2000 CGI-animated film Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists, along with John Rhys-Davies . After voicing the role of the King of Atlantis in Walt Disney 's 2001 film Atlantis: The Lost Empire (along with Phil Morris and David Ogden Stiers ), Nimoy announced his retirement from acting, deciding instead to focus on photography.

Despite his retirement, Nimoy made appearances with William Shatner in several commercials for Priceline.com in 2005 and 2006. Also in 2006, Nimoy did commercials for the arthritis pain medication, Aleve, in which Nimoy was concerned that his arthritis would prevent him from delivering the Vulcan salute to his fans at a convention.

Nimoy with Zachary Quinto at the Comic-Con International (2007)

In 2007, it was announced that Nimoy would come out of retirement to play Spock in the 2009 Star Trek feature being produced and directed by J.J. Abrams . When proclaiming his reasons for accepting the role, he stated it was because the film has "a great director" (Abrams), "a wonderful actor playing the young Spock" ( Zachary Quinto ), and "a fabulous script" (written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman ). He summed up his decision by stating "it was logical." [11]

In a July 2007 interview with Anthony Pascale of TrekMovie.com , Nimoy gave three reasons for coming out of retirement to play Spock for the new film. His first reason was that it was Star Trek and that he owed it to the franchise to give his attention to the project. The second reason was his admiration for producer/director J.J. Abrams, and the third was that Spock had an "essential" and "interesting" role in the script. [12]

Production on Star Trek began on 7 November 2007 . Nimoy began filming his scenes the following month. Shooting wrapped in March 2008. Nimoy can be heard reciting the famous line "Space… the final frontier" in the teaser trailer for the new Star Trek film, which debuted 18 January 2008 . According to the film's co-writer, Roberto Orci, the line is a new recording which Nimoy made on the film's set in-between takes. [13]

Following his work on Star Trek completed, Nimoy began appearing on Fringe, the science fiction television series created and produced by three members of Star Trek 's creative team: J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci. On the show, Nimoy plays the recurring role of the enigmatic founder of Massive Dynamics, William Bell, a character which had previously been referenced but never seen. Nimoy voiced the role for the episode "Bad Dreams," which was written and directed by Akiva Goldsman and made his first on-camera appearance in the first season finale aired 12 May 2009. Nimoy returned for an extended arc that fall. Fringe was Nimoy's first foray into episodic television since appearing on Becker in 2001.

For his role on Fringe, Nimoy received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Guest Starring Role on Television in 2010. Fellow Trek actors Michelle Forbes and Raymond Cruz are also nominated in this category. [14] Nimoy also received a Boston Society of Film Critics Award in 2009 and a Critic's Choice Award nomination at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award in 2010 as part of the Star Trek ensemble. His face was used for card #103 "Ambassador Spock" of the 2013 virtual collectible card battle game Star Trek: Rivals .

On 19 April 2010, Nimoy announced his decision to again retire from acting. In explaining his decision to The Toronto Star, Nimoy stated, " I've been doing this professionally for 60 years. I love the idea of going out on a positive note. I've had a great, great time. " He also said he would not appear in the next Star Trek film, claiming it would be unfair to Zachary Quinto , the actor currently portraying Spock . Nimoy recently filmed what he said would be his final appearance on the FOX series Fringe (created by Abrams with Star Trek scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci ). [15] He also confirmed that in 2010, he would portray the voice of the main antagonist, Master Xehanort, in Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep . He reprised the role in Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance .

On 22 October 2010 it was announced that due to a personal family emergency Nimoy would not be attending that day's Star Trek convention in Chicago. Later it was revealed that he was in the hospital.

On 26 May 2011 the new music video from Bruno Mars titled The Lazy Song was released. The video features Nimoy in a leading role and the second time he broke his "retirement". In the music video Nimoy is making several Trek jokes including the William Shatner on television scene and his "Vulcan salute" posing in front of the mirror. Nimoy explained his recent acting work in an email to TrekMovie: The Atlantic Records Executive who signed Bruno Mars on to this label is the son of his wife Susan Bay, Aaron Bay-Schuck. [16]

Nimoy returned to the Transformers franchise in 2011 when he lent his voice to the duplicitous Sentinel Prime in the third live action film Dark of the Moon working with Jack Axelrod , George Coe , Michael Dorn , Robert Foxworth , Glenn Morshower , Keith Szarabajka , Tom Virtue and Frank Welker . Foxworth, Morshower, and Welker all acted in the first three films.

On 20 July 2011, Nimoy made it official that he would retire from convention appearances after two more official Star Trek conventions, held by Creation Entertainment. These included the Las Vegas convention on August 11-14, 2011 and in Chicago on September 30-October 2, as well as the Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia. Nimoy agreed to return to Chicago after having to cancel the previous year. [17]

In 2012, Nimoy once again reprised the role of Spock in The Big Bang Theory episode "The Transporter Malfunction", this time voicing a vintage Spock action figure who acts as Sheldon Cooper 's conscience in his dreams. The following year, he and Quinto played themselves in a commercial for the Audi S7 car that was rife with Star Trek references – including a brief reprisal of the ending of The Wrath of Khan , and Nimoy applying the nerve pinch to Quinto – as well as a repeat performance of "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins". [18]

Leonard Nimoy's credit on Star Trek Into Darkness , his final film appearance

In 2013, Nimoy reprised the role of Spock in Star Trek Into Darkness in a small cameo role, warning the alternate reality Spock of Khan Noonien Singh 's threat and how the original crew beat him . This was his final Star Trek appearance before his death in 2015.

Before his death and along with William Shatner , Nimoy was rumored to appear in Star Trek Beyond , in a scene with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto , as the future alternate reality versions of the characters. [19] Nimoy's death (via that of the prime universe Spock) was instead acknowledged in the film, which bears a dedication to Nimoy.

In 2019 , Nimoy's widow, Susan Bay, revealed that he had asked nurses to aid in his death. [20]

Star Trek appearances [ ]

• Star Trek: The Original Series (80 episodes)
• Star Trek: The Animated Series (voice only, every episode)
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
• Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
• Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
• Star Trek Generations (Picture only)
• Star Trek Into Darkness
• Star Trek Beyond (Picture only)
• " Unification I "
• " Unification II "
• DS9 : " Trials and Tribble-ations " (archive footage)
• " If Memory Serves " (archive footage)
• " Unification III " (archive footage)
• " Kobayashi " (archive voice footage)

Additional appearances [ ]

Directing credits [ ]

Writing credits [ ].

• Star Trek: The Motion Picture (uncredited)
• Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (uncredited)
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (story with Harve Bennett )
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (story with Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal )
• Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator
• Star Trek: 25th Anniversary
• Star Trek: Judgment Rites
• Star Trek Online

Star Trek interviews [ ]

• "Leonard Nimoy – Spock on the Next Generation", The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine  issue 17 , pp. 14-15, interviewed by Marc Shapiro
• "Leonard Nimoy – Ambassador Spock", The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine  issue 18 , pp. 48-49, interviewed by Marc Shapiro

Bibliography [ ]

• I Am Not Spock – Author
• I Am Spock – Author

Music discography [ ]

• Mr. Spock's Music from Outer Space (Dot Records, 1967)
• Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy (Dot Records, 1968)
• The Way I Feel (Dot Records, 1968)
• The Touch of Leonard Nimoy (Dot Records, 1969)
• The New World of Leonard Nimoy (Dot Records, 1970)
• Leonard Nimoy: Space Odyssey (Pickwick Records, US, 1972)
• Mr. Spock Presents Music From Outer Space (Rediffusion Records, UK, 1973)
• Outer Space / Inner Mind (Famous Twinsets/Paramount Records, US, 1974)
• Leonard Nimoy (Sears Records, US, 1988)
• The Martian Chronicles (Caedmon Records, 1976)
• Illustrated Man (Caedmon Records, 1977)
• War of the Worlds (Caedmon Records, 1977)
• Green Hills of Earth (Caedmon Records, 1977)
• The Mysterious Golem (JRT Records, 1982)
• The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins / Cotton Candy (Dot Records, 1967)
• Theme From Star Trek / Visit To A Sad Planet (Dot Records, 1967)
• I'd Love Making Love To You / Please Don't Try to Change My Mind (Dot Records, 1968)
• Consilium / Here We Go 'Round Again (Dot Records, 1968)
• The Sun Will Rise / Time to Get It Together (Dot Records, 1969)
• Outer Space / Inner Mind (Paramount Records, 1970)
• Leonard Nimoy / Micro-Cassette (Dot Records, release date unknown)
• You Are Not Alone (MCA Records, 1987)
• Highly Illogical (Rev-Ola Records, UK, 1993)
• Leonard Nimoy Presents: Mr. Spock's Music From Outer Space (Varése Sarabande, US, 1995)
• Spaced Out: The Very Best of Leonard Nimoy & William Shatner (Universal Music/Phantom, UK, 1997)
• Golden Throats: The Great Celebrity Sing Off (Rhino Records, US, 1988, LP; 1992, CD)
• Golden Throats 2: More Celebrity Rock Oddities (Rhino Records, US, 1991)
• Golden Throats 3: Sweet Hearts of Rodeo Drive (Rhino Records, US, 1995)
• Spaced Out: The Very Best of Leonard Nimoy & William Shatner (Universal Music/Space, Canada, 1997)
• Dr. Demento's 30th Anniversary Collection (Rhino Records, US, 2000)
• Dr. Demento's Hits From Outer Space (Rhino Records, US, 2002)

Further reading [ ]

• Leonard Nimoy: A Star's Trek
• The Man Between the Ears: Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy
• Spock Vs. Q
• Spock Vs. Q: The Sequel

External links [ ]

• Leonard Nimoy at Wikipedia
• Leonard Nimoy at the Internet Movie Database
• Leonard Nimoy at the Internet Broadway Database
• TheOfficialLeonardNimoyFanClub.com – official fan club
• Leonard Nimoy at TriviaTribute.com
• Interview at the Archive of American Television
• Leonard Nimoy at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Leonard Nimoy at the Star Trek Online Wiki
• Leonard Nimoy at StarTrek.com
• 3 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Leonard Nimoy, actor who played Mr Spock on Star Trek, dies aged 83

Nimoy, who played the legendary character in the original Star Trek television series, died of pulmonary disease after being hospitalised earlier this week

• To a Star Trek fan like me, Leonard Nimoy meant everything

Leonard Nimoy: a life in clips

Leonard Nimoy, who enchanted generations of audiences with his depiction of Star Trek’s human-alien philosopher and first officer Mr Spock, has died at his home in Los Angeles. He was 83.

The actor died on Friday morning of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Bel-Air, his wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, told the New York Times. He had been hospitalised at UCLA medical center with breathing difficulties days earlier.

Nimoy’s last tweet, sent on Monday, suggested he knew the end was near: “A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP.”

A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP — Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) February 23, 2015

“Live long and prosper” was the Vulcan salutation which he made famous as Spock, and which he and fans carried into real life. Tributes to the actor, director, photographer, writer, poet, musician and teacher agreed he had indeed done so.

“I loved him like a brother,” William Shatner, who starred alongside him as Captain Kirk, wrote on Facebook. “We will all miss his humor, his talent, and his capacity to love.”

George Takei, who played Sulu, said the world had lost a great man. “And I lost a great friend. We return you now to the stars, Leonard. You taught us to ‘Live Long And Prosper,’ and you indeed did, friend. I shall miss you in so many, many ways.”

Even the US president took a moment on Friday to appreciate Nimoy’s most famous character. “Long before being nerdy was cool, there was Leonard Nimoy,” Barack Obama said . “I loved Spock,”

Nimoy announced last year that he was battling chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and attributed it to smoking, even though he gave up the habit long ago. With typical humour he tweeted last week: “I quit smoking 30 yrs ago. Not soon enough. I have COPD. Grandpa says, quit now!! LLAP.”

He enjoyed an enduring and eclectic career in the arts and in film behind the camera but it was as the pointy-eared, relentlessly logical sidekick to William Shatner’s Captain Kirk that Nimoy will be best remembered.

Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek , called Spock its “conscience”, a quizzical, alien and yet also humane moral sense which pervaded the original NBC series as well as subsequent big-screen outings, most recently in the rebooted films directed by JJ Abrams.

The actor, born in Boston to Ukrainian immigrants and Orthodox Jews, embraced the figure of the lone alien on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, exploring the universe with more emotional, fully human characters.

His first autobiography, I Am Not Spock, published in 1977, said that as the Vulcan he found the best of both worlds, gaining public approval while still being able to play an other-worldly character. He published another biography, I Am Spock, in 1995.

“To this day, I sense Vulcan speech patterns, Vulcan social attitudes and even Vulcan patterns of logic and emotional suppression in my behavior,” Nimoy noted. It was not a complaint. “Given the choice, if I had to be someone else, I would be Spock.”

Tributes flooded Twitter.

“RIP Leonard Nimoy. So many of us at NASA were inspired by Star Trek. Boldly go...” said the US space agency @Nasa.

“He created a role that nobody else could play. Multitalented writer, actor, director. A terrific & sweet man,” tweeted the talkshow host Larry King.

Zachary Quinto, who plays the younger Spock in the rebooted films, said: “My heart is broken. i love you profoundly my dear friend. and i will miss you everyday. may flights…”

The music producer @kaskade tweeted: “Rest easy Leonard Nimoy. First guy to make being so weird so cool.”

The son of a barber, Nimoy’s origins were hardly exotic. He started acting in primary school and continued through community college and during a stint in the army, where he served as a sergeant and participated in shows at Fort McPherson in Georgia.

Discharged in 1955, he moved to California and worked as taxi driver, cinema usher and drama teacher before achieving notice on TV shows like Rawhide and Perry Mason before landing the role of Spock in the original NBC series, which debuted in 1966.

Nimoy was also an unlikely sex symbol. According to the Los Angeles Times , when he spoke at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University in the 1970s, a young woman asked: “Are you aware that you are the source of erotic dream material for thousands and thousands of ladies around the world?”

“May all your dreams come true,” he responded.

Spock made a rare foray into sensuality in episode 24 of the original series when aphrodisiacal spores on the planet Omicron Ceti III loosened his human side and a longing for Leila Kalomi, played by Jill Ireland.

The Vulcan salute, which Trekkers used at fan conventions and film screenings, Nimoy adapted from a gesture he remembered from attending an Orthodox synagogue in childhood.

Men chanted prayers at an altar with their arms raised and fingers parted between the ring and middle fingers and thumbs stuck out – a representation of the Hebrew letter shin, the start of Shaddai, a term for God, Nimoy said.

He embraced roles reflecting his Jewish heritage. In 1982 he appeared as the former husband of the Israeli prime minister Golda Meir in the TV movie A Woman Called Golda”. He also played a Holocaust survivor in the courtroom TV film Never Forget.

His photography book, Shekhina, pictured nude women, including a cover shot of a woman wearing Jewish ritual objects traditionally worn by men. Nimoy shrugged off complaints and said his his work was consistent with the teaching of the kabbalah. “I’m not introducing sexuality into Judaism. It’s been there for centuries.”

Only the most dedicated Trekkies embraced his forays into music, such as kitsch covers covers of songs like “If I Had a Hammer.” He titled his first album Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock’s Music From Outer Space.

Nimoy is survived by his older brother, Melvin, his ex-wife, Sandi Zober, their two children, Adam and Julie, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

NBC cancelled Star Trek after three seasons, citing low ratings, but its sci-fi adventures, optimistic world view and campy humour won a growing army of devotees who turned Spock and Kirk, plus Dr McCoy, Sulu, Uhura and Chekov, into pop culture legends.

Nimoy branched into directing, including two of the Star Trek features, and the 1987 hit comedy Three Men and a Baby.

His sonorous voice narrated the History channel’s Ancient Mysteries and provided the voice for numerous animated characters. In addition to his autobiographies he also published books of poetry and photography.

Flowers were due to be placed at his star on Hollywood Boulevard.

• Leonard Nimoy
• US television

More on this story

Leonard Nimoy – a life in pictures

'Live long and prosper:' Star Trek fans say goodbye to Leonard Nimoy

How Leonard Nimoy grew to love Spock as much as we did

To a Star Trek fan like me, Leonard Nimoy meant everything

Leonard Nimoy: one of the best Simpsons cameos ever

Leonard Nimoy's other achievement: Three Men and a Baby

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Leonard nimoy, the logical spock of ‘star trek,’ dies at 83.

The cerebral actor played the half-Vulcan, half-human character on and off for nearly 50 years, starred on 'Mission: Impossible' and directed 'Three Men and a Baby.'

By Mike Barnes , Bryn Sandberg February 27, 2015 9:18am

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Leonard Nimoy - H 2015

Leonard Nimoy , the Hollywood renaissance man who fashioned a long and prosperous career as the supremely logical and cerebral science officer Mr. Spock from Star Trek , has died. He was 83.

The actor tweeted on Jan. 14, 2014, that he had lung disease. “I quit smoking 30 years ago. Not soon enough. I have COPD . Grandpa says, quit now!!” As he always did, Nimoy signed off with the acronym LLAP , short for “Live Long and Prosper,” his Star Trek character’s most celebrated phrase.

Nimoy  died Friday at 8:40 a.m. at his home in Bel Air. His granddaughter,  Dani , said on Twitter that the cause of death was end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Nimoy was a vagabond TV character actor when he made his debut as the somber Spock on NBC’s Star Trek , which debuted on Sept. 8, 1966. He went on to play or voice the half-Vulcan, half-human on live-action shows, cartoons, films, video games, etc. all the way through J.J. Abrams ’ movie sequel Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) — marking an amazing span of nearly 50 years.

“For whatever reason, I projected some kind of quality that people said, ‘OK, he’s a good alien,’ ” he told the Los Angeles Times in a 1999 interview.

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In the 1970s , Nimoy replaced Martin Landau in the cast of CBS’ Mission: Impossible series, playing Paris, a master of disguise. And recently, he recurred on the Fox science-fiction drama Fringe as William Bell, the founder of the Massive Dynamic corporation.

His last tweet came on Feb. 22: “A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP “

Leonard Simon Nimoy was born on March 26, 1931, in the West End section of Boston; his father owned a barbershop, and his mother was a housewife. After attending Boston College on a scholarship, he moved west and joined the Pasadena Playhouse troupe. When he was 20, he made his first film appearance, in Queen for a Day (1951).

In 1952, Nimoy ventured into sci-fi for the first time with Zombies of the Stratosphere and had the title role in another film released that year, Kid Monk Baroni , a tale about a disfigured street punk turned boxer.

Remembering Leonard Nimoy's Career (Photos)

He served in the U.S. Army from 1953-55, then appeared in guest roles on such shows as Highway Patrol , Broken Arrow and Wagon Train (as Native Americans), Dragnet , Sea Hunt , Bonanza , Rawhide , The Twilight Zone , Perry Mason , Dr. Kildare , The Man From U.N.C.L.E. , Combat! and Get Smart .

Before landing the Star Trek role on the Paramount/ Desilu TV series that catapulted him to fame — he had come to the attention of series creator Gene Roddenberry at an earlier audition for the producer’s NBC series The Lieutenant — Nimoy hadn’t had a job on any TV show or movie that had lasted more than two weeks. Teaming up with William Shatner aboard the USS Enterprise provided him with the first steady work of his career.

For Spock, Nimoy invented the V-shaped Vulcan “Live Long and Prosper” hand gesture and the neck pinch that rendered his enemies unconscious. (He said he devised the latter move because he had grown tired of getting into staged fistfights . “Here’s a chance to cleverly avoid that,” he said in a 2000 interview with The Archive of American Television .)

Nimoy was not happy about wearing pointy ears, but Roddenberry convinced him to do it.

Nimoy received three supporting Emmy Award nominations for playing Spock, one for each season of the show. When he opened a letter to learn that he was nominated the first time, in 1967, he cried.

“I thought, whoa. Wow. What a thrill. Particularly because the nominations are done by your fellow actors, and I thought, ‘They’re getting it; they can see what I’m doing,’ ” he said in the TV Archive interview.

'Star Trek' First Aired Episode: THR's 1966 Review

When Star Trek , hamstrung by its Friday night time slot, was canceled in February 1969 after 79 episodes, Nimoy quickly segued to Mission: Impossible , another Paramount show.

By 1975, Star Trek was airing in syndication and had grown into a cultural phenomenon, airing on 160 local stations in the U.S. and in more than 50 countries. Star Trek conventions were springing up and attracting tens of thousands of people, and Paramount was determined to bring back the property in some form.

In 1978, the studio announced at a news conference attended by 200 journalists that two-time Academy Award-winning director Robert Wise would direct a $15 million film adaptation of the series and that Roddenberry would produce.

Nimoy was said to be one of the last of the original castmembers to sign on but denied he was a holdout: “It’s been a complicated relationship with Paramount the last several years. The main reason was that the mail service between here and Vulcan is slow.”

Star Trek: The Motion Picture , released in December 1979, grossed $139 million worldwide.

Nimoy returned for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) in which Spock is killed by radiation poisoning and his coffin shot into orbit. “He’s in the box! I’m calling it death, dead, finished,” he told the L.A. Times in 1984.

Nimoy as Spock, of course, wasn’t finished. The character returned in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), both helmed by Nimoy (he only agreed to return to the third film if he were allowed to direct). He also co-wrote the stories for the fourth and six films in the series.

He was back as Spock in two 1991 episodes of the syndicated series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) and provided the uncredited voice of a Spock action figure on a March 2012 episode of The Big Bang Theory titled “The Transporter Malfunction.”

Nimoy earned his fourth career Emmy nomination for playing Morris Meyerson , the husband of Israeli prime minister Golda Meir ( Ingrid Bergman ), in the 1982 telefilm A Woman Called Golda .

He also appeared opposite Yul Brynner in Catlow (1971) and in the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers ; voiced a character in the 1998 sci-fi animation series Invasion Earth , co-created by Steven Spielberg and Star Trek film scribe Harve Bennett ; and hosted In Search Of , a 1977-82 TV series devoted to mysterious phenomena.

After being impressed with the humor in Star Trek IV , new Disney studio chiefs Jeffery Katzenberg and Michael Eisner , fresh from Paramount, asked Nimoy to step in to direct Three Men and a Baby , a remake of the 1985 Oscar-nominated French film Trois Hommes et un Couffin (Three Men and a Cradle). Coline Serreau , who directed Trois Hommes , had exited the American version because of “creative differences.”

Starring Tom Selleck , Ted Danson and Steve Guttenberg as bachelors scrambling to take care of a child, Three Men and a Baby raked in $167 million in the U.S., and no film grossed more that year.

“I’m finally coming around to do what I was going to do about 25 years ago,” Nimoy , who was enrolled in a directors’ training program at MGM in the early 1960s , said in a 1987 interview.

Nimoy’s feature directorial credits also included The Good Mother (1988), starring Diane Keaton and Liam Neeson ; Funny About Love (1990), toplined by Gene Wilder ; and Holy Matrimony (1994), with Patricia Arquette .

A deep-thinker, Nimoy authored nine poetry books; a comic book titled PriMortals (developed with writer Isaac Asimov ); a 1977 autobiography, I Am Not Spock ; and another autobiography in 1995, I Am Spock . He once said that the contradicting titles “baffled the reading audience” but that he “had some fun with that.”

On Broadway, Nimoy starred in Full Circle and Equus and directed The Apple Doesn’t Fall … in 1996. He toured in the early 1980s in the one-man show, Vincent: The Story of a Hero , a critically acclaimed look into Vincent Van Gogh ’s life that he wrote, directed and starred in.

During the 1970s , when his time was divided between film, TV and the stage, he recorded 10 narrative albums.

Photography also was a passion; his black-and-white photographs, based on the idea of a spiritual manifestation of the feminine presence of God on Earth, culminated in a 2002 book, Shekhina .

Nimoy was an avid art collector, and he and wife, Susan Bay Nimoy , a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, established The Nimoy Foundation, a national grant program to support the work of contemporary artists.

In 2001, the couple donated $1 million for the renovation of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. A 200-seat multimedia theater inside the landmark bears Leonard Nimoy’s name.

What was it about outer space and Nimoy ? In a 1986 interview, he was asked to explain the ageless appeal of Star Trek .

“I think there’s something to seeing these very professional people helping each other to solve a problem and in the idea that mankind is humane and will do the right thing eventually to each other and to others,” Nimoy said. “And we all like the idea that there are great mysteries still to be explored.”

Duane Byrge  contributed to this report.

Twitter: @mikebarnes4

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Leonard Nimoy

• Born March 26 , 1931 · Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Died February 27 , 2015 · Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, USA (end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)
• Birth name Leonard Simon Nimoy
• Height 5′ 11¾″ (1.82 m)
• Leonard Simon Nimoy was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Dora (Spinner) and Max Nimoy, who owned a barbershop. His parents were Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. Raised in a tenement and acting in community theaters since age eight, Nimoy did not make his Hollywood debut until he was 20, with a bit part in Queen for a Day (1951) and another as a ballplayer in the perennial Rhubarb (1951) . After two years in the United States Army, he was still getting small, often uncredited parts, like an Army telex operator in Them! (1954) . His part as Narab, a Martian finally friendly to Earth, in the closing scene in the corny Republic serial Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952) , somewhat foreshadowed the role which would make him a household name: Mr. Spock, the half-human/half-Vulcan science officer on Star Trek (1966) one of television's all-time most successful series. His performance won him three Emmy nominations and launched his career as a writer and director, notably of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) , the story of a humpback whale rescue that proved the most successful of the Star Trek movies. Stage credits have included "Fiddler on the Roof", "Oliver", "Camelot" and "Equus". He has hosted the well-known television series In Search of... (1977) and Ancient Mysteries (1994) , authored several volumes of poetry and guest-starred on two episodes of The Simpsons (1989) . In the latter years of his career, he played Mustafa Mond in NBC's telling of Aldous Huxley 's Brave New World (1998) , voiced Sentinel Prime in the blockbuster Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) , and played Spock again in two new Star Trek films, Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) . Leonard Nimoy died on February 27, 2015 in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was 83. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Ed Stephan <[email protected]>
• Spouses Susan Bay Nimoy (January 1, 1989 - February 27, 2015) (his death) Sandi Nimoy (February 21, 1954 - 1987) (divorced, 2 children)
• Children Child Adam Nimoy Julie Nimoy
• Parents Dora Nimoy Max Nimoy
• Relatives Melvin Nimoy (Sibling) Madeleine Nimoy (Grandchild) Jonah Nimoy (Grandchild)
• Deep baritone voice
• Mr. Spock on Star Trek (1966) and eight of the Star Trek films
• His final Tweet, posted four days before his death, was "A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" (Live Long and Prosper).
• The "Vulcan nerve pinch" concept on Star Trek (1966) was invented by Nimoy when he and the series' writers were trying to figure out how an unarmed Spock could overpower an adversary without resorting to violence.
• Spoke Hebrew and Yiddish fluently. According to William Shatner 's memoir of Nimoy, Leonard later in his life was concerned about losing his fluency in Yiddish because of a lack of practice. So Nimoy found a Yiddish speaking psychiatrist and made an regular appointment with her so he could spend an hour each week speaking the language.
• Was the only actor to appear in every episode and both pilots of Star Trek (1966) .
• Suffered from tinnitus (ringing in the ears), along with Star Trek (1966) co-star William Shatner . Nimoy's right ear and Shatner's left ear were affected. Their hearing was apparently damaged during the filming of the episode Arena (1967) , when they were both close to a special effects explosion.
• [on working with William Shatner on the original Star Trek (1966) series] Bill was very passionate about the work. Unfortunately, Bill was passionate about everything.
• Spock is definitely one of my best friends. When I put on those ears, it's not like just another day. When I become Spock, that day becomes something special.
• [on being asked to executive-produce the proposed sequel series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) ] I thanked him and wished him well with the project, but explained it simply couldn't work. I felt the original Star Trek (1966) 's success was due to many factors: the themes, the characters, the chemistry between the actors, the timing (the future-embracing 1960s)... There was simply no way, I told him, that anyone could duplicate all those things and be successful with a second Star Trek show. And so I opted out... While my argument sounded perfectly rational at the time, my ego was certainly involved. When I said to Frank Mancuso and the assembled execs, "How can you hope to capture lightning in a bottle again?", part of me was *really* saying, "How can you ever hope to do it without *us*?"... You know, crow isn't so bad. It tastes like chicken.
• My folks came to the US as immigrants, aliens, and became citizens. I was born in Boston, a citizen, went to Hollywood and became an alien.
• [on the death of Spock] I thought everything was managed in excellent taste. I feel proud. When it was first suggested to me that Spock would die, I was hesitant. It seemed exploitative. But now that I've seen how it was accomplished, I think it was a very good idea.
• Star Trek (1966) - $1,250 /episode (first season)
• Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952) - $500

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Leonard Nimoy dies at 83; fascinating life of fame as Spock

Leonard Nimoy was a poet, photographer, movie director and above all Spock, a voice of pure reason in a time of social turmoil.

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LOS ANGELES — When Leonard Nimoy was approached about acting in a new TV series called “Star Trek,” he was, like any good Vulcan contemplating a risky mission in a chaotic universe, dispassionate.

“I really didn’t give it a lot of thought,” he later recalled. “The chance of this becoming anything meaningful was slim.”

By the time “Star Trek” finished its three-year run in 1969, Mr. Nimoy was a cultural touchstone, a living representative of the scientific method, a voice of pure reason in a time of social turmoil, the unflappable and impeccably logical Mr. Spock.

Free Leonard Nimoy display at EMP

What: This weekend, the EMP Museum at Seattle Center will display the tunic worn by Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock on “Star Trek.” It will be in EMP’s South Lobby, free and open to the public. After this weekend, the display will be moved inside the museum.

Where: 325 Fifth Ave. N.

Information: https://www.EMPmuseum.org, 206-770-2700.

He was, as the Los Angeles Times described him in 2009, “the most iconic alien since Superman,” a quantum leap for a character actor who had appeared in plenty of shows but never worked a single job longer than two weeks.

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Mr. Nimoy, who became so identified with his TV and film role that he titled his two memoirs, somewhat illogically, “I Am Not Spock” (1975) and “I Am Spock” (1995), died Friday at home in the Bel-Air neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 83.

The cause was end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said his son, Adam.

Mr. Nimoy revealed last year that he had the disease, a condition he attributed to the smoking he gave up 30 years earlier.

While he was best-known for his portrayal of the green-tinted Spock, Mr. Nimoy more recently made his mark with art photography, focusing on plus-sized nude women in a volume called “The Full Body Project” and on nude women juxtaposed with Old Testament tales and quotes from Jewish thinkers in “Shekhina.”

He also directed films, wrote poetry and acted on the stage.

As Spock, he was the pointy-eared, half-Vulcan, 23rd-century science officer whose vaulted eyebrows seemed to express perpetual surprise at the utterly illogical ways of the humans who served with him on the starship Enterprise.

Spock could barely wrap his mind around feelings. He was the son of a human mother and a father from Vulcan, a planet whose inhabitants had chosen pure reason as the only way they could survive. When he thwarted deep-space evildoers, it was with logic simple enough for a Vulcan but dizzying for everyone else, including his commanding officer, Capt. James T. Kirk, played by William Shatner.

While worlds apart from the racial strife and war protests of the 1960s, “Star Trek” explored such issues by setting up parallel situations in space, “The final frontier.”

“Spock was a character whose time had come,” Mr. Nimoy later wrote. “He represented a practical, reasoning voice in a period of dissension and chaos.”

He also turned Mr. Nimoy into an unlikely sex symbol.

When he spoke at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University in the 1970s, a woman asked: “Are you aware that you are the source of erotic dream material for thousands and thousands of ladies around the world?”

“May all your dreams come true,” he responded.

Trekkies everywhere greeted each other with Mr. Nimoy’s “Vulcan salute,” a gesture he adapted from one he had seen at an Orthodox synagogue when he was a boy.

“I was awe-struck,” Mr. Nimoy recalled in a 2004 Los Angeles Times interview.

At the altar, five or six men chanted prayers with their arms raised. They held their hands with fingers parted between the ring and middle fingers and thumbs stuck out — a representation, Mr. Nimoy said, of the Hebrew letter “shin,” the start of “Shaddai,” a term for God.

LSD guru Timothy Leary once flashed Mr. Nimoy the Vulcan salute. So did cabdrivers who sped by on the street, and interviewers who momentarily suspended their journalistic detachment. At a 2007 fundraiser in Los Angeles, presidential candidate Barack Obama spied Nimoy across a room, smiled and held up his hand in the familiar gesture.

Four years later, President Obama told ABC’s Barbara Walters that his critics wrongly believed he was “Spock-like,” or too analytical.

For much of his career, Mr. Nimoy had to deal with the same sort of perception problem.

While his 1975 autobiography was “I Am Not Spock,” he later called the title a mistake because it was so easily misconstrued. In the book, he said he couldn’t think of a TV character he would sooner have played.

At the same time, he was disquieted by mountains of fan mail addressed not to Leonard Nimoy, but to “Mr. Spock, Hollywood, Calif.”

The melding of actor and character was sometimes uncomfortable.

On a tour of California Institute of Technology, Mr. Nimoy was asked his thoughts about complex projects by students who must have believed he had a Spock-like insight.

“I would nod very quietly, and very sagely I would say, ‘You’re on the right track,’ ” he told The New York Times in 2009.

Mr. Nimoy appeared in the original “Star Trek” TV series, which ran on NBC from 1966 to 1969. He received three successive Emmy nominations.

He also was Spock in feature films through 1991, retiring from “Star Trek” pictures until 2009, when he became Spock Prime, a Mr. Spock who inhabited an alternate universe in J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek.” He did a cameo performance as the same character in “Star Trek Into Darkness” (2013).

Rumors of Spock’s impending on-screen demise in 1982’s “Star Trek II” prompted death threats to director Nicholas Meyer.

“I received a helpful letter that ran: ‘If Spock dies, you die,’ ” Meyer wrote in “The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood.”

The scene was filmed anyway — so affectingly, according to Meyer, that the crew wept openly “as the dying Spock held up his splayed hand and enjoined Kirk to ‘live long and prosper.’ ”

Thanks to an ancient Vulcan ceremony and some tortuous plot twists, Spock was resurrected in “Star Trek III.” Mr. Nimoy directed that film and “Star Trek IV.” He went on to direct the 1987 comedy “Three Men and a Baby” and the 1988 drama “The Good Mother.”

In numerous public appearances, he pointed out the irony of his success.

“My folks came to the U.S. as immigrants,” he said in a 2012 speech at Boston University. “They were aliens, and then became citizens. I was born in Boston a citizen, and then I went to Hollywood and became an alien.”

Born on March 26, 1931, Leonard Simon Nimoy first acted in a community settlement house for immigrants. At 17, he was cast in a Boston production of the Clifford Odets play “Awake and Sing!”

To his parents’ chagrin, it confirmed his passion for acting. The play was about a Jewish family much like Mr. Nimoy’s and it probed his kind of teenage confusion.

“I was electrified,” he recalled. “The author gave me a voice when I was struggling to find my own.”

Mr. Nimoy’s Ukrainian-born father Max, who ran a barbershop in a Boston tenement neighborhood, tried to warn his son about the dangers ahead.

“Learn to play the accordion,” he urged. “You can always make a living with an accordion.”

Instead, Mr. Nimoy briefly studied drama at Boston College, sold vacuum cleaners, and, at 18, left for acting school in California. He dropped out after six months.

His earliest film roles include Narab, a Martian in the 1952 film “Zombies of the Stratosphere.” The same year, he scored his first title role, in the boxing movie “Kid Monk Baroni.”

After a stint in the Army, Mr. Nimoy was back in Los Angeles by the mid-1950s, studying acting and picking up work on shows such as “Dragnet,” “Bonanza,” “Dr. Kildare” and “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”

In 1965, he drew the attention of Gene Roddenberry, the producer behind the upcoming “Star Trek” series.

In an early scene, Spock and company were huddled over a computer screen and he uttered the one-word line: “Fascinating.”

Then he tried it again.

“The director gave me a brilliant note which said: ‘Be different,’ ” Mr. Nimoy recalled in an interview for the Archive of American Television. “Be the scientist. Be detached. See it as something that’s a curiosity rather than a threat.”

“I said, ‘Fascinating.’ Well, a big chunk of the character was born right there.”

Despite its fans’ enthusiasm, the show ended its run in 1969, a victim of low ratings and tepid support from NBC.

By then, Mr. Nimoy was famous. Even his much-derided 1967 record album, “Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock’s Music from Outer Space” sold more than 130,000 copies.

Poems, photographs

He put in an unsatisfying two years on “Mission: Impossible” and then pursued a range of interests befitting the Renaissance man he had become.

He earned a master’s degree in education from Antioch University. He turned out seven books of poetry and created a comic-book series with science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. He directed six films and, from 1978 to 1980, toured in a one-man show, “Vincent,” about Vincent Van Gogh.

From 1977 to 1982, he hosted “In Search Of … ,” a documentary TV series about paranormal phenomena. In 1978, he played a pompous self-help guru in the film “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

He poured himself into projects reflecting his Jewish heritage. In 1982, he appeared as Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s former husband in the TV movie “A Woman Called Golda”; nine years later, he played a Holocaust survivor who waged a courtroom battle against Holocaust deniers in the TV movie “Never Forget.”

His photography book, “Shekhina,” pictured nude and sensually draped women, with a cover shot of a woman wearing “tefillin,” Jewish ritual objects traditionally worn by men. It raised some hackles in the Jewish community, but Mr. Nimoy said it was his vision of feminine Jewish spirituality.

“I’m not introducing sexuality into Judaism,” he said. “It’s been there for centuries.”

In 2009, the Santa Monica Museum of Art exhibited images Mr. Nimoy made in Northampton, Mass., of strangers willing to be photographed as their “secret selves.”

The show, called “Who Do You Think You Are?” featured a rabbi with a leather vest over his bare torso and a conservatively dressed female psychologist toting a chain saw.

Asked about his own secrets, Mr. Nimoy demurred.

“I have to laugh,” he said. “I have no secrets left. I revealed it all a long time ago.”

He was married to Sandi Zober from 1954 to 1987, when they divorced.

In addition to his children from that marriage, son Adam and daughter Julie, his survivors include Susan Bay, his wife since 1989; his stepson Aaron Bay Schuck; six grandchildren; a great-grandson; and his brother Melvin.

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Leonard Nimoy, Spock of ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 83

The man who was spock, leonard nimoy, best known for playing the character spock in the star trek television shows and films, died at 83..

Is there a more famous TV gesture than the Vulcan Salute? You know the one. Leonard Nimoy, who popularised the gesture in his role as Mr. Spock on the 60s TV series Star Trek, both lived long and prospered, before dying at the age of 83. In an age where the word is overused, the half-man, half-alien was truly an iconic character. Pointy ears. Upturned eyebrows. Bowl haircut. Maddingly logical. Frustratingly dispassionate. The show was cancelled after three seasons - shocking for how famous it has become - and Nimoy went on to star in the show Mission: Impossible and hosted “In Search Of...” a series that investigated mysteries and paranormal phenomena. He also had a memorable role as a psychiatrist in the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The following year, he and his fellow Star Trek crew would go on to star in the first of six feature films based on the series, 2 of which Nimoy directed. Anyone who’s ever been defined by a single accomplishment can understand why Nimoy was at points ambivalent about his legacy. This was a man who wrote two autobiographies, and cheekily titled them “I Am Not Spock” and “I am Spock.” But Nimoy truly embraced the role, turning in many cameos that traded on his character. He appeared in both the Star Trek reboot and its sequel and happily attended fan convention after fan convention. To paraphrase one of the franchise’s most famous (and, come on, moving) scenes, Leonard Nimoy was, and always will be, Mr. Spock.

By Virginia Heffernan

• Feb. 27, 2015

Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83.

His wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, confirmed his death, saying the cause was end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Mr. Nimoy announced last year that he had the disease, attributing it to years of smoking, a habit he had given up three decades earlier. He had been hospitalized earlier in the week.

His artistic pursuits — poetry, photography and music in addition to acting — ranged far beyond the United Federation of Planets, but it was as Mr. Spock that Mr. Nimoy became a folk hero, bringing to life one of the most indelible characters of the last half century: a cerebral, unflappable, pointy-eared Vulcan with a signature salute and blessing: “Live long and prosper” (from the Vulcan “Dif-tor heh smusma”).

Mr. Nimoy, who was teaching Method acting at his own studio when he was cast in the original “Star Trek” television series in the mid-1960s, relished playing outsiders, and he developed what he later admitted was a mystical identification with Spock, the lone alien on the starship’s bridge.

Yet he also acknowledged ambivalence about being tethered to the character, expressing it most plainly in the titles of two autobiographies: “I Am Not Spock,” published in 1975, and “I Am Spock,” published in 1995.

In the first, he wrote, “In Spock, I finally found the best of both worlds: to be widely accepted in public approval and yet be able to continue to play the insulated alien through the Vulcan character.”

“Star Trek,” which had its premiere on NBC on Sept. 8, 1966, made Mr. Nimoy a star. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the franchise, called him “the conscience of ‘Star Trek’ ” — an often earnest, sometimes campy show that employed the distant future (as well as some special effects that appear primitive by today’s standards) to take on social issues of the 1960s.

His stardom would endure. Though the series was canceled after three seasons because of low ratings, a cultlike following — the conference-holding, costume-wearing Trekkies, or Trekkers (the designation Mr. Nimoy preferred) — coalesced soon after “Star Trek” went into syndication.

The fans’ devotion only deepened when “Star Trek” was spun off into an animated show, various new series and an uneven parade of movies starring much of the original television cast, including — besides Mr. 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 Mr. Nimoy, as an older version of the same character. Mr. Nimoy also appeared in the 2013 follow-up, “Star Trek Into Darkness.”

Nimoy Explains Origin of Vulcan Greeting

As part of the yiddish book center wexler oral history project, leonard nimoy explains the origin of the vulcan hand signal used by spock, his character in the “star trek” series..

His zeal to entertain and enlighten reached beyond “Star Trek” and crossed genres. He had a starring role in the dramatic television series “Mission: Impossible” and frequently performed onstage, notably as Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof.” His poetry was voluminous, and he published books of his photography.

He also directed movies, including two from the “Star Trek” franchise, and television shows. And he made records, singing pop songs as well as original songs about “Star Trek,” and gave spoken-word performances — to the delight of his fans and the bewilderment of critics.

But all that was subsidiary to Mr. Spock, the most complex member of the Enterprise crew, who was both one of the gang and a creature apart, engaged at times in a lonely struggle with his warring racial halves.

In one of his most memorable “Star Trek” performances, Mr. Nimoy tried to follow in the tradition of two actors he admired, Charles Laughton and Boris Karloff, who each played a monstrous character — Quasimodo and the Frankenstein monster — who is transformed by love.

In Episode 24, which was first shown on March 2, 1967, Mr. Spock is indeed transformed. Under the influence of aphrodisiacal spores he discovers on the planet Omicron Ceti III, he lets free his human side and announces his love for Leila Kalomi (Jill Ireland), a woman he had once known on Earth. In this episode, Mr. Nimoy brought to Spock’s metamorphosis not only warmth, compassion and playfulness, but also a rarefied concept of alienation.

“I am what I am, Leila,” Mr. Spock declares after the spores’ effect has worn off and his emotions are again in check. “And if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else’s.”

Born in Boston on March 26, 1931, Leonard Simon Nimoy was the second son of Max and Dora Nimoy, Ukrainian immigrants and Orthodox Jews. His father worked as a barber.

From the age of 8, Leonard acted in local productions, 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 Hollywood, though it wasn’t until 1951 that he landed small parts in two movies, “Queen for a Day” and “Rhubarb.”

He continued to be cast in little-known movies, although he did presciently play an alien invader in a cult serial called “Zombies of the Stratosphere,” and in 1961 he had a minor role on an episode of “The Twilight Zone.” His first starring movie role came in 1952 with “Kid Monk Baroni,” in which he played a disfigured Italian street-gang leader who becomes a boxer.

Mr. Nimoy served in the Army for two years, rising to sergeant and spending 18 months at Fort McPherson in Georgia, where he presided over shows for the Army’s Special Services branch. He also directed and starred as Stanley in the Atlanta Theater Guild’s production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” before receiving his final discharge in November 1955.

He then returned to California, where he worked as a soda jerk, movie usher and cabdriver while studying acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. He achieved wide visibility in the late 1950s and early 1960s on television shows like “Wagon Train,” “Rawhide” and “Perry Mason.” Then came “Star Trek.”

Mr. 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 Mr. Nimoy an honorary doctorate.

Leonard Nimoy won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek.” Mr. Nimoy, who was teaching Method acting at his own studio when he was cast in the original “Star Trek” TV series in the mid-‘60s, relished playing outsider characters, and he developed what he later admitted was a mystical identification with Mr. Spock.

“Star Trek,” which had its premiere on NBC on Sept. 8, 1966, made Mr. Nimoy a star. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the franchise, called him “the conscience of ‘Star Trek.’”

In addition to starring roles in television programs, movies and onstage, Mr. Nimoy made records on which he sang pop songs as well as original songs about “Star Trek” and gave spoken-word performances — to the delight of his fans and the bewilderment of critics. In 1968 he performed on “The Dick Clark Show” in Los Angeles.

Mr. Nimoy and his first wife, Sandra Zober, arrived for the Emmy Awards in Santa Monica, Calif., in 1969. He was nominated for four Emmys during his career, although he never won. His marriage to Ms. Zober ended in divorce. 

Mr. Nimoy expressed ambivalence about his being forever tethered to the unflappable, cerebral, pointy-eared Vulcan. His double consciousness was reflected in the titles of two autobiographies: “I Am Not Spock,” published in 1977, and “I Am Spock,” published in 1995.

In “I Am Not Spock,” Mr. Nimoy wrote, “In Spock, I finally found the best of both worlds: to be widely accepted in public approval and yet be able to continue to play the insulated alien through the Vulcan character.”

From left, Mr. Nimoy with the director Robert Wise, the producer Gene Roddenberry and the actors DeForest Kelley and William Shatner on the set of the movie “Star Trek” in 1978. Mr. Nimoy later directed two Star Trek movies, “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” (1984) and “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” (1986), which he helped write. 

Mr. Nimoy appeared in numerous made-for-TV 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.

Mr. Nimoy appeared in an episode of “T.J. Hooker” with his “Star Trek” co-star, William Shatner, in 1983. He later appeared with Mr. Shatner in two commercials for Priceline.com.

Mr. Nimoy directed two of the “Star Trek” movies, “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” (1984) and “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” (1986), pictured, which he helped write.

When the director J.J. Abrams revived the “Star Trek” film franchise in 2009, with an all-new cast, he included a small part for Mr. Nimoy, as an older version of Spock. Mr. Nimoy and his wife, Susan Bay, arrived for the film’s premiere in Los Angeles.

Mr. Nimoy wrote poetry voluminously and was also an accomplished  photographer. “Secret Selves,” a series of photographs in which he encouraged people to reveal their hidden natures any way they chose, was exhibited at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in 2010.

Mr. Nimoy gave the Vulcan salute after he was awarded an honorary doctor of Humane Letters degree during Boston University’s commencement ceremony in 2012.

“To this day, I sense Vulcan speech patterns, Vulcan social attitudes and even Vulcan patterns of logic and emotional suppression in my behavior,” Mr. Nimoy wrote years after the original “Star Trek” series ended.

But that wasn’t such a bad thing, he discovered. “Given the choice,” he wrote, “if I had to be someone else, I would be Spock.”

Mr. Nimoy 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,” Mr. 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.

Mr. Nimoy’s marriage to the actress Sandi Zober ended in divorce. Besides his wife, 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.

Though his speaking voice was among his chief assets as an actor, the critical consensus was that his music was mortifying. Mr. Nimoy, however, was undaunted, and his fans seemed to enjoy the camp of his covers of songs like “ If I Had a Hammer .” (His first album was called “Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock’s Music From Outer Space.”)

From 1977 to 1982, Mr. Nimoy hosted the syndicated series “In Search Of ...,” which explored mysteries like the Loch Ness monster and U.F.O.s. He also narrated “Ancient Mysteries” on the History Channel and appeared in commercials, including two with Mr. Shatner for Priceline.com. He provided the voice for animated characters in “Transformers: The Movie,” in 1986, and “The Pagemaster,” in 1994.

In 2001 he voiced the king of Atlantis in the Disney animated movie “Atlantis: The Lost Empire,” and in 2005 he furnished voice-overs for the computer game Civilization IV. More recently, he had a recurring role on the science-fiction series “Fringe” and was heard, as the voice of Spock, in an episode of the hit sitcom “The Big Bang Theory.”

Mr. Nimoy was an active supporter of the arts as well. The Thalia, a venerable movie theater on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, now a multi-use hall that is part of Symphony Space, was renamed the Leonard Nimoy Thalia in 2002.

He also found his voice as a writer. Besides his autobiographies, he published “A Lifetime of Love: Poems on the Passages of Life” in 2002. Typical of Mr. Nimoy’s simple free verse are these lines: “In my heart/Is the seed of the tree/Which will be me.”

In later years, he rediscovered his Jewish heritage, and 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.

In 2002, having illustrated his books of poetry with his photographs, Mr. Nimoy published “Shekhina,” a book devoted to photography with a Jewish theme, that of the feminine aspect of God. His black-and-white photographs of nude and seminude women struck some Orthodox Jewish leaders as heretical, but Mr. Nimoy asserted that his work was consistent with the teachings of the kabbalah.

His religious upbringing also influenced the characterization of Spock. The character’s split-fingered salute , he often explained, had been his idea: He based it on the kohanic blessing , a manual approximation of the Hebrew letter shin, which is the first letter in Shaddai, one of the Hebrew names for God.

“To this day, I sense Vulcan speech patterns, Vulcan social attitudes and even Vulcan patterns of logic and emotional suppression in my behavior,” Mr. Nimoy wrote years after the original series ended.

But that wasn’t such a bad thing, he discovered. “Given the choice,” he wrote, “if I had to be someone else, I would be Spock.”

An earlier version of this obituary, using information from Antioch College, misstated the name of an institution that awarded Mr. Nimoy an honorary doctorate. It was Antioch University, not Antioch College.

An obituary on Saturday about the actor Leonard Nimoy misstated the year his first autobiography, “I Am Not Spock,” was published. It was 1975, not 1977.

How we handle corrections

Daniel E. Slotnik and Peter Keepnews contributed reporting.

February 27, 2015

Star Trek 's Leonard Nimoy Dies at 83

Nimoy, the original Spock, got involved in real space science with NASA

By Miriam Kramer & LiveScience

Actor Leonard Nimoy, who portrayed the iconic logical Vulcan Spock on the TV's "Star Trek" and in feature films, has died. He was 83.

Nimoy's career spanned TV, feature films, art and photography, but he was perhaps best known for playing Spock, the logical Vulcan on the starship the USS Enterprise, in "Star Trek." Nimoy died from complications due to "end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease," according to the New York Times , which first reported the actor's death Friday morning (Feb. 27).

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP [Live long and prosper]," Nimoy wrote in a recent post on Twitter on Feb. 23. The actor would sign his tweets "LLAP," echoing Spock's famous words on "Star Trek."

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Nimoy was born in Boston, Massachusetts on March 26, 1931 and started acting by the time he was 8 years old, according to the New York Times.

His idea for Spock's signature Vulcan salute was actually inspired by his Jewish heritage after seeing men at his synagogue use the hand gesture during prayer. He suggested it to the director as a Vulcan greeting and it stuck, Nimoy told the Yiddish Book Center in a video .

Aside from being a beloved science fiction star, Nimoy also got involved with real space science. He narrated a video for NASA detailing the space agency's Dawn mission to the dwarf planet Ceres for the first time.

NASA paid tribute to the actor today with a post on Twitter featuring a photo of Nimoy and his "Star Trek" co-stars in front of the space shuttle Enterprise, named for the fictional starship in the television show. In April 2012, Nimoy greeted the space shuttle Enterprise with a Vulcan salute when the spacecraft prototype was delivered to New York City for installation at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

"RIP Leonard Nimoy. So many of us at NASA were inspired by Star Trek. Boldly go ..." NASA officials wrote on Twitter.

RIP Leonard Nimoy. So many of us at NASA were inspired by Star Trek. Boldly go... http://t.co/qpeH5BTzQc pic.twitter.com/nMmFMKYv1L — NASA (@NASA) February 27, 2015

Nimoy's friends and colleagues have posted their feelings about the "Star Trek" legend on social media as well.

"I loved him like a brother," William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk alongside Nimoy's Spock on the TV show, said via Twitter . "We will all miss his humor, his talent, and his capacity to love."

"Today, the world lost a great man, and I lost a great friend," George Takei, who played Hikaru Sulu on the original series, said on Facebook . "We return you now to the stars, Leonard. You taught us to 'Live Long And Prosper,' and you indeed did, friend. I shall miss you in so many, many ways."

Nimoy also starred as Spock Prime in the J.J. Abrams directed "Star Trek" reboot released in 2009. Zachary Quinto, who plays the new Spock in the franchise, paid tribute to Nimoy on Instagram today.

"My heart is broken," Quinto wrote. "I love you profoundly my dear friend. And I will miss you everyday. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

Copyright 2015 SPACE.com, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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The Huge Impact That Leonard Nimoy's Death Had on Star Trek Beyond

If you read our report from the set of Star Trek Beyond , you may have wondered why there weren’t quotes from Zachary Quinto. That’s because while Quinto was filming as Spock, he wasn’t talking to the media... in honor of Leonard Nimoy, who never did interviews while in character. And that’s just the start of how Nimoy’s passing is impacting Star Trek Beyond .

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“That was a really difficult time for me personally but there was also a tremendous amount of love in the experience of losing Leonard,” Quinto told io9 via telephone a week after our set visit. “I was very close with him and am very close with his family and in his loss we really found comfort in one another.”

Much of that comfort also came from finally getting back to a Star Trek set, a place Nimoy felt very much at home, and among friends who share the loss.

“I would say my connection to the character is deeper now because of our relationship,” Quinto continued “I feel a real responsibility to honor him and to do the character a real kind of justice. So I think my connection to that is a lot stronger now even though he’s not with us anymore.”

In Star Trek Beyond , Spock is dealing not just with the imminent threat of Idris Elba’s character, Krall, he’s dealing with an injury and feeling like his true purpose isn’t on the Enterprise, but instead helping the remnants of the Vulcan race. Quinto calls “the rebuilding of his civilization” Spock’s “singular pursuit.”

And while that’s the new Spock’s role in the movie, Nimoy will have some kind of presence as well. Talking in August 2015, Quinto teased as much by saying, “I think this movie is being made with him in all of our hearts and he’ll be honored as a result of that.” Several months later, at the Star Trek Beyond fan event, he offered up a more specific statement:

In a way I feel like he’s more a part of this film than he was the other two. We were all so cognizant of his absence but I think in the face of that, we all held him in our hearts more fully. Everyone on this film showed up to work in the spirit of celebrating his life and his indelible contribution to this franchise... He’s there in a really powerful way.

The question is, is that literal? Does Spock Prime play a role in Beyond ? Is it simply the film being dedicated to him, or just a general feeling on set? There are numerous possibilities and we’ll find out on July 22. However, there’s no doubt that Nimoy was someone everyone was thinking about while filming.

“This movie is being made with him in all of our hearts and he’ll be honored as a result of that,” Quinto said. “We miss him all the time... His spirit is really with all of us, and will continue to be for sure.”

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How Leonard Nimoy was cast as Mr. Spock on ‘Star Trek’

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His role as Mr. Spock made a lasting impact on pop culture, but Leonard Nimoy barely noticed when he first heard about the role back in 1966.

“I really didn’t give it a lot of thought,” Nimoy recalled of the time his agent first called about the part.

Nimoy -- who died Friday at 83 -- recalled how he won the landmark role as the relentlessly logical half-human, half-Vulcan Spock during a November 2000 interview with the TV Academy for its Archive of American Television Project.

Writer-producer Gene Roddenberry was developing “Trek” as a pilot for a sci-fi series about a team of explorers aboard a spaceship. He had worked briefly with Nimoy on another series called “The Lieutenant” and thought the actor might be right for the new show.

Nimoy, who had been working for years on TV at that point, kept a Spock-like cool.

“You hear that kind of thing and you’re [still] a long way from getting a job,” he recalled.

Roddenberry wanted to see what kind of range Nimoy had as a performer. So his agent sent over a scene the actor had done on the medical drama “Dr. Kildare.”

Roddenberry was impressed and asked Nimoy to visit the studio, where he showed him the set and costumes and began talking in detail about the project. Slowly it dawned on Nimoy that he was hearing a sales pitch.

“If I keep my mouth shut, I might have a job here,” he recalled thinking.

Once he was cast, Nimoy began trying to nail down exactly what kind of a character Spock would be. Settling on his appearance was important. Roddenberry had decided he would have pointy ears so that viewers would immediately perceive him as otherworldly.

He also wanted to give Spock red skin. But that proved problematic.

Most TVs in the mid-1960s were still black-and-white, Nimoy remembered.

With red skin, “I was going to be black on a black-and-white set,” he said.

The idea was dropped.

What do you think of Nimoy and “Star Trek”?

Twitter: @scottcollinsLAT

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Scott Collins is a former staff reporter for the Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times. He joined the staff in 2004 after previous stints at the Hollywood Reporter and Inside.com. Author of the book “Crazy Like a Fox: The Inside Story of How Fox News Beat CNN,” he is a frequent pop-culture expert on national TV, radio shows and industry panels. He left The Times in 2016.

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How 'Star Trek' Handles Leonard Nimoy's Death

In February, Star Trek fans were devastated to learn that legendary actor Leonard Nimoy had passed away at the age of 83. Nimoy had an impressively long resume spanning film, TV, stage, writing, photography and more, but to millions of people, he was best known for playing Spock in the Star Trek franchise. His death shocked the community, and in its wake came plenty of beautiful tributes, including on The Big Bang Theory and the Oscars. And now, there's a moving Leonard Nimoy tribute in Star Trek Beyond , the latest movie in the franchise, that is absolutely heartbreaking to watch.

In J.J. Abrams' previous two Star Trek films, Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness , Nimoy had a prominent role as Spock Prime, the older version of Zachary Quinto's Spock due to the movies' alternate timeline. Yet sadly, Nimoy passed away before production on Star Trek Beyond began, and so he was unable to film any scenes for the new movie. The film doesn't simply write off the character or ignore the actor's death, though. Instead, it pays tribute to Nimoy in a truly moving way.

Spoilers ahead! Relatively early on in the new movie, out July 22, Quinto's Spock hears that Spock Prime has died. The news causes him to re-consider his own choices and his place in life, as in the first Star Trek movie, Spock Prime was the one who convinced Spock not to leave Starfleet, but now, Spock can consider leaving the Enterprise in order to embrace his Vulcan heritage fully. It's not Beyond 's biggest storyline by far, but it is an important one, and it shows how much of an impact the character of Spock Prime has on the others, even after his passing.

That's far from the only part Spock Prime plays in the film, though. There's a heartbreaking scene in which Spock goes through Spock Prime's possessions and sees a photo of him as well as the other original crew members (played by William Shatner and the like). It's a sad but sweet scene that'll likely bring fans of the original films to tears, but it won't be the last time that happens — when the film's credits roll and the "In Loving Memory of Leonard Nimoy" dedication appears, the sobs will be flowing.

It's so nice to see that despite not being able to film scenes with Nimoy for the movie, Star Trek Beyond still manages to incorporate him in such a sweet, emotional way.

Image: Paramount

Leonard Nimoy Agreed To Return For Star Trek III Under One Condition

Leonard Nimoy had a love/hate with his role as Spock in the "Star Trek" franchise. When his autobiography "I Am Not Spock" was published in 1975, he was trying to make clear that Spock wasn't his sole identity. "The last year of 'Star Trek' [the series], the writing deteriorated badly," Nimoy said in an interview with the Television Academy Foundation . "I was so glad when it was over. I really was unhappy in that final season, but sad, sad because I knew what it could be if it was well-written and well-produced, and it wasn't." When the plan for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" was being developed, all of Nimoy's old feelings of worry and disappointment came back, thanks in part to what was viewed as a lackluster script.

"I was not enamored with the first movie. I thought it was really not 'Star Trek,' it was something else. They were trying to do something else with 'Star Trek,'" he told John Blackstone in a 2005 interview . "And we did it and I thought, Well, that's done, we did the 'Star Trek' movie. And of course it didn't quite work out that way, we were just beginning."

To everyone's surprise, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" ended up making over $80 million, which guaranteed another film (via Box Office Mojo ). When the producers suggested a Spock death scene for the next film, Nimoy was delighted, assuming it would be the last film. But when " The Wrath of Khan " breathed new life into the franchise, Nimoy used its popularity to his advantage before agreeing to resurrect Spock for the next movie.

Leonard Nimoy would only return to the third film if he could also direct it

"They called me in for a meeting and said 'we'd like to know if you'd like to be involved in another "Star Trek" movie,' and I said 'yes, I'd like to direct it.' And that's how that started," Leonard Nimoy told the Television Academy Foundation . In his second autobiography "I Am Spock," Nimoy admitted that he made the bargain that he'd only return for the third film if he could direct it, because he wanted a challenge. He and William Shatner had both asked — and been turned down — to direct episodes of the "Star Trek" series, so he felt certain this was the leverage he needed.

"Star Trek III: The Search For Spock" is much more of a group effort than the first two films, which was exactly what Nimoy was going for. "I think I was influenced by my experience on 'Mission: Impossible,' where each character had a specific job to complete in any given adventure," Nimoy wrote in "I Am Spock," via StarTrek.com . "We worked, very consciously, to define special moments for each of the Enterprise bridge crew." And it worked, lending a camaraderie and unity among all the characters that was largely absent from the first two films.

"The Search for Spock" was well-received, and Nimoy went on to direct "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home." Nimoy directing also had another effect — paving the way for William Shatner to direct the next film, " Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country ," and countless other actors on the many series that were to come.

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Leonard Nimoy Had to Turn Down Appearance in 'Star Trek Beyond'

Adam and Leonard Nimoy in ‘For the Love of Spock’ (For the Love of Spock Productions)

Star Trek Beyond warps into theaters this weekend. Although Leonard Nimoy’s “Spock Prime” is absent from the screen — the actor died in February 2015 at age 83, about four months before filming began — the film pays tribute to the iconic character as well as the actor. In Beyond , the younger Spock, played by Zachary Quinto, must come to terms with the death of his Vulcan mentor. At the end of the credits, the filmmakers dedicate the film to the memory of Nimoy. But, according to Nimoy’s son, Adam, it was the original intention of the filmmakers to bring back his father’s Spock Prime for Beyond . And it was devastating to the actor to have to turn down the offer.

“I know, because I talked with Dad extensively about it, that he was very happy to be a part of this reincarnation of Star Trek , to be participating. It was very hard for him when they came with the third installment, Star Trek Beyond , and they wanted him involved, but he had to say no because of his health,” Adam Nimoy told Yahoo Movies at Comic-Con in Thursday.

Related: Despite Turmoil, ‘Star Trek’ Cast Embraces Films Beyond ‘Beyond’

“He didn’t think he could physically do it. So that was difficult for him. … But he was very pleased and very happy to end his career as Spock with those cast members.”

The younger Nimoy has been in San Diego as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the original Star Trek series. He appeared at “ 50 Artists. 50 Years ,” an exhibition of Trek -inspired artwork that includes one his father’s final pieces, a study of the Vulcan salute.

‘Hand in Vulcan Gesture,’ by Leonard Nimoy ( 50 Artists. 50 Years )

Adam also attended the premiere of Star Trek Beyond on Wednesday, the same day his Kickstarter-funded documentary on his dad, For the Love Spock , released its trailer . As shown in the heart-tugging clip, Nimoy’s surviving castmates from the original series and J.J. Abrams’s rebooted film franchise fondly recall the late actor.

“Dad could be very reserved because he liked to stay in Spock character. So it was sometimes hard to engage him. [However], when we went up to Vancouver last year [where Beyond was filming] to interview the new cast, everyone said pretty much the same things about my dad: that he was gracious, that he was kind, that he was warm.

“They’ve told me that in a way he was still there. He had such an influence on them, on validating what they were doing and passing the torch to them because he participated in this reincarnation, these new installments, that they could still feel his spirit. He was very appreciative and respectful of the work they were doing, and I think they really felt that.”

Related: Zachary Quinto: ‘I Feel Leonard Nimoy With Me in a Very Powerful Way All the Time’

Adam Nimoy said that Quinto has been a worthy successor to the Spock mantle. “Zachary has been a big part of the film For the Love of Spock because he tells the whole tale of this genesis of Spock — where he’s been and where he’s going.. … He had a very special relationship with my dad. He’s done a great job continuing on with the role.”

“Dad was very comfortable with Zachary continuing the tradition of playing Spock. So he’s got a professional connection with Spock and the family, but he’s also got a personal connection. He’s been like a member of the family ever since [2009’s Star Trek ].”

The feeling was mutual. Last year, when Yahoo Movies went to the Vancouver set of Beyond , Quinto said, “I think [Leonard]’s very much a part of this — with me, for me.… I feel him with me in a very powerful way all the time. And doing this film, I feel he’s a part of it for all of us. Everybody feels his absence. We want to honor him with continuing to tell these stories with integrity.”

Watch the ‘For the Love of Spock’ trailer:

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Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) isn’t thrilled by this prospect, pointing out before she leaves that it’s too dangerous a mission for a captain to undertake. But Burnham disagrees that this is enough of a reason to stop her; it’s a nice reminder that this is a show and a character that originated in the time of James T. Kirk, a time when captains didn’t stay behind in the face of danger.

But it’s not only that, there’s something else going on. Burnham gives Rayner permission to be blunt, quoting a classic work on Rayner’s native Kellerun , The Ballad of Krull , asking him to “serve it without a crumb of ossekat .” (As far as made-up Star Trek idioms go, that’s a pretty good one.)

It’s also the beginning of a sudden and relentless onslaught of references to Rayner’s culture, but more on that later. What’s Rayner’s problem? He’s uncomfortable with the prospect of being left in command of a ship and crew that aren’t “his.” Welcome to being second in command, buddy.

Book and Burnham take off, heading into the wormhole and finding it to be an inhospitable place. They quickly drop out of communication range with Discovery , there’s ship debris everywhere, including the wreckage of Moll and L’ak’s ship…. and what’s that, the  ISS Enterprise ?!

(A side note before we get too excited about that: what is the deal with all the empty space in the new shuttlecraft set, introduced in last season’s “All Is Possible”? The two pilot seats looked like they were crammed into the corner of a huge unfurnished room.)

Okay, Enterprise time. Burnham and Book rightly surmise that this is where Moll and L’ak must have escaped to and beam to the ship, which of course turns out to be a redress of the Strange New Worlds  standing sets. A quick scan identifies that no one else is aboard — though the clue, which Moll and L’ak have found, does also have a lifesign, hmm — and that Moll and L’ak are holed up in sickbay. Burnham takes a few moments to ponder her visit to the Mirror Universe back in Season 1 and wonder what the alternate version of her half-brother Spock might have been like (bearded, for one).

And aside from some brief storytelling about Mirror Saru’s role as a rebel leader, that’s about it for the Terran Empire of it all. Star Trek: Discovery has spent plenty of time in and around the Mirror Universe already, and I personally don’t think they need to revisit it again. But introducing the  ISS Enterprise — the ship that started it all with The Original Series ’ “Mirror, Mirror” — and then not doing anything momentous with it? Strange decision, and one that makes it ultimately feel more like this was a way for the show to get to reuse a set on the cheap than it does a materially significant addition to the episode.

In fact, in some ways it’s actually a detriment to the episode. If the action had been set on any other ship it would have been fine, but being on the ISS Enterprise I kept expecting something — like seeing Paul Wesley as Mirror Kirk slinking around, or finding Anson Mount camping it up as Mirror Pike in a personal log. If they’d set the action on a generic derelict ship, what we got wouldn’t have seemed like a let down. As it is though, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop… and it simply never did.

Maybe in a subsequent episode, it’ll turn out that there’s an advantage in having an entire functional starship composed of atoms from another universe at Starfleet’s disposal — or to have a convenient collection of Constitution -class sets available for that Starfleet Academy show to borrow once in a while — but until that happens (if it even does) the use of the ISS Enterprise just seems like a name drop and a “We have to set the action somewhere , why not here?” instead of a significant use of the setting and the huge amount of lore and history that comes with it.

It’s like setting something aboard the Titanic without ever mentioning any icebergs.

As Burnham and Book make their way down to sickbay they do find evidence that the ship was being used in a way that seemed unusually gentle for a Terran Empire vessel: signs that children and families were aboard at one time, and that they were the kind of people sentimental enough to have keepsakes and favorite stuffed animals. But again, nothing about this seems like it needs the Mirror Universe connection. Ships of people trying to escape adversity are already a Star Trek staple.

Burnham and Book find Moll (Eve Harlow) and L’ak (Elias Toufexis) in sickbay, and after a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt at getting them to surrender, everyone starts shooting. Moll and L’ak have a Breen blood bounty — an erigah — on their heads and surrender is simply not an option. During the firefight a lockdown is triggered, forcefields coming down that split the group into pairs: Burnham and L’ak stuck in sickbay, while Book and Moll able to go back to the bridge to try and reset sickbay.

Pairing off also gives Book the opportunity to continue his efforts to connect with Moll, and I have to say, I don’t think I’m a fan. Setting aside the portion of this that’s purely a strategic attempt to forge a connection with someone who is very to keen to kill him, my first reaction to the way Book talks to Moll about her father (and his mentor) was distaste.

I don’t think Book meant it this way, but the way he’s written in these scenes feels unpleasantly close to the “Well, he was a great guy to me , I never saw him do anything bad” response that’s sometimes made to accusations of misconduct. A person can be wonderful to some people in their life and terrible to others; both experiences are true for the people who received them, but they’re not mutually exclusive.

Book is preternaturally empathetic, and yet he doesn’t seem to see how continually assuring Moll that her father loved her is an act that’s both unwanted and actively painful for Moll to hear. I understand that Book is just trying to bring a sliver of comfort to Moll – but in the process he’s dismissing her own experiences of her father and his place in her life. Unless Moll asks him for this, it’s really none of Book’s business.

I suspect they’re setting up Moll’s character for a nice, cathartic arc where she comes to terms with her life, forgives her father, releases her past, whatever. And when that happens in real life that’s great — but it doesn’t always, and that’s okay too. If Moll never sees in her father the man Book saw in his mentor, it’s not a character failing. Discovery is really hammering home the theme of confronting one’s past in order to take control of one’s present and future, and I think it would be valuable if they included an example of a character learning to do the latter… without having to be okay with the former.

And to return to a question I posed in my review of “Under the Twin Moons,” I know Book is isolated and excruciatingly lonely after the destruction of Kweijan and his split with Michael, but the weight he’s placed on his relationship with Moll as “the closest thing he has to family” seems like he’s setting himself up for disappointment. Maybe I’m just a cynic, but this does not feel like a hopeful storyline to me. Not everyone wants to be family, and right now it doesn’t seem like Moll’s been given much of a choice in the matter — despite her frequent and very powerful explanations of why she’s not interested.

Clearly frustrated with Book’s topic of conversation and desperate to return to L’ak, Moll makes a reckless decision to brute-force a solution and overload some circuits. It works, and the forcefields in sickbay come down, but it also sends the Enterprise onto an unstoppable collision course with the too-small-to-pass-through and also going-to-be-closing-forever-soon wormhole. They’ve got eight minutes to figure this out.

Meanwhile aboard Discovery , we see Rayner’s struggles to interact with the crew. This thread could have gone so many different ways, Rayner seeming “too good” for a temporary command, him seeing this as his chance to do things “better” than Burnham or show how it’s “really done,” but instead the show takes the much more subtle and satisfying route: Rayner is deeply respectful of the captaincy, as a rank and a role, and really doesn’t want to step on Burnham’s authority.

He’s more than willing to disagree with her on command decisions , but he doesn’t question her command . And more personally, he doesn’t want his gruffness and lack of experience with this crew to cause problems. He’s trying, in his own Rayner way, and more importantly he’s succeeding — and, as we see as he shepherds the crew through figuring out how to communicate with and then rescue Book and Burnham, the crew does their part and meets him halfway.

Rayner is learning that he needs to tone down his temperament just enough that he doesn’t come across as an actual asshole to this crew, and the crew is learning that his gruffness isn’t a sign of disrespect but simply a desire to cut to the chase and get to direct, actionable information with a minimum of fluff. There are shades of Nimoy’s Spock or Voyager -era Seven of Nine here, but couched within a distinctly different temperament, and it’s fascinating to watch. I’d love to have seen him interacting with the crew of the Antares , where he presumably felt more comfortable.

The interpersonal stuff with Rayner and the crew is great; where Rayner’s thread feels distractingly like a box being checked is the explosion of “Rayner is a Kellerun!” being shouted from the bulkheads. I could practically hear the writers yelping out a panicked “Oh crap, we forgot to say what kind of alien Rayner is!”

Again, Discovery is back to its old self with the clunky, heavy-handed, and oddly paced character work. Rayner goes from having zero cultural touchstones to having about five in the span of the 15-20 minutes of screentime that his story gets this week. They’re good touchstones, don’t get me wrong — I’m skeptical of Kellerun citrus mash, I have to be honest, but I’d give it a try; not so sure about boiling a cake though — they’re just very present .

As with Rayner’s alienness, the frequent flashbacks throughout the episode to Moll and L’ak’s meeting and courtship feel like a “We forgot to explain this and now we’re trying to reference it!” correction. The content of the flashbacks is fine, there’s a lot of interesting Breen worldbuilding for a species that’s been mysterious from the start — and watching Moll and L’ak’s relationship grow from one of mutual convenience to one of true love is genuinely moving. But the way it’s woven into an episode that, again, feels like it’s composed of bits and pieces of storyline, makes it hard to shake the sense that I was watching a To Do list get checked off.

By the time the season is over it might be clear that there was simply no extra room to give a full episode over to Moll and L’ak’s meeting, or maybe an episode without any of the main cast wasn’t something they were willing or contractually able to do, but I would have loved if these flashbacks were pulled out and expanded into a full-length episode of their own. Some of the worldbuilding felt hasty to the point of hindering the emotional beats — at times I wondered if I’d forgotten a whole bunch of Breen lore and at others I was just trying to keep up with what was going on.

For example, my confusion about L’ak’s comment about having two faces, which Moll seemed to completely understand — “Duh, everyone knows the Breen have two faces” — was a distraction in the middle of an otherwise nice and significant moment. This is later clarified as the translucent face and the solid face, but again I was distracted from fully appreciating an interesting bit of Breen culture because I was busy applying what I’d just learned back to the previous scene.

The quickly (and maybe not totally clearly articulated notion) that Breen deliberately restrict themselves to their translucent form for reasons that are entirely to do with avoiding any perception of weakness is a potent if hasty bit of social commentary, and as I said I nearly didn’t catch it.

Whether holding the translucent form requires the armor for protection or the armor necessitates the translucent form — it seems like it would be more comfortable wearing that helmet all the time if you were the texture and consistency of lime jello — this is surely a metaphor for the increasingly rigid, isolating, and emotionally and sometimes physically unhealthy things men in certain circles feel they must do to be appropriately masculine. Seeing L’ak free himself from that rigidity is powerful.

With the forcefields in sickbay down, Burnham and L’ak immediately spring into action:  Burnham trying to get the artifact from L’ak and L’ak simply trying to get away. They fight, and Burnham impressively proves she can hold her own against a Breen. When L’ak accidentally falls on his own blade, Burnham grabs the clue and speeds to the bridge where she manages to get a message to Rayner through some tractor beam trickery. The message? Another reference to that classic of Kellerun literature that gives Rayner the info he needs. Hey, did you know Rayner was a Kellerun?

The ISS Enterprise makes it through the wormhole, Moll and L’ak zip away in an escape pod, and it’s time to wrap things up. We head to Red’s for a quick but significant moment between Tilly (Mary Wiseman) and Culber (Wilson Cruz), as Tilly offers advice and an ear to a Culber who’s going through a quiet existential – maybe also spiritual? – crisis.

OBSERVATION LOUNGE

• In addition to the dedication plaques on the bridge, the ISS Enterprise has an additional plaque in its transporter room — one which, despite recounting the heroism of rebel action hero Mirror Saru, still states “Long Live the Empire.”
• The transporter room plaque is marked with “Stardate 32336.6,” which is about 9 years before the events of “Encounter at Farpoint.”
• The plaque describes the fate of Mirror Spock, who was killed after instituting the reforms which later led to the fall of the Terran Empire (as described in DS9’s “Crossover”).

The full text of the ISS Enterprise transporter room plaque:

The new High Chancellor presented hope and justice as if they were natural to our world. His words, “The light of hope shines through even the darkest of nights” became our rallying cry. He spoke of reform, and changed many of us. But some saw this as weakness. They killed him, and we sought help from an unlikely ally: A Kelpien slave turned rebel leader.   He spoke of visitors from another world… a near perfect mirror cast our darkness into light. With his aid we secured the Enterprise and stayed behind to continue his work. We bear scars from our escape, but our hope remains. May it carry us into a pristine, peaceful, and just future.

• Not counting L’ak’s previous appearances this season, this episode marks the first time we have seen the Breen in live action since their involvement in the Dominion War in Deep Space Nine.  (The species has appeared in  Star Trek: Lower Decks three times.)
• The 32nd century Breen wear updated encounter suits clearly based on the designs introduced in  Deep Space Nine ; their digital speech is extremely faithful to the incomprehensible noises Breen soldiers have spoken in past appearances.
• Given the fact that Moll appears to be just fine in the environment of the Breen ship, I guess Weyoun was right when he said the Breen homeworld was “quite comfortable” in “The Changing Face of Evil.”
• When L’ak is stabbed he gently oozes some green goo — but as we learned in “In Purgatory’s Shadow,” Breen do not have traditional humanoid blood.

• During his time in command of Discovery , Rayner never sits in the captain’s chair.
• This episode closes with a dedication plaque that reads “In loving memory of our friend, Allan ‘Red’ Marceta”. Marceta was, I presume, the namesake for Discovery’s bar.
• Someone aboard Discovery keeps a Cardassian vole as a pet. Going by Tilly’s reaction, and what we know from  Deep Space Nine , this is not a good thing.
• Linus (David Benjamin Tomlinson) plays a mean piano.
• Owosekun and Detmer get the off-screen cherry assignment of flying the ISS Enterprise back to Federation Headquarters, alone. I’m thinking that’s going to inspire some fanfic…

We don’t learn what this week’s clue is, though we know there’s a blue vial tucked away inside it, but we do learn that the crew of the ISS Enterprise did indeed make it to our universe. The scientist responsible for hiding this particular clue there was one of them, a Dr. Cho, who eventually made it all the way to branch admiral.

They strove for something positive and succeeded against all odds. Hopefully Discovery will be able to do the same as they continue their pursuit of Moll, L’ak, and the Progenitors.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 returns with “Whistlespeak” on Thursday, May 2.

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Published Apr 22, 2024

The 10 Plagues of Star Trek: The Original Series

As Passover brought 10 plagues to test Pharaoh, so too did The Original Series test the crew of the Enterprise!

StarTrek.com

Considering Gene Roddenberry stated that there would be no religion in the future when he conceived of Star Trek , a lot of Judaism sure did manage to creep it's way in!

From Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner bonding on the set of The Original Series over their shared Jewish background, and Nimoy being inspired by his Orthodox upbringing when creating Vulcan culture , to later series with Jewish actors and parallels such as Worf's diasporic experience, and Marina Sirtis drawing on inspiration from an Israeli friend as she created Deanna Troi. It makes sense, then, to spend some time during Passover reflecting on the many aspects of Jewish influence seen on Star Trek .

So, of course, I’ve decided to give you the 10 Plagues of Passover as episodes from The Original Series . Let’s get into it.

1. Rivers of Blood, " Amok Time "

"Amok Time"

When Aaron turned the Nile into a river of blood, it shook the Pharaoh to his core, much like how the blood fever of Pon Farr shook up Spock's usual calm and logic. Hormonal imbalances are no joke, and this quickly descended from throwing soup and nearly ended with Captain Kirk's death on Vulcan!

Much as I hate to parallel the Pharaoh, the villain of the Passover story, with Spock, a hero and a pacifist, they are both powerful men brought low (and emotional) by blood.

2. Frogs, " And the Children Shall Lead "

"All the Children Shall Lead"

There is a debate in Judaism over whether the second plague was a swarm of frogs, or one giant frog that covered the land of Egypt. But if we go with the more traditional interpretation of a swarm, then the Star Trek equivalent swarm would be the children from "And The Children Shall Lead" who take over the Enterprise .

Not only are they a hive mind (very swarm-like behavior) controlled by an evil embodiment called Gorgon, but they also bring the majority of the bridge crew under their sway. Whichever frog interpretation you go with, Kirk was as deeply unhappy with this plague-parallel as the Egyptians were with their own froggy problem — and he was pretty hostile to the kids too!

3. Lice, " Operation — Annihilate! "

"Operation — Annihilate!"

Whilst it may not be as scary or strange as the other plagues, the plague of lice always makes me wince and want to scratch my scalp in sympathy.

The episode "Operation — Annihilate!" also makes me wince, as a meeting with behavior-altering parasites is not how I imagine Kirk wanted his family reunion to go. But while lice do alter behavior, making people far more irritable, I wonder if they could cause the collapse of civilizations as this Star Trek parasite did before the crew of the Enterprise stopped it?

4. Flies or Deadly Animals, "Wink of an Eye"

"Wink of an Eye"

Here we find ourselves with another heavily debated plague. Some scholars believe it was the buzzing of flies that punished the Egyptians, while others believe it was a hoard of deadly animals destroying everything in their path. Luckily, "Wink of an Eye" covers both!

It begins when a landing party on Scalos and Kirk hears a mysterious buzzing noise like a swarm of insects before one of their party goes missing. Kirk continues to hear this insect buzzing on the Enterprise . However, it turns out to be a group of people living at hyper-accelerated speed, causing mischief all over the ship as they try to put the Enterprise into a deep freeze. Moreover, when they try to hyper-accelerate the humans, they end up causing them to age and decay rapidly. Deadly creatures destroying everything in their path indeed!

5. Pestilence, " The Trouble with Tribbles "

"The Trouble with Tribbles"

The fifth plague was a pestilence that killed all the Egyptians livestock, and what better episode to compare this with than "The Trouble with Tribbles."

The tribbles not only eat all of the grain supplies, they also end up dying en masse because the grain has been poisoned by saboteurs. This makes them not only the pestilence, but also the dead livestock in the Passover parallels! It's said the Egyptians grieved when they looked upon the dead animals they worshipped like gods, and whilst I doubt the tribbles were worshipped, I'm sure the Klingon vessel they were eventually beamed onto did indeed grieve having this fluffy plague.

6. Boils, " Miri "

"Miri"

When painful boils appear on the people of Egypt, it was meant to have caused horror and agony. Well, the episode "Miri" caused so much horror, it was banned by the BBC in the 1970s and 1980s!

In this episode, the landing party, except for Spock, begin developing purple lesions on their bodies and are told by the children of the planet they will die horribly in a week. Even Spock can't return to the Enterprise , because they don’t know whether or not he'll infect the rest of the crew. The boils end up being painful physically and emotionally, as the crew seek to save themselves and the children who have trapped them.

7. Hail, " Mirror, Mirror "

"Mirror, Mirror"

The seventh plague was a hail-storm of unprecedented strength that damaged every living thing in its path — much like the wrath of the Mirrorverse that Kirk and company discover in the episode "Mirror, Mirror"!

When negotiating with the Halkan's for dilithium, the council says there is no guarantee the Federation will always be peaceful. A violent and unpredictable ion-storm proves they may have a point when it causes the transporter malfunction that takes our Enterprise crew to a parallel universe of unprecedented violence!

8. Locusts, " The Conscience of the King "

"The Conscience of the King"

On Moses' eighth attempt to sway the Pharaoh, a devastating plague of locusts is summoned. The bugs devour everything green that has escaped the hail and previous plagues. This brings to mind one of Kirk's most famous pieces of backstory — the Tarsus IV massacre.

In "The Conscience of the King," we discover that as a teenager, Kirk lived in the Tarsus IV colony when a food crisis allowed Governor Kodos to take control and order the deaths of half the population. While it might not have been locusts that destroyed the grain on Tarsus IV, this event certainly caused untold devastation.

9. Darkness, " The Tholian Web "

"The Tholian Web"

Space, the final frontier. In the context of Star Trek , it's hard to think of darkness as a plague when it is the mission and adventure of our voyagers to explore it. But darkness in the Passover story was terrifying, as for several days all of Egypt was enveloped in a thick and impenetrable veil of darkness which extinguished all lights kindled. Remind you of "The Tholian Web"?

On a rescue mission for their sister ship, the U.S.S. Defiant , the Enterprise enters a sector of unknown space and finds the Defiant adrift, its crew dead, and slowly phasing out of existence, before vanishing entirely and taking Kirk with it. This episode focuses on the more terrifying aspects of space and the unknown, and how the hardest thing to do can be just having to wait for the darkness to pass.

10. Death of the First Born, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

First-born children don't have the best track record for surviving in Star Trek ; we've already covered Sam Kirk's death in "Operation — Annihilate!" and Kodos' daughter Lenore Karidian meets a grim fate in "The Conscience of the King."

Moving on to the movies, we see Spock's older brother, Sybok, die in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier . But for this plague I had to go with Captain Kirk's own son David Marcus, who is killed by Klingons in The Search for Spock . As the Pharoah's own infant son's death broke his resolve to finally allow the Israelites to be free, David's death so soon after they met causes Kirk to become embittered and colors his own attitude towards Klingons as a species.

Yes, the plagues make up a significant part of the Passover story, the main theme of the holiday is triumph over adversity and freedom —a fundamental tenet of Star Trek . For all of the dangers and threats the Enterprise crew face, from physical to emotional, they always overcome them together. And much like the Israelites finally leaving Egypt to wander the desert in search of the Holy Land, it tells us that perseverance is key and the journey and exploration it entails can be as important as the final destination.

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This article was originally published on March 29, 2021.

Emily Zinkin (she/her) is a writer based in London, UK, who also runs Moishe House Clapham. She once cosplayed as Captain Kirk but realised she was the mirror version when she met another one. You can find her on Twitter at @EmilyZinkin

FlickSphere

21 Things About Star Trek That Fans Hesitate to Acknowledge

Posted: April 27, 2024 | Last updated: April 27, 2024

Star Trek Reused the Same Sets Often

There were some sexist vibes.

Star Trek Was Forced to Move With the Times

We’ve All Fancied an Alien on Star Trek at Some Point in Our Lives

Drama in Deep Space Nine’

Star Trek Voyager Criticized for Having a Female Captain

The Story Lines Weren’t Always Great

Some of the Costumes Were Not Good

We Want Captain Picard Back

Most Fans Preferred the TV Series to the Movies

We Have all Tried to Speak Klingon

Sometimes, Star Trek Was Scary

The Theme Tune Was Awesome

Star Trek’s Original First Officer Was a Woman

Spock Impressions

Some of the Tech from the Trek Has Already Become a Reality

William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy Both Got Tinnitus

Spock’s Vulcan Salute is a Special Blessing in Hebrew

Star Trek Didn’t Only Recycle its Sets; It Also Recycled Actors

The Star Trek Brand Has Become Over-Commercialized

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The 10 Best Sci-Fi Movie Actors, Ranked

These actors are out of this world

The Sci-Fi genre has been one of the greatest film genres since its inception in 1902 with George Melies's A Trip to the Moon . Bringing cinema classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey , Alien , Blade Runner , The Matrix , and countless others have helped develop and define the film landscape as a whole for every generation. Each film has brought some of the greatest actors who have truly made their mark on pop culture with their career-defining performances.

Each actor, whether they've been cast in one or two Sci-Fi films or have led entire franchises, has become a fan-favorite actor of the generation. Ranging from an iconic space bandit to one of the greatest female protagonists in cinema, these actors have brought some absolutely fantastic characters to the big screen. Certainly, storytelling, character building, and movies as a whole would not be the same without them and the actors who brought them to life.

10 Carrie Fisher

'star wars: episode iv - a new hope' (1977).

The late and great Carrie Fisher was a ground-breaking addition to the pop-culture space with her career-defining performance as Princess Leia Organa in the Star Wars franchise. Not only did she manage to act circles around a lot of actors in that franchise, but she provided an awesome and inspiring role model for girls all over the world. Princess Leia was a woman who was intelligent and showed insane bravery yet also showed deep compassion and wisdom in the darkest of times.

Fisher would go her entire career portraying this awe-inspiring character, being cast as her at the young age of 19. Her ability to shine as brightly on the screen as she did at so young marked her as a mainstay in Hollywood within just her first few minutes in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope , standing up to the ever-villainous Darth Vader ( David Prowse & James Earl Jones ) with no fear. Fisher continued her inspiration to women everywhere outside of her appearances as Leia, too. With the way she spoke to others and presented herself, she was and still is considered a hero to all women.

Watch on Disney+

9 Harrison Ford

'blade runner' (1982).

Harrison Ford's Sci-Fi resume is anything but small. Whether he was playing the space bandit Han Solo in Star Wars , Rick Deckard in Blade Runner , Hyrum Graff in Ender's Game , and even a few less desirable trips into the genre, such as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Cowboys & Aliens . There's no doubt that Ford has truly made his mark on the Sci-Fi genre as an action star who can bring his iconic snark, wit, and confidence into every role.

Most of the time, when audiences see that Ford is going to be starring in a new Sci-Fi flick, they can expect a good performance from him that can carry them through the viewing if the production is a bit unsatisfactory, like the unfortunate Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull . Ford's positive reputation is a clear signal of his skill and ability to choose mostly quality films that will gift him with roles that will fill his large resume.

Rent on Amazon

8 Jeff Goldblum

'jurassic park' (1993).

Whether one is a Sci-Fi fanatic or not, if they watch movies, they probably know the ever-charismatic Jeff Goldblum . Starring in some of the most iconic Sci-Fi films ever, like The Fly , the Independence Day franchise and no one can forget one of the most popular Sci-Fi franchises on the planet, Jurassic Park . Goldblum is known for his charismatic demeanor, which not only makes him an incredibly entertaining actor to watch but also a huge heartthrob.

With his appearances in the Independence Day and Jurassic Park films alone, Goldblum can be considered one of the most recognizable faces in Sci-Fi. There is no describing how delightful he is to watch on screen to someone who has never viewed him in film before. Audiences can tell he loves movies and

7 Keanu Reeves

'the matrix' (1999).

While Keanu Reeves may have a reputation as one of the nicest people in Hollywood, he also has a reputation in the Sci-Fi fandom as the one and only chosen one, Neo. While Reeves has appeared in other notable Sci-Fi films, none compare to that of the Matrix franchise, one of the most iconic, popular and groundbreaking Sci-Fi franchises of all time. The first film and Reeves became hard-set staples in the genre and genuinely gifted the genre with gold, no matter how some may feel about the sequels.

Reeves was so great as Neo that many believe no one else could have accomplished what he did. The "cool factor" he brought to the role is unforgettable and has inspired many Sci-Fi characters to this day. His role as Neo is so popular that he actually is referenced heavily in the Sci-Fi Broadway play, Be More Chill, as the man that manifests in the main character's head, who happens to be a huge Sci-Fi fan. Not only has his role gifted him with immense popularity, but he uses that popularity to spread positivity and handles his attention with grace.

WATCH ON MAX

6 Arnold Schwarzenegger

'terminator' (1984).

With some of the most quotable lines in film history, Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of the most popular actors on the entire planet and a huge part of that popularity is thanks to his major involvement in the Sci-Fi genre. Appearing in the incredible franchises of Predator , Terminator and Total Recall , Schwarzenegger is the very definition of a modern movie star. His giant stature and chiseled features make him the perfect candidate for a great Sci-Fi hero.

He's managed to use his popularity for a good cause as well. He's become a huge fitness inspiration for people everywhere, with videos all across the internet containing his inspirational quotes and advice for people looking to change their lives. His work ethic is motivating for many and encourages everyone, no matter what job they work in or body type they are, to give what they do their 100% strength.

Watch on Amazon

5 Leonard Nimoy

'star trek: the motion picture' (1979).

No matter if someone is a Star Trek fan, a Star Wars fan, or a fan of neither, everyone knows the iconic Spock. Leonard Nimoy is one of the most well-known and abundantly beloved actors in the Sci-Fi genre. His performance as the classic Vulcan officer of the Enterprise in Star Trek has transcended Sci-Fi pop culture and become well known everywhere , as well as his very recognizable hand gesture found in the franchise.

Nimoy's dedication to the Star Trek franchise made him very appreciated among the fan base. He enthusiastically played the Spock character for a whole 50 years before his unfortunate passing in 2015, which was one of the biggest losses in the Sci-Fi genre. But for 85 years, the planet got to have this incredible actor on it. He provided countless Sci-Fi fans and non-sci-fi fans with joy. It can easily be said that Spock is one of the most popular characters in Sci-Fi as a whole.

Watch on Max

4 David Tennant

'doctor who' (2005).

It's hard to say that David Tennant is not one of the most iconic Doctors in Doctor Who history. His portrayal of the worldwide phenomenon has led him to become a huge star and even be asked to come back to play his Doctor again in the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials . He has a charm and wit that is borderline unmatched and makes him such a pleasure to watch and gives audiences little reason not to smile when he works his magic on screen.

He is hailed by many as the most popular Doctor Who actor since the 2005 series reboot and is all-around loved for his ability to bring his comedy skills and meld them with an astounding emotional complexity that gives his Doctor, and any other character he plays, incredible depth. So not only is he, as an actor, a ball to watch, but his characters are as compelling as ever, and even when he has little material to work with, he makes the most of every scene he's in.

WATCH ON PRIME

3 Zoe Saldaña

'avatar: the way of water' (2022).

Not only is Zoe Saldaña part of two of the biggest Sci-Fi franchises out there , but she's a lead role in the highest-grossing film of all time, Avatar . Some may not count one of the best Marvel franchises, Guardians of the Galaxy as a Sci-Fi film rather than a superhero film, but since it lies in the middle, it gets a pass as an honorary Sci-Fi film, which she also stars in. It's hard to argue with her prowess with her current resume being so high profile.

Saldaña was noted for her spectacular performance in both Avatar and its sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water , which is an incredibly difficult series of films to convey a good performance in, given the fact that the performance transitions from live-action to digital and could lose some of the emotion conveyed. She also made her mark in the super popular Star Trek franchise as Uhura, which has a particularly hard-to-please fanbase.

WATCH ON DISNEY+

2 Patrick Stewart

'star trek: picard' (2020-).

Not only is he one of the most recognizable faces in Sci-Fi, but he's one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood as a whole. Patrick Stewart is one of the most talented actors of the generation and his work in Star Trek is a prime example of his immense skill and dedication to his craft. Some say the franchise is where he shines the brightest. He steals the show as Captain Picard and even came back to reprise his role as the character in his own spin-off series, Star Trek: Picard .

He's been nominated and won numerous awards across his almost seven-decade career in theater, film and television. His span as an actor seemingly knows no bounds. He was even knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his work in drama back in 2010. Stewart is a truly one-of-a-kind actor and deserves every accolade sent his way and may be one of Hollywood's best and brightest.

Star Trek: Picard

WATCH ON PARAMOUNT+

1 Sigourney Weaver

'alien' (1979).

As if anyone else could be considered the greatest of the greats when it comes to Sci-Fi actors. Sigourney Weaver has commonly been called the "Queen of Sci-Fi" and for very good reason. She found international success after her performance as Ripley in Alien . She's been in about 12 Sci-Fi films across her incredible career and has made her part of some of cinema's greatest franchises, such as Avatar , Ghostbusters and, as said, Alien .

Weaver's career has been shaped by her inclusion in the Sci-Fi genre and, in return, she's brought characters and films to the screen that have helped shape the genre. She's never been quiet about her love for Sci-Fi and the impact it's had on her career. It's no joke to say that she's made history in the genre and film as a whole many times, and she doesn't seem to ever plan on stopping. If there's anyone who can ensure you're going to have a great Sci-Fi experience, it's the Queen of Sci-Fi herself.

Watch on Hulu

NEXT: The 10 Best International Sci-Fi Films, Ranked

Screen Rant

I’m glad john colicos changed his mind about returning as star trek: ds9's klingon.

Star Trek: DS9 pulled off an impressive classic Klingon reunion in "Blood Oath", but TOS actor John Colicos almost turned it down due to the script.

• John Colicos almost didn't return as Kor in DS9, but thankfully changed his mind, leading to a classic Klingon reunion.
• The handling of Kor's character in "Blood Oath" caused Colicos to object, fearing a comic portrayal of the iconic Klingon.
• Colicos insisted on Kor surviving in DS9, ensuring the historic classic Klingon reunion felt complete and true to the original series.

Star Trek: The Original Series actor John Colicos nearly didn't return to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , but he thankfully changed his mind, leading to future appearances by the legendary Klingon, Kor. John Colicos holds the distinction of being the actor who originated the Klingons in Star Trek , appearing as the main antagonist in TOS season 1, episode 27, "Errand of Mercy". Kor made such an impression on the TOS cast and crew that Gene Roddenberry wanted to make him a recurring character. Unfortunately, scheduling commitments meant that Colicos was unable to reprise the role of Kor for "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "Day of the Dove" .

With John Colicos unavailable for future Star Trek: The Original Series episodes, the characters of Koloth (William Campbell) and Kang (Michael Ansara) were created for "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "Day of the Dove", respectively. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 19, "Blood Oath" brought back all three TOS Klingons, teaming them with Lt. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) . "Blood Oath" is a highly regarded episode of DS9 season 2, but it could have been very different if John Colicos had decided not to return as Klingon Dahar Master, Kor .

I Didn’t Know Where Roddenberry Got The Name Klingon In Star Trek Until Now

John colicos didn’t want to become a “buffoon” in star trek: ds9, "... you're making a travesty of what has become a cult figure".

When John Colicos received the script for "Blood Oath", he completely disagreed with the handling of the character of Kor . In the original script, Peter Allan Fields wrote Kor as a Klingon version of William Shakespeare's Falstaff character. A boastful knight and something of a drunk, Falstaff is largely a comic character in the three Shakespeare plays in which he appears. John Colicos objected to a similarly comic and bufoonish take on Kor , telling Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Official Poster Magazine issue 8 that he told DS9 producer Michael Piller:

"I don't really want to play this character, because it's totally contradictory to the original Kor. I have a huge following from the original one, and if he becomes just a buffoon, then I'd honestly rather not do it."

Michael Piller assuaged John Colicos' fears somewhat by telling him that Kor would become a hero by the end of "Blood Oath". The deal was finally sealed when it was decided that, out of the three TOS Klingons in DS9 , Kor would survive his Star Trek: Deep Space Nine appearance, living to tell the tales of Kang and Koloth's heroic deaths . Indeed, John Colicos was adamant that Kor should not die in "Blood Oath", telling Star Trek Monthly issue 55 that:

"I said I didn't want to be killed off, otherwise I'd have preferred just to be remembered as the initial Commander Kor that people saw in the original series..."

Star Trek: DS9’s Classic Klingon Reunion Wouldn’t Work Without John Colicos

Due to the prosthetic changes between Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , it's not immediately apparent that it's the same Kor, Kang, and Koloth in "Blood Oath". However, it becomes clear very quickly that this is a historic classic Klingon reunion on DS9 , which is a big deal. A TOS Klingon reunion without John Colicos, the actor who originated the Klingons on Star Trek , would have felt incomplete .

Michael Ansara later reprised the role of a younger Kang in Star Trek: Voyager season 3, episode 2, "Flashback".

If John Colicos had turned down the chance to return as Kor from Star Trek: The Original Series , then Peter Allan Fields would have to have created a new Klingon to join Kang and Koloth's quest. The story would still have made for a classic Klingon episode , but any Kor replacement would have felt like an impostor. It's lucky then that John Colicos was persuaded to reprise the role of Kor in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , where he clocked up two more appearances after "Blood Oath".

All episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

*Availability in US

Not available

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as DS9, is the fourth series in the long-running Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek. DS9 was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and stars Avery Brooks, René Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.

Star Trek: The Original Series

Star Trek: The Original Series follows the exploits of the crew of the USS Enterprise. On a five-year mission to explore uncharted space, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) must trust his crew - Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Forest DeKelley), Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (James Doohan), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Sulu (George Takei) - with his life. Facing previously undiscovered life forms and civilizations and representing humanity among the stars on behalf of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets, the Enterprise regularly comes up against impossible odds and diplomatic dilemmas.

• Entertainment

Star Trek: Alle Parallel-Universen und Zeitlinien im Überblick

Im "Star Trek"-Franchise gibt es verschiedene Parallel-Universen und alternative Zeitlinien. Wir stellen euch alle vor, die bisher in den Serien vorgestellt wurden.

« Zur vorherigen Seite 2: Die Xindi zerstören die Erde

Die Kelvin-Zeitlinie

In den Filmen mit Chris Pine und Co. lernen wir die Kelvin-Zeitlinie kennen. Diese existiert parallel zu der Prime-Zeitlinie. In dieser stirbt Kirks Vater (Chris Hemsworth) bei einem Angriff der Romulaner und somit hat James (Chris Pine) einen ganz anderen Werdegang, um schließlich Captain der Enterprise zu werden.

Da Spock (Leonard Nimoy) aus dem Prime-Universum in die Kelvin-Zeitlinie hinüberspringt, wird in dem Film auch offen die Existenz verschiedener parallel existierender Zeitlinien diskutiert.

Das Spiegeluniversum

Ebenfalls eine geschlossene Zeitlinie, also eine parallel zur Prime-Zeitlinie existierende Zeitlinie, ist das Spiegeluniversum. Dieses lernen wir erstmals in " Raumschiff Enterprise " kennen. Wer könnte Spocks Ziegenbart vergessen? Seitdem ist das Universum, in dem böse Varianten unserer Helden existieren, Kult.

Auch in " Star Trek: Discovery " spielt das Spiegeluniversum eine wichtige Rolle. Dort gibt es keine Föderation, sondern das Terranische Imperium. Ein totalitäres Regime, das alle anderen Welten unterwirft. Das Spiegeluniversum wird sicherlich auch im kommenden Film " Star Trek: Section 31 " thematisiert werden.

Im Finale von " Star Trek: Raumschiff Voyager " befinden wir uns in einer alternativen Zeitlinie. Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), mittlerweile zurück auf der Erde und stark gealtert, will aber nicht akzeptieren, dass sie rund 20 Jahre gebraucht hat, um aus dem Delta-Quadranten nachhause zu gelangen. Auch die zahlreichen Verluste möchte sie nicht in Kauf nehmen.

Sie beschließt, in der Zeit zurückzureisen und ihrem jüngeren Ich dabei zu helfen, die Voyager mitsamt Crew deutlich schneller aus dem Delta-Quadranten zurück in den Alpha-Quadranten und somit zur Erde zu bringen. Ihr gelingt es und so wird die düstere Zukunft, in der die Folge begann, zu einer temporären Zeitlinie, die mittlerweile behoben wurde.

Star Trek: Discovery

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To Boldly Return —

Long-lost model of the uss enterprise returned to roddenberry family, it showed up in an ebay listing; now roddenberry's son wants to show it to fans..

Samuel Axon - Apr 19, 2024 9:05 pm UTC

The first-ever model of Star Trek's USS Enterprise NCC-1701 has been returned to the Roddenberry family, according to an ABC News report.

The 3-foot model was used to shoot the pilot and credits scene for Star Trek's original series in the 1960s and was used occasionally for shots throughout the series. (Typically, a larger, 11-foot model was used for shots after the pilot.) The model also sat on series creator Gene Roddenberry's desk for several years.

It went missing in the late 1970s; historians and collectors believe it belonged to Roddenberry himself, that he lent it to a production house working on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and that it was never returned. Its whereabouts were unknown until last fall, when a listing for a mysterious model of the Enterprise appeared on eBay .

Further Reading

The eBay account that posted the item specialized in selling artifacts found in storage lockers that end up without an owner, either because of failure to pay or death.

The model was turned over by the eBay seller to Texas-based Heritage Auctions. News spread that it had been discovered, and Gene Roddenberry's son, Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry, made public statements that he would like to see it returned to his family.

After that, there were months of silence, and its fate was unknown—until now. Heritage Auctions announced that it had given the model to Rod Roddenberry. Details of the exchange have not been shared, but Roddenberry said he did compensate Heritage in some way.

Heritage reached out directly to Roddenberry upon acquiring the object and reportedly decided to return it because it was "the right thing to do." Roddenberry said that he "felt it important to reward that and show appreciation for that" but didn't disclose a sum.

Roddenberry also revealed what he has planned for the model:

This is not going home to adorn my shelves. This is going to get restored and we’re working on ways to get it out so the public can see it, and my hope is that it will land in a museum somewhere.

He runs a group called the Roddenberry Foundation that has scanned and digitized many relics from Star Trek's ideation and production over the years, so it's likely the Foundation will get a crack at the model, too.

Listing image by eBay

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