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Movies & TV

In memoriam: Leonard Nimoy, 1931-2015

Leonard Nimoy was a lot of things besides Mr. Spock, but Mr. Spock is the thing people remember.

Just look at Twitter or Facebook or any news site right now: none of the people writing about his death (at age 83, of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) is leading with “Paris from Mission: Impossible” or “William Bell from Fringe” or any of the dozens of Golden Age roles he played before he boarded Gene Roddenberry’s revolutionary science-fiction series in 1966.

But that just demonstrates how singular and crucial Nimoy was to the character of Mr. Spock – first name unpronounceable – the half-human, half Vulcan first officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Playing the considered superego to James T. Kirk’s horndog ego and Bones McCoy’s reactionary id, Nimoy’s performance carved a space for a character that hadn’t really existed before – a complex, troubled scientist whose bifurcated nature left him forever resenting the qualities that made him invaluable to his friends.

Spock didn’t quite fit in among his human crewmates, but neither was he at home on Vulcan – which resonated with a certain socially awkward subset of Star Trek’s fan base far more than anyone could have expected. He may not have been the first nerd, but he was the first nerd hero.

And here is the thing: for much of his career, Leonard Nimoy really hated Mr. Spock. The role was a straitjacket that – he believed – kept him from more versatile roles. His first autobiography, 1975’s I Am Not Spock, attempted to illustrate the differences between actor and character by imagining conversations between himself and his alter-ego in which they discuss precisely that Trekkers stopped at the title, decided that their idol was rejecting his fans and revolted. (This sort of cultural flash-fire happens three or four times a day now, of course, but in 1975 it was a big deal.)

Nimoy’s return to the Enterprise four years later in Star Trek: The Motion Picture – and the warmth and sly wit he finally was able to bring to the pointy-eared hobgoblin in seven subsequent Trek features (and two key episodes of the Next Generation series) swept away any lingering fan resentment.

By the time Nimoy directed Star Trek III: The Search For Spock – and yes, they found him – all was forgiven, and Nimoy found plenty of work in genre projects, never missing the chance to send himself up. (His two appearances on The Simpsons are still magical.) And helming the third and fourth Trek films allowed him to launch a side career as a director of some note, inasmuch as the blockbuster success of Three Men And A Baby demonstrated he could handle himself outside of SF.

(His other features didn’t fare as well, but they let him work with interesting actors: Diane Keaton and Liam Neeson in The Good Mother, Gene Wilder and Christine Lahti in Funny About Love and a young Patricia Arquette and Joseph Gordon-Levitt Holy Matrimony.)

In the end, like William Shatner before him, Nimoy made his peace with Star Trek. But unlike Shatner, he used his power for good, leveraging his celebrity into a curious sort of stewardship over the franchise. When he turned up in J.J. Abrams’s new Star Trek movies, it felt like an endorsement – and when he and New Spock Zachary Quinto poked fun at the whole thing, it was met with the appropriate fondness.

Leonard Nimoy leaves the world markedly different than it was when he arrived. And maybe more than just the world: Star Trek has a way of resonating through the galaxy, after all. Someone’ll probably name a constellation after him before too long.

normwilner@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner

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