A very special Birthday Biography entry from two of the resident Trekkies on staff at MPL:
"My folks came to the U.S. as immigrants -- aliens -- and became citizens. I was born in Boston, a citizen, went to Hollywood and became an alien."
-- Leonard Nimoy
TRACY: I have to start with this fact -- I am a Trekkie and not ashamed to admit it! And while I haven't been a faithful fan of every incarnation of Star Trek, I have been a fan of the
original series since the mid to late 70s. My older brothers, especially my brother Scott, were huge fans of the show, and I basically had no choice in watching it. But then, somehow, I found myself drawn into that world and those characters. When I was a young girl, my favorite character was Chekov. But as the years passed I came to love and appreciate Spock. He is one of the most interesting characters ever developed for television. The combination of Vulcan logic and human emotion is, as Spock himself would say, fascinating.
MS. B: Little-known fact, at least by me: Spock wasn't Nimoy's first acting role. He was only eight years old when he first began appearing in community theatre roles in his hometown of Boston. In the decade before his first
Star Trek appearance, he featured in a variety of television and film spots, mostly in smaller roles, though he did play the title role in
Kid Monk Baroni. (He also spent two years serving in the United States Army.)
In 1952, he had a part in the B movie-serial
Zombies of the Stratosphere -- a science-fiction serial serving as a surprising bit of foreshadowing into the future role that would make Nimoy a pop culture icon.
MS. B: The first episode of
Star Trek aired on Thursday, September 8, 1966, receiving mixed reviews but promising ratings. The episode shown that evening was "Where No Man Has Gone Before," and it was actually the
second pilot episode to be produced. The first, then-unaired pilot was entitled "The Cage," and had featured Jeffrey Hunter in the role of Captain Christopher Pike. For "Where No Man Has Gone Before," Pike and his crew were replaced with Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekhov -- but one character survived from the original pilot to the replacement pilot: Leonard Nimoy's Spock.
Nimoy would appear in all 80 episodes of
Star Trek (the only actor to do so), and if the show was cancelled after three seasons due to low ratings, the effect of Spock and the rest of the Enterprise crew on pop culture should not be underestimated. Finding new audiences in syndication,
Star Trek became popular enough to permit first
an animated series during the seventies, and then a big screen relaunch. Nimoy would feature in all six of the original Trek films, which were released from 1979 through 1991; he'd reprise his role again with a cameo appearance as Spock in J.J. Abrams's
recent reboot.
TRACY: I actually was discovering the original series at just the right time, because in 1979,
Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out. Now, I know it was not a very good movie, but without that film there wouldn't have been any more movies -- let alone
Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and all of the other incarnations of
Star Trek. My personal favorite of the Star Trek films is
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. While Leonard Nimoy is not in the film all that much, the essence of Spock is all through the film. After Spock's death at the end of
The Wrath of Khan, we see our old friends steal the USS Enterprise to go in search of Spock's body on a far-off planet -- and they must return to Vulcan in order to save Spock with the help of Dr. McCoy. To me, this film shows the devotion and friendship that exists between all of the crew, but especially between Kirk and Spock.
MS. B: I never caught the original
Star Trek series in syndication -- I'm a Trekkie thanks to growing up on the adventures of a different Enterprise crew in
Star Trek: The Next Generation. Happily for all Trek fans, however, Nimoy's portrayal of the character of Spock wasn't limited to the original Enterprise. In a
fifth-season two-part episode of
Next Generation, Nimoy reprised his role as Spock once again, the character now serving as an ambassador of the Federation. But such is the prevalence of the original characters in our pop-culture consciousness that, even before seeing that episode, I'd known who Spock was long before seeing his guest-starring appearance.
I've only recently started watching the original series episodes (I just finished the one with the infamous
salt monster) -- but I've seen a few of the movies. In particular, I was captivated by
The Wrath of Khan, which features Spock (now a Starfleet Captain) teaming up with Admiral Kirk and the rest of the original crew. They're after the genetically enhanced tyrant (and all-around crackpot) Khan Noonien Singh -- who, in a nice continuity nod, is a villain who was originally featured in the TV show's first season. Khan has it out for Kirk and spends the film trying to get his hands on a
MacGuffin known as the Genesis Device, intending to destroy a few planets and kill Kirk while he's at it. By the the end of the film, the villain is defeated -- but the Enterprise is in danger and the engines are down. Spock steps in to save the day, repairing the starship's engines but getting a lethal dose of radiation poisoning in the process. It says something about
Star Trek's knack for portraying emotion and relationships, underneath all the sci-fi bells and whistles, that the ending had me tearing up even though I was not yet a fan of the original series.
Once
Star Trek hooks you, you're hooked. The love of the fans for the Enterprise and its crew -- and for the character of Spock -- has, often as not, bled into obsession for many viewers over the years. People's determination to equate Nimoy with his
Star Trek character would eventually lead Nimoy to title his biography
I Am Not Spock. But his long years of association with the character seemed to eventually return in him a kind of affection for the character after all -- enough so that, when he released a second biography in 1995, this one was entitled
I Am Spock.
TRACY: About a month ago, I decided to start watching the show
Fringe, starting with season one on DVD. Imagine my surprise when Leonard Nimoy's name was listed in the opening credits of the season finale! He plays the character of Dr. William Bell, a renowned scientist who is an old friend of Dr. Walter Bishop, one of the main characters of the show. While he's only been in a few episodes through the first two seasons, he plays a very pivotal role in the story arc of
Fringe. As much as I love the character of Spock, it has been so much fun watching Mr. Nimoy playing a different character. I can only hope he will be in more episodes.
Even though I've been lucky enough to attend a few Star Trek conventions over the years, I never made it to one where Mr. Nimoy was in attendance. The closest I ever got to seeing him was about 20 years ago, when Mark Lenard, who played Spock's father Sarek, made an appearance at a convention I attended right here in Monroeville at the Palace Inn. If you can't see Spock, seeing Sarek is the next best thing!
MS. B: Meanwhile, as a major fan of the television series
The Big Bang Theory, I am eagerly awaiting
this Thursday's episode, in which Leonard Nimoy will be making a guest appearance on the show.
The Big Bang Theory is a show that's all about celebrating your Inner Dork, and
Star Trek and Spock himself have been referenced on more than one occasion. (Check out a clip from an earlier episode of
The Big Bang Theory at the end of our entry, in which Sheldon Cooper is given a very unexpected Christmas present from his neighbor and sometimes-pal, Penny.)
Leonard Nimoy has been quoted saying he's considering retiring from acting -- not an unreasonable decision should he make it, since he turned 81 yesterday! But he doesn't seem ready to stop acting just yet ... and, regardless of when he stops, he'll hardly be forgotten. His performance as the character of Spock made an immeasurable impact on television, science fiction, and pop culture itself. The duality of a coldly logical and rational character -- whose half-human side will never truly let him escape his emotions (which, of course, is all for the better) -- has a resonance for most fans that will hardly lessen over time.
Whether you're a Trekkie or not, you know Spock -- making this beloved character a true icon who will continue to live long and prosper for generations to come.
"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."
-- Leonard Nimoy
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Post by Tracy and Ms. B
