Actors - Leonard Nimoy

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	Actors - Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Simon Nimoy (born March 26 1931) is an American actor, film director, poet and photographer best known for playing the character Spock in the Star Trek franchise, namely the original television series.

Life

Born in Boston, Massachusetts to Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants, Nimoy spent much of his early career in the 1950s doing small parts in B-movies, TV shows such as Dragnet, and serials such as Republic Pictures Zombies of the Stratosphere
in 1952. In 1961 he had a minor role in The Twilight Zone episode "A Quality of Mercy".

Nimoy served in the U.S. Army Reserve, receiving final discharge in November 1955 as a Sergeant. According to the National Archives and Records Administration, Nimoy's U.S. Army service record was destroyed in the 1973 National Archives Fire.

Nimoy has long been active in the Jewish community, and is an adherent of Reform Judaism. One of his better-known roles was that of Tevye the milkman, in the musical Fiddler on the Roof
, based on the series of short stories by Yiddish author Sholom Aleichem. In 1997 he narrated the documentary A Life Apart: Hasidism in America, about the various sects of Hasidic Orthodox Jews. In October 2002 Nimoy published Shekhina, a photographic study of women intended to visualize the feminine aspect of God's presence, inspired by Kabbalah (esoteric Jewish mysticism).

Career

Stage and screen

Nimoy's most famous role is the half-Vulcan, half-human Spock from Star Trek, the original series (TOS; 1966–69). He earned three Emmy nominations for playing this character.

In a strange twist of fate, Nimoy and William Shatner (who would go on to play Spock's commanding officer, Captain James T. Kirk), found themselves on the opposite side of the Iron Curtain in the 1964 episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., "The Project Strigas Affair". With his saturnine looks, Nimoy was predictably the villain, with Shatner playing a reluctant U.N.C.L.E. recruit. Nimoy went on to reprise Spock's character in a voice-over role in Star Trek: The Animated Series, in two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and in six Star Trek motion pictures featuring the original cast.

Following the cancellation of TOS, Nimoy played a spy called Paris in the hit television series Mission Impossible
from 1969–71. Although Nimoy said he enjoyed working with Peter Graves and other cast members, he regarded Mission Impossible as one of the low points of his career. He considered the work boring and unchallenging. He has often said there are times he barely remembers doing the show. It was during the run of the show that Nimoy fell deathly ill with a stomach ulcer. Only expert medical attention saved his life.

He co-starred with Yul Brynner and Richard Crenna in the Western movie Catlow
(1971). Nimoy also appeared in various made for television films in this period such as Assault On The Wayne (1970), Baffled (1972), The Alpha Caper (1973), The Missing Are Deadly (1974), Seizure: The Story Of Kathy Morris (1980), Marco Polo (1982) and he received an Emmy award nomination for best supporting actor for the TV film A Woman Called Golda (1982). In 1973, Nimoy also appeared on an episode of the popular television series Columbo called A Stitch In Crime. He played a murderous doctor and was one of the few criminals that Columbo ever really became angry at. In the late 1970s, he hosted and narrated the television series In Search of..., which investigated paranormal or unexplained events or subjects. He also has a memorable part as a new-age psychologist in Philip Kaufman's remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers
. It was during this time that Nimoy won acclaim for a series of stage roles as well. He has appeared in such plays as Fiddler On The Roof, The Man In The Glass Booth, Oliver, Six Rms Riv Vu, Full Circle, Camelot, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The King And I, Caligula, The Four Poster, Twelfth Night, Sherlock Holmes and My Fair Lady. When a new Star Trek series was planned in the late 1970s, Nimoy was to be in only two out of every eleven episodes, but when the show was elevated to a feature film, he agreed to reprise his role.

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Actors - Leonard Nimoy

Life

Career

Stage and screen

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