Leonard Simon Nimoy was an American actor, famed for playing Spock in the Star Trek franchise for almost 50 years.
102 Facts About Leonard Nimoy
2.
Outside of acting, Leonard Nimoy was a film director, photographer, author, singer, and songwriter.
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Leonard Nimoy began his acting career in his early twenties, teaching acting classes in Hollywood and making minor film and television appearances through the 1950s.
4.
Leonard Nimoy originated and developed Spock beginning with the February 1964 Star Trek television pilots "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before", through series' end in early 1969, followed by eight feature films and guest appearances in spin-offs.
5.
From 1967 to 1970, Leonard Nimoy had a music career with Dot Records, with his first and second albums mostly as Spock.
6.
In 2010, Leonard Nimoy announced that he was retiring from playing Spock, citing both his advanced age and the desire to give Zachary Quinto full media attention as the character.
7.
In 2015, Leonard Nimoy died after a long case of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
8.
Leonard Nimoy's death became international news and was met with expressions of shock and grief by fans, Star Trek co-stars, scientists, celebrities, and the media.
9.
Leonard Simon Nimoy was born on March 26,1931, in an Irish section of West End of Boston, Massachusetts, to Jewish immigrants from Iziaslav, Ukraine.
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Leonard Nimoy's parents left Iziaslav separately, his father first walking over the border into Poland while his mother and grandmother were smuggled out of the Soviet Union in a horse-drawn wagon by hiding under bales of hay.
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Leonard Nimoy's mother, Dora, was a homemaker, and his father, Max Nimoy, owned a barbershop in the Mattapan section of Boston.
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Leonard Nimoy had a cousin, Jeff Nimoy, a writer and actor.
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Leonard Nimoy began acting at the age of eight in a children's and neighborhood theater.
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Leonard Nimoy's parents wanted him to attend college and pursue a stable career, or even learn to play the accordion, so he could always make a living, but his grandfather encouraged him to do what he then wanted to do most, which was acting.
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Leonard Nimoy realized he had an aptitude for singing, which he developed in his synagogue's choir.
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Leonard Nimoy's singing during his bar mitzvah at age 13 was so good he was asked to repeat his performance the following week at another synagogue.
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Leonard Nimoy took drama classes at Boston College, and after moving to Los Angeles, he used $600 he saved from selling vacuum cleaners to enroll at the Pasadena Playhouse.
18.
Leonard Nimoy became a devotee of method acting concepts derived from the teachings of Konstantin Stanislavsky, realizing the stage allowed him to explore his original inspirations for acting: the "psychological, emotional, and physical territories of life that can't be done anywhere else".
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In 1953, Leonard Nimoy enlisted in the United States Army Reserve at Fort McPherson Georgia, serving for 18 months until 1955, leaving as a Staff Sergeant.
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Leonard Nimoy had been in the Army Special Services, putting on shows which he wrote, narrated, and emceed.
21.
Leonard Nimoy once picked up Senator John F Kennedy at the Bel Air Hotel in 1956, before the Democratic Convention began on Aug 13.
22.
Leonard Nimoy spent more than a decade receiving only small parts in B movies and the lead in one, along with a minor TV role.
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Leonard Nimoy believed that playing the title role in the 1952 film Kid Monk Baroni would make him a star, but the film failed after brief cinema showing.
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Leonard Nimoy overcame his Boston accent, but he realized his lean appearance made stardom unlikely.
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Leonard Nimoy had guest roles in the Sea Hunt series from 1958 to 1960 and a minor role in the 1961 The Twilight Zone episode "A Quality of Mercy".
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Leonard Nimoy appeared on Gunsmoke in 1961 as Grice, in 1962 as Arnie, and in 1966 as John Walking Fox.
27.
Leonard Nimoy was best known for his portrayal of Spock, the half-human, half-Vulcan character he played on Star Trek from the first TV episode in 1966, to the film Star Trek Into Darkness in 2013.
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Leonard Nimoy created the sign from his childhood memories of the way kohanim hold their hands when giving the Priestly Blessing.
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Leonard Nimoy conceived the "Vulcan nerve pinch", which he suggested as a replacement for the scripted knock out method of using the butt of his phaser.
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Leonard Nimoy wanted a more sophisticated way of rendering a person unconscious.
31.
Leonard Nimoy explained to the director that Spock had, per the story, attended the Vulcan Institute of Technology and had studied human anatomy.
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Leonard Nimoy explained the idea of putting his hand on his neck and shoulder to Shatner, and they rehearsed it.
33.
Leonard Nimoy reprised Spock in Star Trek: The Animated Series and two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
34.
The first six Star Trek movies feature the original cast including Leonard Nimoy, who directed two of the films, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
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Leonard Nimoy played the elder Spock in the 2009 Star Trek reboot film and briefly in the 2013 sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness, both directed by JJ Abrams.
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Leonard Nimoy was cast in the role of Paris, an IMF agent who was an ex-magician and make-up expert, "The Great Paris".
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Leonard Nimoy played the role during seasons four and five from 1969 to 1971.
38.
Leonard Nimoy had been strongly considered as part of the initial cast for the show, but remained on Star Trek.
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Leonard Nimoy co-starred with Yul Brynner and Richard Crenna in the Western movie Catlow.
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Leonard Nimoy had roles in two episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery and Columbo.
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Leonard Nimoy received an Emmy Award nomination for best supporting actor for the television film A Woman Called Golda, for playing the role of Morris Meyerson, Golda Meir's husband, opposite Ingrid Bergman as Golda in her final role.
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In 1975, Leonard Nimoy filmed an opening introduction to Ripley's World of the Unexplained museum located at Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Fisherman's Wharf at San Francisco, California.
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Leonard Nimoy had a character part as a psychiatrist in Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
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Leonard Nimoy starred as Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1974, one year prior to its release as a feature film, with Jack Nicholson in the same role.
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In 1975, Leonard Nimoy toured with and played the title role in the Royal Shakespeare Company's Sherlock Holmes.
46.
In 1981, Leonard Nimoy starred in Vincent, a one-man show which he wrote and published as a book in 1984.
47.
In 1986, Leonard Nimoy lent his voice to the 1986 cartoon movie The Transformers: The Movie for the character Galvatron.
48.
In Bradbury's 1993 animated TV film The Halloween Tree, Leonard Nimoy was the voice of Mr Moundshroud, the children's guide.
49.
Leonard Nimoy lent his voice as narrator to the 1994 IMAX documentary film, Destiny in Space, showcasing film-footage of space from nine Space Shuttle missions over four years time.
50.
Together with John de Lancie, another actor from the Star Trek franchise, Leonard Nimoy created Alien Voices, an audio-production venture that specializes in audio dramatizations.
51.
In 2001, Leonard Nimoy voiced the Atlantean King Kashekim Nedakh in the Disney animated feature Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
52.
Leonard Nimoy provided a comprehensive series of voice-overs for the 2005 computer game Civilization IV.
53.
Leonard Nimoy voiced the Star Trek Online massive multiplayer online game, released in February 2010, and Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep as Xehanort, the series' leading villain.
54.
Tetsuya Nomura, the director of Birth by Sleep, said Leonard Nimoy was chosen for the role specifically because of his role as Spock, in order to play opposite Mark Hamill, famous for his role as Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, as Nomura was a fan of both series and wanted to pit them against each other.
55.
Leonard Nimoy reprised this role for Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance in 2012.
56.
Leonard Nimoy voiced Sentinel Prime in the 2011 film Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
57.
Leonard Nimoy was a frequent and popular reader for Selected Shorts, an ongoing series of programs at Symphony Space in New York City which features actors, and sometimes authors, reading works of short fiction.
58.
From 1982 to 1987, Leonard Nimoy hosted the children's educational show Standby.
59.
Leonard Nimoy was an occasional voice actor in animated feature films, including the character of Galvatron in The Transformers: The Movie in 1986.
60.
Leonard Nimoy narrated the 1991 CBS paranormal series Haunted Lives: True Ghost Stories.
61.
Leonard Nimoy appeared in advertising in the United Kingdom for the computer company Time Computers in the late 1990s.
62.
Leonard Nimoy appeared in several popular television series, including Futurama and The Simpsons, both as himself and as Spock.
63.
Leonard Nimoy played the reoccurring enigmatic character of Dr William Bell on the television show Fringe.
64.
Leonard Nimoy opted for the role after previously working with Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman on the 2009 Star Trek film and offered another opportunity to work with this production team again.
65.
Leonard Nimoy was interested in the series, which he saw was an intelligent mixture of science and science fiction, and continued to guest star through the show's fourth season, even after his stated 2012 retirement from acting.
66.
In 1991, Nimoy starred in Never Forget, which he co-produced with Robert B Radnitz.
67.
Leonard Nimoy said he experienced a strong "sense of fulfillment" from doing the film.
68.
Leonard Nimoy continued voice acting during retirement; his appearance in the third season of Fringe includes his voice, and he provided the voice of Sentinel Prime in Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
69.
Leonard Nimoy provided the voice of Spock as a guest star in a Season5 episode of the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory titled "The Transporter Malfunction", which aired on March 29,2012.
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Also in 2012, Leonard Nimoy reprised his role of William Bell in Fringe for the fourth season episodes "Letters of Transit" and "Brave New World" parts1 and2.
71.
Leonard Nimoy reprised his role as Master Xehanort in the 2012 video game Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance.
72.
In 2013, Leonard Nimoy reprised his role as Ambassador Spock in a cameo appearance in Star Trek Into Darkness, and is the only actor from the original series to appear in Abrams' Star Trek films.
73.
Leonard Nimoy's work has been exhibited at the R Michelson Galleries in Northampton, Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
74.
Leonard Nimoy began feature film directing in 1984 with Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, the third in the film series.
75.
Leonard Nimoy directed the second most successful movie in the franchise, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and then Three Men and a Baby, the highest-grossing film of 1987.
76.
Leonard Nimoy directed The Good Mother and Funny About Love.
77.
The first is I Am Not Spock and was controversial, as many fans incorrectly assumed Leonard Nimoy was distancing himself from the Spock character.
78.
Leonard Nimoy had much input into how Spock would act in certain situations, and conversely Leonard Nimoy's contemplation of how Spock acted gave him cause to think about things in a way he never would have, had he not portrayed the character.
79.
Leonard Nimoy maintained that in some meaningful sense he had merged with Spock while distancing between fact and fiction.
80.
Leonard Nimoy composed several volumes of poetry, some published along with a number of his photographs.
81.
Leonard Nimoy adapted and starred in the one-man play Vincent, based on the play Van Gogh by Phillip Stephens.
82.
In 1995, Leonard Nimoy was involved in the production of Primortals, a comic book series published by Tekno Comix about first contact with aliens, which had arisen from a discussion he had with Isaac Asimov.
83.
Leonard Nimoy later recorded a few spoken word albums and contributed narration to albums such as Whales Alive.
84.
Leonard Nimoy's voice appeared in sampled form on a song by the pop band Information Society in the late Eighties.
85.
Leonard Nimoy played the part of the chauffeur in the 1985 music video of The Bangles' cover version of "Going Down to Liverpool".
86.
Leonard Nimoy appeared in the alternate music video for the song "The Lazy Song" by pop artist Bruno Mars.
87.
Leonard Nimoy was long active in the Jewish community, and could speak and read Yiddish.
88.
In October 2002, Leonard Nimoy published The Shekhina Project, a photographic study exploring the feminine aspect of God's presence, inspired by Kabbalah.
89.
Leonard Nimoy said objections to Shekhina did not bother or surprise him, but he smarted at the stridency of the Orthodox protests, and was saddened at the attempt to control thought.
90.
On New Year's Day 1989, Leonard Nimoy married his second wife, actress Susan Bay, cousin of director Michael Bay.
91.
William Shatner, in his 2008 book Up Till Now: The Autobiography, spoke about how later in their lives, Leonard Nimoy tried to help Shatner's alcoholic wife, Nerine Kidd.
92.
Leonard Nimoy has said that the character of Spock, which he played twelve to fourteen hours a day, five days a week, influenced his personality in his private life.
93.
Leonard Nimoy was a private pilot and had owned an airplane.
94.
On June 2,2015, the asteroid 4864 Leonard Nimoy was named after him.
95.
In January 2014, Leonard Nimoy revealed publicly that he had been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a condition he attributed to a smoking addiction he had quit about 30 years earlier.
96.
On February 19,2015, having been in and out of hospitals for several months, Leonard Nimoy was taken to UCLA Medical Center for chest pains.
97.
On February 25,2015, Leonard Nimoy fell into a coma, and died of complications from COPD at his home in Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, on the morning of February 27, at the age of 83.
98.
Leonard Nimoy made his family a priority and his career became secondary.
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Leonard Nimoy was buried at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles on March 1,2015.
100.
The Big Bang Theory, which made frequent references to Spock, and for which Leonard Nimoy voiced one episode, paid tribute to him after his death.
101.
Adam Leonard Nimoy directed a biographical documentary on his father, For the Love of Spock, which Quinto narrated and with which Shatner was involved.
102.
Shatner wrote a book about his friendship with Nimoy titled Leonard: My Fifty Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man, released on February 16,2016.