Leonard Nimoy 1931-2015 [Archive] - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

Zoneboy

02-27-2015, 01:18 PM

Link (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/arts/television/leonard-nimoy-spock-of-star-trek-dies-at-83.html?_r=0)

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, which he attributed to years of smoking, a habit he had given up three decades earlier. He had been hospitalized earlier in the week.

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 1977, 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 primitive special effects 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 Capt. James T. 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.”

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, 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.

But all that was subsidiary to Mr. Spock, the most complex member of the Enterprise crew: both a colleague and a creature apart, who sometimes struggled with his warring racial halves.

In one of his most memorable “Star Trek” episodes, 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 and compassion, but also a rarefied concept of alienation.

“I am what I am, Leila,” Mr. Spock declared. “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.”

Zoneboy

02-28-2015, 12:53 AM

Remembering Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock, One of History’s Greatest TV Characters

Vulture (http://www.vulture.com/2015/02/remembering-leonard-nimoys-mr-spock.html)

Leonard Nimoy, who died today at 83, had a long, prodigious career as an actor, writer, and director. Despite all his other achievements, he will always be known as Mr. Spock, the half-human, half-Vulcan first officer of Star Trek's Enterprise, and that's what I want to focus on here, because the pointy-eared Starfleet officer was one of the great characters in TV history. He was killed off and then resuscitated, not just officially (in the second and third Star Trek films, then in J.J. Abrams reboots, where he appears as young Spock's grizzled future self) but symbolically, in the form of new Trek characters who at times seemed like prismatic shards of Spock, and who all grappled with feelings of otherness (Geordi La Forge, Worf, Data, Seven of Nine).

From fairly early in the show's run, Nimoy seemed to realize the symbolic power invested in Spock, and perhaps to mistrust or fear it. "The network, and a good many fans, would have been happy if the show had been called 'The Mr. Spock Hour,'" confessed Star Trek writer David Gerrold in his book The Trouble With Tribbles. As a professional who prided himself on his versatility, he resisted being identified too strongly with a single role — it's the main reason he went on to play Paris, the "master of disguise," on Mission: Impossible from 1969–71 — and it was a long time before he entirely made peace with the legacy he'd done so much to shape.

After Star Trek got canceled, then became a surprise syndication hit in the early '70s — spawning a cartoon, several more live-action series, and a hit film franchise — Nimoy published a philosophical rumination on his acting career titled I Am Not Spock; 20 years after that, he published a sequel, I Am Spock. The second title was partly meant to quell fans' concerns that the first book's title meant Nimoy resented them for adoring the character. But anyone who's read both books can testify that his attitude was always conflicted and complex, mingling skepticism, gratitude, and fascination. The proof can even be seen in the books' choice of cover art: They don't signal "either/or," but "both/and." The first carries a black-and-white photo of Nimoy performing the character's split-fingered Vulcan salute, hardly the clearest way to isolate himself from his character. But while the second book's title affirmed Nimoy's basic allegiance to Spock, the cover showed him in an actor's head shot pose, with a neatly trimmed beard and close-cropped hair and a tasteful dark sport coat: civilian garb, as it were. Either volume could have been titled I Am and Yet Am Not Spock.

This was no coy actor's pose, though. Trekkers who met the actor will tell you that while he could be prickly about the character early on, Nimoy was always respectful of their love for Spock, because he realized how much he'd meant to them, and to him, over the years — how they appreciated him and identified with him because of Nimoy's lovingly detailed, obviously personal performance, which in some small way helped illuminate whatever struggles they were going through. Nimoy's attitude toward Spock warmed over time, eventually becoming something close to an unabashed embrace. While I never had the chance to interview him at length, I did speak to him briefly at a Los Angeles screening about 15 years ago, and he didn't scowl or flinch or otherwise recoil from my fanboyish eagerness to discuss the character. I asked, "Do you ever feel that in some ways the character was as much a curse as a blessing?" He said simply, "All actors should be so cursed."

As a former editor of mine said, "Grief for one who lived so long would be illogical, yet my human emotions demand it." Nimoy's talent, intellect, and moral compass demand it, too. The character was created by Gene Roddenberry and defined by many Star Trek writers and directors, including story editor D.C. Fontana, but it was Nimoy who incarnated Spock and breathed life into him, and he deserves credit for bringing so much of himself to the role, and using it as a tool to explore his own identity, and helping viewers to consider their own.

Nimoy was born in 1931 in Boston to a barber father and a homemaker mother. Both were Yiddish-speaking Russian Jewish immigrants, and his religious and cultural heritage informed many of his choices from the late '60s onward. This aspect of Nimoy's significance has barely begun to be appreciated. It wasn't until the 1970s, the heyday of stars such as Elliott Gould, Barbra Streisand, and Dustin Hoffman, that Hollywood started routinely allowing Jewish actors to read as something other than generically Jewish or ethnically indeterminate. Nimoy's performance as Spock served as a subtle bridge between eras of invisibility and assimilation, and transparency and pride. (Nimoy's stage roles after Trek's initial run included stints as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof and the widowed Jewish refugee in Robert Shaw's The Man in the Glass Booth.)

This is a big part of the reason why the character or Spock — a "half-breed," per Dr. McCoy's slur, in some ways passing for human while staunchly insisting on his cultural Vulcan-ness — made such a powerful impact on viewers who felt, in one way or another, like outsiders. Counterculture-minded whites adored the character, naturally, and the show clumsily tried to capitalize on this in a silly third-season episode, "The Way to Eden," wherein Spock was basically adopted as a harp-strumming mascot by space hippies. One of the infinite number of ways to read the character was as a person who had to tamp down his undeniable individuality in order to function as part of an institution with hard rules and hallowed traditions.

But he also became immensely popular with African-American, Latino, and Asian viewers (including Bruce Lee, reportedly a huge fan of Spock); all of whom had more than theoretical experience with trying to be — to paraphrase Groucho Marx — part of a club that wouldn't have somebody like them as members. The sense of belonging yet not belonging, to both the dominant culture and one's own, was especially acute among mixed-race viewers, and Spock struck a powerfully resonant chord with them. In More Than Black: Multiracial Identity and the New World Order, G. Reginald Daniel writes of his trepidation at contemplating his own mixed-race heritage while reading an Ebony article about "mulattoes … Like Mr. Spock on Star Trek! Like twilight, that zone between day and night that we all pass through at dusk and dawn."

Nimoy and Spock inspired many such "Eureka!" moments; this made him, in a strange but vivid way, as much of a "minority" character in the original cast as George Takei's Japanese-American Lt. Hikaru Sulu, or Nichelle Nichols's Swahili-named Uhura, a character so symbolically important that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King talked the actress into staying on the show when he learned that she was thinking of quitting. The show's affinity for Shakespearean flourishes is well-documented, but in in a sense, Spock himself might be the most Bard-like character of them all: He's a green-blooded Othello who has to be twice as good as the full-blooded human officers to earn their respect, and who must tamp down his natural passions despite constant racist needling and doubts about his loyalty. Part of this stemmed from his uncomfortably "devilish" appearance, which flirted with anti-Semitic stereotypes as well as intimations of some dark-skinned Other. The character was originally slathered in red makeup, which read as dark grey when the show was viewed on black-and-white sets. The book Star Trek FAQ says the makeup was discarded because Spock "came out looking like an African-American satyr."

In the 2005 book Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish, Nimoy talked about being typecast because of his decidedly non-Waspy looks. "“Guys like me were playing all the ethnic roles, usually the heavies — the bad Mexicans, the bad Italians. And those were the jobs that I took and was happy to get for a long time. I played Indians in Westerns many times. The first Indian role that I took was a role that a Native Indian turned down because the Indian character was so unredeemably bad. I was happy to get the work, thank you very much.” Nimoy created the Vulcan greeting — a forked hand with upraised fingers — based on his memory of "seeing the rabbis do it when they said the priestly blessing." Throughout the run of the original series, you can see Nimoy, Roddenberry, and the writing staff integrating more and more culturally specific touches; the apotheosis might be Spock's resuscitation at the end of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, which takes place amid slender, jagged What's Opera, Doc? mountain spires but features Dame Judith Anderson delivering fiery rabbinical incantations; the cognitive dissonance here is spectacular and delightful, as if Wagner had momentarily been claimed for the chosen people.

Trek and Nimoy built Spock, the Vulcans, and their entire history out of bits and pieces of lived experience, which is why their world continues to exert such powerful fascination. And on a more basic level, there's Spock's struggle to be that which he's not necessarily inclined to be: cool, rational, divorced from feeling. His mother is human, his father Vulcan; he is neither and both, a warrior who always reaches first for the peaceful solution, and who is in some way doomed, like The Searchers' Ethan Edwards, never to entirely belong to the civilization he's sworn to protect.

Six years ago, on the eve of the release of the first Star Trek reboot, I did a video (embedded below) that tried to get at Spock's eternal inside/outside status. I ended it with Nimoy, in one of his many rough but touchingly sincere musical performances, singing "Where Is Love," from Oliver! It's so easy to laugh at recordings like this one — like so many stars, Nimoy couldn't resist an ill-advised attempt to conquer one more art form — but if you think of Mr. Spock, the space hero whose coiled passions were rarely signified by anything other than a raised eyebrow, it's strangely moving. Where is love? Spock never really found it anywhere but on the deck of the Enterprise: in the job where he could be fully actualized, fully himself. The final frontier is contentment.

How Leonard Nimoy Tried to Escape the Grip of Mr. Spock]

Variety (http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/how-leonard-nimoy-tried-to-escape-the-pull-of-dr-spock-1201443274/)

Leonard Nimoy titled his 1977 autobiography “I Am Not Spock,” referencing the “Star Trek” role that, in its own way, became a pair of velvet handcuffs. Indeed, for actors, few parts better sum up the conundrum they can face – eager to find a steady role that propels them into the public consciousness, only to become at least partially shackled in terms of the doors that association closes.

Nimoy had bounced around in Westerns and smaller movie roles before landing the gig as Mr. Spock, the emotionless Vulcan. Even more than most of his “Star Trek” castmates, he seemed to chafe against some of the expectations the series engendered – amusingly spoofed in William Shatner’s mock “Get a life!” outburst at Trekkers on “Saturday Night Live” – before ostensibly resigning himself to them.

In that regard, there were always mixed feelings in seeing Nimoy drawn back into the franchise, although he wisely parlayed that involvement into directing (including the third and fourth installments of the movies that began in 1979) and other avenues that allowed him to stretch creatively.

Then again, colleagues generally spoke with great admiration regarding Nimoy’s considerable talent, which made the idea of him being asked to repeatedly arch an eyebrow or spread his fingers and recite his popular catch phrases a little more sobering. (On the plus side, his rendition of “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” is almost without equal, except perhaps for Shatner’s “Rocket Man,” in terms of “Star Trek”-related kitsch.)

Nimoy gradually appeared to make peace with the cards dealt him, and became adept at spoofing his image, including his cameos on “The Big Bang Theory” and “The Simpsons.” His “Star Trek” persona also created opportunities, such as his hosting gig on the series “In Search Of…”

Still, it’s probably fair to say Nimoy never got the chance to exhibit his full range as an actor, in part because of the success he wound up enjoying with what at the time looked like a cult TV show that was canceled after three seasons.

There is, at least, an age-old mystery in that. Because for all the universes and times that “Star Trek” visited, we can never fully know the “What if?” regarding what would have happened to those the series made famous had their journeys led elsewhere.

How Leonard Nimoy Made Two of the Funniest Simpsons Episodes Even Funnier

Link (http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a33395/leonard-nimoy-simpsons/)

Leonard Nimoy helped shape not one, but two, of the strongest Simpsons episodes in the show's 26-year history. We first saw Nimoy's lanky frame and long, yellow face in episode 12 of season 4, "Marge vs. The Monorail." Written by Conan O'Brien during his two-year stint on the staff, the episode is a send-up of The Music Man in which a traveling salesman, Lyle Lanley (voiced by Phil Hartman), convinces Springfield to build a monorail with its sudden influx of extra cash. Playing himself, Nimoy attends the opening ceremony as Grand Marshal and is among the passengers on the monorail's maiden loop around town. Mayor Quimby doesn't quite know who Nimoy is, "May the force be with you!" and Nimoy can't find anyone to listen to his stories. When things go catastrophically wrong minutes into that first trip, Homer haphazardly saves the day, though Nimoy takes all the credit. He then disappears through a Star Trek-ian transporter.

Nimoy reappeared four seasons later to frame the tenth episode of season 8, "The Springfield Files," a masterful spoof of Fox's then-hit The X Files. Nimoy once again played himself as a Sci-Fi narrator mocking In Search Of..., his own TV documentary series from the late-'70s. Later in the show, Nimoy inexplicably enters the episode, itself, alongside dozens of others desperate to catch a glimpse of the "alien" that Homer believes appears every Friday night. (Mulder and Scully are there to investigate, too.)

Bart: Leonard Nimoy? What are you doing here?

Leonard Nimoy: Wherever there is mystery and the unexplained, cosmic forces shall draw me near.

Bart: Uh-huh.

Hot Dog Vendor: Hey Spock, what do you want on your hot dog?

Leonard Nimoy: Surprise me.

Both cameos showed Nimoy's ability to poke fun at himself and the campy-ness of his entire career. And while so many stars have brought laughs to The Simpsons at their own expense, Nimoy's two appearances were different. Nimoy had an intrinsic understanding of the show's rhythms and subversive tendencies during the mid'-90s, a period many fans refer to as "the golden era." Both episodes would have been far less funny without Nimoy, and longtime Simpsons showrunner Al Jean knows it.

Remembering Leonard Nimoy: Spock’s Top ‘Star Trek’ Moments

Variety (http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/leonard-nimoy-dead-top-spock-star-trek-moments-1201443295/)

From the beginning, Mr. Spock was the conscience of “Star Trek,” and Leonard Nimoy was the actor who transcended all of the sci-fi trappings to deliver on the challenge of portraying a character who claimed to have no emotions.

Nimoy brought to Spock the depth and complexity that made viewers immediately intrigued with the stern-faced Vulcan, the first officer and right hand to William Shatner’s larger-than-life Captain Kirk. “Star Trek” devotees cheered when Spock’s beloved logic would save the day, and they wept when he died (sort of) in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”

But it all began with Nimoy’s work in 79 episodes of the original series that aired on NBC from 1966-69. Here are some of the highlights of Mr. Spock’s “Star Trek” career in the original series and beyond.

Amok Time

The legend of Spock and the bond between Spock and Kirk doesn’t get any deeper than this season-two episode that offered copious backstory for Spock. It introduces the concept of mating ritual “pon farr” — aka the Vulcan version of the seven-year itch — and features a hell of a fight scene between Spock and Kirk. It also treats fans to a glimpse of Spock lowering his logic guard when he realizes that Kirk is not dead.

City on the Edge of Forever

Spock shows great empathy when Kirk falls in love (with Joan Collins) after they wind up traveling back in time to 1930s America. And of course Spock’s electrical wizardry saves the day and helps them escape the time warp.

The Menagerie Parts 1 and 2

Spock faces a court martial in his elaborate dedication to helping his former Enterprise leader, Capt. Pike (aka the star of the first “Trek” pilot). It’s a season one two-parter that helped establish the show’s reputation for intense drama and plot twists.

The Devil in the Dark

Spock flexes his paranormal muscles by mind-melding with the Horta. His Method acting training is put to good use as he channels the emotions of the oddly shaped animal.

This Side of Paradise

Spock lets his hair down and falls for guest star Jill Ireland after the Enterprise visits a planet where strange plant spores make him suddenly blissfully content.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Nimoy had many memorable moments in the first six “Star Trek” movies – none more so than his death at the conclusion of the well-reviewed “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” highlighted by Ricardo Montalban’s understated performance as the vengeful Khan. But Nimoy’s focus in the death scene makes it a true tearjerker. Using his Vulcan logic, Spock sacrifices himself without hesitation for the crew and dies of radiation poisoning.

Two years later, in “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,” the character is successfully resurrected at the end of the movie on the planet Vulcan. It was Nimoy’s feature directorial debut.

Simpsons Showrunner Al Jean Remembers Leonard Nimoy

Vulture (http://www.vulture.com/2015/02/simpsons-writer-al-jean-remembers-leonard-nimoy.html)

As any Simpsons superfan can tell you, there was no guest-star quite like the late Leonard Nimoy. The Star Trek legend made two extremely memorable appearances on the series, both as himself. The first was 1993's Conan O'Brien–penned "Marge vs. the Monorail," in which he was the guest of honor for the first ride of Springfield's monorail (and spent much of that ride boring the hell out of a fellow passenger who has zero interest in his Trek tales). He returned for 1997's "The Springfield Files," providing further delight by delivering a send-up of introductions to overwrought mystery shows. Longtime Simpsons writer and showrunner Al Jean got in touch with us today and gave us his thoughts and memories about working with Nimoy. Here's what he said, in full:

When we were producing the Simpsons monorail episode that Conan had written, we were hoping to get George Takei to come back to the show as the celebrity who attends the grand opening of the Springfield Monorail. George had been great in season two, and I would never dream someone as unapproachable (I thought) as Leonard Nimoy would do our show.

To our surprise, George turned down the part; he was on the board of directors of a public monorail and didn't want to appear in our episode implying they were less than the ideal form of travel. To our astonishment, Leonard said yes, and to our greater astonishment, when we asked him to do corny Spockish lines, like "The cosmic ballet goes on," and to transport out of Springfield Star Trek–style, he thought it was funny and couldn't have been nicer or given more hilarious readings.

Later, we asked him to play himself in our X-Files parody, and when we asked him to sing "Good Morning Starshine," he knew full well we were having a little fun with the solo album he released (and I loved), but again, he could not have been a better sport. He returned in Futurama, and is one of those rare people who seems to have touched with kindness everyone he met. A great actor and a great loss.

For Leonard Nimoy, Spock’s Hold Made Reaching Escape Velocity Futile

NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/arts/television/for-leonard-nimoy-spocks-hold-made-reaching-escape-velocity-futile.html?_r=0)

The title of Leonard Nimoy’s autobiography was “I Am Not Spock,” and that so offended some fans that he followed it with a second, “I Am Spock.”

The actor who won a permanent place on the altar of pop culture for his portrayal of Mr. Spock on “Star Trek” was almost as famous for wanting to be remembered for other things.

And that is, of course, highly illogical.

It’s hard to think of another star who was so closely and affectionately identified with a single role. Even George Reeves, the first television Superman, was also one of the Tarleton twins in “Gone With the Wind.”

It’s even harder to think of a television character that so fully embodied and defined a personality type. Just as Scrooge became synonymous with miser, and Peter Pan became a syndrome, Spock was dispassion personified.

Crime fiction and the movies offered Sherlock Holmes as the ultimate aloof, brainy hero. But until “Star Trek,” television didn’t really have anyone that distinctively — and irresistibly — coldblooded, cerebral and punctilious. (Mr. Peabody of the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon show came close, but he was a beagle and quite affectionate in his fusty way.)

Before the word Asperger’s was in common parlance, before Sheldon showed up on “The Big Bang Theory,” there was Spock, the half-Vulcan, half-human science officer on the Starship Enterprise who revered reason and eschewed emotion.

The original “Star Trek” that was created by Gene Roddenberry and went on the air in 1966 lasted only three seasons, but it has never really left the picture: It lives on and on in reruns, remakes, movie adaptations, comedy skits, Halloween costumes, conventions, memorabilia, fan fiction and endless campy parodies on YouTube.

The baby boom generation came of age under the twin pillars of Spock — Doctor and Mister — but it’s the Mister from “Star Trek” that has more resonance now.

Even people who have never seen any of the “Star Trek” television series or movies know and use the words “Vulcan” and “Spock.” The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has described President Obama’s detachment as Vulcan-like. Mr. Obama once posed in the Oval Office with Nichelle Nichols, who played Lieutenant Uhura, giving the split-fingered Vulcan salute.

“Star Trek” had many beloved characters, but Spock stood out as a prototype: His persona seemed new, but it had classic roots.

Spock was mostly impervious to love, but his mother (played by Jane Wyatt) was human, which meant that he couldn’t always suppress his feelings. And that made him the most unattainable and romantic hero imaginable — Hippolytus, Euripides’ chaste and scornful warrior, or a Mr. Rochester for the sci-fi age. Naturally, some of the more memorable episodes revolve around Mr. Spock’s extraterrestrial love life.

In “Amok Time,” Spock suddenly turned erratic and confessed that he was in heat, so to speak: In their mating season, Vulcans return to a primal lust. (He got over it.) While on a mission in the episode “This Side of Paradise,” Spock was infected by mysterious plant spores that made him giddy with happiness and romance.

But his strongest bond was with Capt. James T. Kirk, played by William Shatner, and that was a bromance that still resonates.

Mr. Shatner moved on; he even found a new screen buddy, James Spader, on “Boston Legal.” Mr. Nimoy stayed in the game for a while, notably by playing Paris on “Mission Impossible” and doing a lot of theater, but he had a hard time finding roles that eclipsed the éclat of Spock. He turned to philanthropy and art, publishing poetry record albums and several books of poetry and photography, including a collection of nude portraits of overweight women, titled “The Full Body Project.”

A little like Spock struggling between his two sides, Mr. Nimoy was torn between his real self and his “Star Trek” identity, the one fans were so passionate to prolong. And like Spock, Mr. Nimoy was gracious about the pressure, allowing for human weakness even when he didn’t share it. Everyone wanted him to be Spock, forever. Once in a while, Mr. Nimoy complied.

He lent his voice to a Spock action figure on a 2012 episode of “The Big Bang Theory,” in which Sheldon (Jim Parsons) dreams that his toy Spock is real. Even that brief cameo alludes to Mr. Nimoy’s ambivalence about his stardom. Sheldon rhapsodizes about what it would be like actually to be on the bridge of the Enterprise. The miniature Spock replies dryly, “Trust me, it gets old after a while.”

Not for his fans. In his later years, Mr. Nimoy took to Twitter and gamely ended his tweets with the abbreviation for the Vulcan adieu, “Live Long and Prosper.”

“LLAP” sounds a lot better than R.I.P.