To Someone Who is not yet Gone

Someone informed me that one of my favorite people died this year; he didn’t. He is 81 and living well as far as I know. However, because of that, I have thought about him and his effects on my life thus far.

People do blogs for rock singers, scientists, books, and pets. I thought I would do one post on Leonard Nimoy. You know him better as “Spock” on the original “Star Trek” series and movies.

Wiki had quite a bit to say (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Nimoy) so let me summarize:

Leonard Nimoy, born March 26 (my birthday!) 1931. He is an actor, director, photographer, musician, and poet. He has played in the original “Star Trek” (1966-1969). He was nominated for 3 Emmy awards, and was Spock in seven featured films. He played in the original “Mission: Impossible” series, hosted “In Search of …” and narrated “Civilization IV”, and was on stage.

He wrote two autobiographies “I am Spock” and “I am not Spock”.

Backing up, he was born in Boston to Jewish immigrants from Soviet Union. His father was a barber and his mother was a homemaker. He started acting, neighborhood, early, but landed first role at 17. His grandfather was the one who encouraged him to be an actor (thanks, grandpa!).

He had more than 50 small parts in B movies (gotta love B movies), TV shows (Dragnet), and serials ( Republic Pictures’ Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952). He was in sci-fi thriller “Them” (I remember that) and in “Twilight Zone”, “Bonanza”, “Rawhide”, “The Outer Limits”, “Get Smart”, and a lot of others.

He and William Shatner (Captain Kirk) first played together on an episode of “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (Those were the days!). He and DeForest Kelley (Doctor) first played together in an episode of “The Virginian”.

He did attend college and he was the one who made the famous “Live long and prosper” sign. He did direct Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), and Three Men and a Baby, the highest grossing film of 1987, which made him a star director. He wanted to act though.

He even made it on one episode of “Saturday Night Live” (we all know that’s important!).

He even talked with Issac Asimov, who is my favorite Sci-Fi writer though he has since passed on. He also sang and spoke on several albums and even directed the Bangles video “Going Down to Liverpool” (I really like that song!).

He has been married twice, two children by the first marriage, and has stated that he was an alcoholic who did go to rehab. He tried to help William Shatner’s alcoholic wife. He also invented the famous “Vulcan Neck Pinch” as an alternative to striking a guard as Nimoy felt that would have been out of character. Shatner agreed and they talked the people into putting that in the show.

The city of Boston has November 14th as “Leonard Nimoy Day”.

You know I always have a purpose to my “musings”. Here I want to encourage you to really read the wiki link I posted at the top of the page. There is a much longer version of all I said and more in it about Leonard Nimoy. It’s not so much Mr. Spock I want to give praise to here. It is to Leonard Nimoy who, as best I see it, came from very humble beginnings and pushed himself into may different areas of life, and successfully. He had problems in both personal and relationship portions of his life; however, he pursued and did well ,overall, as a person.

I just thought that, in this world of 15 minute heroes, it might be good to see someone who spent over 60 years (more?) doing all that he could do. We need to look up to people like him for that reason. We need to see people do well, enjoy life, and still be human. I will miss him when he’s gone; I would have liked to have met him just once (probably won’t happen, but who knows?).

Namaste,

Scott

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