[Interviewer] "I may not be the fastest.
"I may not be the tallest or the strongest.
"I may not be the best or the brightest.
"But one thing I can do better than anyone else,
that is to be me," which is a poem that you wrote.
Well, finally that's all you can do, isn't it?
You can do a good job of doing that.
Do a good job of being me, being yourself.
That's really all I ask of myself.
Because as I said, I wasn't the fastest,
and I wasn't the brightest, and whatever, you know.
[television news chatter]
This morning we are remembering a beloved actor
who became an enduring fixture in pop culture, Leonard Nimoy.
- Leonard Nimoy. - Leonard Nimoy.
- [speaking in foreign language]
- Leonard Nimoy. - Leonard Nimoy.
Leonard Nimoy has died at the age of 83.
When word came out today that actor Leonard Nimoy had died,
the President said, "I loved Spock."
[struggling] I have been and always shall be... your friend.
Live long...
and prosper.
Listen to this.
I just received an email from Wil Wheaton.
Leonard Nimoy's son is working on a documentary
that he started with his father before he passed away.
It's about Mr. Spock and his impact on our culture.
[Man] "For the Love of Spock," Adam Nimoy. Mark.
We wanted to do something to celebrate
the 50th anniversary of "Star Trek"
which was coming up in 2016.
And a documentary about Spock had never really been produced before.
[Adam Nimoy] I thought it was an interesting idea
to create a film just focused on Spock,
who he is, how he came about,
and why he has continued to resonate for 50 years,
all as a part of the celebration
of the anniversary of "The Original Series."
And the minute I suggested this to Dad, he was in.
Although my father had a long and prosperous life and hadn't smoked in years,
he died from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
from over 30 years of cigarette smoking.
[Adam Nimoy] After Dad died, it became clear
that the film needed to include his life
as well as the life of Mr. Spock.
And that in turn led me on a journey of discovery
about my relationship with my father.
Well, I'm from Boston originally.
I've been in Los Angeles working in films off and on for about 17 years.
I started acting when I was a little boy, about eight years old
in neighborhood settlement houses in Boston.
And kind of grew up into it.
I just kept doing it because I liked it.
And then suddenly just decided that I liked it enough
to want to make a career of it.
So I came to California in 1949
and started acting in films then.
[Leonard Nimoy] Now my parents were extremely diligent, responsible, practical people.
I grew up during the Depression.
When I told them at age 17
that I was going to study drama at the Pasadena Playhouse
and become an actor, they were grief stricken.
They tried to dissuade me by refusing to give me the tuition, saying,
"You'll have to do it without any help from us."
They were totally against it...
because they were certainly--
Hoped he would work into another profession of some kind.
But he wasn't suited for all that.
He wanted to do what he wanted to do.
[Leonard Nimoy] Being stubborn,
I saved some money by selling vacuum cleaners.
I bought a train ticket, and I headed west to California.
So I'm walking down the streets of Pasadena
on a hot September day, sweat pouring.
I'm wearing a wool suit, a hand-painted tie, and suede shoes.
I must have looked like somebody that just arrived
from off the boat from Transylvania.
[Adam Nimoy] My mom was an aspiring actress,
and she met my dad backstage at a theater in Hollywood.
But she gave all that up to become a housewife.
My sister was born '55.
My dad was in the service then.
Then my parents came back to Los Angeles,
and I was born in '56.
My mother told me that when my sister Julie and I were young,
my father was very involved in helping her take care of us.
♪ Now and then when we fall in place ♪
♪ It makes me feel all right ♪
♪ Makes me feel all right ♪
♪ Back and forth we will win this race ♪
♪ To find out what it's like ♪
♪ In time, I'll be just fine ♪
♪ In time, I'll be all right ♪
♪ Now and then when we fall in place ♪
♪ It makes me feel all right ♪
One of my favorite memories of my dad was
he hustled his ass during the early '60s,
doing all kinds of jobs.
He was servicing fish tanks.
He set them up in doctors' offices.
It was like sort of a fad in the '60s,
and Dad had a corner on that market.
We knew that dad sold freezers.
You know, he worked in a pet store.
He drove a cab.
He took care of aquariums.
He had vending machines at one point,
so he had all these little trinkets kept in boxes.
He worked at Wil Wright's Ice Cream Parlor.
He was managing an apartment building.
He was not around.
And even when Dad was at home,
it was all these home improvement projects.
My father was truly a renaissance man.
He could do just about anything.
Like build that massive brick wall in our backyard.
He was trying so hard to get this career going,
to make his life, to do what he wanted to do,
which was be in the arts, be an actor.
One of my idols was Lon Chaney,
who was called the man of a thousand faces in movies,
because he'd change characters so drastically
from one performance to another.
And I consider myself that kind of a person.
I go to the makeup department or the wardrobe department,
and get something together and find a character.
[bell ringing]
[crowd cheering]
- What you looking at? - Nothing.
- What's that for? - For nothing.
Next time you wanna look at me, line forms to the right. Two bits admission.
If they see water in the desert where there is no water,
it's their eyes that lie, not my mouth.
Just having any of those coins in your possession
is liable to lead you to a lot more trouble than you bargain for.
Have no fear from me, Marshal.
No man kills the bee.
He only wants to follow him to the honey.
He was a fine man. Hasn't had a decent break in 20 years.
Now he's been built up a little bit.
He's got a little dignity, a little stature.
You're not going to deny he was a good Marine and a good officer.
No, no, he was both.
Then why crucify him?
You don't get it, do you, Sanders?
- [telephone ringing] - I don't have any choice.
- [Secretary] Hello? - I'm not going to let you do it.
[Secretary] It's for you, Lieutenant.
[Leonard Nimoy] I did this job in an episode of "The Lieutenant" series.
A few weeks after I finished the job, my agent called me and said,
"Gene Roddenberry saw the footage,
"was interested in you, liked what you did,
"and said that he has in mind for you a role
in a pilot that he's developing for a science fiction series."
Period.
I really didn't give it a lot of thought.
You hear that kind of thing, and you're a long way from getting a job.
[Interviewer] What about some of the characters on the show?
Did you create them with certain actors in mind?
[Gene Roddenberry] Leonard Nimoy was the one actor
I definitely had in mind.
And I thought to myself,
"If I ever do this science fiction that I want to do,
"he'd make a great alien.
And with those cheekbones, some sort of a pointed ear might go well."
I simply made one phone call to Leonard,
and he came in, and that was it.
So I went to this meeting expecting to be auditioned,
or to read for him, or... whatever.
He was very congenial and said, "Let's take a walk."
And he walked me over to the scenic design department.
He showed me the plans of the sets that were being built,
introduced me to the scenic designer.
Walked me over to the prop department.
Showed me some of the props that were being made.
Wardrobe department, same thing.
"Here's some sketches of the clothes."
I thought, "This is interesting.
"It's like he's telling me I'm doing this job.
If I keep my mouth shut, I might have a job here," you know?
Prior to "Star Trek," I never had a job that lasted longer than two weeks
in any television show or movie, never. Two weeks.
Mr. Spock here. We're intercepting...
I didn't have a cool look in mind at first.
I had this jagged haircut and bushy eyebrows,
and we went through a struggle with the ears.
The studio had contracted with a company
to do special effects for the show.
Not film special effects,
but items like suits for creatures,
creature outfits, and that kind of thing.
And included in the contract was the ears.
They were supposed to do the ears.
Now, they were very good at creating creatures,
and we used them throughout the series, this particular company.
But they were not really specialists
in the very fine, delicate kind of appliance work
that's necessary to add something to a person's features
and make it really look like it's part of that person.
We came right down within about three or four days of shooting the series,
and I said to Gene Roddenberry,
"This is not going to work, and maybe we'd just better forget about the ears."
Well, he insisted he wanted the ears to be part of the character.
And he said, "You try it, and let's work it out. Let's solve the problem.
"And at the end of 13 shows if you're not satisfied with the ears,
I'll write a script where Spock gets an ear job." [chuckles]
So we went ahead and worked on the problem,
and Fred Phillips, who was the actual makeup man
who was going to do my makeup each day on the series,
knew what the problem was.
And a couple of days before we started shooting,
he called in an appliance specialist,
and we very quickly went to him.
Got the ears done in about 24 hours.
And they were ready, and they were perfect, and that solved the problem.
[Adam Nimoy] Freddie Phillips always said
that Leonard Nimoy reported for work at 6:30 a.m.,
and Mr. Spock could always be counted on to arrive somewhere around 7:15.
Definitely something out there, Captain, headed this way.
Our tests indicate the planet's surface
without considerably more vegetation or some animals,
simply too barren to support life.
[Gene Roddenberry] The first time, it did not sell.
But, uh, NBC...
NBC thought it was too "cerebral" was the term they used.
The network found the first pilot too "cerebral," they said.
Not a straight lined story enough.
And unusual in that they decided to try a second pilot.
[Leonard Nimoy] NBC told Gene to fire
almost the entire cast, including me.
Well, Gene felt very strongly that the bulk of the character that I was to portray,
that every time I was on screen
you'd be reminded that we have a mixed crew.
So he stuck to his guns fortunately for me.
The original pilot even had a different captain,
Jeff Hunter.
The only actor that stayed over
was Leonard Nimoy.
[Leonard Nimoy] And then, I had a shock.
I opened up my mail, and here was a, here was a pamphlet
from the NBC Sales and Promotion Department.
And it was a pamphlet about "Star Trek,"
this new series that was going to be on the air
coming in the fall,
I saw this photograph of myself as Spock,
and it didn't look right.
Something struck me as strange.
And the closer I looked, the more I realized that
they had straightened out my eyebrows, made them look normal,
and they had taken off the tips off the ears.
The network said,
"We are very dependent on the numbers in the Bible Belt,
"and they will not accept in their homes a character
who looks devilish with these pointed ears."
Are you casting me in the role of Satan?
Not at all, Captain.
Is there anyone on this ship
who even remotely... looks like Satan?
I am not aware of anyone who fits that description, Captain.
No, Mr. Spock, I didn't think you were.
Dr. Dehner feels he isn't that dangerous.
What makes you right, and a trained psychiatrist wrong?
Because she feels. I don't.
All I know is logic.
In my opinion, we'd be lucky if we can repair this ship and get away in time.
One of the reasons for the shift
in the Spock character when you came on-board
was because when I was working with Jeffrey Hunter--
Jeffrey Hunter was a very internalized actor.
Very fine actor. This was his style of work.
There's an old joke about two actors preparing to play a scene.
And one says to the other, "What are you going to play in this scene?"
And the one says, "I'm playing nothing."
The other one says, "No, no, no,
- you can't play nothing. I'm playing nothing." - [laughing]
So here's Jeffrey Hunter playing this quiet, internalized performance,
[William Shatner] Ah!
[Leonard Nimoy] And I felt the need to help drive something in opposition to it.
[William Shatner] Right, right.
- [Leonard Nimoy] Otherwise, we're both playing nothing. - [Shatner] Right.
[Leonard Nimoy] And when you came on-board with your energy,
and a sense of humor, and a twinkle in the eye,
I was able to then become the cooler Spock.
Has it occurred to you that there's a certain... inefficiency
in constantly questioning me on things you've already made up your mind about?
It gives me emotional security.
Leonard bouncing off of me could now dramatically be internal
allowing me to be external,
and the two forces made an interesting combination.
I prefer the concrete, the graspable, the provable.
You'd make a splendid computer, Mr. Spock.
That is very kind of you, Captain.
You know, I don't know if I had played Kirk
that it would have dawned on me to have a sense of humor with Spock.
I don't know that I would have thought of that,
but Shatner's take on it was, "I can fuck with Spock." [laughs]
I mean, you know...
Without being offensive to the character.
"I can play with him."
Certain you don't know what irritation is?
The fact one of my ancestors married a human female...
Terrible having bad blood like that.
Those two characters are the yin and yang.
They are that in front of the camera,
and it works beautifully, magnificently.
There must be some intelligent form of life on Thasus.
He could not possibly have survived alone.
The ship's food concentrates would have been exhausted in a year or so.
By which time he would have been eating fruits, vegetables, and nuts.
Probes of Thasus indicate very little edible plant life.
And probes have been known to be wrong.
Doctor, are you speaking scientifically or emotionally?
I thought the character McCoy played by D. Kelley
made that, as the fans call it, the triumvirate,
because he was the common man.
Certainly a brilliant doctor,
but he had all of the irritations, frustrations,
the reactions that most people would have.
I for one could use a good non-reconstituted meal.
Doctor, you are a sensualist.
You bet your pointed ears I am.
[Simon Pegg] It's actually an interesting sort of triumvirate
between Spock, Bones, and Kirk.
And for Kirk, Spock is his...
You know, they're like the devil and the angel on his shoulder, really.
Spock is his intelligence, and his logic, and his sense,
and you know, McCoy is more his sort of slightly more emotional,
slightly more, you know, knee-jerk kind of side.
The banter between McCoy and Spock was, you know,
often some of the most fun elements in the show
and indeed in the movies.
What's the matter, Spock?
There's something disquieting about these creatures.
I don't know too much about these little Tribbles yet,
but there is one thing that I have discovered.
What is that, doctor?
I like them better than I like you.
Doctor, they do indeed have one redeeming characteristic.
What's that?
They do not talk too much.
When you have the kind of cynical wit of McCoy,
and you have the swagger and braggadocio of Kirk,
and then you have the intellect and cold reason of Spock,
he's like the perfect human being all wrapped up in one.
[Announcer] The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC.
[Adam Nimoy] That first night of the premiere
we had to actually go to some friends' house,
because they had a color TV, a big console color TV.
We did not.
We had a big console black and white.
Why don't you tell me I'm an attractive young lady
or ask me if I've ever been in love?
Tell me how your planet Vulcan looks on a lazy evening when the moon is full.
Vulcan has no moon, Miss Uhura.
I'm not surprised, Mr. Spock.
Dad in his costume, Vulcan costume,
it was like, "Wow, this is really cool."
I remember it was just such an exciting night for us.
This is not Nancy.
If she were Nancy, could she take this?
Stop it! Stop it, Spock!
Stop it!
[Captain Kirk] Do you read?
Frequency open, Mr. Spock.
Spock here, Captain.
[chattering] [laughing]
- Hi, Daddy. - [laughing]
[Adam Nimoy] When I came to visit the set--
They started shooting that first season
at the end of May and early June in 1966.
I was nine, almost 10 years old,
and I was off for summer vacation.
And this is why Dad would take me to work with him.
I would get up early in the morning,
and we would drive to Desilu right next to the Paramount lot,
and I'd be there all day.
So I went out to California, and of course, Leonard took care of--
I stayed at Leonard's home.
And he said, "Guess what. I've got this new show."
This is 1966.
I said, "What is it?" He said, "It's called 'Star Trek.'"
He said, "You've gotta come on the set." I said, "Of course."
You know, I'm in the theater,
and this is my first time in Hollywood.
And I'm out there, and I walk on the set,
and I see Leonard.
He came out from the dressing room,
and I see this hair.
I see these eyebrows up to here.
And I see these ears on him,
and I said, "Jeez, what is this?"
And he did a scene, and he was terrific in the scene.
But I said... I got him to the side. I couldn't believe it.
I said, "Leonard, Leonard, come here. I've got talk to you."
I said, "No matter what you do, you've got to get out of this as soon as you possibly can.
This is a treadmill to oblivion."
The review that "Variety" gave us
when we first went on the air in September of 1966.
[audience laughing]
And I thought you'd enjoy hearing what our show business Bible said about us
the first week we went on the air.
This is dated September--
It appeared on September 14th, 1966, just a little over 25 years ago.
It said, "'Star Trek' with William Shatner, Leonard Nomoid--"
[audience laughing and applauding]
"'Star Trek' won't work."
[audience laughing]
That's the opening line.
Then it says, "An incredible and dreary mess of confusion...
"trudged on for a long hour..."
- [laughs] - [audience laughing]
"...with hardly any relief from violence, killings, hypnotic stuff,
and a distasteful, ugly monster."
[audience laughing]
- "William Shatner--" Shush! - [audience laughing]
"William Shatner appears wooden," it says.
[audience laughing]
[laughing]
I didn't say it. It says it here, right?
[laughing] I never heard him accused of being,
accused of being wooden before, you know.
[audience laughing]
"Spock!"
[audience laughing]
"Scotty!"
"I need warp speed in four minutes, or we're all dead!"
[audience laughing]
Then it says, "The same goes for Leonard Nimoy."
- [laughing] - [audience laughing]
There are 500 or 1,000 who could play our characters effectively.
There's only one person who could play Mr. Spock.
[Leonard Nimoy] Spock called for exactly the kind of work I was prepared to do.
He was a character with a rich and dynamic inner life,
half human, half Vulcan.
He was the embodiment of the outsider,
like the immigrants who surrounded me in Boston in my early years.
How do you find your way
as the alien in a foreign culture?
Keep your Vulcan hands off me.
Just keep away.
Your feelings might be hurt, you green-blooded half breed.
May I say that I have not thoroughly enjoyed serving with humans.
I find their illogic and foolish emotions a constant irritant.
Then transfer out, freak.
Most everyone, and there are exceptions,
but most everyone feels a little bit like an outsider.
I would argue the most interesting people seem to.
So, there's something wonderfully comforting
and relatable to know that Spock felt that way himself.
I grew up as a skinny, nerdy, gay kid in the south,
you know, in the 70's.
Not exactly a comfortable existence.
There's a lot of internal conflict.
So the character of Spock from the very beginning...
And you know, when I was five, I didn't know why,
or seven, I didn't know why,
but I was captivated
by this character that was based on internal conflict.
Spock, I think people recognize themselves in him.
He is, um, an outsider.
He is the alien.
I think everyone feels like an outsider sometimes.
And since he's a nonhuman outsider,
it's an otherness that everybody can relate to in their own way.
People sometimes think they don't belong in a group.
And really that's what I've found, you know...
I was very tall from when I was young,
and I felt apart from other people.
And I really associated with that character.
[Leonard Nimoy] I think it was the very first episode
we were filming after the pilot when we started into production.
There was a scene in which the ship was being threatened
by some outside problems, outside dangerous force,
and there was a lot of activity on the ship.
The captain was saying, "Do such and such.
Press this button. Do this. Warp three. Get us out of here," and so forth.
And Spock had one word to say, and the word was, "Fascinating."
And we're looking at this thing on the screen, you know,
and everyone else is reacting, "Oh, look at it. Blah, blah."
And I got caught up in that energy,
and I said, "Fascinating."
And the director gave me a brilliant note, and he said,
"Be different. Be the scientist. Be detached.
See it as something that's a curiosity rather than a threat."
Fascinating.
Well... a big chunk of the character was born right there.
If I seem insensitive to what you're going through, Captain,
understand... it's the way I am.
A lesser actor would say, "Why would I want to play him? He doesn't have any emotions."
But he has so many emotions.
But he also has emotional control.
Expresses very little of what he's feeling,
and I think it's fun for the audience to watch
to see if there's a glimmer of something that pops through.
I had a very interesting conversation
with your father about Spock,
because we were talking about him as a cold, unemotional guy.
And Leonard said, "I never played him that way.
I always played him as a guy trying to keep his emotions in check."
And I thought that was a subtle and ingenious choice,
because it lent a dynamic tension to what you saw on the screen,
particularly in the closeups,
of a guy trying to keep a lid on it.
That thing must be destroyed.
You tried to destroy it once before, Commodore.
The result was a wrecked ship and a dead crew.
I am officially notifying you that I am exercising my option
under regulations as a Star Fleet Commodore,
and that I am assuming command of the Enterprise.
You can't let him do this, Spock.
Doctor, you are out of line.
So are you... sir.
Well, Spock?
Unfortunately, Star Fleet Order 104, Section B leaves me no alternative.
Mr. Spock, I order you to assume command
on my personal authority as captain of the Enterprise.
Commodore Decker, you are relieved of command.
I don't recognize your authority to relieve me.
Commodore, I do not wish to place you under arrest.
You're bluffing.
Vulcans never bluff.
I talked about it at the time being heavily influenced
by what I saw Harry Belafonte do on stage one night.
He came out on stage, and a spotlight came up on him,
and he was there. He just stood there very quietly.
Applause. Next song, stood there quietly and sang.
Now he must have been on stage 10 or 15 minutes.
He was just standing there with his hands on his thighs,
and sang, and when he made a gesture,
it was like the whole place shook.
It was like, "Wow!" You know?
It was gigantic.
Wow, what a lesson.
If you are minimal, then that becomes a big deal.
If you are minimal, that becomes a big deal.
[dramatic music]
[screams]
He's gone.
[Leonard Nimoy] You make a comment with an eyebrow,
that's just as powerful as throwing punches.
He didn't wield the human side frivolously for effect.
Most of the time, it would be contained,
but occasionally,
you know, most notably at the end of 'Amok Time,'
when he realizes that he didn't kill Kirk,
there's a sweet moment of like, "Jim!"
Which is just so... It's so earned.
There can be no excuse for the crime of which I'm guilty.
I intend to offer no defense.
Furthermore, I shall order Mr. Scott
to take immediate command of this vessel.
Don't you think you'd better check with me first?
Captain!
Jim!
I'm... pleased to see you, Captain.
You seem... uninjured.
[Leonard Nimoy] What is the purpose of a toy?
To be played with.
[Leonard Nimoy] Therefore, to not play with it would be...
Illogical.
Damn it, Spock, you're right.
You can look at a lot of progenitor characters for Sheldon,
but absolutely, absolutely one of them is Spock. Absolutely.
And in fact, in the episode
in which Sheldon is interviewed for this very documentary
that I am currently speaking to you in,
one of the things Sheldon talks about
is his desire to be Spock.
And that's not a new invention.
That's something that has existed for that character from the very beginning.
When I was eight years old, Billy sparks cornered me in the playground.
I asked myself, "What would Spock do?"
Then I grabbed Billy on his shoulder
and performed my first Vulcan nerve pinch.
Did it work?
Oh, no, he broke my collarbone.
- [laughing] - [audience laughing]
So the script was written then that Spock comes up behind,
sneaks up behind the mean Kirk,
and hits him on the head with the butt of a gun.
That's what was written in the script.
So I said to the director, "I think we should do something different than that."
He said, "What do you... What do you mean? What do you have in mind?"
And I said, "Well, Spock is a graduate
of the Vulcan Institute of Technology..."
[audience laughing]
"...where he took a number of courses in human anatomy.
And the Vulcans have a kind of energy that comes off their fingertips,
which if properly applied to the appropriate pressure points
on the human anatomy, will render a human unconscious.
- And the guy didn't know what I was talking about. - [audience laughing]
But I told him, and he knew exactly what I was talking about.
And when I came up behind him, and I put my hand on his neck, he--
He's the one that sold it.
He went like like that and dropped like a rock.
[audience laughing]
[phaser firing]
There's a multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder.
I'd like you to teach me that some time.
Our minds are merging, Doctor.
Our minds are one.
I feel what you feel.
I know what you know.
I like the fact that Spock could communicate with other species
through thoughts rather than through words. Brilliant.
What in the name of...
The man talked to a rock for goodness sake in the Horta.
"Oh, she's pregnant."
It's a rock, okay.
That was good, because the rock is not going to speak English to you.
Think of how many science fiction stories in that decade and the decades preceding
where you'd meet aliens, and the aliens spoke English.
We didn't think to think that that would not happen.
You've got to crawl before you walk. I get that.
But "Star Trek" not only knew how to crawl, and knew how to walk.
It was running.
The Vulcan greeting is a wonderful sentiment,
"Live long and prosper."
And this too is something that was contributed by your father on the set.
[Leonard Nimoy] We had a wonderful script
by Theodore Sturgeon called 'Amok Time.'
We arrive on the planet,
and a procession comes out from the city to greet us.
I said to the director,
"I think we should have some kind of a special greeting.
"Asian people bow to each other.
"Military people salute each other.
I think Vulcans should have some kind of a greeting."
And he said, "What would you like to do?"
And I said, "How about this?"
Where it came from was from my childhood of going
to synagogue on the High Holidays with my family.
There's a moment where a group of men get up before the congregation,
cover their heads with their prayer shawls, chant a prayer.
My father said, "Don't look."
I'm about eight or nine years old, so I snuck a peek.
And what I saw were these gentleman out there who were doing the shouting
had their hands out towards the congregation like that, both hands.
I found out later this is the shape of a letter shin in the Hebrew alphabet.
The letter shin is the first letter in the word Shaddai,
the name of God.
Well, I survived. I peeked, and I survived.
But I was so intrigued with that gesture,
and I suggested that we do that as Vulcans.
Within days after that episode was on the air,
I started getting that gesture back on the streets.
You know, a lot of times people ask me what it was like living with Spock,
and for the most part, during that period,
Dad was not home much at all. I didn't see him.
He was really focused on what he was doing at the studio
and for the show.
His usual routine during the week was he would get up very early.
He'd come home at 7:00 or 8:00 at night,
eat his dinner, memorize his lines.
He'd run the lines with my mother
and then just go to sleep and start all over again.
So during the week, he wasn't around hardly at all.
We spent a lot of, you know, our, quite a few years--
Actually, from "Star Trek" to "Mission,"
with him not being home during the weekdays.
Even when Dad was around at home,
oftentimes, he was very quiet and remote.
He was still kind of in his Spock bag,
because he liked to stay in character.
You play a character like that...
What? Eight, 10, 12 hours a day, five days a week,
- most of your waking life then is in that character. - Mm-hmm.
And I'd find it very difficult to turn it on and turn it off.
So stepping out of the set and into a chair waiting for the next setup,
I couldn't shift out of it.
I believed in making that investment in the character.
Particularly, that kind of character that was so boxed.
A lot of the time he wasn't available to hang out with,
to... do things with.
He was... He was sort of in his world.
He was occasionally Leonard-like,
but mostly, he was Spock.
So I never really got to know him very well.
I got to know Spock a little bit better than I got to know your dad.
I mean, he was totally dedicated to playing that character
and to being that character, and it showed.
If I stay in character or kind of don't joke around,
it's more a function of me--
[chuckles] It's slightly closer to being a panicked grip
than it is being an artist, I'm afraid.
It's just, I don't want to lose it.
You kind of have to get into the character's head.
And if you come out of it, and then they go, "Roll camera,"
if you're off by that much,
you could either underplay a moment or overplay a moment.
[Adam Nimoy] Fan mail started arriving pretty regularly
in late '66,
and there was some issue whether or not the studio would handle the mail,
the network would handle the mail.
They didn't want to do it. They wanted, you know, Leonard to handle the mail,
which he did in his office for a while.
There was an interview in "16 Magazine,"
I think it was the spring of '67,
and somehow, accidentally, they published our home address
as the mailing address for the fan mail.
Within days, the mailman stopped coming.
It was a truck that arrived with sacks of mail,
and we were answering it.
It came into our dining room.
We had the dining room table all set up
with the mail that we opened,
and we stuffed envelopes with this early Spock promo picture.
It was one of our "family activities,"
you know, was answering fan mail.
[Interviewer] Personal life was gone.
Yeah, it started happening very fast.
And to show you how naive I was,
at that time, I still had my phone listed in the phone book,
and my address, and it was all...
You know, I'd never dreamed that there was going to be any,
that kind of impact, because I'd been on television before and done movies before,
and I was listed in the phone book. Didn't matter to me.
We started getting a lot of fan mail, not only fan mail,
but fans coming to our door, knocking down the door.
We started getting people driving by the house, and parking,
and ripping at the shrubbery to have a souvenir, you know,
and taking my grass, and my leaves, and whatever.
Some of them would knock on the door
and ask to be invited in to visit.
It got really crazy. Yeah, yeah.
It got really crazy for a while.
[Adam Nimoy] What about when you came back to Boston
during the "Star Trek" years?
[Leonard Nimoy] Yeah, that was kind of exciting
and a little difficult.
People were following me in the street,
and I didn't really want people to know where I was living.
I was staying with my folks, with your grandparents.
[Adam Nimoy] Right.
And they didn't have any idea what "Star Trek" was.
They didn't get it.
All they knew was something had happened.
[Adam Nimoy] How did they react when they saw your haircut?
[Leonard Nimoy] My dad actually thought I was wearing a wig.
He had a picture of me as Spock up on the wall in the barbershop,
and kids would come in and say, "I want a Spock haircut."
[laughing]
[Leonard Nimoy] Once word filtered through to network executives
about Spock's popularity, they said to Roddenberry,
"Say, why aren't you doing more with that Martian on the show?"
There's that element of competition,
particularly the first season,
because, um... the titular star was Bill Shatner.
Leonard was the secondary character.
But when the show went on the air,
people were absolutely magnetically attracted to Spock.
So I'm asked to be the captain,
[stammering] and it's the captain's show, and that's great.
Quite frequently, another character rises to the top as well.
I go to Roddenberry,
who then says very wisely...
"If Spock is popular, then Kirk is popular,
and the show is popular, and that's what we all want."
And I thought, "You know, he's right."
And from that moment on,
I encompassed the popularity of Spock,
and, uh, was okay with it, and, uh, enjoyed it.
Jim, I feel friendship for you.
I'm ashamed.
You've got to hear me!
Kirk is the physical embodiment of the show,
and Spock is the spiritual embodiment of the show.
And I think it's how these two guys carved out
their specific spaces in this little universe.
Kirk was always doing wild and crazy things
and sleeping with aliens,
and Spock was always thoughtful,
and moving in a very deliberate way,
and sort of putting the brakes
on some of the more physical urges that people had.
[Mr. Mudd] You can save it, girls.
This type can turn himself off from any emotion.
I think that his Vulcan side prevents him
from allowing the testosterone [laughing] in his human side to get the best of him.
And that is very appealing for women,
at least for women like me.
I don't... I don't...
Motorcycles, and car oils, and, "Hey, baby..."
I just... I just... It's not my thing.
I like more of an intellectual, humble soul
that kind of blows your mind in just a conversation,
and I feel like Spock is that like.
So I wouldn't be surprised why women found him really appealing.
[intercom sounding]
[Mr. Chekov through intercom] Bridge to Captain Kirk.
Kirk here.
I had no idea.
What?
He's so much more handsome in person.
Those eyes.
Kirk had quite the reputation as a lady's man.
Not him.
Spock.
There was just something about him that women found attractive.
He himself was kind of flirty,
and women kind of flirted with him.
You only take a mate once every seven years?
The seven-year cycle...
is biologically inherent in all Vulcans.
At that time,
the mating drive outweighs all other motivations.
And is there nothing that can disturb that cycle, Mr. Spock?
[Jon Stewart] When did you get first interested into fellas?
Uh...
Spock, yes.
[Stewart] What was it about him?
He was so repressed, and you just wanted to make him scream.
[audience laughing]
I'm, uh... I'm rather repressed.
[laughing]
I don't think this is that different
from the which Beatle do you love most, you know?
I like the less emotional,
more, you know, kind of obtuse, bizarre type.
So I think there's always going to be a Spock female versus a Kirk female.
I was one of the first to find them, the spores.
Spores?
Now...
Now, you belong to all of us...
and we to you.
There's no need to hide your inner face any longer.
We understand.
I love you.
I can love you.
[Dorothy Fontana] This is the perfect opportunity for a love story for Spock,
because the spores release all of those things
that hold in his emotions, his logic,
and will allow him to feel like a real person.
And this is unusual for him. It's unknown for him.
But we're happy here.
I can't lose you now, Mr. Spock. I can't.
I have a responsibility...
to the ship...
and that man on the bridge.
I am what I am, Leila.
And if there are self-made purgatories...
and we all have to live in them...
mine can be no worse than someone else's.
["Cotton Candy" playing]
♪ Cotton candy on a summer day ♪
♪ Green grass on a hillside ♪
♪ Could they turn my love around? ♪
♪ Could they bring her back to my side? ♪
Well, he was a better singer than I was.
I mean, he could, uh...
He could sustain a note.
Uh, off-key, but sustain a note.
[laughing]
["A Trip to Nowhere" playing]
♪ His love is a merry-go-round ♪
♪ He will drag you down ♪
♪ A trip to nowhere ♪
♪ A world without love ♪
He was basically keeping himself busy
by making hay while the sun was shining.
I mean, that was his whole philosophy.
He knew he was riding this wave, and it was very exciting.
But he also knew that it could be over very quickly,
and we could be back into the financial struggle that we were in
before "Star Trek" came along.
I always told him, "You can take the boy out of the West End,
but you can't take the West End out of the boy."
I live with one.
[laughing]
[Adam Nimoy] What does that mean?
Well, uh, he developed a very strong work ethic.
[Leonard Nimoy] I rarely turned down any paid engagement.
I'd seen many of my actor friends
go to work on a series for a few years
and live up to the level of their income,
and then when the series was canceled,
they were once again looking for work
with no steady income and no money in the bank.
I made a private pact with myself
that this would never happen to me and my family.
So every time I was offered a paid appearance, I took it.
This meant that I left the studio at 5:00 or 6:00 on Friday night.
I took a red eye flight to my destination.
I'd arrive on the East Coast around 6:00 Saturday morning
and catch the last flight out on Sunday night.
I can remember a time or two
when I got back to Los Angeles at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning on Monday.
I'd go right to the studio, stagger into my dressing room,
and catch a few hours sleep on the couch.
From there, I headed right into makeup.
[Adam Nimoy] There were a number of photographers
who showed up to take our picture in those early days,
'66, '67, and into '68,
and we were happy to do it. It was fun.
I've got to admit. It was like a circus.
It was a joyride, and it was really a good time.
First, it was like novel. It was great.
It was like, "Oh, wow, we're getting our picture taken.
We're going to be in a magazine. It's so cool."
But after a while, it got tiresome.
It became sort of an invasion of our life,
and us not really understanding,
you know, "Why do we have to do this? Why is this so important?"
We were young.
[Adam Nimoy] There was one time... I believe it was 1970.
There was a photographer there,
and we were supposed to come in and take pictures,
and Julie and I were like, "Huh-uh."
We joined together, we unionized, and we said no.
You can't say no to Leonard.
I've got to tell you. It's just...
I mean, we felt guilty. We wanted to support him,
but we were really done with the whole...
the whole publicity routine.
We took a really good family portrait
which is emblematic, I think, of where we were at that time in our lives,
because no one is smiling.
In "Star Trek", in the mid-60s,
creating this character who would soon become a pop culture icon...
My dad was never really that in touch
with what was going on in popular culture.
It's so interesting that when he was at home during leisure time,
he was listening to records of guys like Heath Mantan,
and Lou Rawls, and Charles Aznavour.
Our mom was... ahead of her time.
At first, when you look back at pictures of her,
she was dressed very, uh, 50's housewife
but still had style.
[rock music playing]
Dad stayed still very, you know, in his dressing, conservative,
but Mom tried to, you know, change his style up a bit.
So he started, you know, wearing a little cooler clothes,
some jeans, the little scarf, you know, around his neck.
And his hair was done a little cooler.
Even though he had the Spock haircut, you know,
somehow he could brush it off to the side a little bit,
and he looked a little, a little hipper, yeah.
[psychedelic music playing]
[Leonard Nimoy] NBC failed to renew "Star Trek" for a fourth season.
A short time after we finished shooting for "Star Trek,"
I signed on with "Mission Impossible."
["Mission Impossible" theme playing]
[Adam Nimoy] Before he started on "Mission,"
there was a press conference in Honolulu
announcing that he was joining the show.
It was a very exciting experience for me
to be there spending time with Dad.
Although, by then, sharing him with the fans had become a part of my life.
[Leonard Nimoy] My character, Paris The Great,
was a master of disguise.
Therefore, I got to play a multitude of characters,
old men, Asians, South American dictators,
blind men, Europeans.
But then, before I knew it,
I was playing the South American dictator again,
and the Asian, and the old man, and the blind guy.
It got boring.
A short while later, I left the show.
After "Mission Impossible",
I played Tevye in "Fiddler On The Roof."
It was only the first experience
in my extremely enjoyable theatrical career.
In "Fiddler on the Roof", he was magnificent.
He was very precise.
He avoided every cliche.
And as he grew into the role, he was extravagant.
His portrayal of Tevye in "Fiddler On The Roof" was utterly fantastic.
Probably the best of any I've seen.
- Because he was an actor. - Like a real actor.
I think he realized that what would make that work in a non-Broadway setting
was it was about him, and his wife, and his kids.
And it was beautifully sculptured.
[Leonard Nimoy] I went on to appear as Fagin in "Oliver,"
Arthur in "Camelot,
and a one-man play about Vincent Van Gogh.
[Adam Nimoy] In the early '70s, Dad was in a play called
"Man in the Glass Booth," and it was a terrific play.
He really owned up to that role.
And as I watched him night after night,
he was completely unrecognizable to me as my own father.
He had to play a wealthy...
braggadocio, vain, egocentric New York Jew.
Not a Jewish man, but a Jew.
And as the play develops, when the Jew gets arrested
as being a concentration camp commandant,
he then has to play the meanest, most committed,
most devoted Nazi officer you can imagine.
And he stands up in the booth.
Not supposed to do that in Israeli court.
He stands up, and he's in his regalia.
He's in his uniform, but he doesn't have his hat on.
And when he put that hat on, he changed.
You didn't want to go anywhere near him.
- Very quietly... And this was him. - [rapping on desk]
He starts moving like this.
And he marches to the last bit of dialogue.
And it gets louder, and louder, and louder.
If a director had come up with that, he should get an award.
The actor came up with it, and he should get an award.
It was chilling.
The times when your dad was performing in New York,
and then we would see each other very often,
and that's when they started to go closer.
And then we became his groupies.
When he performed anyplace east of the Mississippi,
we would fly out to be there.
One summer, he did two plays.
One in Michigan, and one in Wisconsin.
And at that time, he was flying his own single engine airplane,
and I flew a lot with him. I love flying.
So, I plotted the entire course out.
I took lessons, and I got my little license.
Not a pilot's license. I got-- They call it a pinch hitter.
So that if anything happened to him,
I could take over without a problem.
And that was probably one of the best times I ever had with him.
The decade of the '70s was kind of an interesting period for my dad,
because he had done so much theater work.
He was really kind of proving himself
as the character actor that he always wanted to be.
He also hosted multiple seasons of "In Search Of."
...underwritten in part by a national...
[Adam Nimoy] And he was in Philip Kaufman's remake
of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
They were shooting in San Francisco,
and I happened to be in school at Berkeley,
and it was just a lot of fun watching them make that film.
But what happens to us?
You'll be born again into an untroubled world.
He was a multifaceted individual that is for sure.
I knew that as a kid. I used to watch "In Search Of,"
and I remember him in the Kaufman "Body Snatchers"
and "Mission Impossible," you know.
Uh, he was never just Spock to me even growing up.
We came here from a dying world.
We drift through the universe from planet to planet
pushed on by the solar winds.
We adapt, and we survive.
Captain, I found this device on my console.
It seems to serve no useful function and--
[laughing]
Captain?
[laughing] I'm sorry, Spock, It's your--
[laughing]
When they began casting, we weren't-- I wasn't called.
It was decided that George in the show
would not appear on the series.
And I thought, "What's happening?"
Uh, then it was announced
that Bill was cast to do Captain Kirk.
Leonard was cast to do Mr. Spock.
Jimmy Doohan was cast to do Scotty
and all the other male voices,
and Majel was cast to do Nurse Chapel
and all of the female voices.
But when Leonard learned of that, he said,
"What Star Trek is about is diversity, coming together,
and working in concert as a team."
And he said, "The two people that most personify that diversity in our cast
"are Nichelle Nichols and George Takei.
"And if they're not going to be a part of this,
then I'm not interested."
How many times does that happen in this business, you know?
It says a lot about Leonard.
[Adam Nimoy] Tuesday, October 22nd, 1973.
"Dear Adam, this may turn out to be a long letter.
"I'm very glad I could see you and Julie on Sunday.
"It was good to be with you,
"but I think it might have been especially useful
"in putting our relationship, you and me,
"in a new perspective.
"This came out of our argument.
"I discovered you and I were having a terrible battle on a verbal battleground.
"I felt very sad about it, and all I could say was, 'I'm sorry.'
"It suddenly occurred to me that it might be useful
"if I tell you some things about my relationship with my father.
"I always loved and feared him,
"but we had very little real personal contact.
"He was not a demonstrative man.
"Most of my day-to-day interaction was with my mother
"with my father in the background as a sort of weapon.
Neither of them was ever very giving of approval."
You guys were at odds a lot
about some of the company you were keeping
and some of the things you were doing.
In the early '70s, there was a slight lull in Dad's work career,
and he was at home for the first time, hanging out,
and not really quite knowing what to do with himself.
And it was also during this time
when he was taking a close look at me and my life.
What he saw was, to him, not that pretty.
Even though I was doing very well in school...
I was a senior in high school,
and by this time, I was like a full fledged Deadhead.
[psychedelic music playing]
I mean... need I say more?
I mean, you know...
It was just not a good time for us.
♪ In the middle of the earth in the land of the shire ♪
♪ Lives a brave little hobbit whom we all admire ♪
♪ With his long wooden pipe Fuzzy, woolly toes ♪
♪ He lives in a hobbit hole And everybody knows him ♪
♪ -Bilbo - Bilbo ♪
♪ Bilbo Baggins ♪
♪ He's only three feet tall ♪
♪ -Bilbo - Bilbo ♪
♪ Bilbo Baggins ♪
♪ The bravest little hobbit of them all ♪
Captain?
♪ One day, Bilbo was asked to go... ♪
What in the name of...
♪ To the caves below ♪
♪ To help some dwarfs get back their gold ♪
Am I... seeing things?
Not unless I am too.
♪ -Bilbo - Bilbo ♪
♪ Bilbo Baggins ♪
♪ He's only three feet tall ♪
What is it, Mr. Spock?
♪ Bilbo Baggins ♪
♪ The bravest little hobbit of them all ♪
[Leonard Nimoy] Having had only marginal success on NBC for three years,
the show took on new life in syndication.
Gradually, the show and its audience found each other.
By the mid '70s, it was becoming a media event.
Thousands and thousands of new devotees
sat in front of their TV sets
memorizing each episode's dialogue word for word.
Risk... risk is our business.
[Jason Alexander] "That's what this starship is all about.
"That's why we're aboard her.
"Dr. McCoy is right to point out the enormous risk involved
"with interaction between any two alien species,
but the potential--" [laughing]
There's something that I became aware of in doing my research very recently
called The Slash Fantasy,
the Kirk-Spock slash fantasy.
And there's a phenomenal edited video on YouTube.
And some fan, somebody's taken a lot of footage
of Kirk and Spock out of context from "The Original Series"
to show this homo-erotic relationship between them,
and it's pretty damn compelling.
At conventions, I saw slash zines
with illustrations done by very good artists
and they were much, much more explicit between Kirk and Spock.
It's a matter of who is looking at it,
from what perspective,
and from the perspective of gay people seeing that is eye opening.
They see the gay passion, the gay attraction,
and the gay anguish depicted in those scenes.
[Leonard Nimoy] At my first convention in 1972,
I walked into a hall so crowded
the thunderous wall of noise that greeted me
took me completely by surprise.
For several seconds, I literally could not speak because of the emotion.
One of the things that I really respect about your dad was,
I guess, his love and affection for the fans
and how he always had time and energy.
You know, going to conventions and meeting people...
You know, I'm blown away
by how much love there is for your father.
[Leonard Nimoy] It was an entirely new concept,
this gathering of fans to celebrate "Trek" for a weekend.
The organizers crossed their fingers
and hoped for 500 attendees.
They got 3,000.
We went to one "Star Trek" convention.
I think it was in LA, but I'm not sure.
I think you're right.
Yeah, it was a wild place.
I remember them having to get us out the back door.
Right.
[Adam Nimoy] Oh, okay. What was that like?
Wild.
[Pegg] I think "Star Trek" fans have sort of pioneered
the whole cos-play culture which now exists
where, you know, you go to any convention,
and people are dressed up as a multitude of things
from the most obscure to the most popular.
I've been blown away going to now these conventions for a number of years,
seeing what people are able, and willing, and, you know,
what they commit to dress up as and do,
and it's unbelievable.
We thought they were crazy.
[laughing]
I'm here. I'm really here. I can't believe it.
My first "Star Trek" convention. Watch your back. Here we go.
So much stuff.
Really cool.
Whoa.
Wow.
Spock, status report?
Pollux IV, class M type planet, oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere.
Sensors indicate no life forms.
In all respects, quite ordinary, Captain.
Bobak, I want you to tell me a little bit about your history with "Star Trek",
how it's affected your life.
I would say it's probably one of the biggest reasons why I work at NASA.
I mean, honestly, like, you know, seeing this "Star Trek,"
you know, this vision of the future
is one of the reasons why I work there today.
Seeing a future where people from all different cultures and backgrounds
were working together.
You know, the betterment of humanity.
I think that was a vision of the future that I wanted to help create.
If "Star Trek" was the vision of the future that I wanted to create,
Spock was the internalization of the kind of person that I felt like I was.
You know, as someone who was from two cultures,
you know, Iranian father, an American mother,
I saw in Spock, you know, that same conflict, I guess,
of, "Which one am I? Am I both?
Is there a happy medium of the two?"
But also at the same time, I saw that he was accepted
by his, you know, colleagues.
Spock stood for a lot of different things.
He stood for intelligence, integrity.
He stood for the idea of really searching for truth,
for figuring out how things really work.
That is the underpinning of science, really.
So I think for a lot of people, Spock was representative of science itself,
of using the human mind to overcome kind of the forces of chaos
and make sense of things.
That really resonates with a lot of people here, I would say.
It certainly did with me.
And I knew the minute I read "Star Trek" books,
that was the character I most wanted to emulate with my career.
[deGrasse Tyson] Spock was a scientist.
Now, for me, I knew I liked science before "Star Trek."
So Spock and I resonated, I think, uh...
in a way that surely helped, but didn't initiate my interest.
But I wonder if the slow but real appreciation
for what science is and why it matters
that I see manifesting today,
whether it owes its origin
to that series, to that character.
- Are you a "Star Trek" fan? - Yes.
- How long have you been a fan? - A hundred years.
A hundred years "Star Trek" fan, okay.
[Interviewer] You've had your own connection to "Star Trek."
You've directed "Star Trek" episodes.
But before that, you were an entertainment attorney.
What was that all about? What got you into that in the first place?
You know, it's very difficult when you are the son of a celebrity
and somebody who becomes a pop culture icon,
to try to create your own identity,
to find out who you are in essence.
And so, this was my way of really creating my own path.
He was very proud of the fact that I went to law school,
and I started practicing law.
But after seven years of practicing,
it became very clear to me that this was not something
I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
I didn't have the passion for it that I thought was important.
That was really Dad's whole philosophy was
you have to have a passion for what you do.
Otherwise, it's just work, and it's not fulfilling.
My dad was very sympathetic about my desire to make a career change
and even helped me, trained me as a director.
He and I actually made an episode
of "The Outer Limits" together.
We were remaking an episode that he was originally in in the early '60s
in which he had a supporting role.
Your design and your construction are nothing short of genius,
but even you must understand that you're basically a takeoff
on the thoughts and feelings that Dr. Link programmed into you.
A man suffers, a man bleeds, a man has a soul.
I could snap your neck as if it were a toothpick.
In that sense, you're right. I'm not like most men.
But like most men, I choose not to.
Let me go.
[Leonard Nimoy] The story of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"
rightly begins in London where my wife and I were vacationing in 1975.
We went to see Henry Fonda who was performing on stage in "Darrow."
After the performance, we joined him and his wife for dinner.
At some point during the conversation, Henry said,
"You know, Leonard, I hope you're being paid
for all those billboards around town."
- [beer pouring] - [Leonard Nimoy] "What billboards, Henry?"
"Do you mean to tell me you don't know about all those Heineken billboards?"
Now, I'd seen my Spock image used commercially before,
such as on a box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes.
I'd been amused by it, finding it campy and even flattering.
Once "Star Trek" was canceled,
Paramount had no legal right to license my likeness from that time on.
So not only had Paramount been marketing me as Spock
for almost 10 years without the right to do so,
for the last five of those 10, they hadn't sent me any of the proceeds.
I wound up having to file a lawsuit.
They wanted to make this movie.
And Bob Weiss had it in his contract
that they would make their best efforts to get me in the movie.
And my agent would call me and say,
"They wanna talk to you about the 'Star Trek' movie." And I would say...
"When we settle the lawsuit, I'll talk about acting in their movie,"
because I thought that's my leverage.
So that went on for some time.
And... finally, I got a call
from a guy who introduced himself to me.
He said, "My name is Jeff Katzenberg,
and I've just gone to work for Paramount."
And I was acting in "Equus" on Broadway at the time in New York.
[Jeffrey Katzenberg] So there goes little Jeffrey off trotting to New York...
[laughing]...to say to him, "You've got to put the ears back on."
So I went, and I saw the show,
and after the show, we went to Joe Allen's.
I said to him, "We're going to make the movie.
"Those ears are going on.
"They're either going on you, or they're actually going to go on somebody else,
"but they are going to go on.
And how badly will you feel when you didn't put them on?"
The big leverage that he always had beginning with these movies
was that Paramount Pictures needed him,
and they couldn't make a "Star Trek" movie without him.
[Leonard Nimoy] Finally, my lawyer called.
"Look, Paramount is actually showing some willingness to reach an agreement.
"Will you read the script if they settle the lawsuit?"
"Yes."
Four days later, on a Friday evening, the lawsuit settled.
My lawyer came to my house with a check.
An hour later, the script arrived.
I sat down and read it through that night.
[Interviewer] Leonard Nimoy was the last person
to join the movie cast and was asked why he was a hold out.
I don't think it was a question of hold out.
We've had a long and... complicated relationship,
I mean, Paramount and myself, for the last couple of years.
And probably the thing that took the most time
is the fact that the mail service
between here and Vulcan is still pretty slow.
Spock.
Making that first movie was very, very dis-spiriting,
very depressing.
We had a bad script, bad script.
It just never worked. It was always a struggle
to try to figure out how to bring some life to this... project.
And, um, we did our best, but I never...
The pendulum swung completely when that first movie came along
from being an actor and character-oriented "Star Trek"
to an effects-oriented "Star Trek."
And the feeling was, "Oh, we didn't have the money before.
Now we've got the money, we've got to give them a big effects movie."
So it was all about the ship, the ship, and this effect, and that effect,
and we're going through this thing.
Now, we're going through that thing.
Nothing about the characters.
So it was frustrating, and depressing, and, uh, very painful.
Khan.
Khan!
In "Star Trek II," the lure that Harve Bennett gave him was,
"You're going to have the greatest death scene of all time."
Spock, no!
[Leonard Nimoy] I thought that was the final "Star Trek" movie,
and when they said to me, "How about a death scene?"
I thought, "Why not? If this is the end of 'Star Trek,'
"let's get out in a blaze of glory saving the Enterprise.
You know, be a hero and die." [laughing]
[struggling] Live long...
and prosper.
[Leonard Nimoy] Sooner than I realized, it was over.
No.
[Leonard Nimoy] I stripped off the ears, the makeup, the uniform,
and so Spock gradually disappeared,
leaving behind only Leonard Nimoy.
Never again the raised eyebrow.
Never again the delicious teasing of the irascible doctor
or the offering of logic to my impetuous friend and captain.
Never again the mind meld, the neck pinch,
or the Vulcan salute and blessing,
live long and prosper.
I asked myself, "What have I done?"
Well, of course, they put in a little footage at the end of the movie
that suggested that this might not be the end of Spock.
I'm sorry, Doctor. I have no time to discuss this logically.
Remember.
And they came to me, sure enough,
after the picture opened and did business,
and they called me in for a meeting.
They said, "We'd like to know if you'd like to be involved in another 'Star Trek' movie?"
And I said, "Yes, I'd like to direct it."
I remember distinctly one night I got a phone call from him.
And he said he'd been on the phone with Michael Eisner,
and that Michael Eisner was trying to talk him out of directing,
making his directing debut
directing himself in a feature film and so forth.
And he was asking me... He was soliciting my advice.
I said, "Well, it's really very simple.
Are you prepared to let this ship sail without you?"
And he said, "Oh, absolutely."
I said, "Then sit tight You're going to direct the movie." [laughing]
[Klingon] My Lord, the ship appears to be deserted.
How can that be? They're hiding.
Yes, sir, but the bridge seems to be run by a computer.
It is the only thing speaking.
Speaking?
Let me hear.
[Computer] Nine, eight, seven, six, five--
Get out!
Get out of there!
[Leonard Nimoy] I got a call before the movie opened from Jeff Katzenberg,
who was head of production at Paramount at the time,
and he said, "We want you to make another one."
And I said, "You know, this one that I just finished, 'Star Trek III',"
I said, "They had a pretty tight choke chain on me,
"controlling what I was doing,
"and making me answer for everything,
and explain everything that I was doing, and justify everything."
And he said-- I'll never forget. He was wonderful.
He said, "The training wheels are off.
We want you to make your 'Star Trek' movie."
[Gillian Taylor] Well, if it isn't Robin Hood and Friar Tuck.
Where are you fellas heading?
Back to San Francisco.
Came all of the way down here just to jump in and swim with the kiddies, huh?
Very little point in my trying to explain.
Well, yeah, I'll buy that. What about him?
Him? He's harmless.
Back in the '60s, he was part of the free speech movement at Berkeley.
I think he did a little too much LDS.
- LDS? - Mm-hmm.
Come on. Why don't you let me give you a lift?
We had our first read-through at your house on Kashmir.
And there was-- He had the whales' song playing for us.
And I knew then how much this project meant to him
on a personal level.
He was trying to get us to get it,
which to me, transcends doing another "Star Trek" film.
Although, in fact, it actually is what "Star Trek" has always been about,
which is meaningful issues about how to live.
[punk rock music playing]
♪ Just where is our future? The things we've done and said ♪
♪ Let's just push the button We'd be better off dead ♪
♪ 'Cause I hate you ♪
Excuse me.
♪ And I berate you ♪
Excuse me.
Would you mind stopping that noise?
[music playing louder]
♪ The only choice we're given is how many megatons ♪
Excuse me.
Would you mind stopping that damn noise?
♪ And I say screw you ♪
♪ And I hope you're blue too ♪
- [music stops] - [applauding]
"Star Trek IV" was one of the highlights of Dad's career,
really part of the pinnacle of his career,
because immediately after that came "Three Men and a Baby."
[Leonard Nimoy] The making of "Three Men and a Baby"
was a magical time where everything came together beautifully.
I felt enormously fortunate to be involved with the project.
Nice job, Pete.
You know, the "LA Times" came out with an article
when that movie came out, and it was a hit
the winter season, the holiday season of '87.
"LA Times" talked about the fact that the hit from the previous holiday season
was a feature film entitled "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,"
and that both of those films happened to be directed by the same guy.
Then came "The Good Mother",
and my relationship with my father hit an all-time low.
And you've left her alone with him?
Well, of course I have. She likes him. They have fun together, Brian.
Well, ask him about the fun, Anna.
Well, what are you suggesting, Brian, that he did something wrong with Molly?
- He did, Anna. - Well, he didn't.
She told me. She's told the shrink.
- He did it, Anna! - No, Brian, he didn't do it!
You ask him! And you let him!
[Leonard Nimoy] By the time filming of "The Good Mother" wrapped,
I felt the same way I had at the end of shooting "Three Men and a Baby."
I thought, "Boy, this could be even more of a rocket ride than 'Three Men.'"
And it was a rocket ride, all right... straight down.
Box office was disappointing,
and the film soon disappeared from the theaters.
I started drinking regularly, ritually,
during probably the second year or third year of our series.
The ritual became so ingrained and so important to me,
because I looked forward to that release at the end of the pressure of the day
with the dialogue, and the pace, and get 15 pages or 12 pages done today,
and all of that sort of thing.
And the minute we finished the last shot, I would have a drink.
And then it became a series of drinks.
And little by little, before I knew it, I was drinking more and more
because my addictive personality was taking over.
It was the martinis, you know, getting a drink when he'd come home,
having a couple drinks.
And, uh... you know, while it made him more relaxed,
he also shut down.
The habit grew to the power that it did in my later years
because I didn't have that thought, "I'm young. I still have a distance to go."
Which is a devilish part of the disease.
The 1980's were a very difficult time for my dad.
His parents had recently died, my grandparents,
within six months of each other.
My dad was going through a very complicated
and difficult divorce from my mother.
They had been married for 32 years.
It was also about this time
that there was a lot of head-banging between the two of us.
There were a lot of old issues that were coming up,
and there were a number of fights between us.
He was also drinking. A lot of this was fueled by alcohol.
And quite frankly, I was still getting high at the time,
and that was certainly not helping matters between us.
[Adam Nimoy] "There's one major area that I should touch on
"before coming to a conclusion,
"competition with my father.
"This was easy for me in strangely painful way.
"My father never earned more than a $150 a week.
"I realize that competition with me is very tough.
"I am very loud and verbal.
"Also I have been very lucky, made good money, and I'm famous.
"That's a lot tougher to deal with
"than me competing against 150-dollar a week barber."
A lot of the problems that I had with my dad were not that dissimilar
from problems that other fathers and sons experience.
The difference is that my dad was adored
by millions of fans all over the world.
And oftentimes, I felt like I was competing with them for his love and attention.
And sometimes, I honestly felt like I was losing the battle.
After we would have one of these incredible knock-down, drag-out fights,
I would go out into the world and be confronted by images of Spock everywhere.
["What's On Your Mind" playing]
♪ I want to know what you're feeling ♪
♪ Tell me what's on your mind ♪
Pure energy.
In 1989, Dad and Susan got married,
and his domestic life started to get much better.
She was a real stabilizing force for him.
And he was very happy with her, and they were very devoted to each other.
It was at this period of time, he told me later on,
that he was really happy with his life,
and yet didn't really understand why he was still drinking.
And it was at that point that he started to really, seriously look
at what was happening with his life.
And he made his decision to go into his own recovery.
My first images were photographed with this camera
and enlarged with this camera
and with about 20 cents worth of Kodak supplies.
And I just became fascinated with the ability
to create an image, something that you could hold,
an object you could hold in your hand, and there it is.
Something I shot this morning,
and tonight, I have the picture in my hand.
I could hang it on my wall, or give it to my family, or whatever.
That was the beginning.
[Adam Nimoy] Although Dad started taking pictures at an early age,
he continued this hobby throughout his life.
He would often take portraits of me and Julie,
and some of those ended up in the poetry books he published.
[grunting]
[screaming]
James T. Kirk.
[Leonard Nimoy] Along came J.J. Abrams
who found a way to crack it open
to an entirely new and different audience.
Who the hell am I to tell Leonard Nimoy what Spock should do?
But it's my job, so I'm doing the best I can.
But I was amazed at how open he was.
Leonard was okay with the idea of this new incarnation of "Star Trek."
It set a tone on the set even beyond the days that Leonard was working.
[Leonard Nimoy] You didn't have to know all about "Star Trek."
You could come and enjoy this movie
as a person who had never seen anything of "Star Trek" before.
- Fascinating. - What?
Okay, I'm sure you're just doing your job,
but could you not come a wee bit sooner?
Six months I've been here living off Star Fleet protein nibs
and the promise of a good meal.
Myself, Leonard, and Chris shared a trailer
when we were shooting the stuff when they discover Scotty on the planet.
And it was quite far from the circus, from the unit base,
so we had a trailer that we just sat in, and we shared.
And we were shooting really late at night.
It was, like, you know, 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.
and Chris, Leonard, and I were just sat in this--
And Leonard was in his full Spock regalia, ears.
We had the big sort of like winter coat on and stuff,
and he sat upright, and he went to sleep.
And he, uh, was just sat there just quietly snoring.
And Chris and I were just looking at each other like,
[whispering] "That's Spock, and he snores."
[laughing]
We were shooting a scene, and Leonard was walking,
and he fell... and he landed, and he cut and broke his nose.
Um...
So the feeling that, you know, you have
when someone that you care about as much as I did, of course, gets hurt,
it's a horrible feeling.
When you've wounded Spock, uh...
you just wanna... you know, kill yourself.
It's just... It was... It was horrible.
And we're trying to figure out what we're gonna do for the rest of the day,
and I hear, like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, we're going to keep going."
And it was Leonard who was like,
"We're just gonna keep shooting."
And I'm thinking, "Is he out of his fucking mind? He just broke his nose."
And Leonard was like, "Let's keep going."
And we finished, and no one ever heard this story publicly
until you and I had this conversation.
Speak your mind, Spock.
That would be unwise.
Mine is a very different Spock than your dad's.
I was really fortunate to be able to explore even more than your dad,
because as entertainment evolved,
as narration evolved, as story-telling evolved
over the intervening decades
between when he created the role and when I assumed it,
I think that it opened up a little bit more space
for us to get in and play with that.
Mr. Spock.
Sharing that with him, and discussing it, and exploring it
through the context of our personal relationship,
that was probably one of the most creatively satisfying aspects
of assuming a role that had already been established so firmly
and created so boldly.
No pun intended.
Should I choose to complete the Vulcan discipline of Kolinahr
and purge all emotion...
I trust you will not feel it reflects judgment upon you.
Oh, Spock...
as always, whatever you choose to be...
you will have a proud mother.
Every time he goes into a negative place,
he starts being a little bit of a pessimist,
um, he allows Uhura and Kirk to snap him out of it.
And I really like that.
He's just... He's a man to me. Like, Spock is really a man.
Even though he's half alien, it's like...
He could have been... I don't know, half anything,
but he's still very much... natural.
What do you need? Tell me.
Tell me.
I thought that was a perfect example
of the evolution of the character,
of painting him in a different light
and seeing that there is this capacity for feeling,
for emotion, for intimacy, for connection.
It's still regulated.
It's still within the boundaries or the parameters
of what it means to be Vulcan.
Father.
I am not our father.
There are so few Vulcans left,
we cannot afford to ignore each other.
Spock, in this case, do yourself a favor.
Put aside logic. Do what feels right.
Since my customary farewell would appear oddly self-serving,
I shall simply say... good luck.
[Adam Nimoy] Dad was really happy
to be in the new incarnation of "Star Trek."
It was a high point for him.
But much like Spock's problems with his father,
my relationship with my father was still very troubled.
My first officer, Commander Spock.
Vulcan honors us with your presence.
We come to serve.
Your service honors us, Captain.
Thank you.
Around 2006, we were just about completely estranged from one another.
Old issues were flaring up.
And, um, I was at a low point in my life.
I had just ended an 18-year marriage,
and I had decided to go into my own 12-step recovery.
And it was a real difficult time for the two of us.
And basically, for three or four years,
we had very, very little communication.
By around 2008, we started to talk again, and reconnect again,
and really came back together in our relationship with each other.
I had met Martha in a doctor's office, and she was...
Uh, she was my age,
and she was very sweet, fun, attractive woman,
and I started dating her regularly.
And I mean, I was so much happier having Martha
that I married her.
Four and a half months after we were married,
Martha was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
The weird thing was for me,
and I was really kind of conscious of it now in retrospect,
was that in 2004, when I left my 18-year marriage,
and moved out of my house, and left my kids behind for one.
I mean, it was a real low point in my life.
I didn't even call my dad. He wasn't even on the list, because of our period of,
you know, beginning of the estrangement period.
But when I was able to pull myself back together,
after I got that phone call from the doctor,
the first phone call I made...
Was to your dad.
I just... It still. It just overwhelms me now
that we could get to that point where he could be my go-to guy.
Yeah.
And in the next 18 months of my life with Martha,
which were, you know, probably the most challenging possibly in my entire life,
my dad and Susan were there every step of the way
to support me and keep me going.
And after that, my dad and I never again... looked back
at the wreckage from our past, ever.
"So here we are. You're a man, an individual,
"very bright, talented, goal-oriented, sensitive,
"and a lot of other good things.
"Above all, I want you to know that you are priceless to me.
I'm proud of you, and I deeply love you. Your father."
My life has become much, much more about family.
I used to-- The way I describe it now was
I used to major in career and minor in family.
And now, I've turned it around.
I'm much more majoring in family and minoring in career.
I do an occasional pop-up thing here and there for friends,
but mostly, I'm dealing with my family.
[Julie Nimoy] With dad marrying our step-mom, Susan,
she and Aaron became a part of our family.
She was great in the fact that she showed Dad
that being with your children and your grandchildren,
it's very important.
You need to be a part of their life.
And let's bring everybody together.
Let's... Let's have a big family unit,
and we have a big family.
In the last years of his life were the times that
the family got together at the house
for any variety of occasions from birthdays to holidays.
Leonard was a very even-keeled guy.
He didn't always show a lot of emotion
but I'd say those times at which he would toast the family at those gatherings
were the times I maybe saw him express the most emotion.
He was so grateful to have everybody there.
He was grateful to feel the love from everybody that was there.
And he was grateful to be able to love the family the way that he did
and provide for the family the way that he could.
The day Leonard died, I, uh...
He was in a coma,
and I, uh, leaned over and said to him...
[clearing throat]
[crying]
"You made the world stand up and listen."
And I'd swear he nodded his head.
What I admired about Leonard
was his willingness to love his family,
and because I was on the periphery of it, I got that love.
It made him a wonderful actor in the work we did.
And I think it made him a mensch,
probably a word you're going to hear a lot.
Mensch.
A mensch is someone who's responsible, and disciplined,
and you can count on.
He was just this stable force in my life,
and I knew I could always count on him.
He was the mensch of mensches.
He was loved and adored by, I think, everybody on the set.
To create a character who leaves a mark on the society,
that strikes a chord that resonates,
Leonard Nimoy did that.
If there was a word you would use to sum up or describe
either my dad as an individual or as Spock, the character,
what would that be for you?
The first word that springs to mind for both of them actually
is, I would say, is noble.
There was something about...
There's definitely something about Spock which is very noble.
He's obviously a man of massive integrity and conviction.
If I had to pick one word, it would be dignity.
Artist.
Integrity.
Human.
He was a self-made renaissance man,
but he had a ubiquitous curiosity
about everything going on in the world,
whether it was art, photography, politics.
Logical.
Humble.
Hope.
Cool. Spock was cool.
I think a little bit of Spock needs to be behind every important decision
we make in our lives, about ourselves, or with regard to others.
The first word that does come to mind is loving.
Love.
If it's free association, then it's definitely just love.
What's yours?
["Star Trek The Original Series" theme song playing]
["Starman" playing]
[singer] All right. I got it.
♪ Didn't know what time it was And the lights were low ♪
♪ I leaned back on my radio ♪
♪ Some cat was laying down some rock 'n' roll "Lot of soul," he said ♪
♪ Then the loud sound did seem to fade ♪
♪ Came back like a slow voice on a wave of phase ♪
♪ That weren't no DJ That was hazy cosmic jive ♪
♪ There's a starman waiting in the sky ♪
♪ He'd like to come and meet us ♪
♪ But he thinks he'd blow our minds ♪
♪ There's a starman waiting in the sky ♪
♪ He's told us not to blow it ♪
♪ 'Cause he knows it's all worthwhile ♪
♪ He told me, "Let the children lose it ♪
♪ Let the children use it Let all the children boogie" ♪
♪ I had to phone someone so I picked on you ♪
♪ Hey, that's far out So you heard him too? ♪
♪ Switch on the TV We may pick him up on Channel Two ♪
♪ Look out your window I can see his light ♪
♪ If we can sparkle he may land tonight ♪
♪ Don't tell your papa or he'll get us locked up in fright ♪
♪ There's a starman waiting in the sky ♪
♪ He'd like to come and meet us ♪
♪ But he thinks he'd blow our minds ♪
♪ There's a starman waiting in the sky ♪
♪ He's told us not to blow it ♪
♪ 'Cause he knows it's all worthwhile ♪
♪ He told me, "Let the children lose it ♪
♪ Let the children use it Let all the children boogie" ♪
♪ There's a starman waiting in the sky ♪
♪ He'd like to come and meet us ♪
♪ But he thinks he'd blow our minds ♪
♪ There's a starman waiting in the sky ♪
♪ He's told us not to blow it ♪
♪ 'Cause he knows it's all worthwhile ♪
♪ He told me, "Let the children lose it ♪
♪ Let the children use it, let all the children boogie" ♪