Leonard & Me

With the passing of Leonard Nimoy I thought I would talk about his impact on me and his history.  I talked about my history with Star Trek.  That TV show resonated with me at a young age, but so did the stoic First Officer Commander Spock.  Spock and Leonard Nimoy were role models to me.  I had friends and family too. At a very young age I was spending a great deal of time in hospitals till I was 6.  Television helped keep my mind off of things.  I tried to emulate Mr. Spock’s stoicism when dealing with my surgeries and other heavy things in my life.  I am a very emotional person and I was unable to keep the stoicism up.

The older I got I discovered Mr. Nimoy’s other work both predating his run on Star Trek.  He was on numerous TV shows in the Fifties and Sixties: Twilight Zone (1961), Perry Mason (1963), Dragnet (1954), Outer Limits (1964), Wagon Train (1959-1962), Bonanza (1960), Colt .45 (1959), The Rebel (1960), Two Faces West (1961), Rawhide (1961), The Untouchables (1962), The Eleventh Hour (1962), Combat! (1963, 1965), Daniel Boone (1966), The Outer Limits (1964), The Virginian (1963–1965), Get Smart (1966), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964), and Gunsmoke (1962 and 1966).  Some of these appearances included his working with people whom he would work with on Star Trek.

I was born the last year Star Trek aired, so I only saw the show in reruns.  At the same time I was seeing his Star Trek, I saw his work on Mission Impossible (1969-1971) and in Search Of… (1977-1982).   I loved both shows.  Mission Impossible sated my love for spy films and shows.  In Search Of… fed my fascination with the unknown and unexplained.  I also watched his appearances on TV in the seventies and eighties: Night Gallery (1972 and 1973), Columbo (1973), A Woman Called Golda (1982), and Marco Polo (1982).  He also was in the 1978 remake of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I followed his career with the Star Trek films, the TV show Fringe, and his voce acting work in The Transformers: The Movie (1986),  The Pagemaster (1994), Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), and Land of the Lost (2209).  He also did voice work on Sid Meier’s Civilization IV (2005) game.  I never got to meet the man.  Every story I have heard has been extremely positive.  He had a positive affect on my life.  His work and his character helped teach me what was important and how to live in this world.  Leonard Nimoy with Live Long and Prosper in our Hearts, Minds, and Memories.