Taken around the time of I Am Not Spock‘s release, here’s Leonard in his most logical stage role as Sherlock Holmes. I would have loved to have seen him in this!
How many here have a tattered copy of I Am Not Spock? Still got mine. And did any of you see him as Sherlock?
I liked his book a lot. His latter title-disclaimer book seems careful and self-service (but still very much worth reading), and this one is much more open and honest.
I would have loved to see him on stage too, he is an exceptional actor! He does comedy so well when they gave him the chance to jazz up Spock. I read in an article somewhere that version of Holmes was more of a parody rather than serious Holmes production like Basil Rathbone or Jeremy Brettt. on Trek, he has just the right balance of restraint and fun. Unlike Shatner who performance varied wildly because of the helm of the director.
Lenny is on target across all the episodes regardless of the director so you know its gotta come from him! Go Spock!
Mr. Nimoy must have been a GREAT Holmes; I wish I could have seen him!
Yep, I have a copy of “I Am Not Spock” (as well as a copy of “I Am Spock,” of course). 🙂 I think it’s very sad that such an interesting and thoughtful little book was so misunderstood. Meditations on identity, musings on whether he had any value apart from his most famous character, all summed up as “Nimoy hates Spock,” which was so clearly NOT TRUE. Even today, I run into Star Trek fans who claim that Mr. Nimoy hated Spock during the 70’s and point to this book as “proof.”
*sigh* I never enjoy it when anyone is stupid or narrow-minded, but I especially hate it when Star Trek fans are stupid or narrow-minded; I keep thinking, “Did you see the same show that I saw?!”
I know what you mean Cory. But maybe someday they’ll understand. Personally it makes me crazy when people pronounce it as ‘Star TRACK’ ! Anyone who thinks Nimoy hates his most famous character haven’t read the book!
I loved the book as a teen when it came out, and it became pretty dog-eared since I read it twice! Never read its sequel, but may sometime. I loved the little conversations in the original between Leonard and Spock, and could hear his voice doing both. It was a fun book.
I don’t think there’s _nothing_ to it. I think Nimoy wanted to be an actor, and not an actor who’d played one part, and that part an emotionless alien with pointed ears. I don’t think anyone wants their shining moment to be 45 years in the past. Reading “I Am,” I remember him being mad at the use of the character that he didn’t get paid for, but not really a deep, genuine love for Spock.
Oh, please do read the sequel! It includes a lot of material from the first book, so some of it will be familiar, but there’s also a lot of new stuff, including his talking about why he wouldn’t participate in the new Star Trek TV show that they were planning in the 70’s (he had an excellent reason and one that had NOTHING to do with disliking Spock), and his thoughts on making each of the movies. Since he directed #3 and #4 (and wrote the story for #4), his accounts of those are especially interesting. And he has some new Spock/Nimoy internal conversations, stuff he “talked” to Spock about during the making of the movies.
“I Am Not Spock” came out in 1975 and “I Am Spock” in 1995, so it would be great if we got a new autobiography in 2015 — perhaps this one could be called “I Am Leonard Nimoy.” 😀 (He probably wouldn’t be willing to call this one “I Am STILL Spock,” out of courtesy to Zachary Quinto, though it would be fun.) I doubt that he wants to spend his time that way, but I’d love to read his thoughts on aging and retirement and well, anything he cares to talk about, really. He’s such a lovely, thoughtful man.
I write Star Trek fan fiction (under another name), and I’ve found that Spock’s voice is very sticky — once I start writing dialogue for Spock, I have trouble taking his voice off again, to the point that I had trouble talking normally to my husband. It’s gotten to the point where I usually write stories where the other characters talk ABOUT Spock — rather than having Spock talk directly — because much as I love Spock, I really want my own identity. So in my own tiny (possibly crazy-sounding :-D) way, I can understand completely how Mr. Nimoy can love Spock very much and still fear being taken over by him.