Remembering Leonard Nimoy

Highlights from a long-lived and prosperous career

By Cheryl Minns, Arts Editor

Actor Leonard Nimoy, 83, passed away on February 27, but his contributions to film, television, photography, and poetry are sure to be remembered. Nimoy excelled at a variety of talents, but to many fans he will live on as a legend in the science-fiction world.

Star Trek (1966 – 1969)

Nimoy’s iconic role as science officer Mr. Spock, a half-human half-Vulcan who used logic over emotion, quickly became a fan-favourite and secured Nimoy’s place in sci-fi stardom. Even after the series was cancelled, Nimoy continued the role in the Star Trek films, directed two of the films, and reprised the role again in the 2009 movie reboot.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

In what’s considered one of the best remakes ever made, Nimoy played Dr. David Kibner, a psychiatrist who gets replaced by a doppelgänger during an alien invasion in San Francisco. His performance is comparable to his role as Spock since both are emotionless aliens who spend time in San Francisco, which was the setting for the Nimoy-directed film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).

Fringe (2008 – 2013)

Guest starring in multiple episodes of the series, Nimoy portrayed Dr. William Bell, the former lab partner of the show’s lead character, Walter Bishop (John Noble). Thanks to the parallel universes in the show, he got to play Bell as a self-sacrificing friend in one world as well as a villain in the other. However, playing a character two different ways was nothing new to Nimoy, who played an evil version of Spock when the crew was transported into a parallel universe in “Mirror, Mirror.”

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Nimoy supplied the voice for Sentinel Prime, a wise, old Transformer with ulterior motives who was the reason the Americans went to the moon. Nimoy’s baritone voice delivering lines inspired by the words of Spock—“You simply fail to understand that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”—was one of the few highlights in this sequel. The film marked Nimoy’s second time as a Transformer, the first time being when he voiced the evil Galvatron in the animated film The Transformers: The Movie (1986).