Leonard

by William Shatner

  Leonard burst out laughing and had some more chocolate. But the engineer saved the recording, devising an algorithm that successfully filtered out the chocolate. “The Leonard filter,” as it became known, was employed for the next several years.

  After the success of the first two productions, they decided to go a step further, producing a theatrical experience in which actors would read their roles from the script in front of a live audience. That’s when I got involved. They had decided to do a stage reading of H. G. Wells’s The First Men in the Moon, complete with an orchestra and sound effects. John approached the Syfy channel and was told, essentially, “If we can get Nimoy in any configuration, we’ll do it!” The performance was taped in front of 1,700 people in the historic Variety Arts Theatre. Most of the cast had appeared in one of the many versions of Star Trek. I was absolutely delighted to be part of this, although I was billed as “the surprise guest.” I was cast as the Grand Lunar, King of the Moon! When I walked on stage several minutes into the story, I received a very nice welcome from the audience. I took my place in front of the microphone, held up my script, and said, in a hesitant falsetto voice, “Welcome to the moon.” Leonard and John had to fight to keep straight faces. As an actor, there are few things funnier than being in the midst of a performance watching your fellow actors fighting desperately to remain in character and not break out in laughter. Because once they lose it, it stays lost. They inhale, they suck their cheeks in, they use every possible strategy not to laugh. Leonard and John managed to do it. The audience, however, did not.

  The concept was so appealing that Leonard and John took it to Disney with the thought of adapting The First Men in the Moon into a feature film. Disney loved the concept but required two changes: first, they wanted an eighteen-year-old female character added to the story. And second, they did not want to do it as a period piece. When John pointed out that it would be difficult to call a contemporary story The First Men in the Moon, because it was well known we have already had men on the moon, the executive thought about it for a moment and then suggested, “Well, go to Mars!”

  Rather than doing H. G. Wells’s The First Men and an Eighteen-Year-Old-Girl in Mars, Leonard and John agreed to return to their original concept. They staged Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World: A Halloween Trilogy featuring stories by Poe, Kipling, and Wilde, and Wells’s The Invisible Man, which of course was perfect for an audio production.

  What appealed to Leonard about this format was the emphasis on the story. “When you go back to the roots,” he explained to writer Paul Simpson in the magazine Dreamwatch, “you discover what these authors were really thinking about, and what the social context is of some of these projects, which perhaps has been lost over the years when people have done derivative versions.”

  Leonard and John also did an original script that they performed mostly at conventions. Spock vs. Q, in which they debated the fate of earthkind as their legendary characters, proved so popular that they did a second version. Eventually, they began receiving requests from schools and universities for copies of their scripts so they could put on their own performances. It was a perfect concept for students; it didn’t require costumes or sets, and the lines didn’t have to be memorized. Making it easy for kids to act obviously appealed to Leonard, and he and John created another play expressly for students, The Wright Brothers’ First Flight. While staging that play, they created an instructional video that included “important lessons and techniques … including the creation of special effects, sound, and original music.”

  Alien Voices was a solid success, lasting four years, and the audio stories remain available.

  I don’t think any actor ever really retires; rather I think they remain waiting for that one part that intrigues them, or captures their imagination, or, in some cases, just pays a lot. In the later part of his life, while he was always being offered things, Leonard was able to choose to do only those things that appealed to him.

  He did a lot of voiceover work, which, for an actor, is comparatively easy. Easy only in terms of the physical aspect—no makeup! I suspect that was especially appealing to him. His voice appeared in two Transformers films; in 1986’s The Movie, he created the memorable character Galvatron, who blasted his fellow villain Starscream, and in 2011 he gave voice to the lunar-stranded robotic warrior Sentinel Prime in The Dark of the Moon. In the Hanna-Barbera daytime Emmy Award–winning version of Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree, he served as the children’s guide, Mr. Moundshroud. He did voiceovers in the mostly animated 1994 film The Pagemaster and the 2001 animated film Atlantis: The Lost Empire; he also narrated the video games Star Trek Online and Civilization IV and even appeared in two episodes of The Simpsons. The result, he once said, was that he successfully spanned generations of fans. “It’s very satisfying,” he said. “Many years ago, people used to say to me, ‘My kids are crazy about you!’ Now I have kids saying, ‘My grandparents are crazy about you!’”

  He finally reprised Spock one final time in an episode of The Big Bang Theory. In that top-rated show, the ultimate geek comedy, Spock, as portrayed with a toy figure and Leonard’s voice, visits star Jim Parsons in a dream sequence. But if there ever was a doubt of the respect Leonard earned from the great geek community, and the esteem in which he was held, it was answered forever in a 2008 episode of that show in which Parsons’s Sheldon Cooper receives the greatest gift of his lifetime—an autographed cloth napkin that Leonard supposedly used to wipe his mouth at a restaurant. As the shocked and thrilled and perhaps diabolical scientist Parsons explains, “I possess the DNA of Leonard Nimoy … Do you know what this means?… I can grow my own Leonard Nimoy!”

  Actually, while they were shooting that episode, Leonard was asked to sign the napkin they would use. It was kind of a gag for the cast, which he did gladly. That napkin, now framed, hangs over the main set of the show.

  That voiceover was Spock’s last appearance on TV, although he was always with Leonard. I remember Leonard telling me one day he’d met Barack Obama. This was sometime in 2008, just after Obama had announced his candidacy. It was not surprising that Leonard was invited to a luncheon to meet him. I suspect it pleased him a great deal, given his lifelong political activism, that a young African American would be a serious candidate for the presidency. It was a small group of people at someone’s home—a typical politician’s meet-and-greet and by the way do you have your checkbook with you. But as Leonard told the story, “We were standing on the back patio, waiting for him. He came in and walked through the house, and then he saw me. He stopped—and held up his hand with his fingers separated, the Vulcan gesture. And he smiled, big smile, and said, ‘They told me you were here.’ We had a very enjoyable conversation, and when we were done we shook hands, and I told him, ‘It would be logical if you would become president.’”

  He did play one final role; that of a scientist living in an alternate universe in J. J. Abrams’s TV show Fringe. When asked why he took this role, Leonard explained, “I did not intend to do any more work. And the fact is I don’t consider this work. This is great fun.” The show, which ran for five seasons, is a future-fiction drama concerning the crime-solving exploits of the FBI’s little-known Fringe Division. The show is a little bit of a lot of shows, everything from The X-Files, Altered States, The Twilight Zone, and cop procedurals like CSI. While Leonard’s character figured prominently in the plot, he appeared only as a voice; the writers came up with clever ideas when his physical presence was necessary, including an animated episode and a storyline in which he possesses another body.

  After the first two seasons, Leonard felt his character, William Bell, had become too nice a person, which left him, as an actor, no place interesting to take the character. But then the writers twisted perceptions, turning Bell into a mostly evil character—and regaining Leonard’s interest enough for him to agree to make a surprise appearance on the show. “J. J. Abrams is a friend of mine,” he said. “When he calls, I listen. I’m still a
sucker for a good role, so it was pretty easy to convince me that there was an interesting challenge in the character. It allowed me to play aspects of a character that I haven’t played in a long time.” One last time, he got to play the villain.

  FOURTEEN

  The details fade over time. Where we ate dinner, appearances we made together, arguments with the studio. The countless days and nights Leonard and I spent together become blurred into larger memories. When I think about Leonard, my memories are emotional more than specific. How lucky I have been to have shared this adventure with him, my “Siamese twin,” my “brother from another mother,” my best friend.

  Between the photography and the jobs and writing poetry and working around the house and speaking engagements and appearing at the occasional convention, where the entire crew was treated like royalty, he led a full life. But his focus had changed. Like all of us do, he had made promises to himself many years earlier. “If I ever make it, if I ever make a living, if I ever become solid, I will do this and that.” But like the rest of us, that place of contentment was always after the next job, after the next success. Until his disease began to slow him down, he never got there. And then, when he couldn’t work as much as he wanted, when he couldn’t travel as much as he wanted, he finally arrived at that lifelong destination.

  He had decided to major in family, to heal whatever last rifts still existed. We talked about it, publicly, and he admitted, “We have spent the last several years consciously trying, at least I have, and I think my son and my daughter have felt the same, trying to build a new relationship.”

  “We learned to appreciate each other,” Adam remembers. “He spent more time at home than ever before, and he would sit there and tell stories. Just about every other weekend we’d have the kind of big family dinners that we hadn’t had too much in the past. There was a lot of love there that we all finally were able to express.”

  Unfortunately, tragedy also can often be the thing that brings people closer together. In 2008, as Adam Nimoy was putting his life back together, he met a woman he describes as “loving and joyful. A woman with no agenda.” Like so many parents, Leonard and Susan wondered if Adam had become sober and put his life together because of this woman, or if he had been able to meet this woman—Martha was her name—because of the changes he was making in his life. After getting to know Martha, one night Leonard and Susan called to tell Adam how much they liked her, and how happy they were about the impact she was making on his life—especially the fact that his relationship with his father and Susan had changed so dramatically. At a different time that might have become a point of contention; Adam was proud of the hard work he’d done on his own to change his life. “But I didn’t say anything about that. I simply said, ‘I really appreciate the phone call, and I am really happy about my relationship with you guys too.’”

  Martha did bring her joy into all their lives, and in January 2011, Adam and Martha were married. Four months later, Martha was diagnosed with terminal cancer. As Adam recalled, “When my first marriage ended in 2004 and I moved out of my house, I didn’t even call my dad. When Martha was diagnosed four months after we married, the first call I made was to my father.”

  For the next year and a half, the whole family fought the disease, and as Adam remembers, Leonard and Susan were there “every step of the way. We were lucky; my Directors Guild insurance paid for everything. I didn’t need financial help; I needed emotional support, and I got it. Nobody kept me going more than they did. They were both physically and emotionally supportive. They brought food. They visited. They did anything and everything possible to help us. It was a complete turnaround.”

  Adam became Martha’s caregiver. “It’s an extremely difficult thing to do,” he said. “You need support; you need a lot of support. I had it. Martha’s mother, my sister, Julie, people at UCLA where I was teaching, and the twelve-step groups that I was part of. But the lengths my dad and Susan were willing to go to, to help me, were amazing. Through this time we formed a whole new relationship.”

  On December 9, 2012, Martha died. Her legacy, in some way, was to bring Leonard and Adam closer, perhaps, than they had ever been as adults.

  By that time, though, Leonard’s own mortality was beginning to show. It’s impossible for me to remember the first time I truly understood the toll Leonard’s disease was taking on him. I remember sharing a car one afternoon that was to take us to a venue where we would make another appearance together. It was something we’d done countless times, and always both of us had walked briskly wherever we were going. Get there, get it going, have fun, get it done. But this time as we walked, Leonard had to stop and lean against the wall to catch his breath. Over time, those stops became more frequent. Then there would be an oxygen tank with us in the car. His illness made him angry. He’d curse it, “Goddamn it.” Then he would shake his head despairingly and ask me again and again, “Why didn’t you stop me from smoking?”

  I can’t begin to express the feeling of helplessness I felt. This was one of the most active people I have ever known, and his world was shrinking rapidly. And there was nothing at all I could do. The very last thing Leonard wanted from me was sympathy.

  For an actor, this disease is a special kind of horror. An actor’s voice is his or her most important tool. It is an instrument as much as any flute or tuba. It can carry an audience from Shakespeare’s London to Leonard’s Vulcan. Acting begins in the lungs, where your voice is manufactured. As you breathe air out, it strums against your vocal cords to create your unique sound; if you don’t have the air, there is no strumming, and you are robbed of your voice. For an actor, losing your voice means losing your career. A lot of actors take their voices for granted; it’s always going to be there—until it isn’t.

  Richard Arnold, who spent considerable time with Leonard organizing conventions and appearances, remembers noticing the first real symptoms of Leonard’s COPD as far as back as 2006. “He began having to clear his throat more often. You’d hear just a little ahem when he was talking, then progressively it got worse. One afternoon we were in his office while he signed memorabilia, and his voice was really rasping. I’d heard that before, but never this bad. I got worried and I asked him, ‘Leonard, are you okay?’

  “He smiled and reached across the desk, put his hand gently on top of mine, and said, ‘Richard, I was a really good smoker.’ For thirty years he had smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, and finally it was taking its toll. Over time, he became really raspy, and his breathing difficulties became more obvious. When I would see him, he had clips in his nose connecting him to an oxygen tank.”

  Leonard attended his last Star Trek convention in Chicago in October 2011. Leonard had finally accepted the fact that these trips were too difficult for him. For the first time, he brought his entire family with him; Susan, his children, grandchildren, and his one great-grandchild. He hired two shuttle buses to move them around the city. It was a very dramatic situation. Zachary Quinto had put together a video tribute in which everyone from J. J. Abrams,and several other actors from the more recent Star Trek films acknowledged their debt to him as well as their appreciation and admiration. As Leonard was being introduced, he stood backstage, by himself, fighting the tears. And then he walked on stage to a huge, huge standing ovation. The packed arena was telling Leonard how much he was loved; and he had the joy of knowing it.

  It was not his last appearance at a convention, though. He continued to get large offers to attend one final convention. Then one more after that. Organizers were willing to pay him far more for showing up for a few hours than we had been paid for the entire three years it took to make the series. As Richard Arnold told him when relaying these offers, “This one could pay for your great-grandson’s entire education.”

  “I know,” he said, “but that’s already taken care of.”

  For someone like Leonard, who was never still, it must have been so difficult to turn down these offers. Not for the money—the money was wond
erful—but for the chance to share with legions of fans just one more time. It isn’t possible to explain what it feels like to be standing—or in our case, sitting—on that stage. Leonard knew, and I knew, and Patrick Stewart and a few other people know that feeling. But being at one of those conventions, standing in front of that audience, feeling their energy and their love, is as close to understanding “the force” as any of us will ever come.

  Someone came up with the means to overcome Leonard’s physical limitations; Leonard could appear at a convention being held in Florida on Skype. The promoters sent technicians to his home, and they set up the system on his desk. There was a wonderful irony to it; the kind of space-age technology that was featured in the original series but did not exist in reality was making it possible for him to talk about it. He’d have his talk, then the fans lined up in front of a computer at the site, and as they said their names, he signed a photo for each one of them. They received them the next day.

  “It was terrific,” Leonard said, then added, “I didn’t even have to get dressed!”

  He kept telling organizers, “That’s it; I’m retired,” but he could never resist just one more project. Work was in his DNA. He was as addicted to creating as he once had been to cigarettes. And so he never did really, really, really fully retire. There was always just one more appearance, one more project that interested him or engaged his curiosity. Among those last projects in which was he was enthusiastically involved was a memorable trip back to Boston. As a way of thanking his father for everything he had done, Adam proposed a short documentary, and the two of them went back to Boston and filmed Leonard Nimoy’s Boston. It started out meant to be a family album, but turned into a PBS special.