Leonard

by William Shatner

  Watching Leonard’s enthusiasm as he shares the stories and places of his childhood with his son made me pause and remember the Leonard I had known for so long, the young and energetic Leonard, easing into stardom. “This is where I learned to sail … I worked here stacking chairs … I passed by this church every day of my life … we lived on the third floor, right over Harry Rubin’s Credit Union … There was one building, a few blocks away, that had an elevator.” And then, typical Leonard, he spoke with warmth about his own parents, telling a story I had never heard, but knowing him so well a story that did not surprise me at all. One night, he and a friend had worked till close to midnight folding chairs at the band shell, and he was coming home with the two dollars he’d earned when he met his mother and father, who were worried and had come looking for him. “My mother said, ‘Where have you been?’ ‘We were stacking chairs.’ ‘This late?’ ‘Yeah, we just finished.’ I handed over the two dollars. My father grabbed it out of my hand and tore the two dollars in pieces. He was so angry because she was upset, and that upset him. He couldn’t take it.

  “So she picked up the torn pieces. She wasn’t going to let the two dollars go. We walked home in silence.”

  And then, near the end of this wonderful twenty-eight-minute documentary, Leonard became a bit melancholy, remembering the West End neighborhood that had been torn down, his childhood lost to urban renewal, and he said wistfully, “I miss Boston. It was a good place to be.”

  The satisfaction the two men got from working together led Adam to propose another collaboration. The year 2016 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the original series, and to celebrate that, Adam suggested they make a documentary telling the story of Spock. Leonard agreed to celebrate Spock, but he was emphatic that he did not want it to be a Leonard Nimoy documentary. It was to be Spock-centric, and he would participate only to talk about all those things he brought to the creation of Spock, from his feelings of alienation in Boston to the struggles of his early career. “He wanted to do it as kind of a farewell gift to the fans that he loved, honored, and respected,” Adam said. “He was very grateful to them for creating this whole fan-based phenomenon. This was going to be the definitive work on Spock. How he came into being, how he helped Roddenberry give life to the character, how the character evolved and became iconic, and what it is about the character that people have identified with and why has Spock stayed alive in the pop culture for so long.

  “So we sat down and started talking about it. We were going to put it on camera; I was kind of in a hurry to film him on camera, but he thought we had plenty of time. And then he got sick…”

  Leonard and I began talking about our own mortality several years ago. I said to him, “Perhaps the reason I’m running as fast as I can is I see very clearly my own death…”

  “I think of it as a loss of consciousness,” Leonard responded. “And I am conscious of it. I think about it … I think about the loss of relationships, the end of that. I think about the loss of creative opportunity; which I love to be creative, to see things evolve … I think it is important now to be making philanthropic statements, to be giving, giving back, giving back as much as I can, as much as we can, to the community and to various venues, funding for arts, funding for children, funding for education, things that we believe in and care about, leaving a legacy…”

  Leaving a legacy. As you get older, if you’ve been fortunate enough to earn more than enough money to take care of your family, you begin to think about exactly what to do with it. It forces you to think about those things that are most important to you, the way you want people to remember you. The legacy an individual leaves is a fascinating way of looking at a life. The measure of a man, or a woman, is what is left behind to make the world a better place. So it is not at all surprising that Leonard and Susan actively funded the theater, artistic, and educational programs. This isn’t the kind of stuff that Leonard talked about; when he saw a need, he got involved. I knew about very little of this until I read it in the newspapers like everyone else, but it certainly didn’t surprise me. As far back as 1998, they donated $100,000 to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles to enable the museum to buy a series of photographs. For several years, George Takei served as chairman of the board of the Japanese American National Museum, and he remembers, “Leonard and Susan stopped by our museum to see the exhibits, and he was so impressed that he made a nice contribution.”

  It was entirely fitting that one of Leonard’s largest contributions was made to the famed Griffith Observatory in Beverly Hills. Opened in 1935, this classic art deco building has become a Los Angeles landmark and has been used in numerous movies, including Rebel Without a Cause, Rocketeer, and the Terminator films. But it had deteriorated badly. As Leonard and Susan donated a million dollars to enlarge and renovate the structure, funds that certainly had come from the Enterprise’s exploration of the universe, he said, just as Spock might have, “By observing the sky and pondering our place in the universe, people gain a new perspective on their daily lives. Griffith Observatory gives its visitors that opportunity.” The observatory was gutted and completely rebuilt, including an entirely new lower level where the 190-seat Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon lecture hall, which is used primarily for demonstrations, lectures, and other activities, is located.

  Leonard, of course, was always fascinated by what might await us outside our earthly bonds. He was convinced there are other life-forms in the universe. He didn’t speculate on what they might look like or how they might respond to us or whether they had evolved beyond us or had remained primitive, but he knew they were out there. Having lived in Star Trek’s universe for so long, it probably would have been impossible for any of us to think we are here alone. Leonard always was interested in those things that lie beyond our knowledge and our understanding, and so it made perfect sense that he would make this donation to the observatory.

  And finally, Leonard reached back to his local theater roots when he and Susan donated $1.5 million to renovate the Thalia Theater on New York’s Upper West Side on Ninety-Fifth and Broadway. He had a special connection there with Isaiah Sheffer, who managed the adjoining Symphony Space. Sheffer ran a popular program known as Selected Shorts, in which he invited actors and actresses to read short stories for an audience. For more than twenty years, Leonard read a range of great short stories at Symphony Space, everything from James Thurber to Evelyn Waugh to Raymond Carver, stories that eventually were broadcast on radio and made available in podcasts. Again, it was his effort to make sure classic writing not only stayed alive; it reached a whole new audience. But the real reason he continued to do it for so long was to get together with Sheffer. Whenever they spent time with each other, they would eventually lapse into Yiddish. Sheffer, like Leonard, had been in the Yiddish theater, and he was one of the few people with whom Leonard could speak Yiddish. “He knew Schwartz,” was the way he described him. It was their mutual love for that fading language that brought them together. “Zayn oder nit zayn?”,” Leonard would tell him, “Ot vos s’iz di frage.”.” To be or not to be, that is the question.

  And then he might add the poem he remembered so often after he left home:

  Aufn Wehg Shteyt a boym. Zug ish tsu die Mama, herr. Zollst mich nor nisht shteren. Vill ich, mama, eints und tzei, bald a foygl veren.

  On the Road There Stands a Tree, I say to my mother, listen … Don’t try to stop me … In a moment, Mama, I’m going to become a bird.

  The Thalia had once been a popular movie house; known for showing classic American films and great foreign movies, always as part of a double feature. Fellini, Bergman, Truffaut, their films all played there. But it had closed in the 1987 and essentially had remained empty for more than a dozen years. During one of his meetings with Leonard and Susan, Sheffer mentioned that the Symphony Space was hoping to rehabilitate the Thalia. He wanted to build a new theater and make it part of a larger Symphony Space complex. Susan and Leonard volunteered to donate the money, and the 168-seat,
wheelchair-accessible Leonard Nimoy Thalia now hosts a wide variety of events. It’s exactly the kind of eclectic space that perfectly represents Leonard.

  He left a lot behind, Leonard did, to remind us who he was and what he accomplished. In an interview in 2011, he said, “I have been through many resurrections in my career. I have died and come back. I have left and come back. I’ve been canceled and come back.”

  But all of that ended on February 27, 2015.

  His disease had been creeping up on him in his last few years. He thought about his life and where he was and judged himself content. “I wake up in the morning and sometimes think, I finally got my reward for the tough times,” he told me once. “I really do. I feel rewarded.” Later he added, “I feel greatly blessed. These are the best times ever … I’m wonderfully happy.”

  He finally had what he had been searching for since his raucous childhood: a loving family. “My present life with my wife has turned into an experience that I never dreamed could be so fulfilling. I have two great kids, five great-grandchildren. So, I’ve had a pretty good ride.”

  And then, as we reminisced about the crew of the starship Enterprise, especially the wonderful DeForest Kelley, I said, “So you live and die.”

  “Actors up on the stage,” he responded. “Let us hurt no more.” And then he added, “Death is an inevitability. In the meantime, I think, I feel good about the fact that both you in your own way and I in my own way have found the energy and the lust for life each day, to do interesting and exciting, and creative, and productive and fun things to do. And a wonderful relationship.”

  I often think about friendship. Our friendship. All friendships. The complexities that bring two lives together sometimes briefly, sometimes for almost a lifetime. There are fleeting friendships and enduring friendships. It is such an all-encompassing word, but it doesn’t sufficiently define the depth of any relationship. There are so many metaphors that might be applied, but ours covered an ocean of time, and as in any voyage, between the calm seas we encountered moments of turmoil. One of my greatest regrets is that Leonard and I were not as close as we had been during those last few years of his life. There was a small incident; I was making a film about the many captains of the Enterprise, and Leonard did not want to appear in it. I thought he was kidding; it was such a small thing. Just the next of so many projects we’d done together. But then a cameraman filmed him speaking at a convention without his permission, and he got angry. Essentially, he stopped speaking to me. It made no sense, and I reached out to him several times to try to heal this problem, but I never got a response. I don’t understand this, I thought, but I just assumed that given time this rift would heal. Every friendship has its ups and downs. This was a temporary blip; our friendship was too strong to end because of something this meaningless.

  It was very painful to me. As I’d never had a friend like Leonard before, I’d obviously never been in a situation like this, and I had no idea what to do about it. If I knew the reason Leonard stopped talking to me, not only would I admit it, I would have taken steps to heal those wounds. If I had done something wrong, if I had said something that was perhaps misunderstood, I would want to know it so I might make amends. But none of that took place. I have no idea what happened.

  It couldn’t have been that cameraman. In fact, after that appearance, we both flew back to Los Angeles on Leonard’s plane, and he was his usual self. If something was wrong, then I certainly didn’t sense it, nor did he say anything.

  Leonard was not shy about confrontation; if something was bothering him, he addressed it. So this was bewildering to me. I tried many times to communicate with him directly; I tried to find out what the issue was through our mutual friends, but I never found the reason. I was mystified. It was baffling to me. I kept asking people, “What happened?” But no one could give me an answer. It remains a mystery to me, and it is heartbreaking, heartbreaking. It is something I will wonder about, and regret, forever.

  Starting when we were doing the original show and throughout our lives, there constantly had been stories about our supposed feud, about our fighting. Except for those very first months, when I had to adjust to the fact that Leonard was getting more attention than I was, none of that was ever true. “Our sibling rivalry,” as Leonard laughingly referred to it, but he was my closest friend in the world.

  And then this happened. When necessary, we communicated through other people. Among them was Richard Arnold, who handled our Star Trek business and other things for both of us, who had been alongside both of us for so many decades, and understood the depth of our friendship. This is the way Richard describes our friendship; this is the way I remember it: “They loved each other so much,” he said. “It was so obvious when we’d see them onstage; they didn’t quite hold hands, but about as close as you can get to that, arms around shoulders. They spent so much time laughing that I said it was a mistake to do the photo ops with them first thing because they would do nothing but talk to each other the whole time.

  “Those last years were tough because Bill still cared very much for Leonard and Leonard still cared very much for Bill. They both knew I was working with the other one too, so when I was in Bill’s office he would ask about Leonard, and when I was at Leonard’s house he would ask about Bill. Leonard was always curious as to what Bill was up to and was always amused by his crazy schedule, filming, making commercials and doing a new CD, going on an extended trip to wherever. Insane, just insane.”

  I knew he was sick, we all knew that, but until his last few days I did not know how sick he was. But when I finally found out how seriously ill he was, I sent him a last note:

  My dearest Leonard,

  I love you like a brother. Maybe when I first met you, in the beginning of our deep friendship, you might have irked me here or there. At least that’s what I have been told, but I don’t remember any irks, I just remember laughter.

  I remember being in limousines with you, bending over with laughs. I remember the deep talks we had about family and friends and life in general. The stories you told about your grandfather and your father. The mindmelds and the interviews. I have had a deep love for you Leonard—for your character, your morality, your sense of justice, your artistic bent whether it’s painting pictures or as an actor. It is with great gratitude to have known you all these many years. You’re the friend that I have known the longest and the deepest. I have missed you terribly and have longed for those dinners we used to have.

  I told you fifty years ago to give up smoking but no, you wouldn’t listen. Now my advice is to relax, be happy. You’re a wonderful man and I, along with so many other people, think so highly of you. Good luck my dear friend.

  Love,

  Bill

  I don’t know if he ever read it. I prefer to believe he did. But whether he did or not, I don’t have the slightest doubt that he knew the depth of my feelings for him.

  The last words he said to his fans, in the form of a tweet to his more than one million followers, was “A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP.”

  LLAP. Live long and prosper. Spock’s words. In those final days of his life, Leonard and his creation, Mr. Spock, had become virtually indistinguishable.

  Rabbi John L. Rosove, Susan’s first cousin, described his death: “His family had gathered around him in a ring of love. Leonard smiled, and then he was gone. It was a gentle passing, as easy as a ‘hair being lifted from a cup of milk,’ as the Talmud describes the moment of death.”

  Millions of people mourned him, knowing a good man had left this earth for another voyage. President Barack Obama issued this statement, “Long before being nerdy was cool, there was Leonard Nimoy. Leonard was a lifelong lover of the arts and humanities, a supporter of the sciences, generous with his talent and his time. And of course, Leonard was Spock. Cool, logical, big-eared and level-headed, the center of Star Trek’s optimistic, inclusive vision of humanity’s future.

&
nbsp; “I loved Spock.”

  For the president of the United States to say something like that about a kid from inner-city Boston is pretty cool, indeed.

  I was in Florida, one of the major celebrity guests at a major Red Cross fund-raising dinner, when Leonard died. Rather than missing that event, which raised a great deal of money to help people in need, I decided to attend the dinner and fly back the next day, although it meant missing Leonard’s funeral. The funeral was scheduled for Sunday morning. I’ve always been one of those people who believed in honoring people while they are alive. I have always believed that we should mourn the dead but celebrate life. I received a great deal of criticism for that decision. In fact, at the dinner, I asked the more than one thousand people there to pause and remember not just Leonard but my friend Maury Hurley, a wonderful writer and producer who also had died that week. And my daughters represented our family at the funeral.

  There are times in life when being a celebrity can be painful. The fact that rather than being able to mourn the death of my dear friend in my own way, I had to deal with this controversy was one of them.

  I think about Leonard. I miss him. Even when we weren’t in close touch, he was always in my life. And when I think about Leonard and all the adventures we had together, I remember his own lust for life; I remember his desire to explore and experience life in all its infinite wonders. I think of his spiritual side, in which he never stopped searching for answers he knew he would never find. I think of his generosity and his commitment to fight for equal justice for everyone. I think of his never-ending passion for the arts and his quest to nurture creativity in young people. And I think of him standing in front of me, his palm held high, his fingers separated in the Vulcan salute, smiling knowingly.