I don’t get tears in my eyes every time an actor or celebrity passes away, but when I read the news this morning that Leonard Nimoy had passed away, I felt an immense sadness. Not many actors become true icons, but Nimoy certainly was one.
I’d call myself a Trekkie, even though I came to this fandom in my 20s (Star Trek wasn’t shown on Swedish TV when I grew up), and in my case it was The Next Generation series that got me hooked. Truthfully, I always thought the original TV-show was far too cheesy, and contained too much William Shatner (sorry, Shatner-fans!) to appeal to me.
TNG was and is one of my all-time favourite TV-shows. It took about three seasons for that show to find its legs, but when it did, it was often spectacular. And my love for that show made me appreciate the original show and all the Star Trek movies a lot more. I loved it when Nimoy’s Spock appeared in TNG-episodes: he was an actor with great presence and a fantastic sense of understated humour that really appealed to me. In more recent years, when he appeared in the new rebooted Star Trek movies, he impressed me again and I thought he was used well to tie the various generations, timelines and “universes” together.
Whenever I would read or watch interviews with him, I was always impressed by how positive his outlook was on life, and how deeply grateful and appreciative he was of everything the crazy, whacky and wonderful Star Trek fandom had brought him over the years. He was just one of those people who came across as a truly good person: not in any angelic way, but as a person who always wanted to reach for, and share, something good, something helpful, something true with the world.
Nimoy was active on Twitter, and his last tweet was this:
LLAP / Live Long And Prosper was of course his catchphrase, and he signed off most tweets with that acronym. And yes, now I feel that sadness once again.
Finally, here’s a moment from Star Trek: The Next Generation, featuring Nimoy’s Spock and Brent Spiner’s Data.
Maria Haskins 