For the Love of Spock Page #5

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contributed by your father on the set.

[Leonard Nimoy]

We had a wonderful script

by Theodore Sturgeon

called 'Amok Time.'

We arrive on the planet,

and a procession comes out

from the city to greet us.

I said to the director,

"I think we should have some

kind of a special greeting.

"Asian people bow to each other.

"Military people

salute each other.

I think Vulcans should have

some kind of a greeting."

And he said, "What would

you like to do?"

And I said, "How about this?"

Where it came from was

from my childhood of going

to synagogue on the High

Holidays with my family.

There's a moment where a group of

men get up before the congregation,

cover their heads with their

prayer shawls, chant a prayer.

My father said, "Don't look."

I'm about eight or nine years

old, so I snuck a peek.

And what I saw were these gentleman

out there who were doing the shouting

had their hands out towards the

congregation like that, both hands.

I found out later this is the shape of

a letter shin in the Hebrew alphabet.

The letter shin is the first

letter in the word Shaddai,

the name of God.

Well, I survived.

I peeked, and I survived.

But I was so intrigued

with that gesture,

and I suggested that

we do that as Vulcans.

Within days after that

episode was on the air,

I started getting that gesture

back on the streets.

You know, a lot of times people ask rne

what it was like living with Spock,

and for the most part,

during that period,

Dad was not home much at all.

I didn't see him.

He was really focused on what

he was doing at the studio

and for the show.

His usual routine during the week

was he would get up very early.

He'd come home at 7:00

or 8:
00 at night,

eat his dinner,

memorize his lines.

He'd run the lines

with my mother

and then just go to sleep

and start all over again.

So during the week,

he wasn't around hardly at all.

We spent a lot of, you know,

our, quite a few years--

Actually, from "Star Trek"

to "Mission,"

with him not being home

during the Weekdays.

Even when Dad was

around at home,

oftentimes, he was

very quiet and remote.

He was still kind of

in his Spock bag,

because he liked

to stay in character.

You play a character

like that...

What? Eight, 10, 1 2 hours

a day, five days a week,

-most of your waking life then

is in that character. - Mm-hmm.

And I'd find it very difficult

to turn it on and turn it off.

So stepping out of the set and into

a chair waiting for the next setup,

I couldn't shift out of it.

I believed in making that

investment in the character.

Particularly, that kind of

character that was so boxed.

A lot of the time he wasn't

available to hang outwith,

to... do things with.

He was... He was

sort of in his world.

He was occasionally

Leonard-like,

but mostly, he was Spock.

So I never really got

to know him very well.

I got to know Spock a little bit

better than I got to know your dad.

I mean, he was totally dedicated

to playing that character

and to being that character,

and it showed.

If I stay in character

or kind of don't joke around,

it's more a function of me--

[chuckles] It's slightly closer

to being a panicked grip

than it is being an artist,

I'm afraid.

It's just, I don't

want to lose it.

You kind of have to get

into the character's head.

And if you come out of it,

and then they go, "Roll camera,"

if you're off by that much,

you could either underplay a

moment or overplay a moment.

[Adam Nimoy] Fan mail started

arriving pretty regularly

in late '66,

and there was some issue whether or

not the studio would handle the mail,

the network would

handle the mail.

They didn't want to do it. They wanted,

you know, Leonard to handle the mail,

which he did in his

office for a while.

There was an interview

in "16 Magazine,"

I think it was

the spring of '67,

and somehow, accidentally,

they published our home address

as the mailing address

for the fan mail.

Within days, the mailman

stopped coming.

It was a truck that arrived

with sacks of mail,

and we were answering it.

It came into our dining room.

We had the dining room

table all set up

with the mail that we opened,

and we stuffed envelopes with

this early Spock promo pioture.

It was one of

our "family activities,"

you know, was

answering fan mail.

[Interviewer]

Personal life was gone.

Yeah, it started

happening very fast.

And to show you how naive I was,

at that time, I still had my

phone listed in the phone book,

and my address,

and it was all...

You know, I'd never dreamed

that there was going to be any,

that kind of impact, because I'd been on

television before and done movies before,

and I was listed in the phone book.

Didn't matter to me.

We started getting a lot of

fan mail, not only fan mail,

but fans coming to our door,

knocking down the door.

We started getting people driving

by the house, and parking,

and ripping at the shrubbery

to have a souvenir, you know,

and taking my grass,

and my leaves, and whatever.

Some of them would

knock on the door

and ask to be

invited in to visit.

It got really crazy. Yeah, yeah.

It got really crazy

for a while.

[Adam Nimoy] What about when

you came back to Boston

during the "Star Trek" years?

[Leonard Nimoy] Yeah,

that was kind of exciting

and a little difficult.

People were following me

in the street,

and I didn't really want people

to know where I was living.

I was staying with my folks,

with your grandparents.

[Adam Nimoy]

Right.

And they didn't have any idea

what "Star Trek" was.

They didn't get it.

All they knew was

something had happened.

[Adam Nimoy] How did they react

when they saw your haircut?

[Leonard Nimoy] My dad actually

thought I was wearing a wig.

He had a picture of rne as Spock

up on the wall in the barbershop,

and kids would come in and say,

"I want a Spock haircut."

[laughing]

[Leonard Nimoy] Once word filtered

through to network executives

about Spock's popularity,

they said to Roddenberry,

"Say, why aren't you doing more

with that Martian on the show?"

There's that element

of competition,

particularly the first season,

because, urn... the titular

star was Bill Shatner.

Leonard was

the secondary character.

But when the show

went on the air,

people were absolutely

magnetically attracted to Spock.

So I'm asked to be the captain,

[stammering] and it's the

captain's show, and that's great.

Quite frequently, another character

rises to the top as well.

I go to Roddenberry,

who then says very wisely...

"if Spock is popular,

then Kirk is popular,

and the show is popular,

and that's what We all want."

And I thought,

"You know, he's right."

And from that moment on,

I encompassed

the popularity of Spock,

and, uh, was okay with it,

and, uh, enjoyed it.

Jim, I feel friendship for you.

I'm ashamed.

You've got to hear me!

Kirk is the physical

embodiment of the show,

and Spock is the spiritual

embodiment of the show.

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