Leonard Nimoy
Like a lot of other people, I probably heard about Leonard Nimoy's death within a few minutes of the first announcement, just by virtue of being on Twitter and following a lot of people there. As I mentioned just in passing in my last post, Star Trek was one of the first formative stories for me. And one thing I'm finding is that while in some ways TNG is the show I actually grew up on (I remember watching "Encounter at Farpoint" with my dad and one of his friends when it first aired) and the details of TOS are fuzzier for me, especially since I went through a long phase of reading lots and lots of Star Trek novels and probably conflate some things as a result, the TOS cast are the ones I associate much more intensely with their characters and that show, I suppose largely because I was exposed to it young enough to imprint on it.
All of my impressions of Leonard Nimoy are wonderful: a kind and gracious man, a wonderful actor with a tremendous and contagious smile, an artist in many ways. I love how positively he shaped the world. I admire how he played many other roles and yet was willing to return to Spock over and over, letting us follow the journey of such a tremendously influential character for so long. (When he first appeared in the first Star Trek reboot movie--which I'd managed to not know he was involved with--I cried in the theatre as soon as the first syllables left his mouth; I think I was tearing up well before my brain caught up with what was happening, because his voice is so iconic and marvelous.)
I don't call my parents very often, and when I do, I nearly always go through my mother when possible. But today I called my dad, the one who had me watching Star Trek so young that I literally don't remember not knowing it, so he'd hear the news from me and not find out from some random newscast on the radio or headlines crawling across the bottom of the TV screen.
I'm grateful that we had Mr. Nimoy for so long, and for everything he brought to the world. I feel the odd void many other people have mentioned, of how strange it seems to live in a world without him, even though he's far from the first TOS actor to go. There was something about his presence that just seemed like he'd be here forever, gifted and gracious and still occasionally turning up on screens. But I'm also glad to know that he lived a good life, that he died old and beloved and with some idea of how many lives he'd changed for the better.
I've seen a ton of links to articles and anecdotes about Leonard Nimoy today, and have appreciated an awful lot of them. (I reblogged quite a lot at
ysabet_m over the course of the day.) Here are just three:
--Buzzfeed (and many other sources, I think) posted Nimoy's advice to a biracial girl who wrote to him in 1968.
--"Leonard Nimoy on the Jewish Story Behind the Vulcan Salute".
--Author Tobias Buckell wrote "Thank you, Mr. Nimoy. Your portrayal of a mixed race person had a big impact on me."
Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/581892.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:
All of my impressions of Leonard Nimoy are wonderful: a kind and gracious man, a wonderful actor with a tremendous and contagious smile, an artist in many ways. I love how positively he shaped the world. I admire how he played many other roles and yet was willing to return to Spock over and over, letting us follow the journey of such a tremendously influential character for so long. (When he first appeared in the first Star Trek reboot movie--which I'd managed to not know he was involved with--I cried in the theatre as soon as the first syllables left his mouth; I think I was tearing up well before my brain caught up with what was happening, because his voice is so iconic and marvelous.)
I don't call my parents very often, and when I do, I nearly always go through my mother when possible. But today I called my dad, the one who had me watching Star Trek so young that I literally don't remember not knowing it, so he'd hear the news from me and not find out from some random newscast on the radio or headlines crawling across the bottom of the TV screen.
I'm grateful that we had Mr. Nimoy for so long, and for everything he brought to the world. I feel the odd void many other people have mentioned, of how strange it seems to live in a world without him, even though he's far from the first TOS actor to go. There was something about his presence that just seemed like he'd be here forever, gifted and gracious and still occasionally turning up on screens. But I'm also glad to know that he lived a good life, that he died old and beloved and with some idea of how many lives he'd changed for the better.
I've seen a ton of links to articles and anecdotes about Leonard Nimoy today, and have appreciated an awful lot of them. (I reblogged quite a lot at
ysabet_m over the course of the day.) Here are just three:
--Buzzfeed (and many other sources, I think) posted Nimoy's advice to a biracial girl who wrote to him in 1968.
--"Leonard Nimoy on the Jewish Story Behind the Vulcan Salute".
--Author Tobias Buckell wrote "Thank you, Mr. Nimoy. Your portrayal of a mixed race person had a big impact on me."
Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/581892.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW: