R.I.P. - Leonard Nimoy, "Spock" : He will LIVE LONG in our Hearts, AND PROSPER in our Memories.

  He will LIVE LONG in our Hearts, 

AND PROSPER in our Memories.

Rest in Peace Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy, Spock of ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 83

Leonard Nimoy, best known for playing the character Spock in the 

Star Trek television shows and films, died at 83.

"I loved him like a brother. We will all miss his humor, his talent, and his capacity to love."
- William Shatner

"It is with sadness that I heard this morning of the death of friend and colleague Leonard Nimoy. I was lucky to spend many happy hours with Leonard socially and in front of the camera. The caliber and serious commitment of his work on "Star Trek" was one of the things all of us on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" sought to match and be inspired by. His work will not be forgotten."
- Patrick Stewart

"Today, the world lost a great man, and I lost a great friend. We return you now to the stars, Leonard. You taught us to "Live Long And Prosper," and you indeed did, friend. I shall miss you in so many, many ways."
- George Takei

"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 centre of Star Trek’s optimistic, inclusive vision of humanity’s future.

I loved Spock.

In 2007, I had the chance to meet Leonard in person. It was only logical to greet him with the Vulcan salute, the universal sign for “Live long and prosper.” And after 83 years on this planet – and on his visits to many others – it’s clear Leonard Nimoy did just that. Michelle and I join his family, friends, and countless fans who miss him so dearly today."
– US President Barack Obama

 

 Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83.

His wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, confirmed his death, saying the cause was end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Mr. Nimoy announced last year that he had the disease, attributing it to years of smoking, a habit he had given up three decades earlier. He had been hospitalized earlier in the week.

 

His artistic pursuits — poetry, photography and music in addition to acting — ranged far beyond the United Federation of Planets, but it was as Mr. Spock that Mr. Nimoy became a folk hero, bringing to life one of the most indelible characters of the last half century: a cerebral, unflappable, pointy-eared Vulcan with a signature salute and blessing: “Live long and prosper” (from the Vulcan “Dif-tor heh smusma”).

As part of the Yiddish Book Center Wexler Oral History Project, Leonard Nimoy explains the origin of the Vulcan hand signal used by Spock, his character in the “Star Trek” series. Mr. Nimoy, who was teaching Method acting at his own studio when he was cast in the original “Star Trek” television series in the mid-1960s, relished playing outsiders, and he developed what he later admitted was a mystical identification with Spock, the lone alien on the starship’s bridge.

Yet he also acknowledged ambivalence about being tethered to the character, expressing it most plainly in the titles of two autobiographies: “I Am Not Spock,” published in 1977, and “I Am Spock,” published in 1995.

 In the first, he wrote, “In Spock, I finally found the best of both worlds: to be widely accepted in public approval and yet be able to continue to play the insulated alien through the Vulcan character.”

“Star Trek,” which had its premiere on NBC on Sept. 8, 1966, made Mr. Nimoy a star. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the franchise, called him “the conscience of ‘Star Trek’ ” — an often earnest, sometimes campy show that employed the distant future (as well as some special effects that appear primitive by today’s standards) to take on social issues of the 1960s.

His stardom would endure. Though the series was canceled after three seasons because of low ratings, a cultlike following — the conference-holding, costume-wearing Trekkies, or Trekkers (the designation Mr. Nimoy preferred) — coalesced soon after “Star Trek” went into syndication.

The fans’ devotion only deepened when “Star Trek” was spun off into an animated show, various new series and an uneven parade of movies starring much of the original television cast, including — besides Mr. Nimoy — William Shatner (as Captain Kirk), DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy), George Takei (the helmsman, Sulu), James Doohan (the chief engineer, Scott), Nichelle Nichols (the chief communications officer, Uhura) and Walter Koenig (the navigator, Chekov).
 

When the director J. J. Abrams revived the “Star Trek” film franchise in 2009, with an all-new cast including Zachary Quinto as Spock, he included a cameo part for Mr. Nimoy, as an older version of the same character. Mr. Nimoy also appeared in the 2013 follow-up, “Star Trek Into Darkness.”


His zeal to entertain and enlighten reached beyond “Star Trek” and crossed genres. He had a starring role in the dramatic television series “Mission: Impossible” and frequently performed onstage, notably as Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof.” His poetry was voluminous, and he published books of his photography.

 He also directed movies, including two from the “Star Trek” franchise, and television shows. And he made records, singing pop songs as well as original songs about “Star Trek,” and gave spoken-word performances — to the delight of his fans and the bewilderment of critics.

Thank you, Leonard Nimoy, and to all the crew of Star Trek who helped me grow up in the 1970s, giving me a vision of lives organized around the thirst for knowledge. But all that was subsidiary to Mr. Spock, the most complex member of the Enterprise crew, who was both one of the gang and a creature apart, engaged at times in a lonely struggle with his warring racial halves.

In one of his most memorable “Star Trek” performances, Mr. Nimoy tried to follow in the tradition of two actors he admired, Charles Laughton and Boris Karloff, who each played a monstrous character — Quasimodo and the Frankenstein monster — who is transformed by love.

In Episode 24, which was first shown on March 2, 1967, Mr. Spock is indeed transformed. Under the influence of aphrodisiacal spores he discovers on the planet Omicron Ceti III, he lets free his human side and announces his love for Leila Kalomi (Jill Ireland), a woman he had once known on Earth. In this episode, Mr. Nimoy brought to Spock’s metamorphosis not only warmth, compassion and playfulness, but also a rarefied concept of alienation.

“I am what I am, Leila,” Mr. Spock declares after the spores’ effect has worn off and his emotions are again in check. “And if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else’s.”
 

 Born in Boston on March 26, 1931, Leonard Simon Nimoy was the second son of Max and Dora Nimoy, Ukrainian immigrants and Orthodox Jews. His father worked as a barber.

From the age of 8, Leonard acted in local productions, winning parts at a community college, where he performed through his high school years. In 1949, after taking a summer course at Boston College, he traveled to Hollywood, though it wasn’t until 1951 that he landed small parts in two movies, “Queen for a Day” and “Rhubarb.”

He continued to be cast in little-known movies, although he did presciently play an alien invader in a cult serial called “Zombies of the Stratosphere,” and in 1961 he had a minor role on an episode of “The Twilight Zone.” His first starring movie role came in 1952 with “Kid Monk Baroni,” in which he played a disfigured Italian street-gang leader who becomes a boxer.

Mr. Nimoy served in the Army for two years, rising to sergeant and spending 18 months at Fort McPherson in Georgia, where he presided over shows for the Army’s Special Services branch. He also directed and starred as Stanley in the Atlanta Theater Guild’s production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” before receiving his final discharge in November 1955.
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He then returned to California, where he worked as a soda jerk, movie usher and cabdriver while studying acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. He achieved wide visibility in the late 1950s and early 1960s on television shows like “Wagon Train,” “Rawhide” and “Perry Mason.” Then came “Star Trek.”

Mr. Nimoy returned to college in his 40s and earned a master’s degree in Spanish from Antioch University Austin, an affiliate of Antioch College in Ohio, in 1978. Antioch University later awarded Mr. Nimoy an honorary doctorate.

Mr. Nimoy directed the movies “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” (1984) and “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” (1986), which he helped write. In 1991, the same year that he resurrected Mr. Spock on two episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” Mr. Nimoy was also the executive producer and a writer of the movie “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.”

When I got the News I was completely shocked and deeply saddened. How could it happen? My dearest Alien of them all was no more. But more...

Of all the souls I've encountered, his was the most human.
He lived long, and he prospered.


He then directed the hugely successful comedy “Three Men and a Baby” (1987), a far cry from his science-fiction work, and appeared in made-for-television movies. He received an Emmy nomination for the 1982 movie “A Woman Called Golda,” in which he portrayed the husband of Golda Meir, the prime minister of Israel, who was played by Ingrid Bergman. It was the fourth Emmy nomination of his career — the other three were for his “Star Trek” work — although he never won.

Mr. Nimoy’s marriage to the actress Sandi Zober ended in divorce. Besides his wife, he is survived by his children, Adam and Julie Nimoy; a stepson, Aaron Bay Schuck; six grandchildren and one great-grandchild; and an older brother, Melvin.

Though his speaking voice was among his chief assets as an actor, the critical consensus was that his music was mortifying. Mr. Nimoy, however, was undaunted, and his fans seemed to enjoy the camp of his covers of songs like “If I Had a Hammer.” (His first album was called “Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock’s Music From Outer Space.”)

From 1977 to 1982, Mr. Nimoy hosted the syndicated series “In Search Of ...,” which explored mysteries like the Loch Ness monster and U.F.O.s. He also narrated “Ancient Mysteries” on the History Channel and appeared in commercials, including two with Mr. Shatner for Priceline.com. He provided the voice for animated characters in “Transformers: The Movie,” in 1986, and “The Pagemaster,” in 1994.

In 2001 he voiced the king of Atlantis in the Disney animated movie “Atlantis: The Lost Empire,” and in 2005 he furnished voice-overs for the computer game Civilization IV. More recently, he had a recurring role on the science-fiction series “Fringe” and was heard, as the voice of Spock, in an episode of the hit sitcom “The Big Bang Theory.”

Mr. Nimoy was an active supporter of the arts as well. The Thalia, a venerable movie theater on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, now a multi-use hall that is part of Symphony Space, was renamed the Leonard Nimoy Thalia in 2002.

He also found his voice as a writer. Besides his autobiographies, he published “A Lifetime of Love: Poems on the Passages of Life” in 2002. Typical of Mr. Nimoy’s simple free verse are these lines: “In my heart/Is the seed of the tree/Which will be me.”

In later years, he rediscovered his Jewish heritage, and in 1991 he produced and starred in “Never Forget,” a television movie based on the story of a Holocaust survivor who sued a neo-Nazi organization of Holocaust deniers.

In 2002, having illustrated his books of poetry with his photographs, Mr. Nimoy published “Shekhina,” a book devoted to photography with a Jewish theme, that of the feminine aspect of God. His black-and-white photographs of nude and seminude women struck some Orthodox Jewish leaders as heretical, but Mr. Nimoy asserted that his work was consistent with the teachings of the kabbalah.

His religious upbringing also influenced the characterization of Spock. The character’s split-fingered salute, he often explained, had been his idea: He based it on the kohanic blessing, a manual approximation of the Hebrew letter shin, which is the first letter in Shaddai, one of the Hebrew names for God.

“To this day, I sense Vulcan speech patterns, Vulcan social attitudes and even Vulcan patterns of logic and emotional suppression in my behavior,” Mr. Nimoy wrote years after the original series ended.

But that wasn’t such a bad thing, he discovered. “Given the choice,” he wrote, “if I had to be someone else, I would be Spock.”

R.I.P. - Harold Ramis, Chicago actor, writer and director, dead at 69 : Russell: Yes? You speak some English? Man learning English: Son of bitch. Shit. Class: [in unison] Son of bitch. Shit.

 

 Another rough one already this year.

Harold was one of my all-time favorite comedic actors.

Stripes 

Ghostbusters

An amazing writer. 

Animal House

Meatballs

Caddyshack

Stripes 

Back To School

Groundhog Day

Analyze This

 Analyze That

 Also phenomenal director.

Caddyshack

National Lampoon's Vacation

Groundhog Day 

Multiplicity 

 Analyze This

 Analyze That

I'm very happy to have a to have a POP! vinyl figure

coming out soon to immortalize his portrayal of his character he played in the Ghostbusters movies Dr. Egon Spengler.

Russell Ziskey: You could join a monastery.
John Winger: Did you ever see a monk get wildly fucked by some teenage girls?
Russell Ziskey: Never.
John Winger: So much for the monastery.

Russell Ziskey: I've always been kind of a pacifist. When I was a kid, my father told me, "Never hit anyone in anger, unless you're absolutely sure you can get away with it." I don't know what kind of soldier I'm gonna make, but I want you guys to know that if we ever get into really heavy combat... I'll be right behind you guys. Every step of the way.

 John Winger: C'mon, it's Czechoslovakia. We zip in, we pick 'em up, we zip right out again. We're not going to Moscow. It's Czechoslovakia. It's like going into Wisconsin.
Russell Ziskey: Well I got the shit kicked out of me in Wisconsin once. Forget it!

I will let the Chicago Tribune say rest ...

Harold Ramis was one of Hollywood’s most successful comedy filmmakers when he moved his family from Los Angeles back to the Chicago area in 1996. His career was still thriving, with "Groundhog Day" acquiring almost instant classic status upon its 1993 release and 1984's "Ghostbusters" ranking among the highest-grossing comedies of all time, but the writer-director wanted to return to the city where he’d launched his career as a Second City performer.

"There's a pride in what I do that other people share because I'm local, which in L.A. is meaningless; no one's local," Ramis said upon the launch of the first movie he directed after his move, the 1999 mobster-in-therapy comedy "Analyze This," another hit. "It's a good thing. I feel like I represent the city in a certain way."

Ramis, a longtime North Shore resident, was surrounded by family when he died at 12:53 a.m. from complications of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis, a rare disease that involves swelling of the blood vessels, his wife Erica Mann Ramis said. He was 69.

Ramis' serious health struggles began in May 2010 with an infection that led to complications related to the autoimmune disease, his wife said. Ramis had to relearn to walk but suffered a relapse of the vasculitis in late 2011, said Laurel Ward, vice president of development at Ramis' Ocean Pictures production company.

Ramis leaves behind a formidable body of work, with writing credits on such enduring comedies as "National Lampoon's Animal House" (which upon its 1978 release catapulted the film career of John Belushi, with whom Ramis acted at Second City), "Stripes" (1981) and "Ghostbusters" (in which Ramis also co-starred) plus such directing efforts as "Caddyshack" (1980), "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983), "Groundhog Day" and "Analyze This."

Previously he was the first head writer (and a performer) on Second City's groundbreaking television series "Second City Television (SCTV)" (1976-79). More recently he directed episodes of NBC’s "The Office."

Ramis' comedies were often wild, silly and tilting toward anarchy, but they also were cerebral and iconoclastic, with the filmmaker heeding the Second City edict to work at the top of one's intelligence. This combination of smart and gut-bustingly funny led a generation of comedic actors and filmmakers — including Judd Apatow ("The 40 Year Old Virgin," "Knocked Up," Jay Roach ("Meet the Parents," the "Austin Powers" movies), Peter Farrelly ("There's Something About Mary," "Dumb and Dumber"), Jake Kasdan ("Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," "Orange County," both of which featured Ramis in small roles) and Adam Sandler (who starred in his own wacky golf comedy, "Happy Gilmore") — to cite him as a key inspiration.

“When I was 15, I interviewed Harold for my high school radio station, and he was the person that I wanted to be when I was growing up," said Apatow, who later would cast Ramis as Seth Rogen’s father in "Knocked Up" and would produce Ramis' final movie, "Year One" (2009). "His work is the reason why so many of us got into comedy. We grew up on 'Second City TV' and 'Ghostbusters,' 'Vacation,' 'Animal House,' 'Stripes,' 'Meatballs' (which Ramis co-wrote); he literally made every single one of our favorite movies."

Ramis also left behind a reputation as a mensch and all-around good guy.

"He's the least changed by success of anyone I know in terms of sense of humor, of humility, sense of self," the late Second City founder Bernie Sahlins, who began working with Ramis in 1969, said of him in 1999. "He's the same Harold he was 30 years ago. He's had enormous success relatively, but none of it has gone to his head in any way."

Laurel Ward, vice president of development for Ramis' Ocean Pictures production company, called him "the world's best mentor." She recalled that when she first began working for him 15 years ago as his assistant, he had to be in California for a month, and he told her that although he didn't need an assistant out there, she should go anyway because it would be a good experience for her, and he'd make sure her expenses were covered.

"He just did it for me," she said. "He loved teaching people. He loved helping people. He loved seeing people succeed."

The son of Ruth and Nathan Ramis, who owned Ace Food & Liquor Mart on the West Side before moving the store and family to Rogers Park, Ramis graduated from Senn High School and Washington University in St. Louis. For his first professional writing gig, he contributed freelance arts stories to the Chicago Daily News in the mid-1960s. He also wrote and edited Playboy magazine’s “Party Jokes” before and during his Second City days.

When, after some time off, he returned to Second City in 1972 to act alongside a relative newcomer in the cast, Ramis said he came to a major realization.

“The moment I knew I wouldn't be any huge comedy star was when I got on stage with John Belushi for the first time," he said in a 1999 Tribune interview. "When I saw how far he was willing to go to get a laugh or to make a point on stage, the language he would use, how physical he was, throwing himself literally off the stage, taking big falls, strangling other actors, I thought: I'm never going to be this big. How could I ever get enough attention on a stage with guys like this?

"I stopped being the zany. I let John be the zany. I learned that my thing was lobbing in great lines here and there, which would score big and keep me there on the stage."

With his round glasses lending a professorial air, Ramis would become the calm center of storms brewed by fellow actors, playing the bushy-haired, low-key wisecracker to Bill Murray's troublemaker in "Stripes" and being the most scientific-minded "Ghostbuster." Later roles included the sympathetic doctor of James L. Brooks' "As Good as It Gets" (1997) and the "Knocked Up" (2007) dad, whose dialogue, Apatow said, was almost all improvised.

Sahlins, who died last June, said he knew from the start that Ramis "would be an important factor in American comedy. He has all the skills and abilities to be funny and to write funny, but he also is a leader, a very nice guy. He was always looked up to, in Second City to being head writer at 'SCTV.' He was never separate from anybody. He was always one of the boys, but he was the best boy."

Ramis followed Belushi from Second City to New York City to work with him plus fellow Second City cast member Murray (who would collaborate with Ramis on six movies) on "The National Lampoon Radio Hour." Those three plus Gilda Radner also performed in a National Lampoon stage show produced by Ivan Reitman, who went on to produce "National Lampoon's Animal House" and to direct such Ramis scripts as "Meatballs," "Stripes," "Ghostbusters" and "Ghostbusters II" (1989).

"I always thought he was a very talented writer who always had a very perceptive and intelligent point of view about the material," Reitman told the Tribune in 1999. "He managed to get the people to speak in a realistic way but still found something funny in their voices."

  The Filmography of Harold Ramis

As a writer and/or director (and sometime actor), Harold Ramis is responsible for some of the most popular, enduring comedy hits of the past four decades, including four movies that rank among the American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Laughs" best-comedies list of 2000 and the top two films on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies" list of 2006. Here's a selective filmography:

"National Lampoon's Animal House" (1978; director John Landis). Ramis' first screenplay, with National Lampoon co-founder Douglas Kenney and Chris Miller, became a breakout frat-house comedy that launched Ramis' former Second City co-star John Belushi to movie stardom and established Ramis' underdog-vs.-institution theme. Selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 2001, ranked No. 1 among Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies" and No. 36 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years…100 Laughs" list. Box office (domestic): $142 million.

"Meatballs" (1979; dir. Ivan Reitman). Ramis was one of four writers on this summer-camp comedy that marked the lead-actor debut of another former Second City star and soon-to-be-frequent Ramis collaborator, Bill Murray. B.O.: $43 million.

"Caddyshack" (1980; dir. Ramis). Ramis' directorial debut co-written with Kenney and former Second City castmate Brian Doyle-Murray, this madcap golf comedy didn't get the greatest reviews or make the biggest splash upon its release, but its reputation ballooned over the years. Ranked No. 2 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies" and No. 71 on "100 Years…100 Laughs." B.O.: $40 million.

"National Lampoon’s Vacation" (1983; dir. Ramis). In this one-time pairing of Chicago's most influential comedy filmmakers of the 1980s and 1990s, Ramis directed a John Hughes script to chronicle the cross-country misadventures of the Griswold family, with "Caddyshack" star Chevy Chase in the driver's seat. Another one that gained in reputation over the years. B.O.: $61 million.

"Ghostbusters" (1984; dir. Reitman). Ramis and Dan Aykroyd co-wrote and, with Bill Murray, co-star in the highest-grossing comedy of the '80s and the decade's sixth highest-grossing film overall. Thirty years later people still get the "Who you gonna call?" references. Ranked No. 28 on "100 Years…100 Laughs." B.O.: $239 million.

 "Groundhog Day" (1993; dir. Ramis). Ramis' pinnacle as a director/writer (he co-wrote it with Danny Rubin) finds him from now on exploring characters doing battle with themselves rather than institutions. This philosophical comedy, added to the National Film Registry in 2006, casts Murray as a weathercaster fated to relive the same day over and over until he gets it right. No. 34 on "100 Years…100 Laughs." B.O.: $71 million.

"Analyze This" (1999; dir. Ramis). Just as "The Sopranos" was getting its start on HBO, Ramis (co-writing with Peter Tolan and Kenneth Lonergan) scored with this comedy that had Billy Crystal playing therapist to Robert De Niro's mob boss. Golden Globe nomination for best motion picture comedy/musical. B.O.: $107 million.

Rest In Peace Harold