Leonard Simon Nimoy (photo ©Kelly Walker) was born on March 26, 1931 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA from a Orthodox Jewish family immigrated from Ukraine.

Leonard Nimoy began acting as a child so it was almost inevitable that he chose an acting career even if his father would have preferred that he attended university to find a stable job or at least he’d become an accordion player.

Leonard Nimoy found his first major role in the film “Kid Monk Baroni” in 1952 and in the following years he starred in several movies and TV series including famous ones such as “The Twilight Zone”, “The Untouchables”, “Perry Mason” and “The Outer Limits”, in which he participated in one of the most famous episodes, “I, Robot”. When the new version of “The Outer Limits” was produced in the ’90s, Leonard Nimoy took part in the remake of that episode.

During his work Leonard Nimoy met two of his future colleagues: William Shatner in an episode of “The Man from UNCLE” and DeForest Kelley in an episode of “The Virginian”, starting a long lasting friendship with both of them.

In 1965 Leonard Nimoy was cast in the role of the Vulcan Spock in the original pilot of the series “Star Trek” titled “The Cage”. That episode was rejected but when a new one was filmed with a cast almost entirely renovated Leonard Nimoy kept his role in the series that was produced and aired for three seasons.

During the series Leonard Nimoy invented the famous Vulcan salute, inspired by a gesture made by Jewish priests during a blessing. Nimoy also devised the Vulcan nerve pinch, which he suggested for a fight scene for Spock saying that for a Vulcan it would be logical to use a non-violent technique to knock out someone.

After the end of “Star Trek” Leonard Nimoy joined the cast of the series “Mission: Impossible” and later worked in other television shows and also in movies such as the remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” in 1978. However over the years the character of Spock had become a true icon and his controversial relationship with his character led him to write a first autobiography in 1977 titled “I Am Not Spock” and a second one in 1995 titled “I Am Spock”.

The production of the Star Trek movies brought Leonard Nimoy to reprise his most famous role and he was also the director of the third and fourth film. In 1991 Spock appeared in two episodes of the series “Star Trek: The Next Generation”.

Leonard Nimoy’s experience as a director has been occasional but among his few ones we should note an episode of the show “T.J. Hooker” whose protagonist was his friend William Shatner.

Over the years Leonard Nimoy has also pursued other interests such as photography and music, the latter also followed by his son Adam. His photographic works have been published in various galleries and he published several albums containing songs often related to science fiction and Star Trek.

In 2010, Leonard Nimoy has announced his retirement so his appearance in the 2009 Star Trek movie should be his last performance as Spock. Recently however Nimoy revealed that he intends to interpret again the character of William Bell in the series “Fringe” so there’s still hope to see him act again.