MR. SPOCK CALLS A FAN

When a certain Star Trek fan named Cliveden Chew was attending college, she was also a member of a high-I. Q. organization called Mensa. This group decided to hold an event, the "Mammoth Mensa Malfunction" and invite some of the Star Trek actors as guests. So for this November, 1968 appearance, Leonard Nimoy found he'd been assigned Cliveden as his guest liaison with Mensa.

Any fears Mr. Nimoy might have had about ending up with a "screaming Spockie" were put to rest immediately. Cliveden's mother had already raised her children to act intelligently in every situation, warning them that "nothing brands you as a twit faster than acting like a typical movie fan." The result was that after a few conversations with Cliveden, Nimoy found she was a sensible person to deal with.

However, a small problem arose which led Nimoy to call Cliveden's college. The girl at the main switchboard was far more used to pranksters than to receiving calls from movie actors. When the caller identified himself, she had an answer.

"This is Leonard Nimoy," said the actor.

"Sure," answered the switchboard operator, "and I'm Shirley Temple!"

Nimoy got no better treatment when he finally got through to the dorm, and gave up until a later call. He was successful in reaching the dorm, but the girl who answered the phone really could not believe that a fellow dormie was actually getting a call from Mr. Spock, himself! She went slightly berserk, telling everyone about the phone call, with the result that Cliveden answered the phone with most of her dormitory going up the wall in the background!

When Cliveden came on the phone, Nimoy told her his experience with the first phone call. He got no sympathy.

"You should have known better," said Cliveden pragmatically. "Nobody is going to believe that Mr. Spock goes around calling college dorms!"

Soon after that incident, Cliveden was attending a meeting of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, one of SF fandom's oldest organizations, to hear author Theodore Sturgeon speak. Both of Sturgeon's Star Trek episodes, "Amok Time" and "Shore Leave" had been aired by that time, and interest in the TV show was quite high. Ted mentioned he had a number of books to weed out of bis collection, but didn't know what to do with them.

While other fans were just sitting there, Cliveden suggested boldly that Sturgeon could get rid of any science fiction books in her direction. This seemed a sensible idea to the author, and they exchanged phone numbers, to arrange delivery of the books.

The dormitory was by this time getting used to Cliveden's unusual callers, and seemed to wait in anticipation to see what she was up to next. They were seldom disappointed.

Trimble, Bjo, On the Good Ship Enterprise,The Donning Company/Publishers, Norfolk, 1982, p 141-142.

"Well, for some reason I always managed to say the wrong thing around Leonard, or do the wrong thing. There was a clumsiness on my part for which for which I cannot entirely account. Leonard is a highly intelligent, extremely talented, and very professional guy. And for a long time we worked very well, and earnest, together, and then, for whatever reason or series of reasons, we sort of rubbed each other funny, and I read his memoir, and he said he was very upset shooting Star Trek II the day they shot the death of Spock, when I showed up dressed as Sherlok Holmes to shoot the scene."

(Meyer goes on to say he never dressed up as Sherlok Holmes in his life. But he was going places after filming had finished for the day, and had simply shown up for work already dressed in his finest.)

"That's what I mean when I say we somehow, sometimes we'd get out of sync with each other. I have nothing but the greatest respect for him. But for some reason he made me feel or act clumsy."

When I first took the Star Trek assignment, one of the problems was that Leonard Nimoy had already written his book I Am Not Spock. He had publically put it out there that he’d never do Spock again. And one of my first challenges was to convince Leonard that he should come back, because it wouldn’t be Star Trek without him. I finally convinced him with a very simple, actor-proof argument. I said, “Leonard, if you come back, I’m going to give you the greatest death scene since Janet Leigh in Psycho. One third of the way into the picture, we’re going to kill you. The audience will be shocked. It will be the end of your problems with Spock and we will go on to complete the story.” He said, “That’s good. I like that.” So he signed on. For a variety of reasons, including Gene and the 100,000 letters the studio received from fans after it got out that we were going to kill off Spock, we couldn’t do it the way we planned. Hence a rewrite and when Nick Meyer, God bless him, came on board we found a way to extend Spock’s role. And it was much better, because I think Wrath of Khan might have been a failure if Spock had died one third of the way through it. So we got Wrath of Khan done, Nick Meyer was brilliant, and the rest is history.

He tells his stories so well that the audience ceases to ask questions and begins to ask for more stories. He obliged this request by telling the story behind the controversial death of Spock as depicted in ST 2. No other aspect of the film excited more pre-release criticism than Spock's planned demise: there were threats of boycotts by fans infuriated at what was, to them an incomprehensible decision. The anger was generated mostly at the thought of Star Trek without Spock. (Could there be a Star Trek without Spock?) Shatner explained the circumstances surrounding the decision.

"Leonard had had enough of Mr. Spock" he began. "Putting on the ears meant he had to come in an hour and a half early every morning. It was tedious. He had played the role as fully as he was going to and he felt that was enough. And he hadn't liked his experience on ST 1. So he said when ST 2 was contemplated, 'Look, I've had enough of Star Trek, it's not been good professionally, being known only as Mr. Spock. I want to do other things ... (as any actor would). Len said 'I didn't sign a life contract to play Mr. Spock and it's time for me to stop.'

"But Harve Bennett, who was coming in to produce the second movie, felt he needed Spock to create the mystique. The chemistry of Star Trek is such an unknown factor that to disturb it at all may be to ruin it. Nobody wants to touch that. Harve convinced Leonard to play Mr. Spock one more time and that he would kill the character, so he could leave the Star Trek films with the fans' approval. Even Leonard felt that would be the perfect solution to end his career as Spock.

"So, the death of Spock was written. However we wanted to keep it hidden. We didn't want to tell anybody Spock was going to die, essentially because the actor had decided that 15 years of being Mr. Spock was enough. Obviously, you couldn't blame him. You had to understand and love him.

"All right," continues Shatner, catching his breath. "We're in the middle of filming. We're having a ball and laughing with Nicholas Meyer, our director, pulling Nick's pants down. Things got to be fun and Leonard was joking with me. He loves Harve Bennett, the producer and everybody's so happy. So one day, I'm sitting in Leonard's dressing room and I say, 'You know, Len, this is going so well ... gosh ... why do you want to die?'

"Leonard looked at me. 'Who said I wanted to die?'

"I said,'You mean you'll come back?'

'Yeah,' he said, 'Listen, I'm having such a good time, maybe I won't die ... forever..."

"So me, the snitch, ran up to Harve Bennett and exclaimed, 'Guess what I've got to tell you!'

"Harve said, 'Go back to the set. You're on now.'

"'No,' I told him, 'You're going to want to hear this. Leonard just told me he wouldn't mind playing Spock again!'

"Well, Harve fell down. I picked him up and he fell down again, he was rather overcome. That was half way through the movie so we had to get clever and try to make it so even though he dies, we could bring him back to life.'

(Note: page 24 unfortuantely is missing)

Let’s move on to Search for Spock. How did Leonard Nimoy end up in the director’s chair?

Leonard came to me after Wrath of Khan and after his death scene and he said, “This is a lot of fun.” And it was. We all said it was a very jolly set. He said, “I’m game for another one, but I’d like to direct.” I said, “Terrific. I know what the next one has to be, and you got it.” So, with Leonard as director it became obvious that the next chapter in what turned out to be a trilogy would be bringing Spock back to life.

Leonard then directed The Voyage Home as well. How had he evolved as a director from III to IV?

I think Leonard put it best, actually. He said, “On Star Trek III, Harve had training wheels on me and on Star Trek IV, the training wheels came off.” Leonard didn’t have a lot of experience directing, so I spent a lot more time on the set than I would normally have, and certainly more than I had with Nick Meyer. But I think Leonard handled it very well. He got a little more resentful during Star Trek IV because he figured he had proved himself. So we had a little friction there, but we resolved it and he went on to do a magnificent job on IV. His emergence as a director was his skill triumphing over his lack of experience.

WS: He was totally open about it years ago, for an interview for a DVD. When the book came out, he called me and he was pissed, really furious. My heart sank into my boots. The last thing I'd do is hurt such a close friend.