While Jenkins says Nimoy's performance as Spock was a marvel of sensitivity and nuance, he is looking forward to a new actor playing Spock in an upcoming movie. Jenkins is brave enough to make a comparison to Hamlet: Like Shakespeare's conflicted hero, Jenkins says, Spock is a character for the ages.

"We can imagine seeing hundreds of different actors play Hamlet, and indeed the richness of Hamlet is seeing differences and the different interpretations of that character," Jenkins says. "With the new movie, we will for the first time see Spock as a character larger than an actor."

Nimoy drops in on retirement bash

Wright State University President Kim Goldenberg received a surprise at his retirement bash in Dayton, Ohio - a visit from Mr. Spock of "Star Trek," aka actor Leonard Nimoy.

Nimoy greeted Goldenberg with the Vulcan salute, usually paired with the well-wishing, "Live long and prosper."

Goldenberg, 59, said he and his wife, Shelley, are Trekkies.

"We don't collect the paraphernalia and all that," he said. "We like the show for its philosophies."

Goldenberg will retire Jan. 31 after nine years as president of Wright State.

About 200 people attended the celebration Thursday night at the Dayton Art Institute.

Nimoy, 75, starred in the original "Star Trek" TV series, which ran from 1966-69, and in numerous "Star Trek" movies.

Nimoy’s theatrical history began in the ’40s in Boston, where he did quite a bit of stage work. “I couldn’t stay long because I couldn’t afford it,” he explains. “I had to work to make a living, so I moved to Hollywood.”

Keep in mind, Nimoy knew he wasn’t what Hollywood’s studios needed in a leading man. His ambitions were focused on the legitimate stage. So why L.A. and not New York?

“That’s a very good question,” Nimoy reflects. “Unfortunately, the answer is kind of stupid. I didn’t have good information. I used to read Theatre Arts Magazine, and the Pasadena Playhouse [acting academy] always had a full-page ad. They had an impressive reputation. On the other hand, on the streets of Boston, if I talked to a couple of people about New York, they’d say, ‘Oh, it snows there, you’ll freeze your ass off.’ ”

In the late ’40s, while in Boston, Nimoy was playing Ralph in a production of Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing, when a pre-Broadway production of Odets’ The Big Knife rolled through, with a very successful character actor named J. Edward Bromberg.

“I sought his advice. I started calling hotels and looking for him. When I got the Ritz-Carlton, he answered the phone.

“Mr. Bromberg?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Leonard Nimoy. You saw me playing Ralph.”

“Yes. What can I do for you?”

“I want to study acting. What should I do?”

“Go to California.”

A twist of mockery plays on Nimoy’s lips: “The first professional actor I ever spoke with said, ‘Go to California.’ I had no choice.”

Leonard Nimoy's Heavy Conversation

On a brisk Tuesday night, multihyphenate actor-author-photographer- former-Vulcan-neck-gripper Leonard Nimoy is being interrogated by — no, forgive me, is having a Hammer Conversation at the museum with — science writer Natalie Angier in front of an audience desperately trying not to ask him to say, "Live long and prosper." The thing on people's minds (aside from bad Star Trek jokes) is this: What's with the pictures of the chubby girls?

(...)

"I think these people look kind of cold," Nimoy says, referring to naked Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell. "These people" — in his own version of the pictures — "look more comfortable to me."

Asked what he thinks about Captain Kirk ("Who?") and weight gain in males, Nimoy says he's not sure where to go with that question. "In reference to my friend Will Shatner, yes, he's gained some weight." He's not thought so much about fat men. The artistic process, Nimoy says at one point, is akin to walking into a dark room and looking for the light switch, but being aware that there are holes in the floor and you never know where they are. This is not a problem, however, for the clever fat girl, because no matter how big the hole, she will never fall through it.

Nimoy: I spent some time in front of a microphone doing voice work for them. I am essentially a tour guide or narrator. I don't do the Spock character. I'm an omniscient voice that tells the player what is going on (and) what to do next, 'Congratulations, you've just done this or that,' 'Now try this' or 'Think about that' or 'Make a left turn or a right turn if you want to do such and such' or so forth.

He was very good in this movie. I was really impressed in the scene where he rejects the entry into the Vulcan Science Academy, when they tell him that in spite of the flaw in his genetic makeup they are accepting him and he refuses the offer saying in effect, 'Go screw yourself.' But what he did with 'Live long and prosper' in that moment was very refreshing to me. ... I don't know whose choice it was, his or J.J. Abrams' but whatever. When I saw that I thought, 'Whoa, that's good.' Nobody ever said, 'Live long and prosper' with that subtext before.

The acting school became known as "the star machine," with students including Jamie Farr, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, William Holden, Rue McClanahan and Sally Struthers. In a recent interview, Leonard Nimoy told the L.A. Weekly that the reputation of the Pasadena Playhouse' actor training program is what drew him to California from Boston, in 1949.

Bimah Me Up, Scotty!

(...) The son of a Ukrainian-born barber, Nimoy grew up speaking Yiddish in a one-bedroom apartment shared by six relatives in Boston's West End, a Jewish enclave in the predominantly Catholic city. Klezmer music, performed by an uncle and four cousins, provided the backdrop at social events.

After Nimoy left home at 18 to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse, his knowledge of the mamaloshen helped him land roles with visiting Yiddish theater troupes. One highlight was meeting legendary star Maurice Schwartz: "I had an appointment to audition for him at a theater on La Cienega, and as I was waiting for him to acknowledge me I heard his wife say, in Yiddish, 'He looks like the gentile in 'It's Hard to be a Jew,'" Nimoy recalled with gusto. "She didn't know I spoke the language, and I thought, 'This is going to be a snap.'"

The young actor promptly landed the role and bleached his hair platinum blond for the play's 16-week run.

When asked how the ultralogical Spock would have viewed the melodramatic Yiddish theater, Nimoy heartily laughed.

"I think he would have had the same problem with it that my parents, who were from the shtetl, had with 'Star Trek,'" he said. "They just didn't get it, didn't understand it, although they were delighted that it made me a success." (...)