What's New November 2012

Sighting

 

Events

Excerpts from the Q&A with Playwright Leonard Nimoy post-show opening night of "Vincent." Starring Jean-Michel Richaud. (Thanks to Bonnie for submitting)

Reviews of the play: Vincent by Leonard Nimoy at the VS Theatre, Leonard Nimoy’s ‘Vincent’ at The VS Theatre, Review: Revisiting the brush strokes in Leonard Nimoy's 'Vincent'

 

Host/Narrator

SILICON VALLEY captures the culture, history and spirit of a remarkable innovation powerhouse. Narrated by the legendary Leonard Nimoy, this program takes you through the early years of the founding of Stanford University, Hewlett-Packard, Varian, Fairchild, Intel and Apple.

The founders of Apple, HP, Intel, Fairchild, Atari, AMD, Sun, NVIDIA, Bloom Energy, Serious Energy, Shockley Semiconductor, IXYS, Lam Research, Oracle, SanDisk, Adaptec, 3Com, Octel, Netscape, Silicon Graphics, Adobe, Intuit, Coherent, Linear Technology, Cirrus Logic, Rolm, Therma, Cypress, Trimble and others, as well as Nobel Laureates, inventors, Renaissance experts, and Silicon Valley experts tell the story firsthand on how and why Silicon Valley is so different than any other place on Earth.

Source: Silicon Valley Historical Association

 

 

Interviews/Actor

The Sun Also Rises for TV

NBC also added to the story line a new scene set in World War I, and they enlarged the part of the count and Leonard Nimoy took it. But, as Joseph explains, "It's Hemingway's book used in a different technique. I'm not changing the book, I'm just putting it into a different art form."

(...)

The changes in the character of the count will offend Hemingway purists the most. Nimoy's character doesn't even appear in the novel's Spanish scenes, but in the miniseries the count has been given a pivotal role in those scenes. "The need for a suspense line was obvious," says Nimoy, 53. "Without it you have a lovely mood piece, which is what the book was. It needs a climactic moment, which is what the count provides."

Source: People, 1984

Thanks fo Grace for digging up the article.

 

Philantropist

Source: Sound Off

Interviews

"American Photography: A Century of Images"

LEONARD NIMOY, Actor/Photographer: We take photographs and we keep photographs for so many different reasons. And even within the pictures that I have in my office there are a number of reasons for having them. Some are of great emotional memories that I want to preserve. Some happen to be a record of something that I did that I’m proud of and I like to have it around me. And it’s a kind of a proof, I did that, I was there, you know.

LEONARD NIMOY

LEONARD NIMOY, Actor/Photographer: A few years ago I was invited to come to Moscow where a film of mine, a film that I’d directed, was being shown.

TITLE: LEONARD NIMOY'S FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS

LEONARD NIMOY, Actor/Photographer: So my wife and I went to Moscow and we were there for the screening and then this voyage started, a voyage back to roots. And we had done some research and discovered that there was a Nimoy family living in a city called Chmelnitsky. And there were a sizable family of Nimoys waiting for us, they’d been told we were coming. They were very suspicious of us, had no idea who we were. So there was this wary kind of standoff relationship for a while. And then we sat down, we ate, we had a couple of beers. And then when there seemed to be the appropriate moment the gentleman of the house got up and left the room and came back carrying an envelope. White envelope, obviously carefully kept in a drawer somewhere with a U.S. postage stamp on it. And I immediately recognized my mother’s handwriting on the address. It was very clear. And I got a chill. And he opened the envelope and brought out two small black and white snapshots, and laid them out on a table in front of me and said to me, do you know these people? And through the interpreter who was with us and through Yiddish, which I speak and he spoke, I said I do, this photograph is one of my children. This was 25 years later, and because I was able to identify these children, obviously immediately made connection and understood what our relationship was. So you are the son of... and he was the brother of... and the family tree was established. Those people had been holding on to those photographs for 25 years. That was their connection to family in the United States. And there had been no further communication. But they had them carefully taken care of like something precious in a drawer.

Source: American Photography: A Century of Images, Show Transcrips, Episode 1: The Developing Image, 1900 - 1934

 

Recordings

SIMCHA GOTTLIEB & CHAIM CLORFENE:
The Mysterious Golem of Prague (feat. Leonard Nimoy)

http://cdbaby.com/cd/simchagottliebandchaimcl

1 - The Golem Rises
2 - The Last Blood Libel

 

Based on the true Kabbalah classic "Wonders of the Maharal" - a supernatural tale of intrigue, blind hatred, revenge, and justice won.

A peace-loving people is falsely accused of horrific crimes against humanity - the historic "blood libel." Their leader invokes the secret teachings of Kabbalah to create a living creature out of clay to save them: the Golem - half man, half monster, with the eyes of a demon and the heart of an innocent child.

It happened more than four centuries ago, yet its powerful dramatic significance still rings true. The "Maharal" - Rabbi Yehudah Loew - was one of the great sages of all time, a master of the esoteric lore, and beloved spiritual leader of 16th Century European Jewry. A statue in his likeness, and a statue of his creation, the Golem, still stand in the city of Prague today.

Recorded in Israel, New York, and Hollywood in the timeless style of classical radio drama, The Mysterious Golem will thrill listeners young and old for many years to come.

Submitted by Grace. Many Thanks. Listen to it at Pathway Radio. Will be broadcast from Sunday 18th. to Friday 23rd at 7 p.m.

Interviews

Looking with Leonard Nimoy

Sometimes secrets are secret for a reason. Were you at all concerned about not letting people embarrass themselves or look foolish? Absolutely. A couple people, in the course of my photographing them, did something that I felt was inappropriate. I was getting into territory that I was not qualified to get into. Or I felt that people wanted some form of communication from me that I was not capable of handling. I dismissed those people as subjects. On the funny side of this, after these sessions were over — my wife and I were staying at a hotel not far from the studio — and the morning we were leaving to go to the airport we went outside to wait for a car and we saw four or five of the subjects I’d photographed. They said, ‘Mr. Nimoy, the talks we had with you made us want to explore some of these things — I’m paraphrasing — made us want to explore and talk more about some of the things about ourselves that we hadn’t thought about.’ I’d inadvertently started a therapy group. They asked if I wanted to be in their group. I said, ‘Thanks, but I’m getting on a plane.’ But I was pleasantly surprised at how open and generous people were.

Did the fact that as a famous actor you have very distinct public and private selves make the idea of exploring secret selves particularly interesting to you? Look, my secret self has been out in public for about 45 years. I have acted it out in a lot of different ways, whether it’s through Spock or other things. If someone were to ask me, “Who are you?” I think the answer should be self-evident. Like my wife says, what you see is what you get with me.

Source: Something From Nothing Sometimes, May 11, 2010

 

Voices

Photographer Spotlight – Leonard Nimoy

Live Long and Prosper As A Photographer, Film Director Actor, Poet, Singer and Songwriter: Leonard Nimoy at 80

Being a lifelong photographer while at the same time being a lifelong photographer gives me a 40 year perspective of others careers to follow. The first to come to mind is Ansel Adams primarily because I met him and was a fan of his work from such a young age. At that same time I was also a Trekkie. Still am. Best of both worlds? For years I’ve been a fan of Leonard Nimoy not only as one of my favorite actors (Trekkie here), but additionally from one of his other multiple art forms he is so passionate about and engaged in, photography.

As you can see from the subtitle, Leonard Nimoy recently turned 80 years young. Upon reading that headline on one of the news services in the past month I decided to go out and view more of his photographic work which I’ve seen over the years. His earlier work was done in the same medium many of us started out in, black and white film. Mix in some color photography and many years experience, you have an accomplished artist, in multiple art forms.

Publicity Biography

Leonard Nimoy was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1931. After his feature film debut in 1951, he pursued his acting career on the big screen as well as on stage and television. However, it was Nimoy’s portrayal of the character Mr. Spock in the science fiction series “Star Trek” that earned him iconic status as well as three Emmy nominations. Aside from his numerous credits as an actor and director, Nimoy is also a successful recording artist and author, having published two autobiographies as well as several volumes of poetry, two of which also feature his photographs. He has long been interested in photography, and studied at UCLA with Robert Heineken in the early 1970s. He recently finished an appointment as artist-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome. Nimoy is represented by Bonni Benrubi Gallery in New York and Louis Stern Fine Art in Los Angeles. Donald Kuspit (Essay) is an art critic and a professor of art history and philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. An author of numerous articles, exhibition reviews, and catalog essays, Kuspit has written more than twenty books, including Redeeming Art: Critical Reveries (Allworth), and Idiosyncratic Identities: Artists At The End Of The Avant-Garde (Cambridge University Press.)

Nimoy is also represented by The R. Michelson Galleries which hosts his photography website.

My first view of Leonard Nimoy as a photographer was from his controversial book published in 2002 titled Shekhina. The reason for the controversy was simply Nimoy’s nude interpretations. Personally, the images were tasteful and extremely well done. Different than any other nude or semi-nude work I’ve seen. The theme was beauty, spirituality. Not sex or pornography in which he was blamed in certain circles. A dilemma that many artist struggles through, pornography vs art in the eyes of those that really don’t know what they are even talking about or visualizing, and that is a kind statement. Naysayers don’t know what the words art or visualization even mean however they do know how to preach to others what is tasteful and what isn’t.

Book Description:

Shekhina presents the first-ever monograph of Leonard Nimoy, photographer. This exhaustive and eerily beautiful photographic study of the female form reveals Nimoy’s intrigue with scriptural mythology and ancient spirituality. According to the Kabbalah, evil came into the world once God became separate from the “Shekhina,” the deity’s feminine counterpart. The Shekhina came to be understood as a crucial element of both divine and human spirit, symbolizing the creativity and wisdom without which no human being is complete. Renowned actor and director Leonard Nimoy has turned to photography as a means of inquiry into the mysteries of the Shekhina. In his introductory text, Nimoy elaborates on the influence Shekhina has had on the work: “I have imagined her as ubiquitous, watchful and often in motion…This work is my quest for insight, the exploration of my own spirituality, and, as such, has been a deeply moving and expanding process.” Shekhina Limited Edition with a print, signed and numbered by the photographer and limited to 75 copies, is available upon request (ISBN: 1-884167-21-X).

Recent Work

Nimoy’s work in photography is a life long pursuit of art. Since publishing Shekhina, Nimoy has continued his photographic work, shows and books. In 2007, Nimoy published The Full Body Project in which Nimoy captures images of full-bodied women, some of whom are involved in what is known as the “fat acceptance” movement. “The average American woman,” Nimoy writes, “weighs 25 percent more than the models selling the clothes. There is a huge industry built up around selling women ways to get their bodies closer to the fantasy ideal. Pills, diets, surgery, workout programs. . . . The message is ‘You don’t look right. If you buy our product, you can get there.’”

80 years young, still kicking out films and his other art forms. Thank you Leonard, we can’t wait to see and hear what else you have in store for us for the next 80 years. Please, keep creating images!

Source: Digital Photography Daily

 

 

Interviews

Nimoy’s photos explore femininity of divinity
Actor known for ‘Star Trek’ role now pursues photography

5/20/2004

With his collection of photos, Nimoy probes his understanding of Shekhina. Using professional models, actresses and dancers — not all of whom are Jewish — as well as his wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, he sought subjects who possessed “an inner life.”

“I needed models who could bring the sense of spirit to life,” he said. “They needed to bring vitality.”

But his use of nude and partly clad female models donning a tallit and tefillin — Jewish prayer accessories traditionally worn by men — has ignited controversy in some parts of the Jewish community.

“Shekhina” was banned from a Jewish book fair in Detroit last year, and Nimoy’s appearance at a fund-raising dinner for the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle was canceled shortly after the book was published.

But his photos have been well received at many Reform synagogues and at art galleries and museums around the country.

In Northampton, a liberal college town that’s home to the all-women Smith College, a line of people snaked out the gallery door when Nimoy attended the exhibit’s opening May 2.

“This is a perfect place for his work,” gallery owner Richard Michelson said. “This is an area with a lot of liberal Jews who are interested in what he’s doing and his approach to the feminine side of spirituality.”

While Michelson attributes the jam-packed opening to Nimoy’s celebrity, he said people walked away from the exhibit more impressed with Nimoy the photographer than with Nimoy the Vulcan.

Source: Today

 

 

Conventions

Leonard Nimoy Quinto and Nimoy Together Spock and Spock 2.0

Grand Slam XVI (2008)

Happy Leonard Nimoy Day!

In 2009 the city of Bosten declared the 14th of November "Leonard Nimoy Day." How do you celebrate?

I'm watching Star Trek TOS right now, upping the ratings :)

 

Voices

Star Wars: can Disney bring back Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo?

Just as Abrams chose Nimoy's gentle, statesmanlike Spock to return in Star Trek over a Shatner who would have sucked up all the available oxygen from the room, Disney needs to avoid the kind of iconic figure who could well expect to be given centre stage. In any case, if Disney needs a Solo-like charismatic scoundrel for the new series, there is a ready-made younger replacement in the form of Firefly's Nathan Fillion. Ford should be left in the green room.

Source: The Guardian

Thanks to Grace for submitting.

 

Actor

West Point - A 4-DVD Set of the Show Also Known As 'West Point Story' is Coming
The show's 40-episode run included 9 episodes from Star Trek's Gene Roddenberry
Posted by David Lambert
11/09/2012


West Point, produced with the full cooperation of the United States Department of Defense and the United States Military Academy, was based on actual files documenting many of the real-life dramatic occurrences at West Point over the years. Running from 1956 to 1957 the show featured big name guest stars such as Chuck Connors, Clint Eastwood, and Barbara Eden. It also showcased a young writer named Gene Roddenberry who wrote 9 episodes of West Point before going on to create the classic original Star Trek television program.
In 2 seasons on two networks (CBS for 1956-57 and ABC for 57-58) we got 40 episodes of West Point (a.k.a. The West Point Story). The show was hosted by Donald May (Texas) as "Cadet Charles C. Thompson," and featured a large number of guest stars who reportedly included Chuck Conners, Clint Eastwood, Leonard Nimoy, Dick Sargent, Robert Vaughn, Pat Crowley, Henry Silva, Barbara Eden, Larry Hagman, Gloria Talbott and Martin Milner.

Source: TV Shows on DVD

1.7 [--] West Point Story (anthology): HIS BROTHER'S FIST (aka "The Boxer")
ZIV Release No. 1007
16Nov56 CBS Fri
written by William Bruckner & Don Brinkley
Hosted by: Donald May (as Cadet Charles C. Thompson)
starring
Leonard Nimoy ........ Tom Kennedy
John Beradino ........ Rick Kennedy
Jeff Harris .......... Lon Milliken
Rodney Bell .......... Bud York
Michael Garth ........ Captain Rogers
Synopsis 1:
Tom Kennedy, young Golden Gloves middleweight champion, comes to West Point. [RF]
Synopsis 2:
After winning the national Golden Gloves middleweight championship, Tom Kennedy enters West Point, intent only on a career
with the Army. But his brother, a successful boxer, determines Tom should follow in his footsteps, and tells the company
commander Tom is a coward and should be expelled. [RF]

 

1.28 [--] West Point Story (anthology): COLD PERIL
ZIV Release No. 1028
12Apr57 CBS Fri
written by Don Brinkley
starring
Leonard Nimoy ....... Kennedy
Larry Pennell ....... Marson
Synopsis:
A cadet, wanting to visit his girl, takes an unauthorized leave and a dangerous walk across a frozen river. [RF]
*
NY TV Guide Vol.6 No.17 April 26-May 2, 1958
April 27, 1958 (page A-19)
West Point: "Cold Peril"
A cadet takes an unauthorized leave on Saturday afternoon. He walks across the Frozen waters of the Hudson River to
visit his girl who lives on the other side. His buddies at the point learn that an ice breaker is headed toward that
part of the river and try to get their friend back before he's stranded on the other side.[WV]

Source: CTVA - The Classic TV Archive

 

Voices (Link Corrected)

Bonnie had the chance to attend the 2012 Modern Film Fest in Kannapolis, NC and to speak to Nicholas Meyer. Read her report from the event here.

Many thanks for sharing your impressions.

 

Sighting

Leonard Nimoy at the Company of Angels Gala, October 2009

 

 

Voices

McGovern ’72: An Oral History

Barbara McKenzie, senior campaign organizer: Who even thinks of hunting for Democrats in states like Alabama or Utah or Wyoming? Well, you do the arithmetic, and you figure it out pretty quickly. So while the other candidates are focused on the big states and big cities, we’re getting a handful of delegates in Utah, seven in Montana, and three in Wyoming, where Leonard Nimoy went out to the caucus and helped set up chairs. It was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, piece by piece. Very quietly, we got more than 300 delegates that way.

Source: Vanity Fair

 

Death with Dignity

 

 

Leonard Nimoy Supports Death with Dignity

I'm known for playing a character lacking in emotion, but this issue is about human compassion for those suffering and dying. It's maybe the most important issue you've not heard much about, Death with Dignity.

-Leonard Nimoy, in a PSA he did to help the Massachusetts effort

Seeing Leonard Nimoy's video about the Massachusetts Death with Dignity initiative warmed my heart (you can view the whole video on Dignity 2012's Facebook page). Nimoy hails from Boston, and with his celebrity and commitment to improving end-of-life options in his home state, he'll help many others understand what it means to die with dignity.

As he says in the opening sequence of the video, Death with Dignity laws aren't part of people's lives most of the time. Heck, as a society we're really good at avoiding even the general topic of death the majority of the time. For those not in a field related to end-of-life care, death happens to force its way into people's consciousness only periodically—when writing a student essay about it, facing death as a loved one dies, or contemplating mortality because of a single experience or diagnosis. But what if death were discussed more often?

Without being more open about discussing death and dying, many people are dying having never heard about end-of-life resources like hospice and palliative care and enduring invasive procedures they didn't want because they didn't tell their loved ones about their end-of-life care wishes. More than ever, people are spending their final days in an environment where none of us want to end up: the ICU. What a tragedy. By avoiding talking about death, people are actually suffering more as they die.

Thankfully, Nimoy isn't the only celebrity willing to talk about the realities of dying. A few weeks back, columnist, Ellen Goodman helped launch The Conversation Project, and she's been joined by several of her peers in the media, including Diane Sawyer and Tom Brokaw, to bring end-of-life care discussions out into the open.

It's not that celebrities have more knowledge about end-of-life issues than the rest of us, but they have a way to get the information out to a much larger audience. Hopefully, as well-known individuals continue to have these public conversations, death will be a subject our society won't be as eager to avoid. Talking more about the end of our lives and how we want to live them will lead us to knowing more about our options, and in the end, that knowledge can help us all die better.

Source: Death With Dignity National Center

 

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