Fun Facts About Leonard Nimoy And Spock From Star Trek
As we all know, unless you're one of "Those" people, Leonard Nimoy played Spock, the most iconic character from Star Trek.
Fact One: Deforest Kelly was offered the role of Spock before Leonard Nimoy.
Yep, DeForest Kelly, who eventually went on to play I'm-A-Doctor-Jim-Not-A-Martian, Doctor "Bones" McCoy, was offered the role of the "Alien From Mars" in 1964. He turned it down as it would be illogical, Captain.
Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek even offered the role of Spock to Adam West, who was Batman in the original cheesy Batman television series. But Adam West couldn't fit it into his schedule as he was filming the movie Robison Crusoe on Mars at the time.
The role finally went to Leonard Nimoy after Roddenberry remembered him from his guest appearance in the pilot show. Skinny, pale, sharp facial features, Michael Jackson wasn't available either. But, Leonard Nimoy looked similar.
Fact Two: NBC, the studio which made Star Trek, actually told its creator, Gene Roddenberry, to get rid of the pointy-eared guy.
Roddenberry refused and the pointy-eared guy became the icon we know as Spock.
Roddenberry refused and the pointy-eared guy became the icon we know as Spock.
Fact Three: Spock and Captain Kirk were the only two characters to appear in every single episode of the original Star Trek series.
Fact Four: The Vulcan V-Shaped hand gesture was created by Leonard Nimoy.
Yes, the hand gesture made famous by Spock, used as a greeting much like humans would shake hands, and also whenever Spock said, "Live long and prosper," or, "Have you seen my little Spock?" was a creation of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock in the original Star Trek series and films.
It's a modified version of a gesture made by Jewish priests making the sign for the Hebrew letter, "Shin".
Fact Five: Spock was originally not meant to be a green-blooded Vulcan.
When Gene Roddenberry pitched the idea for Star Trek to the television studio NBC, he pitched Spock as a Half-Martian with a reddish complexion and pointy ears.
It was then noticed, that on black and white televisions, he wouldn't look red, he'd look black.
Leonard Nimoy was also not happy when they said he'd have to spend hours in make-up before each shoot, so they abandoned the idea and went with a slightly yellow-green tinge instead.
Fact Six: William Shatner admitted in a recent interview that he stole Leonard Nimoy's bicycle during their lunch breaks when filming Star Trek. He used it to get to the front of the queue at the canteen quicker than the rest of the cast.
Fact Seven: Leonard Nimoy was paid $1,250 per episode in the first season of the original series of Star Trek.
Fact Eight: There were two actors who couldn't do the Vulcan hand gesture.
William-I-Can't-Sing-But-I-Talk-Slow-And-Sexy-Shatner, had to have his fingers tied together with wire whenever he had to perform it for the show.
Little Spock, Zachary Quinto, the newer version of Leonard Nimoy's Spock, actually had his fingers glued together when he performed the gesture.
Fact Nine: The first interracial kiss on television was meant to be with Spock and Uhura.
It actually happened between Captain Kirk and Uhura after William Shatner basically pulled rank and insisted he should be the one to do it.
Leonard Nimoy said in an interview, "My understanding is Bill Shatner took one look at the scene and said, '"No you will not. If anyone's going to be part of a first interracial kiss in television history, it's going to be me. So they rewrote it."
Fact Ten: Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock, and William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk, actually met up two years before they were best of Star Trek friends.
They starred as enemies in an episode of The Man From Uncle in 1964.
Fact Eleven: Spock wasn't going to be in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Nope. Leonard Nimoy refused to be in the movie, having had enough of playing the pointy-eared Vulcan. It wasn't until the producers promised he'd have "The Greatest death scene in movie history" that he was persuaded.
Fact Twelve: Spock was meant to die at the beginning of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
The movie was re-written after the original script was leaked. When fans got wind of Spock dying, they went bonkers-nutso-crazy. It forced the re-writing of the script to have Spock get killed at the end of the movie.
Robert Sallin, one of the production team on the movie got messages on his answering machine, "You kill Spock, we kill YOU."
Fact Thirteen: Leonard Nimoy died on February 27th, 2015, at the age of 83.
His character, Spock, on the other hand, is currently double that age and is still going strong trying to re-populate New Vulcan by persuading other Vulcans they don't have to wait seven years between getting a bit of hanky-panky.
Yes, seven years!
Vulcans only wink-wink/nudge-nudge/hide-the-shuttlecraft-in-the-shuttlebay once every seven years! Hmm, that kinda explains the eyebrows.
Bonus Fact:
Did you know that Spock had three ears?
Yes, three.
His left ear, his right ear, and his final front ear.
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