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Multiplexado por: Arya y Aristóteles Arenas aris.arenas@gmail.com 78713043 - 75725656 Potosí - Bolivia

(new age music playing) - [Narrator] Two men,

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passionate actors, closest of friends.

Born just four days apart,

they share more than just being of the same generation,

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but a legacy that helped to define many generations.

Now they can finally look back

with the only other person on the planet

who can truly identify with their amazing journey

to boldly go where neither man has gone before,

and along the way reveal the secrets

behind the voyage of a lifetime.

(new age music playing)

- This is a beautiful setting,

- Thank you.

- reflecting the beauty that is in you and your wife,

mostly your wife. - Do you know...

(Leonard laughing)

- Give a little, take a little. (laughs)

Give a compliment, take it away. (laughs)

- Never be totally generous. (laughs)

- Did you know that I used to drive

a taxi in this neighborhood?

- No. - [Leonard] I did.

- Come on. - [Leonard] I did.

- We are in one of the better sections,

and perhaps the best section,

but who's counting, of Los Angeles,

and you drove a cab up here ferrying

the movie stars to their homes?

- 1956.

- There were no movie stars over here.

- 10 years before you and I met.

- Was all oil money.

- And I was just outta the Army.

And while I was in the army, I got married,

and my daughter, Julie was born

in Atlanta, Georgia at the Army post hospital.

And my wife was expecting our second baby.

I came outta the army with no money,

and very little in the way of any career expectations.

And I had to pay the rent.

So the first thing I did was take a job driving a taxi.

Nights.

- That's wild, did you make any money?

- I went a long time before I could

actually make a living as an actor.

I mean, from the time I decided to be an actor

when I was about 17

to the time that we met and started to do Star Trek

when I was about 35,

about 18 years there,

about 15 years of it actually here in Los Angeles

looking for work as an actor.

I never had a job that lasted any longer

than two weeks as an actor.

- So what would you have made in those two weeks,

or what did those 15 years average out as an actor?

- Oh, very little, very little.

The money was very small.

But living expenses were not that high either.

And I always worked at something else.

I would always take some kind of a job

working at a market, or driving a taxi,

or delivering newspapers, or working at a pet shop, or...

- So, give me an idea

of how much money you made in a year.

- [Leonard] As an actor? - Yeah.

- Couple thousand dollars.

Four... Five... 4,000... 5,000... was...

- [William] A big year was the...

- Six... 10 was my goal.

I thought if I make 10, I could support a family.

- And in those years, 10,000 would've supported a family.

- [Leonard] Would support a family.

Tell me about your early years. We never talked about that.

- Well, I had exactly the opposite experience, I started...

- To make great fortunes instantly. (laughing)

- Piddling amounts constantly.

- So, how come?

- But I always made money at...

- How come you had an easier time of it than I did then?

- I don't know.

It's an interesting question. What?

The flip answer is obvious,

but rather than go there, it is...

- Are you better looking than I am?

- No.

- Are you more talented than me?

- No, see, I brought my glasses to show you

that I don't really need them. (Leonard Nimoy laughing)

It is in fact luck.

- I had a number of years

of what's known as building character.

- [William] It is. - Character building years.

- Do you think that made you bitter at all?

- No, no, no.

I, no, On the contrary, I very grateful.

I was bitter at then. Yes.

I was very unhappy. Very angry.

- Angry. Now who are you angry at?

- It was a very general kind of anger.

That in those years, the studios had,

as I'm sure you recall, a certain kind of structure

for actors, contract actors.

They would put under the contract,

and use them and move them along,

hopefully from smaller roles to bigger

and bigger and bigger roles.

And then maybe to stardom.

My problem was that the people that they were hiring,

were blonde charming looking guys, blue eyed,

handsome, young guys like you.

So I became angry at you.

(both men laughing)

- That's the answer.

- [Leonard] That's where it began.

I had great confidence

and I didn't wanna be dealt with lightly.

I didn't wanna be dismissed lightly.

I wanted to be taken seriously.

That was a major thrust for me to be taken seriously.

- So...

- And to retain as much dignity as possible...

- Okay.

- And Under tough circumstances.

- Okay, now.

That's so interesting, that statement right there.

- Yeah. - Okay.

Because the Leonard I know is that man filled with...

- Anger? - [William] No.

- No.

- Art. - Yeah.

- The love of art. The love of people.

The love of... The love of life,

the love of food, the love of...

Look at your beautiful home. It reflects you.

They now say, got this wonderful part,

I'm gonna put ears on you.

And we may snip off the ears,

the old story of maybe we snip them off.

Maybe we don't snip them off,

and you're gonna do a mind meld,

and you're gonna hold up your hand and make a "U".

I know.

Yeah. See, I can't do that.

That was your Judaic idea.

I... the wonderful creation you made, as Mr. Spock,

does not carry with it the elements

of dignity and taken seriously that you're talking about.

You would rather have been Hamlet.

- Well, let's back up for a moment.

My hope and dream was to make a living as an actor

and to play character roles.

And what really attracted me

and made the the Spock character valid for me,

made it worthwhile pursuing,

was the idea that this character

had a very interesting internal life.

Internal life based on a genetic conflict.

A human mother and a Vulcan father.

That conflict, that internal conflict,

gave me a sense that there was something

constantly brewing in his character.

Some of these characters,

this character was constantly working on himself

in some way,

was constantly conscious of his internal struggle

and therefore was alive.

I think we all have these internal struggles.

I think young people go through periods

where they're trying to figure out how to balance

the right brain versus the left.

How to balance their logic

and the things that must get done

and that are real versus their emotions,

which may or may not be based on reality.

- I understand all that.

- So it gave me a life.

- You're bringing, you brought your art.

- Right.

- To this part.

- Well, that's a nice way of putting it.

- Well, no, it's true.

- I agree. - It's absolutely true.

- And a certain amount of craft.

- [William] No, all... Not a certain amount.

You brought a great deal of craft and a great deal of art.

To the part of Mr. Spock.

But you still can't get past the fact

that what we all were performing in,

was, you know, a series.

It was cartoonish.

- Now we get to that.

Now, you're absolutely right. So, the concern was...

- So, when they say, Spock, Mr. Spock,

is not, hey, loved your Hamlet. Okay?

- No. (laughs)

- [William] So it doesn't fit

with the picture you wanted to paint.

- No. So there was a constant struggle

to keep the focus on the dignity of the work

and there was a constant concern that the work be seen...

Should not be seen as frivolous and silly.

That's exactly right.

- [William] So that's, when did you...

- So, how do you deal with people, say,

hey, where's your pointed ears?

- Right. That would like destroy it.

- Painful.

- [William] Painful. - Yeah.

- You've touched on something I had forgotten about.

Does that struggle to keep the show, the characters,

our work focused in an area that could be taken seriously

and not be seen silly and frivolous.

And you remind me of the quintessential demonstration

of that struggle.

We were doing a press conference,

maybe a month before the airing of the first show.

The press had never seen our show.

And each of us were assigned a group of reporters

and we moved from one to the other to answer questions.

And they were putting questions to me like,

what's the show about?

And what's the character you play,

and you play a character with pointed ears

and he's from another planet and, yeah,

but you gotta understand, we're doing...

We're doing really interesting stories.

We're doing stories about overpopulation.

We're doing stories about racial issues.

We're doing stories about the ecology,

we're doing stories about loyalty and brotherhood

and helping each other and that sort of thing.

But you'd play a character with point of view, yes,

but this is a very interesting character,

very intelligent, a great dignity,

great sense of himself as a person

and a functional person of a scientist,

bright man, you know, and so forth.

Okay. So the next day you and I are playing a scene on stage

that's being filmed.

And this group of reporters are brought in

to watch us film the scene.

And the scene has me lying on the bed at sick bay,

and I'm laying that prostrate,

green blood dripping from my forehead.

You come rushing in and say what happened, Spock?

And I say, captain, the monster attacked me. (laughs)

I thought in a moment all that conversation is gone.

- I got another moment to remind you of, apropos of that.

My father died while we were in the first year.

And I leaned on you literally and figuratively for support

during those hours between filming,

hearing my father died at lunch.

He died in Miami. I had to fly to Miami that evening.

And I made the conscious decision

to continue working that afternoon

because there was nothing else for me to do.

But then I couldn't remember my lines.

So, we fumbled our way through an afternoon's work,

which was probably discarded on Monday.

In any case, I was gone the weekend.

And when I came back

in shock from grief of my beloved father,

we started to pick...

We picked up on a scene and this was a segment

that had the Horta, I've forgotten the name of the show.

- The name of the show was Devil in the Dark.

- Devil In the Dark. And we had our hands on the Horta.

- Right. - And the Horta was sending...

- Dangerous Dangerous creature.

- Dangerous creature. And the creature was sending out...

You were doing a mind meld - Yes.

- With the Horta. - Yes.

- And we had shot all your stuff while I was gone.

I guess it was a Tuesday.

And I was... And on Monday you had shot all your shots.

And now we were reversing on me on Tuesday.

So they didn't miss a beat on the schedule.

And you off screen were playing full out

to give me, your friend, some of the feeling

you had had when you were performing.

- [Leonard] For you to react to it.

- For me to react.

You were feeling the Horta

and you realized the Horta was in pain

and out of the depths of your soul,

you said, pain! Pain!

And I, in my shock, wanting to show everybody, it's okay,

I'm alright, we'll be okay.

I said, Get that man an aspirin.

(Leonard Nimoy laughs)

- Everybody laughed but you.

Until now. You didn't speak to me for weeks.

(Leonard Nimoy continues laughing uproariously)

- I remember it very well.

- And I didn't realize what I had tapped into,

I was coming off of something else.

You were coming to this part with that...

- Making a commitment.

- [William] Making a commitment,

not only for that moment, but in general.

To hell with the ears.

I'm bringing dignity and craft and art to this part.

and now I'm being discounted

by bring this man an aspirin.

By this actor.

- Who never drove a... Never drove a cab,

he never flushed...

- He never worked in a pet shop. (both laughing)

- How dare he! I never realized...

- You want me... You want an aspirin?

- [William] Yeah, right. You think I need an aspirin?

Oh, that's... You need a knuckle sandwich.

(both laughing)

We went on, but until this moment,

I never fully comprehended the... how I tread...

- [Leonard] What you stepped into.

- What I trod on. And then you were in the army.

Not in the Marines, But don't tread on me,

I guess was your motto.

- That's funny.

What do you remember about the very first time?

Well, how did you get the job?

Did, did they call you and say,

said like you to play this role.

- That's exactly what happened, Leonard.

They had made, as you well know,

cause you were in it, a pilot for NBC.

And it didn't sell.

And Jeffrey Hunter was in the pilot.

NBC wanted Gene Roddenberry to do a rewrite

or do another script.

He fired everybody, with the exception of yourself.

And as you know, what you did on that pilot, first pilot,

you completely reworked on the second show.

So, they offered me the job.

I looked at the pilot, I saw an interesting show,

and I saw the reason why it didn't sell.

Everybody was taking themselves so importantly.

- Seriously. - So seriously, one.

And two is there was no humor.

I guess they're related, but it was ponderous

in that it went along along along

because everybody was being out in space.

And a corollary of that was there was no humor.

So when I talked about that,

that was the two things that I...

- I don't know if you've ever heard me

talk about the difference

between my playing against Jeffrey Hunter

and playing against you.

- I've never heard... - Well...

you might find this interesting.

I've always said that one of the reasons

for the shift in the Spock character when you came on board

was because when I was working with Jeffrey Hunter,

Jeffrey Hunter was a very internalized actor.

Very fine actor, very intelligent man.

This was his style of work.

He was very internalized, very thoughtful.

There's an old joke about two actors

preparing to play a scene and one says to the other,

What are you gonna play in this scene?

And the one says, I'm playing nothing.

The other one says, No, no, no,

you can't play nothing, I'm playing nothing.

So, here's Jeffrey Hunter playing this quiet,

internalized performance.

And I felt the need to help drive something

in opposition to that. - [William] Right.

- Otherwise, we're both playing nothing.

- [William] Right. Right. Right.

- [Leonard] And when you came on board with your energy

and a sense of humor and a twinkle in the eye,

I was able to then become the core Spock.

- You smiled in the first one.

And never smiled again.

- No, never again, that's right.

- And that is a tectonic shift.

- Yes.

- And that required either you worked from instinct

the moment and you realized several days later,

Hey, I didn't smile.

I'm not going to, Or you planned it and said,

I didn't like what I did there.

I think this is better.

- No, I knew it was a mistake after the fact.

When I saw it, I thought it destroys a mystique.

It destroys the design of this person.

This person smiling is not appropriate.

This person is not necessarily a negative or dour person,

but this person is not a frivolous person.

This person must be played as a scientist

and a student of what's going on.

- [William] But what is interesting to me about that,

is you chose to have the dignity

and the seriousness of purpose

that you talked about being of yourself.

- Yes.

- [William] You invested in the character.

- Yes.

- You also carried that out off screen.

- Oh, I couldn't help it.

- We'd sit around the set like this.

- Yeah.

- And I'd be telling a joke,

about two actors who said, I'm playing nothing.

No, you can't, you...

- And what would I do?

- You wouldn't laugh.

- No. No. No.

- You would sit there like you are now.

- Yeah. - [William] And study...

- And look at... - [William] And study...

You'd study it.

No matter how funny I thought it was.

- It was.... Yeah.

I had a problem with that.

I had a problem on weekends out of, you know,

you play a character like that, what,

8, 10, 12 hours a day, five days a week.

Most of your waking life then is in that character.

And I find it very difficult to turn it on and turn it off.

So stepping out of the set and into a chair,

waiting for the next setup,

I couldn't shift out of it that easily.

- Leonard, I'm gonna question you on that.

- Okay. - [William] Okay.

Because it doesn't make any sense to me.

Because because you are a professional actor

and we know that we go to work,

we take on the character, makeup, costume,

wardrobe, everything.

Put on a voice, put on the thing, put on a look,

try and make it real...

Cut. It's over. Cup of coffee, cigarette.

How are you doing? What'd you do over the weekend?

End of day wrap. Take off the makeup, get the thing fine.

Would you like to go have a drink?

Would you like to go to a party? Would you like go?

Okay, great.

We carry on our lives, just because we're actors.

Your life went on, your other life,

your real... or the other life of the non-actors.

- Don't you carry home,

depending on the role you're playing,

Don't you carry home... - No. Never.

- Off stage, something of the character?

- No. - Well, I can't.

- You carried home even to this day?

- No. No. Not today.

No, not today.

Today is different.

As a matter of fact, when I was doing Star Trek four,

the energy of communicating with people as a director

and then stepping into a scene as Spock,

was very, very difficult.

Very difficult. - [William] Wow.

- Very difficult. - [William] Wow.

- Like, like, like, like wrenching.

Like wrenching. Really very painful in a way.

Because I would be concerned,

I've got to play the scene in a few moments

and I, as a director, I wanna be somebody else.

But I found myself constraining myself as a director,

trying to stay somewhere closer to the character,

so I wouldn't have to do such a major shift

when it came time to play the scene.

So I'd be talking to you or somebody else

about how the scene's gonna go.

You're gonna be here and the camera's gonna be over there.

But I would find myself gauging the energy that went into it

in such a way that I wouldn't have such a distance

to travel back to the character

when I stepped into the scene.

I... That's... I couldn't help that.

- Wow. well, that's a way of working that...

It comes from training, early training.

- Through a certain kind of training. Yeah, yeah.

I believed in making that investment in the character,

particularly that kind of character

that was so, so boxed... so specific.

How did you feel about when the show became successful

and you found yourself on the street,

people yelling, hey, Kirk, how did that feel to you?

- [William] I'd never had that experience before.

I mean, I'd been a popular actor

and I'd done things that people recognized before,

but they never called me by the name of the character.

- Character identification.

- The character identification. So, I kind of disparaged it.

I thought, well, I thought to myself, What is that?

You know? That's crazy.

And then the same thing with these conventions

that started after the show got popular,

or sometime after the show was canceled,

as it got more popular, conventions started,

and people, they started asking us to go to conventions.

And I'm not gonna go to, that's not dignified.

Actors don't go to conventions, you know, that's for mobs.

It's mob psychology. And I wasn't gonna do that.

- So was it all negative for you?

The celebrity and the stardom?

- In a way, yes.

And then with a quick twist, no. The...

- What was the twist? What was the twist?

- The twist is, as we are talking,

I'm planning on leaving your home.

I gotta perform in Las Vegas.

I'm gonna go to New York,

do some spectacular things and see some spectacular things.

Because I'm a celebrity.

Saturday, I perform in New York,

Sunday, I perform in Houston.

And I'm back here and I've done a whirlwind performance,

exciting life, lights, limousines, great restaurants.

You know, it's the fantasy

of what people think Hollywood is.

We know it isn't, but it is the fantasy of what it is.

So, I'm living the fantasy

of a celebrity by this performance.

And by the... - And enjoying it?

- And enjoying it,

having the greatest time, taking my wife and I

and we'll just have the most wonderful time.

- And you have opportunities to be creative.

- And opportunities to be creative

in a non diagrammed way, in a totally informal way.

So that's the beauty of the celebrity,

what isn't pretty is the lack of privacy in every...

- [Leonard] And when they yell Kirk at you now,

do you feel any differently than you did 30 years ago?

- I still got a little twinge. It's like a...

- You wave back? Do you ignore it?

What do you do?

- It depends how I'm feeling.

- Do you sign autographs on the street?

- Rarely.

And the reason I do that now,

is because mostly they want me to sign pictures

that I know they're gonna sell.

- There's a lot of commerce in fandom.

- [William] Yeah. And I don't want to go there.

So I say, I know you're selling those pictures.

And they say, no, I promise you we're not.

I say no you are. And I'm not signing it.

- I resent it when I get a sense that we're being stalked.

If you get off an airplane in LA or New York

and there's a bunch of people

waiting with Star Trek pictures there...

- [William] That's what I mean.

- Somebody has called those people

and said, he's on this plane.

- So, they know everything about you.

They know where you stayed.

- [Leonard] I resent that. I resent that.

But in general, I feel a great sense of warmth

and positive support come from most people.

Those are prickly circumstances and they're troublesome.

But in general, I feel good about it.

And above all, above all, I'm very grateful.

And, it took me a while,

but I got rid of all that anger.

That went away when I realized

that I have never had to worry about work

ever since Star Trek went on the air.

- [William] Right.

Let me go to the anger part again.

- Yeah.

- And how you dealt with that anger offscreen.

How did you try and suppress it?

- The worst moment, The worst, the worst focal period for me

was shortly after we began shooting the series.

When I had this fantasy that I had found a home as an actor.

That all of the previous work that I had done,

literally they would have your name

on the dressing room door in chalk.

Literally there, it would be in chalk,

or taped on with a piece of tape

that could be ripped off when you're done,

and next person comes into this dressing room

where they wipe you off and you're gone.

The parking space never had a permanent sign on it.

Suddenly, there's a parking space with a permanent sign,

a dressing room with a name painted on the door

that you know was gonna be there for a few months.

That was extraordinary to me.

And I thought I'd found a family.

My brother, the writers and producers

were the father figures,

sisters who were actresses on the show.

It was a family to me.

I looked forward each day to coming in

to go to work with my family,

my artistic creative family.

And when I began to discover that the studio

was not necessarily your friend or your father,

or your parent or your relative in any way,

that they were contract people,

studying to see was how much are we paying him?

And if he asks for any more,

tell him, we'll get somebody else to wear the ears.

That kind of thing. He wants a phone for his dressing room?

Is it in the contract? No, no phone.

No, no, no, no, no.

He wants to get off on Friday to go, No, no, no.

He has to work till 6:15. You know, that kind of thing.

And I... And there was no give.

There was no dealing in a familial way

that made me very confused.

- And angry.

- And angry. Very angry.

And I went into therapy over it.

- [William] Really? - Yeah.

I started seeing a doctor a couple of times a week.

While we were shooting? - Yeah.

And it was all about that issue.

Why is this happening?

Why can't we have reasonable conversations about things?

Why are they being so dictatorial?

Why do they seem to be so angry at me?

But we are loved by the fans.

We're getting all this fan mail.

We get adulation in the press, in the fan magazines.

We go out in the street, people yell us, hey, Star Trek.

Hey Spock. Hey Kirk.

Why is the studio acting so off standish?

Why are the producers acting so standoffish?

- Did your therapist have any answers?

- Well, no, I didn't go to him for answers.

I went to kind of talk it out to feel...

And I realized that that was a fantasy that I had.

That it's all about contracts.

It's not about not about marriage,

it's not about relationship. It's not about love.

We didn't come together because we love each other.

We came together

because we have to do business with each other.

And that doesn't necessarily mean that we love each other.

It doesn't necessarily mean you're a family.

And that was very disappointing to me.

But I finally had to learn about it.

And then the anger started to dissipate.

Then I developed a peace about it.

I came to terms with it and I became peaceful about it.

- So by the third year you were peaceful about it?

- Yeah, pretty much.

- [William] Were you anxious about...

- I was... I would become more calculating

in my relationship with the studio.

I would think if I want X or Y,

I better get my agent prepared

for the next time they call us

about something they want me to do,

and have him say, well, you know,

Leonard has always felt that he should have such and such.

How about you give him that

and he'll give you such and such?

I learned to negotiate. I learned to negotiate.

- And did you learn to negotiate in your personal life?

- That took a lot longer. (laughing)

- Because negotiating in your personal life,

negotiating relationships, which is what a relationship is.

- Yeah.

- And it doesn't...

It's not necessarily calculating or cunning or...

- No, In a personal life.

There should be love. There has to be love.

- Love.

But a negotiation. Love, love is a negotiation of...

- There's a different kind of negotiation.

You're not staying because you have to do business

with each other.

- No, but I mean, in an emotional negotiation,

you don't get angry right away.

Or you give somebody the space,

or you give somebody who wants, that you love,

who wants something diametrically opposed to what you want.

- You quit smoking while we were shooting the series.

And I had great admiration for that.

Was it the second or third season? Do you remember?

- Second, I think.

- You just quit.

And I remember there was times when you were desperate

because the nicotine wasn't outta your system.

And your body was craving that nicotine.

I remember one time we finished shooting the scene

and you walked out the door, off the set,

into another part of the stage.

And I heard you yelling, I want a cigarette.

I thought he's fighting that demon.

Ah, fighting that demon.

And you did it. I didn't do it until 20 years later.

- I... - Do you remember that?

- I do remember that.

- Why did you decide to do that.

- Well, I smoked, - and so did I...

- And I had three kids. And so did you.

And when I go to kiss my kids, they'd say,

Well, daddy, you smell. - Really?

And one day I was in a car,

a limo with three or four other actors,

all of whom were trying to give up smoking.

And each one had a motive for giving up smoking.

I don't like it to control me.

I don't... Like, mine was, I didn't like my kids

not... Turning away cause I smelled of smoke.

And so I had no problem

other than the few instances of giving it up.

But I discovered over the years

that I'm not an addictive personality.

- I am. - And you are.

- I am.

I thought perhaps I could smoke...

- Explain a little bit.

- That I cannot do a thing like smoking a little.

If I smoke a little, I end up smoking a lot.

If I drink a little, I end up drinking a lot.

And I was developing a major drinking habit.

- [William] When did that start?

- I started drinking regularly,

ritually during probably the second year

or third year of our series.

- Really? - Yeah.

- Up until then, no problem?

- I drank occasionally. Not a problem.

I'd have glass of wine or drink after work.

Two maybe. No problem.

But the ritual became so ingrained and so important to me

because I looked forward to that release

at the end of the pressure of the day

with the dialogue and the pace

and get the 15 pages or 12 pages done today

and all of that sort of thing.

So, my secretary was in the habit

of bringing me a drink at a paper cup.

And I'd call her at about six o'clock.

I'd say, we'll be finished in 10 minutes.

And she would know.

That means it'd be down here with a paper cup, with a drink.

And the minute we finished the last shot,

I would have a drink.

And then it became a series of drinks.

And little by little before I knew it,

I was drinking more and more

because my addicted personality was taking over.

- Before you knew it is how long?

- Oh, a matter of a year or two,

or over a period of the year or two or three.

It became very serious.

- And what is serious?

- Well, to the point where I could no longer control

how much I was drinking,

I would make myself promises that I couldn't keep.

That's when I started to lose my self respect.

I would say... I'd be drinking midday

on a Saturday or Sunday and end up passing out in bed.

I'd go go to bed at four o'clock in the afternoon

and sleep through the next day.

Miss a party in my own home, that kind of thing.

People coming, and I'd be out.

I'd promise myself,

now this weekend, that's not gonna happen this weekend.

This weekend, I won't do more

than have a beer or two on Saturday, maybe.

And not earlier than two or three o'clock in the afternoon.

And by 11 I'd be on the beer

and by three or four o'clock in the afternoon,

onto liquor and pass out again.

And then I realized that I had a serious problem.

That I had become an alcoholic.

- Where did that take you? That alcoholism?

- Well, it took me into a territory,

where, as I say, the looking forward to the drink

became a very important part of my experience.

And I always took great pride and great comfort

in the fact that it never interfered with my work.

Because no matter how long I had to go without alcohol,

if I was working, I did, I went without.

- So you never had the experience

of passing out someplace that you didn't wanna be?

- No, the most frightening experiences I've ever had,

were occasionally driving home

and not remembering the drive wondering, how did I get here?

I could have killed someone.

- [William] Did you black out at any other time?

- No. I don't remember ever, ever blacking out.

- So you had a problem but wasn't like, what was the term?

- That was I was not an obvious fall down drunk.

But I'm sure that people could see that I was not,

I wasn't energetic.

I would become reclusive.

I would become distant, remote, quiet.

Not there. Not there.

- As you know, I leaned on you yet once again

when I was dealing with my wife

who had an alcoholic problem.

And I remember you telling me,

as we were seated something like this,

when I said I was gonna get married.

You said, But she's an alcoholic.

And I said I loved her,

and that I guess the implication

was that my love would cure her.

And I thought so at the time.

It is a strange affliction.

And as you say, each individual is different.

Nerine was drinking from a very early age,

was part of her lifestyle, family, in the same ways

your dad had a beer or drank

- [Leonard] After work. - [William] After work.

Was not a big deal.

So alcohol was part of her upbringing as it was not mine,

as was smoking was not mine. - [Leonard] Right.

- And so I married her

knowing that she had a drinking problem,

but not totally understanding that,

never understanding the pain that she had.

And I think somewhere in that mix,

drawing the parallel between Nerine and yourself,

that anger, that word crops up in your vocabulary a lot.

That maybe that alcohol was assuaging the anger.

So the pain in Nerine, I only had the insight

into what she must have been feeling

when the pain of her death overwhelmed me.

Did I begin to think, good lord,

is this what Nerine was feeling all the time?

And, as a result,

was alcohol the only way of anesthetizing the pain?

- [Leonard] Yeah.

And, I tend to think that that's what happened.

- Younger people have a belief,

I've seen it in a number of cases,

including Nerine's that I'm young,

in time, I will stop this.

- So, of course you heard Nerine express herself that way.

- Yes. But I don't have to yet.

- Right. - I'm not there yet.

I still have a couple of runs to go.

- Right. - And I had reached the point

where I thought, I've got to stop now.

And I got help.

I went to a program and the program worked for me.

I was blessed, absolutely blessed to find a program.

I haven't had a drink now in, I think coming up on 13 years,

and about 15 or 16 years of not smoking,

I feel blessed on both counts.

But particularly lucky that it came to me,

that the habit grew to the power that it did

in my later years.

Because I didn't have that thought, I'm young,

I still have a distance to go.

Which is a devilish part of the disease.

- Did you ever have battles with management?

Any management or producers?

- I didn't have the... No.

I did not have them like that.

One battle that I do remember,

was Gene Roddenberry bringing a little pin,

which he called the IDIC. - IDIC, yeah.

- And saying, I want you to wear this pin.

And I said, What is an IDIC?

And he said, it's the International Defense Fund,

or something or other.

And I said, but this is a merchandising thing, isn't it?

He said, well, we'll make a few dollars on it.

And I realized this was what.

- He wanted you to function as a billboard.

- So I didn't wanna do that.

So I said, no, I am not gonna wear this pin.

And they said, You gotta wear the pin.

I said, I'm not gonna wear the pin.

So, I think they went to you,

and they said Leonard went

and nobody was gonna wear the pin.

But I led that fight for the moment.

And so I had some battles on those fronts.

Gene wanted to do.

- So you, you were looking for dignity too.

You were looking to preserve dignity too?

- Well, I was in a different position.

I was playing a leading man.

I was playing a Greek hero.

I was playing a guy who got the girl and won the fight.

And had to make a decision.

Ooh, that's intellectual.

Ooh, that's emotional.

Not really. Cause it...

I was on the horns of the dilemma

that the protagonist/antagonist

classical storytelling form takes.

I was functioning well.

I was in my milieu.

I could doff the wardrobe and the character.

- But you didn't want it cheapened.

- That's exactly right.

I still thought of myself as a theater actor.

And that this was...

- Playing a character of stature.

If this was important,

then it was important enough for me to have that dignity.

Exactly.

And fighting for the lines and the script

and the story and going in.

I didn't think of it as animosity.

I thought of it as this can be better.

- [Leonard] Right.

- And I don't know how to make this better.

Do you know how to make this?

Or I know how to make this better. Here's my idea.

What do you mean you're not listening to me?

- Right. - You know.

- Right. - Well, we don't have time.

When are you gonna have time?

- Which I always admired greatly.

You had a tremendous amount of energy every day,

all day long to make it better.

- I have that same feeling in everything I do.

- [Leonard] Yeah.

- That you and I are talking to each other.

Are we examining the deepest points of our lives?

In this small amount of time. - [Leonard] Right.

- I'm constantly examining myself

to see if I can make what I'm doing...

- Get the best out of it. - The best out of it.

And that's the way I felt about that.

But there were battles that we, you and I,

got into with management,

that some of them haven't been told.

- Right. Gene Coon, do you remember him?

- Very well. - Gene Coon, my sense of him,

my image of him was the guy in the old newspaper movies,

the old black and white movies,

where there was a newspaper guy

who was an editor or a writer.

He wore a slouch hat,

and he worked under a lamp with a green shade.

And he had a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

And he was pounding away in the typewriter like that.

I'll be ready in 10 minutes,

hold the copy, hold the presses.

I got, you know it was that kind of a guy.

And you walked into his office,

you'd find him doing that.

He pounded out some of our best material.

- [William] Yeah, he did.

- [Leonard] A lot of people don't realize it.

And he gave us the Klingons,

he created that whole world of ideas

that had to do with conflict.

- Well Gene Roddenberry didn't write

that many of the scripts.

- [Leonard] No, he only wrote about three

of the 79 is my memory.

Maybe four. - [William] Yeah.

- Gene Coon wrote a lot of them,

and a lot of other writers wrote a lot.

So Gene Roddenberry's artistry

was putting the package together, and...

- And holding to a concept.

- I was just gonna say.

And insisting that wonderful story

of NBC wanting to clip the ears off the picture of you.

- Right.

- And him holding to that. - Right.

- And them saying, well, he's a devilish character,

and no, Gene to his credit,

- God bless him. - because it's so easy...

- Saved my character.

- As you and I know, it is so easy to say to the network,

to the blue suits as we call them,

oh, well if that's what you want, we'll do that.

- Right. - In order to ease the way.

- Absolutely, or your research says this is a problem.

All right, fine.

We'll find some other way to do this.

- Right, if that's your research.

Right.

- Then we'll listen to your...

Because you guys must know.

- Now here was Gene Coon in the trenches pounding away.

And one day a script came down

with a scene in it that had had me doing something

to which I took strong objection.

And I went to his office.

I think you and I would both agree

that on a television series,

once they deliver that script

and they're starting to work on next week's script,

which is in terrible shape and needs a lot of work,

the last thing they want is an actor coming in

and saying, this doesn't work for me.

- [William] As we well know.

- [Leonard] Cause they, get outta here. Just go do it.

I'm working on a worse script than that for next week.

- Exactly. - Worse problem than that.

So, I walk into his office and in effect say,

I've got a problem with this scene.

What's the matter?

I said, Well, you've got me doing such and such

and I can't because it doesn't follow what I did before.

I don't agree with it or whatever.

Well, just do it.

No, I can't.

If you don't, alright, then this conversation's over.

I left his office, I come back to this stage,

there's a phone call for me and it's my agent on the phone.

He said, Did something happen?

I said, Yeah, I just had a confrontation

with Gene Coon, why?

He said, You're being suspended.

I said, Really?

Well, I knew there was,

he couldn't possibly really say to me,

don't come to work anymore because this is a machine

and if you pull a cog out, the machine's gonna stop.

- [William] Absolutely.

- So in my arrogance, I said to my agent,

ask him, Do I have to finish the day or can I leave now?

- What happened?

- Well, the next call was from Gene Roddenberry,

was, nobody's suspended. Let's talk about this.

You know, we went to his office,

he and I and Gene Coon, and we hammered out a solution.

I really felt badly about it

because I didn't wanna offend Gene Coon.

And I had a great respect for him

and great respect for the position

that I was putting him in.

I was saying, I need you to fix this.

I need you to get your mind

off of the problem you're dealing with for next week

and fix this because I'm having trouble,

and those kinds of things happen all the time.

- But of course...

Yeah, those kind of things are common.

And people in every series on television

have those disagreements and discussions...

- Did we have disagreements? You and I?

- You and I? - Yeah.

- If I didn't have some prior knowledge to this question

based on some years ago,

I would've forgotten that we had any animosity,

any differences at all.

And that I would've said, no, I can't recall any of them.

Cause I can't.

I do remember one and there was a reporter coming in

to interview you and it was eight o'clock in the morning

or six o'clock in the morning.

It was makeup time and he was coming into the makeup room

and we were all... We all got made up together.

It took you three hours, took me 15 minutes.

I mean, that literally is the truth.

I go ahead and put on a pancake

and you had the ears and the stuff,

and you were there for hours.

So that became a place in your life

that you needed to spend part of your life in there,

cause you were spending three hours in,

one hour removal at the end of the day,

is four hours in a makeup room.

It was another home for you. - Right.

- Whereas for me, in, toss off a few jokes,

get a couple last warmup for the the day's work

and then, So I said,

I didn't want the reporter there while I got made up.

And that somehow offended you.

And we got into a disagreement.

I don't remember what it was. It's obviously nonsense now.

But I would say that that was one place where you had.

- [Leonard] But we were reported in the press

as having troubles, as being in conflict.

Do you remember any of that?

- What do you remember?

- I think there was a lot made of very little

is my memory of it. - Right.

- And because the press loves conflict.

They love to have all...

There's trouble, there's trouble on the Star Trek set.

- But we did have disagreements

with management on other things.

Movies, for example.

- The making of the first movie, for me,

was a very tough time.

And you and I, my memory of it,

was we agreed that the script needed help.

And we struggled and struggled and struggled.

- [William] We'd sit in either one of our dressing rooms

and go over how we could improve the plot.

- [Leonard] Right.

There were two or three moments that I recall

that we came up with that a couple of 'em,

found their way into the movie.

One was the whole idea of treating V'Ger as a child

I said something to you about V'Ger is acting like a child.

Let's treat her as a child.

And you created the whole thing about,

all right, everybody off the bridge.

Well, you stay here leaving V'Ger alone on the bridge.

And she kind of became somewhat child like,

where are you going? Where are you going?

And she started making the ship shake

and that kind of thing.

And we were trying to create

some sense of energy and activity going on.

- Right. Right. Right.

- There was another moment that had to do with Spock.

Spock's space suit is suddenly missing.

And somebody says, I think he's out.

I think he's left the ship and you go rushing off

and get on a space suit to go chasing after Spock.

- We were trying to get some action going.

But what I... Here's what I do remember,

that you and I came up with some ideas

that we thought were really good.

- [Leonard] Yes.

- [William] In the middle of shooting.

We go to Bob Wise, the director.

- [Leonard] Yes.

- [William] You threw me the ball.

I should tell the story. - [Leonard] Right.

- [William] I trot out all my bells and whistles.

- [Leonard] Right.

- [William] And I tell what we, you and I,

have devised. - [Leonard] Right.

- [William] As an improvement on the plot.

- We're looking for a major event

near the ending of the movie.

- [William] Right. And I dramatize for Bob Wise

What we thought was good, and Bob Wise sits back.

I said, Hey, that's good.

- Right.

- [William] I want you to tell this to Gene Roddenberry.

- Right.

- Okay, now... - The writer.

- The writer. - Producer, creator.

- Right.

So we had spent the afternoon performing for each other.

How we would do this. I just...

- Well rehearsed. - Well rehearsed.

I'd gone in, I'd done my...

That was the afternoon before,

I'd done my evening performance with Bob.

- [Leonard] Right.

- When it came time to tell Gene the story,

whether we were intimidated, I was intimidated or not.

- It shrank. - It wasn't as good.

(both laugh)

- It never made its way. - I remember that, I remember.

It's like the energy had gone out of it

earlier in the afternoon.

- [William] Like, Oh my God.

- Yeah, there was something intimidating

about telling Gene what should be done to his script.

- [William] Yes, I remember the light was, like,

overhead and his face was shadowed.

- Yeah.

- And it looked very intimidating.

- It was a very difficult time.

- Difficult in the movie, the first movie.

- The making of that movie. - Yeah.

- The whole project was a difficult time.

- [William] Yeah.

- In all fairness, it had been 11 years

since we'd made the series

and there were always all these questions

about should the ship be the same?

Should it have changed? Should the costumes be the same?

Should the characters refer to this 11 year gap?

And say, gee, it's been 11 years since we've been together.

Or should we just ignore it? How do you deal with that?

You know? - [William] Right.

- Very difficult. Very difficult.

And the result was not the most satisfying result.

- Do you have a copy of this? - Uh...

- [Leonard] Hirschfeldii.

- Oh, you know, I don't, Wait a minute.

I don't have a copy of that.

- Take it. It's yours.

- Okay.

(Leonard Nimoy laughing)

- Take it home. - What are you laughing at?

- Take it home. - Okay, I will.

Send this home.

- I think this is the first TV guide cover we we ever had.

- [William] How many TV guide covers did we have?

- I don't know.

I lost track, but I believe that was the first one.

This is us, the Siamese twins.

- [William] Yes. You and I joined at the hip.

- Now I don't want you to think

that Star Trek was my first science fiction.

- [William] Leonard, I see that. Zombies.

What do you think about all this merchandising?

- I can't, I still cannot...

I still cannot...

completely get around it somehow. I can't.

It's hard to believe. It's a strange experience.

- It's an industry though, isn't it?

I mean when you think that billions...

What'd they tell us? Billions. $2 billion.

- Star Trek. The industry is in a class by itself.

- [William] Oh boy. That's my favorite picture of us.

- What year was that?

- Oh, who knows?

All I know is I was getting a little,

I cracked a joke and there was no laugh.

Here's an actor.

- Flop sweat. - Flop sweat.

Here's the definition of flop sweat.

(both laughing)

- Is it warm in here, or is it just me?

- Or am I just sweating?

Oh, that's my metabolism.

- Here's my Vulcan cap. - Oh no. Leonard Vulcan.

The USS Vulcan.

- Yeah.

- William] Did they name it after the character?

- A Coast Guard ship.

Coast Guard ship called the Vulcan.

- And then you got the Enterprise.

- Well, of course.

- This whole house is dedicated to Star Trek.

- (laughs) No, not the whole house.

Just a little corner.

- I feel that if you know someone for the number of years

you and I have known each other, it's almost like a debt.

You almost like, hey, per force,

you know each other per force.

You have something, so much,

in common that where there was...

If there were no affection for each other,

you'd still be bonded

by the length of years you've known each other.

And so I feel that in some lesser way,

a lot lesser way with the rest of the cast.

What I don't...

- Do you feel affection for them?

- Because I feel affronted.

I feel that I've been assailed by some of them in defense.

I've thought, Oh, well I don't like them,

but that's childish because I have no, no...

I have no feeling of animosity.

I never did feel, never understood their reasons,

for what I've read as their distaste me.

I was interviewing Nichelle Nichols and I said,

great, Nichelle, that was a great interview.

Thank you so much.

I was closing up this for a book I was writing...

Close up my, She said, well, wait a minute.

Don't you wanna hear how much we hate you?

(Leonard Nimoy laughing)

- I turned back on my... - Did she really say that?

- She actually said, wait a minute,

did you wanna hear how much we hate you?

I thought, what was that all about? Is that...

And then I turned on the machine

and she said, well, because you didn't do this,

you didn't do that and you never talked to us

when we were on the set.

It was like outlandish to me.

It was like outlandish stuff and childish. And what do...

- What do you think that's about? Where does that come from?

- I have no idea. I wondered if you knew.

- I had one incident with one of the actors.

One night, we were shooting one of the movies,

and I was finished for the evening,

had cleaned up my makeup, was walking on the lot at night,

dark, to my car.

Here's this actor walking along ahead of me,

more slowly than I, and as I'm passing to him,

I said, Goodnight so and so.

And he wouldn't respond. Didn't respond.

And I thought that's kind of strange.

I just kept on walking, went to my car.

The next day, in a group of people, casually,

I said, Well, you know, I said goodnight to you last night

and you didn't respond to me.

And he said, do you wanna know why?

I thought, you know, I'm not sure I really do.

The point is that, if there is a point here,

it's that there are unknown, unexpected,

and sort of secret hidden resentments that build up.

- I've tried to explain it to myself in this way.

You, DeForest and I were the three people

who were there every day.

And we worked our lengthy day,

come back the next day and we were three buddies.

Really, buddies for almost the whole time. Some exceptions.

They came in, the other members of the cast on occasion,

a day, a week, maybe, sometimes not.

And the show was over and everyone was happy,

at least as far as I know.

Then the conventions started

and the actors would go to the conventions

and the audience would get up and applaud.

And slowly, I think the cast members

began to consider themselves the leads in the film

and no longer wanted to take a backseat.

- [Leonard] Interesting.

- And their perception of what the reality was had changed.

- So, you think that all of this happened, sort of,

post after the making of the series?

- I never got it.

I never heard it.

I never thought of anything,

but great when I would meet them on,

after the show for our various meetings that we would have.

I never got any sense of removal.

- There's a kind of a rashomoon going on here.

To some extent.

An incident takes place on a set,

which is a highly charged emotional situation for people.

Career dreams are being played out

or failing or a combination of both.

And you might say to two or three observers,

what did you see happen here?

And one says, oh, I saw a great camaraderie.

And another says, oh God, I felt such awful tension.

You know, that kind of thing.

And it is really hard.

It's hard to understand what that resentment is all about.

Whether it's valid, whether it's springs

from some imagined or real slight of some kind.

- Because the incidences that I've read about

that has caused their resentment towards me,

have been so minute, like maybe that did happen.

But how does that affect things, really?

- Yes, I understand.

So not easy to come to grips with.

- No, I never fully understood where they were.

Maybe that's the reason they resented me.

- I don't know.

- I never fully comprehended what it was

that was bothering them.

- People would like to feel that a group of performers,

as we are, or were,

that work together in a sort of a family way.

A group of people solving problems together,

really do have this camaraderie and this chemistry,

and meet regularly for barbecues.

- I think of them with affection,

and knowing them that as long as we did,

adds to the mystique of affection.

So, I'm puzzled by their reaction.

- So, you do feel affection for them.

- In... Yes.

Removed, you know, I mean an affection for.

- [Leonard] Not a very personal way, but you have some.

- [William] Yes, exactly.

For the image. The person that one sees.

As against the person inside.

- I always... I'm always happy to see them

when I bump into them at a convention or whatever.

I don't spend any time with them

because my life has gone off in other directions.

Our lives have gone off in other directions.

We are involved in other activities,

we have other interests.

Yours and mine meet much more often, which is wonderful,

because it puts us together more frequently.

And we choose to spend time with each other.

But the fact that I like them,

or have respect for their contribution

doesn't necessarily mean that I would seek them out

to spend time with any more than two people

who work side by side in some other capacity,

don't necessarily see each other.

You see each other once in a while

at a company project or whatever,

some kind of a business event.

But, we have both of us very active, busy activities

and lives and surrounded with other people.

And that's the way, life takes you where it takes you.

- I understand that, but I thus, I still remain puzzled.

- Doing a series is backbreaking work.

It's like coal mining.

Although you might get some argument from the coal miners,

still 14, 18 hours a day, day in, day out.

All the mental and physical work that you're required to do.

- It's hard. - It's life consuming.

- Yes. - So for the period of time,

you're doing a series with publicity and all,

even when the show is off the air,

no longer filming and coming back the following season,

there are three, four months.

But they're usually occupied too, for one reason or another.

And so there's barely any time for family.

So in my own case, my family life suffered.

- So did mine. - [William] Both of ours.

- Yeah.

- And we lost our family, children and wife,

children for a short period of time, wife obviously forever.

So we married our wives for our various reasons

and lost our wives for the same reason.

- Well, my marriage ended much later,

but it was just a longer, slower process than yours was,

but it was the same process. - [William] Right.

I had a bad divorce and essentially all the money

that I'd been able to save was put into my now ex-wife,

and my whole focus then became taking care of my kids.

So I was lost and, and lonely.

I got divorced in the middle of the series

and took affection from wherever I could find it.

Not every week from every one of those beautiful girls

that were on our show,

but there was always someone around

who had needs and needs to be fulfilled

and needed to fulfill.

So, that romance and lust and passion

all played a part in my life for years.

I just wanted and still do, of course,

to taste as much of life as possible, which meant as,

you know, as we've eaten meals together,

let's have that, and let's have that, and let's have that

and bring it for the table. - Right.

- The variety of it. - [Leonard] Sure.

- Thinking maybe that's part of living.

And maybe that is an aspect of living for a while.

Then finally one learns to concentrate and focus.

- So it's a combination of a lustful life and availability.

- That's good. I'll take that.

But it's also, I hasten to add, a learning process

to then focus and absorb and be complete in a singular.

- You feel complete? You feel complete.

- Yeah. Feeling really good about love and togetherness.

- [Leonard] Yeah. - Yeah.

- Have you had talks with your daughters about that period?

About their memory of their relationship with you

as a result of Star Trek in any way,

or how it might have affected them?

- I always kept my kids away from Star Trek

for the longest time, they didn't know what I did

until they became 7, 8, 9 years old.

They didn't know what that was all about.

Even when I brought them,

when they were three and four to the set,

they didn't really know what it was.

- Right.

- So I kept Star Trek out of out of their consciousness

for the longest time.

So Star Trek itself, the entity did not affect them,

but their father's time consumption did.

You know, and everybody suffered as a result of that.

- [Leonard] You've talked about that.

- [William] Yes. Over the years.

I'm sure we did. - [Leonard] Yeah.

- [William] It's long since been ameliorated, you know,

my children are grown now,

but certainly Star Trek left its mark

seared into the psyche of three children and an ex-wife.

- Yeah. I'm trying to... Still trying to ascertain,

to this day, exactly what the real impact was.

I know that for a very long time I was obsessed

with the idea of making a living

and that when Star Trek came along,

although we were never a gigantic hit originally,

we were just kind of marginal,

we just kind of stumbled along

and struggled along for three seasons.

We didn't become a big news event until years later

when the show entered syndication.

But in those early years, for me,

the obsession was, I've caught a wave.

It may not be a big wave

and it may be just one short lived wave,

and I've got to get the best out of it that I possibly can.

Any opportunity I've got to grab

and I've got the sock away some protection money,

some security for the future.

In case I should go back to what it was before,

looking for work. - [William] Right.

- [Leonard] I have no way of knowing,

coming out of this Spock character,

will I ever be able to work again?

Will I be hireable? How long will this last?

What effect will it have in my future?

I've got to myself and that became my reason,

my excuse if you will, for being away from home. A lot.

Working, working, working.

- And that affected your marriage.

- Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

And it affected my relationship with my children.

I think my children probably would say,

that they have had a love/hate relationship with Star Trek.

They're very proud of what was accomplished.

They're very proud of references

that they see in the newspapers even today.

So and so is going where no one has gone before.

Obviously a reference to Star Trek,

things that were said on our show,

things that you and I did

that have come into the lexicon,

into the vocabulary of the society, proud of.

But at the same time, there's got to be deep somewhere,

a resentment and having lost their father,

for some meaningful period of time.

- A meaningful period of time.

At least three years. - Yeah.

- Probably more.

And there's something they'll never recover,

cause that's four years in a formative life, it's gone.

- It's gone.

- So there's a, if not a dearth, there's a change

in a, in the path.

- We have spent the last several years, consciously trying,

at least I have,

and I think my son and daughter have felt the same,

trying to build a new relationship,

really, a new relationship,

based on who we are now and what we know about the past.

And then my alcoholism got in the way as well,

that made me remote when I was around.

- During the period of time

when your marriage was breaking up.

- Yeah.

- What did you find yourself doing?

- My marriage broke up in the late eighties,

mid to late eighties.

And with hardly any lapse of time,

I began to see the lady who is now my wife,

whom I dearly love and have a great relationship with,

and have had a wonderful coming up to 13 years with.

I still mourn the loss

of the idea of the great first marriage.

It was part of our generation

to have a marriage that lasted and lasted and lasted.

And I stayed 33 years.

- Did you stay too long?

- I... Yeah, I think so.

I think so. And I really don't know why.

Except it was traditional.

- No, it was part of our.

- It was traditional.

- We were programmed.

- Yeah, exactly.

It was programming. I was concerned about the kids.

Finally, I thought, well, they're old enough now

that we can deal with this.

And, in a way, to some degree I was wrong.

They were in deep shock for quite a while over it.

And loyalty.

It's question of loyalties

and how do you deal with this

and how do you deal with the separation?

And one has bad feelings about the other

because it was not a happy ending.

- Then you come to success.

Look at this, look at this place.

This is material success. - Yeah.

- But in addition to that, you and your wife are...

So happily married. - Peace. Peace.

Peace. Serenity.

- You know, I would think.

- [Leonard] I wake up in the morning.

I sometimes think I finally got my reward,

you know, for the tough times.

I really do. I feel rewarded for the tough times.

And I used to make promises to myself, if I ever make it,

if I ever make a living, if I ever become solid,

if I ever be, I will do this and I will do that.

- Well, what's this and that?

- Well, I mean,

become a substantial member of the community.

Become philanthropic, become helpful to other people.

And I... And we try to do that all the time now.

- [William] Yes, I know you do.

- I feel greatly blessed.

- So, you've reached the serenity.

- Yeah. Yeah.

- And I...

- These are good times.

- Remarried. - [Leonard] Yeah.

And you are happy. - [William] Happy.

Wonderfully happy. - [Leonard] Yeah.

- [William] And have not stopped yearning, and fighting,

and grasping, and crawling, and clawing

and thinking, I can do this, I can get that,

I can make this happen or whatever it is.

And I get up in the morning and I'm starting to go,

you know? - Yeah.

- And... - Running, running, running.

- The body is still there.

I don't have the aches and pains that I should have,

so I'm physically all right.

- Yeah. Well, you're a lot older than I am now.

- Yeah. (Leonard Nimoy laughs)

- Just don't feel it.

So, I'm still thinking the holy grail is ahead.

You know, I still haven't made it.

I'm going to... - What do you...

What do you dream about accomplishing?

- Making another film. Directing, writing, producing it.

Making something.

- I don't wanna direct anymore, but I, as you know,

I'm very busy with photography these days.

That's my most satisfying creative activity every day.

- Why? What do you see in it?

- I love to make that product.

I love to make images and I dream about images.

I do what is referred to as fine art photography,

is the creative process.

So I'm not reporting.

I'm creating something in front of the camera.

- And what is it you're creating?

What do you define, what it is you're creating?

- Memory. - Memory. Your memory.

- My memory, or a collective memory?

- [William] Okay. - Society of Memory.

- Something you were gonna make me remember something.

That we all remember.

- Something distant in our vague...

- Jung's collective memory. - That's right.

- Okay.

- Eros. - [William] Eros.

- Eros. - In terms of the erotic.

- Yes. Love and spirituality. - Wow.

- Hopefully it all comes together.

- [William] Yeah.

- Hopefully you touch all those threads.

- [William] Right.

- [Leonard] All my images are done

with traditional black and white film.

I do all my own lab work,

my own developing, my own printing,

all the silver gelatin prints.

- [William] And you have an inventory of pictures.

- [Leonard] Oh, yeah.

- [William] And what do you do?

What are you gonna do with it?

- [Leonard] Well, I mean, there will be a book next year

and the book will be essentially about spirituality,

but hopefully combining all the other elements

that we talked about.

- You and I have spent more than half our lives together.

I think of you as one of my dearest friends,

if not my dearest.

- Same. - Yeah.

And I truly love... I love you.

And I'm thinking, I'm looking now,

perhaps the reason I'm running as fast as I can,

is I see very clearly my own death.

But with the death of my wife, and the lady I've married,

nursed her husband through cancer to his death,

I see death and mortality very, very clearly.

It's just over there.

He's coming on.

And it still doesn't relieve me

of all the irritations of everyday life,

where I should be able to say,

oh, I'm not gonna let that bother me because,

you know, how many years do I have left?

You can count them.

Very conscious of death and my fear of dying.

I'm truly afraid.

And when I'm asked, what am I afraid of,

it's inchoate, loneliness, of loss, of aloneness.

Name the thing and I'm afraid of it.

I don't know how to deal with it.

How are you dealing with it?

- I think of it as a loss of consciousness.

And, I am conscious of it. I think about it.

I'm not sure quantitatively that I think about it

in the same terms or as much of as you do,

but I do think about it quite a bit.

I'm aware that the years are numbered,

and I'm not quite sure what the number is.

I can't, nobody can know that for sure.

But, and I expect, I still have some pretty good time,

because genetically,

my parents lived into their mid eighties.

And I figure I still got some time.

I have a brother who's very healthy and not weird,

and he's five years older than me.

But I do think about it.

I think about the loss of relationships, the end of that.

I think about the loss of creative opportunity,

which I love to be creative,

to see things evolve that you dream about

and can bring to fruition.

I think it is important now

to be making philanthropic statements,

to be giving back, giving back,

giving back as much as I can,

as much as we can into the community, into...

Very into funding for arts, funding for children,

funding for education, things that we believe in,

care about, and leaving a legacy.

I'm concerned about that.

I'm concerned that it be positive

and constructive and meaningful.

The loss of De Kelly meant a lot to me.

I saw him as kind of an uncle figure as I remember him.

A very even tempered, very wise gentleman

who saw a lot and needed very little,

or at least seemed to need very little.

His life was very simple.

He and Carolyn had this very quiet personal life,

which was not a life that I would aspire to.

But, I did admire his serenity and his calm,

at least his apparent serenity and calm,

and his craftsmanship that I came to really respect

over a period of years.

And it was so useful in our kind of mix

that it gave us both, I think,

something wonderful to deal with and work with.

It meant a lot to me when he was gone.

And I thought that's the beginning of an end,

was the way I saw it.

- I think of him, my first impression is Raintree County

and the young DeForest Kelley. - [Leonard] Yeah.

- [William] Good looking whipper snapper,

southern gentleman. - [Leonard] Yeah.

- And that life is gone and lost and over.

And you and I are talking about it,

and there'll be a few, it'll be a lot of people,

who will remember for a while, DeForest Kelley.

But, he was an actor and he was in a hit show.

And that's why he's remembered for the flicker of time.

- [Leonard] Right.

- [William] Longer than most of us.

- [Leonard] Right.

- [William] That it's no time at all.

So you live and die.

- Shakespeare said it, the actress struts,

and frets his weary hour upon the stage

and then is heard no more.

- Well, I want to hear from you,

make a pact with me.

- [Leonard] (laughing) How does that feel?

- Well, I'll visit you here.

- That is an inevitability.

In the meantime, I think I feel good

about the fact that, I think both,

you in your own way, and I in my own way,

have found the energy and the lust for life each day

to do interesting, and exciting,

and creative, and productive, and fun things to do

in a wonderful relationship.

That's the blessing of it.

- True. And the curse is for me,

is I haven't done enough in all those categories.

- Yeah. Well, you do a lot.

- Thank you, Leonard.

- Thank you. (laughs)

- You're getting, you're getting makeup on mine, you know.

- I'm sorry. (both laughing)

(calming music playing)

- Amongst all this beauty, to a large extent,

to some extent, Star Trek is responsible.

- Oh yeah. To a very large extent. Right.

- So it's good, huh? - Oh, yeah.

- Star Trek was good. - Oh, yeah.

- Yeah. I think so too.

I mean, I really, really liked it.

I liked the show.

- You're my best friend.

(both laughing)

- That, if it were for nothing else, right?

- Yeah.

- If it we're nothing else, it would've been...

- This makes it worthwhile.

- Most worthwhile. - Right.