It's not often that I blow the dust off of Blogzilla 1985, but all it takes is for someone like Leonard Nimoy to leave this Earth to pull me back in.Of course most people will know him for his role as the iconic Spock in the Star Trek franchise. In an industry where actors and actresses try their hardest to distance themselves from a single role in fear of being typecast, Nimoy embraced his Vulcan heritage. He was kind to his fans and really seemed to appreciate the fame he had found as the logical ying to William Shatner's impulsive yang.
He went on to play Spock through the entire series, movies, and appeared as the character as recently as 2013's Edge of Darkness.
Though best known for Spock, Nimoy had a very long and diverse career. He was even an accomplished voice actor, and lent his powerful vocals to the likes of Galvatron in the Transformers animated film, Sentinel Prime in the live action version, and even played a character in the Kingdom Hearts series.
And despite my love of Star Trek, I will always remember him for his appearance on the greatest television show of all time - the Simpsons. How do you make an episode featuring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson reprising their roles as Agents Mulder and Scully even better? You get Leonard Nimoy to play himself. His reputation as a scifi actor made his turn as the storyteller that much better. He had an even bigger turn as himself in Marge vs the Monorail, and those two episodes are in my top five in the entire series.
The universe is a little smaller now that Leonard Nimoy is gone. His death brings back those melancholy feelings that I had when Harold Ramis died, and it is a sad reminder that even the most beloved among us can not escape the hands of time. It's hard to not mourn the death of someone you admire, but it's important to take that sadness and use it to help appreciate the life you have and make the most of it while you can.
Mr. Nimoy said it best in his last tweet from February 22nd -
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP."
