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Notable Pre-Trek Appearances by Leonard Nimoy
In retrospect, it may seem as if Leonard Nimoy was destined to play Spock. It was kismet. Or perhaps, as a visitor to the Star Trek set once suggested to the actor, he was chosen by extraterrestrials to “house the alien entity known as Spock.” (Nimoy recounts this anecdote in his autobiography, I Am Spock.) However it happened, it is now impossible for most of us to think of Nimoy without thinking of Spock, or vice-versa. But the two weren’t always synonymous, and Nimoy played a wide variety of roles (albeit in relative obscurity) on film, television, and the stage before donning his now-famous Trek uniform—and ears.
Nimoy was born March 26, 1931 (just four days after his future costar, William Shatner) and raised in a working class, mostly Italian-American Boston neighborhood, where his Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish family made him an outsider. In I Am Spock, Nimoy recalls seeing the Charles Laughton version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame as an eight-year-old and identifying with the gruesome-looking but gentle-hearted Quasimodo, a righteous outcast. The Hunchback ignited Nimoy’s ambition to become an actor and, later, provided inspiration for his most famous role. “The seed that would become Spock was planted,” Nimoy wrote in his memoir.
Kid Monk Baroni (1952)
After appearing in a few New England theatrical productions, Nimoy moved to Los Angeles in 1951 to pursue film and television parts. A year later he landed the title role in Kid Monk Baroni, a low-budget boxing melodrama that Nimoy has called “my big break.” Considering that almost no one saw the movie and the actor earned very little salary, the point may be debatable. But certainly Kid Monk Baroni offered Nimoy, just twenty years old when this picture was shot, a plum role and gave him a calling card that led to additional work.
Nimoy plays a young delinquent named Paul Baroni, nicknamed “Monk” because of his apelike face (disfigured at birth by the clumsy use of forceps). The nickname takes on a dual meaning when Paul is taken under the wing of Father Callahan (Richard Rober), who teaches the young man how to box. Paul becomes a faithful churchgoer and even sings in the choir. But when he accidentally wounds the kindly priest, Paul flees and launches a professional boxing career, taking special pleasure in destroying the faces of “pretty boy” opponents in the ring. Then his manager (played by Bruce Cabot, star of the 1933 King Kong) gets Paul involved with the mob. Eventually, “Kid Monk” Baroni decides to have plastic surgery and give up boxing, but these plans go awry.
Although fourth-billed (with a special “Introducing” credit), Nimoy dominates this picture. He’s on-screen nearly every second, and he’s very effective, giving a sympathetic and naturalistic performance. In many respects, Paul Baroni is a dream role: Nimoy plays high drama and low comedy, romances two women, and does actorly things like speak with an accent and appear under disfiguring makeup. Nimoy saw his character as a latter-day Quasimodo, he stated in a DVD audio commentary for the film.
Unfortunately, Nimoy’s work remains by far the most appealing aspect of Kid Monk Baroni, which suffers from threadbare production values (Nimoy’s “monk-face” makeup is particularly crude), tin-eared dialogue, and uneven performances from the rest of the cast (which also includes Jack Larson, soon to play Jimmy Olsen on The Adventures of Superman TV show). Despite Nimoy’s fine work, Kid Monk Baroni functions on the level typical of its producer, Jack Broder, the cut-rate mogul behind cinematic gems such as Bride of the Gorilla (1951) and the immortal Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952). Not surprisingly, the picture sank like a stone at the box office. For his efforts Nimoy earned about $400 and got to take home two cheap suits from the film’s wardrobe. The actor was left to grind out the next thirteen years taking small roles in movies and television, while also working theatrically and, later, as an acting instructor (his future clients would include teen idol Fabian). Nimoy’s next few film roles show how little immediate benefit the actor reaped from Kid Monk Baroni. He played Narab, a stock henchman (but, notably, Nimoy’s first turn playing an extraterrestrial) in the twelve-chapter serial Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952), appeared in redface as Chief Black Hawk in the Poverty Row oater Old Overland Trail (1953), and took uncredited bits as a football player in Francis Goes to College (1952) and as a nameless sergeant battling giant irradiated ants in Them! (1954).
M Squad Episode “The Fire Makers” (1959)
Nimoy soldiered through Hollywood’s trenches, playing thankless roles in B-movies like The Brain Eaters (1958) and dozens of TV shows. During this era, perhaps due to his 6-foot-1 height and somewhat exotic looks (especially when sporting a mustache), he was frequently cast as a criminal. On Dragnet (“The Big Boys,” 1954) he was an armed robber and car thief; on Highway Patrol (“Blood Money,” 1958) he was the mastermind of a protection racket; on Sea Hunt (“Dead Man’s Cove,” 1959) he played a man who murders his wife and tries to make it look like a diving accident; on Perry Mason (“The Case of the Shoplifter’s Shoe,” 1963) he was a hit-and-run driver who kills a kleptomaniac; and so on. But a special place must be reserved in Nimoy’s personal rogues’ gallery for Ben Blacker, the shameless arsonist, murderer, and all-around rat bastard he portrayed in “The Fire Makers,” a 1959 episode of M Squad. Playing the vilest character of his career, Nimoy delivered a wildly enjoyable performance.
Leonard Nimoy made his first appearance as an extraterrestrial in the 1952 Republic serial Zombies of the Stratosphere.
Ben and his brother Harry (James Coburn) are partners in an arson-for-hire racket employed by unscrupulous business owners who want to torch their own stores or factories to collect insurance benefits. During their latest job, Ben clubbed a luckless security guard over the head and left the old man to burn to death in the fire. Now, unsatisfied with his cut of the profits, Ben conspires to have his brother blamed for the murder, knowing that Harry will hide Ben’s involvement in the crime out of family loyalty. When Lieutenant Frank Ballinger (series star Lee Marvin) begins to suspect Ben is mixed up in the arson business, Ben tries to kill the detective with a firebomb.
Cast alongside future star Coburn and screen legend Marvin, Nimoy steals the episode with his bravura portrayal of the preening, volatile, and probably sociopathic Ben, who brags to his girlfriend about his plans to sell out his big brother, then panics as soon as the cops begin to unravel his dunderheaded “master plan.” His mercurial, jittery performance recalls the over-the-top villainy of cult favorite Tim Carey, a character actor who made a career out of playing fidgety lunatics during the 1950s and ’60s, when he made brief but memorable appearances in classics such as The Wild One (1950) and The Killing (1956) as well as numerous B-budget Westerns and noir films. Nimoy returned to M Squad, a gritty police procedural set in Chicago (and subject of the later parody Police Squad), for a smaller, less flashy role in the 1960 episode “Badge for a Coward.” Again, he played the bad guy (a cop-killing stickup man), but a far less entertaining one.
Combat! Episode “The Wounded Don’t Cry” (1963)
When he wasn’t playing the heavy, Nimoy sometimes found himself in roles with subtly Spock-like qualities. That was the case with “The Wounded Don’t Cry,” a 1963 episode of the war drama Combat!, in which Nimoy appears as Newman, an unusually sympathetic, sensitive soldier who pleads for humane treatment of wounded German POWs. The bilingual Newman translates for Sgt. Chip Saunders (star Vic Morrow) after the platoon captures a Nazi aid station. The story’s primary conflict falls between Saunders and Bauer (Carl Boehm), a German doctor who wants to retrieve a supply of plasma from a truck damaged in an Allied air raid. Without the plasma, the wounded Germans will die. Saunders doesn’t think the doctor (or his patients) can be trusted, but Newman argues for helping the wounded. “Sorry I can’t show hate for guys who are dying or see a plot in every act of mercy,” Nimoy sneers. Then Newman is gravely injured when two wounded SS officers try to escape. Suddenly his survival also depends on acquiring the plasma, and Saunders reluctantly agrees to allow Bauer to recover the supply—but insists on accompanying the doctor.
Nimoy’s role is small (he spends the final three-quarters of the episode unconscious or off-camera) but pivotal, and his endearing, heartfelt performance remains memorable despite its brevity. The actor seems remarkably at home as Newman, a man set apart from his comrades-in-arms by his ability to speak German and because he views the war through a different moral lens. Like Spock, he’s an outsider who is also an important member of the team and a person of high intelligence and personal integrity. Nimoy returned to Combat! in 1965 for a thankless role (again as a translator, but this time in a tiny, underwritten part with no distinct personality) in “The Raider.”
The Outer Limits Episode “I, Robot” (1964)
Had he not been cast in Star Trek, science fiction fans would probably remember Nimoy primarily for his supporting role in this classic episode of the fabled 1960s sci-fi anthology series. “I, Robot,” based on an Otto Binder short story (not the Isaac Asimov book of the same title), tells the story of Adam Link, an android put on trial for the murder of its creator. Small-town authorities consider Adam “an engine of destruction” and want to destroy the “tin man.” But Nina Link (Marianna Hill), daughter of the deceased inventor, lures celebrated civil rights lawyer Thurman Cutler (Howard Da Silva) out of retirement to defend the robot. Nimoy plays street-savvy St. Louis newspaperman Judson Ellis. At first Ellis is skeptical of the entire business, assuming the affair is “a hoax” or “a gimmick” and referring to Adam as a “living eggbeater.” But ultimately he becomes convinced that Adam contains a nearly human consciousness—and that the robot is innocent.
While it’s a secondary part, Ellis sets the entire plot in motion by suggesting Nina contact Cutler, and, through his wry commentary on the proceedings, serves as the episode’s conscience. Nimoy is in top form as the glib, jaded reporter whose sense of fairness and justice is reawakened during the trial. He invests his character with intelligence and compassion that triumphs over the occasionally creaky dialogue (“You may end up a skele-tin man, but I’m gonna make you famous,” he promises Adam).
“I, Robot” emerged as one of the most popular and memorable episodes of the brilliant but short-lived original Outer Limits series, which ran on ABC just a season and a half from 1963 to 1965. The show was revived by production company MGM in 1995, enjoying a five-season run on the Showtime network and two more seasons on the Sci Fi Channel. During its inaugural season, the new Outer Limits remade “I, Robot,” with Nimoy taking over the starring role as crusading attorney Thurman Cutler. As Cutler, Nimoy supplied another fine performance. The Judson Ellis character was written out of the remake. Nimoy had appeared on The Outer Limits earlier in 1964, with a faceless bit part in “Production and Decay of Strange Particles,” an episode about invaders from subatomic space. The actor made a similarly forgettable appearance on the most celebrated of all science fiction-fantasy anthologies, The Twilight Zone, playing a nondescript infantryman in the antiwar parable “A Quality of Mercy” in 1961.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E . Episode “The Project Strigas Affair” (1964)
It was here, not on the bridge of the Enterprise, that Nimoy and Shatner first crossed paths, guest starring in an episode of this seriocomic spy series. Shatner, whose career was far more advanced than Nimoy’s at this point, enjoyed better billing and is seen to greater advantage in “The Project Strigas Affair,” but Nimoy’s sly comic performance nevertheless proves a winner. He plays Vladeck, the ambitious aide to a rabble-rousing Balkan ambassador who poses a potential threat to the international community. Secret agents Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) are assigned to discredit Ambassador Kurasov (played by Werner Klemperer, best remembered as Hogan’s Heroes’ Colonel Klink). Shatner portrays a likeable young chemist who agrees to help Solo and Kuryakin. U.N.C.L.E. (short for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement) schemes to turn Kurasov into a laughingstock. But Vladeck plays his cards wisely and winds up benefiting from the ignominious downfall of his imperious, condescending boss.
Shatner and Nimoy have one brief scene together (Shatner, drunk at a party, puts his arm around Nimoy and calls him “Calvin Coolidge”). There is no hint of the camaraderie that would later make Kirk and Spock such an appealing team. Indeed, Shatner didn’t even remember that he had worked with Nimoy before he signed on for the second Star Trek pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” a year later. Most of Nimoy’s scenes are with Klemperer, with whom he has a prickly comedic rapport. If Nimoy doesn’t quite steal the show, he remains a vital participant in most of the episode’s best moments. Although The Man from U.N.C.L.E. later descended into self-parody and camp, “The Project Strigas Affair” was made during the show’s more straightforward first season and remains a credible spy-fi adventure. “Strigas” was the fifth episode of the series to air. Too bad Nimoy wasn’t cast in the show’s second episode, “The Vulcan Affair.”
Nimoy slogged through a variety of thankless roles prior to Star Trek, including an ignominious appearance as Chief Black Hawk in Old Overland Trail (1953).
The Lieutenant Episode “In the Highest Tradition” (1964)
Nimoy’s appearance on The Lieutenant remains, without a doubt, the most important of his early career—not for the performance he delivered on-screen (although it was very good) but for the contacts he made on the set. The Lieutenant, a peacetime military drama, ran on NBC for just one season, 1963–64, and was soon forgotten. The series remains notable for only one reason: It was the first weekly program created and produced by Gene Roddenberry. “In the Highest Tradition,” while hardly great television, remains a fascinating artifact due to its many Star Trek connections.
Nimoy guest stars as Gregg Sanders, a Hollywood producer-director planning a movie about a World War II battle that took the lives of six marines, all of whom won Medals of Honor. His assistant is played by Majel Barrett, the future Nurse Chapel (and second Mrs. Gene Roddenberry). The episode was directed by Marc Daniels, who would helm fifteen Star Trek episodes, including the classics “Space Seed,” “Mirror, Mirror,” and “The Doomsday Machine.” The primary focus of the story is the way preparations for the film alter the life of retired Lt. Peter Bonney (Andrew Duggan), the former commanding officer of the six fallen marines, and create headaches for The Lieutenant’s nominal protagonist, Lieutenant Bill Rice (played by Gary Lockwood, who would guest star in “Where No Man Has Gone Before”).
All the episode’s finest moments belong to Nimoy’s Sanders, whose unshakeable faith in himself and his project, and his uncanny ability to instantly translate Bonney’s complex, real-life memories and emotions into facile action-movie clichés, is equally admirable and laughable. Like so many of Nimoy’s best performances, Sanders is a character with inner conflicts and surprising depths, a man who understands he’s treading a fine line between honoring the fallen marines and exploiting them. The show was produced in late 1963 and aired February 29, 1964. As far as Nimoy knew, it was just another job. He continued plugging away in numerous other television roles, including appearances on Get Smart and Gunsmoke. Nimoy guest starred opposite DeForest Kelley in an episode of The Virginian titled “Man of Violence” (1965). Appropriately enough, Kelley played a doctor and Nimoy his patient.
Meanwhile, budding screenwriter Dorothy Fontana was working as Roddenberry’s production secretary on The Lieutenant. In April 1964, while awaiting word from NBC on whether or not The Lieutenant would be renewed, Roddenberry handed Fontana the outline for a proposed new series called Star Trek and asked her for her thoughts. She took it home, read it, and, as she recounts in her introduction to the book Star Trek: The Original Series 365, the next day asked Roddenberry: “‘Who’s going to play Spock?’ Gene slid a photo across his desk. It was of Leonard Nimoy.”
The actor’s career was about to shift into high gear. Or rather, warp speed.