I won’t speak for anyone but myself in saying that even in the productions I knew of Leonard Nimoy’s outside of Star Trek, such as Three Men and A Baby, Spock will forever remain the first image that comes to mind merely in reading or hearing the name Leonard Nimoy. Leonard’s son Adam has put together an amazing documentary that offers an especially intimate biography on both Spock and the incredible mensch who brought the character to life on the screen. Out of all the characters on Star Trek Roddenberry stated, in an interview, that Spock was the only one he had written specifically with Nimoy in mind.

To get a glimpse into Spock’s background we first have to examine Leonard’s own upbringing. Leonard was born and grew up in Boston, in the 1931, to very modest, Jewish parents. He started acting in skits in settlement houses around Boston when he was eight years old. As he tells it he just kept at the craft, he liked it so much. He decided he wanted to try and make a living at it. His parents were anything but well-receiving of this ambition of his. They were not shy in telling him that if he really wanted to be an actor he would have to pool the resources on his own, so he did! He sold some vacuum cleaners, saved his earnings, and bought a train ticket to California in 1949. Among his first three roles was as Paul ‘Monk’ Baroni in Kid Monk Baroni (1952). They were such small roles he was forced to keep an industrious lifestyle. He met his first wife Sandi in the early 50s; she sacrificed her own ambitions to become a house-wife, Adam recalled. Leonard served in the US Army from December 1953 to November 1955. Leonard and Sandi had just welcomed their first daughter Julie Nimoy. Adam would come along only a year later.

Adam recalls that during the late 50s and much of the 60s his dad busted his ass to make sure all four of them were fed and had a roof over their heads. Leonard took on whatever work there was including being an aquarium technician, apartment manager, pet-shop owner, cab driver, vending machine technician, and other jobs as they came along. Leonard stated that one of his idols in cinema was Lon Chaney: the man of a thousand faces, a veritable renaissance man in the motion picture industry for all the character-types he could play. That was especially significant to Leonard, having such a diverse range of talents. Up until 1964 Leonard was taking on any role he could get his hands on. Most of the parts wouldn’t last more than one or two weeks. Then he was offered the part of Gregg Sanders in a WW2 drama called The Lieutenant created by Gene Roddenberry.

Leonard recalled that his agent had called him up to tell him that Roddenberry had a character in mind for Nimoy in a new sci-fi series Gene was putting together. Easily intrigued Nimoy agreed to meet with Roddenberry expecting to have to put on an audition, but instead Gene was very congenial and started showing Leonard the sets and props and how everything was expected to work. Leonard clued in on the fact that he wasn’t the one auditioning, but Gene was auditioning the role to Leonard, “If I keep my mouth shut I might just have a job,” Leonard chuckled. And so it came to pass that Leonard would become the show’s highly logical science officer in the sci-fi drama Star Trek.

Many a trekkie could tell you that the show got off to a very humble beginning. The first pilot called The Cage, which did include Nimoy as Spock and Jeff Hunter as Capt Pike, was ultimately rejected by NBC execs as being, “too cerebral.” What was strange was that while NBC felt the first pilot lacked the necessary chemistry to make for a successful series they commissioned a second pilot with some changes to the cast except, obviously, for Spock. Enter William “Bill” Shatner as James T. Kirk, DeForest Kelley as Dr Leonard “Bones” McCoy, James Doohan as Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, George Takei as Hikaru Sulu, and Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov. The new chemistry on the set was dynamic, fun, entertaining, and engaging! Takei called Spock and Kirk the show’s, “Yin and yang.” Even in the considerably improved production of the 2nd pilot over the first Variety still felt that the show, “wouldn’t work,” and that the cast including Shatner and “Nomoy” were too wooden! I was left wondering how long it took before the editors at Variety thought, “Oops.”

Spock quickly became the show’s favorite character: being half human and half Vulcan he symbolized the ultimate outsider that everyone can relate to. Nimoy brought a dynamic to Spock that was intrinsically important to the character’s psychology: the raw human emotional side that could only be kept in check by his Vulcan discipline. There were a few notable instances where the emotional side bled out some. In This Side of Paradise Spock encounters Leila Kalomi who exposes him to a very potent spore that can suppress his Vulcan-taught self-control enabling Spock to experience what it’s like to be infatuated – a literal first for him. In later episodes audiences would seek out other instances of Spock letting go of his self-control, but they were few and far between. Spock’s other noticeable characteristic was the famous Vulcan hand-gesture and its spoken blessing, “Live long and prosper,” or “peace and long life,” which was the lesser-known reply. First appearing in the 1967 episode Amok Time Leonard suggested a hand gesture that derived from his Jewish heritage: in the Hebrew alphabet the gesture is for the letter Shin. Within days after the episode aired Nimoy was getting greeted everywhere he went by fans with the Vulcan gesture.

Leonard’s celebrity would become an especially sensitive issue for his family. Adam recalls feeling a certain need to compete with his father’s fandom for attention. Leonard would admit later in life that only until the late 80s would he learn the virtue of putting family over career instead of the opposite, which was how Leonard had been for 30 years following the take-off of Star Trek. Leonard saw the manifestation of Star Trek‘s fan-base take on a wholly unexpected new life in 1972 when he attended his first Star Trek Convention. Joined by his cast-mates from the original 60s serial Nimoy and company brought in a crowd of over 3000 attendees, six times the hosts’ anticipated amount of 500! Adam wouldn’t get to make it out to a convention until 2015.

Prior to JJ Abrams bringing Spock out of retirement for the 2009 remake of Star Trek Nimoy busied himself with directing a few other projects including two hit sequels to Star Trek, Three Men and A Baby, and The Good Mother. It was during this 20-year time period that Nimoy got remarried to Susan Bay, acknowledged and over-came his dependency on alcohol by focusing on his longtime passion of photography, and mended the estranged relationship with his son Adam. Beloved by family, a plethora of fans, and his peers in cinema Leonard Nimoy lived the very life his alter ego Spock wished upon the masses. For The Love of Spock will hit at the hearts of both trekkie and non-trekkie alike.