Adam Nimoy on growing up the son of Spock
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This is On Point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. Imagine growing up as the son of the most famous alien in the world. That was Adam Nimoy's boyhood. His father, Leonard Nimoy, played the legendary role of Mr. Spock in the original Star Trek series.

The role made Leonard Nimoy a global superstar. But off the set, he could be a demanding, tyrannical, and even at times cruel father, as inscrutable and unyielding as the character he played on TV. Adam Nimoy tells the story of growing up, growing apart, and then back together again with his father in the memoir The Most Human, reconciling with my father, Leonard Nimoy.

I recently talked with Adam about the book. We were at City Space, WBUR's live events venue in Boston. And by the way, you'll hear some specific references to the city in our conversation because Leonard Nimoy grew up in Boston, in a neighborhood that's not far from WBUR Studios. Now, being a lifelong Star Trek fan myself, I took the liberty of beginning the conversation with a story from my own life and how much Mr. Spock was part of my family.

We watched the original series with my dad and it was a very major part of my growing up. Star Trek was a very huge part of my family's kind of understanding of the world even and specifically my father who

would sit cross-legged on the couch and like lean in and watch and he would just like be deeply involved and his absolute favorite character was Mr. Spock to the point where

Because my dad was a scientist, but he was also kind of an emotional guy. So Spock's duality of being both Vulcan and human, being deeply immersed in the pursuit of a logical existence marred a little bit by humanity. My father deeply related to that. He would often tell me, he'd say, daughter, because he didn't call me Magni, he called me daughter. When I die and I come back in my next life, I want to come back as a Vulcan. So...

My dad actually did pass away a couple of years ago, and I'd like to think that somewhere on Vulcan, in a dimension where it still exists-- that was my slam on some of the movies-- that he has come back indeed as a Vulcan. And the reason why I wanted to start with that is not only to explain my personal passion and the importance that Star Trek has played in my life, but to ask you, Adam, you must have heard thousands of equivalent stories.

As an adult now, when people share those things with you, does it feel like a gift or a burden? And how does that compare with how it felt when you were growing up? Wow, that's a broad question. That's a big one to start with. Well, Star Trek asks big questions, so I felt like I had to dive in with something profoundly moral and exploratory.

Well, the answer is it's complicated. Things have changed over time. When Star Trek came on the air, I was very excited about the attention my father was getting and people were interested in Spock. He was a very popular character. Our lives changed right away. And it was novel and it was wonderful. The paparazzi were showing up at our house.

The 16 magazine a fanzine had accidentally printed our home addresses the mailing address for Spock fan mail So we started getting sacks of mail And there was just a lot of attention paid to us and it was novel and and really lovely and wonderful and exciting It was an exciting time was ten years old. My sister was eleven and a half at the time and it was really wonderful and

The other side is that I had a lot of difficulty relating to my father because he was so Spock-like and could be very reserved and introverted and very obsessed with his career. And it is a fan-based business. So...

You have to pay attention to the fans and my dad did I mean on the weekends he'd spent a lot of time traveling all over the country making personal appearances meeting with the fans also generating cash which was a big part of his mentality something he learned here on the streets of Boston and There was kind of a competitive element with the fans where I couldn't even be alone with him trying to bond with him on father-son outings without the fans wanting a piece of mr. Spock and

And but now, you know, it's gone back and forth. And then when I had trouble with my dad off and on, which I talk about honestly in the book, The Most Human, you know, I would have a knock down, drag out argument with my dad. And then I would go to pick up my shirts at the cleaners and the guy would figure out my last name and wax eloquently, as did you, about how much he loves Spock and how, you know, Spock changed his life. And and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I just get my shirts?

So there was that and now you know with the reconciliation with my dad in his passing it's it's lovely really to be out with people and and being on this tour and talking about this book and talking about my life with Leonard and and Having and feeling the afterglow of the goodwill that he's created all over the world. Mm-hmm. So you were 10

When all of this begun and it sounds like it was a completely an overnight change in in your family's life Did you ever get to visit the the set? Yes, so they started shooting the first season in Really was late May of 66. I was out of school in the middle of June and for the next couple of months I spent a lot of time on the set and

I was just I was old enough to behave myself somewhat and And I was interested because you know, I love popular culture. I love watching TV I loved all the stuff that my dad had been doing up to that point and I was very curious about what it was like to be on the set and he was

He was willing to take he brought me with him I would go with him very early in the morning and watch him in makeup and hang out all day My mother would come pick me up in the afternoon and it was really it's just it's such a it's like a Disneyland effect I mean you're just in this fantasy world and and and it kind of demystifies things a little bit because you can see how

The Enterprise is just set pieces all over the soundstage. And then there was Planet from Hell on stage nine. But it was great because one of the things that I really loved doing was trying to remember what scenes they were shooting at the time, because I would wait for those episodes and go, oh, yeah, I was there for that. I really felt a part of the experience. And although relating to my dad when he was on set was really complicated.

Stay away stay out of his way was kind of like the mo okay quickly this picture from the cover was obviously when a day that you were on Where you were on set? What was it like getting the ears put on well? It was difficult because they were oversized My ears were not quite big enough It took a lot of I think they called spirit gum is sort of some kind of tape double-sided tape that Fred Phillips the makeup artist who made up my dad every day for the three years he was on the series and

Freddie Phillips was the guy who made all that happen, all that magic happen. This was a prank. The show hadn't even aired. This is July of '66. It didn't go on the air until September 8th of '66, 58 years ago today.

They were always into how to make Leonard laugh. That was one of the objectives on the set, you know Bill Shatner That was one of his objectives is how to get Leonard out of character because my dad had trouble kind of getting in and out of Spock and It was always how do you pierce the veil and this was one way to do it They figured they while my dad was rehearsing somebody came the assistant director came and got me and said you're going to make the makeup trailer and

And Fred Phillips cut my hair. He shaved my eyebrows from which they never totally recovered. I don't know if you've noticed, you know, and then he put in the eyebrow pencil for the spot, you know, the eyebrows. And then he tried to glue these ears on me. And and while they were shooting the scene, I was standing in the turbo lift. These this is one of these moments that you like, you know, you're never going to forget, you know, waiting for that turbo lift to open so I could walk out and give my dad a kiss and say, hi, daddy. And.

That was the gag. So can you tell me a little bit about how your father saw the role of Spock or the importance of the role of Spock? And I ask this because, of course, you know, as everyone here knows, part of the

the immortality of the of the original star trek was the fact that it presented a future that we all hoped for right the the diversity of the crew humanity coming together and exploring space etc and i'm wondering if that aspect of the project mattered to your father especially you know him being jewish

Well, yeah, I mean, I think one of the reasons why Star Trek has resonated for so many years is because it is a message of hope. I mean, not only are we going to figure our stuff out on planet Earth, but we're going to have this United Federation of Planets. There'll be this interplanetary cooperation. The thing about Spock that in particular and what you're kind of alluding to, I mean, in terms of his character specifically is this idea of being the outsider. Mm.

That I think is what has I hear this repeatedly when I talk to people that's what has resonated for so many years with people is the fact that Spock is an outsider and it's okay and it's cool actually cool to be outside and

And my dad was speaking about this, in fact, at the commencement of Boston University in 2012. He was talking about the fact that that Spock was the ultimate outsider, much like my father was when he grew up in the West End of this city, because the West End was a bubble of of immigrants. It was an immigrant neighborhood of Italians, of Irish and of these Russian Jews. My grandparents, they were from Ukraine, but they consider themselves Russian.

And my father's whole objective was how can I get out of this bubble and integrate myself with the greater part of American society, something my grandparents knew nothing about, and give the best that I have to offer as an artist, as a creative person.

That's why he left at age 18 and traveled afar across the country on a three-day train ride with no support from his parents. They wanted him to go to college and become a professional. They were devastated when he said he wanted to become an actor and go to Hollywood, and they would not help him. By the same token, my father reminded me repeatedly, and rightfully so, that although the Enterprise crew, the core crew on the bridge, was multinational, multiethnic, multiracial...

The only alien on that bridge crew was Spock. And as such, Spock's objective was very much, his experience was very much like my father's. When he told his father that he wanted to join, he wanted to go to Starfleet Academy, his dad was appalled because he wanted him to go to the Vulcan Science Academy. So right away there was a parallel in their lives.

And Spock's objective was how can he integrate with his human counterparts on the bridge and give the best that he had to offer. It was that specific because that's what, and that's the genius of my father. That's how you bring a character alive. That's how you bring a story alive. You must find some specific personal connection to the role you're playing, the story you're telling, because then it becomes more universal. More with Adam Nimoy right after the break. This is On Point.

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I'm Meghna Chakrabarty and you're back with On Point and the second part of my conversation with Adam Nimoy, author of the memoir The Most Human, reconciling with my father, Leonard Nimoy. Earlier, Adam had talked about how Leonard Nimoy was so fully dedicated to embodying Mr. Spock while on the Star Trek set that it was often hard to get him out of character. I asked Adam if the same was true at home. Well, yeah.

Look, my father was a very reserved, introspective person to begin with. He was not a warm and fuzzy guy. And he was, that's kind of a matter of his upbringing. I mean, my grandfather was inscrutable is the word I use. I mean, he was a man of few words, if any. Mostly my grandmother ran the show and they were not demonstrative people, my father would say.

They were not warm, loving, tender, you know, kind of parenting people. My mother was that way, thankfully for my sister and myself. My dad was not that way either. So it was very hard to relate to him to begin with. And my dad was obsessed with survival. I mean, from 56 when I was born until 66, it was quite the struggle in the Nimoy household. So family was not a priority to him, and he was just not paying that much attention.

When Spock came along it was the double whammy situation not only was you know to begin with he was difficult to get through to and relate to and connect with But he had so much trouble getting out of character when you're living that kind of a character nine to ten hour ten to twelve hours a day five days a week and

And Spock was such a contained, you know, character. You know, my dad had trouble really just getting out of his Spock bag. We used to say that was a saying in the 60s. You know, he was even more remote, more distant, you know, thinking about reading the next script or thinking about the scenes for the next week. Or he wasn't even around because he was making these, you know, personal appearances.

I had this double whammy with Spock that, you know, not now and not only am I living with Leonard, I'm living with Leonard and Spock much more difficult. Well, perhaps you already answered this, but someone just asked that Spock, Spock himself had a complicated relationship with his father, Sarek. So true. What was what was Leonard's relationship with his father? And do you think that influenced your relationship with Sarek?

with your father? I had to give him, cut him some slack because of the modeling that he had from his parents. They were just...

But and and I knew they were proud of my dad even after he was successful I mean, I just knew it they didn't understand anything about Star Trek But I never heard them say that they loved him or were proud of him outright never So I think he had it was a struggle for him in terms of his own modeling with his parents for him to figure out Really what parenting was about in terms of his relationship with me. I

So then talk more about that because, again, this is happening when you're 10. The production of Star Trek goes on for just a mere three seasons, but the impact resonates throughout your whole life, right? Because it never goes away. It just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. How did being unable to get your dad out of the Spock bag have an impact on you in terms of how you saw him?

Well, to stay the hell out of his way, for one thing, you know, I just loved my father and was so proud of what he could accomplish. But but being you know, I just I was just disconnected to him for many years. And, you know, if I needed nurturing and support and love, I went to my mother and my maternal grandparents for that. The problem was that when I became a teenager.

And he was done with Star Trek and Mission Impossible. That was five solid years of very heavy TV work. And my dad had some spare time, and he was around the house more. And he was starting to take a look at me in my life. Well, I was 17. I was a pothead, and I was a complete deadhead.

My dad was pretty heavily into admittedly his own alcoholism. It was just a recipe for disaster. Mm-hmm We have another good question here from the audience your father wrote both I am NOT Spock and I am Spock How did his struggle with his Spock enos? Influence his life. I am NOT Spock was written in the mid 70s in 1975 and It was a mistake

And it was a mistake that he admitted to. I mean, my dad was very strong-willed. He could be very determined. He could be very pig-headed, in fact. And the publishers suggested not entitling it I Am Not Spock. And he was taking a very literal approach. People were always coming up to him when he was traveling in airports or out in public. And they just identified him as Mr. Spock.

Oh, Spock, I love you. Mothers would introduce him to their children as, this is Mr. Spock. Well, I'm not Spock. I don't come from Vulcan. I come from Boston.

And he was kind of like literally talking about the fact of that I'm an artist. I created this character. I love the character. I love Spock, but I'm not him. People should know that I have my own identity. Well, I mean, he's kind of splitting hairs there and the fans didn't really care about that nuance. What they read from it was, I'm not Spock. I'll never be Spock. I don't like Spock. I'm my own man. Stop talking about Spock.

And the backlash was immediate. It was vicious, in fact.

It was quite an eye-opener for my father. So when he decided to write another autobiography memoir, essentially, he decided to make amends for that by entitling it "I Am Spock" because the fact of the matter is he loved Spock. He was so grateful what the role had brought him in terms of opportunity. It was misconception. When he was the last holdout on the Star Trek movie,

People thought, oh, this is because he hates Spock and doesn't want to be a part of Star Trek. Not true. It was because he had this lawsuit against Paramount for merchandising rights after all the syndicated market and all the times they reran that series during the 70s, which made Star Trek such a huge success.

Kind of you know global phenomenon. It was not the three years on the air and the actors were paid nothing No residual they ran out very quickly and Paramount's making all this money on merchandising and not paying anybody including my father Until they settled the lawsuit he would not even consider being in one of the future films But everybody else construed that as oh, he hates Spock. He doesn't want to be in the movie. Mm-hmm. I love the movies

Right? The first four are like amongst my favorite movies of all time. So the line, actually, this is from Star Trek III when Sarek is on Vulcan. I believe it's from III. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. And he's speaking with Vulcan elders. And Sarek says, "When it comes to my children, my logic is uncertain." I think that's a paraphrase. It's not the exact words, but it's close.

That resonated with my dad profoundly. And I'm wondering if sort of that uncertainty even in any family relationship, but especially between parent and child or your case, father and son, if that resonates with you.

His logic is uncertain, that's for sure. I mean, you know, yeah, it was definitely challenging. I mean, this is the interesting thing. This is the conundrum about my father. He's a multi-talented artist. He's a Renaissance man. He could do anything. He could fix anything. You know, give him a toolbox. He can fix anything. But when it came to parenting, there were a lot of challenges for him.

His logic was definitely uncertain and and these are the kind of things I had overcome when I had my own kids You know and when I had my own kids it became more apparent to me of what was missing in my relationship from my dad particularly early or early on with him and this was the most difficult this is the issue of my life really and the issue of my recovery is is how do you deal with that situation when you have a parent who you just can't relate to and and can't you know get real with yeah and

So our fabulous staff has got the exact quote, "My logic is uncertain where my son is concerned." Such a good movie. Talk to me a little bit then about, I mean, addiction.

You described yourself by the age of 17 as a pothead. How did that happen? Well, I guess there were a number of factors. You know, the thing is about, look, I was very much kind of a loner, kind of a person. I was not popular in school. When you start smoking weed, you have immediate community.

Because there are a lot of people in high school who are doing that who want to party who want to get high You know my deadhead community I mean all of a sudden I had a whole bunch of friends and and I was enjoying that aspect of it the problem with addiction is that you I spent the next 30 years trying to chase that feeling of fun of I mean I remember it specifically in fact I

When I got out of, you know, I had a love-hate thing with pot while I was in college and went to school at undergraduate at Berkeley. And then I went to Loyola Law School and I, you know, I wished I could smoke less and focus more on the things that I had to do. But I do have a very specific memory of having taken the California State Bar and then I went to the south of Spain with some of my law school buddies.

And, you know, we're drinking sangria, eating paella, we're on the beaches of Nerja, we're enjoying the, you know, it's just beautiful women and we're having a great time. And I was listening to music on the beach and thinking to myself, you know, I just, I want to capture this moment. I want to remember this moment because it was so wonderful. You know, getting high and partying with my friends. The problem with addiction is then you keep trying to chase that moment, right?

recreate that moment in your addiction and and pretty soon it's just because it starts off as fun then it's just fun with problems and then it's just problems and that's kind of the way my addiction went to the point where I finally figured out after having kids that it was time to clean up my act can you tell me tell us more about that I mean it was it was it the the fact of you being responsible for for children that that

motivated you towards sobriety? Well, yeah, I mean it was you know I was married for 18 years to my first wife and we're very close now 20 years after we split but it was it was a family marriage and the way I kind of dealt with that was to just stay high all the time as a way to numb myself, you know and and numbing myself had a little bit to do with my dad too was

You know feeling the loss and the difficulty of dealing with him. He could be very judgmental very difficult I mean, this is the thing about these depression era guys they have a lot of trouble expressing feelings of love and joy and just sensitivity and support and pride But when it comes to anger resentment and judgment my dad was very good expressing some of those feelings and dealing with the pain from some of that was

Maybe a part and I'm not blaming him It's just a part of trying to fill a little hole in myself and get that warm and fuzzy feeling that I felt when I was getting high Well, you know, I was in a failing marriage and trying to do the same thing was trying to numb myself from the pain until my kids were

Teenagers and they started to recognize that there was something wrong with dad. That was the clincher something's wrong with dad What was wrong with dad is he's stoned all the time and that and when they started to become somewhat aware of that That was what that's when I hit my bottom and it clicked with me Okay, I gotta I gotta get out of this marriage and I got a sober up. Hmm in the book you you describe your father's being a high-functioning alcoholic

What age were you when you first realized that that's what he was? Well Probably when I was in law school, he was just like me, you know, I mean that's the thing I could see there's I mean I'm a high-functioning pothead There's a lot of us high functioning alcoholics and addicts running around in the world I think was probably then that I knew, you know, I knew that he was really deep in his alcoholism that it was a regular thing with him and

that every night he was in his little private bar at home fixing a drink. But the fact of the matter is he never missed a call time. He never missed an interview. And, you know, I mean, weirdly enough, I kind of admired that about him. He didn't let his alcoholism get in the way of his professional life. It got in the way of his personal life, certainly between me and him. I mean, we had a couple of knockdown drag outs when

you know, he had had a few drinks and I was probably high and it's just a horrible combination. I mean that just exacerbated the difficulties between us. But the fact of the matter is I was very much like him. I, you know, I made it through law school. I managed to pass the bar and I was stoned pretty much through that whole experience.

How long had your father been drinking? Do you know? Well, he said in an interview with none other than Bill Shatner that he started drinking when he was on Star Trek because it was the first show that he was on, first series he was a regular cast member on, high pressure, how do you decompress, dealing with problems on the set, dealing with the problematic producers, dealing with Bill Shatner and some of the conflict they had, a couple of Jewish boys in outer space.

You know a lot of that my dad said I mean this is you know This is what we do when we become substance abusers. We use a substance to help deal with some of the issues of the pressures of being on this planet hmm, so someone from the audience asks I am an adult child of an alcoholic and 33 years sober in a a

Was your amends process and reconciliation reciprocated? Yes and no. I mean, my father never made an amends to me. You know, 12-step recovery is steps eight and nine. You made a list of people we had harmed and became willing amends to them all. And then nine, made direct amends to such people whenever possible. My father went sober in the mid-90s and he took me with him to an AA meeting. I'd never been to one. I wasn't sober at this point. I'm not even sure why he took me.

I mean whether it was him telling me I needed to sober up or him showing me that he was proud of the work he was doing in AA, I don't know. But for the first time in a lot of these 12-step meetings, we read the 12 steps to remind everybody of the work we need to do in recovery. And when they got to steps eight and nine, which I had never heard before, I was freaking livid. I was livid with him.

Was like shaking I was sweating because he never made an amends to me and what kind of recovery program is this anyway? When you can get away with that, I just I thought it was a bogus program frankly, then I went into recovery myself in 2004 This is probably six years later six or eight years later after he went into recovery and that's when I learned that well making amends is you know, it's my job and

That is part of my recovery and I needed to make one to him which I fought and I resisted and I refused to do but I was told to do it and so I did it. You know, I faked it till I made it we say in the program and I made amends to him for, you know, based on a letter he had written me about why he thought I was the reason for the problems in our relationship. He wrote me a six-page letter.

And, you know, it's in the book. It shocked me. You know, he took my inventory, we say, all of my character defects, and a friend of mine in recovery said, this is great. Take that letter, go to your dad and make an amends for it. I'm like, are you kidding? That's insane. I'm not going to do it. He explained to me that the amends was not for my father. It was for me.

Had my own resentments my own grudges against my dad I should apologize for everything in the letter and let go my own resentments about and just accept him one of which was he never made an amends to me and get on with my life So the weird thing was and my dad was very happy about this experience by the way while I was making the amends to him he was like he was like very it was get a very satisfying look on his face and she's like

And in fact when I was walking me out of his house, I went to his house to make the amends He invited me to Shabbat dinner the following Friday night But the fact is after that everything changed with him everything because I changed I changed that is a program of recovery Acceptance it radical acceptance with other people. They don't people don't change you change. I

That's the serenity prayer. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Other people and the world. The courage to change the things I can, i.e. me and the wisdom to know the difference. We say that at almost the end of every meeting.

But the fact of the matter is, things changed with my dad. He was willing himself at that moment to let go of his own grudges against me. And as I talk about in the book, when my second wife, Martha, became very sick with cancer, my dad showed up for me, and we call that a living amends. He was the guy. He was my major source of support, was him. He was my go-to guy at any given moment, and that's what we call a living amends. Mm-hmm.

The final part of my conversation with Adam Nimoy is in just a minute. This is On Point. Time to move? Skip the hassles of selling during the holiday season and sell your home directly to Opendoor. Request an all-cash offer in minutes, close, and get paid in days. You can even pick your close date so you can move after New Year's. Start your move at Opendoor.com or download the Opendoor app.

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Babbel.com slash Spotify podcast. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash Spotify podcast. Rules and restrictions may apply. You're back with On Point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. Now the final part of my conversation with Adam Nimoy. His father, Leonard Nimoy, was Mr. Spock on Star Trek. Arguably the most famous alien to ever appear on television.

Spock is half Vulcan, half human, half creature of pure logic, half creature struggling with the chaos of the human experience. Both Nimoy's father and son struggled with addiction. So with that in mind, I asked Adam if he or his father ever felt a Spock-like duality as they began their journeys into recovery. Okay, yes. I mean, you touched on a really great issue about recovery. Look,

I'm an addict in recovery, and I just accept that about myself. You know, I'm just a regular run-of-the-mill pothead. I thought I was going to be in recovery for a couple years, dry out after a couple years, and just go back out there and become a normie, right? And I've been modifying that plan every day for the past 20 years. I love the program. I love the meetings. I love recovery. And I don't do it always perfectly, because I've got to tell you, when people piss me off, my first thought is, F you.

That is my first thought. But I have tools of recovery. And that's what I felt when I got that letter from my dad. F you, you got you got a six page letter. I got a ten page letter letter and it's coming your way. Recovery for me is trying to gain some emotional maturity over these types of thoughts. It is very Spockian. Spock has a lot of emotions because he is half human. The Vulcan side is an attempt to maintain himself and control that

And and and get some kind of a grip on it that is recovery for me because I don't want to react this is the whole point is to keep my mouth from moving when my mind is saying F you I'm trying to get to my second thought and my first action those I am responsible for how do you get to that second thought and those are where the tools of recovery come in we have a lot of mantras like count to ten

Restrain a pen and tongue. Let go and let God. And my all-time favorite, don't just do something, sit there. And that's what I did with that letter. That is what I did with that letter. And I would share this at meetings anonymously in 12-step meetings. You know, most people didn't know I was related to Leonard Nimoy. They don't need to know I'm related to Leonard Nimoy when I share at a 12-step meeting. So a lot of my brothers and sisters from recovery were like, this is great.

You're practicing these principles in all your affairs. That's the whole point of the program. They were very supportive of what I was doing because I did not react to that letter. I did not write him back. I just tried to let it go. But it was another friend in recovery, my friend Ed, who was a lower companion in high school, and Ed had much more recovery than I did. He's the guy who said, oh, no, not good enough. This letter is your opportunity to really change your life. Make amends.

Was it at all made harder for you knowing that your father was also this godlike hero figure to so many millions of people? You know, my father warned me very early on. When I was 17, he and I had a major knockdown drag out. He sent me a letter, a conciliatory letter.

Which was long forgotten until it magically appeared when I was making this documentary about my dad. And in that letter he said to me the following: "Conflict with him and competition with him was going to be difficult for three reasons. Number one, he could be very verbal and very loud. Number two, he's just a tough kid from the streets of Boston and you don't mess with him."

And number three, he's rich and famous. And that's what I discovered is like it is really difficult to go toe to toe with a man who is loved by millions of fans all over the world and say to him, I am so sorry. You are human. You're fallible and you're wrong. That's the tough part.

So another question from the audience here. Many children say they don't want to repeat the mistakes of their parents. What did you do differently, and what did you find yourself doing exactly like him? I just love that question. I just love that. That's just a trick question. I love that question. Look, I was raised very differently. My dad was selling newspapers on the Boston Common in the dead of winter at age 10. That was my dad's upbringing.

Completely different upbringing. When I was 10, Star Trek went on the air. I was born in sunny Southern California. And I'm watching 60s TV, including Star Trek. I'm reading Spider-Man comic books, and I'm listening to the Fab Four. I mean, that was my life. I loved being a kid in Southern California. Well, my kids had the same upbringing I had. So right away, I could relate to them. And I was...

Also determined like my father to succeed in my career initially as an attorney. But I had much more of I didn't have the desperation Leonard had because I had more financial well-being.

He had nothing. Nothing. So right away we're dealing with a completely apples and oranges situation. I was just much more involved with parenting my kids. I wanted to. I liked hanging out with them. I liked the stuff they did. We hung out and watched TV and went surfing with my son and jammed together. And my daughter liked to go to concerts and

I mean, I coached her soccer team. I took my son out to surfing at 5 o'clock in the morning. I was an idiot enough to get up in the morning at 5 o'clock to take him and his friend surfing. I was helping my daughter with her school papers. I did everything for those kids, and yet still they found reasons to hate me. It's inevitable. But we had a love connection.

That was what was critical. And a lot of the book is, you know, the challenges of my teenage daughter. Oh, my God. Teenage girls are, oh, jeez. I mean, talk about restraint of pen and tongue. It just doesn't factor in. You know, it was really difficult for her, particularly when I split from her mom, you know, during the middle school years. We were talking about this as well. Tough period for any kid. It's very, very challenging. But, but...

They but we did family therapy. I was there. I showed up for them. You know, even when I split, I was there taking them to school. I mean, my career crashed and burned in TV directing and I needed a job. My first job get this was substitute teaching because I always wanted to teach in the Santa Monica, Malibu, Santa Monica, Malibu Unified School District so that I could be closer to my kids.

So, it was just, we had difficulties, but in the end we found resolution because we had a love connection from the very beginning that simply was not there with my own dad. This is another taste of Spock himself. It's another Yedim moment that embodies the humanity baked into the character as well. So let's watch that. I cannot dismiss my duties. Duty? Your duty is to your father.

If I could give the transfusion without loss of time or efficiency, I would. Sarek understands my reason. Well, I don't. It's not human. Oh, that's not a dirty word. You're human, too. Let that part of you come through. Your father's dying.

Mother, how can you have lived on Vulcan so long, married a Vulcan, raised a son on Vulcan, without understanding what it means to be a Vulcan? Well, if this is what it means, I don't want to know. It means to adopt a philosophy, a way of life which is logical and beneficial. We cannot disregard that philosophy merely for personal gain, no matter how important that gain might be. Nothing is as important as your father's life. Can you imagine what my father would say if I were to agree

If I were to give up command of this vessel, jeopardize hundreds of lives, risk interplanetary war, all for the life of one person. Wow. Honestly, he's such a spectacular actor. And the writing is so good. That also reminded me of a line that he utters in one of the movies, right? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. You really are a Trekkie, aren't you? And proudly so, let me tell you. A Trekker, I should say.

I wanted to ask you a couple questions about you in the book you write about how you mentioned, obviously, frequently the importance of your father's growing up here in Boston in the West End, a very different West End than it is now, we should note.

And so in 2013, you and your father took a trip here to film a documentary, right? Leonard Nimoy's Boston. And that was also the same year that he received his honorary degree from BU. And I'm wondering if you could just describe that trip a little bit. Well, yeah. The appearance at BU, the School of Communications, was actually the year before and...

He he gave a commencement speech to that that particular school and then and then he had to make a walk with the procession up to the day as for the for the general graduation and it was after that that experience well first of all that experience was amazing because You know, he's introduced to the crowd of graduates I mean, there's a couple of like must be a thousand people out there and giving them the Spock salute and they're all giving it back to him, you know, and it's just the

The trajectory of the man's life as this poor kid from the West End this immigrant kid To come back, you know in such triumph is so it's just so empowering It's so it's you know, it is the story of America, you know this kind of rags to riches story of the land of opportunity that you can become at whatever you set your mind to become and

And it was a very satisfying experience. And then but then when we when I went met up with him afterwards, you know, they had to walk down the track for just not even that far. He told me he was out of breath and didn't think he was going to make it because he had COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease from 30 years of cigarette smoking. I was shocked when he said that. And and that's when and then the fall we were thinking about making a documentary together

of the following year actually and that's when I you know decided that we were going to be working together on a project for Star Trek specifically but that grew out of the fact that before that in this is just after the marathon bombing in Boston actually is when I came up with this idea of doing Leonard Nimoy's Boston and we

Called a production company here in Boston and I asked them we want to come in We want to shoot some video on the street of my dad walking from his neighborhood and the various places where he worked at a card store in Bromfield Street sold vacuum cleaners on Boylston Street, you know worked at a camera shop on Beacon Hill and and the guy the the guy who went owned the production company said well, we're never gonna get permits for that because the city is basically in lockdown and

And he suggested that we simply show up and, you know, run and gun is what we call it. So I just go to the location, pull out the video camera and the and, you know, the sound mics and shoot the thing, have, you know, interview your dad and let's just keep moving on. So and that's what we did. And we were pretty successful at it until we got to the Boston Common.

We got out of the car with me with a camera crew. We were going to shoot just some establishing shots of the common where my dad had been selling newspapers and right away cop came up to me right away and he said you can't park here. And I said well we're just going to be here for a couple of minutes to do some establishing shots and I have Leonard Nimoy in the car. And he says I'll stand here and make sure no one bothers you. Can I meet Mr. Nimoy?

I'm like, yeah, sure, come over here. Dad, this is Officer O'Malley helping us out for the day. It was a great experience for us, for me to bond with my dad and for my dad to bookend his life and look back at his career. Because the fact of the matter is, the theme of that documentary is, this city shaped his life. That is a fact.

of growing up on the streets of the city, of hustling during the Depression, and of the opportunities the city gave him because they developed these settlement houses in and around the West End because the city fathers didn't know what to do with all these kids who were growing up from immigrant parents. And they're all congregating on the street, turning into gangs. And it's like, we got to do something with these kids.

They came up with the idea of settlement houses. West End House, which is just demolished recently, there's a huge structure going up there for Massachusetts General Hospital now. Most of the structures are gone from the West End, but there was West End House where my dad was managing a basketball team, and there was the Peabody House. Elizabeth Peabody was a settlement house.

know they taught kids like home economics and science projects and and there was a theater at the peabody uh settlement house where my dad was cast as an eight-year-old on the stage and that's where it began for him and he was he was in a number of theater productions there and then he was seen by a guy named father john bond who ran the drama department at boston college who saw my dad in a production i think it was awake and sing as a teenager and offered him a scholarship to come to boston college for the summer

So these, you know, my dad wanted to give back. He wanted to pay homage to the city that had molded him into the person he became, which gave him the tools that he needed and the determination and the drive to succeed in Hollywood. So here's the last question. It does come from a member of the audience. What do you think is the most important thing you learned from your dad? The most important thing was passion. Passion was everything to Leonard. Everything.

You have to feel a passion about what you do, the work you do in particular. You have to feel a connection to the work with such determination and such feeling and emotion and attachment to make it worthwhile. This is what kept him going through all the trials and tribulations of his life in Hollywood. I mean, there were a lot of setbacks or a lot of obstacles in his way, but he was determined to do what he loved to do and defied his parents, in fact.

Mean they were devastated when he said he wanted to become an actor and go to Hollywood It was like, you know telling them he wanted to join the circus But he was so passionate about what he wanted to do and this is something I kind of you know I thought I was passionate about the law. I thought I would be passionate You know, you don't know till you get into it, you know And I was passionate about the intellectual exercise of being in law school, you know I really really enjoy the experience but practicing law after seven years. It's like I

Don't feel passionate about this and what really clicked for me was in between jobs as a lawyer I went out to an acting class with Jeff Corey who was my dad's acting instructor This is you know, Jeff had a very good career in Hollywood after being blacklisted Which is why he became a teacher, but when he was semi-retired I went out to his class three hours. He had a little studio out in Malibu and it blew my mind and

And it triggered something in me that, oh, my God, I love storytelling. I want to be in this. I want to do something creative. That is what I feel passionate about. And everybody, and I say that when I was teaching film school for many years, I would tell those people, they would always say things to me like, Adam, why are you so angry all the time? And I would say, I'm not angry. I'm passionate. And you need to be passionate because if you want to survive in this industry, you're going to need it.

And that is what Leonard was all about. It has been such a pleasure and an honor to speak with you about your life, about your dad's life, about your candid exploration of the relationship between you. So Adam, thank you so very much. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you so much. Live long and prosper, everybody.

Adam Nimoy is the author of the memoir, The Most Human, reconciling with my father, Leonard Nimoy. I spoke with him in front of a live audience at City Space, WBUR's live events venue in Boston, Massachusetts. And from all of us to you, live long and prosper. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. This is On Point. On Point.

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