Leonard Simon Nimoy was born on March 26, 1931, in the West End of Boston, Massachusetts, to Jewish immigrants from Iziaslav, Ukraine. His parents left Iziaslav separately, his father first walking over the border into Poland while his mother and grandmother were smuggled out of the Soviet Union in a horse-drawn wagon by hiding under bales of hay. They reunited after arriving in the United States. His mother, Dora (née Spinner; 1904–1987), was a homemaker, and his father, Max Nimoy (1901–1987), owned a barbershop in the Mattapan section of Boston. He had an elder brother, Melvin. He also had a cousin, Jeff Nimoy, a writer and actor in the entertainment industry.

Nimoy spent more than a decade receiving only small parts in B movies and the lead in one, along with a minor TV role. He believed that playing the title role in the 1952 film Kid Monk Baroni would make him a star, but the film failed after playing briefly. While he was serving in the military the film gained a larger audience on television, and after his discharge he got steadier work playing a “heavy,” where his character used street weapons like switchblades and guns, or had to threaten, hit or kick people. Despite overcoming his Boston accent, because of his lean appearance Nimoy realized that becoming a star was not likely.

In 1953, Nimoy enlisted in the United States Army Reserve at Fort McPherson Georgia, serving for 18 months until 1955, leaving as a sergeant. Part of Nimoy’s time in the military was spent with the Army Special Services, putting on shows which he wrote, narrated, and emceed. One of his soldiers was Ken Berry, whom he encouraged to go into acting as a civilian, and helped contact agents. During that period, he also directed and starred in A Streetcar Named Desire, with the Atlanta Theater Guild. Soon after he was discharged, with his wife Sandi pregnant with their second child, they rented an apartment and Nimoy took a job driving a cab in Los Angeles.

Nimoy played an army sergeant in the 1954 science fiction thriller Them! and a professor in the 1958 science fiction movie The Brain Eaters, and had a role in The Balcony (1963), a film adaptation of the Jean Genet play. With Vic Morrow, he co-produced Deathwatch, a 1965 English-language film version of Genet’s play Haute Surveillance, adapted and directed by Morrow and starring Nimoy. The story dealt with three prison inmates. Partly as a result of his role, he then taught drama classes to members of Synanon, a drug rehab center, explaining: “Give a little here and it always comes back”.

Nimoy was married twice. In 1954, he married actress Sandra Zober; they had two children, Julie and Adam. After 32 years of marriage, he reportedly left Sandra on her 56th birthday and divorced her in 1987. On New Year’s Day 1989, Nimoy married his second wife, actress Susan Bay, cousin of director Michael Bay.

He had guest roles in the Sea Hunt series from 1958 to 1960 and a minor role in the 1961 The Twilight Zone episode “A Quality of Mercy”. He also appeared in the syndicated Highway Patrol starring Broderick Crawford, and as Luke Reid in the “Night of Decision” episode of the ABC/Warner Bros. western series Colt .45.

Nimoy was best known for his portrayal of Spock, the half-human, half-Vulcan character he played on Star Trek from the first TV episode, in 1966, to the film Star Trek Into Darkness in 2013. Biographer Dennis Fischer says it was Nimoy’s “most important role,” and Nimoy was later credited by others for bringing “dignity and intelligence to one of the most revered characters in science fiction.”

On the stage, Nimoy played the lead role in a short run of Gore Vidal’s Visit to a Small Planet in 1968 (shortly before the end of the Star Trek series) at the Pheasant Run Playhouse in St. Charles, Illinois.

Following Star Trek in 1969, Nimoy immediately joined the cast of the spy series Mission: Impossible, which was seeking a replacement for Martin Landau. Nimoy was cast in the role of Paris, an IMF agent who was an ex-magician and make-up expert, “The Great Paris”. He played the role during seasons four and five (1969–1971). Nimoy had been strongly considered as part of the initial cast for the show, but remained in the Spock role on Star Trek.

Nimoy also won acclaim for a series of stage roles. In 1971 he played the starring role of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, which toured for eight weeks. Nimoy, who had performed in the Yiddish theater as a young man, said the part was like a “homecoming” for him, explaining that his parents, like Tevye, also came from a shtetl in Russia and could relate to the play when they saw him in it. Later that year he starred as Arthur Goldman in The Man in the Glass Booth at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego.

Nimoy made his directorial debut in 1973, with the “Death on a Barge” segment for an episode of Night Gallery during its final season. It was not until the early 1980s that Nimoy resumed directing on a consistent basis, ranging from television shows to motion pictures.

He starred as Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1974, a year prior to its release as a feature film, with Jack Nicholson in the same role. During the run of the play, Nimoy took over as its director and wanted his character to be “rough and tough,” and insisted on having tattoos. The costumer for the show, Sharon White, was amused: “That was sort of an intimate thing. … Here I am with Mr. Spock, for god’s sakes, and I am painting pictures on his arms.”

In 1975, Leonard Nimoy filmed an opening introduction to Ripley’s World of the Unexplained museum located at Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Fisherman’s Wharf at San Francisco, California. In the late 1970s, he hosted and narrated the television series In Search of …, which investigated paranormal or unexplained events or subjects. In 2000–2001 he hosted CNBC TV series The Next Wave With Leonard Nimoy, which explored how e-businesses were integrating with technology and the Internet. He also had a character part as a psychiatrist in Philip Kaufman’s 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

In 1975 he toured with and played the title role in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Sherlock Holmes. A number of authors have perceived parallels between the rational Holmes and the character of Spock, and it became a running theme in Star Trek fan clubs. Star Trek writer Nicholas Meyer said that “the link between Spock and Holmes was obvious to everyone.” Meyer gives a few examples, including a scene in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, in which Spock quotes directly from a Doyle book and credits Holmes as a forefather to the logic he was espousing. In addition, the connection was implied in Star Trek: The Next Generation, which paid homage to both Holmes and Spock.

In 1975, his renditions of Ray Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains” and “Usher II”, both from The Martian Chronicles (1950), were released on Caedmon Records.

By 1977, when Nimoy played Martin Dysart in Equus on Broadway, he had played 13 important roles in 27 cities, including Tevye, Malvolio in Twelfth Night, and Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In 1981 he starred in Vincent, a one-man show which Nimoy wrote and published as a book in 1984. The audio recording of the play is available on DVD under the title, Van Gogh Revisited It was based on the life of artist Vincent van Gogh, in which Nimoy played Van Gogh’s brother Theo. Other plays included Oliver!, at the Melody Top Theater in Milwaukee, 6 Rms Riv Vu opposite Sandy Dennis, in Florida, Full Circle with Bibi Anderson on Broadway and in Washington, D.C. He was in Camelot, The King and I, Caligula, The Four Poster, and My Fair Lady.

After two years of part-time study, in 1977 Nimoy earned an MA in education from Antioch College. In 2000, he received an honorary doctorate from Antioch University in Ohio, awarded for activism in Holocaust remembrance, the arts, and the environment. In 2012, he received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Boston University.

During 1980, Nimoy hosted the “Adventure Night” segment of the radio drama series Mutual Radio Theater, heard via the Mutual Broadcasting System.

From 1982 to 1987, Nimoy hosted the children’s educational show Standby…Lights! Camera! Action! on Nickelodeon. He worked occasionally as a voice actor in animated feature films, including the character of Galvatron in The Transformers: The Movie in 1986. Nimoy also provided the narration for the 1991 CBS paranormal series Haunted Lives: True Ghost Stories.

Nimoy began feature film directing in 1984 with Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, the third installment of the film series. Nimoy directed the second most successful movie (critically and financially) in the franchise, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), and then Three Men and a Baby, the highest-grossing film of 1987. These successes made him a star director. Nimoy directed The Good Mother (1988) and Funny About Love (1990). In 1994 he directed his last feature film, Holy Matrimony. His final directorial credit was “Killshot”, the 1995 pilot episode for Deadly Games, a short-lived science-fiction television series.

Nimoy played the part of the chauffeur in the 1985 music video of The Bangles’ cover version of “Going Down to Liverpool”. He also appeared in the alternate music video for the song “The Lazy Song” by pop artist Bruno Mars.

In 1986, Nimoy lent his voice to the 1986 cartoon movie The Transformers: The Movie for the character Galvatron.

In 1991, Nimoy starred in Never Forget, which he co-produced with Robert B. Radnitz. The movie was about a pro bono publico lawsuit by an attorney on behalf of Mel Mermelstein, played by Nimoy as an Auschwitz survivor, against a group of organizations engaged in Holocaust denial. Nimoy said he experienced a strong “sense of fulfillment” from doing the film.

In Bradbury’s 1993 animated TV film The Halloween Tree, Nimoy was the voice of Mr. Moundshroud, the children’s guide.

In 1994, Nimoy voiced Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in The Pagemaster. In 1998, he had a leading role as Mustapha Mond in Brave New World, a TV-movie version of Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel.

From 1994 until 1997, Nimoy narrated the Ancient Mysteries series on A&E including “The Sacred Water of Lourdes” and “Secrets of the Romanovs”. He also appeared in advertising in the United Kingdom for the computer company Time Computers in the late 1990s. In 1997 Nimoy played the prophet Samuel, alongside Nathaniel Parker, in The Bible Collection movie David. Nimoy also appeared in several popular television series, including Futurama and The Simpsons, both as himself and as Spock.

Nimoy appeared in Bonanza (1960), The Rebel (1960), Two Faces West (1961), Rawhide (1961), The Untouchables (1962), The Eleventh Hour (1962), Perry Mason (1963; playing murderer Pete Chennery in “The Case of the Shoplifter’s Shoe”, episode 13 of season 6), Combat! (1963, 1965), Daniel Boone, The Outer Limits (1964), The Virginian (1963–1965; first working with Star Trek co-star DeForest Kelley in “Man of Violence”, episode 14 of season 2, in 1963), and Get Smart (1966). He appeared again in the 1995 Outer Limits series. He appeared in Gunsmoke in 1962 as Arnie and in 1966 as John Walking Fox.

In 1995, Nimoy was involved in the production of Primortals, a comic book series published by Tekno Comix about first contact with aliens, which had arisen from a discussion he had with Isaac Asimov. There was a novelization by Steve Perry.

Nimoy was long active in the Jewish community, and could speak and read Yiddish. In 1997, he narrated the documentary A Life Apart: Hasidism in America, about the various sects of Hasidic Orthodox Jews. In October 2002, Nimoy published The Shekhina Project, a photographic study exploring the feminine aspect of God’s presence, inspired by Kabbalah. Reactions have varied from enthusiastic support to open condemnation. Nimoy said objections to Shekhina did not bother or surprise him, but he smarted at the stridency of the Orthodox protests, and was saddened at the attempt to control thought.

In 1999, he voiced the narration of the English version of the Sega Dreamcast game Seaman and promoted Y2K educational films.

In 2000, he provided on-camera hosting and introductions for 45 half-hour episodes of an anthology series entitled Our 20th Century on the AEN TV Network. The series covers world news, sports, entertainment, technology, and fashion using original archive news clips from 1930 to 1975 from the National Archives in Washington, D.C. and other private archival sources.

In 2001, Nimoy voiced the role of the Atlantean King Kashekim Nedakh in the Disney animated feature Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

In the 2001 documentary film Mind Meld, in which Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner discuss their acting careers and personal lives, Nimoy revealed that he had become an alcoholic while working on Star Trek and ended up in drug rehabilitation. William Shatner, in his 2008 book Up Till Now: The Autobiography, spoke about how later in their lives, Nimoy tried to help Shatner’s alcoholic wife, Nerine Kidd.

Nimoy also composed several volumes of poetry, some published along with a number of his photographs. A later poetic volume entitled A Lifetime of Love: Poems on the Passages of Life was published in 2002. His poetry can be found in the Contemporary Poets index of The HyperTexts. Nimoy adapted and starred in the one-man play Vincent (1981), based on the play Van Gogh (1979) by Phillip Stephens.

In 2007, he produced the play, Shakespeare’s Will by Canadian Playwright Vern Thiessen. The one-woman show starred Jeanmarie Simpson as Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway. The production was directed by Nimoy’s wife, Susan Bay.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who had met Nimoy in 2007, remembered him as “a lifelong lover of the arts and humanities, a supporter of the sciences, generous with his talent and his time.” Former NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin called Nimoy “a fellow space traveler because he helped make the journey into the final frontier accessible to us all.”

He went on to reprise the Spock character in Star Trek: The Animated Series and two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. When a new Star Trek series was planned in the late 1970s, Nimoy was to be in only two out of eleven episodes, but when the series was elevated to a feature film, he agreed to reprise his role. The first six Star Trek movies feature the original Star Trek cast including Nimoy, who also directed two of the films. He played the elder Spock in the 2009 Star Trek movie and reprised the role in a brief appearance in the 2013 sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness, both directed by J. J. Abrams.

In 2009, he voiced the part of “The Zarn”, an Altrusian, in the television-based movie Land of the Lost.

Nimoy played the reoccurring enigmatic character of Dr. William Bell on the television show Fringe. Nimoy opted for the role after previously working with Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman on the 2009 Star Trek film and offered another opportunity to work with this production team again. Nimoy also was interested in the series, which he saw was an intelligent mixture of science and science fiction, and continued to guest star through the show’s fourth season, even after his stated 2012 retirement from acting. Nimoy’s first appearance as Bell was in the Season 1 finale, “There’s More Than One of Everything”, which explored the possible existence of a parallel universe.

In 2009, Nimoy was honored by his childhood hometown when the Office of Mayor Thomas Menino proclaimed the date of November 14, 2009, as “Leonard Nimoy Day” in the City of Boston.

Nimoy also provided voiceovers for the Star Trek Online massive multiplayer online game, released in February 2010, as well as Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep as Master Xehanort, the series’ leading villain. Tetsuya Nomura, the director of Birth by Sleep, said he chose Nimoy for the role specifically because of his role as Spock. Nimoy would later reprise this role for Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance in 2012. After his death in 2015, Nimoy was replaced by Rutger Hauer for the role of Xehanort in Kingdom Hearts III.

In April 2010, Nimoy announced that he was retiring from playing Spock, citing both his advanced age and the desire to give Zachary Quinto the opportunity to enjoy full media attention with the Spock character. Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep was to be his final performance; however, in February 2011, he announced his intent to return to Fringe and reprise his role as William Bell. Nimoy continued voice acting despite his retirement; his appearance in the third season of Fringe included his voice (his character appeared only in animated scenes), and he provided the voice of Sentinel Prime in Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

Nimoy was the voice of Sentinel Prime in the 2011 film Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

In May 2011, Nimoy made a cameo appearance in the alternate version music video of Bruno Mars’ “The Lazy Song”. Aaron Bay-Schuck, the Atlantic Records executive who signed Mars to the label, is Nimoy’s stepson.

Nimoy provided the voice of Spock as a guest star in a Season 5 episode of the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory titled “The Transporter Malfunction”, which aired on March 29, 2012. Also in 2012, Nimoy reprised his role of William Bell in Fringe for the fourth season episodes “Letters of Transit” and “Brave New World” parts 1 and 2. Nimoy reprised his role as Master Xehanort in the 2012 video game Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. On August 30, 2012, Nimoy narrated a satirical segment about Mitt Romney’s life on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In 2013, Nimoy reprised his role as Ambassador Spock in a cameo appearance in Star Trek Into Darkness, and is the only actor from the original series to appear in Abrams’ Star Trek films.

The second volume, I Am Spock (1995), saw Nimoy communicating that he finally realized his years of portraying the Spock character had led to a much greater identification between the fictional character and himself. Nimoy had much input into how Spock would act in certain situations, and conversely Nimoy’s contemplation of how Spock acted gave him cause to think about things in a way he never would have, had he not portrayed the character. Nimoy maintained that in some meaningful sense he had merged with Spock while at the same time maintaining the distance between fact and fiction. In 2014, the audiobook version of I Am Spock, read by Nimoy, was published.

In 2014, Walter Koenig revealed in a Las Vegas Sun interview that Leonard Nimoy personally and successfully advocated equal pay for Nichelle Nichols’ work on Star Trek to the show’s producers. This incident was confirmed by Nimoy in a Trekmovie interview, and happened during his years at Desilu.

In February 2014, Nimoy revealed publicly that he had been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a condition he attributed to a smoking addiction he had given up about 30 years earlier. On February 19, 2015, having been in and out of hospitals for several months, Nimoy was taken to UCLA Medical Center for chest pains.

Nimoy has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On June 2, 2015, the asteroid 4864 Nimoy was named after him.

On February 25, 2015, Nimoy fell into a coma, and died of complications from COPD on February 27, at the age of 83, in his Bel Air home. Adam Nimoy said that as his father came closer to death, “he mellowed out. He made his family a priority and his career became secondary.” A few days before his death, Nimoy shared some of his poetry on social media website Twitter: “A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP”.

Nimoy was buried in Los Angeles on March 1, 2015. The service was attended by nearly 300 family members, friends and former colleagues, as well as Zachary Quinto, Chris Pine, and J. J. Abrams. Though William Shatner could not attend, he was represented by his daughters.

In June 2015, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory renamed a 10 km (6.2 mi)-wide asteroid, originally discovered in 1988, in the Solar System’s main asteroid belt, 4864 Nimoy, in memory of the actor.

Shatner has also written a book about his friendship with Nimoy titled Leonard: My Fifty Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man. The book was released on February 16, 2016.

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Leonard Nimoy among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.