Culture

Star Trek’s Leonard Nimoy Has Died At Age 83

He lived long and prospered.

by Meg Watson  28 February 2015

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Leonard Nimoy, the actor who portrayed Star Trek‘s iconic Mr Spock, has died in his home at age 83.

Nimoy announced last year that he was suffering from end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and after being hospitalised earlier this week, this has been confirmed as the cause of his death. Though he had given up smoking decades prior, he often attributed the disease to this habit and posted a number of statements about it over the past few months.

However, the final sentiment he expressed via Twitter was a little more inspiring.

Nimoy would sign off all his messages with this acronym “LLAP”; a reference to Mr Spock’s most oft-quoted phrase “Live long and prosper”. Now, the expression is being adopted as a sign of respect for the actor as tributes come flooding in from the many people he worked with over the years.

Of course the influence of the actor has been far-reaching, and he has drawn an enormous number of fans since first appearing in the original Star Trek series in 1966. Those from both the arts, sciences and beyond have been quick to pay their respects.

“Long before being nerdy was cool, there was Leonard Nimoy,” President Obama said in a statement this morning.

“Leonard was a lifelong lover of the arts and humanities, a supporter of the sciences, generous with his talent and his time. And of course, Leonard was Spock. Cool, logical, big-eared and level-headed, the centre of Star Trek’s optimistic, inclusive vision of humanity’s future. I loved Spock.”

Though Nimoy enjoyed a long career in film and television after the portrayal of his most famous character, it inevitably followed him right until the end. This was something the actor fought against with his 1975 autobiography I Am Not Spock but then eventually embraced. In 1995 he even released a second book titled I Am Spock. 

As a public persona, Nimoy invoked all the respect and intrigue of his Vulcan alter-ego and was often called upon to provide narration for documentary works such as the History Channel’s Ancient Mysteries or various animated characters. Nimoy was most famously a repeat cameo guest on The Simpsons — the show and its writers have expressed their thoughts on his passing today.

RIP Leonard Nimoy; a cosmic ballet goes on.