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Spock Gives Up the Con
tverbeek writes "Leonard Nimoy announced at the Creation Con in Chicago, celebrating the 45th anniversary of Star Trek, that this would be his last appearance at a Trek convention. He spoke for an hour, which at least suggests that he's making this move by choice and not out of necessity. He's 80 years old. 'Live long and prosper,' he told the crowd."
that he did so many cons so far in time. He deserves to live long and prosper himself, devoting his last years uninterrupted to what he feels he has the will and time to do.
"I'm taking this loop off." - Jack O'Neill
It is as if millions of nerds cried out at once, and were suddenly silenced.
-Guinan (played by Oprah Winfrey)
Godspeed to him, I say. He's had a hell of a career, and if he wants to finally retire and relax then good on him. He wouldn't be the first high-grossing actor to retire before other obligations and interests drew him away from the soundstage.
...and he's still the only one that gets laid at those things.
obvious redundancy is obvious
According to Shatner, during a panel at this year's Dragon*Con, Nimoy was giving up the con circuit to pursue photography full time. He is rather accomplished at it - http://www.rmichelson.com/Artist_Pages/Nimoy/pages/Leonard-Nimoy-Gallery.html and it has been a lifelong passion.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
He certainly felt trapped by his role in ST:TOS. So much so, that he wrote a book about it. It wasn't until MANY years later that he started to do conventions and other ST type appearances.
A lot of people were offended when Nimoy released his autobiography and called it, "I Am Not Spock," and called him ungrateful to the show that propelled his career and other things. All those people were idiots who never bothered to read the book and assumed it was all about him complaining of the typecasting. These complaints from uninformed people is probably what you remember, and it's what you're referencing now.
Well, I read, "I Am Not Spock." A good portion of it (maybe the majority) is about some of his very fond memories at the set of Star Trek. How he and Bill Shatner initially didn't get along, partly because of some hilarious pranks Shatner played on him, usually involving the bicycle Nimoy used to ride to the studio, but were seen as annoying at the time. He also mentioned how their animosity was getting to be a problem, but Roddenberry solved it by making Kirk and Spock close friends on script, which ended up translating to Nimoy and Shatner developing a very strong friendship in real life. Interesting stuff, and he never once disparaged Trek, even as the typecasting caused him problems.
Frankly, I don't know that I buy the whole, "don't talk about Trek" thing, since I've never once seen an interview with Nimoy in which Trek wasn't mentioned. I've seen plenty of convention clips on youtube in which Trek was extensively talked about, and hell, if he wanted to distance himself from it, not being part of the new Trek movie reboot would have been a good idea. I don't doubt that he asks to please talk about things other than Trek, but it doesn't make sense that he "hates" Trek.
Sometimes people just start rumors that, to the mind of others, makes sense. People think, "yeah, it must be annoying to have a bunch of nerds completely ignore everything else you've ever tried to do" and sometimes he must have felt unappreciated and overshadowed by the Spock character. That said, I've never seen any indication, other than random internet hearsay, that he resents the fans or the show. The book he wrote and the sequel, "I Am Spock," which I've also read, would certainly lead me to believe the opposite.
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