By Donald H. Harrison
CHULA VISTA, California – Sonni Cooper, an author and script consultant for the original Star Trek television series, said Saturday, Oct. 24, that although William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and such other members of the cast as Mark Lenard were Jewish, the cast was far from a happy Yiddishe family.
Shatner played Captain James T. Kirk; Nimoy was Spock, the half human, half Vulcan; and Lenard was best known as Spock’s father, Sarek, although he also played the parts of a Romulan and a Klingon in other episodes. The series ran during the 1966-68 television seasons before being cancelled, but became nearly a cult phenomenon after it went into reruns. Between 1979 and 1991, the cast also made six movies.
Although they seemed devoted to each other while in character, the fact was that Nimoy and Shatner were jealous of each other, Cooper told a Shabbat afternoon gathering at Temple Beth Sholom. Among other books, she authored the Star Trek novel Black Fire.
She said that once while she was handling Shatner’s publicity, he was doing an outdoor photo shoot when a little airplane flew overhead. “Well, Leonard Nimoy flew little airplanes,” she said. “He was a pilot and Bill looked up and said, ‘there’s Leonard Nimoy trying to upstage me again!’”
There was a time, she said, when Nimoy had decided he would never play Spock again, because he was afraid of being typecast, and because he did not like working with Shatner. When Nimoy appeared on stage in a play, she was dispatched to attend every single performance and to keep tabs on him.
After a while, Nimoy noticed her presence and asked why she was there all the time. She told him that no one wanted him to quit as Spock. She asked what would it take for him to stay. They went to coffee and discussed the matter, and finally came to an agreement. He would be paid more than Shatner – by one dollar! And no one ever told Shatner, according to Cooper.
Cooper said the two stars were very different in size and temperament. “They were extremely different personalities,” she said. “Leonard was quiet, more introspective. Bill was always hopping around. He is very bright but not very caring. Nobody in Star Trek liked William Shatner. If you listen to George Takai (who played Sulu) to this day, he still dislikes Bill. He was selfish, very vain, proud, and he didn’t look out for the other guy. But he does his job… He is very well read, very well educated, and he was a Shakespearean actor in Canada.”
Added Cooper: “Everybody took care of Bill; Bill didn’t take care of anybody.”
The difference in height between Shatner and Nimoy caused some technical problems. “I remember them taking a two-shot of Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner,” she said. It was supposed to be of Spock standing up and Kirk sitting down. “They couldn’t do it because there was such a discrepancy in height. Bill isn’t very tall. They had to put him on a little pillow and raise him up to do a two-shot with Spock.”
For all that, there were some hi-jinx on the Star Trek set, she recalled. “Picture Leonard Nimoy running around looking for his bicycle. Everyone had bicycles because the studio was so large and you had to get around. Leonard’s bike vanished. We took it and up in the top (of the soundstage) there is this place for lights. It was there in plain sight, but it looked like every other piece of metal. And Leonard ran around looking for that bike for a week before someone said ‘look up!’ and he found it. There was a lot of lightness.”
Cooper retold the story of how Nimoy introduced to the Vulcan cosmos the spread-finger hand gesture that the kohanim use when blessing their congregation. She said that Nimoy was a little boy in the synagogue when, instead of lowering his eyes, he peeked at the rabbi giving the blessing with upraised hands. The image never left him and later became an accompaniment for the traditional Vulcan greeting: “Live long and prosper.”
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com
Whatever their professional rivalries, Shatner and Nimoy did appear to have become firm friends some years after Star Trek was cancelled. They were either both extremely good actors (better than they ever were on TV or in the movies) to pull that off, or a genuine affection did develop between them. Shatner’s “Mind Meld” documentary from 2002 gives good insight into both men and how Star Trek affected both their lives.
Don’t forget that Shatner was hired to be the lead on the show and actors have big egos, so he would have felt threatened if the second lead was getting more adulation from the audience. Every actor wants as much screen time as they can get (it’s the ego again), so one actor’s gain is another’s loss. It’s part of the business. Things are different these days with so many ensemble shows where everyone gets near similar screentime.
Gary Nugent
Dublin, Ireland