Leonard Nimoy dies: Remembering his non-’Star Trek’ movies

Leonard Nimoy will always be linked to his best known role, but his career and life demonstrate that he was never just Spock.

In addition to portraying the iconic, pointy-eared “Star Trek” character, Nimoy, who died at age 83 on Friday, was a man of diverse interests and talents — an actor, filmmaker, poet, photographer and singer. Here’s a look back at some of his non-”Star Trek” movies:

Nimoy began his big-screen career in 1951, landing small roles in “Queen for a Day” and “Rhubarb.” The next year he played a Martian in “Zombies of the Stratosphere” and scored his first title role in “Kid Monk Baroni.”

Unfortunately, “Baroni” — about a street thug turned professional boxer — flopped at the box office. Nimoy is said to have described it as the type of movie that “made unknowns out of celebrities.”

Before he landed his big “Star Trek” gig in 1966, he appeared in the B-movies “Them!” (1954) and “The Brain Eaters” (1958) and mostly toiled as a journeyman TV actor.

In the 1960s, he starred in a pair of film dramas based on Jean Genet plays, “The Balcony” and “Deathwatch.” In the ‘70s, with his Spock fame in full swing, he branched out with roles in the western “Catlow” and the remake of the sci-fi thriller “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1978).

After making his feature directing debut on 1983’s “Star Trek III” and returning for “Star Trek IV,” Nimoy diversified as a filmmaker by helming the comedy “Three Men and a Baby.” Starring Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg and Ted Danson as three clueless bachelors raising a kid, the movie was a box office hit and earned generally favorable reviews.

Nimoy would further explore the idiosyncrasies of love, relationships and child-rearing as the director of “The Good Mother” (1988), “Funny About Love” (1990) and “Holy Matrimony” (1994).

One of Nimoy’s gifts as an actor was his voice, deep and clear, and over the course of his career he lent it to a number of animated films, including “Transformers: The Movie,” “The Pagemaster” and “Atlantis: The Lost Empire.”

In 2011, Nimoy closed a 25-year circle by returning to the “Transformers” franchise. He voiced Sentinel Prime in the live-action blockbuster “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” one of his final films.

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