One To Beam Aboard: Leonard Nimoy Dies at 83

Veteran actor, cult-hero, icon, Leonard Nimoy died Friday morning in his Los Angeles home. Blaming his years as a smoker, Nimoy passed due to complications from his long battle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Best known for his portrayal of Star Trek's Chief Science Officer, Spock, Leonard Nimoy's diverse talents extend far beyond acting, into poetry, photography and music.

A hard-working character actor, thriving through television's infancy, Nimoy excelled at playing the outsider, or mysterious loner, a common archetype in early westerns. In 1966 he was offered the role of a different kind of outsider, a role that would forever launch him into media iconography, Star Trek's only regular alien, the Vulcan, Mr. Spock.

After a three year run on the bridge of the Enterprise, using Gene Roddenberry's imagined utopia to explore the complex social issues of race, gender, and morality in 1960's America, Star Trek was canceled. Ten years later, after a cult group of fans called Trekkies (or Trekkers) coalesced around the series, Nimoy would return as Spock. This time, on the silver screen.

After eight films, Spock along with the original Enterprise crew would retire from the franchise, but not for long. In 2009, when J.J. Abrams re-booted the original Star Trek crew, Leonard Nimoy would reprise his role as the Vulcan. Being the only veteran actor from the franchise to appear in the new series, Nimoy would go on to make an appearance in it's sequel Star Trek Into Darkness.

While Nimoy wasn't always happy being pigeon-holed as Spock, there was something of himself in the character. Feeling nearly ten years after the series wrapped,

To this day, I sense Vulcan speech patterns, Vulcan social attitudes and even Vulcan patterns of logic and emotional suppression in my behavior