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The 10 Most Defining Performances in the History of Genre Television

These days, we take it for granted that television can be as good as movies (or live theater) and that great actors can deliver indelible performances on the small screen. Especially when it comes to science fiction and fantasy. But it took a small number of pioneering actors to show what's actually possible in genre television, and to expand our horizons.

Here are the 10 performances that helped to define the possibilities of science fiction and fantasy television, for everyone. In particular, these are performances that became emblematic of the genre as a whole, and showed what it was possible to do with stock roles like "quirky alien" or "mad scientist." (...)

1. Leonard Nimoy (Star Trek)

Sure, William Shatner's performance in the original Star Trek is also emblematic, and often-imitated — but Nimoy took a supporting role and made it a touchstone for generations of viewers. And like a lot of the other actors on this list, Nimoy was playing a common science fiction "type" — the impassive alien — and he took it to a different place. Before Spock, science fiction was full of emotionless aliens who spoke in a monotone or imitated a stereotypical "computer" inflection. Nimoy gave a whole range of nuance to the Vulcan role, conveying a lot of different stuff with every raised eyebrow or furrowed brow. Nimoy's Spock never seemed to have emotions, as we understood them — but he still had a range, and moods. A huge host of sympathetic aliens on television owe their genesis to Spock.

Source: io9

Oprah Winfrey, other stars give to Obama

A jolt of star power helped propel President Barack Obama’s joint fundraising committee last month to lofty financial heights. (...)

Star Trek’s Mr. Spock and Lt. Sulu — known back on Earth as Leonard Nimoy and George Takei — contributed $2,500 and $500 respectively. Source: Politico

Nimoy lights up with Bibi Andersson in the Otto Preminger/Peter Stone production of the Erich Maria Remarque play Full Circle, 1973.

Source: NY Public Library

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spock himself – or at least Spock v1, Leonard Nimoy, who memorably starred alongside Quinto in Abrams's film – had casting approval for the character, and the pair forged a close bond soon after they met in 2007. Quinto wanted to draw from Nimoy himself and a surrogate father-son relationship is evident in videos of them together. "We're very close and we spend a fair amount of time together if we're both in town," says Quinto, clearly very fond of him. "We keep in very close touch, I see him and his wife often. I take a lot of care to keep them involved in what's going on for me, and they do the same."

Source: The Guardian

ZQ: Yeah, in my own journeys to the role of Spock there have been my own little idiosyncrasies as well.

“Heroes” was honored at the TV Land Awards as a future TV classic and we went to the awards show last April 14th. I went to the event and we are sitting down and saying hi to everybody and as they were talking about preparation for the show to start they came out and said, “This award will be presented to you guys toward the end of the show by Leonard Nimoy and Luke Wilson.” My audition for Spock was the next morning on April 15th.

So we got this award, went up on stage, I walked down the stairs behind Leonard, I said hi to him. Obviously I didn’t engage him in a conversation about my audition because I didn’t think it was the appropriate setting or time to do that. Little things like that along the way and just the connections between Tim Kring and Damon [Lindelof], and their history of working together there were just a lot of little things along the way that sort of supported the notion of it. It’s pretty remarkable to look at it from my perspective.

Source: mrssylargray

This was acquired in Sacramento, and is connected to the California State Fair. It seems that Nimoy only appeared at the California State Fair in 1967, and he actually sang The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins there, which was a year before it was released on record, and was only a little over a month from when he appeared lip synching the song on the short-lived TV show, "Mailbu U" in the summer of '67. Source: Ebay

'Stars of David' turns words into a musical

Oct. 14, 2012

How do you turn a book of interviews - clearly a piece of nonfiction - into, of all things, a stage musical?

Do you sing about the details of what people told the author? Do you compose a chorus of direct quotes from the interview subjects? Do you riff on the general nature of the plotless talk? As a matter of fact, yes, plus more.

In a bold move from out of left field, the Philadelphia Theatre Company this week presents the world premiere of Stars of David, a musical it is staging with eyes toward Broadway.

The show is based on the popular 2005 book of 61 interviews with famous and influential American Jews. Its author, Abigail Pogrebin, was inspired by a powerfully personal question (and a deep well of chutzpah that allowed her to ask it): When you say you're Jewish, what does that mean?

(...)

All of them are depicted in song in the musical version of Stars of David, which uses original work for the show by many of Broadway's most visible composers and lyricists, each assigned an interview to set to music.

Nimoy consulted with the creators of "Lenny the Great," the song about him. Cole did the same on "The Darkening Blue," the song about him, with composer Duncan Sheik and lyricist Steven Sater, who created the hit musical Spring Awakening.

Everyone depicted in song had a chance to review the lyrics taken from their interviews; Ginsburg saw the words to "As If I Weren't There," written by Pogrebin herself, with music by Tom Kitt (Next to Normal), and sent suggested changes.

"It was fantastic to get these handwritten notes from the justice. Who writes in pencil anymore?" says Pogrebin.

In all, she says, her musicalized subjects were happy to go along with the idea and asked only "for a tweak here and there. You'll see people coming onto stage as the character in the story - but what you will not see is an impersonation. Images and the script [by playwright Charles Busch] will tell you whose story you're about to hear."

Source: philly.com

Review: Revisiting the brush strokes in Leonard Nimoy's 'Vincent'

October 9, 2012, 8:06 p.m.

Vincent Van Gogh didn’t just work at things — he attacked them, eulogizes his grieving brother Theo in the Next Arena’s revival of “Vincent.” As performed by French-born actor Jean-Michel Richaud, this insightful and often moving 1981 solo show penned by Leonard Nimoy transcends the usual clichés surrounding the high-maintenance artist with the tortured relationship to his aural appendage.

Nimoy knows from ears, of course, but his script looks beyond merely sensational biographical episodes to the unifying themes in three principal facets of Vincent’s adult life: God, love and art. As Theo admits during an imaginary tribute conducted a week after his brother’s death, Vincent pursued all three with perhaps an overdeveloped sense of drama, but always with passion.

Weaving Theo’s reminiscences with excerpts from more than 500 letters Vincent wrote him, the monologue covers Vincent’s failed attempt to become a preacher, his doomed efforts at romantic relationships and his discovery of his true calling as a painter.

In contrast to the two distinct voices Nimoy employed in his original performances of the piece, Richaud renders both brothers with a single inflection style. The approach may more naturalistically fit the premise (resolutely conformist Theo reading aloud Vincent’s letters), but it comes at the cost of less cleanly differentiated personalities.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Firmament Record
October 07, 2012

While no statistics are available for this sort of thing, in all likelihood, the Philadelphia Theatre Company's first production of its 2012-2013 season, the world premiere of a musical called Stars of David, will set the record for most Jewish-American luminaries to be featured onstage in the same play.

Based on the book, Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish, by Abigail Pogrebin, the play is a musical. It incorporates Pogrebin's interviews of celebrities like Leonard Nimoy, Gloria Steinem, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Mike Wallace into the narrative of Nancy, a journalist (based on Pogrebin herself, who, in addition to being an author and a former producer for 60 Minutes, has written for Newsweek, New York, Huffington Post and other publications) who decides to interview well-known Jewish Americans to find out how being Jewish has contributed to their lives and successes.

Source: Jewish Exponent

Katy Perry, Steve Martin, Rachel Maddow join Hammer celebration

October 7, 2012

A veritable A-list of artists, actors, fashion designers and business leaders streamed into the Hammer Museum in Westwood Saturday to celebrate artists Barbara Kruger and Cindy Sherman, raising a record $2 million for the museum’s exhibitions and programs.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and actor/author/musician Steve Martin delivered the night’s tributes. As if their talks weren’t entertaining enough, the finale came courtesy of Katy Perry, who has a busy week in store with performances planned at Sunday's fundraiser for President Obama and at Thursday's amfAR Inspiration Gala.

"Hello everyone," Perry said, “I’m just going to have a little fun -- that’s all -- with you," before launching into a dynamic five-song set beginning with "Part of Me" and ending with her hit "Firework."

PHOTOS: Hammer Museum celebration of Barbara Kruger and Cindy Sherman

The impressive turnout included Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Susan and Leonard Nimoy, Will Ferrell and Viveca Paulin Ferrell, Tom Ford and Richard Buckley, Dana Delany, John C. Reilly, Julie Bowen, Marg Helgenberger, "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening, "Sex and the City" creator Darren Star and artists Ed Ruscha, Paul McCarthy, Catherine Opie, Doug Aitken and Mark Bradford.

Source: Los Angeles Times