Leonard Nimoy

With his intelligent manner and subdued yet saturnine expression, actor Leonard Nimoy was often cast as intense cerebral types. Nimoy's incisive manner served him especially well in his most famous role - the unflappable Vulcan, Mr. Spock, on the classic sci-fi TV series "Star Trek" (NBC, 1966-69). While the role of Spock would come to define him for the remainder of his long career, Nimoy actually wore many other hats over the course of his professional life. On stage, Nimoy starred on Broadway in "Full Circle" and "Equus" and toured the country in musical productions of "Fiddler on the Roof," before winning acclaim for his one-man show "Vincent," based on the life of painter Vincent van Gogh. He tried his hand behind the camera, helming two of the most popular of the "Star Trek" films, as well as the 1987 hit comedy, "Three Men and a Baby." Nimoy's rich, somber voice and interest in science and environmental issues also made him much in demand as a narrator of such TV documentaries as "The Coral Jungle" (1976), "Snakes: Eden's Deadly Charmers" (1988) and "Greenhouse Gamble" (1992). Later in life, Nimoy turned his passions elsewhere. An accomplished ppet and photographer, the actor published a number of books - the last being 2007's somewhat controversial The Full Body Project, a photographic study of large women posing in the nude. Largely retired from acting since the early 2000s, Nimoy was lured back in front of the cameras for a cameo as Spock in director J.J. Abrams' much anticipated Trek feature franchise reboot titled simply "Star Trek" (2008), as well as its 2013 sequel, before announcing via Twitter in February 2014 that he was suffering from a serious lung disease. He died on February 27, 2015, at the age of 83.