Michele StuevenEven before the Star Trek TV series, Adam Nimoy saw his father Leonard popping up in bit roles on some of his favorite shows like Get Smart, Sea Hunt, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Then one night he brought home Polaroids of himself in makeup and wardrobe for a pilot he was working on.
It was December 1964 and nobody had heard of Star Trek. Still, the 8-year-old Adam had watched enough Outer Limits and My Favorite Martian to understand exactly what he was looking at. The rest is science fiction history.
While the tabloids and fan publications portrayed the Nimoys as a close family, to Adam, Leonard Nimoy was a stranger. In his new book, The Most Human: Reconciling With My Father, Leonard Nimoy, Adam recounts how the son of Spock learned to navigate the tumultuous relationship with his dad from Shabbat dinners to basement AA meetings, and how he was finally able to reconcile with his father and with himself.
“The weird conundrum is that he was absent and omnipresent at the same time,” Adam tells L.A. Weekly, who crosses the country to Star Trek meetings, and will appear at the Super 70MM Star Trek 60th Anniversary series of films at the historic Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills over Labor Day weekend.
Adam Nimoy (Jonathan Melnick)
“Even when I was in constant conflict with him and trying to disengage from him, he was everywhere,” says Adam, who was born and grew up in Los Angeles. “Spock images were everywhere; you couldn’t get away from it. The absentee father part was normal to me and I didn’t really even mind it that much because I wasn’t comfortable with him, I had so much trouble connecting with him. My mother would fill the void, who was more permissive and loving, sensitive, reassuring. His not being around at that point was not such a bad thing after all. When he was around, he tried to play the part of the loving dad by taking me on outings, but his mind was always somewhere else. Writing the book has given me more empathy for him — a guy who’s just trying to juggle all this stuff and make it all happen and pay the bills and keep his career going. The fact of the matter is that my dad never had a childhood growing up during the Depression. Childish things were not something my grandparents were interested in.”
For Adam, they were planets apart. Growing up during the Depression, everything was hustle, hustle, hustle for Leonard from delivering newspapers and folding chairs at the Boston Pops, to selling vacuum cleaners. For his son from the ‘60s generation, Adam thought about getting up at 5 a.m. and riding his bike across Olympic Boulevard to deliver newspapers and realized there’s no way in hell he was going to do that. He’d rather just sleep late, go to school, come home and read comic books, watch TV and listen to The Beatles.
A large part of what he calls an anti-memoir — a thoughtful and insightful look at family dynamics, addiction, love, loss and surfing in Ocean Park — is the bittersweet love story Adam says was the catalyst for the reconciliation of father and son.
It was a love story made for the movies, life imitating art.
Martha and Adam (Courtesy Adam Nimoy)
Adam met Martha Winston in 2008 when he brought his daughter Maddy into the doctor’s office where she was working. They had both been married, divorced and had kids. He was a shy, liberal Jew and she was from a conservative Catholic family in Brentwood, not far from where he grew up in Westwood. She liked him because he didn’t come on with a lot of shallow pickup lines, and he loved her smile, friendly brown eyes and kinetic energy. He details their touching courtship in the book and how genuinely in love they were.
They found their dream house in Mar Vista and the blended family, which included Martha’s son Jonathan, Maddy and Adam’s musician son Jonah, settled into a new life together. There were a few bumps in the road on the parents’ side when the couple announced their engagement to be married, but they navigated those hurdles and married on a rainy January day at the Fairmont Miramar in Santa Monica surrounded by friends and family in 2011.
Just as the future seemed bright and full of promise, Martha was diagnosed with lung cancer. He cared for her through all the treatments and pain for the few short months they had left. Martha passed away in 2012. Leonard, who died in 2015, spoke at her service at St. Martin of Tours Church in Brentwood.
“I feel honored that I’m the guy who had to help her and be there for her in the end,” says Adam. “It was such a privilege in such an unfortunate and sad way. It’s really hard meeting people that are that lovely and that nice. I’ve met a lot of beautiful people in my time, but no one is as nice as her. She had such a kind and joyful spirit. It’s sad and it’s unfortunate, but I feel lucky. I’m in recovery and just really grateful I found her at all, and that someone like her existed.”
Adam and Leonard Nimoy (Courtesy Adam Nimoy)
It was that transition that Adam credits with the understanding of and reconciliation with his father, who he continues to honor at Star Trek meetings around the world, most recently in Schenectady, New York.
“When I needed him, he was there, ready and able,” he says. “He adored her, too. He was a different guy, thankfully by then. The key was, we were able to hold on to the point where we could get to that stage where he had the headspace to become the dad I needed him to be. It wasn’t about his career anymore. His career was such an obsessive part of his whole being. By then the COPD was catching up with him and the problems he had with breathing. He just wanted to have Shabbat dinners with the family and find out what everybody was doing and be there for everyone else. We were lucky that we were able to hang on to each other long enough to get to that point and enjoy each other’s company.”
Adam, who has the utmost love and respect for the Star Trek franchise, is looking forward to appearing at the anniversary series in the beautiful classic movie theater built in 1937.
“I love attending because it gives me a chance to gladhand with the fans,” says Adam, who is the spitting image of his father. “It’s been a surreal journey from beginning to end. It’s a combination of people who feel they’re on the fringe of society. People who knew they were nerds and geeks and outcasts and outsiders feeling completely validated by Mr. Spock. There are outsiders in every generation and they need a hero to identify with who can give them some hope that they’re OK. It’s OK to be in that skin and come on this planet. The other thing is that when people meet me, they feel like they’re connected to Leonard and I’m doing what Leonard would do, by showing up and being nice and courteous to the fans. The key is, I have my own sense of identity and sense of self worth and confidence, that I’ve done things on my own. I’m not just Leonard’s son, but it’s OK to be Leonard’s son.”
Schedule for the Super 70mm Star Trek 60th Anniversary Series:
Friday, Aug. 30:
7:30 p.m.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture The Director’s Edition, presented in 4K Digital,
directed by Robert Wise,
Series introduction by Ralph Winter
Saturday, Aug. 31:
1 p.m.
Star Trek Double Feature:
For the Love of Spock, directed by Adam Nimoy;
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, presented in 70mm, directed by Nicholas Meyer
In Person: Nicholas Meyer and Adam Nimoy
8:30 p.m.
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, presented in 70mm, directed by Leonard Nimoy
In Person: Robin Curtis
Sunday, Sept.1:
12:30 p.m.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, presented in 70mm, directed by Leonard Nimoy
In Person: Catherine Hicks
4:30 p.m.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, presented in 70mm, directed by William Shatner
In Person: Ralph Winter
8:30 p.m.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, presented in 70mm, directed by
Nicholas Meyer
In Person: Cliff Eidelman and Steven-Charles Jaffe
Tickets are available on the Fine Arts Theatre website, http://www.fineartstheatrebh.comm, and on the Fine Arts App available on Google Play Store and the Apple App Store, as well as at https://www.fandango.com/ and https://www.atomtickets.com/.
Courtesy Paramount