The Original Mr. Spock of ‘Star Trek’, Leonard Nimoy, Dead at 83

Leonard Nimoy, who famously portrayed Mr. Spock, the unflappable, always logical human-Vulcan hybrid first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the iconic television and movie franchise series Star Trek was found dead at age 83 on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles.

Susan Bay, his wife, said he died of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Nimoy himself announced last year that he had the disease, attributing it to his years of smoking. He said quit smoking three decades ago.

Born March 26, 1931, Nimoy has been married twice. In 1954, he married Sandra Zober, an actress, whom he divorced in 1987. In 1989, he married Susan Bay, also an actress and a cousin of renowned director Michael Bay. He is survived by two children, son Adam and daughter Julie.

Nimoy earned three Emmy Award nominations for his work as Mr. Spock on the Star Trek TV series which aired from 1966 to 1969. He went on to reprise the character in Star Trek: The Animated Series and two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He also appeared as Spock in the first six Star Trek movies, along with the original cast of the Gene Roddenberry TV series. In the reboot 2009 Star Trek film and its 2013 sequel, he played the part of the elder Spock to Zachary Quinto's younger version of his character. He was so identified with the Spock character that he even based his two autobiographies, "I Am Not Spock" in 1975 and "I Am Spock" in 1995, from the perspective of his unavoidable shared existence with the famous half human, half Vulcan personality.

Of course, there was more to Nimoy than just portraying the role of Mr. Spock. He was a versatile film, TV and stage actor after all. He was also a director, a published author of several volumes of poetry and a celebrated photographer. He is even a singer with five albums to his name. Still, he will always be remembered as the definitive Mr. Spock.