Fontana: I Love Spock
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Writer Dorothy (D.C.) Fontana was responsible for showing viewers who Spock was, and this was because the writer loved the character.
“I got in[to Spock’s story] with This Side of Paradise, revealing who Spock was underneath the armor of Vulcan,” she explained. “I got into it with Journey to Babel, when he was losing his parents. I got into it in Star Trek animated with Yesteryear, and why Spock as a child became Vulcan, more Vulcan, why he chose to…I love Spock. I liked him from the very beginning. Gene asked me to read the first ten-twelve pages he had put together about this new series, and the first question I had was, ‘Who plays Spock?’ It was Leonard Nimoy, always Leonard Nimoy. There was never a question. There were never any other tests, other actors tested. It was Leonard Nimoy from the start.”
Not only did her writing influence Nimoy, but his performance influenced how she wrote Spock. “When you see an actor pull of something really good, you say, ‘Oh, that works,’ and you want to use it again and continue the character,” she said. “Then you see the chemistry between the characters, between the actors. Spock and McCoy, they’re going back and forth and you knew they liked each other. Ultimately, you knew they liked each other and they were just doing these little jabs. It made that relationship so much more interesting. Kirk and Spock had a different relationship.”
Fifty years later, Fontana is still very active and her work includes Star Trek. “Right now, I’m jammed to the gills,” she said. “I’ve got a lot of interviews for Fiftieth Anniversary ball. I teach at the American Film Institute, so I have to get ready for classes. I have other things I’m working on for novels and also couple of projects that might develop into pilots, things I cannot talk about right now but…I’ve got a lot of work going on.”
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