{"id":40343,"date":"2015-03-26T10:08:24","date_gmt":"2015-03-26T17:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trektoday.com\/content\/?p=40343"},"modified":"2015-03-26T10:08:24","modified_gmt":"2015-03-26T17:08:24","slug":"shatner-remembers-nimoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/2015\/03\/shatner-remembers-nimoy\/","title":{"rendered":"Shatner Remembers Nimoy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NimoyShatner1-032615\"<\/p>\n

Today would have been Leonard Nimoy<\/strong>‘s eighty-fourth birthday, and William Shatner<\/strong> shared a few memories about his long-time friend.<\/p>\n

Shatner also defended his decision to remain at a Red Cross<\/em> fundraising event instead of hurrying back to Los Angeles to attend Nimoy’s funeral.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"ShatnerNimoyMFU032615\"<\/p>\n

The pair originally met in 1964 during filming of a The Man from U.N.C.L.E.<\/em> episode (The Project Strigas Affair<\/em>).<\/p>\n

“And I have no memory of it,” said Shatner, referring to that first meeting. “I guess, at the time, his was just another face. Long and lean, but just another face.”<\/p>\n

Shatner explained what drew him to Nimoy. “His sense of humor,” said Shatner. “Leonard was very funny. We’d get on stage together and we’d start laughing. It was silly; we were laughing so hard at each other.”<\/p>\n

There was criticism of Shatner when he honored his fundraising commitment for the Red Cross<\/em> instead of returning for Nimoy’s funeral. “The Red Cross<\/em> had asked me some months ago to appear, and they built the evening around the celebrity appearance,” he said. “Leonard died and, faced with that choice, I didn’t think anybody would notice one way or the other, quite frankly. But on Friday, when I was in Florida, I thought I’d better say something on Twitter<\/em>. So I said, ‘I’m honoring the dead, but I’m celebrating the living by doing a good deed.’ I didn’t think that anybody would notice. Well, everyone got into a debate.<\/p>\n

\"ShatnerNimoy2-032615\"<\/p>\n

“But to my mind there’s no debate. You and I right now are celebrating Leonard’s memory, but we’re not raising any money for people who are suffering. But in that case I could celebrate his memory and raise money. At that event, which was a one thousand-person dinner, I said, ‘I’d like to take a moment and remember Leonard and Maurice Hurley<\/strong>.’ I didn\u2019t know yet about Harve Bennett<\/strong>. So I had about a thousand people think about Leonard and Maurice. To me there was no question about what I had to do.”<\/p>\n

With Nimoy gone, Shatner feels his own mortality, but his response is to keep on working instead of retiring and sitting in a rocking chair. “The footsteps are getting louder,” he said. “What was it the baseball player (Satchel Paige<\/strong>) said? ‘Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.’ So I say keep your eyes focused on the future and not on the past.”<\/p>\n

But when it comes to Nimoy, “All of our memories of him will only die when we die,” said Shatner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today would have been Leonard Nimoy‘s eighty-fourth birthday, and William Shatner shared a few memories…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2413],"tags":[2409,2414],"class_list":["post-40343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cast-crew","tag-nimoy","tag-shatner"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","newsphere-slider-full":"","newsphere-featured":"","newsphere-medium":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"T'Bonz","author_link":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/author\/tbonz\/"},"category_info":"Cast & Crew<\/a>","tag_info":"Cast & Crew","comment_count":"13","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40347,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40343\/revisions\/40347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}