THE TONIGHT SHOW - 1991

 

"Our next guest is the best known Vulcan. How many Vulcans do you know on a first name basis?" Three Men and a Baby is mentioned which Leonard Nimoy directed. Funny About Love and Never Forget are mentioned, too.

Welcome and introduction and Leonard is asked when he was here last: "It was back in 1968 and somebody had said you have done an album."
"In those days, and it was probably true, I would have done anything. I sudden got... I've become famous with this Spock – thing. And it was a very tense identification. And good friends were saying to me: 'What you're gonna do when the show is over?'  I'll get a job all right. The question was whether I'd be able to get out of that character. So I was trying anything. I'd come to your show and sing for you. And you'd said: 'Bring that guy back in 23 years'."

"Is the identification so heavy that it is difficult to step aside...?"

LN: "I don't think so, I don't think so. Fact is I'm a grateful guy. I'm still around and still finding work. I have got opportunities. I haven't stopped working since I put the ears on. So what is to complain about? ..."

"Your parents were immigrants from Russia. Did you pick up some Russian..?"

"Well we all lived in a flat, me and my brother, my parents and grandparents. They spoke Russian fluently but would not teach us to speak. They kept that as a secret language... I never got to learn the language as a result."

"You went there a few years ago?"

"We went there. My wife and I went 3 and a half years ago because of Star Trek IV. It was about whale conservation and the Russians had just signed a moratorium on commercial whaling. It was just around that time when Gorbachov cut down the supply of liquor because he thought the Russians were drunk too much of a time."

"You went back to the village where your folk came from?"

"Yes, it was a very emotional moment. I used to hear about it all the time when I was a kid. The romantic nostalgia, where your parents came from. It was quite a trip. Aeroplane, train, car,... and there  it was..."

"Touching your roots... Tell me about the movie."

"It is a true story. Southern California. Based on a guy who lives here in Southern California. It's a story where the good guys win. This guy – with his family – was taken into Auschwitz. He was a teenager and came out alone. He lost everything. His father, his mother, his sisters, his brother.  Established a family here in Southern California and a successful business. And along comes an organization known as the Institute for Historical Review who actually published a claim that the Holocaust was a hoax. The Nazis never killed anybody, there never was a Holocaust. And he wrote a letter denouncing them in some newspapers. And they returned a letter to him announcing a reward when he can prove that Jews were gassed by the Nazis. You claim you have some proof and you bring the truth to us and we'll give you this reward. And if you don't accept this challenge we'll be forced to notify the newspapers for that. He took the challenge and he felt responsible. He couldn't let this pass because they'd be calling him a fraud and destructing everything of his past. He took them on and he'd beat them in court. Los Angeles Superior Court in 1981. It was the first time it went  into the American law-books that the Holocaust was a legally established fact... is an uplifting story about this guys family and what they went through..."

"Doing some directing lately?"

"We are doing another Star Trek movie, Star Trek VI..."

The host suggests a title: "The Search For Regularity" and Leonard laughs: "I'll take the suggestion with me to the studio."