As a youngster Mr. Nimoy was first in line for a ticket when American Magician Harry Blackstone sr. came to Boston to do his magic show. He just loves illusion. At home he "used to fool around with cards and cigarettes and coins and try to fool my parents and my brother" with no success.

Growing up in a "very intense multi-cultural" tenement neighborhood prepared him for working with a mix of people. In a way it also prepared him for playing all kinds of ethnic characters and Star Trek's Mr. Spock.

He was never comfortable with the idea of playing the leading character. "I always thought of myself a character-actor, a person who could hide inside a character. To me the mask was very important. It wasn't me." His son Adam recently directed Whoopi Goldberg in a ST-TNG-show. After being a lawyer, Adam decided to become a director. Mr. Nimoy is very proud and grateful "he found a way to adjust to the idea that it was okay for him to do some of the things that I had done."