Star Trek's Most Painful Drama: Why Did William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy Fall Out?
They were so good together, why all that?
Summary:
- William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, like their Star Trek characters, were best friends in real life.
- In his new autobiography, Shatner shares his thoughts on the infamous drama with Nimoy.
- It seems he has never made peace with the situation.
True friendship is something we are taught to value from the early years, so when we call someone a best friend, it means that this person means a world to us. And those people who find their “bests” are absolutely lucky.
When you're a famous actor and your life is open to the public, it might seem harder to find a true friend, but that wasn't the case for William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy.
The entire Star Trek franchise was literally built on the friendship between Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, and the best part is that in real life, the actors were like brothers to each other, always had each other's backs, and were literally like family. They have been best friends for more than 50 years, but there was a sad episode just before Nimoy's death that left a hole in Shatner's life.
The thing is, at some point the two actors just stopped talking to each other for no particular reason. Shatner believes that the reason for the fall-out may have been the fact that Leonard Nimoy wasn't so happy about taking part in Shatner's new documentary movie, and declined the offer.
However, he accidentally ended up on stage right at the moment when they were filming. But that just seems like too small a thing to destroy a 50-year-old friendship, doesn't it?
There's something else that Bill Shatner thinks may have been the problem. Nimoy became ill and stopped communicating much with the people around him, stopped answering phone calls and letters. And no matter how hard Shatner tried to reach out, he failed.
In his memoirs, Shatner says he still doesn't understand what the real reason for this behavior was, but to this day he regrets that they had this falling-out, because Nimoy was like family to him.
The only thing that eased the pain a little was that some years after Nimoy's death, his daughter approached Shatner and said that the man loved his friend with all his heart.