Editing Leonard Nimoy (section)

=== Before and during ''Star Trek'' ===
{{multiple image 
 | align          = right
 | direction      = vertical
 | header   = In ''[[Kid Monk Baroni]]'' (1952)
 | image1   = Kid Monk Baroni 2.jpg
 | image2   = Kid Monk Baroni 1.jpg
 | caption2 = With Richard Rober (top) and [[Kathleen Freeman]] (bottom)
}}
Nimoy spent more than a decade playing only small parts in [[B movies]] and the lead in one, along with a minor TV role.<ref name="darrach19770725">{{cite news | url=http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20068391,00.html | title=Leonard Nimoy Beams Himself Aboard 'Equus' and Out from Under Mr. Spock's Pointy Ears | work=People | date=July 25, 1977 | access-date=March 2, 2015 | author=Darrach, Brad}}</ref> He believed his performance as the title role in the 1952 film ''[[Kid Monk Baroni]]'' would make him a star, but the film failed after a brief cinema showing. During his military career, the film gained a larger audience on television, and after his discharge he got steadier work portraying a "heavy", where his character used street weapons like switchblades and guns or had to threaten or attack people.{{r|diehl19680825}} He overcame his [[Boston accent]], but realized his lean appearance made stardom unlikely.{{r|darrach19770725}}

He decided to be a supporting actor rather than take lead roles, an attitude he acquired from his childhood: "I'm a second child who was educated to the idea my older brother was to be given respect and not perturbed. I was not to upstage him{{nbsp}}[...] So my acting career was designed to be a supporting player, a character actor."<ref name=Shatner />{{rp|25}} He played more than 50 small parts in B movies, television series such as ''[[Perry Mason (1957 TV series)|Perry Mason]]'' and ''[[Dragnet (franchise)|Dragnet]]'', and [[Serial film|serials]] such as ''[[Zombies of the Stratosphere]]'' (1952), in which he played a Martian named Narab. To support a wife and two children, he often took other work, such as delivering newspapers, working in a pet shop, and driving cabs.<ref name="kleiner19671204">{{cite news |last=Kleiner |first=Dick |author-link=Dick Kleiner |date=December 4, 1967 |title=Mr. Spock's Trek To Stardom |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=B7dGAAAAIBAJ&pg=3727,498929 |newspaper=Warsaw Times-Union |location=Warsaw, IN |publisher=Reub Williams & Sons, Inc. |agency=[[Newspaper Enterprise Association]] |page=7 |access-date=May 7, 2011}}</ref>{{r|darrach19770725}}<ref name="chawkins20150227">{{cite news | url=http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-leonard-nimoy-20150227-story.html | title=Leonard Nimoy dies at 83; 'Star Trek's' transcendent alien Mr. Spock | work=Los Angeles Times | date=February 27, 2015 | access-date=March 1, 2015 | last=Chawkins | first=Steve}}</ref>

Nimoy played an army sergeant in the 1954 science fiction thriller ''[[Them!]]'' and a professor in the 1958 science fiction movie ''[[The Brain Eaters]]'', and had a role in ''[[The Balcony (film)|The Balcony]]'' (1963), a film adaptation of the [[Jean Genet]] [[The Balcony|play]]. With [[Vic Morrow]], he co-produced ''[[Deathwatch (1965 film)|Deathwatch]]'', a 1965 English-language film version of Genet's play [[Deathwatch (play)|''Haute Surveillance'']], adapted and directed by Morrow and starring Nimoy. The story deals with three prison inmates. Partly as a result of his role, he then taught drama classes to members of [[Synanon]], a drug rehab center, explaining: "Give a little here and it always comes back".<ref>Branham, Stacy L. ''Nevada State Prison'', Arcadia Publishing (2012) p. 50</ref>

He had guest roles in the ''[[Sea Hunt]]'' series from 1958 to 1960 and a minor role in the 1961 ''[[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)|The Twilight Zone]]'' episode "[[A Quality of Mercy]]". He also appeared in the syndicated ''[[Highway Patrol (American TV series)|Highway Patrol]]'' starring [[Broderick Crawford]],<ref>{{cite news|last1=Guttenberg|first1=Steve|last2=Higgins|first2=Bill|url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/leonard-nimoy-remembered-by-three-779357|title=Leonard Nimoy Remembered by ''Three Men and a Baby'' Star Steve Guttenberg|work=[[The Hollywood Reporter]]|date=March 5, 2015|access-date=March 8, 2015}}</ref> and as Luke Reid in the "Night of Decision" episode of the [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]]/[[Warner Bros.]] [[Western (genre)|western]] series ''[[Colt .45 (TV series)|Colt .45]]''.<ref>{{cite episode |title=Night of Decision |url=http://ctva.biz/US/Western/Colt45_02_%281958-59%29.htm |access-date=November 1, 2013 |series=[[Colt .45 (TV series)|Colt .45]] |network=[[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] |date=June 28, 1959 |season=2 |number=13}}</ref>

Nimoy appeared four times in ethnic roles on [[NBC]]'s ''[[Wagon Train]]'', the number one rated program of the 1961–1962 season. He portrayed Bernabe Zamora in "The Estaban Zamora Story" (1959), "Cherokee Ned" in "The Maggie Hamilton Story" (1960), Joaquin Delgado in "The Tiburcio Mendez Story" (1961), and Emeterio Vasquez in "The Baylor Crowfoot Story" (1962).<ref>{{Citation|last=Vogel|first=Virgil W.|title=The Baylor Crowfoot Story|date=March 21, 1962|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0743040/|others=John McIntire, Robert Horton, Robert Culp|access-date=January 31, 2018}}</ref><ref name="Lentz1996">{{cite book|author=Harris M. Lentz|title=Western and Frontier Film and Television Credits 1903–1995: Section I. Actors and actresses. Section II. Directors, producers, and writers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eWVZAAAAMAAJ|year=1996|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0-7864-0217-5|page=592}}</ref>

Nimoy appeared in numerous episodes of ''[[Gunsmoke]]'', as well as in ''Steve Canyon'' (1959), ''[[Bonanza]]'' (1960), ''[[The Rebel (American TV series)|The Rebel]]'' (1960), ''[[Two Faces West]]'' (1961), ''[[Laramie (TV series)|Laramie]]'' (1961), ''[[Rawhide (TV series)|Rawhide]]'' (1961), ''[[The Untouchables (1959 TV series)|The Untouchables]]'' (1962), ''[[The Eleventh Hour (1962 TV series)|The Eleventh Hour]]'' (1962), ''[[Perry Mason (1957 TV series)|Perry Mason]]'' (1963), ''[[Combat!]]'' (1963, 1965), ''[[Daniel Boone (1964 TV series)|Daniel Boone]]'', ''[[The Outer Limits (1963 TV series)|The Outer Limits]]'' (1964), ''[[The Virginian (TV series)|The Virginian]]'' (1963–1965; first working with ''Star Trek'' co-star [[DeForest Kelley]] in "Man of Violence", episode 14 of season 2, in 1963), and ''[[Get Smart]]'' (1966). He appeared in the 1995 ''[[The Outer Limits (1995 TV series)|Outer Limits]]'' series. He appeared on ''[[Gunsmoke]]'' in 1961 as Grice, in 1962 as Arnie, and in 1966 as John Walking Fox.<ref>{{cite web|title=Leonard Nimoy on Gunsmoke|url=http://gunsmoketv.org/leonard-nimoy/|website=gunsmoketv.org|access-date=May 14, 2015|archive-date=May 31, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150531032720/http://gunsmoketv.org/leonard-nimoy/|url-status=usurped}}</ref>

Nimoy and later ''Star Trek'' co-star [[William Shatner]] first worked together on an episode of the NBC spy series ''[[The Man from U.N.C.L.E.]]'', "The Project Strigas Affair" (1964). Their characters were from opposite sides of the [[Iron Curtain]], though with his saturnine appearance, Nimoy played the villain and Shatner played a reluctant U.N.C.L.E. recruit.<ref name="Sackett1993">{{cite book|first=Susan |last=Sackett|title=Prime-time hits: television's most popular network programs, 1950 to the present|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=viLuAAAAMAAJ|date=September 1993|publisher=Billboard Books|isbn=978-0-8230-8392-3|page=82 |quote=One classic episode (now available on video-cassette) was "The Project Strigas Affair," with guest stars William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy together for the first time in their pre-"Star Trek" days.}}</ref> By then he had a good reputation in Hollywood as a character actor, and chose ''Star Trek'' over a role on ''[[Peyton Place (TV series)|Peyton Place]]''.{{r|kleiner19671204}}

On the stage, Nimoy played the lead role in a short run of [[Gore Vidal]]'s ''[[Visit to a Small Planet]]'' in 1968 (shortly before the end of the ''Star Trek'' series) at the Pheasant Run Playhouse in [[St. Charles, Illinois]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.beyondspock.de/stage.php |title=Stage |website=Beyond Spock – A Leonard Nimoy Fan Page |publisher=Christine Mau |location=Hamburg, Germany |access-date=July 12, 2011}}</ref>