A BIRTHDAY APPRECIATION of the late, great actor, who was born 94 years ago… — UPDATED 3/26/25: Leonard Nimoy was born 94 years ago, on March 26, 1931. This first ran in slightly different form when Nimoy died in 2015 but it still very much resonates today. William Shatner turned 94 earlier this week. For 13 GREAT CAPTAIN KIRK MOMENTS, click here. — Dan — I came to Star Trek relatively late. While it had been a syndication staple for almost two decades, I didn’t really discover the show until my college years in the mid-’80s. I’d seen a couple of the movies but they were primarily diversions. The show, I thought, was a bore, something my father put on TV while I played with my Batman Megos over on the floor. But something clicked in that summer of 1986, when I would stay up late every night watching Star Trek on Channel 11 in New York. By the time I was back at school that fall, I might as well have been at Starfleet Academy, such was my devotion. I was, and remain, a Kirk guy. His decisiveness, combined with a certain recklessness, appealed to me. Besides, I’m a connoisseur of cheeze, and William Shatner is a master of the form. On my very best days, Kirk is who I am, or at least I like to think so. And despite many attempts, Spock is who I could never be — cooler, smarter, more dignified. To this day, in my 50s, I’m amused whenever I counsel someone else to let cooler heads prevail. “I never thought,” I’ll say to myself, “that I’d ever find myself being Mr. Spock.” Leonard Nimoy died today. I knew it was coming but I put it out of my head. And when I learned of it, it was a gut punch — far more painful than I would have thought, when you consider that we never met. But as my friend Cliff put it to me today, in essence: I never knew Leonard Nimoy. But I knew Spock. Spock was a great friend. He was the angel on your shoulder who urged you to do the right thing when you didn’t always want to. The guy who did his best to watch your back and keep you out of trouble. The guy who you...