The cause of death was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, she told the New York Times.
Nimoy’s career in show business spanned more than six decades and included stints as a stage actor, television guest star, series regular and movie veteran. He also directed a handful of films, including the box-office hit “Three Men and a Baby” in 1987. He was a singer (of sorts), a published poet and an accomplished photographer.
But his lasting claim to fame remains Spock, a native of the planet Vulcan whose pointed ears, unemotional manner and frequently uttered “fascinating” endeared him to millions.
He felt a close connection to the character.
“Spock is definitely one of my best friends. When I put on those ears, it’s not like just another day. When I become Spock, that day becomes something special,” he told Starlog in 1989.
Still, as an actor, he wrestled with the typecasting that came with his close association with Spock. He titled a 1975 memoir “I Am Not Spock.” Though the book was less a rejection of the character than what he went through to develop him, fans took umbrage.
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And he immersed himself in photography, a hobby he’d taken up as a teenager. His works include “Shekhina,” a controversial series of female nudes, and “The Full Body Project.”
‘I would choose Spock’
For all that, Nimoy knew how he’d be remembered. He hadn’t left Spock behind, after all: He acted in the first two of the rebooted “Trek” movies, playing Spock Prime in 2009’s “Star Trek” and 2012’s “Star Trek Into Darkness.”
He and the character were now on very good terms.
“I am not Spock,” he wrote. “But given the choice, if I had to be someone else, I would be Spock. If someone said, ‘You can have the choice of being any other TV character ever played,’ I would choose Spock. I like him. I admire him. I respect him.”
Nimoy married his wife, Susan Bay, in 1989. She survives him, as do his two children by his first wife, Sandra Zober.
