Before Leonard Nimoy got a regular gig as Spock on “Star Trek,” his acting jobs were mostly one-off guest appearances. In 1956, Nimoy landed a role on “Matinee Theatre,” in the episode “Whom Death Has Joined Together,” starring Vincent Price. Price once said, “I don’t play monsters, I play men besieged by fate and out for revenge,” (via Monster Complex), and this episode is a perfect showcase for Price’s style of suave, psychological horror.
As a delivery man, Nimoy arrives on the scene just as Price’s character is preparing to blow up his wife with the creative combo of a ringing phone and flammable gas. “He was very nervous when he came to the door,” Nimoy recalled, describing the plot during an interview with Television Academy. “I couldn’t see what was going on inside and I’m kind of looking around.” Nimoy has less than five lines in the show, and after that brief exchange, his part was over.
Sadly, this piece of TV history isn’t available to stream. Out of almost 600 episodes airing from 1955-1958, only a few are available online, and Nimoy and Price’s episode isn’t among them. Surprisingly, even though this seems like a straightforward, easy job, Nimoy preferred creating a complex character like Spock. “It was more difficult to do a one-line or a two- or three-line role than to do pages of dialogue,” he explained to Television Academy. “Because [with] pages of dialogue you get invested in the character and invested in the story.”
One-off work paved the way to Nimoy’s Spock role
This episode of “Matinee Theatre” isn’t the only time a future “Star Trek” actor appears on the series. DeForest Kelley stars in “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt,” a murder-centric tale from 1955. William Shatner appears close to the end of series, in 1958’s “Hands” –- a story about a man’s untimely death. Sometime after his episode with Vincent Price, Nimoy was cast in a second episode, but he got cut during rehearsals.
In contrast, John Hoyt had better luck, appearing in 12 episodes of “Matinee Theatre.” However, Hoyt wasn’t so lucky in the “Star Trek” world, since his character, Dr. Philip Boyce, appears in flashbacks in “The Menagerie,” which recycled footage from the show’s rejected pilot, “The Cage.” Although Spock had a long way to go in terms of character development, Nimoy had the distinction of being the only actor from “The Cage” who was retained in the same role.
Early-career networking opportunities paid off, since “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry had met Nimoy on “The Lieutenant” years earlier. Nimoy was only in one episode of that show, too, but it was enough. Rather than Nimoy chasing work, Roddenberry needed a convincing pitch to sell Nimoy on the role. Nimoy’s one-off work also caused him to cross paths with Shatner on “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” However, the experience didn’t inform Kirk and Spock’s close dynamic, since they didn’t get enough screen time to establish a rapport.
