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Fanclub founding members Mary, Maggy and Gill
with Leonard Nimoy |
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1. Tell people about yourself first off?
Not much to tell. I'm Maggy, a long time fan of Leonard's, who
lives in England, visits LA as often as possible because I love it there
- my home from home. I love animals, music, art. Friends will tell
you I am a classic trekker who has little time for the spin-offs.
2. How did you come to run the The Official Leonard Nimoy Fan Club ?
When the British club Spotlight Leonard Nimoy closed, 3 members
wanted to keep it running, so although we lived in different parts of
UK, we met up to decide which one of us would run the club, and
ended up deciding it was far better to share the job between us, and so
the Leonard Nimoy Fan Club UK was born over coffee, on
Birmingham railway station!
At that time we were not official, and not really looking at becoming an
international club. But it grew beyond our hopes and soon the fans were
getting confused, because of the UK part of the club's name -
thinking
we only covered the UK, but actually by this time, the membership
was worldwide, so it needed a re-think. I thought if we were going to do
the job right, we needed official status and a new name, so we acquired
both, and became The Official Leonard Nimoy Fan Club with
Leonard's kind permission. Now we have members of all ages and
nationalities. When Leonard announced he was going to concentrate on his
photography and not the film work, people said our job was done, but we
actually never have been busier and still are having a job keeping up
with all the things Leonard is doing.
3. What is your URL and club address?
Our web pages are found at www.theofficialleonardnimoyfanclub.com.
The address for snail mail is 22 PUREFOY ROAD COVENTRY,
ENGLAND CV3 5GL
4. What does membership entail?
We issue four newsletters a year of around 50 pages each. We hold a
convention in UK, this will be the third year, it's small, nothing like
the big Creation cons, we run them as a chance for fans to meet and
chat, no guests, just fans, and any money raised goes to charity, in the
tradition of the old conventions. Definitely not a profit-making
exercise. This year it's for Alzheimer's.
5. You are based in England but have members from all over?
Yes, certainly, but we only really deal with English speakers. I did
attempt to help a fan who spoke a kind of Brazilian Portuguese but had
to give up as it was too time consuming ... but we did try.
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6. How much cooperation do you get from Leonard Nimoy himself in this
venture?
He has been wonderful. He has a very busy life and we try hard to keep
contact to a minimum, although that isn't always possible ... He has
wonderful staff to help and they are just great too. As the official club
we need to be sure to act in a responsible way. Leonard does comment on
things and he receives a copy of each newsletter, so things have
to be right, or at least as right as possible. Whatever we have asked of
him he always has been there for us.
7. What attracted you to him directly as opposed to otherStar Trek cast
members ?
I guess the character he played, Spock. The loner, the misunderstood
one.
As a teenager I felt like that a lot of the time, plus he was just so
sexy too.
When I first met him I was really worried that the man I had liked
for so long wouldn't actually be as nice as I had imagined, having met
other actors who were just so big-headed and full of themselves, but I
can honestly say he was so kind and thoughtful ... and a wonderful
smile,not at all Vulcan.
8. Few people seem to realize he has made several other films apart form
playing the Spock role. Have you seen any of his other works? I recall
him in a western, Catlow I think, and also as a psycho aristocrat in the
TV mini series of The Sun Also Rises ?
If you go to our web pages we have lists of his other work, and even then, we probably have missed a
few. I think the most popular here in UK was
the Baffled TV film, but the fan club gets more questions about the
In
Search of ...-series I guess. My personal favourite is Never
Forget
because it always makes me cry and I know it was a special project for
Leonard.
9. Are there any other specific Nimoy clubs out there, as opposed to say
all the Star Trek clubs you find ?
There are some good Nimoy sites that list his work or have lots of
pictures, if you do a search you find them, but we are the
authorized one. That makes a big difference because we answer to
Leonard. We act as a buffer between him and the fans. We see our job as
helping fans by giving them correct information and uarding their
interests and helping Leonard by letting him know what fans are saying
and protecting his privacy as much as we can .
10. How many club members have you met face to face ?
We wanted to make ourselves as accessible as possible, so at events we
wear tee's with our names on and then there are the conventions. We went
to Germany for a con last year, and I am in LA at least once a year. But I
guess I spend most of the time using email to chat to fans, be they
members of the club, or just asking questions about Leonard or his work.
The Internet has certainly been a wonderful thing to bring fans together ...
shame it wasn't around when the Star Trek
series was first shown, maybe it wouldn't have been cancelled ... can you imagine the letter
writing campaign, if it had the Internet to help spread the word?
11. You of course hope to expand ?
Sure. I have talked to many UK fans and one thing was obvious in the
early days of Star Trek
we heard about trekkers, conventions and fan
clubs and believed they were a American thing. None of us knew there
actually were clubs running here in UK and in Europe. In fact My
first club was found via a German magazine. The clubs here didn't reach
everyone, probably because they didn't advertise enough ... a closed
community almost. That taught me not to be complacent about our success.
There is always someone, somewhere, who would like to join if
only they knew we exist. Star Trek
is being shown somewhere in the World, all
the time ... re-runs always produce new fans.
12. Any interesting stories to tell about your involvement with the club
?
Oh yes, like the time I took a short cut while visiting Leonard's office
and ended up trapped in the fire escape ...
But I guess the best actually
happened just a short while after we started the club we were attending
a con and Leonard was a guest. He had been signing and had left for
another event. I noticed girls had been fighting for the cup he had
drank from, which gave me the idea of how to raise money for charity, so
we began to charge 10p for a quick (and I mean quick) sit on the chair
Leonard had used. This went fine, except it got real hard to get some
girls to move on ... anyway we were really pleased at how popular the quick
sit was,until a girl who was very tall walked up, paid her 10p
and proceeded to try to walk off with the chair ... now this chair belonged
to the hotel so we ran after her only to find she didn't speak any
English at all and thought for 10p she had actually bought the chair
and was taking it home. We had a hell of a time convincing her to return
it to the function room. At least we raised a nice sum for charity, but I
don't think we will do that kind of fund-raising again.
13. Anything else to touch on before closing ?
Not really, just thank you.
14. Closing comments ?
Any fan of Leonard's is welcome to join us.Details on the
webpage,with a form you can print out .We accept paypal now to make
payment easier.
... guess I cant finish without saying Live Long & Prosper.
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