Marty Berry
Fresno Bee

Leonard Nimoy doesn't mind that he will forever be associated with Mr. Spock, the iconic "Star Trek" character who beamed him up to an enduring -- and endearing -- spot in the pop-culture universe decades ago.

For one thing, he notes, his stature allows him to lend his support to the arts, by doing things such as narrating pieces with symphony orchestras, as he will next weekend with the Fresno Philharmonic.

He will narrate Stravinsky's "L'Histoire du Soldat" ("The Soldier's Tale") and Beethoven's "Incidental Music from Egmont" Saturday and March 6 with the Philharmonic.

"I've been doing this for a long time," he says of appearing with orchestras. "It can be helpful, to draw a crowd."

He wasn't always as comfortable with his famous alter ego; his first memoir, in 1975, was titled "I Am Not Spock." But 20 years later, he made his peace with his Vulcan half and wrote a second memoir, "I Am Spock." His "Star Trek" success also has allowed him to have a comfortable lifestyle, one he enjoys so much that he decided to leave acting behind for it in the late 1990s.

"The last thing I did was a miniseries, 'David,' in Morocco, six or eight years ago," Nimoy says. "I played the prophet Samuel. It suddenly occurred to me, as I was sitting in a hot, dusty, fly-infested trailer in Morocco, that I have such a beautiful lifestyle, in my various homes, with my family. I'd spent weeks at a time in a motel room, away from the people I love, and I just thought, I've had enough of it.

"My life has taken me to wonderful places, and I have no regrets. I just did enough of it in 50 years."

Nimoy hasn't been involved in any "Star Trek"-related projects since the 1990s and says he feels "like a grandfather" toward the many spinoffs.

It doesn't bother him that the last "Star Trek"-related TV series, "Starship: Enterprise," is set to go off the air in May. For one thing, he's seen series canceled before, only to be revived for yet another go-'round.

"I was told there was a full-page ad bought in the L.A. Times," he notes. "I'm curious about it."

"Star Trek: Enterprise" fans have been raising money through a Web site, www.saveenterprise.com, to purchase a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times, among other planned activities.

"It's had quite a remarkable history. We thought we were finished many times. It took a protest to get the second season, and the third," in 1967 and '68. (NBC finally canceled the original series in 1969.)

"People don't realize there was an 11-year hiatus. Then in 1979 and '80, the movies came out, and it took off again. And of course there's been enormous interest in the reruns. There's quite a history. So you can't predict."

One thing you can put your money on is that Nimoy won't be doing any guest spots on "Boston Legal," fellow "Star Trek" star William Shatner's latest TV series.

"His needs are different," Nimoy says of Shatner, with whom he remains close. "He's done a great job of reinventing himself. He's done it just brilliantly, and with great intention."

Nimoy, 73, has reinvented himself along a different path.

In addition to appearing with orchestras, he has recorded 10 narrative albums, and co-owns a company that produces audio dramatizations; has traveled on the lecture circuit; has written three volumes of poetry and a one-man play about van Gogh (that he also produced and directed), as well as the memoirs; has directed movies and TV series; collects art and sponsors artists-in-residence at museums across the country with his wife, Susan Bay Nimoy; and devotes himself above all to his longtime passion for photography.

In conjunction with his Philharmonic appearance, he has an exhibit of his photography on display at the Corridor 2122 gallery

"My creative work is all in photography now," he says.

The exhibit at Corridor includes some of his "Shekhina" series, as well as other photographs.

The "Shekhina" series, which he published as a book in 2002, is a photographic study of the female form that arose from Nimoy's interest in scriptural mythology.

For the series, he photographed female models, some clad, and some nude. Some are seen in veils, and some with Jewish prayer accessories. The photographs have been shown at galleries, museums and reform synagogues (Nimoy himself attends a reform synagogue in Hollywood) across the country.

His latest project, "Maximum Beauty," consists of photographs of some of the women of The Fat-Bottom Revue, a woman's burlesque group that recently came to San Francisco.

"There's a picture in the [Fresno] show of a large-bodied lady. I've photographed a lot of females of a certain body type, with that classic look. This woman came to me and asked if I'd be interested in photographing her," he says of the woman in the photograph. He was happy with the result.

"So I photographed this group of burlesque dancers. They were at least 200 pounds each, and quite beautiful.

"The women were happy, comfortable people. I'm interested in the human being, and the figure interests me in the same way it has interested artists for hundreds of years. The body is a natural thing, and its variations are intriguing."

Nimoy's photography will remain on display at Corridor 2122 through March 6.

Of Nimoy's appearance with the Philharmonic, executive director David Gaylin says, "We thought it would give us some variety in the season. You have your pianists and violinists, so it's nice to have something different, like a guitarist, or a cellist." Or a half-human, half-Vulcan warrior.

Nimoy previously had narrated "L'Histoire du Soldat" with the Reno Chamber Orchestra in 2001, which is how Fresno Philharmonic Ted Kuchar, who also conducts the Reno Philharmonic, came to know him. Nimoy spends his summers near Reno, at Lake Tahoe.

Nimoy will narrate "Egmont" again with the Reno Chamber Orchestra in April, as well as a piece written by composer Viktor Ullmann about life in Theresienstadt (Terezin to the Czechs), a Czech ghetto run by the Nazi troops during World War II.

Stravinsky wrote "L'Histoire du Soldat" for seven instruments and a narrator, based on a group of stories collected from Russian soldiers by Alexander Afanasiev. Beethoven wrote the overture and incidental music for "Egmont," a play by Goethe about the Dutch struggle for liberation from the Spanish and the Inquisition in the 16th century.

The Philharmonic also will perform Kodaly's Dances of Galanta and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4, "Italian."

The reporter can be reached at mberry@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6370.