Movies - TV
The Actor Who Nearly Replaced Leonard Nimoy Rejoined Star Trek Decades Later
By JEREMY SMITH
The stars’ salaries were already tricky, when William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy played chicken with NBC in pay negotiations, basically daring the execs to fire them.
"Star Trek" historian Marc Cushman says the network had enough of Nimoy's hardball act. Rather than bring back the hugely popular Mr. Spock, they opted to write him out.
Actor Lawrence Montaigne was negotiating playing a new Vulcan character and the filming of the second season was about to start when producer Gene L. Coon returned from vacation.
Coon thought it would be foolish to alienate their audience, relaying, "You are not doing the show without that guy. Pay him whatever you need to pay him to keep him on the show."