Happy Birthday to you both!! You are 87. (RIP, Mr. Nimoy)That is old even by people I consider to be old. I mean that with the utmost respect, of course. I don’t think young people respect their elders nearly as much as they should. You two have certainly earned respect as two of the most recognizable and beloved pop culture icons of the 20th century and beyond. You’ve had amazing careers and have managed to remain friends through it all. Are there awards for that? There should be. Because lifelong friendships seem pretty hard to come by.
You two became friends when you were strapping young men with ill-fitting 60s sci-fi costumes. But, man, did you own those roles. The way you possessed Capt. James T. Kirk and Lt. Commander Spock was so remarkable, so thoroughly entertaining that there have only been a handful of TV best friends that can measure up. I mean, I’m talking about Lucy & Ethel, Fred Flintstone & Barney Rubble, Richie Cunningham & The Fonz, Abbott & Costello, Charlie Brown & Linus, Oscar Madison & Felix Unger, Jerry Seinfeld & George Costanza… you get it.
I hope that I have a friendship like that one day. I do have a BFF. Her name is Pam and she reealllly wants to make it in show biz. I am always telling her that being a celebrity is not all it’s cracked up to be. Believe me, I watch enough entertainment shows and read enough celebrity mags and blogs to tell that an actor can really get pigeon-holed into some roles if they’re not careful.
But, Mr. Shatner, you did what very few TV actors could ever do. You went from Star Fleet to so many TV roles that spanned the 80s, 90s and into the 21st Century. You’ve spanned centuries. That is awesome. But let’s be honest here. It’s your recording career that really enchanted audience then and now. You developed a personal style of “speak singing” that is both entertaining and deep.
And you, Mr. Nimoy, you are quite the renaissance man. In addition to your many acting roles, you’re a celebrated photographer and also a recording artist like Mr. Shatner. Oh, and your two autobiographies, I Am Not Spock followed many years later by I Am Spock… that’s heavy duty clever, right there. Furthermore, I think my head almost exploded in joy the first time I heard a song you recorded called The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins. Nice.
And because you were best friends on one of television’s most popular shows of all time, people assumed you were BFFs in real life too. But I know the difference between TV and reality. You each had your own lives to lead, but you were definitely friends with your share of public ups and downs. I wonder how close you really are?
So, this is my question to you fine gentlemen: How do you stay friends for a lifetime? There are some people who believe that friends and other important relationships sort of come in seasons. It sort of depends on where you are in your life– like college or after you’re married or maybe when you have kids. But friends are super-important to me because I have a very, very small family. Basically, it’s just me and my parents. Is it possible to have unconditional love and support from people who you are not actually related to? How have you kept your friendship going for more than 40 years?I’m guessing that you have both weathered show biz storms and because you have Star Trek, you’ll always be linked. But is it more than that?
Sometimes, I think that I will die of loneliness. But then I think that my friends today will always be my friends forever, and that makes me feel better. But what if they move away? What if I move away? What if we all change beyond recognition after we leave high school? It feels like at some point I’ll be going into the world all by myself with only my quirks and my stuff as calling cards to people who might want to hang out with me. In other words, no one is obligated to care about me other than my immediate family. And if they go, what will I do?
That’s why it’s important that I understand how these decades long friendships work. I think when you know someone from a young age, they have a special importance because they are the ones who knew you before the world beat you up or made you bloom. Maybe they can still see your optimism, your creativity or your drive. They’ve seen you before the world has had a chance to make you into something you might never recognize again– or at least for a long time.
I hope Pam and I can stay friends, especially if she lands a part on a Disney Channel or Nickelodeon show. She’s been talking about reality shows, and I will do everything in my power to talk her out of that nonsense. But who knows? I might go out to L.A. someday and become a screenwriter or an animator. Maybe Pam and I could get a cheap apartment and be like Laverne & Shirley. Or maybe I’ll go to school in Boston and she’ll end up in New York. I just don’t know. But what I do know is that whatever happens to us– whether one of us is rich and the other one is poor; whether I publish a book or she never gets that dream role; whether she gets married or I never find true love– we’ll always have those moments of riding in her car down the highway, windows rolled down and blasting the Yeah Yeah Yeahs without a care in the world. I hope she feels the same way.
I guess it would be nice to know that there is at least one person in this big, wide world who will have my back no matter what– even if we have a bad fight or say things we don’t mean or somehow aren’t there for the other person at a really bad time. We all make mistakes. But I think real friendship might just be about forgiveness and honesty and, above all, compassion.
There aren’t a lot of people in twenty years who can say, “I knew Capra when she was a teenager.” I wonder where those people will be when life gets big and complicated and weird. I hope I can be there for them.
So, again, Happy Birthday to my favorite BFFs. Your brotherly love– across species lines has been inspiring and a nice reminder that whether your blood is red or green, we’re all one big family. Live long and prosper.
Always,
Capra
The Book of Stars 