It’s been four long years since the world lost Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy, and his iconic character Spock. A recent interview with his widow, Susan Bay, however, has now shed some seriously sad light on the star’s final days.
Nimoy passed away from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, in February of 2015. Anyone who’s suffered from the condition or knows someone who has, will understand why Bay called the disease “terrible” when she spoke with Inside Edition, saying:
“You cannot catch your breath. He couldn’t go out. For him to go from the parking lot to the movie theater, forget it.”
In 2014, fans spotted the exhausted Nimoy riding in a wheelchair at the airport. The beloved actor then decided to go public with his battle. Despite not having smoked for three decades prior to his death, the damage had been done and after coming forward, he started using his place in the public spotlight to help raise awareness about the dangers of smoking.
He knew towards the end that his final days were upon him as well, and according to Bay, Nimoy apparently asked his nurses to help him end his life. It was a wish in which they obliged, too, with his widow recalling:
“They keep adding a little more morphine over the period. He was in such a compromised situation that it did not take long. Leonard believed in dying with dignity.”
Of course, Nimoy’s fame went universes beyond just the Enterprise. He was the voice of Galvatron in 1986’s Transformers: The Movie and then returned to the franchise in 2011, voicing Sentinel Prime in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The future Spock appeared in countless television series in the ’50s and ’60s as well, before his famous Vulcan was introduced to the world in 1966.
But without a doubt, it’ll always be Star Trek: The Original Series that he’s most well known for and he’ll forever be missed by his millions of fans across the globe.