Leonard Nimoy in “Vincent” -- April 1980

          Leonard Nimoy, recently of STAR TREK: The Motion Picture, toured in a one-man show called Vincent.

          This was big news for Trekkers!  A chance to see one of the Big Three in person!

          These are the ads and promo articles before the show in various newspapers.

          Well, Joyce and I went with our friends Ed and Kathy Porter.  Ed decided to get sneaky and try to track down Nimoy’s hotel.  So he called every OKC hotel in the downtown area and said he was with Nimoy’s advance team, calling to confirm Nimoy’s reservation.

          Pretty tricky, eh?  Sure enough, ONE hotel responded.  I don’t recall the name of the place back then, but nowadays it’s the downtown OKC Sheraton hotel.  Mr. Nimoy’s nomme-de-guerre was, if I recall correctly, “Mr Cutlip.”  It was pronounced just that way.

          Kids, don’t try this at home!  I may observe that this “phone spoof” was a lot easier in 1980, when caller ID did not exist in the everyday world.

          We attended the Wednesday night show, the four of us.  This was April 30, 1980.

          This is what a Kodak 110 camera caught of the set.

          It was a great time.  The only thing I recall specifically about the performance was that in the act break between the two parts, the PA system played music from one of Bizet’s L'Arlésienne  suites, while various Vincent van Gogh paintings were projected on a scrim above the set.

          And, after the show, we conducted a sneak attack.  The four of us went to the (now-) Sheraton hotel and waited in the lobby.  Eventually Nimoy and a few other folks came in.

          Mr Nimoy was very gracious to the starstruck fans that invaded his off-duty time and signed a few autographs, in our programs and a couple of books.

           I’m kind of embarrassed nowadays to observe the bleed-through at the upper left of this scan.  This book was from The Book Rack, bought used.  In other words, Nimoy didn’t even get a commission from it!

          I hope he didn’t notice that part.

          After only bothering “Mr Cutlip” for a few minutes -- less than five, I promise! -- we let him alone and went back to Ed & Kathy’s whereupon we JUST HAD to document everything.

          So here we are holding up the show program he autographed.  Ed put the pen in a plastic bag.  For fingerprints?  Who knows?  (I’m the doofus on the right.)

          And the Oklahoman spake thus.  Below is the entire program from the show.

Note the autograph across the bottom of his bio!

 

          And that is how two fanboys stalked Leonard Nimoy.

          Evidently, Amazon sells a DVD of a performance.  I don’t know if this is a video of a live show, or something specially staged for video release.

See ya!