As luck would have it, just as Star Trek was canceled by NBC, CBS reached an impasse with its Mission: Impossible stars Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. They offered Leonard Nimoy a five-year contract to play The Great Paris and become the IMF’s newest master-of-disguise. Nimoy accepted for two reasons. First, the opportunity to play a variety of roles would be a great benefit for an actor who was fearing being typecast as an emotionless pointed-eared alien. Second, as both shows shot on the lots of Desilu, Nimoy could keep his office space.
Happily, at least initially, Nimoy started work. He began as a Latin-American revolutionary, segued into amnesiac poets, Oriental wise men, Cuban dictators, gypsies (above), and most memorably as Zastro the magician in the series’ only 3-part story, The Falcon.
But soon, boredom set in. Here’s ANOTHER Latin-American revolutionary, amnesiac poet, Cuban dictator, etc. And Leonard began to realize that Paris himself was a non-entity. He became extremely dissatisfied, which led to ulcers and other health problems. He asked to be released from his contract after serving only two of his five years. The producers, realizing that pretty much ANYBODY can play the agents on the program, and arguably only Peter Graves and Greg Morris were essential, consented.
I saw Leonard at a convention and he talked about long stretches of his life during which he completely forgot the two years he spent with Graves and the gang. After Mission, he began a fruitful career as an author, artist and director, helming a segment of Night Gallery with his former co-star Lesley Ann Warren. He also addresses this in his book, I Am Not Spock.
Personally, I loved Nimoy as Paris, and his character was one of the few that really WAS fleshed out a bit on a personal level, in a fifth season story called My Friend, My Enemy. It’s worth checking out.
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