Before Star Trek, Leonard Nimoy Played A Mobster In This Classic '60s Crime Drama

Spock would never approve, but Leonard Nimoy once did the dirty work for a Chicago beer baron on "The Untouchables."

Inspired by the 1957 memoir "The Untouchables" by real-life Prohibition agent Eliot Ness and journalist Oscar Fraley, the 1959 crime drama follows Special Agent Ness (Robert Stack) and his team of untouchables (so nicknamed because they couldn't be bribed or intimidated) as they go head-to-head against organized crime in 1930s Chicago. Nimoy's brief appearance on the show came in 1962, in Season 3, Episode 17, playing Packy, a jittery henchman for gang boss Charlie Zenko (Luther Adler). In the episode titled "Takeover," Zenko has his businesses threatened by Leo Mencken (Robert Loggia), a representative of the New York Mafia. It turns out Mencken is Zenko's estranged son, whom the mobster hadn't spoken to in years, hoping it would shield him from his criminal activities. Packy becomes involved in the conflict, killing Mencken, before the Untouchables shoot him once they arrive on the scene. 

Despite playing a supporting role, Nimoy fondly recalled his experience on the show, especially the opportunity to work with a veteran actor like Adler, which he revealed in an interview with Pioneers of Television. "I was pleased to be working with Adler. I never got to do very much, but just to be around him watching him work was a thrill for me. Later we worked together on 'Mission: Impossible' and we got to be friendly."

Early on in his acting career, Nimoy was routinely cast as the bad guy in many films and TV productions. As Nimoy revealed in the 2005 book "Stars of David" by journalist Abigail Pogrebin, his physical appearance was largely responsible for the types of movies he was offered. "Guys like me were playing all the ethnic roles, usually the heavies—the bad Mexicans, the bad Italians. And those were the jobs that I took and was happy to get for a long time," he said.

That typecasting followed Nimoy for years, from playing a street thug in the low-budget sports drama "Kid Monk Baroni" in 1952, to Narab, one of the Martian invaders in "Zombies of the Stratosphere" (1952), he impressed playing heavy characters. Nimoy also appeared in a long line of ethnic roles playing Native Americans, Mexicans, Russians, and others. By his own account, playing those roles allowed him to learn how to handle a switchblade, gun work, kicking, and choking, but he only needed one of these skills to play Packy.

Ironically, Nimoy's breakout role turned out to be against the grain of roles that had defined him for years. The actor got cast as the pointy-eared, logical Vulcan, Spock, in "Star Trek," not long after his time on "The Untouchables." Then again, given Spock's signature Vulcan nerve pinch, it seems Nimoy still had some use for those tough-guy skills.