40th Anniversary Special Series – Part 4

In a 2013 interview, conducted by Ann Hoevel and Emanuella Grinberg for CNN, Dragon Con co-founder and then Chairman Pat Henry pointed out that in 2009 he was keenly interested in finding ways to enhance the national profile of the convention. That opportunity presented itself when a last-minute guest booking brought William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy together for what is now considered a seminal moment in Dragon Con history. It seems that Robert Duncan McNeill, Lt. Paris in Star Trek: Voyager, and William Shatner shared the same agent. When McNeill had to cancel his appearance at Dragon Con, the agent reached out to Shatner, and the rest is Dragon Con history.

Shatner joined his costar from the original Star Trek series and films, Leonard Nimoy, in the Marriott hotel’s Atrium ballroom on Saturday, September 5 at 10AM. Moderated by Trek Track founding director Eric Watts, it is to this day one of Pat Henry’s favorite panels. It was also a defining moment in the Dragon Con experience for thousands of Dragon Con members, including Editor of the Daily Dragon, Max Caracappa.

Caracappa has been a Dragon Con member since 2008. She had, at the time, no idea the con was so large and diverse. While she’d had a great time in 2008, Caracappa was undecided about whether to attend in 2009. The announcement that Leonard Nimoy would be a guest at the 2009 con made the decision for her. A lifelong Star Trek fan, and of Leonard Nimoy in particular, Caracappa was not going to pass up the opportunity to see him.

A self-defined “Spock girl,” Caracappa first saw Nimoy in person when he was promoting his autobiography, I am Spock eighteen years earlier in 1991. She arrived at Dragon Con in 2009 late Thursday evening and found that badge pick up had closed for the day. Knowing that the Shatner-Nimoy panel was at 10AM Friday morning, she rose before sunrise and joined the line that had already formed outside the former Sheraton to claim her badge. Her anxiety while in line grew as word spread that the Atrium ballroom had already opened for member seating. An overflow room had been set up for the event, but Caracappa was determined to get inside the Atrium. She got her badge, ran to the Marriott, and secured her seat in the ballroom. She made it!

For almost sixty minutes Shatner and Nimoy bantered back and forth in the way that only two people enjoying forty years of camaraderie and friendship (forty-four according to Nimoy during the panel) could. They spent the first portion of the hour dealing with Shatner’s failure to “see the movie” and the existential question ultimately perplexing him: “why am I not in the movie??” The movie, of course, was J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek. Released in 2009, the reboot starred Chris Pine as James T. Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, and Leonard Nimoy as Spock Prime. It enjoyed both commercial and critical success, grossing almost $400 million in worldwide ticket sales. The discussion launched when Nimoy asked Shatner: “seen any good movies lately?” With that they were off and running.

When Shatner began to mock a member’s use of “y’all” while asking a question, Nimoy stopped him in his tracks. “Be careful,” he warned his friend. Nimoy then went on to recount his ties to Atlanta. Stationed at Fort McPherson, Nimoy served as an entertainment specialist, creating shows using army talent that toured 3^rd Army units across the southeast. He directed A Streetcar Named Desire at the Peachtree Playhouse in Atlanta, and most important, his daughter was born at the base hospital in March 1956. So, Nimoy warned: “be careful how you treat the people of Atlanta.” The roar was thunderous.

Caracappa refers to her experience of the panel as “a gift.” Sitting in the room she could feel the respect these two actors had for one another. They shared a history, and literally a lifetime together, and being in attendance was a “privilege.” For her, that panel was “one of the core events that got me hooked on Dragon Con.” It was “insane and beautiful.” Caracappa followed her attendance at the panel by securing a photo op with Nimoy and autographs from both actors. Waiting in the hours long line outside the Hilton grand ballroom to get the autographs post panel was exhausting. Once it was all done, Caracappa collapsed. Yet to this day she has the framed copy of Entertainment Weekly celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek that they autographed hanging in her office. She can forever proudly proclaim, “I was here for Nimoy and Shatner!”

While William Shatner went on to become a regular at Dragon Con, appearing as recently as 2025, the 2009 visit to Dragon Con by Leonard Nimoy was his one and only. Caracappa remembered that 2009 was the age of SARS, and Nimoy’s management team was adamant that members keep a distance and not touch the actor. Such precautions made sense for a man his age. What no one knew at the time because it didn’t become public knowledge until January 2014 was that Leonard Nimoy would eventually be diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). It took him on February 27, 2015, at the age of 83.

The years between that magical moment in the Atrium ballroom in 2009 and Nimoy’s passing in February 2015 were evidently difficult ones for the two old friends. A rift developed between them, and according to Shatner in Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man (2016), they were not on speaking terms the final five years of Nimoy’s life. Leonard Nimoy’s son Adam told Newsweek author Billie Schwabb Dunn that Shatner and his father had “a very challenging relationship themselves. Although there was a period of time when they were really beautifully, I think, together.” William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were “really, beautifully together” that Saturday morning in the Atrium ballroom at Dragon Con, and everyone present was blessed to be a part of it.

You can watch the panel on Dragon Con TV.

Click here for notes and acknowledgements from the author.