7) Three Men and a Baby (1987)
Yes, the man that played Mr. Spock directed a charming comedy about three bachelors that find themselves suddenly thrust into fatherhood. Three Men and a Baby not only turned out to be the biggest hit of 1987, but it was Leonard Nimoy’s second blockbuster in a row as director, and one that still carries with it a lot of fans and fondness.
Directing was only logical for Nimoy. He was by no mean prolific, but he certainly made his mark, starting with a singular episode of Night Gallery in 1973 and through other gigs in episodic television, including T.J. Hooker. He was then asked to direct Spock’s return, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, which he followed up with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the most commercially successful of the Trek movies until J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek in 2009. At one point, it seemed as though Nimoy might have had a lucrative new creative outlet.
Unfortunately, though, his films following Three Men and a Baby ended up being experiments in diminishing returns, both financially and critically. The last thing Nimoy directed was an episode of Deadly Games, a short-lived series about video game bad guys that escaped into the real world. Not exactly an auspicious end to his directing career, but Nimoy could always take pride in the grand success of Three Men and a Baby, proving that while you can be typecast as an actor, there’s always strange new worlds to explore in the director’s chair.
