Nichelle Nichols, who broke barriers for black women in Hollywood when she played communications officer Lt. Uhura in the original Star Trek television series, has died. She was 89 years old.
Nichols died Saturday in Silver City, NM, his son Kyle Johnson said
“Last night, my mother, Nichelle Nichols, succumbed to natural causes and passed away. However, her light, like the ancient galaxies now seen for the first time, will remain for us and future generations to enjoy, learn and inspire us.” Johnson wrote on his mother’s official Facebook page on Sunday.
“His was a life well lived and a model for us all.”
His role in the 1966-69 series as Lt. Uhura earned Nichols a lifelong position of honor among the series’ rabid fans, known as Trekkers and Trekkies. She also won praise for breaking stereotypes that limited black women to roles as maids and included an on-screen interracial kiss with co-star William Shatner that was unheard of at the time.
Many actors become stars, but few stars can move a nation. Nichelle Nichols showed us the extraordinary power of black women and paved the way for a brighter future for all women in media. Thank you, Nichelle. We will miss you. pic.twitter.com/KhUf4YM6pX
—@RealLyndaCarter
“I will have more to say about the trailblazing and incomparable Nichelle Nichols, who shared the bridge with us as Lt. Uhura of the USS Enterprise, and who passed today at the age of 89,” George Takei wrote on Twitter.
“For today, my heart is heavy, my eyes shine like the stars you rest among, my dearest friend.”
Takei played Sulu in the original Star Trek series alongside Nichols. But his impact was felt beyond his immediate peers, with many others in the Star Trek world also tweeting their condolences.
Celia Rose Gooding, who currently plays Uhura in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, wrote on Twitter that Nichols “made room for so many of us. It was the reminder that not only can we reach for the stars, but our influence it’s essential to her life. survival. Forget shaking the table, she built it.”
Nichols arrives at an event honoring the 30th anniversary of Star Trek at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles in October 1996. (Damian Dovarganes/The Associated Press)
Like other members of the original cast, Nichols also appeared in six big screen spin-offs beginning in 1979 with Star Trek: The Motion Picture and frequented Star Trek fan conventions. She also served for many years as a NASA recruiter, helping to bring minorities and women into the astronaut corps.
Most recently, she had a recurring role on TV’s Heroes, playing the great-aunt of a boy with mystical powers.
The original Star Trek premiered on NBC on September 8, 1966. Its multicultural and multiracial cast was creator Gene Roddenberry’s message to viewers that in the distant future—the 23rd century—human diversity would be fully accepted .
LOOK | Nichols discusses the legacy of Star Trek with CBC News:
Nichelle Nichols discusses the 50th anniversary of Star Trek on CBC News Network
Nichelle Nichols discusses the 50th anniversary of Star Trek on CBC News Network
“I think a lot of people took to heart … that what was being said on television at the time was cause for celebration,” Nichols said in 1992 when a Star Trek exhibit was viewed at the Smithsonian Institution.
He often recalled how Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was a fan of the show and praised her role. She met him at a civil rights rally in 1967, at a time when she had decided not to return for the show’s second season.
“When I told him I was going to miss my teammates and was leaving the show, he got really serious and said, ‘You can’t do it,'” she told The Tulsa (Okla.) World in a 2008 interview .
A photo of former U.S. President Barack Obama and Nichols is seen at a Star Trek exhibit in Seattle, Washington in May 2016. (Elaine Thompson/The Associated Press)
“‘You’ve changed the face of television forever, and therefore you’ve changed people’s minds,” the civil rights leader said she told him.
“That foresight that Dr. King had was a lightning bolt in my life,” Nichols said.
Iconic kiss
During the show’s third season, Nichols’ character and Shatner’s Captain James Kirk shared what was described as the first interracial kiss to air on an American television series. In the episode, Plato’s stepchildren, his characters, who always maintained a platonic relationship, were forced to kiss by aliens who controlled their actions.
“The characters themselves weren’t freaked out by a black woman kissing a white man,” National Public Radio television critic Eric Deggans told The Associated Press in 2018. “In this utopian future, we solved that problem. We’re beyond. It was a wonderful message to send.”
Nichols’ Uhura and Captain James T. Kirk, played by William Shatner, are seen in television’s first scripted interracial kiss. (Paramount Studios)
Worried about the reaction of Southern television stations, the showrunners wanted to film a second take of the scene where the kiss happened off-screen. But Nichols said in her book, Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories, that she and Shatner deliberately used the lines to force the use of the original take.
Despite the concerns, the episode aired without a hitch. In fact, it received the most “fan mail that Paramount has ever received on Star Trek for an episode,” Nichols said in a 2010 interview with the Archives of American Television.
Controversial conservative
Born Grace Dell Nichols in Robbins, Illinois, Nichols hated being called “Gracie,” which everyone insisted on, she said in the 2010 interview. As a teenager, her mother told her she had wanted to call her Michelle , but thought she should have alliterative initials like Marilyn Monroe, whom Nichols loved. Hence, “Nichelle.”
Nichols first worked professionally as a singer and dancer in Chicago at the age of 14, moved to the nightclubs of New York and worked for a time with the bands of Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton before coming to Hollywood for his film debut in 1959’s Porgy and Bess, the first of several small film and television roles that led her to Star Trek stardom.
Nichols was known for not being afraid to stand up to Shatner on set when others complained that he was stealing scenes and camera time. They later found out that he had strong support for the creator of the show.
Nichols and other Star Trek cast members are seen with the NASA Shuttle Enterprise in Palmdale, Calif., in September 1976. (NASA/Reuters)
In her 1994 book, Beyond Uhura, she said she met Roddenberry when he starred in her show The Lieutenant, and the two had an affair a couple of years before Star Trek began. The two remained lifelong close friends.
Nichols was a regular at Star Trek conventions and events well into his 80s, but his schedule was limited starting in 2018 when his son announced he was suffering from advanced dementia.
Nichols was placed under a legal guardianship under the control of her son Johnson, who said her mental decline made her unable to manage her affairs or make public appearances.
Nichols rallies in support of striking members of the Writers Guild of America outside the gates of Paramount Pictures studios in Los Angeles in December 2007. (Damian Dovarganes/The Associated Press)
Some, including Nichols’ managers and her friend, film producer and actor Angelique Fawcett, opposed the conservatorship and sought more access to Nichols and records of Johnson’s financial and other movements on her behalf. His name was invoked at times in court demonstrations seeking the release of Britney Spears from her own guardianship.
But the court consistently sided with Johnson and, over Fawcett’s objections, allowed him to move Nichols to New Mexico, where he lived with him in his final years.