Nichelle Nichols 1932-2022
Remembering a true pioneer of the final frontier
“WHAT’S A STAR Trek?” wondered Nichelle Nichols, nonplussed by the telegram in her hand. Her agent was insisting she return immediately from England for a TV audition in the States. Nichols ignored the telegram. And the next one. Only when the now irate rep finally found her by phone did she realise that pop-culture destiny was non-negotiable.
Arguably the defining icon of Star Trek’s inclusive vision of the future, Nichols was born in Robbins, Illinois. She studied dance at the Chicago Ballet Academy from the age of 12 and began a professional career as a singer and dancer at 14, going on to tour America, Canada and Europe with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton’s jazz bands.
In 1964 she appeared in a racially electrified episode of Gene Roddenberry’s marine corps drama The Lieutenant. It was a role of rare substance for a black actor on American television; more typical was a turn as an African princess on Tarzan. “Every week there was an African princess,” Nichols reflected, years later. “You were either a chief, a princess, a prince or a witch doctor.”
Uhura promised more. A last-minute addition to the bridge crew, the Enterprise’s communications officer looked to be a capable, essential part of the ensemble. “It was actually one of the lead roles,” said Nichols, who winced as Uhura’s role was diminished in rewrites, script after script. “I thought it was very cruel to give us the original scripts, which had terrific parts in them, and then to see your part get cut, cut, cut.” As she remembered, “Everyone was scared to death of having a black and a woman in an equal role.”
Frustrated, she planned to quit, only to reconsider after a chance
"Everyone was scared to death of having a black and a woman in an equal "role
encounter with civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King: “He said Uhura was not a small character, that I was 10 feet tall and that I was opening many doors.” And Uhura was seen: the gifted, charismatic Nichols made the front cover of Ebony, and an interracial kiss with co-star William Shatner in “Plato’s Stepchildren” remains a talking point in TV history.
Nichols voiced Uhura in Star Trek: The Animated Series and returned for the series of movies starring the original cast. Beyond the 23rd century she shook up her image to play a salty, hard-nosed madam in 1974 blaxploitation classic Truck Turner, then used her Trek fame to help NASA recruit ethnic minorities and women – including Sally Ride, America’s first woman in space.
Winning fans from Muhammad Ali to Whoopi Goldberg and Barack Obama, Nichols’s frustrations with scripts and screen time didn’t detract from her relationship with Uhura. “I’m very proud of her,” she said in 1986, “because she is possibly my great, great, great, great granddaughter.” NS