Nichelle Nichols, best known for her breakthrough role as Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek, died Saturday, a family spokesman said Sunday. Her presence as one of the USS Enterprise‘s heroic bridge officers were groundbreaking in 1966. At 11 years old Whoopi Goldberg famously shouted to her mother, “There’s a black lady on TV, and she’s no maid!” After completing the original show’s three seasons, Nichols continued her portrayal in a short-lived animated show in the early 1970s and in a run of six films from 1979 to 1991. She was 89 years old at the time of her death.
Born in 1932 in a Chicago suburb, Nichols began her career as a singer and dancer, touring with both Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton’s bands. She performed at the legendary Blue Angel club in New York, as well as the Playboy Club, and was in a production of Carmen Jones in Chicago. She also had an uncredited role as a dancer in Otto Preminger’s 1959 film version of Porgy and Bess.
In 1964, she caught her big break, although it didn’t seem like it at the time. She was cast in the episode “To Set It Right” on the short-lived series The lieutenant. The show that starred Gary Lockwood, was set on a West Coast Marine Corps base, and this particular episode featured some racially charged animosity between Dennis Hopper and Don Marshall. The series, which was produced in consultation with the Pentagon, was unwilling to show anything that even remotely touched on the issue of race, so the episode in which Nichols appeared was never broadcast. The show was canceled after one season when its creator, Gene Roddenberry, retired.
Roddenberry, of course, continued to create Star Trek, where he was able to work in politically relevant scripts under the umbrella of science fiction. And he recruited many people from his time at The lieutenant.
For three seasons, Nichols’ lieutenant Uhura (a variant of the Swahili word uhuru, meaning freedom) served as communications officer aboard the bridge, dealing with Klingons, Romulans, Gorn, Doomsday Machines, and numerous other interplanetary problems. When needed, she could slip into navigation, helm and science stations when other officers were down. (In the animated series, she sat in the captain’s chair for part of an episode.)
In a season two episode where time was of the essence, Lt. Uhura was seen quickly soldering link communication equipment. As others on the ship watch worriedly, she reminded them that “If it’s not done just right, I could blow up the entire communication system. It’s very delicate work.” The ever logical Mr. Spock replied encouragingly, “I can believe that no one is better equipped to handle it, Miss Uhura. Please continue.”
But she was far from all business. She demonstrated her singing skills on the show, often accompanying herself on the Vulcan lyre.
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After the first season of the show, Nichols considered leaving the program and returning to musical theater. Dr. Martin Luther King, hardly known for his commentary on television programs, personally persuaded her to stay. When met at an NAACP function, he told her his family loved the show, insisted she had broken ground, and said that “for the first time,” with this role, “the world sees us as we should be seen, as equals, as intelligent people – like us should be.”
In the third season, Uhura and William Shatner‘s Captain James T. Kirk, shared what is often remembered as (but technically wasn’t) the first interracial kiss on television. (It wasn’t a kiss of passion: the characters were controlled telekinetically by creepy aliens, as would happen from time to time.) After Star TrekAt the time of the cancellation, Nichols worked for decades as an advocate for NASA, with the specific task of attracting more women and minorities to the organization.