Star Trek’s Nichelle Nichols: ‘Martin Luther King was a Trekker’
Her portrayal of Lieutenant Uhura in the sci-fi series was light years ahead of its time. She talks about the first interracial kiss on TV, her work with Nasa, and the civil rights leader who hailed her as a role model to millions
Nichelle Nichols: ‘Dr King knew more about me, where I was going to in my life, than I did.’ Photograph: Felix Clay for the Guardian
Simon Hattenstone
Tuesday 18 October 2016 15.23 BSTLast modified on Tuesday 18 October 201622.00 BST
The red mini dress has long gone, but at 83 Nichelle Nichols looks every bit as glamorous as she did on the Starship Enterprise in the 60s. And every bit as imposing. When Lieutenant Uhura (promoted to lieutenant commander, then commander) spoke, fellow crew members listened. Uhura, the communications officer who specialised in linguistics, cryptography and philology, just needed to say one word (“Captain!”) for everybody to pay attention.
Today, the black hair has morphed into a mane of golden white, complemented by a white-furred cardigan. Apart from that, she is a vision in black – trousers, sequinned top, shoes. She is in Britain to celebrate 50 years of Star Trek, and celebrating it she certainly is. Nichols is tucking into honeyed peanuts and crisps after a hard morning’s work – first Good Morning Britain, then a round table with journalists hanging on to her every interplanetary morsel. “I think the whole world is celebrating 50 years of
Star Trek,” she says.
The legendary sci-fi TV series promised to seek out new life and new civilisations, and to boldly go where no man had gone before. Which it did. As well as exploring new planets, it entered virgin territory as far as casting went. The Star Trek franchise (it later became a cartoon and series of films), devised by the brilliant Gene Roddenberry, reflected its creator’s optimism, with different nationalities, races and species happily co-existing. In a way it was Roddenberry’s idealistic response to the racial ferment of the 60s – so Lt Sulu was a Japanese helmsman, Lt Uhura was African-American and Mr Spock was half-Vulcan.
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Nichelle Nichols as Uhura in 1966. Photograph: Insight Editions
The casting of Nichols was groundbreaking. Not only was it a rarity to see a black woman on primetime TV, it was even rarer to see a black woman (or woman full stop) cast in a high-powered role. Nichols was decades ahead of her time.
Even before Star Trek, she had an astonishing life. Nichols was born Grace Dell Nichols, but she didn’t care for her name. “I wasn’t satisfied with it, so I went to my mother and father and told them, and they changed it.” They offered her Nichelle (meaning Victorious Maiden) and she was happy with that. Nichols has always been strongly opinionated – not a girl or woman who would stand for nonsense.
