Star Trek's Nichelle Nichols closes hailing frequencies Nichelle Nichols, who long ago achieved immortality in her role as Uhura on Star Trek, has died at the age of 89. Born in 1932, her four-octave vocal range saw her perform with Duke Ellington at the tender age of 14 and sparked aspirations to become a singer. When the chance to act on TV came up, she saw it as a stepping-stone …
I watched the original Star Trek in the 80’s and always thought she was a good actress. I never realised then that she’d been such a trailblazer back when originally broadcast. I only found out later how pivotal she had been in advancing the role of both women and black women. The world of Star Trek was as it should be everywhere and I didn’t notice she was black. She was just doing her job as a lieutenant and doing it damn well. RIP a great icon, I will miss you greatly.
Alright, enough about her dress. For a start every other female Star Fleet wore exactly the same uniform. RAF uniforms were far sexier.
Yes, in the mid '90s many women including techies wore far shorter skirts to work, they were called 'micro skirts' if memory serves me. And memory does serve me on that topic. Your combination of prudishness and prurience has ruined that for the rest of us.
And to dampen your libido, apostrophes go before the decade, not after. It's the 'nineties, ('90s) not the ninetie's (90's). The apostrophe is there to indicate the lack of the 'nineteen' in nineteen nineties.
I don't mean to come across all John Cleese school master in The Meaning of Life, but don't start on the clitoris boys, start with good punctuation.
I did. As a pimply 17 year old she was the first woman of colour I found attractive. Or more precisely, very attractive. More importantly intelligent and the equal of anyone on the bridge. A strong contrast to the long blonde women crew members out of central casting used to, presumably, add 'male interest' to the seines.
Sorry if that sounds condescending now - but it was revolutionary, for me, at the time. And Michelle's creation still lives on - Freeview 41 (Legend) tonight at 8pm!
I remember a teacher at school asking for our favorite actress, most of us chose a Hollywood name. One stated Elizabeth Adare, the teachers response of who the heck is that & his reply of "Shes one of the Tomorrow People" reduced the class to hysterics. He was a bit of a case however & it was no surprise when he was revealed to bat for the other side though.
Icon as he was a total Tomorrow People fanboy to such a extent, that he made us Doctor Who fans look positively normal.
Ha! Until I got about half way down I was thinking we must have gone to school together!
I used to work with one of the Tomorrow People. Never twigged. Just thought they had one of those familiar sounding names but it never is.
Though my jaw nearly bounced off the floor when I was meeting my new team for that job and I recognised the name of one: a BBC Radiophonic demigod.
Born 1960
Same, I never really noticed that Lt. Uhura was black. I only realized that when, many decades later, it was mentioned as a breakthrough. That this was a breakthrough I still cannot comprehend.
Btw, US TV generally pictured people in various shades of green in PAL countries.
Have to admit I did, but never thought anything of it. Just thought she was (and remained throughout her life in fact) incredibly beautiful.
However I have experienced that exact same realisation about Craig Charles - it was a comment made by someone I know when a serious allegation was made against Craig and my friend said something along the lines of "he'll be guilty until proven innocent because of his colour".
"I never really noticed that Lt. Uhura was black."
And, THAT is the way things SHOULD be. I am a little tired of the 'tick the box' stuff that way too many people are STILL making a big deal about. At one time in history (the 60's) this was important. Nowadays, 'identity' doesn't really mean anything, almost like a participation trophy for people who have nothing REAL to contribute. (And continuing to point out 'identities', in my opinion, helps perpetuate the 'isms'). So your 'never really noticed she was black' is a pretty GOOD sign that things have gone in the right direction.
That being said, since Nichelle; Nichols actually accomplished some true anti-racism "firsts" on television in the 1960's (such as the first televised interracial kiss with William Shatner, which back then might have gotten the show banned) it was still important for her acting career and her role... because it was "back then when it mattered".
Also worth noting, there was a time when Nichelle Nichols did MORE Star Trek conventions than any of the other main actors from the original series, leading up to the first movie, if I remember correctly.
Sad to see her go. (She only got to sing in one or two episodes and one of the movies, and had a pretty nice jazz voice).
Agreed, entirely.
But the "first" interracial kiss thing seems to be disputed. It seems to depend on what is meant by "race" and how big a deal it is in any particular country. The Uhura/Kirk kiss was a big deal in the US because she was of Black African decent and he was of White European decent. That seems to have been a much bigger deal than white+any other race in the US, probably related to the outlawed but still often practised segregation at the time. (only outlawed a few years before "the Star Trek kiss".)
Watching it back in the day, here in the UK, it never crossed my mind that she, George Takai and Walter Koenig were anything out of the ordinary for me. It was a united world, so obviously there would be people from different parts of the world in it, let alone actual non-humans in the crew. It all seemed entirely natural to my young mind. This from someone growing up in part of the UK with very few non-caucasian faces around so looking back, it should have seems odd.
The JJ Abrams Star Trek world is much less of a united world.
Instead of having Russians, Americans, Scots, Africans etc. all working together as crew of the starship, we now have Russian/Americans, African/Americans etc. i.e. all Americans with American attitudes.
Except Scotty, who is English...
Lt Uhura as a character was a breakthrough role on public television at the time. I was never a huge television junkie, primarily because we didn't have a TV when I was a kid, I became a book addict very young. Star Trek was an awesome show in my books because it took a concept of how humanity should work and put it on screen. Captain Kirk was purely there as an example of what was, being surrounded by what should be.
Later, as a teenager, I bagged the opportunity to go to a ST con here in T.O. In all honesty I can't recall how old I was at the time, but I was with several other folks who had paid to have a small room session with "Kirk" and "Bones" and "Scotty". All three of them dodged the meet and greet for some unknown to me now reason. We were discussing how utterly disappointed we were with the situation when she wandered by. She sat down on a bench and chatted with us for near enough 2 hours, about an enormous range of things from the show to her own life and the world as she saw it. The woman was a serious class act, and an amazing role model for young women in general.
/Salute
Sheldon: "I believe in a gender blind society like in Star Trek. Where women and men of all races and creeds worked side-by-side as equals."
Leonard: "You mean where they were advanced enough to develop an interstellar warp drive, but a black lady still answered the space phone?"
RIP MIchelle - You pushed back boundaries but we still have a long way to go.
Worth adding the broadcaster unease over the famous "inter racial" kiss scene & how t would play in the Southern US especially.
Plan was to shoot 2 versions of the scene - the Kirk / Uhura kissed & 1 where they did not.
Kiss scene shot first, Nicholls & Shatner then deliberately screwed up all the non kiss scene takes so kiss scene was the only option.
Plenty of instances of Shatner being a bit of a ****, but good that he did the right thing on that occasion
I like the fact that in the list of contenders for the first interracial kiss on US TV, predating the Uhura one is yet another Shatner!
And arguably on that list is Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, who were, of course, behind Desilu productions which started the whole Trek franchise!
Definitely ground breaking.
Outside of Star Trek universe I can only name one other title she was in, Truck Turner. Saw the film uh, 25 years ago or so and still remember it fondly.
Nichelle played a really tough bitch, pimping (!) her harem of prostitutes, check the trailer.
Not a high quality blaxploitation picture but fast paced, jiving + high fiving, outrageously good times. And proper music score as well.
Basically it wasn't a kiss, it was a sexual assault. Numerous news readers here have hinted or joked about that which shows how our meandering morals are changing.
I have to admit upon learning of her close friendship with Martin Luther King, MLK was a known womaniser that the unknown trans John Edgar Hoover FBI tried to blackmail him with.
She was a wonderful woman, and like other people have said, she let me grow up where I didn't notice race and assume we could all work together like humans.
Sadly today we can't risk Chekov on the bridge, put him in the brig.
Went home and watched "The Changeling" and "Tholian Web" after the news.
Good episodes with Uhura doing her thing (little singing, showing wonder at her plot predicament).
My only knowledge of Cribbins was Doctor Who 2005, whereupon I immediately adored him.
After his news, only then did I understand the pedigree of his charm.
Tough day both sides of the puddle.
PS: my brother (57) remembers Tomorrow People, but I don't (50).
Thanks for the reminder, lads. Time to look that up (maybe Blake's 7 too).
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