Nichelle Nichols (Actor)

Nichelle Nichols on Heroes. (Photo: NBC)

Dynamic, sinuous African-American character actor and singer who has become almost exclusively identified with her role as the intelligent, loyal, Swahili-born Lieutenant Uhura, communications officer aboard the starship Enterprise on the TV and feature film fantasy fanfest, "Star Trek". Discovered by Duke Ellington in her mid-teens, she toured with both Ellington and Lionel Hampton as a lead singer and dancer, which led to bit parts in Hollywood musicals such as "Porgy & Bess" (1959).

After Gene Roddenberry cast her in a 1964 episode of his police drama "The Lieutenant," he remembered her while creating the legendary franchise (the two later shared an intimate personal relationship). Nichols nearly abandoned the part when she learned the network was withholding racially charged mail from less enlightened viewers who were angry at seeing a capable, competent black woman in a command position, but Dr. Martin Luther King convinced her that her very presence on the Enterprise was revolutionary, with long-ranging effects of the perception of African Americans.

Despite some concessions on the part of the original show's creators to glamorize female crew members with sexy thigh-high skirts and soft-focus closeups, both Nichols and the "Star Trek" production team did manage to put a hardworking, clever, sometimes gritty woman in space, a goal Nichols has devoted a good deal of time to between "Trek" features when she worked with NASA's Johnson Space Center to help promote female astronauts--both on TV as Uhaura and as a NASA spokesperson, she inspired--among many others--Dr. Mae Jemison, who became the first African-American female in space. As an entertainer, she also provided inspiration to Whoopi Goldberg, who said Uhura reassured her that black people did have a role in the future. Nichols also shares the distinction of engaging in the first interracial kiss aired on television with co-star William Shatner in 1968, and she later became the first African-American to place her handprints in front of Hollywood's Chinese Theatre, along with the rest of the original "Star Trek" crew.

Along with her lengthy "Trek" resume, Nichols has a long list of credits as a voiceover artist for many animated television programs and she appeared as Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s mother in the Disney family feature "Snow Dogs" (2002) and opposite Ice Cube in the comedy "Are We There Yet?" (lensed 2004). She released two musical albums, Out of This World and Down to Earth, and penned her memoirs, Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories, in 1994.