Nichelle Nichols

Nichelle Nichols (born Grace Dell Nichols; December 28, 1932 – July 30, 2022) was an American actress, singer, and dancer, born in Robbins, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Her portrayal of communications officer Nyota Uhura in Star Trek and its film sequels was groundbreaking for African-American actresses on American television.

Nichols studied ballet in Chicago from age 12 and began her career there as a singer and dancer. She went on to tour the United States, Canada, and Europe with the bands of Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton, and in 1959 she was the principal dancer in the film version of Porgy and Bess.

On Star Trek she was one of the first black women featured in a major television series, and her prominent supporting role as a bridge officer was unprecedented at the time. Near the end of the first season she considered leaving the show for a Broadway role, but a conversation with Martin Luther King Jr. persuaded her to stay. Uhura's 1968 kiss with Captain Kirk (William Shatner) is often cited as the first interracial kiss on US television, although earlier examples have been identified. After the series was canceled in 1969, she voiced Uhura in Star Trek: The Animated Series and appeared in six Star Trek films, ending with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).

From 1977 to 2015 she volunteered to promote NASA's programs and recruit women and minority candidates; her recruits included astronauts Sally Ride and Guion Bluford. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1992, and from 2007 she had a recurring role in the second season of the NBC series Heroes. Diagnosed with dementia in 2018, she then retired from fan convention appearances. She died of heart failure in Silver City, New Mexico, on July 30, 2022, at the age of 89, and her ashes were later launched into deep space.