Pioneering Star Trek actor and space exploration advocate Nichelle Nichols died on Saturday in Silver City, New Mexico. She was 89.
Her death was first announced by her son, Kyle Johnson, on Facebook and later confirmed to Variety by her talent manager and business partner, Gilbert Bell.
“Last night, my mother, Nichelle Nichols, succumbed to natural causes and passed away,” he wrote on Nichelle’ official Facebook and Instagram pages on Sunday. “Her light however, like the ancient galaxies now being seen for the first time, will remain for us and future generations to enjoy, learn from, and draw inspiration.”
“Hers was a life well lived and as such a model for us all,” he added. “I, and the rest of our family, would appreciate your patience and forbearance as we grieve her loss until we can recover sufficiently to speak further.”
Born Grace Dell Nichols on 28 December 1932, near Chicago, Nichelle was a performer of many talents.
Her career in entertainment began when she was just 16, as a singer with Duke Ellington in a ballet she created for one of his compositions. Although she would go on to work as a model and dancer, Nichelle toured internationally as a singer with the big bands headed by Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton.
Nichelle made her film debut opposite Sammy Davis Jr. in the 1959 picture Porgy and Bess and began work in television a few years later. She was then cast in the role of a lifetime, as Lt. Nyota Uhura, communications officer on the Starship Enterprise, in the original Star Trek TV series.
African-American women had appeared on television before, but they’d usually been cast as domestics. When Star Trek began in 1966, Nichelle’s significant role in a prime-time series marked a TV milestone.
Academy Award-winning actor and comedian Whoopi Goldberg credits Nichelle for inspiring her own acting career.
“When I was 9 years old, Star Trek came on. I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, ‘Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there’s a Black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!’” Whoopi said. “I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be.”
Nichelle remained with Star Trek through its entire original run, which ended in 1969, and made appearances in subsequent Star Trek films.
However, she had originally planned to resign after her first year on the show. As Nichelle explained in a 2011 PBS interview, she changed her mind after a chance meeting at an NAACP event.
“One of the promoters came up and said someone wanted to meet me. He said he’s my greatest fan,” she said. “I thought it was some Trekker, some kid. I turned in my seat and there was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a big smile on his face. He said, ‘I am a Trekker, I am your biggest fan.’”
He encouraged Nichelle to remain with the series.
“He was telling me why I could not [resign],” she recalled. “He said I had the first nonstereotypical role, I had a role with honour, dignity and intelligence. He said, ‘You simply cannot abdicate, this is an important role. This is why we are marching. We never thought we’d see this on TV.’”
In November 1968, Nichelle made history when her Star Trek character kissed Captain James T. Kirk, played by white actor William Shatner. The scene is often cited as the first interracial kiss on American television.
In her long career as an actor, Nichelle appeared in several other productions on the small and silver screens, including the NBC series Heroes and films like The Supernaturals and The Bitter Earth. She also lent her voice to animated programs like Futurama and Batman: The Animated Series.
Nichelle may best be remembered for her career in entertainment, but she also leaves behind a different legacy: as a woman who dedicated decades of her life to advocating for space exploration, particularly among women and minorities.
A lover of all things space, Nichelle served on the Board of Governors of the National Space Society, a nonprofit space advocacy organisation, and was reportedly an active leader in the now-defunct Space Cadets of America. She also launched a consultant firm, Women in Motion, which partnered with NASA to recruit minority and female personnel for the space agency. Her recruits included Guion Bluford, the first African-American astronaut in space, and Sally Ride, the first female American astronaut.
Nichelle received NASA’s distinguished Public Service Award for her efforts in this field. She even had an asteroid named in her honour.
In recent years, Nichelle had pulled back on public and professional appearances amid a string of health setbacks. She had reportedly been battling dementia since 2013 and had a mild stroke two years later. Up until her death, Nichelle was in the middle of a bitter conservatorship battle over her estate between her longtime talent manager Bell and her son amid claims of elder abuse; it gained renewed interest amid the #FreeBritney movement surrounding Britney Spears.
She made her final public appearance at Los Angeles Comic-Con in December 2021 as part of a three-day farewell celebration honouring her trailblazing career.