Nichelle Nicols was an American actress and singer. She gained prominence with her role in the “Star Trek: The Original Series”.
So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about her life and career.
- Nichelle Nichols was born on December 28, 1932
- She died on July 30, 2022
- She was an American actress, singer, and dancer
- She was best known for her portrayal of Nyota Uhura in Star Trek: The Original Series and its film sequels
- Her birth name was Grace Dell Nichols
- Nichols’ portrayal of Uhura was groundbreaking for African American actresses on American television
- From 1977 until 2015, Nichols volunteered her time to promote NASA’s programs and to recruit diverse astronauts, including women and ethnic minorities
- Grace Dell Nichols was born the third of six children on December 28, 1932, in Robbins, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago
- Her father was Samuel Earl Nichols, a factory worker who was elected both town mayor of Robbins in 1929 and its chief magistrate
- Her mother was Lishia (Parks) Nichols, a homemaker
- Later, the family moved into an apartment in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago
- Nichols attended Englewood High School, from where she graduated in 1951
- Nichols also studied in New York City and Los Angeles
- Nichols’ break came in an appearance in Kicks and Co., Oscar Brown’s highly touted but ill-fated 1961 musical
- In a thinly veiled satire of Playboy magazine, she played Hazel Sharpe, a voluptuous campus queen who was being tempted by the devil and Orgy Magazine to become “Orgy Maiden of the Month”
- Although the play closed after a short run in Chicago, Nichols attracted the attention of Hugh Hefner, the publisher of Playboy, who booked her for his Chicago Playboy Club
- She also appeared in the role of Carmen for a Chicago stock company production of Carmen Jones and performed in a New York production of Porgy and Bess
- Between acting and singing engagements, Nichols did occasional modeling work
- In January 1967, Nichols also was featured on the cover of Ebony magazine, and had two feature articles in the publication in five years
- Nichols toured the United States, Canada, and Europe as a singer with the Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton bands
- On the West Coast, she appeared in The Roar of the Greasepaint and For My People and she garnered high praise for her performance in the James Baldwin play Blues for Mister Charlie
- Prior to being cast as Lieutenant Uhura in Star Trek, Nichols was a guest actress on television producer Gene Roddenberry’s first series The Lieutenant (1964) in an episode, “To Set It Right”, which dealt with racial prejudice
- On Star Trek, Nichols was one of the first Black women featured in a major television series
- Her prominent supporting role as a bridge officer was unprecedented
- Nichols was once tempted to leave the series; however, a conversation with Martin Luther King Jr. changed her mind
- Towards the end of the first season, Nichols was given the opportunity to take a role on Broadway. She preferred the stage to the television studio, so she decided to take the role
- Nichols went to Roddenberry’s office, told him that she planned to leave, and handed him her resignation letter
- Roddenberry tried to convince Nichols to stay but to no avail, so he told her to take the weekend off and if she still felt that she should leave then he would give her his blessing
- That weekend, Nichols attended a banquet that was being run by the NAACP, where she was informed that a fan really wanted to meet her
- After the cancellation of Star Trek, Nichols volunteered her time in a special project with NASA to recruit minority and female personnel for the space agency
- She began this work by making an affiliation between NASA and a company which she helped to run, Women in Motion
- The program was a success
- Among those recruited were Dr. Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut, and United States Air Force Colonel Guion Bluford, the first African-American astronaut
- As well as Dr. Judith Resnik and Dr. Ronald McNair, who both flew successful missions during the Space Shuttle program before their deaths in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986
- Recruits also included Charles Bolden, the former NASA administrator and veteran of four shuttle missions, Frederick D. Gregory, former deputy administrator and a veteran of three shuttle missions and Lori Garver, former deputy administrator
- An enthusiastic advocate of space exploration, Nichols served from the mid-1980s on the board of governors of the National Space Institute (today’s National Space Society), a nonprofit, educational space advocacy organization
- In late 2015, Nichols flew aboard NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) Boeing 747SP, which analyzed the atmospheres of Mars and Saturn on an eight hour, high-altitude mission
- She was also a special guest at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on July 17, 1976, to view the Viking 1 soft landing on Mars
- Along with the other cast members from the original Star Trek series, she attended the christening of the first space shuttle, Enterprise, at the North American Rockwell assembly facility in Palmdale, California
- On July 14, 2010, she toured the space shuttle simulator and Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center
- Nichols’ work with NASA is given significant focus in the documentary Woman in Motion about her life
- In her autobiography, Nichols wrote that she was romantically involved with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry for a few years in the 1960s
- She said the affair ended well before Star Trek began, when she realized Roddenberry was also involved with her acquaintance Majel Hudec (known as Majel Barrett)
- Hudec went on to marry Gene Roddenberry and have a regular supporting role as nurse Christine Chapel on Star Trek
- When Roddenberry’s health was fading, Nichols co-wrote a song for him, entitled “Gene”, which she sang at his funeral
- Nichols married twice, first to dancer Foster Johnson (1917–1981)
- They were married in 1951 and divorced that same year
- Johnson and Nichols had one child together, Kyle Johnson, who was born August 14, 1951
- She married for the second time, to Duke Mondy, in 1968. They were divorced in 1972
- Nichols’ younger brother, Thomas, was a member of the Heaven’s Gate cult
- He died on March 26, 1997, in the cult’s mass suicide that purposely coincided with the passing of Comet Hale–Bopp
- A member for 20 years, he frequently identified himself as Nichelle’s brother in promotional materials released by the cult
- On February 29, 2012, Nichols met with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office
- Nichols was a lifelong Democrat and a practicing Presbyterian
- In June 2015, Nichols suffered a mild stroke at her Los Angeles home and was admitted to a Los Angeles–area hospital
- A magnetic resonance imaging scan confirmed a small stroke had occurred, and she began inpatient therapy
- In early 2018, Nichols was diagnosed with dementia and subsequently announced her retirement from convention appearances
- Following a legal dispute over the actions of her manager-turned-caretaker Gilbert Bell, her son Kyle Johnson filed for conservatorship in 2018
- Before a court granted his petition in January 2019, Nichols’ friend Angelique Fawcette, who had already expressed concern in 2017 over Bell’s control of access to her, pressed for visitation rights, including by opposing Johnson’s petition
- That dispute and a 2019 court case by Bell over being evicted from the guesthouse on Nichols’ property were both ongoing as of August 2021
- Nichols died of heart failure in Silver City, New Mexico, on July 30, 2022, at the age of 89
- In 1982, Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his novel Friday to her
- Asteroid 68410 Nichols is named in her honor
- In 1992, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for her contribution to television. In 1999, Nichols was awarded a Goldene Kamera for Kultstar des Jahrhunderts (Cult Star of the Century)
- In 2010, Nichols received an honorary degree from Los Angeles Mission College
- Nichols received The Life Career Award, from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, in 2016, the first woman to receive it
- The award was presented as part of the 42nd Saturn Awards ceremony
- Nichols was awarded the Inkpot Award in 2018
- Nichols was an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority
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