Nichelle Nichols (born Grace Dell Nichols; December 28, 1932)[3] is an American actress, singer, and voice artist best known for her portrayal of Nyota Uhura in Star Trek: The Original Series, and its film sequels. Nichols's portrayal as Uhura was groundbreaking for African American female characters on American television.[4] From 1977 to 2015, Nichols volunteered her time to promote NASA's programs, and to recruit diverse astronauts, including women and ethnic minorities. Her break came in an appearance in Kick 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, For My People, and 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 as her prominent supporting role as a bridge officer was unprecedented.[4] During the first year of the series, Nichols was tempted to leave the series, as she wanted to pursue a Broadway career; however, a conversation with Dr. Martin Luther King JR. changed her mind. She has said that King personally encouraged her to stay on the series, telling her that he was a big fan of Star Trek. He said she "could not give up" because she was playing a vital role model for black children and young women across the country, as well as for other children who would see blacks appearing as equals. In an interview, she said that the day after she told Roddenberry she planned to leave the show, she was at a fundraiser at the NAACP and was told there was a big fan who wanted to meet her. Nichols said: I thought it was a Trekkie, and so I said, 'Sure.' I looked across the room, and there was Dr. Martin Luther King walking towards me with this big grin on his face. He reached out to me and said, 'Yes, Ms. Nichols, I am your greatest fan.' He said that Star Trek was the only show that he, and his wife Coretta, would allow their three little children to stay up and watch. [She told King about her plans to leave the series.] I never got to tell him why, because he said, 'You can't. You're part of history.' When she told Roddenberry what King had said, he cried. Former NASA astronaut Mae Jemison has cited Nichols' role of Lieutenant Uhura as her inspiration for wanting to become an astronaut and Whoopi Goldberg has also spoken of Nichols' influence. Goldberg asked for a role On Star Trek: The Next Generation , and the character Guinan was specially created, while Jemison appeared on an episode of the series. In her role as Lieutenant Uhura , Nichols kissed White actor Was William Shatner Captain James T. Kirk in the November 22, 1968, Star Trek episode "Plato’s Stepchildren". The episode is cited as the first example of an interracial kiss on scripted U.S. television. The Shatner/Nichols kiss was groundbreaking, even though it was portrayed as having been forced by Alien Telekinesis. There was some praise and some protest. On page 197 of her 1994 autobiography Beyond Uhura, Star Trek and Other Memories, Nichols cites a letter from a white Southerner who wrote, "I am totally opposed to the mixing of the races. However, any time a red-blooded American boy like Captain Kirk gets a beautiful dame in his arms that looks like Uhura, he isn’t going to fight it. In 1994, Nichols published her autobiography Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories. Nicole had many roles in major films: Truck Turner, Snow Dogs, Lady Magdalene’s, NBC drama Heroes, The Young and the Restless where she won the first Daytime Emmy nomination outstanding guess performance in series drama. 21 Films and 21 roles on Television and Video Games. 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. Nichols is an honorary member of AKA sorority. Robert A. Heinlein in part dedicated his novel Friday (1982) to her. On June 8, 2010, Nichols received an Honorary Degree from Los Angeles Mission College. Asteroid 68410 Nichol is named in her honor. In 1999, Nichols was awarded a Goldened Kamara for Kultstar des Jahrhunderts (English: Cult Star of the Century). In 2016, she received The Life Career Award, from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films it was presented as part of the 42nd Saturn Awards ceremony.

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