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Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura on ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 89

She was among the first Black women to have a leading role in a TV series. She later worked with NASA to recruit minorities for the space program.

By Bruce Weber

Nichelle Nichols, the actress revered by “Star Trek” fans for her role as Lieutenant Uhura, the communications officer on the starship U.S.S. Enterprise, died on Saturday in Silver City, N.M. She was 89.

The cause was heart failure, said Sky Conway, a writer and a film producer who said he had been asked by Kyle Johnson, Ms. Nichols’s son, to speak for the family.

Ms. Nichols had a long career as an entertainer, beginning as a teenage supper-club singer and dancer in Chicago, her hometown, and later appearing on television.

But she will forever be best remembered for her work on “Star Trek,” the cult-inspiring space adventure series that aired from 1966 to 1969 and starred William Shatner as Captain Kirk, the heroic leader of the starship crew; Leonard Nimoy as his science officer and adviser, Mr. Spock, an ultralogical humanoid from the planet Vulcan; and DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy, a.k.a. Bones, the ship’s physician.

A striking beauty, Ms. Nichols provided a frisson of sexiness on the bridge of the Enterprise. She was generally clad in a snug red doublet and black tights; Ebony magazine called her the “most heavenly body in ‘Star Trek’” on its 1967 cover. Her role, however, was both substantial and historically significant.

Uhura was an officer and a highly educated and well-trained technician who maintained a businesslike demeanor while performing her high-minded duties. Ms. Nichols was among the first Black women to have a leading role on a network television series, making her an anomaly on the small screen, which until that time had rarely depicted Black women in anything other than subservient roles.

In a November 1968 episode, during the show’s third and final season, Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura are forced to embrace by the inhabitants of a strange planet, resulting in what is widely thought to be the first interracial kiss in television history.

Ms. Nichols’s first appearances on “Star Trek” predated the 1968 sitcom “Julia,” in which Diahann Carroll, playing a widowed mother who works as a nurse, became the first Black woman to star in a non-stereotypical role in a network series.

(A series called “Beulah,” also called “The Beulah Show,” starring Ethel Waters — and later Louise Beavers and Hattie McDaniel — as the maid for a white family, was broadcast on ABC in the early 1950s and subsequently cited by civil rights activists for its demeaning portraits of Black people.)

But Uhura’s influence reached far beyond television. In 1977, Ms. Nichols began an association with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, contracting as a representative and speaker to help recruit female and minority candidates for spaceflight training; the following year’s class of astronaut candidates was the first to include women and members of minority groups.

In subsequent years, Ms. Nichols made public appearances and recorded public service announcements on behalf of the agency. In 2012, after she was the keynote speaker at the Goddard Space Center during a celebration of African American History Month, a NASA news release about the event lauded her help for the cause of diversity in space exploration.

“Nichols’s role as one of television’s first Black characters to be more than just a stereotype and one of the first women in a position of authority (she was fourth in command of the Enterprise) inspired thousands of applications from women and minorities,” the release said. “Among them: Ronald McNair, Frederick Gregory, Judith Resnik, first American woman in space Sally Ride and current NASA administrator Charlie Bolden.”

Grace Dell Nichols was born in Robbins, Ill., on Dec. 28, 1932 (some sources give a later year), and grew up in Chicago. Her father, a chemist, was the mayor of Robbins for a time. At 13 or 14, tired of being called Gracie by her friends, she requested a different name from her mother, who liked Michelle but suggested Nichelle for the alliteration.

Ms. Nichols was a ballet dancer as a child and had a singing voice with a naturally wide range — more than four octaves, she later said. While attending Englewood High School in Chicago she landed her first professional gig, in a revue at the College Inn, a well-known nightspot in the city.

There she was seen by Duke Ellington, who employed her a year or two later with his touring orchestra as a dancer in one of his jazz suites.

Ms. Nichols appeared in several musical theater productions around the country during the 1950s. In an interview with the Archive of American Television, she recalled performing at the Playboy Club in New York City while serving as an understudy for Ms. Carroll in the Broadway musical “No Strings” (though she never went on).

In 1959, she was a dancer in Otto Preminger’s film version of “Porgy and Bess.” She made her television debut in 1963 in an episode of “The Lieutenant,” a short-lived dramatic series, created by Gene Roddenberry, about Marines at Camp Pendleton. Mr. Roddenberry went on to create “Star Trek.”

Ms. Nichols appeared on other television shows over the years — among them “Peyton Place” (1966), “Head of the Class” (1988) and “Heroes” (2007). She also appeared onstage in Los Angeles, including in a one-woman show in which she did impressions of, and paid homage to, Black female entertainers who preceded her, including Lena Horne, Pearl Bailey and Eartha Kitt.

But Uhura was to be her legacy. A decade after “Star Trek” went off the air, Ms. Nichols reprised the role in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” and she appeared as Uhura, by then a commander, in five subsequent movie sequels through 1991.

Besides her son, her survivors include two sisters, Marian Smothers and Diane Robinson.

Ms. Nichols was married and divorced twice. In her 1995 autobiography, “Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories,” she disclosed that she and Mr. Roddenberry, who died in 1991, had been romantically involved for a time. In an interview in 2010 for the Archive of American Television, she said that he had little to do with her casting in “Star Trek” but that he defended her when studio executives wanted to replace her.

When she took the role of Uhura, Ms. Nichols said, she thought of it as a mere job at the time, valuable as a résumé enhancer; she fully intended to return to the stage, as she wanted a career on Broadway. Indeed, she threatened to leave the show after its first season and submitted her resignation to Mr. Roddenberry. He told her to think it over for a few days.

In a story she often told, she was a guest that Saturday night at an event in Beverly Hills, Calif. — “I believe it was an N.A.A.C.P. fund-raiser,” she recalled in the Archive interview — where the organizer introduced her to someone he described as “your biggest fan.”

“He’s desperate to meet you,” she recalled the organizer saying.

The fan, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., introduced himself.

“He said, ‘We admire you greatly, you know,’ ” Ms. Nichols said, and she thanked him and told him that she was about to leave the show. “He said, ‘You cannot. You cannot.’”

Dr. King told her that her role as a dignified, authoritative figure in a popular show was too important to the cause of civil rights for her to forgo. As Ms. Nichols recalled it, he said, “For the first time, we will be seen on television the way we should be seen every day.”

On Monday morning, she returned to Mr. Roddenberry’s office and told him what had happened.

“And I said, ‘If you still want me to stay, I’ll stay. I have to.’”

Eduardo Medina contributed reporting.

An earlier version of this obituary misspelled the surname of one of the astronauts NASA said were inspired to join the American space program by Ms. Nichols’s role on “Star Trek.” She was Judith Resnik, not Resnick.

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Nichelle Nichols, Pioneering ‘Star Trek’ Actress, Dies at 89

She made history as one of the first Black women to appear in a leading role on television

Daily Correspondent

Nichelle Nichols, who captivated television audiences as Nyota Uhura in the original “ Star Trek ” series, died on July 30 at age 89.

“[A] great light in the firmament no longer shines for us as it has for so many years,” says her son, Kyle Johnson, in a statement . “Last night, my mother, Nichelle Nichols, succumbed to natural causes and passed away. 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.”

He adds: “Hers was a life well lived and as such a model for us all.”

Nichols left a lasting mark on television, science fiction and the field of science more broadly. She served as an inspiration “for young Black people whose dreams of space science and travel were emboldened by her character’s futuristic adventures,” as critic Gene Seymour writes for  CNN .

Grace Dell Nichols was born in a Chicago suburb in 1932. As a teenager fed up with being called Gracie, she adopted Nichelle as her first name. With an impressive  four-octave vocal range and a love for ballet and musical theater, Nichols began performing in Chicago clubs when she was just 14 years old. She briefly worked as a dancer in Duke Ellington ’s touring orchestra.

In the early 1960s, she moved to Los Angeles, where “ Star Trek ” creator  Gene Roddenberry took note of her acting skills. She landed a role in Roddenberry’s series “ The Lieutenant ”—and then, a few years later, she landed another one in “Star Trek.”

Amid the racial tensions of the civil rights movement, Nichols played Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, a communications officer who was fourth in command of the Starship Enterprise . Martin Luther King Jr. once said that Uhura was the “ first non-stereotypical role portrayed by a Black woman in television history.” 

After a successful first season in 1966, Nichols decided to leave the show to pursue her musical theater dreams. While attending a fundraiser, however, she ran into King, who ultimately helped convince her to stay on the show.

“He said, ‘You cannot leave,’” Nichols told  Smithsonian magazine ’s Arcynta Ali Childs in 2011. “‘Don’t you see what this man [Roddenberry] has brought? He has changed the face of television forever, unless you leave.’”

King went on, Nichols recalled, to say that she had a “God-given opportunity to change the face of television, change the way we think.”

In 1968, during the show’s last season, Nichols and William Shatner (who played Captain Kirk) shared one of the first interracial kisses in television history. 

When the show ended after three seasons, Nichols continued to pave the way for women and people of color by working with NASA . With Nichols’ involvement, which included an appearance in a promotional recruitment video, the space agency began hiring more diverse astronauts, including  Guion Bluford , the first Black American in space, and  Sally Ride , the first American woman in space.

“Nichelle’s advocacy transcended television and transformed NASA,” says NASA administrator Bill Nelson in a statement . “After Apollo 11, Nichelle made it her mission to inspire women and people of color to join this agency, change the face of STEM and explore the cosmos. Nichelle’s mission is NASA’s mission.”

To this day, the agency is still “guided by the legacy of Nichelle Nichols,” adds Nelson.

Nichols later reprised her role as Uhura in Star Trek: The Motion Picture and five movie sequels produced through 1991.

We lived long and prospered together. pic.twitter.com/MgLjOeZ98X — George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) July 31, 2022

As news of Nichols’ death spread, friends, fans and colleagues began sharing tributes to the actress. George Takei , who acted alongside Nichols in “Star Trek” as Hikaru Sulu, the Entreprise ’s helmsman, describes her as “trailblazing” and “incomparable.”

"For today, my heart is heavy, my eyes shining like the stars you now rest among, my dearest friend,” writes Takei on  Twitter .

Television director Adam Nimoy , whose late father  Leonard Nimoy played the stoic Vulcan  Spock on the franchise for nearly 50 years, posted a  photo on Twitter of the two actors on set, writing that it is his favorite photo of the pair. 

He adds, “The importance of Nichelle’s legacy cannot be over-emphasized.” 

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.

Nichelle Nichols, trail-blazing Star Trek actress, dead at 89

Lt. uhura role broke stereotypes about black women, featured iconic interracial kiss.

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Nichelle Nichols, who broke barriers for Black women in Hollywood when she played communications officer Lt. Uhura on the original Star Trek  television series, has died. She was 89.

Her son Kyle Johnson said Nichols died Saturday in Silver City, N.M.

"Last night, my mother, Nichelle Nichols, succumbed to natural causes and passed away. 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," Johnson wrote on his mother's official Facebook page Sunday.

"Hers was a life well lived and as such a model for us all."

Her role in the 1966-69 series as Lt. Uhura earned Nichols a lifelong position of honour with the series' rabid fans, known as Trekkers and Trekkies. It also earned her accolades for breaking stereotypes that had limited Black women to acting roles as servants and included an interracial onscreen kiss with co-star William Shatner that was unheard of at the time.

Many actors become stars, but few stars can move a nation. Nichelle Nichols showed us the extraordinary power of Black women and paved the way for a better future for all women in media. Thank you, Nichelle. We will miss you. <a href="https://t.co/KhUf4YM6pX">pic.twitter.com/KhUf4YM6pX</a> &mdash; @RealLyndaCarter

"I shall have more to say about the trailblazing, incomparable Nichelle Nichols, who shared the bridge with us as Lt. Uhura of the USS Enterprise, and who passed today at age 89," George Takei wrote on Twitter.

"For today, my heart is heavy, my eyes shining like the stars you now rest among, my dearest friend."

• q Hailing Frequencies Open! Nichelle Nichols on Star Trek at 50

Takei played Sulu in the original Star Trek  series alongside Nichols. But her impact was felt beyond her immediate co-stars, and many others in the Star Trek  world also tweeted their condolences.

Celia Rose Gooding, who currently plays Uhura in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , wrote on Twitter that Nichols "made room for so many of us. She was the reminder that not only can we reach the stars, but our influence is essential to their survival. Forget shaking the table — she built it."

Like other original cast members, Nichols also appeared in six big-screen spinoffs starting in 1979 with Star Trek: The Motion Picture  and frequented Star Trek  fan conventions. She also served for many years as a NASA recruiter, helping bring minorities and women into the astronaut corps.

More recently, she had a recurring role on television's Heroes , playing the great-aunt of a young boy with mystical powers.

The original Star Trek  premiered on NBC on Sept. 8, 1966. Its multicultural, multiracial cast was creator Gene Roddenberry's message to viewers that in the far-off future — the 23rd century — human diversity would be fully accepted.

Nichelle Nichols speaks about 50th anniversary of Star Trek on CBC News Network

"I think many people took it into their hearts … that what was being said on TV at that time was a reason to celebrate," Nichols said in 1992 when a Star Trek  exhibit was on view at the Smithsonian Institution.

She often recalled how Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a fan of the show and praised her role. She met him at a civil rights gathering in 1967, at a time when she had decided not to return for the show's second season.

"When I told him I was going to miss my co-stars and I was leaving the show, he became very serious and said, 'You cannot do that,"' she told The Tulsa (Okla.) World in a 2008 interview.

"'You've changed the face of television forever, and therefore, you've changed the minds of people,"' she said the civil rights leader told her.

"That foresight Dr. King had was a lightning bolt in my life," Nichols said.

Iconic kiss

During the show's third season, Nichols's character and Shatner's Capt. James Kirk shared what was described as the first interracial kiss to be broadcast on a U.S. television series. In the episode, Plato's Stepchildren , their characters, who always maintained a platonic relationship, were forced into the kiss by aliens who were controlling their actions.

"The characters themselves were not freaking out because a Black woman was kissing a white man," Eric Deggans, a television critic for National Public Radio, told The Associated Press in 2018. "In this utopian-like future, we solved this issue. We're beyond it. That was a wonderful message to send."

Worried about reaction from Southern television stations, showrunners wanted to film a second take of the scene where the kiss happened off-screen. But Nichols said in her book, Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories , that she and Shatner deliberately flubbed lines to force the original take to be used.

Despite concerns, the episode aired without blowback. In fact, it got the most "fan mail that Paramount had ever gotten on Star Trek for one episode," Nichols said in a 2010 interview with the Archive of American Television.

Controversial conservatorship

Born Grace Dell Nichols in Robbins, Ill., Nichols hated being called "Gracie," which everyone insisted on, she said in the 2010 interview. When she was a teen her mother told her she had wanted to name her Michelle, but thought she ought to have alliterative initials like Marilyn Monroe, whom Nichols loved. Hence, "Nichelle."

Nichols first worked professionally as a singer and dancer in Chicago at age 14, moving on to New York nightclubs and working for a time with the Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton bands before coming to Hollywood for her film debut in 1959's Porgy and Bess , the first of several small film and TV roles that led up to her Star Trek  stardom.

Nichols was known as being unafraid to stand up to Shatner on the set when others complained that he was stealing scenes and camera time. They later learned she had a strong supporter in the show's creator.

In her 1994 book, Beyond Uhura , she said she met Roddenberry when she guest starred on his show The Lieutenant , and the two had an affair a couple of years before Star Trek  began. The two remained lifelong close friends.

Nichols was a regular at Star Trek  conventions and events into her 80s, but her schedule became limited starting in 2018 when her son announced that she was suffering from advanced dementia.

Nichols was placed under a court conservatorship in the control of her son Johnson, who said her mental decline made her unable to manage her affairs or make public appearances.

Some, including Nichols's managers and her friend, film producer and actor Angelique Fawcett, objected to the conservatorship and sought more access to Nichols and to records of Johnson's financial and other moves on her behalf. Her name was at times invoked at courthouse rallies that sought the freeing of Britney Spears from her own conservatorship.

But the court consistently sided with Johnson, and over the objections of Fawcett allowed him to move Nichols to New Mexico, where she lived with him in her final years.

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Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura on ‘Star Trek,’ dies at 89

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Nichelle Nichols, who played the communications officer on the Starship Enterprise on “Star Trek” and famously participated in what was thought to be the first interracial kiss on television, has died.

Nichols died of heart failure Saturday night at a hospital in Silver City, N.M., a friend of the family handling media inquiries for Nichols’ son confirmed Sunday to the Los Angeles Times. She was 89.

Nichols suffered a stroke at her Woodland Hills home in 2015 and was struggling with dementia. She had been in a years-long conservatorship battle that pitted the son, Kyle Johnson, against a former manager and a close friend. Last year Johnson moved Nichols to New Mexico, citing the need to protect his mother from what he called exploitation by the manager and others.

Nichols gained fame as the beautiful, composed, immensely competent Lt. Uhura on three seasons of “Star Trek” on TV and in six “Star Trek” movies. A Black American cast as a master of 23rd century intergalactic technology, she had a role that defied the typical portrayal of Black women as domestics or entertainers. When she contemplated leaving the show for a Broadway play after its first season, she was dissuaded by none other than the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

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When they met at an NAACP fundraising event in Beverly Hills, King was appalled when she spoke of quitting, according to Nichols’ 2010 reminiscence on the Archive of American Television.

“The world sees us for the first time as we should be seen,” King told her. “Gene Roddenberry [‘Star Trek’s’ creator] has opened a door. If you leave, that door can be closed. Your role is not a Black role and not a female role — he can fill it with anything, including an alien.”

“I could say nothing,” she recalled. “I just stood there, realizing that every word he said was the truth.”

“He told me that it was the only show that he and his wife, Coretta, would allow their little children to stay up and watch,” Nichols recounted to CNN years later. More important, the Nobel Prize winner told Nichols that she was breaking important new ground for Black Americans and had to keep doing it.

“For the first time,” King told her, “the world sees us as we should be seen. This is what we’re marching for.”

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“Besides,” said King, who confessed to being a huge “Star Trek” fan, “you’re the fourth in command — you’re the head communications officer.”

Days later, she told Roddenberry she’d changed her mind.

“He took out my resignation letter, which was torn into a hundred pieces, and handed me the pile. I said, ‘Thank you, Gene.’ ”

Nichols came to embrace her role and appeared at “Star Trek” events throughout her life. She became an eloquent advocate for the U.S. space program and led a successful drive to recruit women and minorities into astronaut training.

“My heart is heavy, my eyes shining like the stars you now rest among, my dearest friend,” her “Star Trek” co-star George Takei wrote Sunday on Twitter, calling Nichols an incomparable trailblazer.

Elegant, assertive and capable of rigging up a subspace bypass circuit in practically no time at all, Uhura inspired a generation of Black women. Comedian Whoopi Goldberg, on first seeing Nichols when she was about 9, remembered running through the house yelling, “Everybody, come quick, come quick — there’s a Black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!”

After only three seasons, “Star Trek” was canceled in 1969. In its afterlife, it became far more popular, sparking additional TV series and more than a dozen feature films.

Nichols appeared in 66 episodes of the original “Star Trek.” She was popular fixture at “Star Trek” conventions, where fans asked her about one plot point more than any others: the long clinch between Uhura and Capt. James Kirk that was widely thought to be TV’s first interracial kiss.

The first thing people want to talk about is the first interracial kiss and what it did for them.

— Nichelle Nichols

“The first thing people want to talk about is the first interracial kiss and what it did for them,” she said in a 2010 interview for the Archive of American Television. “And they thought of the world differently — they thought of people differently.”

First aired on Nov. 22, 1968, the episode called “Plato’s Stepchildren” featured a race of aliens who worshiped the earthly philosopher Plato. In their study of humanity, they wanted to observe human intimacy — and telekinetically forced Uhura and Kirk, played by William Shatner, to kiss.

By the standards of the day, it was a potentially explosive scene. Just one year earlier, the Supreme Court struck down state bans on interracial marriage. “Star Trek” producers were so worried about public reaction that they tried to film one version of the scene with the kiss and another with only an embrace, for use on stations in the South.

However, the kiss-less approach was thwarted when, in take after take, Nichols and Shatner deliberately flubbed their lines.

In her autobiography, “Beyond Uhura,” Nichols recalled Shatner hamming it up strategically: “Bill shook me and hissed menacingly in his best ham-fisted Kirkian staccato delivery, ‘I! WON’T! KISS! YOU! I! WON’T! KISS! YOU!’ It was absolutely awful, and we were hysterical and ecstatic.”

Finally, a seemingly usable take was filmed and everyone went home for the evening. Only the next day did producers realize that Shatner had crossed his eyes as the camera caught his face during the non-kiss. At that point, executives abandoned their Southern strategy.

“I guess they figured we were going to be canceled in a few months anyway,” Nichols said. “And so the kiss stayed.”

The anticipated backlash never arose. The scene became more famous as time went on, even though TV historians point to a number of previous, less heralded, interracial TV kisses, including a peck on the cheek from Sammy Davis Jr. to Nancy Sinatra a few months earlier.

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Dec. 28, 2017

Born into a large family in Robbins, Ill., on Dec. 28, 1932, Grace Dell Nichols adopted the name Nichelle as a teenager. Her father, Samuel Nichols, served as mayor and chief magistrate of the small Chicago suburb, which was founded in 1917 as a haven for Black American families.

A student of ballet and Afro-Cuban dancing, young Nichelle appeared in a revue at Chicago’s Sherman House hotel, where she caught the eye of the renowned Duke Ellington. As a teenager, she sang and danced with Ellington’s touring company and later performed with jazz great Lionel Hampton’s orchestra.

In the 1950s, Nichols appeared at nightclubs throughout the U.S. and Canada. She did an opening act for comedian Redd Foxx and danced in Otto Preminger’s screen version of “Porgy and Bess” in 1959. In 1963, she was cast in an episode of “The Lieutenant,” a TV show written by Gene Roddenberry , who later created “Star Trek.” The two had a fleeting romance that turned into a longtime friendship; in 1966, he asked her to join the crew of the Starship Enterprise.

They agreed to name her character Uhura — a variant of Uhuru, a Swahili word for freedom.

After one season, Nichols was fed up. Her character didn’t seem all that important and her lines were sparse. Besides, her heart lay in musical comedies and she yearned for Broadway.

A New Enterprise : Nichelle Nichols reflects on her influences, from Josephine Baker to Mahalia Jackson

Nichelle Nichols, mercurially slipping in and out of wigs and costumes, vocally unleashes Ella and Eartha and Lena and Bessie and 10 other lustrous women of song in a unique cabaret show at the Westwood Playhouse that takes Nichols back to her musical theater roots.

Feb. 18, 1990

She stuck it out, though, through the very last episode. “When you have a man like Martin Luther King say you can’t leave a show, it’s daunting,” she told USA Today in 1994. “It humbled my heart and I couldn’t leave.”

The year after their chance meeting at the NAACP banquet, Nichols sang at King’s funeral.

After the original “Star Trek” ended, Nichols embraced her role at “Star Trek” events. At a Trek convention in Chicago, a talk by NASA scientist Jesco von Puttkamer inspired her to embrace NASA as well.

“For someone who used to think that the only civilian benefits of the space program were Teflon and Tang, it’s funny that I became a NASA missionary,” she told the Chicago Tribune years later.

A recruitment drive led by Nichols in 1977 drew applications from more than 2,600 women and minority astronaut hopefuls. They included Sally Ride , the first American woman in space; and three of the astronauts who died in the 1986 Challenger space shuttle explosion: Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair and Ellison Onizuka .

Nichols married tap dancer Foster Johnson in 1951 and songwriter Duke Mondy in 1968. Both marriages ended in divorce. A brother, Thomas Nichols, died in the 1997 mass suicide of the Heaven’s Gate cult at Rancho Santa Fe, near San Diego. Survivors include son Kyle, whose announcement of Nichols’ death likened his mother’s light to “the ancient galaxies now being seen for the first time” — something from which present and future generations could “enjoy, learn from, and draw inspiration.”

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In addition to her “Star Trek” and NASA work, Nichols recorded an album, wrote two science fiction novels and created “Reflections,” a one-woman stage tribute to Black American singers including Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Josephine Baker, Mahalia Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne — and herself.

But Nichols’ most lasting legacy may be in the memories of people like Mae C. Jemison, an astronaut who became a close friend.

In 1992, Jemison boarded the space shuttle Endeavour and became the first Black American woman in space. In a tribute to the woman who had inspired her, Jemison started each shift of her eight-day trip with the announcement that had become Nichols’ signature line as the Enterprise blazed past strange new worlds:

“Hailing frequencies open!”

Chawkins is a former Times staff writer.

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A former obituary writer, Steve Chawkins joined the Los Angeles Times in 1987 after working as a reporter and editor at the Santa Fe Reporter in New Mexico and the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. He has been a roving state correspondent and a columnist and reporter in the Ventura County edition. He also was managing editor of the Ventura Star-Free Press. He graduated in 1969 from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. Chawkins left The Times in 2015.

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Published Jul 31, 2022

Remembering Nichelle Nichols, 1932-2022

StarTrek.com honors the late, pioneering actress and her legacy.

StarTrek.com | Getty Images

StarTrek.com is deeply saddened to report the passing of Nichelle Nichols, the Star Trek franchise's beloved Lt. Uhura, who passed away on July 30, 2022. The radiant, ebullient actress embraced Star Trek , her role and the fans; spending parts of five decades as a favorite guest at Star Trek and science fiction conventions all around the world.

Nichols was born on December 28, 1932, in Robbins, Illinois, south of Chicago, to her father Samuel, the town mayor and chief magistrate, and her mother Lishia. She was 15 when she launched her career, touring with Duke Ellington as a dancer and singer, studying in Chicago as well as New York and Los Angeles. She also played the title role in a Chicago stock company production of Carmen Jones . Her earliest film credits included roles in Porgy and Bess , Mr. Buddwing , Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding! , and Made in Paris .

In 1964, Nichols guest starred on the television show The Lieutenant , in an episode titled "To Set It Right," from writer-producer Gene Roddenberry. Having made an impression on Roddenberry, he hired Nichols to co-star on his next series, Star Trek , as Lt. Uhura, the Starfleet communications officer stationed aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise .

At the end of Season One, Nichols planned to quit the show, but the combination of a conversation with Roddenberry and a chance meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. changed her mind. "When I told Gene [Roddenberry], I walked away, and as far as I was concerned, it was a fait accompli," she recalled. "Remember, I grew up in musical theater. I belonged to the theater, not to television or movies. Those were things I did when I hadn't quite made it where I wanted to go, but was on my way. I had quite a lot going for me. I had no idea of the power of being on a screen and people seeing you weekly. But I was ready to go.

"As nice as this little part was, and I loved the people and I loved working on it, and I was getting experience in a new medium, I didn't think twice about [leaving]," continued Nichols. "Gene said, 'You can't, Nichelle. Don't you see what I'm trying to do here?' I just looked at him, because I was resolute. He said, 'OK,' and I handed him my resignation. He took it and looked at it with sad eyes. He was behind his desk and I was standing in front of him and — I'll never forget it — he said, 'I'm not going to accept this yet.' He put it in his desk drawer and said, 'Take the weekend and think about this, Nichelle. If you still want to do this on Monday morning, I will let you go with my blessings.' I said, 'Thank you, Gene.' And I thought, Whew, that was rough, but I got through it."

"That weekend, I went to what I remember as a NAACP fundraiser, though it could have been something else," remarked Nichols. "Whatever it was, I was in Beverly Hills. I was being seated at the dais as other notables were coming to join us. One of the organizers came over to me and said, 'Ms. Nichols, I hate to bother you just as you're sitting down to dinner, but there's someone here who wants very much to meet you. And he said to tell you that he is your biggest fan.' I said, "Oh, certainly.' I stood up and turned around and who comes walking over towards me from about 10 or 15 feet, smiling that rare smile of his, is Dr. Martin Luther King. I remember saying to myself, 'Whoever that fan is, whoever that Trekkie is, it'll have to wait because I have to meet Dr. Martin Luther King.' And he walks up to me and says, 'Yes, Ms. Nichols, I am your greatest fan.' You know I can talk, but all my mouth could do was open and close, open and close; I was so stunned."

Dr. King told Nichols that Star Trek was the only show that he and his wife Coretta allowed their little children to stay up and watch. He described to her what the show and her role meant to him, how important it was for people of color to see Uhura, this character with dignity and knowledge. Finally, Nichols interrupted him, stating, "Thank you so much, Dr. King. I'm really going to miss my co-stars." Dr. King looked at her, the smile vanishing from his face, and he said, "What are you talking about?"

"I told him," Nichols recalled. "He said, 'You cannot,' and so help me, this man practically repeated verbatim what Gene said. He said, 'Don't you see what this man is doing, who has written this? This is the future. He has established us as we should be seen. Three hundred years from now we are here. We are marching, and this is the first step. When we see you, we see ourselves, and we see ourselves as intelligent and beautiful and proud.' He goes on and I'm looking at him and my knees are buckling... And he said, 'You turn on your television and the news comes on and you see us marching and peaceful, you see the peaceful civil disobedience, and you see the dogs and see the fire hoses, and we all know they cannot destroy us because we are there in the 23rd Century.'"

"That's all it took," Nichols continued. "I went back [to Trek ] on Monday morning and told Gene what happened. He sat there behind that desk and a tear came down his face, and he looked up at me. I said, 'Gene, if you want me to stay, I will stay. There's nothing I can do but stay.' He said, 'God bless Dr. Martin Luther King. Somebody truly knows what I am trying to do.' He opened his drawer, took out my resignation and handed it to me. He had torn it to pieces. He handed me the 100 pieces and said, 'Welcome back.'"

Nichols went on to appear in all three seasons of Star Trek: The Original Series . She reprised the role of Uhura in the first six Star Trek features, and provided the character's voice for The Animated Series in 1974-1975.

In an attempt to attract more astronauts of color and women and to utilize her influence on so many young, budding astronauts and scientists, NASA contracted Nichols in a campaign to reach further applicants for their space shuttle program. One applicant included engineer Dr. Mae Jemison, the first Black woman in space.

"That legacy continues into the modern astronaut corps, where sex and color no longer matter... as it should be," Nichols told StarTrek.com during an interview in 2012 . "I continue to be proud to have been chosen to make those first women (including Dr. Sally Ride and Dr. Ronald McNair) and minorities a reality." She maintained her ties with NASA for decades. In fact, in October, 2014, Nichols introduced the space program's newest vehicle, the Orion, via a video that she narrated. And in September 2015, she flew into space as part of NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) telescope mission."

Nichols' non- Trek credits included Truck Turner, The Supernaturals, Gargoyles, Futurama, Snow Dogs, Are We There Yet?, Heroes, Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster, and The Young and the Restless , as well as the films Unbelievable!!!!! and The White Orchid . Over the decades, she released the albums "Down to Earth" and " Star Trek : Out of this World," designed jewelry, toured as a one-woman show, Reflections , during which she paid tribute to the female Black blues and jazz singers who inspired her, and published three books—a 1994 autobiography titled Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories , and the sci-fi novels Saturn's Child and Saturna's Quest .

She also received many honors over the years, including, early on, two Sarah Siddons Award nominations for best actress for her performances in the stage productions of The Blacks and the musical Kicks and Company . NASA bestowed upon her a Public Service Award in 1984, and in 1992, she was both awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and became the first Black actress to place her handprints in front of Hollywood's Grauman's Chinese Theatre. In May of 2013, the City of Los Angeles proclamation lauded her career in the entertainment industry as well as her contributions to the city in the fields of culture, philanthropy and civil rights. Then, in February 2014, Essence feted her as one of its Champions of the Civil Rights Movement on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Nichelle Nichols' legacy will outlive her by centuries. Back in 2010, StarTrek.com interviewed Nichols with questions submitted by fans. That conversation ended with this question, "How does it feel to know you've inspired so many people — like Dr. Mae Jemison and Whoopi Goldberg, who are a couple of your more famous fans — but also so many others, people you may never even have met?" Nichols paused for a moment, and then replied, "People keep saying, 'You've inspired women of color.'  And I say, 'Yes, Black, white, yellow, brown, red and probably some with green blood and pointy ears!' Gene's brilliance was in casting people from all over the Earth, and an alien. It made everyone feel like they belonged. I wasn't a Black communications officer. I was a communications officer who happened to be from Africa, who happened to have brown skin. So I have had women of all stripes tell me how Uhura inspired them to reach for the stars. I've had women who've named their children after Uhura, and even after Nichelle."

"That is the way life is supposed to be,'" concluded Nichols. "What Gene did by casting us helped change society, change the way people thought, change the world. It's amazing. He wanted [ Star Trek ] to be a reflection of the world, and that's what happened."

Please join StarTrek.com in extending our condolences to Nichols' family, friends, colleagues and countless fans all over the world.

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Nichelle Nichols, groundbreaking "Star Trek" star, dies at age 89

Updated on: August 1, 2022 / 7:09 PM EDT / CBS News

Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed Uhura on "Star Trek" in a groundbreaking role for Black actresses before going on to help recruit people of color and women for NASA in real life, has died, her representatives confirmed to CBS News. She was 89.

"I regret to inform you that a great light in the firmament no longer shines for us as it has for so many years," her son, Kyle Johnson, posted on Nichols' official Facebook page. Nichols died of natural causes, according to Johnson.

"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 wrote.

Nichols' "Star Trek" costar George Takei tweeted, "my heart is heavy, my eyes shining like the stars you now rest among, my dearest friend."

After "Star Trek," Nichols went on to become a recruiter for NASA, playing a key role in helping recruit people of color and female astronauts. 

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump and director Todd Thompson, who both served as executive producers of the documentary "Women in Motion: Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek and the Remaking of NASA," called her story "monumental."   

Nichols portrayed U.S.S. Enterprise communications officer Lt. Nyota Uhura on the "Star Trek" television series from 1966-1969. She also reprised the role in six movies from the iconic sci-fi franchise.  

Nichols was one of the first Black actresses to star in a primetime television show, and she and "Star Trek" made history with television's first interracial kiss in 1968.

"She was the third-highest ranking member in the space command," Crump told " CBS Saturday Morning" in 2021 . "I mean, you talk about every little Black boy and girl running to the TV to say, 'hello that's a Black woman, and she's in charge?'"

"Star Trek" suffered from poor ratings during its initial run and, according to "CBS Saturday Morning," Nichols had been contemplating leaving the show after the first season to go to Broadway. But then she met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a devout Trekkie, who pleaded with her to stay, saying it was the only show he watched with his children. 

"He said, 'you don't understand the effect that you're having, not only on Black people, not only on young women, but on everybody,'" she said in the documentary. 

As "Star Trek" became more popular, members of NASA took notice — and had become fans, attending the "Star Trek" conventions. Nichols once gave a speech to members of NASA, and Crump said that she noticed there were no women or minorities in the audience.

"I said, 'where are my people?'" Nichols said in the documentary. "I meant that then and I mean it now."

The head of NASA was in the audience and took notice, offering her the opportunity to recruit for them. Nichols formed the company "Women in Motion," traveling throughout the country to recruit women and people of color for NASA. 

The effort paid off. In 1978, NASA recruited 35 people, including for the first time, six women and four people of color. 

"This might sound a little corny, but it felt like my children," she said in the "Women in Motion" documentary. "And my heart, it pounded. And I knew the world would never be the same again. We would go on to great heights — and to think I had the slightest thing to do with it makes me know that all things good are possible." 

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Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura in Star Trek franchise, dies at 89

She helped break ground on TV by showing a Black woman in a position of authority and who shared with co-star William Shatner one of the first interracial kisses on American prime-time television

Nichelle Nichols, an actress whose role as the communications chief Uhura in the original Star Trek franchise in the 1960s helped break ground on TV by showing a Black woman in a position of authority and who shared with co-star William Shatner one of the first interracial kisses on American prime-time television, died July 30 in Silver City, N.M. She was 89.

Her son, Kyle Johnson, announced the death on Facebook . Her former agent Zachery McGinnis also confirmed the death but did not have further details. Ms. Nichols had a stroke in 2015.

Ms. Nichols, a statuesque dancer and nightclub chanteuse, had a few acting credits when she was cast in “Star Trek.” She said she viewed the TV series as a “nice steppingstone” to Broadway stardom, hardly anticipating that a low-tech science-fiction show would become a cultural touchstone and bring her enduring recognition.

“Star Trek” was barrier-breaking in many ways. While other network programs of the era offered domestic witches and talking horses, “Star Trek” delivered allegorical tales about violence, prejudice and war — the roiling social issues of the era — in the guise of a 23rd-century intergalactic adventure. The show featured Black and Asian cast members in supporting but nonetheless visible, non-stereotypical roles.

Ms. Nichols worked with series creator Gene Roddenberry, her onetime lover, to imbue Uhura with authority — a striking departure for a Black TV actress when “Star Trek” debuted on NBC in 1966. Actress Whoopi Goldberg often said that when she saw “Star Trek” as an adolescent, she screamed to her family, “Come quick, come quick. There’s a Black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!”

On the bridge of the starship Enterprise, in a red minidress that permitted her to flaunt her dancer’s legs, Ms. Nichols stood out among the otherwise all-male officers. Uhura was presented matter-of-factly as fourth in command, exemplifying a hopeful future when Blacks would enjoy full equality.

The show received middling reviews and ratings and was canceled after three seasons, but it became a TV mainstay in syndication. An animated “Star Trek” aired in the early 1970s, with Ms. Nichols voicing Uhura. Communities of fans known as “Trekkies” or “Trekkers” soon burst forth at large-scale conventions where they dressed in character.

Ms. Nichols reprised Uhura, promoted from lieutenant to commander, in six feature films between 1979 and 1991 that helped make “Star Trek” a juggernaut. She was joined by much of the original cast, which included Shatner as the heroic captain, James T. Kirk, and Leonard Nimoy as the half-human, half-Vulcan science officer Spock; DeForest Kelley as the acerbic Dr. McCoy; George Takei as the Enterprise’s helmsman, Sulu; James Doohan as the chief engineer, Scotty; and Walter Koenig as the navigator, Chekov.

Ms. Nichols said Roddenberry allowed her to name Uhura, which she said was a feminized version of a Swahili word for “freedom.” She envisioned her character as a renowned linguist who, from a blinking console on the bridge, presides over a hidden communications staff in the spaceship’s bowels.

But by the end of the first season, she said, her role had been reduced to little more than a “glorified telephone operator in space,” remembered for her oft-quoted line to the captain, “Hailing frequencies open, sir.”

In her 1994 memoir, “ Beyond Uhura ,” she said that, during filming, her lines and those of other supporting actors were routinely cut. She blamed Shatner, whom she called an “insensitive, hurtful egotist” who used his star billing to hog the spotlight. She also said studio personnel tried to undermine her contract negotiating power by hiding her ample fan mail.

Years later, Ms. Nichols claimed in interviews that she had threatened to quit during the first season but reconsidered after meeting civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at an NAACP fundraiser. She said he introduced himself as a fan and grew visibly horrified when she explained her desire to abandon her role, one of the few nonservile parts for Blacks on television.

“Because of Martin,” she told the “Entertainment Tonight” website, “I looked at work differently. There was something more than just a job.”

Her most prominent “Star Trek” moment came in a 1968 episode, “Plato’s Stepchildren,” about a group of “superior” beings who use mind control to make the visiting Enterprise crew submit to their will. They force Kirk and Uhura, platonic colleagues, to kiss passionately .

In later decades, Ms. Nichols and Shatner touted the smooch as a landmark event that was highly controversial within the network. It garnered almost no public attention at the time, perhaps because of the show’s tepid ratings but also because Hollywood films had already broken such taboos. A year before the “Star Trek” episode, NBC had aired Nancy Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. giving each other a peck on the lips during a TV special.

“Star Trek” went off the air in 1969, but Ms. Nichols’s continued association with Uhura at Trekkie conventions led to a NASA contract in 1977 to help recruit women and minorities to the nascent space shuttle astronaut corps.

NASA historians said its recruiting drive — the first since 1969 — had many prongs, and Ms. Nichols’s specific impact as a roving ambassador was modest. But the astronaut class of 1978 had six women, three Black men and one Asian American man among the 35 chosen.

Grace Dell Nichols, the daughter of a chemist and a homemaker, was born in Robbins, Ill., on Dec. 28, 1932, and grew up in nearby Chicago.

After studying classical ballet and Afro-Cuban dance, she made her professional debut at 14 at the College Inn, a high-society Chicago supper club. Her performance, in a tribute to the pioneering Black dancer Katherine Dunham, reputedly impressed bandleader Duke Ellington, who was in the audience. A few years later, newly re-christened Nichelle, she briefly appeared in his traveling show as a dancer and singer.

At 18, she married Foster Johnson, a tap dancer 15 years her senior. They had a son before divorcing. As a single mother, Ms. Nichols continued working the grind of the nightclub circuit.

In the late 1950s, she moved to Los Angeles and entered a cultural milieu that included Pearl Bailey, Sidney Poitier and Sammy Davis Jr., with whom she had what she described as a “short, stormy, exciting” affair. She landed an uncredited role in director Otto Preminger’s film version of “Porgy and Bess” (1959) and assisted her then-boyfriend, actor and director Frank Silvera, in his theatrical stagings.

In 1963, she won a guest role on “The Lieutenant,” an NBC military drama created by Roddenberry. She began an affair with Roddenberry, who was married, but broke things off when she discovered he was also seriously involved with actress Majel Barrett. “I could not be the other woman to the other woman,” she wrote in “Beyond Uhura.” (Roddenberry later married Barrett, who played a nurse on “Star Trek.”)

Ms. Nichols’s second marriage, to songwriter and arranger Duke Mondy, ended in divorce. Besides her son, Kyle Johnson, an actor who starred in writer-director Gordon Parks’s 1969 film “The Learning Tree,” a complete list of survivors was not immediately available.

After her role on “Star Trek,” Ms. Nichols played a hard-boiled madam opposite Isaac Hayes in the 1974 blaxploitation film “Truck Turner .” For many years, she performed a one-woman show honoring Black entertainers such as Lena Horne , Eartha Kitt and Leontyne Price. She also was credited as co-author of two science-fiction novels featuring a heroine named Saturna.

Ms. Nichols did not appear in director J.J. Abrams’s “Star Trek” film reboot that included actress Zoe Saldana as Uhura. But she gamely continued to promote the franchise and spoke with candor about her part in a role that eclipsed all her others.

“If you’ve got to be typecast,” Ms. Nichols told the UPI news service, “at least it’s someone with dignity.”

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Nichelle Nichols' remains will go explore strange new worlds

Rachel Treisman

Dustin Jones

The remains of actress and singer Nichelle Nichols will be launched into deep space later this year, according to company Celestis. Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

The remains of actress and singer Nichelle Nichols will be launched into deep space later this year, according to company Celestis.

More than five decades after the original Star Trek series ended, its beloved communications officer will venture into the unknown for real when Nichelle Nichols ' ashes are launched into deep space later this year.

Nichols, the trailblazing actress who played Lt. Nyota Uhura in the original Star Trek series in the 1960s and in several of the franchise's feature films, died at age 89 in July. She is remembered as one of the first Black women featured in a major television series, as well as credited with inspiring women and people of color to join NASA.

Nichelle Nichols, Lt. Uhura on 'Star Trek,' dies at 89

And now her symbolic journey beyond the stratosphere continues. United Launch Alliance — an American spacecraft launch provider — announced last week that a portion of Nichols' ashes will travel to deep space aboard a Vulcan rocket with Celestis, a private company that sends peoples' cremated remains and DNA into space for memorial flights.

The first Celestis Voyager Service is set to launch later this year and will bear the name Enterprise Flight in honor of its passengers.

It will also carry the remains of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and his wife, actor Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, as well as those of James Doohan, who played Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the series and films.

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"We're very pleased to be fulfilling, with this mission, a promise I made to Majel Barrett Roddenberry in 1997 that one day we would fly her and husband Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry together on a deep space memorial spaceflight," Celestis Co-Founder and CEO Charles M. Chafer said in a press release .

The flight is slated to launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral and travel more than 250 million miles into deep space, beyond the Earth-moon system and NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, in what the company calls "a mission that is first of its kind."

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'star trek: strange new worlds' goes there, boldly.

Willing participants can pay to send their own DNA or a portion of their loved ones' cremated remains on the journey, with tickets starting at $12,500. Availability is limited, and reservations close on Wednesday.

Fans can also join from a distance by submitting a tribute message to Nichols online , which the company says will be sent into space too. Beam 'em up, Scotty!

Correction Aug. 30, 2022

A previous version of this story said the flight would travel 250 miles into deep space. The actual number is 250 million miles. Additionally, a previous version of this story said tickets are $125,000. The correct price is $12,500.

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Nichelle Nichols, Barrier-Breaking 'Star Trek' Actress, Dead at 89

Nichelle Nichols was one of the first Black women to play a major role on primetime television

Nichelle Nichols, who broke a major race barrier as the star of the 1960s sci-fi series Star Trek , has died. She was 89.

Nichols' death was confirmed by her talent manager and business partner of 15 years, Gilbert Bell, to Variety on Sunday. She died in Silver City, New Mexico.

A representative for Nichols did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

Last December, the star made her final convention appearance before her many fans as part of a three-day farewell celebration at L.A. Comic-Con. Nichols was seen waving, blowing kisses and flashing Star Trek's famous Vulcan salute to the many fans who turned out to bid her farewell. She was surrounded by members of her family and longtime friends including Nichols' son Kyle Johnson, who served as her spokesperson; her younger sister Marian Michaels; actresses Judy Pace and Beverly Todd; and former astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison, who joined NASA as a result of Nichols' role in recruiting women and minorities into the space program in the 1970s and 1980s as a result of her Star Trek fame.

For more on Nichelle Nichols, listen below to our daily podcast PEOPLE Every Day.

Nichols enjoyed decades in the spotlight thanks to her screen work, her music career and her activism to help more women succeed in the field of astronomy.

Born Grace Dell Nichols in Robbins, Illinois, Nichols studied dance at the Chicago Ballet Academy as a teenager before she was discovered by jazz legend Duke Ellington. Nichols joined Ellington's tour as a ballet dancer, but ended up as the lead singer, touring all over North America and Europe.

In 1959, she made her big-screen debut as a dancer in Sammy Davis Jr.'s Porgy and Bess . She went on to act in other films and TV series, including making a guest appearance in Gene Roddenberry's show, The Lieutenant , in 1964.

But Nichols' breakout role came when Roddenberry cast the actress as Lt. Nyota Uhura on the original Star Trek series. When the show first aired in 1966, Nichols was one of the first Black women to play a major role on primetime television.

She is popularly cited as having the first interracial kiss on American television, when her character famously locked lips with white leading man William Shatner 's Captain James T. Kirk. Martin Luther King Jr. once called Nichols' role "the first non-stereotypical role portrayed by a black woman in television history."

Following the end of the science-fiction series, Nichols worked to recruit diverse astronauts to NASA, including women and ethnic minorities. Among those who were recruited as a result of the program was Sally Ride, the first female American astronaut.

During her acting career, Nichols starred in six Star Trek movies from 1979–91. Some of her most recent work included the 2002 Disney picture Snow Dogs , in which she played Cuba Gooding Jr. 's mother. In 2005, she acted alongside Ice Cube as Miss Mable in the comedy Are We There Yet?, and in 2007, she had a reoccurring role on the NBC series Heroes as Nana Dawson. Nichols appeared in the long-running daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless as recently as 2016.

In 1992, Nichols was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And when the original Star Trek cast was honored in front of Hollywood's Grauman's Chinese Theatre in 1991, she became the first African-American to place her handprints and signature at the iconic spot.

In addition to acting, Nichols also recorded two albums, Down to Earth and Out of This World.

Nichols' death comes after a battle for her conservatorship was revealed in May 2019, when her manager Gilbert Bell provided Atlanta's CBS46 with a disturbing video apparently taken by him. In the video, the actress could be heard screaming in protest as she held what Bell claimed were legal guardianship documents filed by her son, Kyle Johnson, who was named her legal conservator by a court.

Bell told PEOPLE at the time the situation was "devastating." Nichols' close friend Angelique Fawcette told PEOPLE she was shocked by the video, which was reportedly recorded on April 23.

"I knew [Nichols and her son] had a bad relationship," she said. "I've never seen Nichelle scream like that. It's like, what is going on behind closed doors every day?"

Johnson had no comment when reached by PEOPLE.

Nichols has one son from her first marriage to Foster Johnson. She later remarried songwriter Duke Mondy. The pair divorced in 1972.

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Michelle Yeoh is beaming back into Star Trek

The oscar-winning actress is returning for a new film based on her vaguely villainous character from star trek: discovery..

By Alex Cranz , managing editor and co-host of The Vergecast. She oversaw consumer tech coverage at Gizmodo for five years. Her work has also appeared in the WSJ and Wired.

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Michelle Yeoh just won an Oscar and is now back to making movies. This time, she’ll be returning to her Star Trek: Discovery character for a new film based on the Star Trek black ops organization known as Section 31.

Star Trek: Section 31 follows her character, the Emperor Philippa Georgiou. And if you are not very familiar with Star Trek , you might be confused. There are Emperors? Yes, yes, there are. Settle in, folks, as I explain the history of this character.

Philippa Georgiou was the original captain of the ship Shenzhou but was killed in the pilot episode, and her death creates much of the friction for the surviving characters in the first season. Later in the season, her “evil” Mirrorverse counterpart shows up. The Mirrorverse is a universe like our own, only where people often have questionable facial hair choices and often are the moral opposites of their main universe counterparts.

• You are not prepared for the final season of Star Trek: Picard

So where one Philippa had been a kind and maternal captain who loved her crew dearly, the other was a ruthless (and maternal) Emperor who ate sentient creatures, took slaves, and generally was a terrible human being. The Emperor then found herself stranded in the primary Star Trek universe onboard the Discovery and slowly came around to being less of a monster — but still a prickly character next to the genuinely good and kind crew of the ship.

The reaction to her character was good enough that rumors popped up that Paramount Plus and Yeoh were developing a spinoff series about her character joining Section 31, which is kind of the Star Trek equivalent of the CIA. In 2019, the series was confirmed to be in development . Then there was silence, and with the success of shows like Picard , which are set in a very different time period, it was easy to assume that the series might have died a quiet death in development hell.

But Section 31 is still happening! Only it will be a film instead of a TV series. This will be the first film based on characters from Star Trek: Discovery and the first Star Trek film to be based on a single character rather than an entire crew. While details on the plot are scarce so far, today’s announcement suggests that Yeoh’s Emperor will be reckoning with her villainous past — think Xena in space.

“Section 31 has been near and dear to my heart since I began the journey of playing Philippa all the way back when this new golden age of ‘Star Trek’ launched,” Yeoh said in a press release. “To see her finally get her moment is a dream come true in a year that’s shown me the incredible power of never giving up on your dreams. We can’t wait to share what’s in store for you, and until then: live long and prosper (unless Emperor Georgiou decrees otherwise)!”

Star Trek: Section 31 will appear on Paramount Plus at a later date and begins production later this year.

Correction April 18, 12:25pm ET: An earlier version of this article stated that Philippa Georgiou was the captain of the Discovery, not the Shenzhou. I deeply regret this error.

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Michelle yeoh cast in ‘blade runner 2099’ from amazon.

The Prime Video 'Blade Runner' TV sequel has cast the 'Star Trek: Discovery' actress in a lead role.

By James Hibberd

James Hibberd

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Prime Video’s Blade Runner TV project has cast Michelle Yeoh in a lead role.

The Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once actress has signed on to Blade Runner 2099 .

The limited series is from showrunner Silka Luisa ( Shining Girls ) and executive produced by original Blade Runner director Ridley Scott. Jonathan van Tulleken ( Shogun ) will direct the first two episodes.

Yeoh will soon reprise her role as Trek ‘s Emperor Philippa Georgiou in the TV movie Star Trek: Section 31 .

In addition to Luisa and Scott, the show’s executive producers include Andrew Kosove, Broderick Johnson, Ben Roberts, David W. Zucker, Clayton Krueger, Tom Spezialy, Richard Sharkey, Michael Green, Cynthia Yorkin, Frank Giustra and Isa Dick Hackett.

There’s no premiere date as of yet, and the project is the first live-action Blade Runner property since the 2017 film Blade Runner 2049 .

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Star Trek’s Michelle Yeoh To Star In ‘Blade Runner 2099’ Series

| May 8, 2024 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 31 comments so far

This has been a busy week for Michelle Yeoh. The Star Trek: Discovery (and upcoming Section 31 streaming movie) star is following up her new Presidential Medal of Freedom with news she will be starring in the new Blade Runner TV series. She also turned heads on the Met Gala red carpet with her unique gown.

The Hollywood trades are reporting that Amazon has tapped Michelle Yeoh as one of the leads for their upcoming Blade Runner 2099 limited series. The new show follows the events of the 2017 film Blade Runner 2049 , the sequel to the 1982 classic film Blade Runner based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

From Blade Runner 2049 (Warner Bros.)

In the dystopian future depicted in Blade Runner humanity has developed androids named “replicants” as workers and when one goes rogue they are tracked down by bounty hunters called “blade runners.” According to Variety , in Blade Runner 2099 Yeoh will play a character named Olwen, “described as a replicant near the end of her life.”

Blade Runner 2099 is set to start filming in Prague in June. In March Yeoh wrapped up filming on the upcoming Star Trek: Section 31  streaming movie where she returns to the role of Emperor Georgiou from Discovery . Paramount+ has yet to set a release date for Section 31 .

Michelle Yeoh as Georgiou and Joe Pingue as Dada Noe in Star Trek: Section 31 (Paramount+)

Met Gala Yeoh

Yeoh was also getting noticed on Monday when the Oscar-winning actress walked the red carpet in a dress made of aluminum a the Met Gala in New York, which had a theme this year of “Garden of Time.”

Yeoh’s gown was designed by the Spanish luxury fashion house Balenciaga. You can see how they put it together in the video below.

And from even more Michelle, today Paramount+ released this video tribute to her time on Star Trek: Discovery .

Keep up with news about the  Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com

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I just knew that first image of the Section 31 movie was secretly from Blade Runner!

A Blade Runner series that follows the 2049 instalment sounds intriguing and I’m all in when it comes to Michelle Yeoh. IMO to have someone of her acting calibre in the Star Trek family is one of the highlights of so called nu-Trek.

Canny choice of brand ambassador to rehabilitate Balenciaga.

-Michelle Yeoh is awesome -so paramount writes her off of disco to spin her off -then covid happens then paramount has a meltdown and we wait -she wins an oscar as we wait -then finally they do a tv movie because she’s too busy and can’t possibly do a scifi series for a streaming service -now she’s doing a scifi series with a streaming service the decisions out of paramount for 2 years have been flat out weird

she was always going to leave. see how busy she is away from Disc now.

that’s hilarious… that’s like the saying close the spacedock doors now that the horse has left and suffocated in space… she left to do her own show… she left pre oscar and pre everything… then covid hit then paramount flipped a switch on themselves then paramount was selling itself… and now she’s making a totally different scifi streaming series in a different franchise… i think it’s hilarious too

Funny how she was apparently too busy to do the Section 31 show she signed to do way back in 2019 by being in a dozen other shows lol.

Anyway this sounds great. I really liked the Blade Runner sequel. I only seen it once in n the theater but I was hoping for another movie. But since that basically bombed this is a great alternative.

Yeah, but asides from management talking about a S31 show, it’s not like there were a dozen scripts at the ready for season one to get started. How many times has Paramount announced the Trek IV movie was all queued up and ready to go……except it wasn’t? I wish her the best…

Actually there was a lot of progress. They had already finished the pilot and the first few scripts literally back in 2019.

Taken from a previous article:

“We are very excited about the Section 31 show and Michelle Yeoh is excited to do it. She is in the current season of Discovery so she’s working on that right now but we have scripts getting written, and Alex has a writer’s room. We love what we’ve heard so far. It’s yet another tonality of Trek. As Alex has mapped it all out, each show has its own unique sort of voice and vision.”

S31 was literally being made the same time Picard was. They already had showrunners and scripts.

I think just like the movies themselves Paramount got cold feet and backed off because they clearly wasn’t that confident in it. Understandable. Of course at least they finally did something with the idea unlike the next movie. 🙄

Lack of confidence in the scripts perhaps? Also probably not enough money to go around now to make good on it, especially if her fee went up.

I saw BR2049 at the cinema on a Friday night opening wkend 2017, not that many in theatre, remember my mind blown during opening titles, it just hitting me, I was actually watching Blade Runner 2 (starring Harrison Ford). It’d already been mind blowing watching Force Awakens in cinema, but this was just beyond crazy (a shame it wasn’t directed by Scott, probably would’ve been a tighter film, although DV did very well. In fact I liked it so much I put off watching the bluray for a few years bc i didn’t want to dilute that one time cinema experience).

Pity this series isn’t a 3rd film (with Yeoh), stream series can’t really compare to a proper film imo (Picard s3 aside)

Yeah I remember sitting in the theater Saturday night opening weekend with I think 50 other people lol.

I was actually a bit surprised how low the turnout was but I guess I shouldn’t be since the first movie was always more of a cult thing but still loved it. But I’m glad they still tried to go bigger with it.

And yeah would’ve loved another movie but the writing was on the wall.

BTW I know they made an animated series for it too. Have you ever seen it? I’m thinking of watching it but I want to watch the movies again first.

It’s nice they haven’t abandoned the franchise even though it’s never been popular for the masses.

No not seen any of the animated series, think there was some anime stuff on the blu extras when I finally got around to looking at it

Think BR2 probably ended up making similar to BR1 when adjusted

If you haven’t seen it, SLICE OF LIFE is a short that takes place in the BLADE RUNNER universe, with some amazing visuals produced entirely with miniatures (no cgi). You can check it out on YouTube.

They do a better job of shooting the miniatures than 2049 did, too. The shot(s) in 2049 of what I think was the police building really looked model-ly. I’ve got a used blu-ray of it, but when I tried to rewatch I dozed off 10min in and haven’t worked up enthusiasm to give it another go.

Yeoh and Ford would be a lovely combo. Spielberg had initially talked to her about being in Indiana Jones 4, around when she was doing Memoirs of a Geisha. Wasn’t too serious as no iteration of the script really had a part for an Asian actress, but it would have been fun.

when Spielberg was attached to Indy 5 i think it had a China based plot (an art guy Adam Brockbank posted his concept art when he was attached to Spielbergs version of IJ5 and some was of young Indy in a Chinese type temple , and also a Nazi submarine with Indy and what looks to be Felicity Jones or Ana De Armes) then when Mangold took over he did a complete rewrite and new ‘mcguffin’ the Dial of Destiny .

Thanks for sharing. I had no idea that IJ5 under Spielberg had gotten that far down the development road.

funny, she would have been in an Indy film and an Indy knock off ‘mummy’ film

Oh god, I forgot she was in that Mummy film. What a waste. Michelle Yeoh and Jet Li are finally given their one and only fight on film and it’s a brief, boringly shot and edited damp squib of a scene.

The Forbidden Kingdom isn’t a great movie. But at least they knew to make the most of Jet Li and Jackie Chan fighting each other.

Seems like another recycle stuff from the 80s and expect us all not to notice kind of thing again.

Since I thought that, despite some virtues, BLADE RUNNER 2049 was an almost entirely unnecessary sequel to Ridley Scott’s masterpiece, I’m finding this announcement more intriguing than I probably should.

There’ve been so many ALTERED CARBON cyberwhatsis SF projects since BR, and from what I remember, I don’t think I dug too many of them. Maybe they should have gotten Noah Hawley locked in before he got enmeshed in doing an ALIEN tv series for Fox, have a feeling he could have upped the game considerably.

As previously stated I definitely thought 2049 had its pluses, including the relationship between Gosling and his holographic love interest, which for my money brilliantly restated the original’s question about what it means to be human. If only the rest had been that good. . . but, seriously, what do we need with more cyberpunk dystopias anyhow? We’re walking around in one, 24/7, with full surround sound, smell-o-vision, and Marjorie Taylor Greene for black comic relief. Or, as cyberpunk guru Bill Gibson once put it, “The future is already here; it’s just unevenly distributed.”

I’d only be able to consider MTG as black comic relief if we were living in a BACK TO THE FUHRER timeline.

That’s a joke I came up with when I read that ENT time traveled back to ww2 to fight aliens working with nazis. Finally got a chance to use it.

That would have been a good title indeed for those preposterous episodes. (Did they air in the springtime, btw? Okay, I’ll stop.)

Reading that had me laughing so hard I started hallucinating Dick Shawn as ‘God’ and then as Sybok in ST5. That’s probably the first time I’ve even thought of Dick Shawn this whole century!

In the dystopian future depicted in  Blade Runner  …

I don’t think there’s any need to explain the plot of Blade Runner to this audience ;)

Can no longer support her after her appearance at the met gala while children die indiscriminately thanks to American tax dollars.

That’s been the reality for generations now, sadly — children dying with the aid of American tax dollars. I’m not sure what Yeoh’s participation in cultural events does to change that, but of course YMMV. (And I’ll be honest here: I’d feel a lot different about her accepting that award from TFG.)

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Michelle Yeoh to Star in ‘Blade Runner 2049’ Sequel Series at Amazon

By Joe Otterson

Joe Otterson

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The “Blade Runner” series in the works at Amazon Prime Video has cast Michelle Yeoh in a lead role, Variety has learned.

The series, titled “ Blade Runner 2099 ,” was ordered at Amazon in September 2022 . It serves as a sequel to both the original “Blade Runner” film and the followup film, “Blade Runner 2049.” Exact plot details are being kept under wraps, but sources say Yeoh will play a character named Olwen, described as a replicant near the end of her life. Amazon declined to comment on specific character details.

Popular on Variety

Ridley Scott first revealed “Blade Runner 2099” was in the works in November 2021 , with Amazon revealing it was in development there in February 2022.

Silka Luisa serves as showrunner and executive producer. Scott will executive produce along with David W. Zucker and Clayton Krueger of Scott Free Productions. Alcon Entertainment co-founders Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson also executive produce, as will Alcon’s president of television Ben Roberts. Tom Spezialy, Richard Sharkey, Michael Green, Cynthia Yorkin, Frank Giustra, and Isa Dick Hackett also executive produce. Jonathan van Tulleken will direct the first two episodes and executive produce. Steven Johnson is a co-executive producer. Film United is the production company in Prague.

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Michelle Yeoh To Star In ‘Blade Runner 2099'

Michelle Yeoh ( Everything Everywhere All at Once ) has found her next major starring vehicle in Blade Runner 2099 , Prime Video’s limited series following up the 2017 movie sequel Blade Runner 2049 .

Details as to Yeoh’s role are under wraps, as is the show’s plot. But it marks the latest expansion of the sci-fi franchise based on Philip K. Dick’s seminal novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ?, which kicked off with Ridley Scott’s classic 1982 film, Blade Runner . Production recently began overseas, following a delay of nearly a year due to the double strike of 2023. While it had originally been set to shoot in Belfast, the show wound up relocating to Prague following the work stoppage.

In addition to serving as showrunner of the limited series, Silka Luisa is exec producing alongside Scott, Alcon Entertainment co-founders Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson, Alcon’s President of Television Ben Roberts, David W. Zucker and Clayton Krueger from Scott Free Productions, Tom Spezialy, Richard Sharkey, Michael Green, Cynthia Yorkin, Frank Giustra, and Isa Dick Hackett. Jonathan van Tulleken ( Shogun ) is directing the first two episodes and also serves as EP, with Steven Johnson as co-executive producer. Film United is the production company in Prague.

Last year becoming the first Best Actress Oscar winner of Asian descent with Everything Everywhere All at Once , Yeoh rose to fame in 1990s Hong Kong action films before going on to star in a myriad of globally acclaimed blockbusters. In addition to A24’s Everything Everywhere , she’s recently been seen in Netflix’s The Brothers Sun and The Witcher: Blood Origins , as well as A Haunting in Venice and other films.

Just recently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom , the nation’s highest civilian honor, Yeoh will next be seen in Jon M. Chu’s Wicked . Other upcoming projects include Alex Kurtzman’s Star Trek: Section 31 , which has her reprising her role of Emperor Philippa Georgiou from CBS’s Star Trek: Discovery , as well as the Avatar sequels from James Cameron. She is repped by Artist International Group, manager Kit Wong and Cohen & Gardner.

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