Posted on 08/01/2022 6:55:43 AM PDT by rktman
Nichelle Nichols, who broke barriers for Black women in Hollywood as communications officer Lt. Uhura on the original “Star Trek” television series, has died at the age of 89.
Her son Kyle Johnson said Nichols died Saturday in Silver City, New Mexico.
“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 her 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 earned Nichols a lifelong position of honor 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.
Shatner tweeted Sunday: “I am so sorry to hear about the passing of Nichelle. She was a beautiful woman & played an admirable character that did so much for redefining social issues both here in the US & throughout the world.”
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Hailing Frequencies Closed.
She’s dead Jim.
So, how many regulars from the original Star Trek cast are left? Who will be the last to go?
Will the last cast member open the bottle of vintage Romulin wine?
I think Shatner is the only one left..
Koenig and idiot-boy sulu are still around...
And Walter Koenig. Chekov.
Yeah. Takei will probably outlive them all.
"She often recalled how 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."
It's all for the Bester...
RIP to the designer of the Bluetooth headset.
William Shatner, George Takei, and Walter Koenig are now the only surviving members of the original primary group.
Sigh. Seems like that is the way of things. If McCartney can outlive Ringo, Takei can outlive Shatner and Koenig. (Not a huge McCartney fan for a variety of reasons)
Monkeypox?
Agreed.
That was nothing. Kirk has a quite a few interspecies kisses on that show. You could always count on him to bang the hot aliens.
I really liked Lt. Uhura from the original series. IMHO, Nichols was far more attractive than the Lt. Uhura in the Star Trek movies of recent years.
Ringo is still living.
I met her once, back in 1988 in Hawaii. Spoke to her for only a few seconds, but she came across as warm and personable. She suffered greatly from dementia during these last 10 years of her life.
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