Key Points
- Nichelle Nichols died in New Mexico aged 89.
- She was intending to quit Star Trek before a chance encounter.
Nichelle Nichols was on the brink of quitting her role as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura in the iconic TV series Star Trek when one of the most unlikely Trekkies – Martin Luther King Jr – convinced her not to.
In a 2011 interview with the US’s National Public Radio (NPR), the star confessed her first love was musical theatre.
“I grew up in musical theatre. To me, the highlight and the epitome of my life as a singer and actor and a dancer/choreographer was to star on Broadway,” Nichols, who died at 89 on Saturday in Silver City, New Mexico, said.
According to the 2010 documentary Trek Nation, halfway through the TV program’s first season in 1966-67, Nichols told Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry of her decision to quit.
“I went in to tell Gene Roddenberry that I was leaving after the first season and he was very upset about it,” Nichols, who was one of the first black women to be cast in a pivotal role in a major television show, told NPR.
“And he said: take the weekend and think about what I am trying to achieve here in this show. You're an integral part and very important to it. And so I said, yes, I would.”
That very weekend, Nichols bumped into Mr King at a fundraiser and the chance encounter changed the course of her life and pop-culture history.
“On Saturday night, I went to an NAACP fundraiser, I believe it was, in Beverly Hills,” Nichols said.
Come quick, come quick. There’s a black lady on TV and she ain’t no maid.Whoopi Goldberg
“And one of the promoters came over to me and said, Ms Nichols, there's someone who would like to meet you. He says he is your greatest fan.
“And I'm thinking a Trekker, you know.
“And I turn and before I could get up, I looked across the way and there was the face of Dr Martin Luther King smiling at me and walking toward me.
“And he started laughing. By the time he reached me, he said, yes, Ms. Nichols, I am your greatest fan. I am that Trekkie.”
A still from a 1967 episode of Star Trek, featuring Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura. Credit: CBS Photo Archive/CBS via Getty Images
Eventually, though, she said she mustered the courage to say to King, “I wish I could be out there marching with you.”
She said to her utter surprise, King told her: “No, no, no .. you don't understand. We don't need you on ... to march. You are marching. You are reflecting what we are fighting for.”
When Nichols told King about her plans to quit the show, she said “his face got very, very serious”.
She said he told her: “You cannot do that … Don't you understand what this man (Roddenberry) has achieved? For the first time, we are being seen the world over as we should be seen.
“Do you understand that this is the only show that my wife Coretta and I will allow our little children to stay up and watch.”
Nichols continued to act in the TV series as well as appeared in three Star Trek movies.
She said she understood the importance of representation and it paid dividends in the end.
“I met Whoopi Goldberg when Gene was doing The Next Generation and she had told me when Star Trek came on she was nine years old and she said she turned the TV on and saw me and ran through the house screaming: 'Come quick, come quick. There’s a black lady on TV and she ain’t no maid.'”
