Biography
Nichelle Nichols earned her greatest renown portraying Lieutenant Uhura on the 1960s Star Trek television series and in the subsequent feature films that followed. Parallel to that acting work, she built a separate identity as a vocalist, performing on tours with Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington that took her across two continents. Several of her recordings drew directly from the science-fiction franchise, among them the 1967 Epic album Down to Earth, the 1986 R-Way release Uhura Sings, and GNP Crescendo’s 1995 project Out of This World. She also appeared on the 1996 Sony collection Sultry Ladies and contributed to multiple Star Trek–related recordings, including the 1999 Sony compilation Star Trek: 20th Anniversary Collectors’ Edition Soundtrack.
The 1995 album Out of This World contains the track “Gene,” written as a tribute to Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek. The two shared a close personal connection that Nichols later described in her 1994 autobiography Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories. Roddenberry had earlier produced the 1963 police drama The Lieutenant, in which Nichols performed three years before Star Trek debuted; the same album also presents her interpretation of the series theme.
Born and raised in the Black-governed community of Robbins, Illinois, and a great-granddaughter of an enslaved person, Nichols encountered racial prejudice throughout her career even as she helped dismantle numerous color barriers. She began working professionally as a dancer and singer at age fourteen, after which she spent years performing in nightclubs. In 1951, while still a teenager, she entered her first marriage to a dancer more than ten years her senior; he departed after fewer than six months, leaving her to raise their unborn child alone as a single parent. Beyond her autobiography she authored the 1995 science-fiction novel Saturn’s Children. For roughly a decade ending in 1978 she collaborated with NASA on efforts to recruit minority astronauts, among them Dr. Mae Jemison. Nichols died of heart failure on July 30, 2022, in Silver Springs, New Mexico, at the age of eighty-nine.
The 1995 album Out of This World contains the track “Gene,” written as a tribute to Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek. The two shared a close personal connection that Nichols later described in her 1994 autobiography Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories. Roddenberry had earlier produced the 1963 police drama The Lieutenant, in which Nichols performed three years before Star Trek debuted; the same album also presents her interpretation of the series theme.
Born and raised in the Black-governed community of Robbins, Illinois, and a great-granddaughter of an enslaved person, Nichols encountered racial prejudice throughout her career even as she helped dismantle numerous color barriers. She began working professionally as a dancer and singer at age fourteen, after which she spent years performing in nightclubs. In 1951, while still a teenager, she entered her first marriage to a dancer more than ten years her senior; he departed after fewer than six months, leaving her to raise their unborn child alone as a single parent. Beyond her autobiography she authored the 1995 science-fiction novel Saturn’s Children. For roughly a decade ending in 1978 she collaborated with NASA on efforts to recruit minority astronauts, among them Dr. Mae Jemison. Nichols died of heart failure on July 30, 2022, in Silver Springs, New Mexico, at the age of eighty-nine.
Albums
