Nichelle Nichols ✝

Nichelle Nichols (born Grace Dell Nichols; December 28, 1932) is an American actress, singer, and voice artist. She sang with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton before turning to acting. Nichols played communications officer Lieutenant (later, Commander) Uhura aboard the USS Enterprise in the Star Trek television series (1966–1969), as well as the succeeding motion pictures. Nichols\'s role was groundbreaking as one of the first African American female characters on American television not portrayed as a servant. She also worked to recruit diverse astronauts to NASA, including women and ethnic minorities.\n', ' Grace Dell Nichols was born in Robbins, Illinois, near Chicago, to Samuel Earl Nichols, a factory worker who was elected both town mayor of Robbins and its chief magistrate, and his wife, Lishia (Parks) Nichols. Later, the family moved into an apartment in Chicago. She studied in Chicago as well as New York and Los Angeles. Her break came in an appearance in Kicks 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 its brief try-out in Chicago, in an ironic twist, she attracted the attention of Hugh Hefner, the publisher of Playboy, who booked her for his Chicago Playboy Club. While still in Chicago, she performed at the "Blue Angel", and in New York, Nichols appeared at that city\'s Blue Angel as a dancer and singer.[citation needed] 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.\n', ' 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 – The Smell of the Crowd, 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.\n', '