Happy Birthday Nichelle Nichols!

I was very blessed in always knowing what I wanted to do, and by the grace of God I've been able to succeed in my chosen career.

Billie Holiday I never met, but I love her music.

I think anybody with any intelligence sits down and sees Star Trek not a kids' show.

I've agreed to do several Star Trek conventions this coming year.

It's just coincidental that the acting took off first over everything else.

Mahalia Jackson, I grew up around the corner from in Chicago.

All the people in Star Trek will always be known as those characters. And what characters to have attached to your name in life! The show is such a phenomenon all over the world.

Musical theatre has always been my first love. I was on my way to Broadway when, as I tell my fans, Star Trek interrupted my career!

I hated the color [of her original Uhura costume], that was all. It was kind of a pea green. Gene hated the color also, and so he called Bill Theiss in and told him he wanted to change that costume, and um, -- so I think I wore that pea green thing for a couple of episodes and then they changed to that beautiful red.

The day Jimmy Doohan fell into the water off the Bird of Prey. All the actors in the live scene thought it was a joke and jumped in after him. Nimoy, who was directing the film, was flabbergasted but quickly jumped in with them and screamed at the camera crew, "Keep shooting -- keep shooting!" It turned out to be a keeper and one of the best shots in the movie.

I think I am going to meet with Zoe and let her pick my brain if she wants to, but I would like to hold that in abeyance to see what she, because she’s such a lovely actress and creative actress herself. I’d love to wait and see what she brings to it so that I can understand, so that I can get to see who and what Uhura was like and what the qualities were that Uhura, Nyota Uhura had that qualified her to go on that first five-year mission where no man or woman had gone before. I think she might bring some interesting new qualities to the character.

I’ve grown up just thinking that what people refer to as powers are natural extension of our lives, of our abilities, and are hidden somewhere in that 90% of our brain that even Einstein hadn’t used yet.

It was towards the end of the show and I was really considering leaving the show, for no other reason than I wanted to return to the theatre. I went in to talk to Gene - this was I was getting up nerve to tell him I was leaving the show, but at this point I went in and I said "Gene, I've been watching each of the episodes and they each get better and better" and I said, "And I discovered something: you're writing morality plays." And he said, "Shhh. They haven't figured it out yet."

Well my mother was a genuine psychic. She never went into business for it, but she could interpret dreams. She dreamed and other things, and sensory things. If I walked into the house and something was bothering me, and I was always the kind to shelter my loved ones from my problems. I walked out, my mother would say okay sit down and tell me what’s the matter. I’d burst out crying. I’d walk in the house. "Hi I’m home. Guess what I did today?" And she says, "sit down - tell me what’s the problem". And she knew before I knew everything. She knew when people were in trouble and she knew when people were pregnant before they did sometimes. And I grew up with this as a natural thing. It was not a phenomena to me until I grew up and people reacted to it. And I realized that this is something that not everyone has.

In "Plato's Stepchildren," Uhura and Kirk were supposed to kiss under duress from their captors. It became an issue with the director and Gene Roddenberry finally decided to shoot the scene with and without the kiss. Bill Shatner kept kissing until there was only time for one more take. When the camera zoomed in, Bill crossed his eyes and the director didn't notice it until the next day in dailies. Of course the last scene was unusable and they had to go with the kiss scene, which became history as the first interracial kiss on TV.

Uhura never had another name during the series. One of the fan writers wrote "Upenda" - which means "peace" in Swahili, I understand -- not officially, but in some of their fan writings. And it sort of took hold. But when they were going to do the official history of Star Trek in a published book, the writer called Gene and asked him was "Uhura" her first name or her last name? Gene said, "Well, Nichelle and I never decided." We always leaned towards it being her last name because it's taken from the Swahili "uhuru" which means freedom. So it would sort of be like the same as "Freeman." So he said, "You can make it her last name." The writer said, "What about her first name? I've come up with one in Swahili. It's Nyota." Gene said, "I can't give you that permission because Nichelle and I named her together, and she has rights to that, so you'll have to call her and get her permission." So he gave him my number, and he called me and I laughed and was delighted. He said, "I have a name and it's Nyota." I said, "That's quite beautiful. What does it mean?" He said, "It means 'star'." I said, "You can have my permission!" So I have since said that her name is Nyota Upenda Uhura, which would mean a free-floating star: "star of freedom and peace". I like that.

LLAP Nichelle Nichols!
LLAP Nyota Uhura!