Home ›› 02 Aug 2022 ›› Show Biz
Hollywood actress Nichelle Nichols has died on Sunday. She was 89.
The actress made history and earned the admiration of Martin Luther King Jr. for her portrayal of communications officer Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek.
According to The Hollywood Reporter Nichols, who earlier sang and danced as a performer with Duke Ellington’s orchestra, died Saturday night of natural causes. Her son, Kyle Johnson, posted the news on her official Facebook page.
“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,” he wrote Sunday. “Hers was a life well lived and as such a model for us all.”
A family spokesman told The Hollywood Reporter that she died in Silver City, New Mexico. She had been living with her son and was recently hospitalized.
Nichols played a person of authority on television at a time when most Black women were portraying servants.
She was cast as Uhura by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry after she guest-starred as the fiancée of a Black U.S. Marine who is a victim of racism in a 1964 episode of another NBC show he created, the Camp Pendleton-set The Lieutenant.
