{"id":72249,"date":"2022-08-01T08:57:03","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T07:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=72249"},"modified":"2022-09-22T17:09:57","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T14:09:57","slug":"mourning-for-lt-uhura-star-trek-star-nichelle-nichols-is-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/mourning-for-lt-uhura-star-trek-star-nichelle-nichols-is-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Mourning for Lt. Uhura: &#8220;Star Trek&#8221; star Nichelle Nichols is dead"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nichelle Nichols is dead. The US actress who played Lieutenant Nyota Uhura in the original &#8216;Star Trek&#8217; series has died at the age of 89. This was announced by her family with a statement on social media.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Friends, fans, colleagues, world. I regret to report that a great light in the firmament no longer shines for us as it did for so many years,&#8221; her son Kyle Johnson wrote. His mother died of natural causes on Saturday evening. &#8220;However, their light, like the ancient galaxies now being seen for the first time, will remain for us and for future generations to enjoy, learn from, and be inspired by.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>Nyota Uhura made history<\/h3>\n<p>In the mid-1960s, Nichelle Nichols was cast in &#8220;Star Trek&#8221; &#8211; and made history with her role. As Nyota Uhura, she was not only the first African-American actress in a space series, but also held a leadership position with the title Lieutenant as a woman.<\/p>\n<p>In 1968 she was also the one who brought the first film kiss between a black and a white man to the screen. The scene in which Uhura kisses her superior, Captain Kirk, was extremely controversial at the time and made waves.<\/p>\n<p>When Nichols wanted to leave the show at the end of the first season to pursue a career on Broadway, none other than Martin Luther King persuaded her to stay. &#8220;Uhura is more than a communications officer. She is a symbol,&#8221; he is said to have said to her at the time. Nichols stayed. Not just until the end of the series: she reprized her role in all six &#8220;Star Trek&#8221; films from 1979 to 1991.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the &#8220;Spaceship Enterprise&#8221; saga, the actress has appeared in numerous other TV and film productions. In recent years, Nichols has struggled with health problems. 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The US actress who played Lieutenant Nyota Uhura in the original &#8216;Star Trek&#8217; series has died at the age of 89. This was announced by her family with a statement on social media. &#8220;Friends, fans, colleagues, world. I regret to report that a great light in the firmament no longer shines &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":72250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[16458],"class_list":["post-72249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cinema","tag-hollywood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}