Star Trek Interviews (5) - Profile of/Interview with
                              Nichelle Nichols/Commander Uhura

                Taken from the Public Domain

1. Profile - Nichelle Nichols/Commander Uhura

"I thought I was going to be the next Lena Horne or Ella
Fitzgerald," Nichelle Nichols says of her early singing career.
"Space?  Isn't that the thing that takes up room?"

But for now, some 23 years after her first "Flight" aboard the
U.S.S.  Enterprise, Nichols knows how important space is, not only
because of her ongoing role as Commander Uhura, reprised once more
in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, but also because of her role
as a spokesperson and recruiter for NASA.

"I thought space travel was a bunch of fly-boys massaging their
egos out in front of the Moon!  It had nothing to do with me," she
recalls.  "But I found out it has everything to do with me.
Women, men, blacks, every colour humanity."

Nichols came to her NASA connection by a roundabout route.  Born
in Robbins, IL, near Chicago, she began her singing career at 16
with Duke Ellington in a ballet she created for one of his
compositions.  Later, she sang with Ellington's band.  After
switching to acting, Nichols was twice nominated for the Sarah
Siddons Award for Best Actress in Jean Genet's The Blacks and
Kicks and Company.

Her early movie appearances include dancing with Sammy Davies Jr.
in Porgy and Bess, as well as roles in Mister Buddwing with James
Garner, Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding and Made in Paris.  A
guest shot on television's The Lieutenant opposite Gary Lockwood
led to an offer from producer Gene Roddenberry to join the cast of
his new science-fiction series Star Trek.  She has played Uhura
ever since, through three TV seasons, an animated series and five
films.

"I think, so far, this one is the best yet." says Nichols. "What I
have done with Uhura to this point is to my satisfaction.  In my
mind, the character has matured.  In Star Trek V, we're going to
see a facet of Uhura that we have yet to see.  In fact. we're
going to see several facets.

"I have a wonderful scene with Scotty that will be a charmer," she
reveals.  "There's a bit of flirtation and the suggestion of a
relationship with him that we're leaving for the audience to
decide whether or not anything is going on."

Some might say Nichols has been typecast, but she denies that.  "I
turned down maybe a dozen roles because I was involved in other
things when Star Trek ended," she says.  "I might have broken away
from Uhura when I played a madame in Truck Turner.  Had I
continued doing roles like that, the casting mold would have been
broken."

"My father always told me.  'If you buy a lemon, make lemonade,'"
she continues.  "So, I took what could have been a gift that
tarnished, and I polished it and I discovered the space program."
And NASA administrators discovered her when she attended a
presentation on the agency's long-range plans at a Chicago-arena
convention.  Within a few years, Nichols was on the board of
directors of the National Space Institute, and NASA asked her to
participate in its astronaut recruitment program for the space
shuttle project.  While that participation has brought her great
joy and great rewards, including NASA's distinguished Public
Service Award, it has also brought Nichols some sorrow as well.

"Three of my recruits were on the Challenger mission and I was in
mourning for a long, long time," she notes.  "Every member of that
mission knew that some day, something like that probably would
happen.  Not one turned around because of that knowledge."

Never one to turn around in her own life either, Nichols started a
consultant firm, Women in Motion, Inc.  Through it, she produced
and starred in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and
Space Museum film What's In It for Me?  Her acting talents have

been seen in Antony and Cleopatra, the film The Supernaturals, and
a stage production of Horowitz and Mrs. Washington.

"Doing the Star Trek films at this point is kind of like going to
a party," she says, and this time, she'll be providing some of the
music.  While Nichols continues to keep her voice in tune for a
series of video albums, the latest of which is Nichelle Nichols,
Live at Disneyland, she'll be doing the same for an engagement out
on The Final Frontier.

"Uhura gets to sing, she gets to dance.  What I do in those scenes
is very sinuous, but there's also a lot of humour in these
sequences," she explains.  "I wanted the routine to be seductive
but not too professional.  I wanted it to appear that Uhura
thought of something on the spur of the moment and this is what
she thought of.

"The Star Trek phenomena and the fans are what do it for me,"
admits Nichelle Nichols.  "Uhura is a part of that phenomena and
I've had a hand in creating that.  So I'm very proud."

2. Interview - Nichelle Nichols/Commander Uhura

     Q:  What is your opinion of the Star Trek V story?
     A:  I think this is the perfect story to follow IV, with its
humour and fun and the wonderful idea of saving the whales.  Now
we come to something dynamic and dramatic and exciting, and they
very wisely kept some of the humour.  We're on a very dangerous
mission and it's no nonsense and high adventure again.  But wisely
they let some of the humour from IV overlap, so IV doesn't stand
out like a sore thumb.  Somebody made the comment we're back to
business as usual.  But we have some sense of humour and much more
interplay of the characters, which is really nice, more so even
than in IV.  So it's really moving towards what Star Trek is all
about.  What we, the fans, have been waiting for.  I'm very
excited, not only about V, a bit about the prospects of the
adventure continuing. Because if they can do this after IV,
something as exciting as this, then they can continue this.  It's
just a matter of good writers and good story lines.

     Q:  What did you first think of "Star Trek" when you
originally got the part?
     A:  Oh, I thought it was great.  When I first did the TV
series, I thought everything was coming up roses.  I thought I'd
do this and then go on and do a million other things.  Maybe if we
were lucky it would last five years or three years.  Then I'd go
and do other things, and somebody, someday would say, "Remember
that show you used to do?  We really liked that."

     Q:  And?
     A:  [She laughs]  And the show refused to die.

     Q:  Is that something that troubled you?
     A:  Well, there's such a thing called typecasting.  I never
used to believe that, but of course it's true.  I never realized
it because I have a lot of other talents, my singing, my writing,
and other things I do.  I became involved with NASA, and I had my
own business, a consulting firm to aerospace education... I was so
busy that I didn't realize I wasn't acting, you know.  And that
was setting a precedent.  I was being typecast in the meantime.
So I wasn't sitting around waiting for work.  I was absolutely
inundated with work and luckily I've always been very busy.  But
suddenly, you discover - and I enjoy and enjoyed at the time - the
fans.  I thought it was wonderful.  What an exciting, lovely thing
to have people who cared so much about it, they didn't want it to
die.  I still thought rather lightly about it.  It was nice to get
together once in a while, but then [that typecasting] became
reality.

     Q:  Is this a source of frustration on some level?
     A:  Actually not; not the fandom and not the fact that the
show has remained exciting.  But the opposite of Hollywood - "The
Industry" that sees you in one light - is not acknowledging your
talents that got you to that point to begin with.  And that can be
frustrating.

     Q:  If you could have ideally sketched it out, how would it
be different?
     A:  I probably would have done everything I did.  There also
was a point in time, right after "Star Trek," when a lot of black
exploitation films were being done... and I got, to be quite a
fair to the industry, an awful lot of offers.  Scripts sent to me
to star in.  And I did one... I played the role of a Madame... I
put on twenty-five pounds to play the role.  She was supposed to
be a great, big gal, but I convinced them, and I was a size six...
to come back down.  [She laughs] It turned out very well for me,
but then I was getting only those kind of roles, so I decided to
wait.  So I went back into musical comedy.  I went back into
singing, back into dancing, and I didn't attend to my film acting
[or] television career... I thought, "It'll always be there."  But
you can't do that.  And by that time, "Star Trek" was quickly
becoming a legend.

Then finally, of course, we started doing the films, and the die
was cast.  We were forever the "Star Trek" crew.  No matter what
we do, we'll always be Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Scotty, Chekov.  And
that's that.  I take it as a great compliment.  We created
characters that simply will not die, whether we like it or not.
[She laughs] And so the happy part is now doing the films.

     Q:  Do you feel cheated somehow in your career?
     A:  No, because life doesn't ever happen the way you think it
will.  You have to be ready for whatever it throws at you.  If you
sit and let yourself be daunted by what didn't happen, or what
could happen or should have happened, you'll be a miserable,
dried-up old prune somewhere, bitter and angry.

     Q:  What else would you like to do, direct, produce...?
     A:  I have directed in theatre, but I'm not qualified to
direct in film because I haven't studied it... it's a specialty
and a craft just like anything else.  It's not a matter of just
saying, "Oh, it's my turn to direct a Star Trek film."  You have
to know what you're doing.  It takes a special talent.

I think Leonard has done a brilliant job, and working with Bill
has been a pleasure... when Leonard first was directing, I
thought, "Oh, no.  Now my co-star becomes God," you know, because
the director becomes God.  But it was fantastic.  He was a
delight, came in prepared and talented.  All my fears vanished
because... [She laughs hard] he's always been directing us!  But
the funny thing about that is, so many times his ideas have been
very good... In the series, if we had an insecure director, it
scared the hell out of them.  Good directors you could always help
because they were very secure.  They would not only discuss with
him, but many times with most of us pertaining to our roles.  But
Bill had an edge on a lot of directors in that he's an actor.  He
knows the actor's plight, he knows our needs.

     Q:  What would you say that plight is?
     A:  The plight for the actor is you want to do your best.
You're developing a character, you're putting your best foot
forward, you hope to hell you're right.  Many times you've got
[your character] figured out and along comes another actor who's
coming at it from a completely different point of view, and you go
"Ooops."  Or a director doesn't like your interpretation, so you
say, "Ooops."  There are so many frustrations.  Everything that
can go wrong does go wrong.  An actor earns every penny he makes
and then some.


     Q:  Do you feel like you've been undercompensated for all
these years?
     A:  Yes, yes, yes.  Yes.  I would be lying if I didn't say
so.

     Q:  What made you want to become an actress?
     A:  I was born.

     Q:  But you were a dancer first?
     A:  No, I was in theatre.  My first love was ballet, but I
wanted to do it all.  I came out of musical comedy primarily, as
opposed to drama.

     Q:  Is that how you see your future going?  Do you want to
create on your own?
     A:  Exactly.  I'm recording, I produce, I've written a couple
of things, an operetta... So you just keep your creativity going.
You have to.  And if industry doesn't do it for you, you have to
do it yourself.

     Q:  Do you feel like being black hurt you?
     A:  No.  I think at the point in time that Gene Roddenberry
did "Star Trek," certainly I wasn't up for as many roles as white
actresses were up for.  But also, Gene cast me.  He specifically
meant to cast a female and a black.  So I'm just glad I was better
than the rest of the gals who went up for it and got it.

     Q:  What about now?
     A:  Now, when I got that part, I was the first black actress
to play a major role in a series.  It opened up a lot of doors for
black actresses afterwards.  Like Diahann Carroll doing "Julia,"
which was a part they originally talked to me about doing.  But I
couldn't do it because I couldn't get out of "Star Trek"... and I
still can't! [She laughs]





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