Nichelle's birth name was Grace Nichols; she was named after her father's great aunt, Graciella, from Seville, Spain. For about six months, early in her career, she toook the stage name Lynn Mayfair. Tired of that moniker, she asked her mother to rename her. She'd originally considered Michelle, so she dubbed her Nichelle, because it sounded good with Nichols.

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One of Nichelle's grandfathers was white.

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As a young singer and dancer, Nichelle's idol was Josephine Baker.

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Nichelle was pregnant with her only child, son Kyle, while on tour with Duke Ellington. Kyle was born August 14, 1951. During a troubled delivery, the new mom lapsed into a coma. She awoke three days later.

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Nichelle met Gene Roddenbery in 1963, when he was a young TV writer and producer who had not yet created Star Trek. They had a romantic relationship which she described in her autobiography.

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On Star Trek, Nichelle was half of the first interracial kiss. In the episode "Plato's Stepchildren," which aired in November 1968, her Lt. Uhura shared a kiss with William Shatner's Captain Kirk. (The characters are being mind-controlled by evil aliens, so the kiss was actually against their will.)

In the original script, Uhura was supposed to kiss Spock, but Shatner realized it was going to be an historic moment, so he demanded that the scene be rewritten: "When Bill Shanter surmised that this kiss was historic and could generate a lot of publicity, he "requested" that the script be changed. As Nichols recounted in her autobiography, nervous network executives insisted that an alternate take be shot, with Uhura and Kirk not quite making lip contact. But Shanter made sure that take wouldn't be used: "The last shot, which looked okay on the set, actually had Bill wildly crossing his eyes," Nichelle wrote. "It was so corny and just plain bad that it was unusable."

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Delivering Gene Roddenberry's eulogy, Whoppi Goldberg mentioned Nichelle's character, Uhura, as an important TV role model who had inspired her.

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Nichelle has worked for NASA, helping promote the space program and recruit women and minorities.

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Nichols was one of two original Star Trek cast members — the other was Walter Koenig (Chekov) — who stood up for a third, George Takei (Sulu), at his September 2008 wedding to his longtime companion, Brad Altman.

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Her sci-fi cred got her a guest-starring role on the cult favorite series Heroes for five episodes in 2007.