Trek Talk And The Importance of Uhura with Nichelle Nichols and Whoopi Goldberg
And Talking Spidey and Other Superheroes With Re-Creative
Super talk…
So normally when someone interviews me these days it’s about orcas, or maybe sharks, but, the hosts at Re-Creative wanted me to nerd out about superheroes and writers so we talked Stan Lee, Spidey, Batman and my interview with Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Here’s their site. And here’s Spotify.
And YouTube Mark Leiren-Young on Spiderman (and much, much more!)
And Now a Star Trek Memory…
I just mentioned this in the class I’m teaching about the DC Universe when I was talking about the impact of pop culture on our planet and vice versa. When I interviewed Nichelle Nichols for Vancouver’s Fan Expo in 2013, I asked for her fave Star Trek memory and she told me the true story of one of TV’s most famous kisses.
Nichols: I think my favorite is the famous interracial kiss, which was the first interracial kiss on television and it was supposed to be with Nimoy’s character.
Mark Leiren-Young: It was?
Nichelle Nichols: The first interracial kiss on TV. It was supposed to be with him. And Bill Shatner saw what was going on and he said, “Woah, woah, woah. If anybody’s gonna get to kiss Lieutenant Uhura is gonna be me”. (Laughs.) And he had the whole thing changed. So the first interracial kiss was with Lieutenant Uhura and Captain Kirk.
Mark Leiren-Young: That’s so funny. So did you ever get to rehearse with Nimoy? Like, was there a version where you kissed him or that never happened?
Nichelle Nichols: Oh sure! Oh sure, sure it did.
Mark Leiren-Young: I love that.
Nichelle Nichols: He particularly loved it. He wanted to rehearse all the time. (Laughs). He wanted to get this right! I said to him, “It’s right, it’s right. I promise you, it’s right.” And the camera was shaking and the director was laughing his head off. We really had a good time.
Mark Leiren-Young: The story that’s always amazed me about you is Martin Luther King talking to you about staying on Star Trek. How did that happen? How did you even meet him?
Nichelle Nichols: I was in Beverly Hills at an event and we were the guests and I was sitting up on the dais and our whole cast were the guests and I was one of the first ones who they took up to a spot in the hall with a long table and chairs behind it. And we’re at the tables having drinks and dinner, it was a dinner thing and one of the producers came up to me and said, “Ms. Nichols, before you sit down and before you get started there’s someone who says he’s your greatest fan and he wants to meet you.”
And so, I thought it was a little kid because it was kind of a family event and there were a couple of little kids there.
And I said, “Well certainly.”
And I turned around and I said, “Where is he?”
And he said, “He’s right over here. He’s right here, behind you.”
So I stood up and turned around to see this cute little boy and Dr. Martin Luther King. was smiling to me and he walked over and he says, “Yes, I’m your greatest fan, Nichelle Nichols.”
And that’s how I met Dr. Martin Luther King. He was a big Trekkie.
Mark Leiren-Young: And what was it an event for? Was this a Trek event?
Nichelle Nichols: This was an NAACP fundraiser, I think.
Mark Leiren-Young: Okay. And, um…but the story always seems to be that he talked…you thought of leaving and he talked you into staying.
Nichelle Nichols: Oh, yes.
We became friends after that and I went to his home when I was in Atlanta and met his family, his lovely wife and we became very good friends...
I called her immediately upon hearing of his death. I was actually driving back home from a hiatus from Star Trek and was singing in Canada and we were almost back in Los Angeles when it was broken on the radio. Broken to say that King had been killed and I cried all the way home and I called her to give my condolences and she said, “Please come by.”
And from an interview with Whoopi Goldberg for the Vancouver Sun…
So this was a preview for a stand-up show Whoopi Goldber did in Vancouver….
Whoopi remembers watching the original Star Trek as a kid, seeing Nichelle Nichols at the helm as Lieutenant Uhura and screaming for her mom to run and look at the TV because there was a black woman on the screen who wasn’t a maid. “If you look at any other science fiction stuff you’ll notice there were no black people -- so it was nice to see that we were still there in the future.”
Fun story, Mark!