19 January: Lieutenant Uhura

Lieutenant Uhura, Communications Officer in the original series of Star Trek will be born on January 19 2233 in the United States of Africa. Here are some things you may not know about her.

1. She was originally going to be called "Lieutenant Sulu" until someone pointed out to Gene Roddenberry that it sounded too much like "Zulu", so George Takei's character got the name instead.
2. Lieutenant Uhura’s name means “freedom” in Swahili. It was inspired by a book Nichelle Nichols, who plays her, had with her when she came to read for the part, Uhuru by Robert Ruark. Producer Robert Justman told Gene Roddenberry what the title of the book meant and Roddenberry changed it to Uhura and used it.
3. Her first name, a mystery until the 2009 film, was revealed than as Nyota, which is the Swahili word for "star".
4. Nichelle Nichols resigned from Star Trek after the first season, but reconsidered after a conversation with a big Star Trek fan. The fan was Martin Luther King Jr.
5. After Star Trek was cancelled, Nichelle Nichols volunteered for a special recruiting project at NASA where she recruited America’s first and second female as well as black male as astronauts.
6. Uhura is a translator and communications officer specialising in linguistics, cryptography, and philology. She's also a good singer (Nichelle Nicholls was a singer before turning to acting and sang with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton) and would sing to entertain her crewmates when off duty. Spock would sometimes accompany her on the Vulcan lyre.
7. Uhura and Spock were "an item" at college. There's an edition of a Star Trek comic which shows them going on a date. Anxious to avoid any sign of favouritism, Spock assigned her to the USS Farragut originally, but Uhura protested, saying that he would have assigned her to the Enterprise if they hadn't ever dated. Spock eventually agreed, which was just as well as the Farragut was destroyed by the villain Nero.
8. In the series of re-boot films, Uhura is played by Zoe Saldana.
9. Nichols was among the first black actors not to play menial roles on TV. She inspired other future black actors, among them Whoopi Goldberg, who, on watching Star Trek for the first time, declared, "I just saw a black woman on television; and she ain't no maid!"
10. Former US president Barack Obama was a big Star Trek fan when he was younger and admitted, when he met Nichelle Nicholls, that he'd had a crush on Uhura.

I write fiction, too! My characters include some British superheroes and a psychic detective. You never know, your new favourite could be here! You won't know unless you look...

See details of all my books

Browse other topics I've covered in this blog - HERE.

Like my Facebook page for news of Topical Ten posts, posts on my writing blog, and news of upcoming publications.