A Conversation with Nichelle Nichols

Nichelle Nichols discusses her role as Star Trek's Lt. Uhura, and the impact that had on her life and on society.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium. For our show today, I'm going to break format a bit. Normally, there is a professional stand-up comedian right to my side, serving as my co-host, and we banter and chat about the science topic of the day, reacting to interview clips that I've slotted into the show of special guests that I've collected over the previous days. In this particular case, I want to present to you, straight through, an exclusive one-on-one conversation that I had with actress Nichelle Nichols. That name is no stranger to the geek set among you out there, but for the rest who

• 0:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  need a little bit of extra info, she is the legendary icon who played Lieutenant Uhuru in the original Star Trek television series. That series was created, as many of you know, by Gene Roddenberry, and it was groundbreaking on many fronts. For me, the most important feature of that show was that the deck of the starship Enterprise was international. Lieutenant Uhuru herself represented, again, this is the future, the United States of Africa. Not only was she there, but there was representation from Asia, from Europe, from the Americas, and even Planet Vulcan, of course, in the guise of Spock. The point

• 1:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  is, if you were a science fiction fan of the day, and you viewed how authors and producers portrayed the future, it was a future that did not include people of color. A really frightening prospect if you happen to have been a person of color. And now comes the series Star Trek. And you see a woman who is dignified, who has poise, who is not somebody's maid, and who is, in fact, an educated communications officer on the deck of the starship Enterprise, who is fourth in command, by the way, of that starship. And your vision of the future can change overnight. This fact did not go unrealized by Nichelle Nichols.

• 2:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's pick up on my interview with her in my office at the Hayden Planetarium here in New York City. Before Star Trek, did you have any particular interest in science or science fiction? Was that just your next acting gig and it just blossomed into the rest of what became an important identity?

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Well, I thought Star Trek was going to be my next acting gig because I grew up in musical theater and I never had any dreams of being in film or television.

• 2:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Theater people tend to be snooty that way.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  I didn't know it was being snooty. You see, it wasn't like that with me. It was a live audience that I loved and that I thrived in.

• 3:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you get immediate response to your effectiveness.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  You get immediate response and you never do the same performance twice.

• 3:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how I feel when I give lectures.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the, I feed off of that.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Yes, that give and take, isn't it? I bet even now you realize another dimension of what you were going to say that because of an audience reaction or question, because you affect people in different ways. This was a very exciting time for me when I realized my life was bigger than my narrow. I was a ballerina and became involved with all forms of dance.

• 3:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the total stage performer then, right?

• 3:48Speaker 01

  I was a singer with a four octave range voice. I thought I had two voices until I found out how to connect them. I had this high voice, you know, and I had this deep voice.

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need that deep voice.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  You know, I was just this little child.

• 4:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The needle on my microphone doesn't know what to do when this happens.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  And I was this actor and I was also a writer. I used to write plays and I'd get the kids in the neighborhood and I'd cast them and I would always be the star of the show. And they were just delighted because they love having fun. And then our parents would come and see it, the show. The kids in the neighborhood come, write another one, write another one. And they got to have fun and I got to be in, as a young child, in the theater, the theater of the street. And so I always knew I was going to be a star. But it was going to be at the highest level on Broadway.

• 4:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'd be the toast of Broadway.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  The toast of Broadway. And then Star Trek interrupted my career.

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn, Star Trek.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  I got this role as Uhura and I thought, oh, well, that's nice, you know. I didn't think of it as a leading role. I just thought of it as being a powerful adjunct and participation of my resume.

• 5:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Which would get me closer to Broadway. Starring on Broadway.

• 5:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who would have thought?

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Who'd have thought?

• 5:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll act the Star Trek role so that I can be better on Broadway.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  And so that I can be sought after. Because I never underestimated the power of television. So here I've got this lovely little role and I thought it was nice. And after the first season, I thought, okay, fantastic, you know.

• 5:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  And...

• 5:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're not singing and dancing, right?

• 5:57Speaker 01

  No, that wasn't... No, I was singing. I decided...

• 5:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, not singing in Star Trek.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Yes, I did, three times.

• 6:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I missed that. Oh, my God.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 6:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, gee.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  The screen, da-da-da-da-da-da. Where my heart is. Where my heart is. Where the lovely are going. Somewhere beyond the stars.

• 6:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm Netflixing that tonight.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  On Tyrese. That was the first song that Gene had written for me.

• 6:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm Netflixing that tonight. Okay.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  And then I sang twice again.

• 6:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  I sang the "Oh, but I really had fun." Was singing to Mr. Spock in the rec room. Teaching him about his ears and so forth. And it was fascinating to me that that was the only time you would see Uhura relax.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Or be funny. When she was on that command deck.

• 7:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All business.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  She was all business. She's from the United States of Africa. She was expected to be of a level.

• 7:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  High professionalism.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Highest of professional, not just high. That's not good enough.

• 7:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excuse me, highest?

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Well, that showed, let me just say. You had a presence on that deck that no one else had.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  And she could tease Spock because, did you ever wonder why Uhura was the only one that Spock even deigned to try to teach, much less teach, to play the Vulcan lair? An impossible instrument, even for Vulcans to play. And so I used that to relate to the intelligence of Spock and the intelligence of my family, which in, from the United States of Africa, most assuredly expected the best and the highest of their daughter.

• 8:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you went through a year. And at the end of the year, what happened?

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Thank you. I was floating back there and I thought if I talk long enough, I'd get... So after the first season, I was going, well, you know, the, this is not a major role or it doesn't have anything to do, although I had some really wonderful episodes. This is, might be the very coolest time for me to thank Gene for the opportunity because I'm getting all of this attention now that we're on television. And I'm on my way to Broadway. And I had already talked to a producer who wanted to write something around me and so forth.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  So I went and told Gene, I said, I thank you for everything you've done, Gene. We've been friends and I thank you so very much, but I'm going to be leaving. And Gene was sitting behind his desk and he had a raucous sense of humor, but he was not amused.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  And he just looked at me and he said, you can't. Don't you see what I'm achieving here?

• 9:19Speaker 01

  And it stunned me because I didn't think, you know.

• 9:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You were just another actress on the stage.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. And nobody had told me yet that I was chief communications officer and fourth in command until two nights later. And Gene said, "Well, take the week and, and think about this, Michelle." And I handed him my little letter of resignation. He stuck it in his desk drawer and looked at me and he said, "Think about it. Think about what I've so, I've talked to you about. This is more than just a role." I go, "Okay, Gene, thank you." And he says, "If, if Monday morning you wanna come in and talk to me and you still feel the same way, I will still be very disappointed, but I'll let you go with my blessings." And I said, "Thanks, Gene." I walked out of there.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Phew, that went well. On Saturday night, I was, had been invited as a, a celebrity guest at a, an NAACP fundraiser in Beverly Hills. And when I went in, I was being greeted and so glad you could come.

• 10:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this year now is nineteen sixty-seven, sixty-six?

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Yes, approximately that time. Seven, eight.

• 10:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eight, yeah, there you go.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And just as I'm sitting, seated at the dais and getting ready to turn to other celebrities, one of the promoters walked over behind and he said, "Miss Nichols, sorry to bother you." I said, "No problem." And he said, "Well, there's someone who wants to meet you." And he says he, he's your greatest fan. And I'm smiling, I said, "Of course." And I'm getting up to turn and said, "Where is he?" He says, "Right over here." And I'm thinking, "It's a tricker, you know, maybe a child, maybe a young man, they just, someone wants to congratulate you."

• 11:17Speaker 01

  And so delighted, I turn and I see this man across the room with this brilliant smile, which you didn't often see on his face.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  And I remember saying to myself, whoever this little tracker is, they're gonna have to wait because this is my leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, walking towards me with a smile on his face. And I never met the man, you know, this is like I'm starting to tremble. And he walks to me and he says with this smile, he says, and puts his hand out and says, yes, Ms. Nichols, I am your greatest fan.

• 11:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Martin Luther King Jr.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  I thought, what an incredible moment. And I

• 12:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, I have to wrap my head around this. You are at a fundraiser.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You, Star Trek actress, at a fundraiser in Beverly Hills, and you run into Martin Luther King.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Well, he was also a guest.

• 12:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, I'm just saying, just, just the

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Exactly. And I just told Gene Roddenberry I'm leaving the show.

• 12:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're leaving the show. Right. Okay. So that's the setup for this.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Well, this man, he says, I am your greatest fan. And I just was fabreglassed, flabbergasted.

• 12:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're still flabbergasted. Can't say the word.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Just remembering it. And he begins to speak about my role on television and the power of Star Trek and how important it is. In the meantime, for the first time in my life, I had no words to say. I couldn't, they wouldn't come out anyway. I'm shaking in front of this man. And he is saying how important Star Trek is to the future, that this man who's written this, who has produced this, has seen the future. And we are there because you are there. And you've

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We is the, is the black community.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  The black community.

• 13:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Has been imagined in the future created by Gene Roddenberry.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  It's a truth because it's on television.

• 13:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we, and the black community was not part of anybody else's vision of the future that had been portrayed until now.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  That's correct. That's correct.

• 14:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. For this special edition of StarTalk, we're breaking format to bring you an exclusive one-on-one interview that I had with actress Nichelle Nichols. She's, of course, Lieutenant Uhura of the original Star Trek TV series. She was visiting New York. I invited her by. We chatted. We had lunch. And out of that visit came this conversation. In the first segment, we left off where she was describing when she first met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I was surprised to learn that he was her biggest fan. Not only he, but his wife and his kids would reserve time in the evening to watch the Star Trek series. Why? Because, in fact,

• 14:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  he recognized that Star Trek was providing an important service to the American culture. Because she, as a black woman, had showed that, in fact, the black community could be part of at least somebody's vision for the future of humanity. In this next part of the interview, Nichelle Nichols reveals exactly what Martin Luther King Jr. told her about the importance of Star Trek to society. Let's see what she had to say.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  He said, "You have one of the most important roles." This is a first. "It's non-stereotypical. It's brilliant. It's beauty and it's intelligence. And you do it with warmth and grace." And I'm just standing there watching him, listening to him. I'm thinking, the only visions I've seen of this man, really? Are nightly in the news with marching and black people in the South marching and demanding their rights to sit at a

• 16:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lunch counter.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  Lunch counter and coming out being hurt hurted out and having hoses.

• 16:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Water hoses.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Fire hoses turned on them. Dogs, attack dogs turn up, men, women and children. And this man leading them and marching and the face of all of this, being arrested. Every night I ever saw him, I said, they're gonna kill him. It won't happen past this time. But it did. And so he became this power of hope. And here I am playing this character that I'm gonna give up. And I said to him, Dr. King, thank you so much. I'm going to miss my co-stars. Before I could say because, he said, what are you talking about?

• 16:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What are you talking about?

• 16:51Speaker 01

  And I said that I just told Gene that I'm leaving the show after the first season because I've received. And he said, you cannot. I felt like that little boy who later said, what you talking about, Will? Because I felt like saying, what you talking about, Dr. Martin Luther King? But my mouth just dropped. And he said, you cannot leave. Do you understand? It has been heavily ordained. This is God's gift and onus for you. You have changed the face of television forever. Because this is not a black role. It is not a female role.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Anyone can fill that role.

• 17:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a role with power and dignity.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  He said, it can be filled by a woman of any color, a man of any color.

• 17:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A man of any color.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  It can be filled by another Klingon or

• 17:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A Tom Alien.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  An alien. He said, this is a unique role and a unique point in time that breathes the life of what we are marching for. Equality. He says, beside, you're chief communications officer. You're fourth in command. I'm thinking, nobody told me that.

• 18:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, he's paying attention to these episodes.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  He knows Star Trek is built on the Air Force.

• 18:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm, on the rankings, yes.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Rankings, so he knew the rank. And he said, "You have no idea the esteem that we hold for you." And I'd start shivering. And I'm just looking at him, and my mouth was quivering. And he said, "Beside Michelle, you have no idea the power of television." This man has shown us in the 23rd century.

• 18:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This man, Gene Roddenberry.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  What started now, this man who's created this. This man has created a reality. And because it's in the 23rd century, and you are Chief Communications Officer, fourth-in-command of a starship going on a five-year mission where no man or woman is gone before, it means that what we are doing today is just the beginning of where we're going, just how far we're going.

• 19:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have to make sure that that's enabled.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  You cannot leave. Besides, and then he smiles again. Star Trek is the only show that my wife, Coretta, and I allow our little children to stay up late and watch. And Michelle, I can't go back and tell them this, because you are their hero.

• 19:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So overnight, your life became bigger than yourself.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 19:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your role became bigger than you.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  I couldn't think of anything for the rest of the weekend. I was just shivering. Sometimes I was furious. Sometimes I was crying. Sometimes I just sat numb and thought about it. And I went to Gene Roddenberry on wobbly legs, and I walked into his office, and he was behind that same desk. And Gene was a six-foot-three, muscular, hatchet-faced man with a wicked sense of humor and a brilliant mind. And he sat there, and he looked at me, and I said, "Gene, if you still want me to stay, I'll stay." And I told him, Stuart, what had happened to Dr. Martin Luther King.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  And he just looked up at me and didn't say anything for a long time. And he opened his desk drawer and took out my letter of resignation.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  And handed it to me and I looked at him, at this man, and a tear is rolling down his face and he said, "God bless Dr. Martin Luther King, someone knows what I'm trying, someone realizes what I'm trying to achieve."

• 20:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm getting misty eyed just listening to your story.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  I can hardly ever tell it. And he handed me my letter of resignation, which had been torn up into a million pipses from the day, from that moment I had handed it to him. He wasn't gonna accept it anyway. And, and I said, "Jean, do you, do you know Dr. King?" And he says, "I've never met him, but I bless him." And, because I said, "This is..."

• 21:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's too coincidental.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  It was too coincidental, I could just see him picking up the telephone, "Dr. King..."

• 21:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "I got a, I got a job for you."

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Like, like Dr. King has nothing else to do.

• 21:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the real truth here is that even though the show got canceled, it planted seeds within the consciousness of the nation that sprouted later, greater than anyone, I think, had ever imagined.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  I think because the show got canceled, it caused an incredible thrust of pain and fury and because so many people to this day said, "I found myself, I found who I am." And people say to me, "Women, because you were there, I could never see the world the way I was raised to see. I became a different person." I had a man in one of the Star Trek conventions in London, where they had the skinheads, the movement, and he was...

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I remember that.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Obviously, a skinhead. And there was a long, long, long line of people and I had security behind me who were irritating me. And I'd never had anything, but here was this man in the front of the line, he couldn't have been more than maybe eighteen, nineteen, but he looked more frightening with the skinhead and the whole thing and the muscles and the tattoos. And he walked over to the table and my security team tensed.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  And he says, "Don't move, Ms. Nichols." And I said, "I'm not bothering." The young man walked over to me, and he realized what was going on, and said, whatever his name wants. And he said, "I'm not really here as a fan, Ms. Nichols. I just wanted you to know that because of you on Star Trek, I stopped being what I was on my way to be. And I came here dressed as I had been doing, so that you would know." This guy is tearing, and I'm looking up at him, tearing.

• 23:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm tearing now.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  And he said, "I can never be that again." He says, "I understand what the world and the future is, and Star Trek depicts it, and it's not what I was going through with all my pain in my life."

• 23:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is a former skinhead telling you that.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  This is a former skinhead. And he said, "I've done some dastardly things. I can only hope to make up for it." And I stood, and I leaned across the table, because it wasn't really a big, big table, a wide table. And I said, "Come here, son." And I put my arms out. And tears came down his eyes, mine. And I held him. And I said, "Don't look for forgiveness anywhere. God just forgave you. Your choice makes you whole." And he just, he thanked me. I'm sorry.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  He thanked me, and and he walked away, and I turned to my men who were protecting me.

• 24:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Security, security.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  My security. And they just stood there like their hands were just limp. And one man said, "Well, I'll be damned." And I said, "No, you'll be blessed." He just, "God bless." But that was the power of what Gene Roddenberry meant.

• 24:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Martin Luther King was right.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  And Martin Luther King was right. And I never looked back. And he was going through some really hard times, and it was only another couple of years that we lost him.

• 25:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're listening to StarTalk Radio. We're breaking format today from our usual comedic banter to bring you exclusive coverage of my one-on-one interview with actress Nichelle Nichols. She's, of course, Star Trek's Lieutenant Uhura, the communications officer on the deck of the starship Enterprise. In that conversation, which took place in my office at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, we talked about everything under the sun, or at least under the universe. More from that interview when we come back.

• 26:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. If interested, I'd love to have you as a Twitter follower, but I warn you in advance, no, I'm not gonna tweet about what I had for breakfast, or where I'm going that day, or what shoes I'm wearing. What tends to come out of me are just sort of random thoughts drawn from the cosmos, and exploring how they connect to everyday life. I call them my personal cosmic brain droppings. If interested, feel free to follow me. I tweet at Neil Tyson. In the first half of this show, we joined my exclusive one-on-one interview with actress Nichelle Nichols.

• 26:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's when we talked about how Star Trek and her role as Lieutenant Uhura had a huge impact on the civil rights movement of the 1960s and beyond. In this next part of the interview, we continue the conversation about the impact that Star Trek had on the culture. We also explore the importance that her role in the show had on the lives of certain individuals you might just recognize. Let's rejoin that conversation. I happen to know that Whoopi Goldberg credits the fact that she was on television in Star Trek series was because of you.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  It was so beautiful to meet her because she's such a brilliant woman. With her humor, and the manner in which she does her humor, you might at first be thrown by her and underestimate her. She's brilliant. And when I actually met her in person, the next generation.

• 27:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Star Trek Nation.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Was on, and she was on the show and I'm going, "Oh, isn't that wonderful to myself." And coincidentally, we were doing one of the, now the Star Trek movies. I think it was the first Star Trek movie. And so my dressing room was across the way from her dressing room, her van, a bus, whatever. And mine was across the street. And she asked one of the guys on my set that she wanted to meet me. And I'll never forget when she met me, you know, when I said, "Certainly, absolutely." And I said, "You want me to come there?" She said, "No, I want to come to her." And so she did, and I loved her humor so much. I got it, you know.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  And I said, "You are so incredible." And she just looked at me and she said, "You are my queen." And she said, "If it hadn't been for you, I'd have never been on Star Trek. It was my favorite show." And she said, "When Star Trek came on, I was nine years old. And I saw this show, and it came on, and there you were. And I ran through the house saying, 'Hey, come everybody, quick, quick, quick, come, come, look, quick.'" And they came, I was like, "What's the matter?" There's a black lady on Star Trek, and she ain't no maid.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  There's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid. And she said, "I knew from that moment that I could become anything I wanted to be because you were there." And I said, "And you became Whoopi Goldberg, isn't that a blessing?"

• 29:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not only that, she's working on Star Trek before you even had the occasion to learn this about her.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Exactly, yes. She'd gone into, Gene told me this story.

• 29:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gene Roddenberry.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Gene Roddenberry, well, he wrote the story, actually, it was in one of the fan magazines. But he said, "When her agent called and said..."

• 29:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But this is after she already got the Academy Award for Ghost, so she's already a successful

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  film actress.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  I was a gasping fan, you know? Okay, I'm going, "She wants to meet me," you know? But Gene told me that her agent called and said, "Whoopi Goldberg wants to be in The Next Generation." And Gene said, "Are you kidding?" He said, "She's a big star, this is the little TV thing."

• 30:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is TV land, TV land.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  You know, she's got time to do that. And so the agent was so happy to be able, he said, "Thanks, Gene, thanks." He goes back and tell, "Well, you can do it because Gene said blah, blah, blah." And she said, "Go back and talk to Gene Roddenberry and ask him to tell me to my face." So the agent goes, "Oh, he's me." And he goes to tell Gene. Gene says, "Of course I'll meet with her, but the answer is still no." And he said, "Good, Gene, just explain it to her." Gene was a brilliant man, such depth in his thinking and his vision.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  But he met with her and she came in, now she later told me how nervous she was. But she came in and sat there and looked at him and he said, "I have only one question to ask you." And she said, "Yes." And he said, "You're a big star and you're a great comedian artist. Why would you want to be on the little screen on Star Trek?" And she said... It's all Nichelle Nichols' fault.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  When Gene told me that, I, I said, "What, what, what did I do?" And then he, she told him the story of her being nine years old. And when Gene heard that story, he said, "I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. I will create a role for you, under one condition. That you only come in and do it at your convenience when you are not working, because I refuse to take you away

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the rest of that.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, from the world.

• 32:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a wonderful pact, actually.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Isn't that beautiful?

• 32:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's beautiful.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  And that was such an honor, when I heard it. I just, when Gene told me, he called me and told me. And tears came, I mean, I was just crying.

• 32:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're like, you're like the matriarch of an entire generation of people, coming into that.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  I'm not that old yet.

• 32:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  But I'm going to buy the mantle.

• 32:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excuse me, okay.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  I'm, I wanna live to be a hundred and, between a hundred and twenty-five and fifty.

• 32:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  See, then I'll take, then I'll take on that auspicious mantle.

• 32:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When you just sit in the chair and people come up to you.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 32:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And pass you gifts.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  No, I'll be telling them where they can go and how far they can get, if they do the right thing. I think it's incumbent on us as human beings and part of this race on Earth is to add to the goodness that we've been given on this earth. I remember a business partner I had, who passed away unfortunately before his time. Jim Nihan, who was, before he retired and became partners with me. Corporate Vice President of Rockwell International, who built the space shuttle. And I met him during that point in time. He was one of the great songwriters.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  And this is a man of science, a scientist himself, who was pulled out of being a research scientist for Rockwell, because he happened to be a good organizer. They pulled him and put him in the front offices and kept.

• 33:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That happens.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, it does, it does. But when we met, both of our interests, separate from our business, brought us together. And we wrote space musicals that encouraged young people in the whole world. You know, everybody is something, when are you going to do your musical again? When are you going to do that? He produced most of my latest albums. But he said one day, and I said, you know, if we don't stop doing this, we're gonna blow this earth to kingdom come. And I said, we're going to lose everything. And he said, no, it won't destroy the earth. The earth's not going to be destroyed.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  We may destroy ourselves, but the earth will mend.

• 34:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And earth is earth. Been here billions of years.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  And whatever.

• 34:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Another billion years.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  Left another life form of... Well, he scared the hell out of me when he told me that.

• 34:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I feel that way because all the green movement says, save the earth.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Earth is gonna be here long after we are, I can tell you that.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like what they really mean to save us on earth. That's really what they mean.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Exactly. And he was a chemist and my father was a chemist.

• 34:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  You know, you meet people in your life, as I feel now, I've met you, Neil. And whether you like it or not, you're part of my life.

• 35:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  An important part. But I, I think that fine minds come together. Fine minds of a like kind come together and we're the salvation of America, of any other country, of this whole planet.

• 35:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The founding fathers, those fine minds coming together.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, fine minds coming together.

• 35:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right time at the right place.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Right time at the right place.

• 35:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  And what we decide and move, the foundations that we're doing, the work that you're doing, the ambition, the foolish ambition of a future that we have, dismisses all the negativities.

• 35:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is a hopeful vision. That is a hopeful vision.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  I think it's a positive and I think it's a real vision. It's a vision that will save the world because there are enough people out there who think like we think.

• 36:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So often, a mission dies with its creator.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or it gets forgotten.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It fades. None of the above has happened with Jean.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  As fandom says, never die.

• 36:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Never die. Now, Jean's on the moon right now. Where are you gonna be?

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Oh, I think Jean is beyond the moon.

• 36:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Didn't they put his ashes?

• 36:31Speaker 01

  He was born beyond the moon. His ashes are out there going glistening.

• 36:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Glistening, they're becoming new stars.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Calm, calm dreamers.

• 36:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if I remember correctly, they attached some of his ashes to a lunar craft.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  I hope to join him.

• 36:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can join him on the moon, looking down on Earth.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Or wherever out there, because out there is forever.

• 36:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep, yep.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  And if there's...

• 36:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if not forever, it's for billions of years.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Billions and billions and billions.

• 37:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been listening to my exclusive interview with Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols. Listen to us live on the web at StarTalkRadio.net, or download us as a podcast and listen to us while you're at the gym. Find us on iTunes, StarTalkRadio. Or you can send us a question on Facebook, find us at StarTalkRadio. Or you can even tweet us at what else but StarTalkRadio.

• 37:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more of my exclusive interview with Nichelle Nichols. Welcome back to StarTalkRadio. You've been listening to my exclusive interview with Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols. Let's rejoin that conversation. So Nichelle, I have to tell the radio audience that you've donned this morning a red jacket.

• 38:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, this is taboo for Star Trek people because we all know what happens to the people who wear red in a Star Trek episode.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  I think maybe that's why Uhura never got to get off the bridge.

• 38:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I guess she never did, did she?

• 38:22Speaker 01

  She was too smart.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  It's okay, you guys go. Take the guy in the red.

• 38:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So therefore you can wear red and be safe.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  You bet. Somebody's gotta take care of the ship and who better than Chief Communications Officer, Fourth in Command, Lieutenant of Hura.

• 38:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've got it all the way. I hear often people talk of science fiction as a unique genre because you can tell social, cultural stories that might be taboo for normal fiction or just kind of out of reach.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  When I was a kid, I wasn't a science fiction fan as such, but I knew that it existed. And I didn't think of, if I read something that was science fiction or fictional, I regarded it in its context as a piece of literature. I didn't know there were people that read science fiction devotedly, or that there were other people who thought they were all geeks or nuts. If I liked it, it was either good fiction and if I didn't like it...

• 39:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It happened to be scientific.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Exactly. That happened to be scientific. And I liked it in that context. It was good. I loved it. And there came a point in time, as a young girl, I'd see people on the elevated line or on a bus, reading a book, and in grossed in it, and it was wrapped in brown paper bags. Because if it was obvious that they were reading, I came to learn that it was obvious they were reading science fiction, they were treated in a certain kind of weird way, like you're really a geek, you know, like... And for the rest of my life, whenever I saw a brown paper, I'd say,

• 40:20Speaker 01

  "They're reading something that must be really, really good. It would always be science fiction."

• 40:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In secret.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Yes, in secret, like as though nobody knew, but nobody would then bother them, you know? But I thought, and again, I said that I had read what was, I came to understand as science fiction, but I read everything. I was a voracious reader. And it didn't matter to me whether it was Shakespeare or a love novel, if it had something really to say, or science fiction. If it impacted life as we know it and made you think, Lady Chatterley's lover, you know, makes you stop and think about the power of controlling people, not who they are, but

• 41:08Speaker 01

  what they're supposed to be in society, and how they respond and act to that. You can take that and set it in any setting, and you go all the way from early science fiction to Harry Potter. And it's interesting and it touches on how we think about life and our place in it. Now, there are people that get really, really, really, really interested, but they become fandom, you know?

• 41:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  And because there's something there that speaks to them. And so I always thought of it that way, not as a science fiction reader or a non-science fiction reader. But I think that science fiction, and especially Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, and that really loosened the minds of a lot of people. And you see a lot of science fictional television now, some of it's good, some of it's not so good, but it's imaginative. It takes you into another world, and it's still about a sense of morality, of who we are, who we choose to be, and who we choose not to be.

• 42:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would say Star Trek episodes at their best hit every one of those pistons.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 42:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When they were firing all together.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  And I think that's what touched amazingly so many people, and for the first time.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  You saw science fiction or anything else with males and females as equals of all colors.

• 42:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  And that was amazing.

• 42:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In positions of power and influence.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  Power, coming from every attitude, from, from a, a high level of understanding or compassion to the lowest.

• 42:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Didn't matter who you were, what color you were, or what planet you came from.

• 42:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they were complete characters, fleshed out.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Complete, complete.

• 43:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mind, body, emotion.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Exactly. And with each having a lesson at the end, that you could.

• 43:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Take home with you.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  You could take home with you, but you could breathe it in or not. Or you can laugh, and you could have fun, or you could go, "That was so cool." Or "That was so deep." Or "That was so me." That was me doing, that was me in that character.

• 43:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What you're saying is that if it's a good show, at the end, something's gonna come out of it, and you're gonna have to react to that in some way or another.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, a life's lesson.

• 43:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A life's.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  And how you accept it, and if you want to, you will be a better person for it.

• 43:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And too many shows, nothing comes out of it.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 43:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The hour's gone, and you, and you don't even remember why, what you did that hour.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Exactly, so what?

• 43:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah. It's like, you know, that's an hour I'm never getting back for the rest of my life.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  You, you hit the nail.

• 43:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everyone knows, but we gotta remind everybody that you had the first interracial kiss on television.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  I was part of the first interracial.

• 44:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sorry, yeah, it took two, I'm sorry. Let me clarify that.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  I didn't kiss Bill Shatner. Uh, Bill Shatner kissed me.

• 44:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kissed you.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  But actually, Uhura didn't, and, and Captain Kirk were forced to.

• 44:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I forgot about that, it was a forced.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Power kinetic.

• 44:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  With kinetic power.

• 44:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe that's the only way they could've gotten that one by.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  To entertain them. That was the only way, go get it back, man.

• 44:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, on Star Trek Radio, I only give you a non-interracial kiss.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  Mmm.

• 44:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Michelle, thanks for being on StarTalk Radio.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 44:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That about wraps up our show for the week. Thanks for listening. What you heard was my exclusive interview with actress Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura of Star Trek fame. You may be delighted to learn that we have an entire other hour of this interview soon to arrive in our StarTalk broadcast. This is Neil deGrasse Tyson, signing off for StarTalk. And as always, keep looking up.