Before there was Diahann Carroll’s “Julia” in the ground- breaking ’60s television series, there was Uhura.
Before Pam Grier ever stepped into hip-high boots and kicked tail as Coffy and later Foxy Brown in “blaxploitation” flicks, there was the poised, fierce Uhura of the Starship Enterprise and “its five-year mission.” And Uhura simmered with as much heat without ever donning strumpet couture.
And, yes, decades before there was a guy named Obama running for prez of the United States of America, there was communications officer Lt. Uhura, who came to the Federation from a place called the United States of Africa.
Uhura’s name (like Obama’s) has its roots in Swahili.
It’s a softening of that tongue’s word for freedom — “uhuru” — Nichelle Nichols reminded her listener on the phone from her California home a few days ago.
Today, the 65-year-old portrayer of one of popular culture’s most abiding characters is in Denver to attend Starfest. The fantasy-comic-horror confab at the Denver Marriott Tech Center (starland.com) attracts as many as 10,000 fans over its three-day run, which began Friday.
Back in the ’60s, before production started on the landmark series, Nichols and “Star Trek” visionary Gene Roddenberry were fleshing out her character. Three years earlier, Roddenberry had given the singer-dancer a role on another series.
At the time, recalled Nichols, everyone was walking around with novelist Robert Ruark’s 1962 tome “Uhuru,” set in Kenya. “No one had actually finished it,” she said with a laugh, “but I’d made it pretty far.”
The two liked the book’s title, liked its culturally resonant meaning, but Roddenberry felt it sounded too harsh for her character’s name.
“Why not make it Uhura?” Nichols suggested.
Roddenberry smiled. “You’ve just named yourself,” he said. And anyone schooled by “Roots’ ” Kunta Kinte knows how deep the act of naming can go.
There is something in the enduring legacy of the original “Star Trek” that says much about the call and response between the popular imagination and our real lives. There are reasons artists and audiences argue for the necessity of images beyond the usual suspects.
The unusual suspects — treated so matter-of-factly yet awesomely in “Star Trek” — can create breathing room for future generations. Even if that future takes place two centuries before the Enterprise ever lifted off.
Part of fans’ identities
“The classic ‘Star Trek’ guests are still our biggest draws,” says Starfest co- founder Stephen Walker, 49. “I think it became a part of their lives, their identities, especially people my age. I defined my formative years by the program. For people like me it was a daily ritual in the ’70s (when it was in reruns).
“It was part of the way I look at life and the world.”
You don’t have to consider yourself a “Trekker” to have been shaped by that rainbow coalition hurtling through space in the 23rd century. But if you did call yourself a fan, you’d be in astonishing company.
Nichols holds fast to the memory of one fan she was particularly touched by. His confession of adoration couldn’t have come at a more opportune time.
After the first season of “Star Trek,” Nichols was ready — itching, really — to pursue her first love: “musical theater,” she said with a sultry flourish.
And so she went to Roddenberry’s office to resign her post. He was flabbergasted, wounded.
“Don’t you know what I’m trying to do here?” he asked his cast member (and, as her 1994 memoir revealed, one- time lover).
It was Friday. He took her letter and put it in his desk. He’d respect her wishes if she felt the same come Monday.
“That Saturday, I attended a fundraiser, for the NAACP, I think,” said Nichols. While on the dais, an organizer approached her. ‘Miss Nichols, there’s someone who would like to meet you very much. He says he’s a great fan of yours.’ ” she recalled him saying, adding, “That part I remember perfectly.
“I stood up and turned and there’s Dr. Martin Luther King. I was absolutely dumbfounded. Just the vision of ‘fan’ and ‘King’ was so . . . I couldn’t put it together.”
Upon learning his and his children’s favorite Starfleet officer was considering early retirement, King suggested otherwise. In no uncertain terms.
This story serves as a reminder not only that popular culture can, should, matter, but also that Nichols herself (truly, like all of us) is evidence of this nation’s ongoing transformation.
Warp speed it wasn’t, yet something remarkable took Nichols from Robbins, Ill., to Chicago’s South Side to the bridge of the Enterprise. Along the way she even sang with Duke Ellington, a great in any galaxy.
Reminded of her musical history, the listener recounted a too-oft-referenced episode. “It’s the one where you sing. …”
And then it happens. First, Nichols hums bars of the melody. Then she begins in a lilting soprano to sing the words she sang to poor Lt. Riley.
“The sky is green and glowing
“Where my heart is
“Where my heart is
“Where … the scented lunar flower is blooming
“Somewhere, beyond the stars
“Beyond Antares.”
Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com. Also on blogs.denverpostcom/ madmoviegoer.
Starfest 2008 ends today at the Denver Marriott Tech Center, 4900 S. Syracuse St. For more information, go to starland.com.
