Uhura (Nichelle Nichols)

[Dave]

"Open hailing frequencies" Uhura.

Uhura.

Remakably little is established about Uhura's background, she doesn't even have a first name, unless it was "open hailing frequencies".

Communications officer on the U.S.S. Enterprise she rises in rank to Commander in the movies. She was born in 2239, in the United States of Africa according to the animated series episode 'Counter Clock Incident'. She is Bantu and speaks Swahili fluently. Uhura means "freedom" in Swahili. She is also a talented musician, singer and dancer, performs often in the recreation roon to entertain others and has played duets with Spock. She loves animals. Her memory was wiped clean in 2267 requiring her to be re-educated. Following the re-assignment of the Enterprise to Starfleet Academy in 2284, Uhura served at Starfleet Command on Earth.

She has very little to say, apart from some form of the phrase "hailing frequencies open". This she says with enormous regularity:

Five times in 'The Corbomite Maneuver'.
Once in 'Tomorrow is yesterday'.
Once in 'A Taste of Armagedon'.
Once in 'The Trouble with Tribbles'.
Once in 'The Enterprise Incident'.
Twice in 'Elaan of Troyius'.

 

[Dave]

PS. Uhura's name.

Although its not canonical many books give her name as Nyota Uhura.

 

[Neo]

I just used to sit back and wait for her to say ' hailing frequencies open captain'.... every episode i waited

 

[Dave]

Uhura does get some better scenes in the Movies though.......

In 'Search for Spock' when she locks "Mr. Adventure" in the closet.

In 'The Voyage Home' when she is with Chekov looking for the "Nu... clear... Wessels".

 

[Neo]

Originally posted by Dave
Uhura does get some better scenes in the Movies though.......

In 'Search for Spock' when she locks "Mr. Adventure" in the closet.

In 'The Voyage Home' when she is with Chekov looking for the "Nu... clear... Wessels".

Thats very true...... Loved it when she put that dork in the cupboard..... LOL... his face was a picture

 

[Dave]

She was last seen in ST:VI 'The Undiscovered Country'. She was to chair a seminar at Starfleet Academy.

 

[Neo]

Nichols Tells The Story Behind 'The Kiss'

Star Trek will forever be remembered as the series with the first interracial kiss, but according to actress Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), the lip-lock almost didn't make it to the screen.

"In 'Plato's Stepchildren,' Uhura and Kirk were supposed to kiss under duress from their captors," Nichols told TechTV. "It became an issue with the director and Gene Roddenberry finally decided to shoot the scene with and without the kiss."

As it turned out, William Shatner (James T. Kirk) had other plans. "Bill Shatner kept kissing until there was only time for one more take. When the camera zoomed in, Bill crossed his eyes and the director didn't notice it until the next day in dailies. Of course the last scene was unusable and they had to go with the kiss scene, which became history as the first interracial kiss on TV."

Another memorable moment occurred quite by accident during the filming of 'Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,' when James Doohan (Montgomery Scott) fell off the Klingon Bird of Prey into San Francisco Bay.

"All the actors in the live scene thought it was a joke and jumped in after him," Nichols recalled. "[Leonard] Nimoy, who was directing the film, was flabbergasted but quickly jumped in with them and screamed at the camera crew, 'Keep shooting - keep shooting!' It turned out to be a keeper and one of the best shots in the movie."

 

[Dave]

Fascinating!

 

[Highlander II]

isn't it interesting how some of the best scenes in tv/film history are complete accidents?

the best laid plans.... aren't always the best shots!