Star Trek: The Original Series premiered in 1966 and ran for three seasons. The series is widely known for its boundary-pushing storytelling with several aspects considered ahead of its time, including a diverse main cast, led by William Shatner.
For most fans, it is also considered one of the earliest instances of an on-screen kiss between two actors from different ethnic backgrounds, with William Shatner’s Captain Kirk sharing a kiss with Nichelle Nichols’ Uhura.
Despite the common belief, Star Trek wasn’t the first TV series to showcase a kissing scene between actors from different races, especially during the 1960s when kissing on TV itself was considered taboo. Here is everything you need to know about the actual first interracial kiss on TV.
Star Trek most likely did not have the first interracial kiss on American TV
The Star Trek episode, titled Plato’s Stepchildren, premiered in 1968 and is best remembered for the kissing scene between William Shatner‘s Captain James T. Kirk and Nichelle Nichols‘ Uhura. The kissing scene was notable because it was widely considered the first interracial kiss on TV.
However, contrary to popular belief, Star Trek did not have the first interracial kissing scene. Instead, that feat was achieved by one of the most popular sitcoms of all time, more than a decade before. In I Love Lucy, real-life husband and wife Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball played a couple.
Arnaz was of Cuban ancestry, while Ball was of European ancestry. The series featured several instances of kissing between the two actors, who were viewed as white at the time but have since been seen as one of the first interracial couples on American television. Therefore, it can be argued that I Love Lucy, which aired from 1951 to 1957, had the first interracial kiss on TV (via The Guardian).
William Shatner’s kiss with Nichelle Nichols also wasn’t the first interracial kiss in Star Trek
While Shatner’s kiss with Nichols is arguably one of the most talked about kissing scenes from the original series, it was preceded by a similar scene the Captain James T. Kirk actor shared with another actress.
Almost a year before the premiere of Plato’s Stepchildren, Shatner shared a kissing scene with actress Barbara Luna in the Star Trek episode, titled Mirror, Mirror. In the series, Luna played Lt. Marlena Moreau, and she is of Eurasian descent. As a result, her kiss with Shatner can be considered the first interracial kissing scene in the sci-fi series.
Furthermore, this also wasn’t Shatner’s first on-screen interracial kiss. The actor appeared in a November 1958 episode of The Ed Sullivan Show alongside actress France Nuyen, who was of French-Asian ancestry. Therefore, the kiss Shatner and Nuyen shared in the episode was the former’s first interracial kissing scene on TV.
Ultimately, Kirk and Uhura’s kiss was definitively not the first interracial kiss on American TV. However, that does not make it any less notable since it was the first kiss between a white actor and an African-American actress. Hence, Star Trek was still somewhat ahead of its time with the taboo topic.
Star Trek shows and movies are streaming on Paramount+.
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