First inter-racial kiss on US Network TV

[Arkcon]

The first inter-racial kiss on US Network TV, when was it, and on what show?

Duh, Arkcon. It was on Plato’s Stepchildren, on Star Trek, everyone knows that.

I’ll agree its surely implied, and may have been controversial at that time. But … Uhura and Kirk don’t really kiss, he pulls her head back, and we see the back of his head. I think that’s cheating, taking credit for something that may not have happened. They may have separated heads and blown raspberries at each other, if you needed to believe that to maintain your world view, you could.

So … no pseudo, implied kissing. On screen, lip-lock, more or less mutual profile. And lit so you can tell its not the understudy. Mix any two races as you define it. The US, because I know the rest of the world is more tolerant for everything. Network TV. What show, what year.

[Suburban_Plankton]

OK, let’s set the bar.

February 19, 1972 - All in the Family. Not only is it interracial, it’s guy on guy

[Mahaloth]

This website says it was before the Star Trek episode, between Sammy Davis Jr. and Nancy Sinatra, however it was not a romantic kiss.

On December 11, 1967, several months before “Plato’s Stepchildren,” Nancy Sinatra starred in a TV special called “Movin’ with Nancy.” The special was directed by Jack Haley, Jr. and showcased Nancy traveling around, i.e. driving a car, strolling along the California countryside, riding in a hot-air balloon, and singing different songs. Her dad, Frank Sinatra, makes a guest appearance near the end and sings “Younger Than Springtime.” Nancy’s god-uncle Dean Martin also makes an appearance, singing a duet with Nancy (“Things”) and a solo (“Just Bummin’ Around”). But it is in the second half of “Movin’ with Nancy” that television history was made.

In this segment, Sammy Davis, Jr. joins Nancy, playing a photographer who snaps various photos of her as she sings “What’d I Say.” Sammy dances around, mugs for the camera, and clicks away. Then, at the end of the bit, Sammy gives Nancy a quick little kiss on the cheek. There is nothing sexual about the kiss; it is obviously a kiss of great affection, the affection of two close friends (which they were).

[Find_Friends]

@Arkcon

The first inter-racial kiss on US Network TV, when was it, and on what show?
…I’ll agree its surely implied, and may have been controversial at that time. But … Uhura and Kirk don’t really kiss, he pulls her head back, and we see the back of his head. I think that’s cheating, taking credit for something that may not have happened. They may have separated heads and blown raspberries at each other, if you needed to believe that to maintain your world view, you could.
…

Oh, come on! Even if Kirk didn’t actually kiss her even a little bit, he’s surely going to tell all his budiies he did!

---

Getting serious, now, would it have made much diffference back then? It was quite a different world and the thought that two separate species* ***might be ***kissing was too upsetting to contemplate in many minds. (I use the term loosely.) It wouldn’t matter whether it only looked like actual contact, any more than that they both fought against the forced situation.

• “Separate species” … as some “think” even today!

[Jonathan_Chance]

@Suburban_Plankton

OK, let’s set the bar.

February 19, 1972 - All in the Family. Not only is it interracial, it’s guy on guy

You know, that’s awesome.

But the kiss isn’t the part that made me laugh.

It’s the part early on where Archie is introducing Sammy to the family et all. Edith, Gloria, Mike and Lionel Jefferson.

Archie says, “And this is my daughter Gloria and her husband.” And Sammy grabs Lionel’s hand and says ‘Pleased to meet you’ as if Lionel were Gloria’s husband. That’s a great bit and Sammy sells it perfectly.

[Kent_Clark]

I’m guessing you probably don’t count Lucy and Desi as “interracial” although some people back then certainly did. Richard Boone unambiguously kissed a half-Cherokee woman in the 1950’s western *Have Gun Will Travel *but Native Americans were sort of racially ambiguous in westerns, good stand-ins when you wanted to tell a story about prejudice but given the number of white actors with swarthy makeup not necessarily a different race.

In terms of black/white, I was thinking it might be the Patty Duke TV movie My Sweet Charlie from about 1970, but AFAICT there were no on-screen romantic clinches in that one. Come to think of it, I don’t actually remember the interracial couple (the Willises) on The Jeffersons ever kissing on-screen.

There was a genuine interracial romance (and extra-marital, to boot!) between Elizabeth Montgomery and O.J. Simpson :eek::eek::eek: in 1977’s A Killing Affair.

But I’ll bet the first interracial network kiss on TV was on a daytime soap opera somewhere. Whatever the topic – adultery, drugs, you name it – it was always done first on a soap opera.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

Didn’t Shatner claim he didn’t quite kiss Nichols… and Nichols insists he did?

[Miller]

@Amateur_Barbarian

Didn’t Shatner claim he didn’t quite kiss Nichols… and Nichols insists he did?

Nichols on the kiss:

'Knowing that Gene was determined to air the real kiss, Bill shook me and hissed menacingly in his best ham-fisted Kirkian staccato delivery, "I! WON'T! KISS! YOU! I! WON'T! KISS! YOU!"

It was absolutely awful, and we were hysterical and ecstatic. The director was beside himself, and still determined to get the kissless shot. So we did it again, and it seemed to be fine. "Cut! Print! That's a wrap!"

The next day they screened the dailies, and although I rarely attended them, I couldn't miss this one. Everyone watched as Kirk and Uhura kissed and kissed and kissed. And I'd like to set the record straight: Although Kirk and Uhura fought it, they did kiss in every single scene. When the non-kissing scene came on, everyone in the room cracked up. The last shot, which looked okay on the set, actually had Bill wildly crossing his eyes. It was so corny and just plain bad it was unusable. The only alternative was to cut out the scene altogether, but that was impossible to do without ruining the entire episode. Finally, the guys in charge relented: "To hell with it. Let's go with the kiss." I guess they figured we were going to be cancelled in a few months anyway. And so the kiss stayed.

From wikipedia.

[Bryan_Ekers]

Heck, arguably that wasn’t even the first inter-racial kiss on that show - Elaan of Troyius features Kirk getting smoochy with a character played by the half-Vietnamese France Nuyen. Although it aired a month after Plato’s Stepchildren, it has an earlier production number.

[OtisCampbellWasRight]

If memory serves, and mine has been known to be defective at times, Dianne Cannone had a kiss scene on her ground-breaking show “Julia” years before the STTOS episode.

And just to show you how far we’ve come in my lifetime, I can remember the uproar caused when Petula Clarke affectionately touched Harry Belafontes arm as they were singing a duet on some 1960’s variety show.

[Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew]

@OtisCampbellWasRight

If memory serves, and mine has been known to be defective at times, Dianne Cannone had a kiss scene on her ground-breaking show “Julia” years before the STTOS episode.

You mean Diahann Carroll, and Julia wasn’t on years before Star Trek–it debuted only two months before the Trek episode in question.

[bup]

@Amateur_Barbarian

Didn’t Shatner claim he didn’t quite kiss Nichols… and Nichols insists he did?

I’ve never heard Shatner deny it. And, my memory may be faulty, but I thought I had heard Shatner tell the story about crossing his eyes so they couldn’t use the non-kiss shot.

[OtisCampbellWasRight]

@Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew

You mean Diahann Carroll, and Julia wasn’t on years before Star Trek–it debuted only two months before the Trek episode in question.

See, I told you my memory was unreliable! And that was a bunch of years ago.

But thanks for clarifying all the same.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

From the same wiki page as the above cite:

Also, William Shatner recalls in Star Trek Memories that NBC insisted their lips never touch (the technique of turning their heads away from the camera was used to conceal this). However, Nichelle Nichols insists in her autobiography Beyond Uhura (written in 1994 after Shatner’s book) that the kiss was real, even in takes where her head obscures their lips.

I went to find this in my copy of STM but it’s not indexed and none of the TOC heads are particularly useful. I think Shat still maintains the kiss was “faked” but we all have a good sense of his take on reality.[URL=“Plato's Stepchildren - Wikipedia”]

[AncientHumanoid]

Kiss it may have been, but it wasn’t “romantic.” They* were forced into it.

Oh, my!

*the characters

[bup]

@Wikipedia

Also, William Shatner recalls in Star Trek Memories that NBC insisted their lips never touch (the technique of turning their heads away from the camera was used to conceal this). However, Nichelle Nichols insists in her autobiography Beyond Uhura (written in 1994 after Shatner’s book) that the kiss was real, even in takes where her head obscures their lips.

Maybe you consider this a nitpick, or something, but saying NBC insisted their lips never touch is not the same thing as denying it.

Just a couple of paragraphs later,

@Wikipedia

NBC finally ordered that two versions of the scene be shot—one where Kirk and Uhura kissed and one where they did not.[8] Having successfully recorded the former version of the scene, Shatner and Nichelle Nichols deliberately flubbed every take of the latter version, thus forcing the episode to go out with the kiss intact.

[E-DUB]

Dan Ackroyd kissed Garret Morris on SNL. I know it wasn’t first but I thought it worth mentioning as it was full-on and Ackroyd was playing Jimmy Carter and Morris was in drag.

[Johnny_L.A]

Then, at the end of the bit, Sammy gives Nancy a quick little kiss on the cheek. There is nothing sexual about the kiss; it is obviously a kiss of great affection, the affection of two close friends (which they were).

That doesn’t count. It was a kiss; not a kiss. In the context of the question, I think that a kiss needs to be a reciprocal action. i.e., both parties are kissing; not just one.

[notfrommensa]

Definitely not a lip lock or romantic in anyway, but notable because of the place and era.

Ben Walton (The Waltons) kissed Verdie Grant (fellow resident on Walton’s Mountain) in a episode. It was just a peck on the cheek, but could have scandalous in the Depression era, in Appalachia.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

@bup

Maybe you consider this a nitpick, or something, but saying NBC insisted their lips never touch is not the same thing as denying it.

The NN quote was already posted above and I think the consensus is that Shat lips did touch Nichols lips multiple times.

But I read Shatner’s paragraph in confirmation of other comments he’s made, that they never actually touched lips; that the kiss was, in the end, faked.

Big Bill is known to be self-servingly delusional, so.