The first interracial kiss on television is a much debated topic concerning who the first two persons of different races to kiss on television were. For a time, it was understood to have occurred during an episode of the British soap opera Emergency – Ward 10 in 1964. However, in November 2015, a Granada Play of the Week, You in Your Small Corner, was uncovered which was broadcast in June 1962; that quickly led to the rediscovery of another play featuring the same young Jamaican actor, Hot Summer Night, televised in Britain on 1 February 1959. The first interracial kiss on U.S. television was broadcast in a 1960 episode of Adventures In Paradise, 'Makaha Surfing', also known as 'The Big Surf', between star Gardner McKay and Filipina Pilar Seurat. Competing claims have also been made in favour of I Love Lucy.
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I Love Lucy
The 1950s American television programme I Love Lucy broadcast multiple instances of real-life husband and wife Desi Arnaz, a Hispanic male, and Lucille Ball, a woman of North European ancestry, kissing. However, despite Arnaz and Ball being frequently described as an "interracial couple," "Hispanic" is generally understood to be a catchall indicating persons of a Latin American or Iberian cultural background, as opposed to a race. Arnaz was usually considered to be a white male of Cuban ancestry.
I Spy
A January 5th, 1966 episode of I Spy titled "The Tiger" featured a scripted interracial kiss between Eurasian actress France Nuyen and Robert Culp almost two years before "Plato's Stepchildren."
Movin' with Nancy
A December 1967 episode of Movin' with Nancy featured a kiss between Nancy Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr., more than a year before the Star Trek episode "Plato's Stepchildren" aired.
Star Trek
A 1968 episode of Star Trek, "Plato's Stepchildren", which first aired on November 22, 1968, is often referred to as the first interracial kiss on American television. This claim is disputed by some who contend that in the scene in question, full lip contact between William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols did not occur, as the actors turned their heads away from the camera at the last moment to present the illusion of a kiss, meaning that this scene was not a true kiss. The latter point has been disputed, with Shatner claiming that he and Nichols' lips never fully touched and Nichols asserting that the kiss was real.
It is often ignored that "Mirror, Mirror," which originally aired on October 6, 1967, featured a scripted interracial kiss between Eurasian actress Barbara Luna, and the aforementioned William Shatner a year prior.
You in Your Small Corner and Hot Summer Night
In June 1962, a live performance of the play You in Your Small Corner by Barry Reckord was broadcast on British television as part of the series Granada Play of the Week. The central theme of the play is a relationship between a young black intellectual and a white working class girl. During the play, a kiss takes place between actors Lloyd Reckord and Elizabeth MacLennan, and what has been described as an "explicit post-coital scene".
You In Your Small Corner was rediscovered during preparations for a November 2015 British Film Institute panel discussion on "Race and Romance on TV" and was used in publicity for the event. As a result, panel moderator Samira Ahmed was able, on the night, to announce the rediscovery of an even earlier TV kiss by Lloyd Reckord, with Andrée Melly, in the ITV Armchair Theatre adaptation of Ted Willis's play Hot Summer Night, broadcast on 1 February 1959.
Emergency Ward 10
One of the earliest interracial kisses on television occurred in a July 1964 episode of British soap opera Emergency Ward 10, during which characters Louise Mahler (portrayed by Joan Hooley) and Giles Farmer (portrayed by John White) kissed. The scene in which Mahler and Farmer kissed was originally scripted to occur in Mahler's bedroom, but was rewritten so as to occur outdoors, due to concerns it would otherwise be too risqué (the earlier Lloyd Reckord plays had both been shown well after the 9pm adult-content watershed). According to an issue of the Daily Express published after the episode aired, "not a viewer rang-up to complain". In a 2015 interview, conducted prior to the discovery of the You in Your Small Corner footage, Hooley noted that the historic importance of what had been known as the "first interracial kiss on television" had been inflated in popular memory:
A lot of people spoke about it more ten years later than they did at the time it was happening. So, it was much later that it occurred to me that I was part of history. I find it odd to have to admit that I was part of history because I don't see why there should be anything to do about it. I don't think there should have been all this fuss about it.