Kim Darby | |
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 Darby as a guest-star on Marcus Welby, M.D. and Owen Marshall, Counsellor at Law in 1974 | |
| Born | Deborah Zerby July 8, 1947 Los Angeles, California |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1962–present |
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| Children | 1 |
Kim Darby (born Deborah Zerby; July 8, 1947) [1] is an American actress best known for her roles as Mattie Ross in True Grit (1969) and Jenny Meyer in Better Off Dead (1985).
Darby was born Deborah Zerby in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of professional dancers Inga (Wiere) and Jon Zerby (known professionally as the "Dancing Zerbys" or "Dancing Zerbies"). Her father nicknamed her "Derby", saying "I thought Derby Zerby would be a great stage name". [2] Her mother was from Budapest. [3]
She performed as a singer and dancer under the name "Derby Zerby". [4] Believing that she could not "hope for serious important roles in films with a name like "Derby Zerby", she renamed herself "Kim", because it was the name of a popular girl in her high school whom she admired, and "Darby", as a variation of "Derby". [5]
Darby began acting at age 15; her first appearance was as a dancer in the feature film version of the earlier New York City's Broadway theater musicale play Bye Bye Birdie (1963), about a budding rock and roll music phenomenon singing and guitar-playing star, (modeled on the real-life career of famous Elvis Presley (1939-1977), beginning seven years before in 1956, when he gained national fame). Her television work included, the two-decades long-running Western TV series Gunsmoke of 1955-1975, (in the 1967 episodes "The Lure" and "Vengeance"); also another long-running Western, a Sunday evening prime-time staple of Bonanza of 1959-1973, (in its 1967 episode "The Sure Thing"); and as a young girl approaching adulthood on an all-child planet in the 1966-67 first-season episode of "Miri" of the original Star Trek TV series of 1966-1969. [6]
Among her many feature films is the one that she is most famous for in American and Hollywood motion pictures history, is that of co-starring with legendary John Wayne and Glen Campbell, in the Western classic True Grit (first version of 1969), in which she played "Mattie Ross", a precocious, unusually confident 14-year-old Arkansas frontier girl (when she was actually 21 years old), pursuing the murderer who killed her beloved father and his gang into the adjacent lawless frontier of the federal Indian Territory (future Oklahoma), in the mid-1870s. It was based on a popular Western novel, published in 1968, by author Charles Portis (1933-2020), The story saga was later remade as a second film, over 40 years later in 2010, with a slightly varied plot and twist on the epic, starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and introducing little Hailee Steinfeld as young Mattie Ross, (in her film debut).
Later the next year, in the beginning of her second and most successful career decade of the 1970s in The Strawberry Statement (1970); [7] and Norwood (also 1970); then eight years later in The One and Only (1978); [8] followed by Better Off Dead (1985); and a decade later with Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995). [6]
Darby's 1960s television roles included two appearances on the NBC series Mr. Novak , starring James Franciscus, including an appearance as Julie Dean in "To Lodge and Dislodge" (1963). She was cast as Heather Heatherton in the Wagon Train episode "The Story of Hector Heatherton" (1964) and as Judy Wheeler in "The Silent Dissuaders" (1965).
Darby also appeared about this time on The Eleventh Hour , The Fugitive , The Donna Reed Show , Ironside , and in the first season of Star Trek as the title character in "Miri." [6]
Darby was cast in an episode of the NBC sitcom The John Forsythe Show ("'Tis Better Have Loved and Lost", 1965), and as Angel in the two-part Gunsmoke episode "Vengeance." She appeared in the episode "Faire Ladies of France" (1967) of the NBC western series The Road West starring Barry Sullivan and a Bonanza episode "A Sure Thing" (1967) as Trudy Loughlin, guest starring Tom Tully as Burt Loughlin, her father. [6] She appeared in another episode of Gunsmoke, "The Lure" (1967) as Carrie Neely.
She was cast in the 1972 movie, The People , which reunited her with William Shatner from her Star Trek appearance. [9] She played the unhinged Virginia Calderwood in the first television miniseries, Rich Man, Poor Man in 1976. [6]
Darby had the central role of Sally Farnham in the made-for-TV chiller Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973). Some of her subsequent television roles included guest appearances on Crazy Like a Fox , Thriller , Family , The Love Boat , The Streets of San Francisco , Riptide , and Becker . [6]
Darby admitted her career declined after the 1970s, in part because she had a dependency on amphetamines. [10]
In 1990, she began to teach acting in the Los Angeles area and was an instructor in the extension program at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1992 to 2009. [11] Darby also appeared in the 1999 The X-Files episode "Sein und Zeit" as a woman who confessed to the murder of her son, a boy who disappeared under circumstances similar to those being investigated by the lead characters, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. [6]
In 2014, she played Stacia Clairborne, a partially blind witness to a crime, in the episode "Prologue" of the show Perception .
Darby has been married four times, including to Jack La Rue, Jr. and William Tennant.[ citation needed ] In 1968, she married James Stacy, with whom she had one child, Heather Elias, born in 1968. [8] Their marriage ended in divorce in 1969. [12] [13] In 1970, she married James Westmoreland; the marriage ended in divorce after less than two months. [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19]
True Grit is a 1969 American Western film directed by Henry Hathaway, starring John Wayne as U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn, Glen Campbell as La Boeuf and Kim Darby as Mattie Ross. It is the first film adaptation of Charles Portis' 1968 novel of the same name. The screenplay was written by Marguerite Roberts. Wayne won an Oscar for his performance in the film and reprised his character for the 1975 sequel Rooster Cogburn.
Michael J. Pollard was an American character actor. With his distinctive bulbous nose, dimpled chin and smirk, he gained a cult following, usually portraying quirky, off-beat, simplistic but likeable supporting characters. He was best known for his role as C.W. Moss, in the film Bonnie and Clyde (1967), which earned him critical acclaim along with nominations for an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. Other notable appearances include The Wild Angels (1966), Hannibal Brooks (1969), Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970), Dirty Little Billy (1972), Roxanne (1987), American Gothic (1988), and Tango & Cash (1989).
Strother Douglas Martin Jr. was an American character actor who often appeared in support of John Wayne and Paul Newman and in Western films directed by John Ford and Sam Peckinpah.
France Nuyen is a French-American actress, model, and psychological counselor. She is known to film audiences for playing romantic leads in South Pacific (1958), Satan Never Sleeps (1962), and A Girl Named Tamiko, and for playing Ying-Ying St. Clair in The Joy Luck Club (1993). She also originated the title role in the Broadway play The World of Suzie Wong, based on the novel of the same name. She is a Theatre World Award winner and Golden Globe Award nominee.
"Miri" is the eighth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Written by Adrian Spies and directed by Vincent McEveety, it first aired on October 27, 1966.
Madlyn Soloman Rhue, was an American film and television actress.
Louis Antonio is an American actor and TV director best known for performing in the films Cool Hand Luke and America America. He also starred in two short-lived TV series, Dog and Cat, and Makin' It.
William Windom was an American actor. He was known as a character actor of the stage and screen. He is well known for his recurring role as Dr. Seth Hazlitt alongside Angela Lansbury in the CBS mystery series Murder, She Wrote and his intense guest role as Commodore Matt Decker in Star Trek: The Original Series.
Anthony Jared Zerbe is an American actor. His notable film roles include the post-apocalyptic cult leader Matthias in The Omega Man, a 1971 film adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel, I Am Legend; as an Irish Catholic coal miner and one of the Molly Maguires in the 1970 film The Molly Maguires; as a corrupt gambler in Farewell, My Lovely; as the leper colony chief Toussaint in the 1973 historical drama prison film Papillon; as Abner Devereaux in Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park; as villain Milton Krest in the James Bond film Licence to Kill; Rosie in The Turning Point; Roger Stuart in The Dead Zone; Admiral Dougherty in Star Trek: Insurrection; and Councillor Hamann in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.
Brooke Bundy is an American film and television actress.
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Maurice William Elias, known professionally as James Stacy, was an American film and television actor who starred in the late 1960s TV western Lancer.
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True Grit is a 1968 novel by Charles Portis that was first published as a 1968 serial within The Saturday Evening Post. The novel is told from the perspective of an elderly spinster named Mattie Ross, who recounts the time a half century earlier when she was 14 and sought retribution for the murder of her father by a scoundrel, Tom Chaney. It is considered by some critics to be "one of the great American novels." True Grit is included in the Library of America of Portis' Collected Works.
Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn is a fictional character who first appeared in the 1968 Charles Portis novel True Grit.
The People is a 1972 science fiction TV movie, broadcast as an ABC Movie of the Week on January 22, 1972. It is primarily based on "Pottage", a novella by Zenna Henderson, with elements of Henderson's stories "Araret", "Gilead" and "Captivity." It stars Kim Darby, William Shatner, Diane Varsi, Laurie Walters, and Dan O'Herlihy. Darby and Shatner had previously appeared together in the Star Trek episode "Miri."
True Grit is a 2010 American Western film directed, written, produced, and edited by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. It is an adaptation of Charles Portis's 1968 novel. Starring Jeff Bridges as Deputy U.S. Marshal Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn and with Hailee Steinfeld in her theatrical film debut as Mattie Ross, the film also stars Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Barry Pepper. In the film, fourteen-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross hires boozy, trigger-happy lawman Cogburn to go after outlaw Tom Chaney, who murdered her father.
Sandra Smith is a retired American television actress.
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