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At a Glance…

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At first glance, it seems like things come very quickly and easily to Kimberly Elise. She met and married her husband within three months; she had their first child within a year of the marriage. She moved to Hollywood and two years later had a starring role in the film Set It Off; she landed an incredible role opposite Oprah Winfrey in Beloved; then moved on to John Q with Denzel Washington. But the road from Wayzata, Minnesota to Hollywood took a good deal of time.

“I always knew I wanted to be an actress,” Elise said in an Essence magazine article. “No one in my family acted but ever since I was little, it’s all I wanted to do.” She was the third child in her family of four children. The family lived in Minneapolis until she was nine. They then moved into the suburb of Wayzata where they were one of the first black families in the neighborhood.

Her suburban upbringing did little for her career. Elise remembered being excluded from parts in school plays because of her race, in spite of being in acting classes. “Everybody would say, ’Whose sister could Kim play?’” she explained in Essence. But that did not stop her from pursuing a career in movies. She told People Magazine that she had written her local newspaper in Minneapolis to inquire about steps to take for stardom. “I wrote a letter to the Fix-It column of the newspaper,” she said. “They told me all the steps to take.” Those steps included getting photos taken to present herself and hiring an agent to secure auditions. And as soon as she graduated high school, she followed the newspaper’s instructions. She landed a few commercial roles that paid her way through four years at the University of Minnesota as a liberal arts and communications major.

Elise planned to get back into acting after graduation but she took a small detour into family life. She told Essence that two weeks before graduation she met her husband, Maurice, at her father’s employment agency. “He was so striking and well-mannered,” Elise said. The two became inseparable after seeing each other at a party a few weeks later and married soon after. Within a year, Elise gave birth to the couple’s first child, AjaBleu. With trying to make family life and motherhood work, Elise placed her plans to be a star on hold for a few years. She performed in local plays and constructed a portfolio that featured a short film she directed and filmed in her loft. The piece earned her a spot at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. In 1994, the struggling family packed everything into a U-Haul, and moved to Los Angeles in support of Elise’s dreams.

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After graduating from the AFI program, the family got by on Elise’s guest-starring roles. Her determination to make it in Hollywood was tested during this time. Elise recalled pushing for speaking parts to make more money. She had earned a speaking role on LL Cool J’s In the House only to learn that her lines were being cut. “If my lines were cut, it would mean much less money,” she told Essence. “We needed every dime. So I went to the director, who was a Black woman, and I explained I had to pay my rent. I asked her to please leave my lines in. And she did.”

At a Glance…

Born in 1967; daughter of Marvin Trammel (executive search firm owner), and Erma Trammel (teacher); married Maurice Oldham, 1990; children: AjaBleu, 1991, JaelaRose, 1998; Education: University of Minnesota, Bachelors in Liberal Arts and Communications; Graduate of American Film Institute.

Career: Set It Off, 1996; The Ditch-Digger’s Daughters, 1997; Beloved, 1998; The Loretta Claiborne Story, 2000; Bojangles, 2001; John Q, 2002.

Awards: 19th Annual Cable Ace Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Movie or Mini Series, for The Ditch-Digger’s Daughters, 1997.

Elise ’s break came when she won the part of a single mother in Set It Off. The film also starred Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Vivica Fox. Elise also remembered the stark difference the movie would soon make in her life. “We were so poor. We had our one car, and it had been in an accident,” she told Essence. But they still drove the car to the set. “We would have to take home food from the set, but then we’d fly first-class to press junkets,” Elise told Essence.

Elise’s next role was a breakout performance in the Oprah Winfrey vehicle Beloved. The role literally defined her career. “It took my work from acting to being,” she explained in Essence. “Doing that film, I never thought about anything. I just trusted and allowed Denver to flow. It was a possession.” The story focused on the generation of African Americans just after slavery and the effect slavery had on them. Winfrey described Elise’s performance as an extension of her spirit. “Kimberly is an extraordinary human being because of her willingness always to show her grace.” Winfrey told Essence. “You see that grace in her work, in the attention she pays to it, how she makes everyone who works with her better.”

With the success that came her way after Beloved, Elise carefully charted her next steps in acting. “I always know right away whether or not something is for me,” she told Essence, “and I try never to go against that feeling.” Her feeling next led her to the Disney film, The Loretta Claiborne Story. The movie was based on Claiborne’s life and career as a champion athlete in spite of her mental limitations. Elise explained her role in an interview with Jet magazine, “I felt a big responsibility to Loretta Claiborne, to Special Olympics, and to people with mental retardation.”

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She summed up her dedication to acting in the Essence article. “It about our ancestry. It’s about spirits that are still broken and hurt,” Elise explained. “And what I know now is that my responsibility, part of the reason that the Creator gave me this assignment, is to help fulfill what wasn’t fulfilled before.

Elise’s next film will pair her with Denzel Washington in John Q. “In this film we get to see a Black man and woman who are working together,” she told Essence. “We don’t see that so much in Hollywood. And we see Denise, a wife and mother, holding her husband with one hand and her dying son with the other. She is the glue that keeps the family together, and that is the story of so many Black women.”

Sources

Entertainment Weekly, November 8, 1996, p. 48; June 26, 1998, p. 24.

Essence, January 2001, p. 40, p. 94.

Jet, January 17, 2000, p. 52.

People Weekly, October 26, 1998, p. 127; December 28, 1998 p. 114.

Variety, November 24, 1997, p. 48.

—Leslie Rochelle

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