Early in Kim Coles’ career, she was given advice from the founder of Comic Strip Live, the New York City comedy club where Eddie Murphy became a star. He told her she needed to do one of two things:
“‘[He said] you either need to lose 40 pounds and become like a babe and that will get you in. Or, you need to gain 40 pounds.’ And he told me to become the next Nell Carter,” she told me on “Renaissance Man.”
She took the first path.
“I went on a quest, dropped a lot of weight really quickly and unhealthily,” she said. “The way I did it was not right. But it got me noticed … I was one of a kind. I was a female comic who didn’t do self-deprecating material and didn’t really talk bad about men … I didn’t dog out others and I didn’t talk bad about myself, so I got noticed very quickly.”
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Kim, who is starring in Bounce TV’s “Finding Happy” and in the “Surreal Life” reboot, clearly did leave a unique mark. She was briefly on “In Living Color,” which she said “wasn’t an easy place to work. You know, if your last name wasn’t Wayans or whatever. There’s a whole lot of politics that were there.”
But, as she noted, she was grateful it worked out the way it did because she left and landed the role of Synclaire in the breakthrough comedy “Living Single.”
“You’ll hear stories of sitcom folks in particular that become so beloved for the character and that, yes, you want to move and do other things. Yes, you want to grow. But there’s not one of us that doesn’t embrace someone who embraces us because of that show,” she said adding that her favorite episode was when she dressed up as a man to get into a theater group.
“And it’s hilarious because by the time they put a wig on me and I asked for sideburns, I look like Sinbad‘s brother,” she said.
She is forever tied to Synclaire, and oddly enough, her character wasn’t so far from Kim’s real persona which is upbeat, sunny and very kind.
Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s, she loved Carol Burnett and Flip Wilson and they made her want to make people laugh. She said she started using humor to connect with others, especially while attending elite public school Brooklyn Tech, where she was class president all four years. The school “was very racially diverse. A lot of Caribbean immigrant children went there … Asian immigrant kids. You had Italian and Greek and, you know, just quite a mix,” she said.
“The common denominator was, ‘I’ll make you laugh, I’m crazy Kim Coles.’ And so race became for me, from my point of view, a non-issue. We were all there to learn … So I was never … a black girl or … as a black woman, you know, dancing for somebody to make them like me,” she said, adding she had another objective.
“I was busy trying to keep them from teasing me for being fat,” she quipped.
Obviously, Kim has a gift to disarm everyone with humor. And she’s just so sincere and genuine in her approach.
“I realized from a little bit of therapy, I’ve been accused of using comedy as a crutch, but OK. It got me through,” she said. “But I have a perspective now that even when things are very difficult, I can find the joy in it. That’s one of the things I teach today.”
She spoke about the importance of being kind to people, and she is certain that underrated quality has landed her jobs over the years.
In fact, Kim is full of useful wisdom.
In 1997, she wrote a book, “I’m Free, but It’ll Cost You: Single Life According to Kim Coles,” so I wanted her best dating advice.
“Fart and be free … Allow each other to pass gas … What are you holding back for?”
Detroit native Jalen Rose is a member of the University of Michigan’s iconoclastic Fab Five, who shook up the college hoops world in the early ’90s. He played 13 seasons in the NBA, before transitioning into a media personality. Rose is currently an analyst for “NBA Countdown” and “Get Up,” and co-host of “Jalen & Jacoby.” He executive produced “The Fab Five” for ESPN’s “30 for 30” series, is the author of the best-selling book, “Got To Give the People What They Want,” a fashion tastemaker, and co-founded the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, a public charter school in his hometown.