KIM’S JOURNEY TO STARDOM

BRIGHT EYES

“This little girl would grow up to be thankful for everyone and everything that’s been a part of her journey,” said Kim, seen in 1969.

SPIN CITY

After a guest role on Good Times, Kim auditioned for The Facts of Life, a spinoff of the hit Diff’rent Strokes (above). The problem? “Tootie was 12 and I was only 9.” Yet when a producer had a “brilliant, silly” idea for her to roller skate, she won applause. “I also got the job.”

LADIES’ CHOICE

Playing Regine on 1993– ’98’s Living Single (with Erika Alexander, Queen Latifah and Kim Coles) “was immensely fun, because she was nothing like me or anything that I’d experienced portraying before.”

NICE JOB

Kim gained “an enormous respect” for social workers after playing one who helped a couple (Jennifer Lopez and Rodrigo Santoro) adopt in the 2012 comedy What to Expect When You’re Expecting.

HOT STUFF

“When I did Dancing With the Stars,” she says of her 2016 run on the show with partner Sasha Farber, “I [was looking for] new types

of projects that were very different for me.”

MOVIE STAR

She loved playing the wife of a pastor (Richard T. Jones, inset) in A Question of Faith and working with friend Tatyana Ali (center) in Lifetime’s Wrapped Up in

Christmas (check local listings).