I have been watching L.A. Hair on WE TV, and I was wondering how Kim Kimble ended up as a hairstylist to the stars?
—Kellee Taylor, Little Rock, Ark.
It was a combination of luck and generosity. Kimble, 40, who is a third-generation hairstylist, was working at a regular salon in Los Angeles when her mother urged her to try to get into Local 706, the union that represents hairstylists for film and TV shows.
Of course, it is easier said than done, so Kimble thought about it for a while but wasn’t sure what to do. Then she heard that actor/director Robert Townsend was going to put on a stage production of The Five Heartbeats to raise funds for the West Angeles Church’s building fund. Kimble volunteered her services to help with hair and she met his assistant. After about a year of what Kimble calls “stalking”—she kept in touch with the assistant to see if they had any projects coming up she could work on to get her union card—she finally got a call.
Townsend was looking for someone who could do “crazy” hair for the movie B*A*P*S, starring Halle Berry, and, happily, Kimble had done several fantasy hair competitions, so she had just the kind of hairdo ideas that the director was looking for.
“That led to film after film and television shows and I met a lot of celebrities,” she explains. “I worked with Beyoncé on Carmen Jones and Austin Powers in Goldmember, and then I was her hairstylist for 12 years. I still work with her. I met Brandy on Cinderella and Moesha. I did Dreamgirls, and Sparkle, which is coming out with Whitney Houston and Jordin Sparks, so I built my freelance clientele as well.”
