Kim Richards(I)
- Actress
- Producer
Kim Erika Richards was born September 19, 1964 in Mineola, Long Island, New York to Kathleen Mary Dugan & Kenneth Edwin Richards, a business executive. She is of Irish, English, and Welsh descent. Kim made her TV commercial debut at four months in a diaper ad.
By age four and a half Kim had already appeared in 20 TV commercials.
Richards made her television series debut in 1970 on the show
Nanny and the Professor (1970).
Kim later had substantial recurring roles on the TV programs
James at 15 (1977) and
Hello, Larry (1979). Richards
achieved fame as psychic alien girl Tia in
the terrific Disney family feature
Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) and its equally solid sequel
Return from Witch Mountain (1978).
Kim also played an obnoxious little brat who gets
brutally killed in
John Carpenter's fantastic urban
action cult gem
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976).
Among the TV shows Richards has done guest spots on are
Disneyland (1954),
The Rockford Files (1974),
Police Woman (1974),
Little House on the Prairie (1974),
Family (1976),
Alice (1976),
CHiPs (1977),
The Dukes of Hazzard (1979),
The Love Boat (1977),
Diff'rent Strokes (1978),
Project U.F.O. (1978),
Magnum, P.I. (1980) and
Medical Center (1969). Kim was reunited with her "Witch Mountain" co-star
Ike Eisenmann for the hilariously horrible
made-for-TV horror howler
Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978)
(Richards did a career interview for the recent DVD of this
film). Kim played more mature adult roles in the mid 80s
movies Meatballs Part II (1984)
and Tuff Turf (1985) in which Richards
gives a performance as a teenage gang leader's brash girlfriend. Richards took a hiatus from acting to raise
her four children Brook, Whitney, Chad and Kimberly. After a
lengthy absence from the big screen, Kim Richards made a
welcome comeback with a fine portrayal of
Christina Ricci's bitter estranged
mother in the excellent
Black Snake Moan (2006). She's
the sister of fellow actress
Kyle Richards -- they appeared
together in The Car (1977) as
James Brolin's daughters -- and
Kathy Hilton, who is the mother
of Paris Hilton.