# Kim Darby

Kim Darby (born Deborah Zerby; July 8, 1947) is an American actress best known for her roles as Mattie Ross in True Grit (1969) and Jenny Meyer in Better Off Dead (1985).

## Early life and film career

Darby was born Deborah Zerby in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of professional dancers Inga (Wiere) and Jon Zerby (known professionally as the "Dancing Zerbys" or "Dancing Zerbies"). Her father nicknamed her "Derby", saying "I thought Derby Zerby would be a great stage name". Her mother was from Budapest.
She performed as a singer and dancer under the name "Derby Zerby". Believing that she could not "hope for serious important roles in films with a name like "Derby Zerby", she renamed herself "Kim", because it was the name of a popular girl in her high school whom she admired, and "Darby", as a variation of "Derby".
Darby began acting at age 15; her first appearance was as a dancer in the feature film version of the earlier New York City's Broadway theater musicale play Bye Bye Birdie (1963), about a budding rock and roll music phenomenon singing and guitar-playing star, (modeled on the real-life career of famous Elvis Presley (1939-1977), beginning seven years before in 1956, when he gained national fame). Her television work included, the two-decades long-running Western TV series Gunsmoke of 1955-1975, (in the 1967 episodes "The Lure" and "Vengeance"); also another long-running Western, a Sunday evening prime-time staple of Bonanza of 1959-1973, (in its 1967 episode "The Sure Thing"); and as a young girl approaching adulthood on an all-child planet in the 1966-67 first-season episode of "Miri" of the original Star Trek TV series of 1966-1969.
Among her many feature film roles, she is best known for her portrayal of Mattie Ross in the Western classic True Grit (1969), when she was 21 years old. Co-starring with John Wayne and Glen Campbell, she played a precocious, unusually confident 14-year-old Arkansas frontier girl pursuing the murderer who killed her beloved father. Set in the mid-1870s, the film was adapted from a popular Western novel, published in 1968 by author Charles Portis (1933-2020). It was hugely successful and reached number one at the box office in the US.
In 1970, Darby appeared in The Strawberry Statement and Norwood. She co-starred with Henry Winkler in The One and Only in 1978, and appeared in 1985's Better Off Dead, an absurdist comedy. A decade later, she played Laurie Strode's adoptive mother in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995).

## Television roles

Darby's 1960s television roles included two appearances on the NBC series Mr. Novak, starring James Franciscus, including an appearance as Julie Dean in "To Lodge and Dislodge" (1963). She was cast as Heather Heatherton in the Wagon Train episode "The Story of Hector Heatherton" (1964) and as Judy Wheeler in "The Silent Dissuaders" (1965).
Darby also appeared about this time on The Eleventh Hour, The Fugitive, The Donna Reed Show, Ironside, and in the first season of Star Trek as the title character in "Miri."
Darby was cast in an episode of the NBC sitcom The John Forsythe Show ("'Tis Better Have Loved and Lost", 1965), and as Angel in the two-part Gunsmoke episode "Vengeance." She appeared in the episode "Faire Ladies of France" (1967) of the NBC western series The Road West starring Barry Sullivan and a Bonanza episode "A Sure Thing" (1967) as Trudy Loughlin, guest starring Tom Tully as Burt Loughlin, her father. She appeared in another episode of Gunsmoke, "The Lure" (1967) as Carrie Neely.
She was cast in the 1972 movie, The People, which reunited her with William Shatner from her Star Trek appearance. She played the unhinged Virginia Calderwood in the first television miniseries, Rich Man, Poor Man in 1976.
Darby had the central role of Sally Farnham in the made-for-TV chiller Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973). Some of her subsequent television roles included guest appearances on Crazy Like a Fox, Thriller, Family, The Love Boat, The Streets of San Francisco, Riptide, and Becker.
Darby admitted her career declined after the 1970s, partly due to her dependency on amphetamines at the time.
In 1990, she began to teach acting in the Los Angeles area and was an instructor in the extension program at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1992 to 2009. Darby also appeared in the 1999 The X-Files episode "Sein und Zeit" as a woman who confessed to the murder of her son, a boy who disappeared under circumstances similar to those being investigated by the lead characters, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.
In 2014, she played Stacia Clairborne, a partially blind witness to a crime, in the episode "Prologue" of the show Perception.

## Personal life

Darby has been married four times, including to Jack La Rue, Jr. and William Tennant. In 1968, she married James Stacy, with whom she had one child, Heather Elias, born in 1968. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1969. In 1970, she married James Westmoreland; the marriage ended in divorce after less than two months.

## Filmography

* Bye Bye Birdie (1963) as Teenager (uncredited)
* Bus Riley's Back in Town (1965) as Gussie
* The Restless Ones (1965) as April
* The Karate Killers (1967) as Sandy True
* Flesh and Blood (1968) TV movie as Faye
* True Grit (1969) as Mattie Ross
* Generation (1969) as Doris Bolton Owen
* The Strawberry Statement (1970) as Linda
* Norwood (1970) as Rita Lee Chipman
* A Glimpse of Tiger (1971, abandoned)
* Red Sky at Morning (1971) (uncredited)
* The Grissom Gang (1971) as Barbara Blandish
* The People (1972 TV movie) as Melodye Amerson
* Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973 TV movie) as Sally Farnham
* The Story of Pretty Boy Floyd (1974 TV movie) as Ruby Hardgrave
* This Is the West That Was (1974 TV movie) as Calamity Jane
* The One and Only (1978) as Mary Crawford
* Flatbed Annie & Sweetiepie: Lady Truckers (1979 TV movie) as Sweetiepie
* Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb (1980 TV movie) as Lucy Tibbets
* The Capture of Grizzly Adams (1982 TV movie) as Kate Bradey
* Summer Girl (1983 TV movie) as Mary Shelburne
* First Steps (1985 TV movie) as Sherry Petrofsky
* Embassy (1985) TV movie as Sue Davidson
* Better Off Dead (1985) as Jenny Meyer
* Teen Wolf Too (1987) as Professor Brooks
* Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) as Debra Strode
* The Last Best Sunday (1999) as Mrs. Summers
* Newsbreak (2000) as Frances Johnson
* Mockingbird Don't Sing (2001) as Louise Standon
* You Are So Going to Hell! (2004) as Louise
* Dead Letters (2007) as Barbs
* The Evil Within (2017) as Mildy Torres

## TV appearances

* Mr. Novak (1963, 1965)
* Dr. Kildare (1964); Episode: "A Nickel's Worth of Prayer" as Patsy
* Wagon Train (1964); Season 8, Episode 13: "The Hector Heatherton Story" as Heather Heatherton
* Run for Your Life (1966); Episode: "Hang Down Your Head and Laugh"
* The Fugitive (1966); Episode: "Joshua's Kingdom"
* Star Trek: The Original Series (1966) – Miri in S1:E8, "Miri"
* The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1967); Episode: "The Five Daughters Affair"
* Ironside (1967); pilot film for the NBC series of the same name
* Bonanza (1967); Episode: "The Sure Thing"
* Gunsmoke (1967); Season 12, Episode 23: "The Lure" as Carrie Neely
* Gunsmoke (1967); Season 13, Episodes 4 & 5: "Vengeance, Part 1 & 2" as Angel with James Stacy
* The Streets of San Francisco (1972); pilot for the TV series of the same name
* Circle of Fear (1973); Episode: "Dark Vengeance"
* Love Story (1973); Episode: "Joie"
* Police Story (1974); Episodes: "Captain Hook" & "Wyatt Earp Syndrome"
* Thriller (1975); Series 5, Episode 5: "Good Salary - Prospects - Free Coffin" as Helen
* Rich Man, Poor Man (1976); Miniseries
* Family (1978); Episode: "Princess in the Tower" as Lily Barker
* The Last Convertible (1979); Miniseries
* The Love Boat (1979, 1982)
* Fantasy Island (1982); Episode: "The Challenge / A Genie Named Joe"
* The Facts of Life (1984); Episode: "Joint Custody" as Doris Garrett
* Murder, She Wrote (1984) Episode: "We're Off to Kill the Wizard" & (1995) Episode: "Film Flam"
* Scarecrow & Mrs. King (1985) Episode: "Over the Limit"
* The X-Files (1999); Episode: "Sein und Zeit"
* Becker (1999); Episode: "Point of Contact"
* Perception (2014); Episode: "Prologue"