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For Kim Darby, becoming a prominent acting coach was a process of
deconstruction, or reverse engineering. Imbued with the talent from the very outset, she first acted, most prominently opposite screen icon John Wayne, co-starring with him when she was only twenty, in True Grit. It wasn't until the middle of her thirty-year career that she began to delve into the how of her exceptional talent.

A show business baby, she was born July 8, 1947, to Jon and Inga Zerby, a dance team that toured nationally as the Dancing Zerbys, primarily playing hotels in Miami and Las Vegas. The Zerbys were performers going back three generations, so it was immediately assumed that baby Deborah would go into the family trade. In fact, when she was eight, and her father began giving her dance lessons, he renamed her Derby Zerby, saying that name would look grand on a marquee.

Kim's daily dance studies continued for years;unending sessions of tap, ballet and modern; first under her father's tutelage, then with Nico Charisse, Syd Charisse's teacher and ex-husband.

Upon being voted the Quietest Girl in her high school class, then realizing that all the most popular people in her school were drama students, she asked to go to acting school. Her grandmother took her to coach Tony Barr, who ran the Desilu Workshop, located in what is now Paramount Pictures Studios. Barr initially refused Kim on the grounds that she was too young for his classes -- but she was allowed to audition, and, much impressed, Barr accepted her into his school of professional adult actors. It wasn't long before the teenager's special qualities and innate talent made her the pet and the wonder of her fellow students. Once in training, she decided to change her name, first, the spelling of Derby to Darby, and changing her given name to Kim, because that was the name of the prettiest girl in her high school.

Some months later, agent Jimmy McHugh Jr. visited class, saw Kim's scene work, and asked to represent her. Kim made her professional acting debut on television at sixteen, guest starring in the series Mr. Novack; and made her first film appearance that same year -- but not as an actress, as a dancer in Bye Bye Birdie.

In the next six years, Ms. Darby had done 28 guest-starring roles in television's most prominent series', co-starred in two movies for television, and in three motion pictures. Then came True Grit.

The actresses's ethereal, very realistic special qualities -- in an age of more theatrical stylism -- gave her her pick of excellent roles, some specially written for her, as a young woman with extreme sensitivity and if not slightly quirky, certainly a person who differed from her peers. She was spoken of for an Academy Award for Grit; and actually won one of her two Golden Globe nominations for that film, as well as the National Theater Owner's Star of the Year award. She took the New York Critic's Best Actress Award for the play, Porcelain Years, the Dramalogue Theatre Award for Close Ties, and received a Film Editor's Award and three Emmy nominations for her television work.

Ms. Darby's early labors in television came at an exciting time, with many of the medium's best directors going on to careers in motion pictures; between those experiences, and her film work, she performed under the guidance of some of the most intuitive, actor-sensitive directors in Hollywood -- including Henry Hathaway, Robert Aldrich, Carl Reiner, Michael Richie and Arthur Penn.

Kim's work with these men eventually led her to delve into exactly what had made her so distinctive, and to formulate a method she could impart to other actors.

In 1988, she began teaching classes limited to no more than sixteen students, at UCLA Extension, and shortly thereafter in her own school as well. Highly regarded by both the university and her students, she preaches learning in a safe place and that acting is a skill that can and should be refined by study. The size of her classes allows everyone to work in every session, and since Ms. Darby continues to work as an actress in independent films and on such television shows as The X Files and Becker, she is able to bring to her students her continuing experiences and expertise.