Actress, producer Kenya Moore is more than just a pretty face
By J. Nadir Omowale
Originally Published in Ambassador Magazine
“I think any attractive woman in any field is always going to be underestimated.
”Kenya Moore speaks from experience. The voluptuous hazel-eyed Detroit native is a former Miss Michigan and in 1993 was crowned Miss USA. She appears in movies (Waiting To Exhale, I Know Who Killed Me) and on television shows (Girlfriends, The Jamie Foxx Show). Her bikinied body and stunning features regularly adorn the covers of men’s magazines and fashion publications.
But Kenya Moore is much more than a beautiful package. She is a business executive, an author, an entrepreneur, and a philanthropist. Beneath that curvaceous, chocolate exterior lies a bright, intelligent, funny, and driven woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to use what she’s got to get it.
“People tend to discount a woman’s intelligence if she’s beautiful, and I’m no different,”says Moore.“I feel great that people find me attractive, but the challenge is always proving the stereotype to be false.”
Raised by her grandmother, Moore attended Detroit’s Cass Technical High School. Kenya loved to perform, and studied dance. She was a member of the school’s dance team and fondly recalls performing at ballgames.
Moore’s pageant career began when she and some friends entered the Miss Black Star talent pageant for girls age 13 to 16, where Moore took first runner up. “Just for the record,” she advises, “singers always trump dancers.You can never beat a good singer! It’s just a rule of the world.”
Moore kept entering pageants, and started winning. The more prestigious the pageant, the better the rewards, including cash prizes, scholarships, and even a car.
Pageants also forced Moore to improve her communication skills, overcome any fears she had of public speaking, and polish her overall presentation, which, she says, helped her become the woman she is today.
Modeling and acting were a natural progression for Moore after her reign as Miss USA, but she entered a Hollywood that is highly political and notorious for its lack of decent roles for women of color. “What I learned is that the acting world is a business, and most of the time the best person doesn’t get the job,”says Moore.“It always has something to do with name value, or the relationship the person has with the casting director, or the producer, or the director, or the studio … It rarely is about the best person who shows up at the audition.”
So Moore decided to do something different.“I didn’t like my career path, and I felt a lack of control,”she reveals. She began to set her own course in 2000 as associate producer of the independent film Trois, which became one of the highest grossing African-American movies of the year. She has produced several other projects over the last decade and hasn’t looked back.
Moore is very enthusiastic about her latest production, The Confidant, which finds the actress/producer starring alongside Boris Kudjoe (Love & Basketball, Soul Food), rapper David Banner, Asian sex symbol Bai Ling (The Crow), and Billy Zane (Titanic).
The suspense/thriller was written and directed by Alton Glass, who Moore met at the American Black Film Festival where both were nominated for best film. Neither of them won, but after seeing Glass’ horror film, Marco Polo, Moore was determined to work with him.
“What I loved the most about the Confidant script was there was no reference to color. We could have had any ethnicity play any role, and it would’ve worked. I knew that the script was so powerful, I could get the cast that I wanted.”
Not content with just acting, modeling, and producing, Moore is also passionate about The Kenya Moore Foundation, which provides scholarships to underprivileged girls at Moore’s alma mater, Cass Tech.“I look for girls who have had a difficult time in school,”she explains.“One that may have gone from a solid B average to maybe a C minus, struggling with emotional issues or just having a hard time in life in general. It’s basically telling them, ‘Look. You can get your life together, but you’ve got to get an education.’For me it’s just inspirational.‘Here is something that can help you get to where you want to be in life.’”
Moore credits much of her tenacity, her toughness, and her “hustler mentality” to her upbringing in Detroit.“I’m gonna get it done no matter what,”she asserts.“I’m not gonna hurt anybody to do it, but I’m gonna get it done, and no one can tell me no.
“I attribute those aspects of my personality directly to Detroit, because without that basic knowledge and education from street to school, I wouldn’t be who I am.”
