Kathy Najimy is a 54-year-old actress best known for her role as Glorinda Morgantown in the movie musical comedy, Glorificus. She has also been in other films including The Babe, Roxanne, and Mr. Mom.
Najimy was born in Summit, New Jersey, and raised there until she was 10 years old. She then moved to California with her family. After graduating high school, she attended the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has one daughter, Peyton, who is also an actress. Najimy has been married to actor Michael Grossard since 1998. They live in Los Angeles together with their golden retriever, Lucy.
The Early Years
Najimy didn’t always want to be an actress. In fact, when she was 12 years old, she wanted to be a lawyer. She began taking acting classes in college and got her first break in 1978 when she auditioned for a Broadway musical and landed the role of an understudy in Evita. She later understudied for the role of Roxie in the Broadway production of Chicago and then took over when the part was originated by another actress.
The Biggest Loser
Najimy’s journey towards fitness and weight loss began in 2008 when she decided to take part in a reality show called The Biggest Loser. The premise of the show is that contestants compete in front of a live studio audience and a jury of experts to win a prize of over $250,000. The show is based on the BMI theory of weight loss, which stands for Based on Your BMI, not Your Weight. The contestants are not expected to lose a large amount of weight, but rather their body fat percentage, which the experts calculate using BMI. The Biggest Loser contestants are usually obese or overweight when they enter the competition, but many have shed significant amounts of weight by the end. Najimy’s trainer, David Glass, recommends that people interested in weight loss try out the show, saying, “Kathy represents the perfect female specimen. She is the very epitome of a modern, attractive and successful woman. To see her transform from a size 10 to a size 4 as the series progresses is nothing short of incredible.”
Making A Contribution
Najimy has spoken about how she sees her weight loss as a contributing factor to her acting success. She has said, “If you’re an actress and you want to be taken seriously, you have to be taken seriously. If you want to be in a film, you have to be able to fit into the film somehow. So I started doing a lot of research. I found out that 95% of Actors’ weight issues can be attributed to their choice of roles. If you look at the top 50 films of all time, you will see that the majority of them are classics from the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. These were the golden era’s of Hollywood, when the stars were super-thin. I blame John Wayne, William Holden and Katharine Hepburn for my newfound love of green vegetables. It’s not that I don’t like green vegetables, it’s just that at the time, they didn’t know how to cook them properly. So they were always either overcooked or undercooked, which is both bad. In terms of my acting, I can confidently say that my weight loss has made a significant contribution. I started out at a very high weight, and after my transformation, I have successfully maintained my new, slender figure in pretty much every role I’ve taken on since.”
Why Are Musicals Important?
Musicals are an important part of film history. They proved to be a bridge between silent film and sound film and were very successful when they first premiered. The most iconic musicals are likely the 1931 masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Will Rogers’ more cheerful, Yes, Virginia, but that’s another story.
The fact that these films are considered classics is a testament to their importance. It wasn’t always easy being an actor in the 20th century. The most successful actors often had to settle for playing second fiddle to their star. With the invention of the microphone in the late 1800’s, this changed. Nowadays, the vast majority of films feature talented, multi-racial acting teams, with the biggest budget being spent on special effects and fancy sets.
Poking Fun At Hollywood
One of the things that makes Kathy Najimy stand out is her sense of humor. On her blog, she blogs about her experiences as an actress, which occasionally turns into gossip. Some of her posts are entirely serious, but she often finds the light-hearted nature of being an actress amusing. She even goes so far as to poke fun at Hollywood, calling it out when she feels that it is misrepresenting women. In an interview with Clothesline, she said, “Hollywood can be so cruel to women. They make such unflattering comparisons all the time. For example, they say that if a man wears a dress, he will automatically become a woman. That’s ridiculous. It doesn’t mean that men can’t be strong, caring and compassionate, but to suggest that just because a man wears a dress that he will lose his identity is insulting and untrue.”
The Transformation
Najimy’s transformation from Biggest Loser to health-conscious Glorinda was nothing short of spectacular. She shed over 40 pounds in just 6 weeks and looked fantastic during her time on the show. Even after her time on the show was over, she continued to shed weight, eventually landing herself at her current, healthy weight. She credits her success to a healthier lifestyle, which included plenty of vegetables and fruits, nuts, and whole grains. She also started exercising regularly.
Najimy’s trainer, David Glass, who worked with her during her time on the Biggest Loser, said, “Kathy’s weight loss was not a quick or easy process, and it required a lot of focus and dedication from her. But she clearly wanted it, and she was more than willing to make the necessary changes in her life to get there. I’ve seen people lose a lot of weight before, but for some reason, Kathy is one of those rare individuals who managed to keep the weight off. She truly does represent the perfect female specimen, both inside and out.”
The Future
With the resurgence of old Hollywood, it’s fair to say that musicals aren’t going anywhere, and neither is Kathy Najimy. She represents an era that many people, both inside and outside of Hollywood, still find fascinating. Nowadays, more and more people are realizing the importance of musicals and are wanting to see them revived, which is exactly why Najimy will always have a place in people’s hearts as the ultimate golden girl from the Biggest Loser. As for her acting, she continues to be successful, always landing high-profile roles and never getting type-cast. She has played a wide variety of characters and continues to evolve as an actress, playing against type as often as she plays the same role over and over again. We can expect to see more of Kathy Najimy in years to come.