Kimberly Jean Brown (born November 16, 1984) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Marah Lewis #3 on Guiding Light and Marnie Piper in the first three Halloweentown films.
Biography[]
Life and career[]
Brown was born in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Brown has been acting since the age of five. She set a record at age nine as the youngest actress to appear in three Broadway shows, Four Baboons Adoring the Sun, Les Miserables and Show Boat.
From December 22, 1993 to July 13, 1998 she portrayed Marah Lewis on Guiding Light, in which she received an Outstanding Younger Actress nomination at the Daytime Emmy Awards in 1996. She voiced the title character in the English dub of the Japanese horror manga series Vampire Princess Miyu for 7 episodes before the role was recast to Dorothy Elias-Fahn. She also played the title character's bratty niece Dora in Ellen Foster.
In 1998 at age 13, she played the lead Marnie alongside Debbie Reynolds in the Disney Channel Original Movie Halloweentown. The film received positive reviews, it has no critic reviews on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, however, it has an audience score of 72%. Complex Magazine put Halloweentown as number nine on their "The 25 Best Disney Channel Original Movies" list. BuzzFeed stated the first three movies are one of the best things about Halloween.
The next year Brown co-starred alongside Janet McTeer in the comedy-drama film Tumbleweeds. The film received positive reviews as did Brown. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone stated, "McTeer and Brown make magic in a film that is wonderfully funny, touching and vital."
In 2000 she had a main role in the original Disney Channel movie Quints, portraying an older sister dealing with now having a set of quintuplets as siblings. The film received positive reviews and MTV put it as number five on their list "14 Forgotten Disney Channel Original Movies You Need To Rewatch ASAP". While in 2001 at age 16, Brown returned as Marnie Piper in Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge. She also played Annie Wheaton in Stephen King's Rose Red, which aired on ABC. While in 2003 she co-starred alongside Steve Martin and Queen Lafitah in the film Bringing Down The House, playing Martin's daughter and older child.
In 2004 at age 19, she returned as Marnie in the third installment in the Halloweentown series, Halloweentown High. The film became the Highest-rated Disney Channel Original Movie of the year, and received positive reviews. With many noting the return of the more family-friendly tone after the previous installment received criticism for being too dark. In 2005 she played John Travolta and Uma Thurman's assistant in Be Cool.
For a few months in 2006 at age 22, she returned as Marah Lewis on Guiding Light, and went on to play the female lead in the werewolf-themed horror film Big Bad Wolf. The same year a fourth and final installment in the Halloweentown series was released. However, Disney chose to recast the role of Marnie with Sara Paxton, despite Brown being available for the shoot. Fans and Brown have publicly stated their disappointment with the recasting. BuzzFeed stated that the fourth film was "best left ignored," while MTV said everyone should pretend Return to Halloweentown never happened.
In 2010 she co-starred in the independent film Friendship! In 2013 she had a recurring role on Low Winter Sun, a series that aired on AMC from August 11 to October 6, 2013, before being cancelled on December 6, 2013. The same year she began performing improv with the improvisational comedy group The Second City, as well as writing and performing with the Improv Conservatory program.
In September 2015, Brown announced she would go to St. Helens, Oregon and kick off an annual event titled "The Spirit of Halloween." It is a festival in St. Helens that celebrates the film Halloweentown. "I am honored, not only that St. Helen's does this for the movie... but that they asked me up to celebrate the film," Brown stated.
