Award-winning actress Kimberly Elise Trammel was born on April 17, 1967 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She earned her degree in mass communications at the University of Minnesota, where she also earned the chance to home her acting skills. From there, she quickly jumped to starting a film career, making her debut in the 1996 film Set It Off.
Elise’s biggest break came in 1997, when she appeared in the television movie The Ditchdigger’s Daughters: A Black Family’s Astonishing Success Story. The program received wide acclaim, especially her performance, and she received the Best Supporting Actress plum from that year’s CableACE Awards. She received further honors in the film Beloved; it earned her a Golden Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress, among others.
Elise continued appearing on television and films into the next decade, with guest roles in series such as Girlfriends, Soul Food and The Twilight Zone, and films such as Bait, Woman Thou Art Loosed, The Manchurian Candidate and The Diary of a Black Woman. In 2005, she took a role in the legal drama Close to Home, a role she held until it was cancelled after two seasons. Her more recent films include The Great Debaters and Red Soil.
