If anything, Hollywood has gone Regina King. For the next few months she will be a frequent, probably feisty presence at the multiplex. In addition to Stella, about a 40-year-old stockbroker (Bassett) who on vacation falls for a handsome young Jamaican, King will also appear in Enemy of the State, a thriller starring Will Smith, and Mighty Joe Young, a remake of the 1949 movie about an oversize ape. "Regina is smart and funny," says Stella author and screenplay cowriter Terry McMillan. "She's got the snap we wanted."
And the crackle and pop as well. Growing up in L.A., her extracurric-ulars included "everything—tap dancing, baton twirling, ice skating," says King, the oldest daughter of Thomas, an electrician, and Gloria, a special-education teacher. After their parents divorced in 1979, the girls lived with their mother, who saw to it that Regina, 8 at the time, got all the lessons she wanted. "My mother sacrificed a lot for us," says King, who enrolled in acting classes a few years later. In 1985, at age 14, she began a five-year run playing Maria Gibbs's daughter in 227, an NBC sitcom starring the former housekeeper from The Jeffersons. "Regina took pride in what she was doing," recalls Gibbs, who had earlier worked with King in a stage production of the show. And King was determined to squeeze in studies at Westchester High, where she ran track. "I wanted to be in tune with normal people," she says.
After graduating in 1988, she moved on to parts in three of director John Singleton's movies—including Poetic Justice—and the Martin Lawrence comedy A Thin Line Between Love and Hate. She experienced the first of those emotions in 1994, when a friend, flying to New York to visit a Qwest Records executive, asked King to call him with flight arrival information. As soon as King spoke to Ian Alexander, the executive, something clicked. "His voice sounded so familiar," she remembers. "And he said the same to me." The next month, visiting L.A., Alexander arranged a poolside rendezvous. "I knew it was him the minute he walked in," King says.
A year later, Alexander moved west, and a wedding was set for December 1996. When King learned she was pregnant that spring, she decided to postpone the trip to the altar. "I don't want to be pregnant on our wedding," she told him. "I want to wear a gorgeous dress." Ian Jr. was born Jan. 19, 1996, and within three months the new mom was on the set of Jerry Maguire, the hit movie starring Tom Cruise as an ethically challenged sports agent whose sole client is a second-tier wide receiver (Gooding). "I was nursing Ian in between takes," says King. The couple married in April 1997 (the bride wearing a gown designed by her grandmother) and plan to provide Ian with a brother or sister in the not-too-distant future.
In the meantime she's quite busy, thank you, with another birth: On Aug. 14, King opened an L.A. restaurant, Paio, which she started with several investors. Although the name is Italian for "pair," the food is New American. Ambience? "A place where you can go that has a nice vibe to it," says King. "This is something I've always wanted to do."
A food enthusiast, King admits she isn't much of a chef. "I cook for him," she says, pointing to her 2-year-old, who's running around the living room of King's two-story home in the La Crescenta neighborhood. But his favorite is take-out pizza. In fact, "this is pizza night," says King, picking up the phone to place an order. "A large pan pizza with pepperoni and mushroom, please," she says into the phone. "And I have a coupon."
Tom Gliatto
Irene Zutell in Los Angeles
- Contributors:
- Irene Zutell.
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