From Kathy to Mimi and back

Kathy Kinney isn’t sure when she first was bullied as a child. But she remembers one incident that stays with her to this day.

“I’ve always been zaftig, or chubby, and there was a kid who called me fat. He just walked up to me one day and said, ‘You’re fat,’ and I was like, 'yeah, so?'” Kinney said, in the sarcastic and snarky tone that would become her trademark on TV 30 years later.

That incident affected Kinney in ways she didn't realize at the time. Today, she looks back and considers the event a critical part of the person and character she became, even as she wonders what caused that boy to target her — and later to end his own life.

“Kids are mean and angry and they just want to lash out at whoever they can to feel better about themselves," she said.

"Bullying is about feeling in control when you just aren’t.”

Those experiences as a child growing up in Stevens Point have colored everything Kinney has done since, from getting involved in theater in college to creating the character of Mimi Bobeck on “The Drew Carey Show” in the 1990s, to her post-TV life as a writer and storyteller.

Today, Kinney considers herself queen of her own life — the title of the book and Facebook page she helped create — but it took years of self-discovery for her to get there.

Kinney, now 62, graduated from Stevens Point Area Senior High School in 1972. Her father was a car dealer, but he died of emphysema when Kinney was 15, leaving her as an only child who became something of a tomboy, learning to use tools and serve as a handyman around the house — unusual for a girl at the time.

So not only was she zaftig, she also wore coveralls and played with power tools, and on top of that she had the quirky personality of a born performer.

“I think that I had a very well-rounded but creative, full-of-imagination childhood,” Kinney said during a recent phone interview from her California home. “I grew up on the block with a very large cemetery and played in that cemetery almost every day. In there, I created all these worlds I could lose myself in — a headstone became my horse as I galloped across the plains, and mausoleums were the dance halls where I tap danced as a showgirl.”

The recipe was right for her to be victimized by bullies, and they obliged.

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“When I was a kid, I lived on the south side of Stevens Point, which was considered literally the wrong side of the tracks,” she said. “The truth is that because it was the wrong side of the tracks, it was kind of scary. Kids came from homes that were much worse than mine — kids from broken homes, from homes with alcoholism. And that made them the bullies. Every time I wanted to visit my friend who lived across the street, I had to run because there were a couple of boys in the neighborhood who wanted to beat me up, just for who knows why?”

It all added up to what Kinney refers to as “below-sea-level self-esteem.” Her parents weren’t great at telling her she was lovable and beautiful the way she was. Her peers called her fat and made fun of her. American culture told her she didn’t fit neatly into any of the categories a girl in the 1960s was supposed to fall into, so she struggled to define herself.

She got into acting almost by mistake after using her handyman skills to get a job as a carpenter in a theater, then bounced around comedy clubs and in roles on TV sitcoms such as “Newhart” and “Seinfeld.”

Then the magic happened: She was cast as Mimi in 1995 and got to create a character that allowed her to examine her own frailties and fears.

Mimi was supposed to appear only in the pilot episode of “The Drew Carey Show,” when she interviewed for a job at the cosmetics counter in the department store where the character Drew worked. Mimi was rejected for the job because she applied her outlandish makeup with a trowel, but the audience loved the brash, outspoken and self-confident character that Kinney created, and Mimi became a regular.

Kinney spent the next 10 years trading barbs, fat jokes and insults with Drew. She made enough money to afford a nice home in California and the opportunity to choose her own course for the rest of her life.

But more important, those 10 years helped Kinney discover herself and raise her self-esteem to something above sea level. Mimi, her face hidden behind the war paint of makeup and body disguised in the armor of garish floral mu-mus, was everything the fragile and nervous Kinney wanted to be. And she helped Kinney become that person — but without the edge of meanness and even bullying that characterized Mimi.

“For me it happened when I was on 'Drew' and people were coming up to me on the street and saying ‘Please sign my leg,’ ‘Can I hug you?’ ‘Can I kiss you?’” she said. “I had to make a choice. Either I could be the uncomfortable, fragile person I was and still ignore the truth that people liked me just for who I was, or I had to accept that truth about myself. Learning that takes practice because it’s like breaking a bad habit. Every day those negative voices come back. I make the choice every day to use positive words when I talk to myself.”

Those positive words have helped Kinney escape the self-image that made her susceptible to bullies when she was a child and young adult. Every day, she looks at herself in the mirror and reinforces that message.

“How often do you stop and make eye contact with yourself and say, ‘This day is going to be a great adventure and you’re the person brave enough and bold enough to enjoy it?’” she said. “It’s about taking the time to send yourself a positive message.”

Today, Kinney is pretty much out of showbiz and instead dedicates her time to sending that message to other kids who have been bullied and other women who wonder if they can ever measure up, because "I keep what I have by giving it away."

Through her alter ego Mrs. P, Kinney co-created Mrs. P’s Storytime, an effort to read inspirational books live to schoolchildren via Skype and archive them on YouTube. One of those stories, “The Peanut Butter and Jelly Hotdog,” was written by 5-year-old Ivy Exum, and it’s about the power of kids joining together to overcome bullies.

Second, she co-wrote with author Cindy Ratzlaff the book “Queen of Your Own Life: The Grown-up Woman's Guide to Claiming Happiness and Getting the Life You Deserve,” and she curates a Facebook page by the same name.

It is devoted to helping women discover their own inner Mimis and silencing the inner voices that tell them they’ll never be enough – voices that echo from Kinney’s childhood in Stevens Point and that she still wrestles with.

“See, I thought everyone was born knowing how to be happy. I didn’t know it was a skill to be learned with a little practice. The question to ask is, if you could be someone else, take on their life, who would you be? One day I heard that on the radio and thought to myself, ‘I don’t want to be anyone else anymore. I’m an ordinary woman leading an extraordinary life today.”

ABOUT THIS PROJECT

USA TODAY NETWORK news organizations in central Wisconsin present this series, "#SpeakUp Against Bullying," to expose the issue, find ways to address and reduce the problem for children in our region, and share stories of people who have overcome childhood bullying to lead successful lives. If you'd like to share your story or participate in future forums, contact Engagement Editor Jamie Rokus at jrokus@gannett.com.

See Kathy Kinney live

Kathy Kinney will join author Cindy Ratzlaff as the two keynote speakers for the All Women Expo & Conference on April 1 at the Holiday Inn & Convention Center in Stevens Point. The expo is co-sponsored by Wisconsin Media/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. For more information and to register, see www.allwomenexpo.com/conference.