Kim Richards' Top 5, Pre-Real Housewives Career Highlights

Papermag.com:

As a child I was obsessed with actress Kim Richards, whom you might better know these days as one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. From her role as the adorable moppet on Nanny and the Professor to an endangered waif with magical powers in Escape to Witch Mountain, I thought she was the perfect combination of cuteness and spunk -- a girl you could be best friends with, but was still fierce and cunty enough to dress up in the latest fabulous French fashions.


Here are some of my favorite lesser-known Richards career highlights from before her days of calling Housewives cast mate Brandi Glanville a "slut pig" on national television. Charmant, as the French say.


1. Frankie Croyden, Tuff Turf.
This movie was supposed to be a bad-ass new-wave LA story of teens run wild, but was more like an SNL digital short. I was so excited to see it because Kim had crimped hair and a tough-girl sidekick played by Catya Sassoon, daughter of hair-stylist Vidal Sassoon. In this scene James Spader serenades Kimmy's character. Robert Downey Jr. also co-stars


2. Ruthie Alder, Hello, Larry.
This was a slightly rotten sitcom on NBC at a time when the peacock network was in third place. (There were only three networks at the time.) It was produced by the people who created Diff'rent Strokes, and starred McLean Stevenson as a radio disc jockey in Portland raising two daughters. I didn't care that it was lame. I was excited to see Kim play a tomboy with braids! 

I confess that I'm old enough to actually remember "Tuff Turf".