Kimberly Hebert Gregory

Kimberly Rochelle Hébert Gregory was born on December 7, 1972, in Houston, Texas, the youngest of three children. She completed her secondary education at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston before earning a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Mount Holyoke College in 1994. She subsequently studied acting at the Theatre School at DePaul University and later earned a master's in social work from the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago in 2002, the same year she appeared on Broadway in The Lion King.

Following her graduation from Mount Holyoke, Gregory relocated to Chicago, where she took part in several productions with the Chicago Theatre Company in the late 1990s. These included McKinley Johnson's Train is Comin' in 1996 and a theatrical adaptation of Walter Mosley's A Red Death in 1997. Her portrayal of "Daughter" in the company's production of Shay Youngblood's Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery earned her a Black Theatre Alliance Award and a nomination for a 1998 Equity Branch Jeff Award. She went on to play Ida Jackson in James Baldwin's The Amen Corner at the Goodman Theatre during the 2001–2002 season and appeared that same year as Zerbinette in the Court Theatre's production of Molière's Scapin. In 2006, she was selected to participate in the Sundance Institute Theatre Laboratory.

Gregory's stage work continued across a range of institutions and productions. She appeared in Filloux, McCraney, and Sutton's The Breach in 2008 and played Aunt Elegua/Shun in Tarell Alvin McCraney's Brother/Sister Plays at New York's The Public between 2009 and 2011, reprising the role in Los Angeles in 2012. Additional credits from this period include Sadie in Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder's Gee's Bend at the Hartford Stage in 2010, Charmian in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra in 2010, Lanford Wilson's The Hot L Baltimore at Steppenwolf's Downstairs Theatre in Chicago in 2011, and Lisa Kron's The Verizon Play at The Public in 2011. In 2012, her performance opposite Sanaa Lathan in By the Way, Meet Vera Stark earned her a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play and a Lucille Lortel Award nomination. Later theatrical work included Goddess at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in 2013, Robert O'Hara's Barbecue directed by Colman Domingo at the Geffen Playhouse in 2016, Black Super Hero Magic Mama at the Geffen in 2019, and a contribution to The Homebound Project in 2020.

In 2017, Gregory founded the Black Rebirth Collective, a theater nonprofit she described as providing a safe space for Black women in the arts to develop their skills and build self-confidence through creative risk-taking. The organization collaborated with the Geffen Playhouse through its creative hub, the Be Real Incubator, which staged works including Katori Hall's The Mountaintop. Gregory also stated that the collective was engaged in examining representations of Black women in theater, film, and television, and that she was developing a piece drawing on Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon.

Her screen career began in the late 1990s with an appearance on the CBS comedy Early Edition. Her first film role came in Chris Rock's romantic comedy I Think I Love My Wife in 2007, followed by Spike Lee's Red Hook Summer in 2012 and Viviana Leo's White Alligator that same year. She guest starred on a number of television series, including Gossip Girl, Law & Order, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Two and a Half Men, and The Big Bang Theory, and held a recurring role as Lucinda Miller in the Lifetime series Devious Maids beginning in 2014. Her most prominent television role came in 2016, when she was cast as series regular Dr. Belinda Brown in the HBO comedy Vice Principals opposite Danny McBride, with trade publication TheWrap identifying her as the show's breakout star that September. She subsequently held recurring roles in Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Better Call Saul and was cast in a leading role in the ABC comedy-drama Kevin (Probably) Saves the World in 2017. That same year, she was cast opposite Toni Collette in the ABC pilot Unit Zero, produced by Kenya Barris, though the network did not proceed with the series.

Also in 2017, Gregory joined the Cartoon Network animated series Craig of the Creek in a starring role as Nicole Williams, the mother of the show's title character. She reprised the role in the 2023 spinoff Jessica's Big Little World and the 2023 prequel film Craig Before the Creek. Her later screen credits include The Act, The Chi, All Rise, and the 2019 romantic drama Five Feet Apart. In 2019, she was cast as talent agent Ruth Jean Baskerville Bowen in the National Geographic anthology series Genius: Aretha, starring Cynthia Erivo, with the series run by fellow Mount Holyoke alumna Suzan-Lori Parks. In 2023, she voiced the title character's best friend in the Netflix animated limited series Carol & the End of the World.

Gregory was married to fellow Chicago actor Chester Gregory, with whom she had a son; the couple later divorced. She died on October 3, 2025. Her death was confirmed by her Vice Principals co-star Walton Goggins, who paid tribute to her on his Instagram account.