Mo'Nique

comedian

Personal Information

Born Mo'Nique Imes, December 11, 1967, in Baltimore County, MD; father a hospital supervisor; married Mark Jackson (second husband); children: Shalon
Education: Graduated from Milford Mill High School, Baltimore County, MD; attended Morgan State University.

Career

Worked as sales representative, MCI telecommunications, and as telephone-sex business supervisor; performed at open-mike night and was hired for other performances, 1991; moved to Atlanta, GA, and performed in various southern venues, mid-1990s; (with brother) opened comedy club, Mo'Nique's, in Baltimore, mid-1990s; performed on Showtime at the Apollo, Def Comedy Jam, and Comic View television programs; performed at Montreal Comedy Festival, 1997; made television series debut in The Parkers, 1999; performed on Queens of Comedy tour, 2001; appeared in films 3 Strikes, Baby Boy, and Two Can Play at That Game.

Life's Work

Mo'Nique, the big-boned co-star of UPN television's The Parkers, is a comic natural. "When my family members and friends watch the show, they say, 'All they did is change your name,'" Mo'Nique was quoted as saying in the Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger. "I think that's why I don't consider myself an actress because I'm just being me, and they just change my name on Monday nights." Her inborn sense of humor didn't take Mo'Nique to network television right away, though. She worked her way to the top through all stages of the infrastructure of modern African-American comedy.

A native of Baltimore County, Maryland, Mo'Nique Imes was born on December 11, 1967. She told the Star-Ledger, "I was a fat baby coming out, and I'm going to be a fat baby leaving. I've always been comfortable with that." She was the youngest of four children, and wit ran in the family. "My Aunt Bessie, Uncle Whip and my Aunt Tina are the funniest people I know," she told the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. "Bessie is the best cusser in the United States. She does combos you wouldn't believe." By age three Mo'Nique had decided to be a performer, and her father, a hospital supervisor, wasn't surprised by her eventual success. "She was always an aggressive individual who seemed to carry out everything that she started," he told the Baltimore Sun.

Attended Open-Mike Night

Before she found her way to a performing career, Mo'Nique graduated from Baltimore County's Milford Mill High School and attended Morgan State University. She married and had a son, Shalon, and her only performing activity came from occasional modeling jobs. Her first stage appearance came in 1991 when she and her brother, Steve, attended an open-mike night at Baltimore's Comedy Factory. The idea was that Steve Imes would perform, but "he bombed!" Mo'Nique told the Baltimore Sun. "They cut the mike off on him but he kept right on talking. Then they cut the lights off!" Mo'Nique claimed that she could do better, and her brother dared her to try. She did, and after her set she was offered $25 to perform at a local hair salon.

Her brother, her manager ever since, talked the salon up to $30, and that kicked off several years of appearances in small comedy clubs. Mo'Nique performed on weekends for a time, sticking with a series of day jobs that included one as supervisor for a telephone-sex enterprise: "I monitored the calls to see if the girls were doing their jobs right," she told the Tampa Tribune. "I was like quality control." Later, working as a sales representative for the MCI telecommunications firm, Mo'Nique had a chance to transfer to Atlanta and took it, hoping to find new comedy opportunities. "I played everything from red, redneck barnyards to deep and dank places where the people were so drunk they didn't even know I was there, to playing concert halls. Wherever there was a show, I would go. I was out there by myself and I was saying prayers all across the country."

After a year of working days and performing nights, Mo'Nique made the leap to becoming a full-time comedienne. When she was offered an appearance on the syndicated Showtime at the Apollo television show, she and her brother drove to New York and spent her brother's rent money on a new performing outfit. The investment turned out to be a wise one. Mo'Nique was invited back to the Apollo, and that led to appearances on the HBO cable channel's Def Comedy Jam and on BET's Comic View. Her abusive first marriage--an experience that would find its way into her "Totally About Mo'Nique" standup act--fell apart, and she headed back to Baltimore.

Opened Comedy Club

By the mid-1990s Mo'Nique was something of a local celebrity in Baltimore. She undertook a second marriage, to Mark Jackson, and she and her brother opened their own comedy club, Mo'Nique's. It proved a hit with the city's black professional community, and Mo'Nique, who a few years earlier had been driving herself in the dead of night between small Southern towns for barroom appearances, now was chauffeured to work in a limousine. She landed a co-host slot on Baltimore's WWIN radio station, and her standup career continued to develop. In 1997 she appeared in Canada at the Montreal Comedy Festival, a key venue frequented by national network talent scouts, and by the summer of 1999 Mo'Nique was filming her network series debut, The Parkers.

That show, a spinoff of the 1990s hit comedy Moesha, featured Mo'Nique opposite actress Countess Vaughn as a mother-and-daughter pair of California college freshmen, Nikki and Kim Parker. Both women were maximally flirtatious, and some of the show's routines revolved around Mo'Nique's unsuccessful pursuit of Professor Stanley Oglevee (Dorien Wilson). The Parkers took some criticism for what People called its "awfully broad" comedy, and it came to exemplify the divide between the television viewing habits of black and white Americans--at various times during its run it ranked first among all prime-time shows in African-American households and last among white viewers.

Still, the show was a success by any standard. It continued to flourish with black audiences, and in a Jet interview Mo'Nique pointed to the widely publicized dearth of black-oriented programs. "I can't stress enough to people to continue supporting Black shows," she said. "There are so few on television and the ones that are, we need to support." She felt that The Parkers was a comic success on its own terms. "When I first made this show I wanted to make everybody happy," she told the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. "And I can't. For those that I can't, sorry. If white America never catches on, they never catch on. I'm not going to do a jig to make them catch on."

Toured with Queens of Comedy

Mo'Nique plunged forward with her career at full speed after establishing herself on The Parkers. The show's success landed her on the Queens of Comedy tour, a four-comedienne counterpart to the wildly successful Kings of Comedy, who sold out concert halls across the country and demonstrated the economic power of African-American consumers. Mo'Nique appeared in three movies: 3 Strikes, Baby Boy, and Two Can Play That Game. "Even after The Parkers ends, I will keep on ticking. You can count on that!," she told Variety. Mo'Nique showed her confidence in her own future with the purchase of a $1-million, 4,200-square-foot home in Tarzana, California.

Mo'Nique had started her own full-size clothing line. Her Queens of Comedy set sometimes featured material too outrageous for prime-time television, but still focused mainly on her own personality and experiences. "I'm not the typical joke teller," she explained to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. "I don't tell why the dog crossed the street. I just talk about my life. I talk about being a big woman, being married, having kids. Just everything that every day affects Mo'Nique." Keeping it real in this way, Mo'Nique has emerged as one of black America's top entertainers.

Further Reading

Periodicals

• Atlanta Journal and Constitution, September 2, 2001, p. L1.
• Baltimore Sun, November 19, 1994, p. D1; April 21, 1999, p. E3; August 30, 1999, p. E1.
• Jet, October 23, 2000, p. 60.
• Los Angeles Times, December 30, 2001, p. K1.
• People, November 8, 1999, p. 31.
• Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 10, 2000, p. D4.
• Seattle Times, April 11, 2000, p. E4.
• Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), April 29, 2001, p. 5; August 18, 2001, p. 3.
• Tampa Tribune, August 30, 1999, p. Baylife-3.
• Variety, May 27, 2002, p. S8.
• Washington Post, May 2, 2000, p. C14.

— James M. Manheim