| EMMY-WINNING ACTRESS KIM ZIMMER LOOKS BACK ON HER FATEFUL CAREER: By William A. Peterson If you think a certain "Guiding Light" diva has lost her sheen these days, you're not alone. Kim Zimmer, the bold and beautifully talented actress who portrays the beleaguered and beloved Reva on the popular CBS daytime drama, would agree. In fact, she barely recognizes her once-dynamic small-screen counterpart. "The thing that was appealing about Reva in the beginning was that she was everywoman. She appealed to every culture, every race, every class. She was unlimited," Zimmer says in a phone interview from her New York home. "She wore her heart on her sleeve; she was an open book. She was a sponge; she absorbed life and loved living it. ... And she spoke her mind." So what's different about the here-and-now Reva? "Boring," Zimmer says quickly. "(Fans) would totally agree." "It's been tough in the last five years, I have to say, because we've been through so many writer changes. ... So it's been extra difficult for me because I've had to try to maintain character integrity with all these writer changes that we've had, along with all of my other fellow castmates. It's not just me that's had to do this." She pauses. "Enough said. I can't get into it because it's so complicated." "Complicated" isn't a word that immediately comes to mind about Zimmer, the honorary chair of this weekend's Ronald McDonald Celebrity Classic. Try "ebullient," "effervescent" or "ever optimistic." In a career that spans more than 20 years, she has made a successful leap from the Chicago stage to New York's daytime TV arena, smiling and counting her blessings all the while. "My credo is that life is too short. There's always a good side to every situation, and I definitely am a the-glass-is-always-half-full type of person," she says. "That's how I live my life. And I never take anything for granted." Zimmer seems to be enjoying the best of all worlds. She's created a larger-than-life character. She's raised three children with actor-director A.C. Weary, her husband of 21 years. She regularly participates in various charity events, such as the Classic, which raises money for the Ronald McDonald Houses of North Carolina. And if she's not thrilled with Reva's unwelcome transformation, Zimmer hasn't abandoned hope. A new writer recently came on board, so Zimmer is taking a wait-and-see approach about her character's future -- and her future involvement with the show. " If you asked me (if I might leave) and I thought that the show was going to remain status quo, I probably would have said, no, I'm not going to stay," she says. "But I'm going to give this new writer a chance, because I've had a meeting with him and he seems to have a good grasp on who Reva used to be." "I mean, characters change; she certainly can't be who she was in 1983. But he's got a pretty good idea of who she is, so I'm going to give him a chance before I make any further decisions." Zimmer, who won three Outstanding Lead Actress Emmys and several other awards for portraying Reva, figures equal parts fate and coincidence have played a continual roles in her professional life. Initially, she didn't even want to be an actress. As a creative youngster growing up in Grand Rapids, Mich., she set her sights on dancing and soon began working in community theater. Her first memorable role was as one of the Von Trapp children in a production of "The Sound of Music." "I had a couple of lines here and there, but I wasn't serious about it," she says of her early acting parts. "I loved to dance. I was OK; I wasn't great. They tried to make me a ballerina, and I fought that tooth and nail." After being recruited for the lead in a summer theater production of "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," Zimmer attended college for two years. She left to study at the American Conservatory Theatre, a professional school of acting in San Francisco. "I was so lucky. I was what we used to call a ‘triple threat’: I was a singer, a dancer and an actor," she says. "Whatever they threw at me, I could do. I was kind of a free spirit and willing to put my ego on the line and just go for it. And that's what you needed to do back then." Zimmer later found work in Chicago performing at live industrial shows. She toured the country in the Broadway-scale productions about toilets, lawn mowers and other products. ("They were great gigs to get, but that was because I could act, sing and dance," she says.) Zimmer broke into the world of daytime drama in 1979 when a New York casting director saw her in a Chicago production of "Godspell." A three-day stint on the daytime drama "One Life to Live" was extended to three months. A move to New York followed, and she spent four years on "The Doctors." After that job ended in 1983, Zimmer signed a three-year contract to play a new character on "One Life to Live." She was released six months later, but she wasn't out of work for long. "It was fate, because that part ended, I was picked up by ‘Guiding Light’ and that same year I won an Emmy," she says. "So I got fired by one soap, got hired by another and won my first Emmy that year. It was wonderful." Reva isn't the only memorable character on Zimmer's resume. She had a scene-stealing cameo in the hit thriller "Body Heat," featuring William Hurt and Kathleen Turner -- the actress Zimmer replaced on "The Doctors." (She originally was up for Turner's role in ‘Body Heat,’ but an actor's strike prevented her from auditioning). Zimmer also portrayed a battered housewife in an acclaimed episode of the CBS comedy "Designing Women," which starred Dixie Carter, Annie Potts, Jean Smart and Delta Burke. She filmed the show during the tumultuous period when Burke was accused of causing behind-the-scenes problems. Zimmer got an earful one day at lunch with several cast members. "They didn't trash her, but they were like, ‘Delta's being a real pain in the butt,’ and ‘Delta this, and Delta that ... stay away from her’," Zimmer says. "Well, she'd watched some of my rehearsals, and she came to me and said ‘You are so wonderful.’ She was the nicest woman in the world, and I felt so awful for her, because she'd been blacklisted on that show, and she was terrific. And I had a ball doing it." "Designing Women" producers Linda Bloodworth Thomason and Harry Thomason sought Zimmer for a May-December romantic comedy they had in the works. Once again, she had to pass up a role, this time because CBS officials wanted their daytime star to stay put. That planned show was reworked, and eventually became the Burt Reynolds comedy "Evening Shade." Zimmer ultimately left "Guiding Light" from 1990-95 to devote time to her family. "I was burned out," she says. Her return to the show was cause for celebration, both for Zimmer and for her fans. "I missed ‘Guiding Light’ so much because we have the best cast and the best crew, more than anything," she says. "I mean, I've done a lot of soaps, but this is it. This is the best." Zimmer is philosophical about her missed "Body Heat" opportunity, despite the fact that Turner's role helped make her one of Hollywood's top leading ladies. "I always think, God, if I'd done ‘Body Heat’ ... Then I think, there's no guarantees of what would have happened," she says. "And fate came in, and I have three beautiful children and I have a great daytime career, and I'm real happy with the road I took. I have no regrets at all." |