| Kim Zimmer wants the world to know that she's not a bitch. "I've always played villiainesses on television," she explains, "and people are actually afraid to come up and talk to me on the street. They're afraid I will snap at them like I do at people on TV. But I am probably the nicest person in the world!" A loud carefree laugh not unlike the one Reva Lewis, the character she portrays on "Guiding Light," would belt out, erupts. "I mean, I have a daughter. I have a husband whom I've been with for eleven years," she continues in a soft voice. "I'm just a warm-hearted person who loves people. So, if you ever see me on the street, you are more than welcome to come up and say hello. I won't bite your head off." Then, further distancing herself from the woman she portrays, Kim adds, "I live a very boring life." That I don't believe. This woman with a confident, brisk stride and a friendly hello is anything but dull. She's been a stuntwoman, a scuba driver, and once dove off a 30 ft. cliff on a challenge. "Someone dared me to do it and I did," Kim says matter-of-factly. "But that wildness has subsided, well not subsided." Kim thinks for a minute. "Well, yes subsided because it's still in me, but I'm keeping a lid on it because I don't want my children to be left without a mother." So, with that in mind, Kim recently did something she thought was rather tame --- she went para-sailing. It's lunchtime at "Guiding Light" as Zimmer plops down on a pink blanketed mattress in the dressing room she shares with Harley Kozack (Annabelle). Observing that she's only having a cup of coffee for lunch I suggest, "Not eating is how you stay slender." Zimmer looks almost shocked. "No, actually I eat quite a lot," she answers hurriedly to dispel that misconception. "I just don't gain weight. It must be my metabolism or something." Whatever it is, Zimmer looks wonderfully slim in a denim top layered over a white knit flared skirt, belted at the waist with a leather and brass belt. She leans against the wall and stretches out long, tanned, shapely legs. Her feet are covered with light blue canvas espadrilles. "I guess it's the theory that you only live once," Kim says by way of explaining her penchant for adventure. "And if it's something you want to do, do it. I guess it's just the fear of having only one life and you want to do as much with it as you can." One life that you know about, that is. "I do believe that I've lived before," Zimmer says straightforwardly. "I have an old soul. I think I lived in Greek times and that my soul has been passed on. I think that's great and that's why I'm not afraid that this is my only life span because there's another one. Even though it won't be Kim Zimmer, it'll be someone who has my soul. I know it's weird," she exclaims, "but I believe it." Zimmer's daughter, Rachel Beth, who Kim and her husband, actor A.C. Weary, jokingly refer to as the "bad seed" (alluding to the fact that Rachel is rapidly approaching the terrible twos) has also been "around a lot," Kim says. "It's frightening. I look at her and know she's been around before. She understands so much more than you think she should." Along with reincarnation, Rachel also shares Zimmer's adventuresome spirit. "She's as wild as I am. I now know why my mom was the way she was --- I must have driven her crazy. What she had to put up with me, is exactly what I have with my daughter." Zimmer was born in Grand Rapids and later moved to Ada, Michigan where antics like shooting down the rapids in an inner tube set her apart from her classmates. "I was an overachiever," Kim explains. "They were a little jealous of me. I wasn't as well received as I would like to have been. That was hard to take." Yet the teenager lifestyle Kim never quite fit into is one of the first things she mentions when asked what she would like for Rachel. "I want her to have all the options open. That's why we're moving to the country. I want her to be able to be a cheerleader if she wants to, or to be on the girls' athletic association." Kim was involved in the entire teenager ritual and more. Besides being a cheerleader, Zimmer was also a member of the homecoming court, a Junior Achiever, and the first runner-up in the Miss Michigan contest. Later she won several diving medals and awards in debate and oration. After two years at a local college, Kim took off for San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater. From there she moved to Chicago, where she landed an agent and a role in "Godspell." A short-term part as a terrorist on "One Life to Live" followed and after that came three-and-a-half years as the conniving Nola Aldrich on the now defunct serial, "The Doctors." In between stints on daytime, Kim has appeared in Off-Broadway productions and had a small role in the feature film "Body Heat." The leading part in "Body Heat", which Kim was forced to forego because she couldn't get time off from "Doctors", eventually went to Kathleen Turner, who, ironically, portrayed Nola prior to Kim. Zimmer confesses that there are moments when she thinks, "It could have been me. I could be doing the kinds of roles that she is doing; you can't help but think that." But then Kim looks at the beautiful little girl who she says "lights up" her life and realizes that, "I am doing what I want to do." Nevertheless, Kim would like to be a star. "Everybody wants to be a star. Sure. But I've got other goals. My family is important to me and if that means I can't be a star, than that's okay. Forget the fame," she cries jubilantly, "give me the glory! When you're just starting out in the business, of course you don't admit you want to be a star. It's like 'Wow man,'" she says, imitating the sincere idealism of the dedicated young artist, "'my craft is what's important.' But deep down everybody wants to shoot for it." Kim's trek to glory has been shared several times with husband A.C. Although Kim respects her husband as an actor, combat choreographer and director, working with him is a mixed bag. On "One Life to Live," A.C. portrayed Dick Grant, an escaped madman, who held Kim's character, Echo Di Savoy, captive in a mountain cabin. "We had some fight scenes that worked well because we were safe with each other. That was wonderful." On the other hand, "We had to play love scenes together on 'The Doctors' and that was horrid. That was like doing love scenes out of your own personal life and having people look in on them. We'd look at each other and just end up cracking up. He'd say something and I'd have to say, 'Wait a minute is this real?' The whole thing was just too close to reality." With an honesty that seems characteristic, Zimmer doesn't hesitate to admit that sometimes competition sets in between them. "We have to keep reminding ourselves that he's a man and I'm a woman," she states openly. "Sure there's a competitive thing. I like doing soaps and he gets a little jealous of the fact that I have achieved a certain level in the soap world...but he had two nighttime series and I was jealous of that." Although Kim believes that there will always be a sense of rivalry between them, she doesn't foresee any problems. "We've both been successful in the business and it's been very good to us. It's friendly competition." One of the reasons, Kim suggests, that A.C. hasn't achieved the level she has in soap operas is his refusal to sign a contract, and she doesn't blame him. "Men's roles are awful in daytime. It's the women's roles that are fabulous. Usually women are the strength on the show and it's the men --- if you really study it --- who are being pushed around by the women." Zimmer readily acknowledges that her perception may be colored by the fact that she's played three "domineering" characters. "The Doctor's" Nola was a conniving girl from the poor side of town who married money. Nola's husband was a dishrag in her hands. Reva is a good little manipulator, capable of handling any man who comes her way, and Echo Di Savoy, a woman out for revenge, engineered a plot that nearly ruined Clint Buchanan's life. While Nola was a "gas", Zimmer says she "went nuts with Echo because they overworked me." The show taped six days a week for six months. "I liked that character but I was just overworked to the point of not wanting to do it anymore, so it just sort of left a bad taste in my mouth." But despite her discontent, Zimmer expected to stay on the show longer than she did. Slapping her thigh, she whoops, "I wasn't in fear of losing my job at all and they canned my butt! You never think it's going to happen to you but..." she trails off, not completing the thought. Kim found out she had been fired from "One Life" when her name failed to appear in upcoming scripts. She questioned a secretary about her next taping date and learned that there wasn't one. "Obviously I was very upset." Zimmer wasn't out of work for very long. She returned to her first love, the stage, "in a Broadway-bound play that was never going to Broadway," she laughs. "The music was great, the script was bad." Then came the part of Reva Shayne Lewis. "She's a great gal, she's a good ol' gal. I get to be romantic, I get to be bitchy and I get to be funny. Who could ask for more?" Reva started out as a pretty nasty ol' gal but has since been changed to a more vulnerable character. "Which is fine," Kim says. "But I'm ready to get back to those roots again. I love being a cat...Reva is my favorite. She doesn't read as much of a bitch because she's got a southern accent and that just kind of softens everything out. She could say, 'Go suck on some eggs,'" Kim says in a lilting southern accent that would do Scarlett O'Hara justice, "and it could sound so sweet, nobody knows you've just destroyed them." Although Kim is definitely not the neurotic person Reva is, there are some similarities between the two that are hard not to notice. They both share the full bodied laugh and one imagines that Reva, too, would shoot down the rapids in an inner tube --- if she could do it wearing designer clothes. And they both have fears. But while Reva worries about not having the kind of family she's always wanted and needed, Kim, who's looking forward to having more children, has fears of another nature. "As far as achieving my other goals, that's scary. The older you get, the more you think, 'I'm not going to do it.' I think I can always make work. I can always put together a club act. I'm not afraid of not working, but maybe of not doing that ultimate film." The mood gets a bit solemn until Kim, perhaps remembering she's only 29, brightens. "I've got plenty of time," she laughs. |