Since today is the 2nd anniversary of the last episode of Guiding Light ending, I wanted to do a write up on Kim Zimmer’s (Reva) memoir. The full title of the book is “I’m Just Sayin’! 3 Deaths, 7 Husbands, and a Clone! My Life as a Daytime Diva.” Laura Morton who co-wrote Susan Lucci’s book also did that job here. These are just my thoughts; spoilers about the book are included. I’m going to do this in more than one part due to size and space.
The book is broken up into 20 chapters (not including the letter to the reader, introduction, epilogue and acknowledgements.) There is also a photo section. The memoir while interesting is not a complete history of Guiding Light and there are some errors (historical and typographical). These don’t really impede in the reading, but if there is a reference to something and it may not fit ones memories, it may not be your memory playing a trick on you.
After the table of contents and the dedication page, which includes a photograph of Kim’s late mother, a letter begins with the introduction of dear friend. Basically the letter explains why Kim wrote the book. She references her 26 years playing the same role on Guiding Light, which is inaccurate as she was off GL from 1990-1995. (This is one of my pet peeves, performers who leave a soap opera, come back and then count the years they weren’t airing as part of their number of years of service. I think part of why that bugs me is because I started watching GL during the years between her stints, and my first real memories of her are not of GL.) With Kim, whenever I see 26, I replace it with 21 as 1983-1990 and 1995-2009 is 21 years. Other years of service for some actors listed are also inaccurate, but the average person may not even notice. The introduction begins with Kim in a jail in California for DUI. What is amazing to me is in the land of TMZ, we never saw a photo from that night, not that I want to see it, but I digress.
Chapter One is called April Fools’! If you knew about the notice of Guiding Light getting cancelled on April Fools Day, the title is obvious. What I liked about this chapter is she mentioned her love of the New York Jets, but of course in April, how much football news would there be? For some reason, that made me smile, no idea why. In this chapter, Kim shares how she found out about the cancellation Brad Cole (Jeffrey, aka Reva’s husband at the time) called her with the news. I found it interesting that her real life husband A.C. Weary thought since 2004, that GL would be canceled. Kim mentions the past and how at one time soaps made so much money for the networks that they paid for nighttime television. Then she posits that perhaps the change of people using recording devices by 2000 hurt the shows due to the commercials not being watched. DVRs weren’t prevalent in 2000, but most people had VCRs in the 1980s already. She mentions the suits from Procter & Gamble back in the 1980s (Bob Wehling, that I’m not familiar with and Ed Trach, who was there until sometime in the 1990s.) I agree and think the difference was the people in the older era cared about making decent shows, not just money.
Chapter Two is called My Early Days. This chapter jumps backwards in time to when Kim was a child. She remembers being seven years old and finding her mother watching television while doing chores. It was a black and white television and CBS had the best reception where they lived, so that’s what they watched. (Ironically for me, as someone who grew up without cable unlike most of my peers, CBS was the station that I had the worst reception on…) She talked about her first crush, and watching TGL with her mom. This chapter goes also into her training, meeting important people like her husband, her first manager and others, early roles (including a one day role on TGL as Roger’s secretary), and her three-month stint as Bonnie on One Life to Live.
Chapter Three is called New York, New York and is about when Kim and A.C. moved to the Upper West Side of NYC. They lived together before they were married, and also had a pet rabbit. Kim hinted to A.C. to ask her to marry her one-day, and then he proposed. They got married in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She talks about going on cattle calls, and how she got her role on The Doctors to replace Kathleen Turner as Nola Dancy Aldrich. She talked about what is was like to work at the program, which was filmed at Rockefeller Center, her primary co-star on that show Glenn Corbett (Jason Aldrich) who was 15 years older than her, and meeting Alec Baldwin (Billy Aldrich) who was another love interest on that show To this day Alec is still a friend. During her last few months at The Doctors, she was pregnant with her first child (Rachel), and they hired A.C. to play her love interest. He played a character named Thor and Nola left with him. Kim also talks in this chapter about cue card people, and other things that happened at The Doctors. Her short bit in Body Heat is also discussed.
I’m at over 900 words at this point, so I’m going to stop. The next chapters discuss Kim’s second stint at One Life to Live along with her early years at Guiding Light. Hopefully this summary is brief enough to give the flavor of the book without ruining it.
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