Here is the fourth and final part of my write up on Kim Zimmer’s (Guiding Light’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.
Chapter fourteen is called Don’t Call me Diva! This goes into how things changed when Ellen Wheeler became the executive producer. She says “it is fair to say that Ellen didn’t understand the show or my character Reva like I did.” She mentions the loss of the veteran influence as some of those performers were taken off contract. “She wanted to be the white knight who saved, Guiding Light, but why reinvent the wheel, trying to turn the show into something it was never meant to be? In my opinion, it was a losing proposition to buck the formula that had been successful for, at that point, sixty-eight very solid years.” She mentions how Ms. Wheeler wanting to make the show cool to the younger viewers, but the thing was that it didn’t work for people who watched for 30 or more years. (My note to this is it didn’t work for me and I was in the under 30 set when Ms. Wheeler became executive producer.)
Kim also mentions how she felt the changes at GL were done to drive away viewers to get it off the air. She compares it to the movie and later musical “The Producers” as she mentions the fictional production that takes place. She mentions Wheeler’s ambition and how she tried to make it a team environment, but she wanted her hands in everything. She doesn’t blame Wheeler for the show ultimately ending, as there were factors involved beyond the decisions she made. (I agree with that, but I do feel that some things that happened hurt the overall quality of the program alienating not only the older viewers, but the demographically desirable ones as well. That I feel is part of why soap ratings have been going down across the board, as they evolved in a way that pushed away loyal viewers, while trying to grab ones they would never find. If you alienate the mother, she won’t introduce it to the daughter for example.) She ends the chapter with a comment about how much Ms. Wheeler would cry and while characters on screen do that all the time, it isn’t something that should be going on behind the scenes.
Chapter fifteen is called Seventy Years Strong and We Were Dying. This chapter is about 2007. She mentions the "my light" bumpers, which actually aired in the middle of the show not the end. It broke the fourth wall as the actors were speaking as themselves. Then she mentions the “inside the light” shows and how the actors liked having an episode focused more specifically on them. (My note about them: These were controversial with viewers, as if you don’t like a character the show was boring. Sometimes they episodes were also used to fly through material that should have aired over many episodes and then rushed through major plot points. If they had done them less frequently they may have been better liked, but trying to do one a week was too much.)
Kim also writes about going to Biloxi for the HandsOn event to help fix homes. She singles out Beth Chamberlin (Beth) who knew how to do home repair. It was ultimately a great experience. And back when this happened it wasn’t Wheeler’s idea, but one of the other producers.
She mentions the Emmy wins and how they surprised her as she felt GL was “dying a slow and painful death…” Kim talks about how at one point they thought of erasing the past and starting at episode one. P&G fought this so thankfully it didn’t happen. Some people took issue with GL’s age, and saw it as age, but she compares it to a legend. Then Kim goes into detail about the “new production model” when they went to digital cameras. According to her it cost a small fortune to change into the four-sided sets with ceilings, but the old style needed crew people to put up and take down the scenery. Kim said the set designer did a great job, but they were too small and lacked ventilation. Then she mentions shaky cam and Peapack, New Jersey. At first, everyone looked forward to going outside, but the lighting and sound issues were awful, and the program lacked production value. She said the show looked like “cable access”. Costumes, hair and such were cut too, but due to how things were done there was no time. She would talk about what was going on to anyone who would listen, though a lot of the actors no longer watched the program. “The focus had shifted from producing great television to getting it done as fast as we could. The emphasis was no longer on the stories being told but how fast we could get those stories ‘in the can.’”
She talks about an experience of taping in New Jersey that was stopped due to thunder and thankfully no one was injured. Kim goes into detail about the editing issues. And those producers were now editing too. Actors weren’t given mics outside to save time for switchover, which is why they had the loud background music. Kim mentions Tommy Bornkamp who was a senior editor who had to teach others how to edit on their office computers, and that real editors can tell a story via their work. According to Kim, everyone cooperated as they didn’t want to lose their jobs, but Wheeler didn’t have that effect on Kim. (Personally, I think some of the people who may have “fought” were already out by this point.) She also talks about the poorly done scene where Jeffrey told Reva that he loved her. The footage ended up being so poor, that they ended up showing a flag at the pond. Basically Kim told Wheeler that she should be “ashamed by the lack of quality that our audience was being forced to endure and that she ought to lose her job.” After Kim left her office, Ellen Wheeler followed her and laid into her. Kim admits in all of this that she wishes the show had ended earlier as she felt the show was embarrassing (her words, not mine). After the blow out things did get better, as the viewers complained and that made Kim feel validated.
Chapter sixteen is called the storm before the calm. This chapter has her talking about contract issues. There is one thing that didn’t sound correct as she mentioned how after a year in May 2006, they wanted her to take a pay cut in half. If she didn’t do this eight actors would lose their jobs. Well this happened in 2005, not 2006. That ties into her comments in chapter fourteen, when long time players were taken off contract. The show tried to scapegoat Kim and some viewers blamed her. I was online during this period obviously and nearly everyone was angry about the situation. The vitriol towards Kim was nothing compared to what was said about the people who made the decisions of who to cut. It caused major strife within the GL fan community as numerous long-term favorites were thrown aside. They wanted people to be upset with Kim, but considering she wasn’t the one who signed the checks, it wasn’t ultimately her decision.
Chapter seventeen is called losing mom. About a week after the news of GL being cancelled, Kim was told her mother was going to die within less than a day. She talks about her mother and father a bit and how they supported her. Kim talks about losing her mom further and then going to a soap event right around the time the show was cancelled. She also talks about taping the Josh and Reva wedding in a field and being pregnant (needing to use the bathroom a lot.) Kim also talks about going through menopause and how that story was killed for Reva.
Kim then mentions the 2009 Daytime Emmys and the three-minute GL tribute. She talks about how things went and that the actors had to wait outside in an alley before going on stage, which ruined hair and makeup. She said that she felt like they were treated like a bunch of “cows” and all she could think was “moo.” It was a weird situation. Sesame Street had eleven minutes. She also mentions the last day of shooting in NJ and how everyone was involved in it.
Chapter eighteen is called The Show Must Go On. She writes about trying to find work once GL was ending and that younger actors got jobs right away. Kim also talks about her DUI and what she went through as she looked into her drinking. During the last five years of GL, she was so miserable at work that she would drink during the day. In this chapter, she mentions Hillary Bailey Smith and Crystal Chappell, who helped her once when she drank too much at an industry party. She mentions also spinning out her car years earlier after having too much to drink the night before that and still coming into work.
Chapter nineteen is called So Long, Springfield. This chapter Kim writes about the GL events that were held after the show went off the air. She says she helped the promoter Mike Gold come up with and organize who would be attending and eventually almost everyone was involved. She talks a bit about Frank Dicopoulos, Michael O’Leary, and Grant Aleksander. She talks about Michael Jordan in this chapter too due to how she had the opportunity singing the national anthem as singing was part of what went on at SLS. She also mentions a bad experience that she had at Disney World, but mainly her times with fans have been positive. She also mentions Shelli Miller, who runs kimzimmer.net.
Chapter twenty is called Fate. She mentions how she started having to audition again and how she was now vying for small roles against people who were a lot more high profile. She then starts to write about how she got back to One Life to Live and working with old friends. The program’s executive producer, Frank Valentini called her and asked if she was ready to come out of retirement, and she said yes. Kim says she is enjoying working on a real set again, with real flowers, food and ice cubes along with good lighting and paying attention to details.
The epilogue is about how as she was finishing the book the news about All My Children and One Life to Live was announced. She mentions how it is sad that daytime is a fading genre, and that the shows provided years of entertainment, which is she grateful about. She ends the book with the thought she had since the end of GL. “How many out-of-work soap opera stars does it take to start their own network…? Hmmmm? I’m just sayin’!
The book ends with acknowledgements to people who helped her write the book, and helped provide pictures (from both her personal and professional life). The last two groups she thanks are the fans and the people who worked at GL over the years behind and in front of the camera.
That’s the end of my summary of Kim Zimmer’s book. I apologize for the length of this entry, as it is twice as large as any of the others. There was just a lot of detail I wanted to get into and felt that I couldn’t cut it down even farther. Writing about the last few years of GL, isn’t something I exactly enjoyed, as my memories are more sullen than anything else, so hopefully that didn’t flavor this entry too severely.
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