More chapter summaries of Kim's book:
Chapter 5 - she talks about her early days at Guiding Light. She said Reva was probably a little too hard to take in the beginning because she played her larger than life. Kim and Pam Long had such a love/hate relationship and both felt like they were part of Reva, so when they disagreed about the writing/portrayal of Reva, they would really get into it until they both saw each other’s sides and Kim would usually always then cave to what Pam wanted. Pam lived vicariously through Reva. She then talks about her friendship with Robert Newman and what a dream he’s been; they’re basically the most intimate relationship she’s ever had without being physical in the real world. They trusted each other and were so connected as scene partners. They spent nearly every day together for 2 straight years. They would sometimes get in fights, like true married couples, mostly about storylines or how they felt about their character’s reactions to things. Kim calls out the storyline where Reva is dying of cancer and Josh is ‘canoodling’ with Cassie. Kim hated it and Josh felt it was something his character would do and they got into a fight about it.
Because Reva was with so many men, she warned new actors that came onto GL that their character will be in love with Reva within a week. On set she would always say Reva has a golden pu$$y, and even sang that to the tune of the Willy Wonka song “I’ve got a golden ticket”. 😳😂
She talks about the set used in the 80s and how there was a party room where lots of things went on that you could only whisper about. Lots of experimentation because after all, it was the 80s. She didn’t name names, but said one of the younger actresses at the time got so wasted one night that she ended up getting duct taped to the outside of the office door. She actually admitted that she never saw that with her own eyes.
She talks about Chris Bernau - a real ballbuster. He scared lots of people because he was so focused on getting the job done right and moving on; he lived and breathed the character of Alan Spaulding. There was no laughter with him and others, but of course Kim says she got to make him laugh a lot and they gave each other sh!t. She thinks he might have gotten a bug on one of his exotic trips (he traveled a lot) and that’s what led to his early death.
She liked and admired Tina Sloan (Lillian) and her work, but they rarely shared scenes together. They were friends but total opposites in real life. Tina was a classic Upper East Side elitist, married to a very rich husband and she only likely worked because she enjoyed it, not because she had to. She insisted that Kim get a car and driver vs. taking the bus to work once she moved to New Jersey, but Kim refused. She comes from a blue collar family who works hard, saves their money and didn’t want to be seen as a diva.
Large party or courtroom scenes were hard to shoot because they were 16-20 hour days with several contract/day-players involved. Courtroom scenes in particular were boring for them because they had to sit in pews the entire time, so they tried to make games out of it. She admired Jerry (Ross) for having the hardest job during those scenes, delivering 5-10 pages of dialogue alone in front of everyone.
Grant (Phillip) and Michael (Rick) shared a dressing room and it was known as Chez Phillipe, the party lounge. Grant made the best margaritas from scratch, but eventually it got shot down because too many actors showed up toasted on set.
During the last few years of GL, she admitted that she would drink 2-3 glasses of wine at lunch each day and then go back and shoot scenes. She called it self-medicating because she was fed up with pretty much everything, but wouldn’t give GL the satisfaction of quitting. She drank to make the days more tolerable. She made pals with the on-set crew and would talk sh!t about the executives, who could overhear her, but she didn’t care. Wow - now I want to go watch some of those episodes and see if I can tell haha.
Chapter 6 - she goes into the more standout actors she enjoyed and had the most privilege knowing or working with at GL:
Beverlee McKinsey (Alexandra) - Kim aspired to be just like her; unlike other actors, Kim was the only one where Beverlee forgot her lines a lot, so Kim asked if it’s something she’s doing and Beverelee said she just gets lost in her blue eyes and forgets where she is (hmm); underneath her wit and charm was a hurt and angry woman, and didn’t hold her tongue when she didn’t like creative decisions that were made; tells the story she was told about Beverlee’s mandated contract agreement to take the same month off each year, but in 1992, no one came to renegotiate with her, so when her month came, she took it and never came back to work - she had someone clean out her dressing room and that was it; Kim was very sad and upset with the Emmys for not doing a tribute to Beverlee when she died in 2008 and they left her out of the memorial tribute they do each year (wtf!).
Michael Zaslow (Roger) - apparently Zas was tired of playing Roger and wanted to make sure there was no possibility that his character could come back, so they had him die in 1980 by falling off a cliff and he insisted they show his battered and broken dead body so there was no doubt (ha - he returns 8 years later); a force to be reckoned with and took no sh!t from anyone; told it like it was and knew the character of Roger so well and fought hard for him; if a scene was written about Roger any less than who Michael thought he was, he’d throw a royal fit until it was fixed to his liking; talked about his ALS and she said it was shocking to her that GL didn’t renew his contract, leaving him sick AND without a job; fortunate that he still had friends at ABC that wrote for him on OLTL until he could no longer go on; his memorial was one of the most moving experiences of her life and she misses him terribly.
Vince Williams (Hampton) - one of the nicest and gentlest man she’s ever known, never said an unkind word about anyone; in 1990, at Kim’s going away party, he played “You Are So Beautiful” on his sax as a gift to her and it was one of the best gifts she’s ever received; she then said she never had a chance to work with him again, as he died from cancer shortly after she moved back to LA. This can’t be right though, as Hamp was on GL in 1995 during her return, granted she was in Goshen that entire year so they never had a scene together, but he was also in 5-6 episodes I’ve seen throughout 1996 as well. I guess they didn’t have a chance to run into each other if they never shared and scene and he was barely on, but he certainly didn’t pass while she wasn’t at GL.
Charita Bauer (Bert) - talks about losing her foot and how they wrote that into storyline (losing her leg) and would mentor Robert Newman when his character was in a car accident and became paralyzed (“old guard teaching the new regime”); Kim never worked with her, as she left GL the year before Kim started and soon passed a year later, but Robert told her so many stories of how great she was; a very salt of the earth person.
Another juicy mystery to solve: she then goes on to say soap casts are like family and sometimes there is a black sheep or troublemaker that doesn’t last. She talks about an actress that fell in love with every costar of hers, and those costars who were the object of her affection were all too happy to oblige. She fell in love with one costar while she was married, so divorced her husband to be with him and move in with him. That relationship didn’t last, so her next costar conquest, who was also married (and she already remarried to someone outside the soap business), got with her so she divorced her husband, the costar was planning to get out of his marriage but then got cold feet and never left his wife. Kim said this was the first time she knew her both unmarried and now single and she was scorned like no other. The actress was miserable on set, off set, everywhere she went; her presence on set was a dark energy until she eventually left the show, however Kim was secretly upset she left because the show suffered from the loss of her character. Who could that be??
Chapter 7 - mostly about her husband, 3 kids and being pregnant while filming. She mentioned bringing her son Max on set to take care of him, which Chris Bernau (Alan) despised. However one day, she caught Chris holding her baby and cooing at him in a sweet moment, and it made her see him in a completely different light. Kim also talked about some struggles she had with never being home with her husband during the long work weeks, or some weekends when they had to do press tours or mall visits with fans. She said she wishes she would have gone straight home after work sometimes vs. going out with Robert Newman while he was single in her first few years on GL. She even said it was fun to go out with her love interest and flirt in real life (uhh…you’re married, Kim haha). She said she never had sex with any of her costars/love interests in real life, but fell in love with being in love with them on-screen.
