Kate Collins: People Magazine Article

[Pine Charles]

July 14, 1986

Soap Sleaze-Pot Kate Collins, An Astronaut's Daughter, Is Shooting for the Moon

By John Stark

Soap Opera Digest, the arbiter of such things, recently noted that All My Children's Natalie, played by Kate Collins, 27, is "fast becoming one of the most interesting characters on daytime." This, of course, is a decorous way of saying that Natalie is a bitch—nasty, scheming, pure soap scum. Since her debut last fall, the tawdry blonde has attempted to kill her elderly husband (told he had a weak heart and mustn't be excited, she walked into the bedroom in a black negligee), picked a vicious catfight with Erica (the redoubtable Susan Lucci) and, once widowed, quickly married her stepson (who was formerly a celibate Tibetan monk). As All My Children now grapples for the lucrative school's-out summer ratings, Natalie is threatening to have an abortion—one of the remaining soap taboos. The character and her controversy are two big reasons why All My Children draws nine million viewers each day and has become (according to ABC) one of the most videotaped shows in America.

Run-of-the-mill soap vixens rarely last. As their one-dimensional personalities burn out, the shrews are either killed off or, like Lucci's Erica, redeemed. But thanks to Collins, appetite for Natalie hasn't dulled. A witty, intelligent actress, Collins has struggled to give Natalie—what's the word, Mr. Stanislavsky?—motivation. "I won't play her as a bitch," Collins says adamantly. "I try to give her some justification for the things she does." The audience is buying the act. When Collins started on the show, most of the letters she got warned: "Stay away from Erica, you bitch!" Now half of her voluminous mail reads: "Go after what you want!"

No relation to Joan Collins, Kate does have famous kin. Her father is former astronaut Michael Collins, who piloted Apollo 11's command module to the moon with Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin in 1969. "I gave my first press conference when I was 10," says Kate. "I talked to the reporters on our lawn about the need for a woman in the space program. I served them coffee with all the good silver and demitasse [cups]. Mom got a real kick out of that."

Dad had a similar reaction when he saw Kate's high school production of A Streetcar Named Desire in Washington, D.C. His stagestruck daughter, the oldest of three kids, was playing love-starved Blanche DuBois. "We were enjoying the show until Kate came out in a slip," says her mom, Pat, a real estate broker. "I had to hold Mike in his seat. He said he was going up there and throw his coat over her."

"All fathers are a little conservative," says Mike, now an aerospace consultant in Washington. "But a 17-year-old Blanche? That was the first time I had to separate the real Kate from the stage Kate."

After graduating from Northwestern University in 1981 as a drama major, Kate moved to New York, where she got her share of rejections from theater and TV producers. "They were looking for cheekbones, which I don't have," she says. To pay the rent she worked as a sales rep for a clothing manufacturer and as a free-lance secretary. The breaks came in 1985, when she was cast in Broadway's Doubles and hired by All My Children during the play's seven-month run. "The casting people asked me what I thought," says Jean LeClerc, who plays her soap stepson-turned-husband, Jeremy. "I said she was it. Well, what I really said was that anybody would want to go to bed with her." Though her All My Children salary brings her roughly $100,000 a year, Collins is still haunted by her lean days. She stopped taking secretarial jobs only three months ago.

Unlike brash, lavish Natalie, Kate is a shy, sometimes self-deprecating woman with simple tastes. She wears cowboy boots and jeans, and likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and frozen lasagna. Home is a one-bedroom apartment in a fourth-floor walk-up on New York's West Side. On one wall are photos of family and friends. "These photos keep me sane," she says. "It's nice to come home and see all of their faces." What's missing is that picture of one special guy. With her 12-hour daily work schedule, she says, "all I do is go home. If I'm lucky I might cook, have a glass of wine and read my script." Scotch the rumors that she and LeClerc are having an off-camera affair ("We're only buddies," says Collins) or that she and Lucci are having off-camera altercations. "Our catfight onscreen was a ball," says Collins. "If we disliked each other or didn't trust each other, it would never have worked."

And don't expect Collins to start trashing the nefarious Natalie. "It makes me laugh that people think my character is such a bitch," she says defensively. "Natalie's guided by love and by her need for love. I see her as being, well, terribly misguided. I mean, she does do nice things. Let me think of one. Um, give me a minute, okay?"

[Jonathan]

I can't believe she was 27 in 1986. She puts to shame a lot of the 20 something year olds on today's shows.

[SFK]

Scrolled down and you'd already taken the words right outta my mouth. I can't believe she was four years younger than I am now, wow, I guess everyone seems much older when you're a kid. She definitely had an older, patrician bearing about her though, I thought she was at least 34 doing that catfight.

I've always thought Montana Morehead from Soapdish was inspired by her. I remember another interview or perhaps it was in the AMC scrapbook where she said that with her first paycheck she went to the Mens department in Bloomingdale's and bought a cashmere sweater.

[DRW50]

So she was still working as a secretary while she was on AMC. Can you imagine walking into an office and seeing Natalie.

Kate made Natalie such a complex, fascinating character, neither good nor bad, and that drove story for years. You really can't have a character like that on a soap now, as everything is so dumbed down.

[quartermainefan]

She had a quality about her that reminded me of Angela Lansbury.

They looked old when they were young and looked younger when they got old. I could see KC playing Lansbury even.

I used to get a kick out of Natalie. All the major players on the show hated her with a passion and it always made me laugh because she couldn't get out of her own way.

[Pine Charles]

It seems like Donna was Nat's only friend before Ross Chandler was found guilty of her rape. I guess Donna related to another PV outcast (since she was an ex-hooker).

[Marco Dane]

I had to add this I really wish they would let Natalie return !!

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[Pine Charles]

Oh, Eyewitness! Erica was such a little bitch ripping Natalie's gorgeous clothes!

[Khan]

I adored Natalie in the early years. Like Carl said, she was neither good nor bad, which gave Kate Collins so many more levels to play on. Plus, KC herself seemed to have poise and sophistication coming out of her pores; she wasn't just some "hair model" who got lucky.

[cct]

I know a lot of actresses did it, but KC always excelled at taking off those big earrings to answer the phone. She was a master at "earring acting." Added another layer to her brand of poised bitchiness.

[SFK]

^^ , I miss those days, can't remember the last time I saw somebody do that. That and the way Erica used to whip her head around with lips parted and run her hands down her sides whenever the doorbell rang.

[cct]

Yes! I remember Erica doing that too! I always assumed it was to smooth down her super-tight dress to its full length so it wouldn't ride up too far as she walked to the door.

Erica always used to do this thing with her shoulder, especially with Jack. She still does it on occasion, but much much less.

Speaking of KC, I was a little out of the loop during the writer transition. What was the purpose of having KC come back as Janet? Did D&D choose not to pursue something Broderick started? And what was the end result? Is Janet back in Oak Haven?

[Cheap21]

LMAO! I always loved that scene for Natalie lying and saying that Erica kicked her in the stomach

[Khan]

I realize Melody Anderson wasn't working out and that KC was unlikely to return permanently, but...did AMC really have to kill off Natalie? Couldn't they have left her comatose until some sort of arrangement had been worked out with Collins (who obviously has no problem popping in from time to time)?

[SFK]

ITA, I wish they would have just sent her out of town or tried yet again to recast. Of course the later Janet stuff would have worked out differently, perhaps even more interestingly... who knows...