ATWT LEGEND KATHRYN HAYS PASSES AWAY

[I Am A Swede]

R.I.P.  

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As the World Turns is one of the few long-running soaps that, to my knowledge, never aired here in Sweden, so I'm not all that familiar with it. But it's always sad when a legend leave us, and from everything I've learned about ATWT and Ms Hays she really lived up to that often over-used label.

[Faulkner]

 

Kim discovering Doug Cummings’ shrine to her as “Someone to Watch Over Me” plays:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnxgJ_JXJbk&t=12m48s

[Soapsuds]

https://youtu.be/bjfRswkiN-4

[lilyredd]

Rest In Peace, Kiddo.

[Lust4Life76]

This is sad. I never watched "As the World Turns". But just on her star power, anyone who was a fan of soap opera knew who Kathryn Hays was. My thoughts are with the ones that she loved, and loved her. 

[jam6242]

 

[Fevuh]

One time I was watching with my Mom and Kim said to Andy “ Listen Pal…” and Mom said uh ohhhhhh.  So true.  I wonder how much of that was Kathy inserting her own take.

 

[DramatistDreamer]

Well many of you fellow ATWT fans already know how I feel about Ms. Kathryn Hays.
I don’t feel as though she ever truly got her due, in terms of individual awards but her imprint and contribution to the legacy of a daytime serial that came to define some of the best of the genre is immeasurable.

Kim was not just one half of a core couple, she was a core character on her own and Hays played her with a subtlety and a depth that was and still is unique in the genre. She was one of the reasons why longtime fans could even still recognize that daytime drama in its final years. 

[bboy875]

I would give anything for even 1 of her TGL episodes to surface. Anyone know what part of Leslie's story she was there for? 

[Chrissy81730]

Rip 

[Soapsuds]

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[soapfan770]

Well said!! It’s unfortunate that a lot of ATWT’s veteran cast like Hays, Hastings, Masters and Fulton never got their fair share of recognition. The world never stopped turning when they were on the screen. 

LOL maybe Kim should have been more specific. With the bad memory of Bob’s affair with Susan, Emily’s torrid affairs with Tom and Chris, and Alison then taking Chris on a run for his money, I suppose Kim should be greatful that Ellen never eyed Bob for herself or that either Betsy or Dee never broke Andy’s heart

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[DRW50]

Last year, thanks to @VeeI saw Kathryn in an early '60s film, Ladybug Ladybug, set at the height of Cold War fears. It reminded me of the grace and intelligence Kathryn brought to her work, as also shown in her lovely, ethereal performance on Star Trek, and of course, as Kim.

One of the reasons I had no patience for the clawfest scenes with Kim and Susan that hacks like Sheffer and Goutman were so fond of is because they went against everything Kim was, everything  Kathryn Hays brought to the role. Kim was blunt, hard living telling her about the realities of life, but she was not bitchy. At worst she was impatient. 

I remember a scene that was, I am assuming, during the 1988 writers strike as it was a bit tougher than most of ATWT tended to be under Marland, and also because Kim's ties to Betsy were remembered, where Kim, after learning that Betsy and Seth were together, sat Seth down, and told him that Betsy was like her daughter, and how important they were to each other, how she had, in so many words, seen  him go through all of her daughters, and how  she simply was not able to support this happening yet again.

This could have been a big camporama, full of sour digs and Hays vamping to the skies. Instead, it felt, as Kim so often did, utterly honest. 

So many grand dames of soaps surrendered to amdram, trying to disguise weak scripts  and rushed production schedules, but Kathryn never did. 

One of the benefits of Goutman and the failures of ATWT's last decade not caring about Kim is that we never got  the bilge that ruined so many other icons in those years - no "shocking" reveal that  Kim murdered a nanny as a child because of latent DID, or that Don Hughes raped her and she and Lisa killed  him and hid the body in the woods, and so on. We still knew Kim, and cared about her. She was still our dear friend, our mother, or our grandmother. 

I'm so sorry that all of her early work as Kim is gone, likely never to be found. I'm never going to stop wanting to see it. 

The Locher Room shows gets a lot of hate, and I get why, but the constant anger towards them becomes so overpowering that I think they tend to overshadow the main reason for their worth - to allow fans and veterans to reconnect, one last time. Yes, I would like to know how an actor  felt about a storyline from 1987 - who wouldn't? - but right now, I am just glad to know that in her last years, after being on a show that was thrown away like old trash, Kathryn was reminded of the deep love generations of viewers still felt for her. 

I grew up watching Kim, and Bob, and Nancy, and all  my other friends and family in Oakdale, and, bad as  most of the last 15 years of the show  were, I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. I am sorry for all the people now who never had the pleasure of seeing Kathryn Hays in their living room 2-3 days a week, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade. We were lucky. And I will miss both Kathryn and Kim dearly.

[Soapsuds]

Here you go @DRW50

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[NothinButAttitude]

I just got home and heard the news. 

 

ATWT (along with GL) was my grandma's favorite soap and Kim was her favorite character. Early on, I remember watching soaps with my grandma  and just becoming enamored with Kim as she mirrored my grandma in many ways--loving, strong, but no nonsense. 

 

The final years of World Turns (and my grandma's life), I'd schedule my college classes around the show and we'd sit and watch the show along with her reminiscing about her old favorite stories on the show (as she had watched from the inception). My grandma died a few months shy of the final episode, but I'd remain watching to the very end. 

 

Sorry, y'all. This death just conjures up old feelings about my grandma, Kathy Hays, and missing ATWT. This death might be soap related death that hurts the most. 

 

RIP, Kathryn. Thank you for all the great memories you provided.