Kim Zimmer is quick with a laugh and comfortable in her life and career. It has been almost two years since the last episode of "Guiding Light" aired, ending a decades-long relationship between Zimmer, her character Reva Shayne and the show's loyal fans. The soap opera's cancellation was tough to take, but Zimmer has bounced back.
"It's exciting," Zimmer says during a recent phone interview from her Montclair home. "I feel like I'm starting my career all over again."
In her new memoir, "I'm Just Sayin'! Three Deaths, Seven Husbands and a Clone! My Life as a Daytime Diva" (Penguin Books, $26.95), Zimmer writes about her disappointment and anger when "Guiding Light" was cancelled, her career in the crazy storylines of soaps, fellow cast members, her court-mandated time in Alcoholics Anonymous (and the events that led to it), and the attempts to get roles after "Guiding Light" went off the air.
Over the years, Zimmer made guest appearances on popular TV shows like "MacGyver" and "Seinfeld" and had roles on three other soap operas, but the longtime North Jersey resident is best known for playing Shayne, the self-appointed "Slut of Springfield." Zimmer won four Emmys for her role on the show, which went off the air in September 2009.
Today Zimmer, 56, is Echo DiSavoy on "One Life to Live," a return to a character from early in her career. She works an ep-isode or two a week and is not under con-tract. "OLTL" has been cancelled now, too, and will end its run on ABC in January. But a production company, Prospect Park, bought that soap — along with fellow canceled daytime drama "All My Children" — and plans to continue the shows for online-only viewing when their TV run ends.
"I find it very interesting and I wish there'd been talk about it when 'Guiding Light' went off the air," Zimmer says.
"I think it's the new frontier, Internet soap operas. It kind of reminds me — even though I wasn't old enough to remember — when soaps were originally on radio and moved to television. That was a new frontier as well."
Many questions remain for the two shows in their new form.
"I just don't know how they're going to handle the advertising," says Zimmer. "I don't know if you're going to be in the middle of a love scene and it's going to pop up and say, 'You can buy these sheets at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Click here.' "
While Zimmer says she'd be happy to continue doing the show when it changes format, she doesn't see her future in daytime.
"I really don't see another contract gig available for me," she says, without a hint of disappointment or anger. "That's fine. I've gotten very comfortable playing the character actor now. I'm doing a lot of it in theater and that's my first love."
In the spring, Zimmer performed in "Curtains" at the Paper Mill Playhouse and is now preparing for a turn as Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard" at a theater in Michigan.
"She kind of parallels my life — the fading of her silent screen career and the fading of my soap opera career," Zimmer says of the iconic character Desmond. "It shouldn't be too difficult to dig deep to figure out what's going through her brain."
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