Publication: Soap Opera Weekly
Author: Diane Clehane
Date: November 11, 1996
The City's Catherine Hickland has learned to sing over past heartbreaks
As Tess Wilder on The City, Catherine Hickland plays a woman who yearns to be a big fish in a big pond, a woman who wants to be on the receiving end of all the glitz that goes with life in New York. However, the actress, who has spent most of her adult life in front of the camera, is down-to-earth, just one of the girls.
Today, fresh from the gym, she wears no makeup, black sweats and sneakers. Her blonde hair hangs straight down well past her shoulders. Up close, the actress looks like the woman she is: unpretentious, approachable and conformable in her own skin. She also looks extremely fit and very thin. When complimented on her noticeable weight loss, Hickland smiles. "I've lost 20 pounds since January by working out with weights to change the shape of my body," she volunteers. Down to a size 4 from a size 10, Hickland is characteristically open about her battle of the bulge. "Weight is personal thing," she says. "You will not lose that weight until you're ready." For her, that moment came Last New Year's Eve, when she was in France to perform with the Lýon Symphony. "I had these beautiful costumes and I just felt big, and that's when I said, 'Oh, I'm ready.'"
In such an unforgiving and competitive medium as television, one might think Hickland felt some pressure from the powers-that-be to slim down. Not so, she says. "Most people knew it was because of a thyroid condition. Nobody ever said, 'You should loose some weight' at work. They were very kind. But my mother...," she says as her voice trails off and she dissolves into laughter. Hickland is quick to add, "I don't think women should feel they have to be a 4 or 6. I don't think it's right. I think you have to be what you are and happy with that." She admits that's a luxury most actresses don't have. "I'm kind of grateful I've spent so much of my life being on television, because it keeps me in check."
Hickland is eager to chat about her latest projects, Boys on the Side, a cabaret show that combines music and comedy, based on her own romantic life. Hickland calls singing "the greatest joy of my life," and has spent a great deal of time and effort finding her voice. Having had no formal training, the actress decided she wanted to sing on the Broadway stage two years ago. After months of "training like a prize fighter," she landed a three-month stint as Fantaine in Les Misérables in the spring of 1995. She's been singing every chance she gets ever since.
Not that the veteran television actress (she played Julie Clegg/Jenny Diamond on Capitol, Dr. Courtney Marshall on Texas and has appeared on numerous prime time series) has lost any of enthusiasm for her day job." The City is a show that's' finding itself. I'm praying that people, the viewers, will be there to support it." But ever the pragmatist, she doesn't believe in putting all her eggs in one basket. "At the same time I like to keep myself busy so if things should happen I'm not devastated," she says of her desire to pursue two full-time careers simultaneously. Husband Michael E. Knight (Tad, All My Children), who attends almost all her singing engagements, marvels at her stamina. "She's living proof that if you want something hard enough and you're willing to sacrifice, you can do amazing things. She worked her tail off, and her love of what she does is immense and inspiring to be around."
Nothing seems to keep Hickland down. Although she's endured the breakup of two marriages (one hashed out for all the world to see in the tabloids, which drove her out of the country), the death of her father, to whom she was extremely close, and the regular ego bashing that comes with being an actor, whatever battle scars she may have don't show -- except, maybe for her penchant for self-deprecating humor. When she decided she wanted to do a comedy act, it was only natural, she says, that the topic be her love life. It is pretty funny, she says.
"A lot of people don't know this is my third marriage, and the reason for that is used to embarrass me," says the actress. "I guess one of the coolest things about getting older is you just don't care about stupid things like what people think. This has been my life, and I don't regret it. Why should I be embarrassed about what I've done, where I've been, who I am?" The youngest of three children (she has a brother and a sister), Hickland grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Her parents divorced when she was 6, but continued to work in her father's prosthetic dentistry practice. She was married to her first husband for about a year, in 1981. And while Hickland was quoted as saying he was a "man I once had a restraining order against," she chooses not to say anything else today about her ex-husband who recently died, except "he was a wonderful man." She is much more forthcoming about her second, five-year marriage, to actor David Hasselhoff. "David is really a personality," she begins. "He's gregarious, outgoing, friendly. He's a real upper, and I'm the same way, so in a sense, the two of us under the same roof was just rough because we were battling for the stage. So when you have someone with is reserved and quiet and one person who is gregarious, you balance each other out nicely."
Her divorce from Hasselhoff in 1989 was a trying time in her life. After enduring a media feeding frenzy, she decided to pack it in. She moved to Italy, where she had been making a movie. "I wanted to get out of this country because the Enquirer was breathing down my neck," she says. "You're dealing with your feelings as it is, and when you have to deal with wondering what they are going to say, and they don't know what the truth is. You read these things about yourself and it's humiliating."
After spending almost three years going to school, learning Italian and "starting life over," Hickland returned to the States. She met Knight, and they marred one year to the day after they met. "I honestly was never a person who wanted to get married," she says with a laugh. "It's just one of those things. My life is like a big tornado that sweeps through, and in the end, people jump into my storm." The notoriously shy Knight seems to revel in his wife's joie de verve. "She's the butterfly and I'm the cocoon," he says of Hickland's fondness for giving dinner parties for her Broadway friends. "I'm the kind of person who never gave a party as a kid because I thought no one would come," says Knight. "These parties where we have incredible performers singing at our home and hanging out around the piano have become a staple in our lives, and I must say, I do enjoy them. After being in the soap field for 14 years, it's a nice change of pace to be around them." Hickland is glad Knight has grown more comfortable with her friends, and adds, "Being married to me must be a bit of a nightmare for him, but he handles it really well."
Clearly, the third time is the charm for Hickland, who has found her soul mate in Knight. "As different as we are," she says, "morally we see things very similarly." There is no competition between them; they share an understanding of what it takes to juggle a demanding career and a relationship. "When you take a mate for life, you respect each other, you have communication skills and you understand each other's needs. Let the other have a life outside the one you have together. You've got to let somebody be. These are the things I didn't have in my other marriages. These are important criteria for a lasting relationship." She raises her eyebrows and adds, "not that I should know what that is, since I'm on my third marriage." Hickland does know a lot about her own limitations. "It's hard for me to give up my independence," she says. "A lot of men don't like that. I've been a working actress since I was 20, and on my own since I was 17. It would be hard for me to just be somebody's wife. It would scare me." Hickland's beeper goes off. It's Knight. "He's never paged me before," she says as she dials her phone. Her voice softens noticeably when she talks to her husband. "I'm doing an interview," she says playfully, and asks if he wants to accompany her on a shopping expedition later. "I love you, too." She says as she hangs up.
In a cab heading downtown, Hickland checks out the cars that go by. She wants to buy a Land Rover but is planning to wait a while to see how The City fares. Next stop: The Gap, to buy jeans (her old ones no longer fit.) As she says goodbye, her megawatt smile is bright as the lights on the Great White Way.
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