Publication: Soap Opera Weekly
Author: Irene S. Keene
Date: September 1, 1998
OLTL's Catherine Hickland expresses her joie de vivre every day
Michael E. Knight didn't know what to make of it when he came home one afternoon and discovered his wife, Catherine Hickland, crying into the telephone. Fortunately, they were tears of joy. "I have this cabaret show, Boys on the Side, I was alone, waiting for one of my singers, Marsh, to come over. We were going to go out to dinner and talk about new music and what not," Hickland explains over a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon - but no bread (anything made from white flour isn't part of her diet these days) - at a restaurant near her and Knight's (Tad, All My Children) apartment.
"The phone rang and it was Jill and she told me that they were going to offer me a contract," Hickland continues. "Well, I cried so hard that I made her cry."
"Jill" is Jill Farren Phelps, One Life to Live's executive producer. She had recently cast Hickland for a one-shot appearance as Lindsay Rappaport, Sam's former wife, who came to Llanview seeking Sam's advice about their rebellious son, Will.
Hickland was delighted to have the opportunity, as she has been watching OLTL since 1980, even when acting on competing networks' soaps (NBC's Texas, as Courtney Marshall; CBS' Capitol as Julie Clegg/Jenny Diamond ). "I love the show, and have stuck with it even through its horrific moments. There have been times I had to turn it off," she admits, "but I always came back and I've been loyal and faithful to it."
After The City, on which Hickland played Tess Wilder Houston was cancelled in 1997, she let it be known that she would like to take a stab at playing OLTL's Tina Roberts. "This is prior to the fact that Andrea Evans" - who originated the part - "said that she wanted to come back as Tina." (Neither Evans nor her spokeswoman has ever publicly owned up to that desire.) "And once I heard that, any thought of playing the character went right out of my head. So when they called to offer me this one-day role as Lindsay, I was like, 'Whoa!'"
Hickland took her 24 hours in Llanview and ran with it. "I just tried to make her somebody who you would want to see again and that you wanted to know more about," she explains. It worked. To celebrate the contract offer, Hickland, who kept her dinner appointment with cabaret collaborator Marsh, went temporarily off her strict eating regimen. "I ate tortilla chips," she recalls with a laugh.
"That was my big binge because I never touch the stuff. Instead of having a drink I ate two handfuls of tortilla chips and I was like, 'Wow I'm really living on the edge!'"
In no time at all, Hickland's Lindsay when from giving the evil eye to Nora, ex-hubby Sam's lost love, to embracing Nora as her sister-in-law: In a surprise move, Lindsay and Clint eloped. Now as a member of the mighty Buchanan clan, Hickland is most likely assured a front-burner storyline and the complete run of her contract.
On The City, Hickland was, arguably, the big fish in a small pond; now she's one of several big fish in an even larger body of water. But her ego is intact, thank you very much. "Let me tell you something," she says in a voice that commands attention. "I am so happy to be a part of this show, and mainly because I get to work with Erika Slezak (Viki), who is completely and totally amazing. Kale Browne (Sam), I respect enormously as an actor, and he's a close friend, so I feel super safe with him. I adore Clint Richie (Clint). He has a big heart and it's easy to work with him. Hilary Smith (Nora) - oh, my god, you know what I say when I'm working with her and Robert Woods (Bo)? I say, 'God, I feel like a fan that won a contest and I get to be in Llanview!'"
Although The City was a half-hour show, Hickland feels like she put in more hours with less to show for it than she does on the 60-minute OLTL. "At The City, we shot a lot of the week's shows on one set, so there would often be times that I would shoot 15, 18 and as many as 20 scenes a day. And I hated it, because I didn't feel like I could ever do any quality work when under that much pressure and have that many pages," she notes. "It was a terrible way to work. Terrible. At One Life to Live, it's great because we get dry rehearsal, camera rehearsal, dress rehearsal and tape. And you get to feel like: I can really do some acting here, because I'm not cramming all these scenes in my head. Whereas we didn't really have any rehearsal on The City. We'd go in, block it and shoot it. And so, I really enjoy this hour-long stuff a lot better." After The City went off the air, Hickland says she wasn't bothered by watching Knight go off to a steady acting job every day while she was on forced hiatus. "I don't have a competitive, envious bone in my body, I mean, except with myself," she clarifies, "I'm grateful that God made me that way. It's not something that took work. I just am this way. And that's why I don't have a lot of actress friends. I don't [want to compete] with my friends, let alone my husband."
"I think it's absolutely tragic. I really do," she continues. "I feel pathetically sorry for people who are always envious 'cause it's like, how can you have any joy in this life if you're constantly competing with people? So, no, I didn't feel at all like that. When he's happy, I'm happy. And when I'm happy, he's happy. I mean, I was happy for my friends [at The City] who got work." After the announcement was made that The City was cancelled, Hickland fired her agent, not bothering to sign up with another one for seven months "because I felt really burned out. That show did me in."
Not that Hickland wasn't keeping herself busy. She put out a CD and did singing engagements around the country. She also used this time to "reinvent herself," cutting off her long hair and loosing weight based on the principles of an eating lifestyle espoused by entertainer Suzanne Somers (Hickland previously lost weight on this program while working on The City). "I knew that eventually I would go back to daytime, and when I did, I wanted to look familiar but not the same. I was getting tired [of the long hair], so I can't even imagine how other people felt. People were constantly saying, 'You know, you've really got to change your look.' It used to insult me," Hickland admits. "But once I cut my hair off I thought, you know, they were right."
As for weight loss - she shed 12 pounds in one month before her initial appearance as Lindsay - Hickland is happy to tell how she did it, but is quick to point out that "there's nothing wrong with being overweight if that's what makes you happy. If you're comfortable with yourself, then god bless you, 'cause that's all we really need. But if someone wants to loose weight, I feel really great because I can tell them that it's not a long-suffering diet. You just have to be willing to give up some of the things that you have been brought up on, like pasta, potatoes and white bread and white rice - and it's hard!"
Hickland says she would never formally lecture on either healthy eating or eating disorders despite once having battled bulimia herself. "People who have eating disorders are in denial. And half of them don't want to talk about or even be lectured about it, so that wouldn't be a way to go," she observes. "But what I'd like to do - and I actually thought about this when I was on Capitol, but I'm more in a position now to do the kind of lecture I'd like to do - is lecture about self-esteem. Because that's the basis of any disorder."
The boost in Hickland's self-esteem can be partly attributed to the satisfying relationship she enjoys with Knight (they celebrated their sixth wedding anniversary June 26), as well as her thriving career. (In addition to OLTL, and her cabaret act, she's planning a concert that will benefit an organization for abused women.) Hickland's sister gave her a copy of Loving Each Other: The Challenge of Human Relationships, by Leo Buscaglia, whose other titles include Living, Loving and Learning. "That was my first self-help book, but it was all about loving people and not need anyone because it's [considered] being co-dependent. I think it's really sad that people are afraid to need people when there's really nothing wrong with it as long as you're OK with yourself," says Hickland. She also enjoys reading autobiographies. "I'm very interested in the human spirit. I've given Buscaglia's books to people, and I want to write that kind if book someday and carry the torch. But I want to wait until I have a few more chapters of life to do it.
Hickland and Michael E. Knight (AMC) have been married for six years. "Michael's not as social as I am, and there are things that I want to do that he might not feel like doing. And I don't make him. I think that's the key to our happiness: We have a live-and-let-live existence."
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