Soap Stars
1985
America's 31 Favorite Daytime Actors Speak for Themselves

Julie Clegg McCandless of "Capitol" is the third soap opera character that Catherine Hickland has protrayed. Before that she received national attention as Courtney Marshal on "Texas," and continued to receive fan mail for eight months while playing the teacher that John Stamos fell in love with on "General Hospital."

She grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where she was the youngest of three children. Catherine spent her childhood as a tomboy, climbing trees, taking care of a menagerie of pets, and riding horses, often in competition.

Catherine always knew that she would be an actress one day. She sang and performed in many high school and college productions before she got a job as a flight attendant with National Airlines and was chosen to be the "Fly Me" girl of their national ad campain, and that led to her getting a SAG card and moving to Hollywood. After one week she landed a job in a musical comedy pilot, "The Hee Haw Honeys." When that was finished she guest-starred in shows such as "Vega$," "Eight is Enough," "Chips," and two CBS movies-of-the-week: The Seeding of Sarah Burns and To Race the Wind. She was also in The Last Married Couple in America with Natalie Wood and George Segal.

She wrote and guest-starred in an episode of the NBC series, "Knight Rider," White Bird and announced her engagement to long-time beau David Hasselhoff at the wrap party. A little over a year later they were married, and now live in a beautiful five bedroom "high-tech" home built by a Chinese architect. It overlooks the San Fernando Valley and has enough acreage for Catherine to someday have horses and even a llama or two.

I grew up as a tomboy. My parents got divorced when I was five and I lived with my father till I was sixteen, so I spent all my time climbing trees and building houses and taking care of my bizarre pets. I had a skunk named Hasselflower and a raccoon named Bud and some tame squirrels. Things haven't changed that much--now I have four parrots, two cats, and three dogs, and I'm sure there are more to come.

When I was sixteen my father turned me over to my mother, who got me out of jeans and into a dress and groomed me into a young lady. I had gotten into a lot of trouble in junior high, cutting classes and hanging out with the wrong kind of people because I wanted to be accepted somewhere. By the time I moved in with my mother, I wanted to make a clean break with my past and do something with my life.

I joined a sorority-The Exchangettes-and started dating a little. It was a cliquey crowd and I never felt like I fit in though. I'm not sure why I even tried, other than wanting to please my parents. They were called service clubs, but I didn't see that they did much community work. They mainly had parties and egged cars, and to me that just wasn't fun, so after a year I quit and got involved with the theater department.

I was never pretty, and it still surprises me when I read an article that calls me beautiful. Because I was brought up by my father I never knew how to dress or put on makeup when I was younger. My hair was stringy and I had a zillion freckles and all in all I was rather homely. I guess I had a good personality and was always the class clown though, so that made up for the looks I didn't have.

I went to college for a year, but I got very bored, so I left. I just didn't have much interest in studying, so I decided to get a job that would satisfy me and make good money at the same time. I knew I didn't want to get something at minimum wage, so I looked for something that would be fun and enable me to make a good living.

I applied at National Airlines and got hired as a flight attendant, which I enjoyed doing. Six months later I was asked to audition for the "Fly Me" commercials. I thought they were kidding, since hundreds of girls had already tried out, but they convinced me, and after I few auditions I was made spokesperson and "Fly Me" girl for National Airlines. That got me into SAG, which I don't think they were counting on--so when the campaign was over I quit my job and moved to Los Angeles to become an actress.

I had been in L.A. about a week when someone saw me on the golf course and told me they were making a spin off of "Hee Haw" called "Hee Haw Honeys." I didn't have an agent or pictures or anything, but they asked me if I sang ("Oh yes") and if I acted (Of course!"), and when I went to the audition, I got the part. It all happened to easily, I decided I had definitely made the right decision in coming to L.A. to pursue acting.

The show was being produced in Nashville, so I went there for two months to do the pilot. Since I didn't have an agent, I didn't make very good money, but it was good experience working in front of the cameras and in a recording studio. It also gave me the opportunity to find out I wanted to do drama not comedy, so I began studying with Jeff Corey when I got back to L.A., and that led to work on "Vega$" and "Eight is Enough" and a few others and then I was out of work for about six months.

I knew by then that acting was what I wanted to do, but there are always times you wonder if you shouldn't just go home and marry some nice guy with a regular job. Every time things would really start to look grim though I'd get a job, so I never stopped believing in myself.

Paul Rauch, the former producer of "Another World," saw me in The Last Married Couple in America with George Segal and Natalie Wood and decided he wanted me in his new soap, "Texas." He tested me for four or five parts and ended up casting me as Dr. Courtney Marshall. I learned a lot while he was there--he is a very supportive man--but then he quit and we got a new producer and we didn't get along well at all.

After I left "Texas" I was out of work for a year and a half, with the exception of a couple of jobs, and that was one of the hardest periods of my life. I "went to network"--which means that they've narrowed it down to you and one other person--about ten times, and each time I lost because I was too short or too tall or too pretty or not pretty enough. It was bizarre. The only thing that kept me going was thinking that every time the phone rang, it could make the difference, and every time I went on an interview, that could be the job.

I don't believe any of it is that important anymore. I think the problem was that I would get so scared I would intimidate myself right out of the part. Fear is just not in my vocabulary anymore. I go in thinking, "This is my part," and if I don't get it, then I think it wasn't my part after all, but my part is just around the corner.

This business is all about fantasies and miracles. I don't believe in coincidences anymore. I believe in miracles and blessings. I think a lot of people have been blessed and they don't even know it, and that's why they end up blowing it. The more they have, the more they want, and they forget to be grateful for what they have.

I believe God gives us little responsibilities to live up to and that he sees how we handle them before giving us bigger responsibilities. I liken it to having a child who wants something you aren't sure he will take care of. You give him a hamster to feed and take care of before you give him a horse.

I always believed in God, but I didn't have the relationship with him that I wanted, so I decided to pursue a closer and more personal one with him. I became a reborn Christian and started studying the Scriptures and learning how to pray effectively. That has made all the difference in my life. I credit everything I have and do now to the glory of God. My life was at a standstill until I turned it over to him.

I was religious before, but I always did a lot of things to hurt myself--repeat performances, and bad ones at that. I lived the high life and smoked a lot of grass, but I've been away from it completely for two years now. I'm around it a lot because of being in this business, but with this new spirit I have I'm not tempted in the least. Also, I used to get sick a lot---flus and colds and at least three trips to the hospital a year. Now I never get sick, and I credit that to realizing that good health is my divine right, just like having a job is. When you pray effectively God answers your prayers. I don't know what it is that people find so hard to turn over to him.

I guess Julie Clegg McCandless and I are alike in that we are both idealistic and have a good sense of humor, but she is sane and normal and I am slightly loony. She is very straight and conservative in every way. All she wants in life is to be a wife and have a family. I love being married and want a family someday, but right now I want to do my work. It's very exciting to be on a show that's on its way up. It's one of the things that keeps me going. In the long run David and I would like to have kids, but when I do I'll concentrate more on my writing. I don't want to be one of those actresses that people see on the screen and say "She used to be so pretty."

I met David while I was still living in New York, at a party for the Daytime Emmies. I was on "Texas" and he was on "The Young and the Restless." I knew who he was from the daytime magazines. In fact, William Gray Espy, who had played the part of Snapper before David, was one of my favorite actors and I had actually stopped watching the show for a long time when David took over the role.

He wasn't a likely man for me to be interested in. I thought he was definitely a playboy from all the escapades I had read about, and I usually shied away from good-looking men, but every time I turned around he was staring at me, and I couldn't help but stare back. You don't see many men that are that awesomely tall and handsome.

When the party was almost over I went over and introduced myself. We talked a long time and I liked him. He asked me if I wanted to go to Acapulco for the weekend and that really turned me off, but when he called me the next day I met him for brunch.

We had a really nice time, but I thought he had a lot of problems, so I thought that would be the last time I would see him. He went back to California and called me every day for two months, telling me how much he loved me. I thought he was crazy, but when I came out to L.A. when I finished with "Texas," I decided to see him again, and we have been together ever since.

We waited a long time--two and a half years--before we got married because there were a lot of problems. Any relationship in this business is difficult, unless one person can be almost selfless, and there aren't too many selfless people who are actors. The enormous responsibilities of David's show and the hours he had to put in and the attention he had to give to promoting "Knight Rider" meant that I got less and less attention all the time. It wasn't anyone's fault, but I began to feel unimportant, and then I began to act unimportant, and finally one day I woke up and realized I was really unhappy.

I decided to split up with David rather than impose what was going on--which was a lack of self-esteem-on him. I had to learn to have confidence in myself and not build it on false pretenses. When we got back together we were a team instead of in competition. We have separate lives within our marriage. We're very happy together but we're also happy apart. It's a good marriage.

Getting married was wonderful. We were both a little frightened of marriage, sicne we had heard a lot about how it can change a relationship, but once we had that commitment to each other in a marriage union, it changed things in ways neither of us would have thought possible. It has enhanced our relationship in every single way and made us feel that we have a place in life with each other. I can't imagine living any other way now.