Soap Opera Digest
February 5, 2008
The Heart Healer

ONE LIFE TO LIVE’S CATHERINE HICKLAND HAS A MASTER PLAN FOR UNDOING HEARTACHE, INCLUDING HER OWN

Catherine Hickland has an effect on people. Physically, of course, the fair-haired ONE LIFE TO LIVE actress is stunning, but there is a warmth that emanates from her that makes you listen to (and get) every heartfelt word she is saying. She is currently channeling that ability and positive energy into a 30-chapter self-help book tentatively titled, Heartbreak Buster: How to Put Down Your Emotional Baggage and Have the Life You Really Want, which is slated for an October release from Simon & Schuster. “Basically, it’s for people who are feeling heartbroken about something and generally, that’s got something to do with a love you know,” explains Hickland. But don’t expect a tell-all about her split from the disgraced David Hasselhoff (ex-Snapper, Y&R) or her ongoing divorce from ALL MY CHILDREN star Michael E. Knight (Tad). “We can have our hearts broken by all kinds of people, “ says Hickland, “but in the end, I really think that other people don’t break our hearts, that we do, and it’s up to us to take care of ourselves in the first place…at least not open the door and put out the welcome mat for it. [laughs].”

Part of that “joyful work,” as she refers to it, is learning how to read dangerous situations and people, and each chapter involves some kind of exercise, either physical or mental, to undo some of the damaging habits that lead to heartbreak. “It will produce results,” she affirms. “I have hearbreak-busted many, many people, including myself.” The idea came to Hickland about 17 years ago – after he divorce from Hasselhoff. “I had my heart broken, and it was really the first time I felt that awful, thousand-yard stare at the wall, ‘How am I ever going to get past this?’ feeling.” So she tested the “program” on herself, then began applying it to her friends. “I don’t think I can recall a single time that it failed. So everybody was always saying to me, ‘You have to write a book about this,’ and so I finally did.

To accomplish that feat, every few weeks, Hickland retreats to a house in California’s San Fernando Valley that she began renting after he separation from Knight, whom she wed in 1992. “I’m using a lot of my personal life to set examples, and so I’ve had to go in and dig very deep into heart and soul issues and recall feelings that I would really rather have just left alone.” But Hickland says the book isn’t about rehashing other people’s actions. “They’re my experiences. It’s about taking responsibility – my responsibility. Nobody made me choose to be in any relationship.” And her soon-to-be-ex-husband has no reason for concern. “I don’t have anything bad to say about Michael Knight,” she smiles. “We’re very good friends. We went to couples therapy because I think that everybody should if you feel like your marriage is in danger or coming to an end, and we felt that, so you should always try to do what you can to save it, especially a 15-year marriage And it was just evident that we were going to be happier being friends.

Another reason she was able to dive into her writing is her recurring status with OLTL, which gives her the freedom to commute to L.A. and conduct business for her cosmetics company, Cat Cosmetics. She was dropped from contract status in 2005, but Hickland has a decidedly Zen attitude about it. “If I was going to look at it like, ‘Oh, man, nobody thinks I’m good enough to be under contract,’ well, that’s going to make my life a drag, isn’t it? But I can look at it as, ‘Wow! They’re writing these great stories for me’ or ‘They’re including me in this story and I am really happy to be here and I get to do whatever I want.’ If my book tour comes up, I go on a book tour. And if it turns out that I go back on-contract, that would be great. If I stay the way that I am, that’s fine, too. I’m good with it all.

Contract of no contract, Hickland is pleased to be celebrating her 10th anniversary as evolving bad girl Lindsay this year. “I think anybody who knows me or has ever interviewed me knows that I love this show and I have always loved this show and I love being on this show.” She is also thrilled with the fallout of the reveal that Lindsay is Spencer’s killer, which gave her character a much-needed jolt. “My first five years at ONE LIFE TO LIVE were absolutely crazy good – I worked every day, I had one nutty story after another – and the next couple of years were tough. But they were also good for me in retrospect because I got to think about other things, like the book. I guess I needed [the respite] because why else would it happen? There were things I had to learn, and I did, and also pay attention to a few other things in my life, so to come back in such a strong way this year was really a gift.”

JUST THE FACTS

Birthday: February 11. Hails From: Fort Lauderdale, FL. Everyday Heroes: Aside from pastor/motivational speaker Joel Olsteen and Leo F. Buscaglia, who wrote Living, Loving and Learning, Hickland counts her sister, Kim, a special education teacher, among her heroes. Doll Face: “It takes an army and I have learned to delegate,” she says of Cat Cosmetics. “It’s like a big machine, but it’s kind of cool. It’s like owning a dollhouse with real things in it. It’s really girly [laughs].” TVTime: “Desperate Housewives has got me back this season, and I like Grey’s Anatomy. I love anything that’s soap opera-like, and the funny thing is, there hadn’t been a nighttime soap opera on in years, almost since Knots Landing, and I said about seven or eight years ago that soap operas were going to make a huge comeback.

TEARS OF JOY

While Hickland’s book has the potential to change lives, one book that’s helped her over the years is Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential by Joel Olsteen, so she was thrilled to finally meet the author at a speaking engagement at Madison Square Garden. “I wept like a baby, and that great man has this amazing gift of making you feel like you’re the only person in the room,” she recalls. “Sometimes, when I meet fans, they get very overwhelmed every now and then and they start to shake and cry, and I always wonder, ‘What’s that about?’ And now I know, because it’s really just unbridled joy. You cannot believe this perfect moment is there, and that’s what it meant for me, and so I told him that I really appreciated the experience. He is such an amazing, gentle human being that he actually said to me that he and his wife had recently met Billy Graham and that they both had the reception and wept.”

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