Soap Opera Digest
August 18, 1998
Catherine the Great

JUST THE FACTS

Birthday: February 11
Hails from: Ft. Lauderdale, FL
What was she like in high school?: "I was wild."
The last laugh: Hickland returned to a Ft. Lauderdale theater last year in Les Miserables. "I had one teacher who was really, really hard and he used to say, 'Girl, you're gonna end up in prison if you don't straighten out.' He came backstage to see me and I said, 'Mr. Trainer, I didn't end up in prison [laughs]!'"
How she decorated her dressing room: "I bought a lamp--does that count?

"Sometimes I just love being me," Catherine Hickland is saying, between bites of a healthy breakfast ("No bread! Take it away!") on a sunny Sunday morning in Manhattan. She is regaling the listener with tales of Saturday night, spent with her adored husband of six years, Michael E. Knight (Tad, All My Children), her mom, Mary, visiting from Florida and a girlfriend. "We go to this great restaurant and I have the biggest steak you ever saw. My mom couldn't believe it. We walk outside and I hear live music. We look over at Lincoln Center and it's 'Midsummer Night Swing.' People are dancing; it's free. We walk over there and we're watching people dance and smile and laugh. And I'm thinking, 'What can be wrong? I just ate a steak. I have a great gig. I have a fabulous husband. I have unbelievably fabulous friends. I have a roof over my head. I am just really happy."

No wonder. The "gig" she refers to is her new job on ONE LIFE TO LIVE, playing Lindsay Rappaport, bitter ex-wife of Sam (played by long-time pal Kale Browne) and gold-digging new wife of Clint (played by Clint Ritchie, "a sweetie"). "I love this job," beams Hickland. "Originally, it was for one show and I didn't know if I wanted to do it. I was afraid that if it didn't go anywhere--which was very possible--then I would not be able to be on again because people would recognize me." Hickland took the job anyway. "It turned into two more shows and then, before I even finished those shows [Executive Producer] Jill Farren Phelps called me at home: 'We're going to be offering you a contract.' I cried so hard I made her cry."

Hickland was sworn to secrecy until the Daytime Emmys held a week later. "It was horrible not being able to tell anybody," she confides. "My husband went home after the Emmys because he ws so exhausted from the experience--the nomination always does him in--and I was like, "I'll see you later. I'm going to the parties. I have friends to see, dish to spill and news to tell.' He said, 'When do you think you'll be home?' I said, 'Sometime before breakfast!"

After 20 years in the business (she got her start on The HEE HAW HONEY'S with Kathie Lee Gifford in 1978), Hickland knows that taking the role of Lindsay for one day and then hoping it would grow was a real crap shoot. "One thing I haven't lost in my years of show business is my faith," she explains simply. "I just took the leap of faith that it would work out, because One Life to Live is a show that I've always wanted to do. That, All My Children, and one other show that's not on ABC, so I won't mention it. Those are the only three shows I was interested in. You can't take a job on a soap opera just for the sake of taking a job because if that job lasts for years--which it can if you're lucky--you'd better like what you're doing. It's a lot of work. And if you don't have pride in what you're doing, you need to find something else to do."

Hickland ran into that problem herself when THE CITY (where she played Tess) was cancelled in 1997. "The first six months were great, because I was burned out," recounts Hickland. "I will not say that THE CITY was a great experience for me. It was hard. It was new, so the organization of the show wasn't great. There were days I'd have 18 scenes, no lie. We'd shoot a whole week of shows in one day. How could my work have been anything but average or below? It was just a matter of getting it out. I'd leave the studio thinking, 'I just want to do good work and I can't.' So, although I was super sad to see a soap go down, I was okay with it, because I was ready for something new." So new, in fact, that she stopped working. "I got rid of my agent and didn't audition for anything," she reveals. "But after six months, I started to miss acting. By a year, I had faith that I'd go back to work, but my patience was being tested because there wasn't a lot of movement in daytime. There was no one leaving, and they weren't casting people unless they were under 25."

Most people, at that point, would have gone where the work was. "I wanted very much to go to L.A. because I knew there'd be more opportunities there," she allows. "But I couldn't because I'm married, and my marriage is more important to me than anything. My marriage--or anyone else's--could not survive that separation and shouldn't. So I was getting frustrated because I was stuck in New York and there was nothing going on here." True to form, however, Hickland took lemons and made lemonade. "We got a new apartment and I fixed that up," she says, ticking off accomplishments. "I did a lot of stuff with my music. I worked on my voice. I studied. I did a lot of shows [notably Boys on the Side at the Triad in Manhattan]. And I also used that period to reinvent myself."

Meaning? "I cut off all my hair, lost weight, and got a breast reduction. That's something that I'd been wanting to do for years. I finally had the time, and my life is different in the most wonderful way. I now fit into normal clothes. My posture's better, my back doesn't hurt. I can go bra-less now. I went from double Ds to perky Cs and I love them [laughs]."

As if all that wasn't enough, Hickland adds pointedly, "And I got to spend a lot of quality time with Michael." Not suprisingly, Knight's name comes up a lot in conversation--whether while talking about him or talking to him when the cell phone rings. ("Hi, baby..." she beams when it does.) This is Hickland's third marriage. Her first was brief, to a man who has since passed away. Her second was a five-year union to a guy named David Hasselhoff, who some readers may have heard of. "I am enormously proud of his success," Hickland says, choosing her words carefully. "It doesn't suprise me at all. He is a person who created opportunities for himself and I admire that in anybody." They haven't spoken in years, though. "I've extended the olive branch, but I'm very respectful of a person's family, and particularly his wife. My husband is completely fine with my wanting to be friends with people from my past. And I am fine with him doing the same. We're very good friends with his ex-girlfriend of seven years; I love her. I just don't have problems with that, which is why we're together.

Actually, there are many reasons why Hickland and Knight are together. "I feel very suited to this man," she says thoughtfully. "Sometimes, you get married and you realize that you are just not suited for each other. I don't look at my divorces as failures. I look at them in a more positive way, as experiences that helped me grow. But with Michael, our goals in life are the same. There is a complete support on both sides, which is very rare for two performers. I also think I am more mature. I realize it does take some hanging in there to solve problems."

The two celebrated their sixth wedding anniversary in June. "A landmark," she grins. "He bought me a beautiful new wedding band," she says, flashing a delicate gold and diamond ring that catches the sunlight through the restaurant window. "When we got married, we were so poor we couldn't even take a honeymoon. Neither one of us had worked in two years." But what a two years it was.."When we met, we had so much money between us. We'd just worked, worked, worked. So, we took those two years and we lived like..forget about it. We traveled, we spent, we ate, we rejoiced, we threw lavish parties. We knew that we'd go back to work one day, so we went through the money and had a great time doing it. We had a gorgeous wedding and that was the last hurrah. By the time we got married, it was like, 'Honeymoon? Let's go to the beach and have a beer.' It was fun while it lasted."

On the subject of fun, don't even get her started on her new job. "I'm doing scenes with these characters that I have been watching forever," she marvels, referring in particular to Viki, Dorian, Asa, Clint and Bo. "It's like I'm dreaming. I had a scene with Phil Carey [Asa] the other day, and I could barely get through it! I am so happy here."

In other words, Catherine Hickland is just loving being...her.

Sex and the Single Girl

"I have so many fabulous girlfriends who aren't married and want to be with someone," groans Catherine Hickland, "and this is what I tell them: Don't be afraid of being alone. Don't be afraid of being left. Because when you're okay with yourself, it just falls into your lap. It's really weird, but it does. Be okay with yourself, and boom! It comes right to your door. I've had it happen and I've seen it happen. Absolutely. and I--who's been married three times--I am the expert!"