Three Deaths, Seven Husbands, and a Clone! My Life as a Daytime Diva
Packed with on- and off-set photographs and behind-the-scenes information, blatantly honest and wildly indiscreet, I’m Just Sayin’ tells all in an insightful journey through the parallel lives of Reva Shayne and Kim Zimmer—and the true stories behind the longest-running drama in television and radio history.
August 1, 2011
Four-time Emmy winner Zimmer, best known as Reva "The Slut of Springfield" Shayne on Guiding Light, chronicles her career and shares behind-the-scenes gossip from the daytime drama.
Achieving longevity on a soap opera is no mean feat, and the author can't help but brag about surviving daytime TV as a manic-depressive, cancer-surviving, time-traveling vixen for close to three decades. Weaving between her own life and that of her character, the author lets it all loose as she revisits her career both on and off the screen. "I had it made," she writes. "I got to have affairs and live out almost every fantasy possible through the characters I played on TV." Zimmer shares the laughs and tears she experienced with fellow cast and crewmembers, her real-life struggle with alcohol and subsequent DUI arrest and a look at the zany scripts that led to her character being thrice-resuscitated from the beyond. That all came to a screeching halt in 2009 when the network pulled the plug on Guiding Light after a 72-year run (it began life as a radio serial in 1937). Ratings were down, core characters were pushing retirement age and a new writer and producer couldn't manage to turn things around. But Zimmer's here to relive it all as both herself and Reva. As one fan recently moaned to the actress-turned-author, "You're my family. What are we supposed to do now?"
Die-hard Guiding Light fans should enjoy the book. Others? Not so much.
(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)
July 1, 2011
Although some may not have heard of four-time Emmy winner Zimmer, big soap opera fans know about Reva Shayne, the character she played on Guiding Light for 25 years. Zimmer spends the bulk of her memoir on what led to the show's cancellation in 2009, primarily arguing that a new producer drove it into the ground. Despite the book's subtitle, she writes that she is just a regular gal from Michigan who is friends with everyone. Yet Zimmer has many strong feelings about what made the show great (she did), and it's obvious she thinks she could have done a better job of producing it. As her book went to press, Zimmer had snagged a role on One Life To Live, another popular soap, and she was looking forward to a long run there. That one was recently cancelled, too. VERDICT For soap fans who care about the real life behind the character. Most libraries can pass on this one; there will be much more demand for Susan Lucci's recent All My Life.--Rosy Brewer, Sno-Isle Libs., Marysville, WA
Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.