On soap opera, characters come and go faster than hairdos in Hollywood. Even seasoned veterans are unceremoniously dumped, albeit with highfalutin rationales such as “storyline dictated” and “went on to pursue other projects.”
Even so, it was a bit of a shock when “The Bold and the Beautiful” announced a couple of weeks ago it was dropping Kimberlin Brown, whose knife-wielding, baby-napping psycho-mom character Sheila was a sight to behold.
One had to wonder if somebody goofed.
“It came as a surprise to me, too,” Brown says simply.
Sheila first surfaced in 1991 on Bill Bell’s “The Young and The Restless” as a health-care provider run amok. After two years of criminal behavior–and in a novel crossover for daytime–she resurfaced on “B&B,” Bell’s other soap.
“They said they needed to take a Sheila break. They decided to let me go,” Brown explains. “I was sorry to hear it. I spent years creating the character and she really was a part of my life.”
Brown believes the explanation from writer-producer Bradley Bell was sincere, but she can’t help thinking other forces were at work as well. “I believe the entire lure to Sheila has always been that she made everything so believable. But if I’m asked to play her in a way I never thought to, it isn’t going to work. I wasn’t going to wear bikinis to go to my lawyer’s office.”
Having taped her last episode last week, Brown says, “The only real dissapointment I felt was about her . I thought Sheila would go out with a bang and she didn’t. My final day, I drank the poison and that was it.”
In the aftermath of the news, the actress has put her movie of the week project in high gear. “It’s my idea and I would star in it,” she says. “It’s about three women and it’s still in the infant stages, but I’m always optimistic. modeled for 11 years, I got used to being told `no’ on a daily basis. I learned early on that there’s always something else out there.”
That “something else” may well be a role on some other soap. Brown does possess considerable comedic talent, but chances are if she pops up again on daytime, it’ll be once again as the seductive bad girl she played with such elan on “B&B.”
“A few soaps have already approached me. I’m just mulling it over. I’ve worked since I was 13 and I’m enjoying the break,” says Brown, who is now able to spend more time with her 2-year-old daughter, Alexis. “I don’t think I would ever say `no’ to daytime,” she adds. “It’s been very good to me, and daytime fans are the greatest die-hard fans in the world.”
The last of Sheila can be seen on a week’s worth of shows beginning June 5. For Chicago-area fans who want to meet Brown, the actress will be flying in from Las Vegas, where she and her family live, to attend the Soap Opera Fan Fair in Mackinaw City, Mich., Thursday and Friday
– The Soap Opera Fan Fair, which runs through Sunday, has also scheduled the following daytime celebs: James Kiberd, Jill Larson, Richard Shoberg, David Canary, Theresa Blake and Robin Mattson (“All My Children”); Charles Keating, Victoria Wyndham, Diego Serrano (“Another World”); Shawn Chiristian, Margaret Reed, Paolo Seganti (“As The World Turns”); Dylan Neal, Ken Haines (“B&B”); Thaao Penghlis, Louise Sorel, Drake Hogestyn, Thyme Lewis, Tanya Boyd (“Days Of Our Lives”); Brad Maule, John Ingle, Wally Kurth, Vanessa Marcil (“General Hospital”); Michael Zaslow (“Guiding Light”); Phillip Brown, Robert Tyler (“Loving”); Nathan Purdee, Laura Bonarrigo, Cassie Wesley, John Loprieno (“One Life To Live”); Melody Thomas Scott, J. Eddie Peck, Kate Linder, Joshua Morrow, Jeanne Cooper and Lauralee Bell (‘”Young And The Restless”).
– ABC’s prime-time special “In A New Light: Sex Unplugged” (Friday, 7 p.m., WLS-Ch. 7) takes a sobering look at youth and sex in the ’90s. Included are “General Hospital” actors Kimberly McCullough (Robin), 16, and Michael Sutton (Stone), 20, who speak from the GH set about their characters’ AIDS storyline and their own real-life sexual choices as single young adults.
– Kim Zimmer fanatics who don’t buy her current ghost-comeback storyline on “Guiding Light” can get a glimpse of the way she was with “Reva: The Scarlet Years.” The video, released this week, is available for $12.95. To order, call 1-800-353-1368.
– Barbara Crampton, who disappears from her Mindy role on “Guiding Light,” turns up in her new role as Maggie Forester on “The Bold and the Beautiful” June 14. The actress previously starred on another Bell soap, “Y&R.”
