ANYTHING ABC CAN DO... WE CAN DO BETTER
By Alina Adams

I hear that, in conjunction with Kim Zimmer's return to One Life to Live this week, viewers were treated to some vintage Echo flashbacks. (May I say at this time that I LOVED Echo. I may have only been in Junior High School then, but I remember the whole story of Echo and her brother and Clint and the dead mother... awesome. When Kim joined Guiding Light some time later, it took me a while to stop thinking of her as Echo. And yes, I watched way too many soap operas as a child. And here I am now. Let that be a lesson to everyone.)

But, while Kim as early 1980s Echo is pretty cool, we've got an even older blast from the past. Kim as Nola on The Doctors. (I loved Nola, too. See the above re: too much soap watching, not enough fresh air.)

The clip below is a series of promos for NBC's soaps circa 1980. In addition to Nola on trial, we've got Doug and Julie on Days of Our Lives, bleeding Mitch and overall-clad Rachel on Another World, and the original, eavesdropping Iris on Texas.



Kim Zimmer assumed the role of Nola (and eventually got to audition Alec Baldwin for his first TV job) in 1979, taking over for Kathleen Turner. (Two years later, Kim played a small role in Turner's breakout movie hit, Body Heat, due to the actresses' strong resemblance.)

In her 2009 memoir, Send Yourself Roses, Turner speaks (not particularly kindly, but with a lot of humor) about her days in soaps. Apparently, Nola behaved so differently from day to day, that Turner just decided to play her as a drunk to justify it all.

Read all about it in:



And catch Kathleen drinking coffee and giving great thought to her future in these closing credits from The Doctors!