Hi!
The schedule was changed on Friday night so she shared the stage with Jerry Lacy rather than KLS, and I can pass along some more of her reminiscences.
As you know, it was her first DS Fest. On Friday night, she spoke about her work before and after DS (her 4th soap), which of course was a different and more frightening experience than the others. She came to it knowing nothing about the series because she'd been busy with work and school, though she knew David Henesy through the latter. She had one reading for the part and isn't actually sure why she got it. At 15 (her age when she started), she had a crush on David Selby and actually hoped to not run into him in the office because he would talk to her and then she'd want to die. She mentioned that David H had a crush on her, but she wasn't his age and told him to forget about it. She did, however, enjoying going to Kate Jackson's room with him to smoke. Eventually she married, had her daughter and came to be a single mom who returned to her career but found it too difficult. So she moved to Florida and worked her way up in the corporate world.
During the Q&A, she explained that she felt no pressure after replacing Denise Nickerson, and it helped that her buddy David (who also reminded her of a pesky younger brother) made her feel comfortable and they came to be good friends. In talking about Tom Happer, she said she finally got to play her age. A fan asked about her memories of Bob Crane, and she explained that he was always pleasant but they were never close.
Her appearance on Sunday was in the form of a tribute, and she seemed to enjoy the clips chosen for her:
Superdad, (with Kurt Russell, whom she at one time had plans to marry),
The Partridge Family (with David Cassidy),
Love, American Style (with Davy Jones, and omg she was a lucky girl!), a
Gunsmoke ep (she said she loved doing Westerns and dressing in period costumes [the latter being a good thing, cuz she said the dress worn in the clip shown from 1841 was pure wool, yikes]). Another new experience that came to her by way of DS was that she became close friends with a handful of the show's female fans. But most of her mail, otoh, was from male fans. A fan in the audience told her that his father was a huge fan at 15, and when she said she once received a letter along with a book of Shakespeare's Sonnets, she added, "It might've been your father."
She spoke highly of Thayer David ("a wonderful man and wonderful actor"). She also told about a few injuries she endured, one on
Superdad-- a runaway surfboard causing hyperextension of her knee, and explained the sling we saw her in on DS-- she had done her sole voiceover, and while she was opening a door of the sound booth, someone else opened the other and her wrist became caught in the the doors. On Friday, she talked about getting hit by a car on a corner while on the way to an audition that caused her to miss weeks of filming and said Kate Jackson was not only the first to reach her, but she also stayed all night in the ER with her until her parents arrived.
About David Henesy, she said, "I wish he would come to one of these things so I could see him" and that she never got to say goodbye to him when he disappeared from the show while she continued into the next storyline. Jim Pierson filled her in on his whereabouts and promised to put her in touch with him via email. She was so cheerful this weekend and seemed to be enjoying herself, so I bet if anyone can convince David to attend a Fest, it's Kathleen.
It's impressive that her memories were vivid even after all these years (how refreshing), and a friend of ours got to spend some time discussing her 4 Gunsmoke eps with her, and I bet you can guess who that was, John, lol. Here's a pic from the autograph line on Friday night [we missed you!]:
