Guiding Light Alum & Emmy Winner Kim Zimmer Shares Breast Cancer Diagnosis

Daytime Drama News reveals that daytime legend Kim Zimmer starred as Reva Shayne on the CBS soap The Guiding Light from 1983 to 2009. In 2006 Shayne was diagnosed onscreen with breast cancer and Zimmer just announced her own real-life battle with the disease.

On Thursday May 16, she revealed during Daytime Stands Up: A Benefit for Stand Up To Cancer – We All Have a Story: “I was diagnosed with breast cancer on Nov. 6.” She shared that she has undergone a mastectomy and her last chemotherapy infusion occurs on May 21.

Daytime Drama News: Kim Zimmer starred as Reva Shayne

Zimmer played Reva Shayne off and on from 1983 until the show’s final episode in 2009. She won four-time Emmys for her portrayal of wildly complicated Reva “Slut of Springfield” Shayne, a woman involved with two sons and their father.

She also starred on One Life to Live as Bonnie Harmon and Echo DiSavoy, appeared on Santa Barbara as Jodie Walke, and replaced Kathleen Turner on The Doctors as Nola Aldrich. Zimmer shares three grown children with her husband, A.C. Weary.

Zimmer shared her emotional story saying “I’m here to say early detection, early detection, early detection, early detection. Get your mammograms, get them soon.”

Daytime Drama News: Kim Zimmer Shares Medical News

Zimmer’s character on The Guiding Light chose not to share her diagnosis with her loved ones and Zimmer said of this choice: “I can’t imagine getting a diagnosis like that and not wanting the person that you love most in the world to be there standing next to you. The fans reacted to that too… It made for great drama.”

Zimmerman was in the final episode of CBS’s Guiding Light in 2009. The show was wildly popular before it left the air and had an impressive 57-season run.

During the show’s run Reva Shayne starred in numerous outrageous plots, including one that saw her cloned into a lookalike named Dolly.

The imaginative plot was not received well by fans used to suspending disbelief.

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