Today marks the anniversary of the birth of the woman who is without a doubt the sexiest of the 80's soap superdivas, Kim Zimmer (Reva Shayne). I didn't start watching Guiding Light until 1993, so my indoctrination to the fabulousness that is Zimmer actually took place on one of my favorite primetime sitcoms, Designing Women. Zimmer guest-starred on the CBS series as Mavis, Charlene's(Jean Smart) cousin, who was being abused by her husband. Zimmer made such an impression as the broken, tormented wife, she stole the show from Southern-fried comedic phenom Delta Burke, who donned black face to impersonate Diana Ross during a talent show in the same episode!

Zimmer was so fierce, I wanted DW's creators to make "Rowdy Girl" Mavis the fifth Designing Woman permanently. The following year I was visiting my mom and going through Santa Barbara withdrawals. Unlike my grandparents, my mom had vacated NBC's soap lineup years earlier, for CBS at 2 pm because of the much-buzzed about Four Musketeers storyline on GL. I was there the day Reva Shayne made her famous drive off that Florida bridge, and watched back and forth from the screen to my mother on three-way with her sisters screaming for Reva not to do it. Anyone who could inspire that kind of reaction in four black women stretched all across America—on long distance—was someone to pay attention to!

Happy Birthday Ms Zimmer, may you never have to come back from the dead, churn butter in Amish country, serve as princess to a foreign land, be thrown from a plane by a psycho ex-nurse, be cloned by your husband, travel back in time to fight Nazis, or ever have to wipe so much as one sweaty balls in Peapack ever again! Clips below courtesy of NoheaStar and Rachiebabie77.