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KATE'S BIOGRAPHY
When you’re a young, struggling actress with only a few television credits
to your name, even an audition for a one-day role with one line
of dialogue on a daytime soap is something to lift your hopes and
add a sparkle to your eye. Realistically, of course, you don’t put
a down payment on a mansion in Malibu and, if you’re Kate Linder,
you don’t quit your job as a United Airlines flight attendant.
Over twenty years ago, in April, 1982, Linder got the role and
delivered her line, “Dinner is served,” on The Young and the
Restless. She was asked back the next day. And the next. Now
she remains a key member of the top-rated daytime drama’s cast,
but needless to say, with a greatly expanded role. Still the realist,
however, she continues to fly the friendly skies of United on weekends
while simultaneously appearing on the soap opera.
Linder’s role as Esther Valentine has been one of emotional highs
and lows as the confidante and housekeeper to Mrs. Katherine Chancellor
(Jeanne Cooper), the wealthiest woman in town. Mrs. Chancellor and
Esther Valentine are now on friendlier terms since they were kidnapped
together and Mrs. Chancellor subsequently delivered Esther’s child
(named Kate, appropriately enough) during a thunderstorm. Their
relationship was severely tested when Esther’s estranged husband
murdered Mrs. Chancellor’s husband during an attempted robbery but
the two women learned to rely on one another for moral support.
A confirmed world traveler and tourist, Linder now enjoys the best
of two worlds -- on the air and in the air. “Acting is my life,”
says Linder. “That’s what I do for my living and my creative satisfaction.
Flying is what I do for fun as long as I can work it into my schedule.”
Linder’s high-flying life began without fanfare on a warm November
2nd in Pasadena. Her father, a C.P.A., and her mother, a homemaker
and dedicated tennis player, presented her with a brother, Randy,
a few years later.
Entered into dance class at 3 1/2, Linder’s interest in acting
didn’t manifest itself until seventh grade when her history teacher
had the bright idea of reports delivered in the form of dramatic
skits. By the time she finished high school, she’d appeared in major
singing and dancing roles in Promises, Promises, Three
Penny Opera, L’il Abner, Jesus Christ Superstar,
and many others.
Committed by this time to an acting career, Linder’s request upon
her high school graduation to be sent to the American Academy in
New York to study theatre was met by a counter-offer from her father:
attend two years of liberal arts college, after which he’d support
her in New York.
As a result, Linder entered San Francisco State University majoring
in drama, which kept her so busy in school productions as well as
in stock and repertory theaters in the Bay area, that she never
got around to taking up her father’s offer. When she wasn’t on stage,
she filled her remaining days, nights and weekends with her first
experience as a world traveler as a flight attendant for Transamerica,
a charter airline which flew exclusive champagne flights to Monaco,
Tahiti and various other playgrounds of the rich and famous.
Gaining her degree in Theater Arts, Linder remained in San Francisco
following her graduation, dividing her time between the stage and
exotic locales around the world. What spare time she had was spent
working in the University’s activities office where she met her
soon-to-be-husband, Ronald Linder, then a professor at the school
and one of the world’s leading experts and authors on drug abuse.
Today Ronald is a health care administrator and an addiction specialist.
Married on Valentine’s Day in 1976 (thus the character name, Esther
Valentine, on The Young and the Restless), the couple soon
settled in Los Angeles. Linder soon broke into the TV scene with
featured roles in Bay City Blues, Archie Bunker’s Place,
Dream Girl, and many others. Linder also recently starred
in Cotillion ’65, a short film that won many film festival
awards. The short explored the relationship between a boy and his
dance teacher, played by Linder, and the dual life led by her character.
Linder is active with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and she’s also
a founding board member of TV Cares, the Academy of Television Arts
and Sciences’ AIDS awareness and fundraising charity. Linder was
also the only daytime actress to be featured in “Portraits of Life,
With Love,” a coffee table book to raise funds for several AIDS
organizations. Linder spent this past Thanksgiving visiting troops
in Afghanistan and Pakistan for 11 days to boost morale with the
USO.
In her “spare” time, Linder also became the first daytime actress
to compete in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach celebrity car
race. She didn’t win but she came in ahead of previous race winners
and, unlike her fellow racers, her car didn’t have a scratch on
it!
With Linder now a much-admired fixture on The Young and the
Restless, she and her husband live a hectic life while putting
the finishing touches on the reconstruction of their rambling, old
brick house in Los Angeles, which was destroyed in the ‘94 earthquake.
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