by Alan Carter

For more than a decade, Susan Walters - who's now playing the still-crazy-for-Kyle, battle-scarred Christine on MELROSE PLACE - has been cast in a variety of roles on day-time (she played Lorna on LOVING) and prime-time (she stared in the sitcom DEAR JOHN, the dramas HOTEL and NIGHTINGALES and portrayed Priscilla Presley in ELVIS AND ME). She will also be fondly remembered as Mulva/Dolores, the girlfriend on SEINFELD whose name Jerry couldn't quite remember (see Seinfeld image page). And don't forget the films (most recently, Till There Was You, opposite Dylan McDermott). With all these credits, and a resume of other roles in which Walters (a former Elite model) was often cast as a babe, it is most shocking when she sits down to breakfast with a reporter and drops a bombshell: She doesn't think she 's a babe. No way. No how.

Walters's real life husband, Linden Ashby (Coop, MP), joins us late in the interview (she accurately predicts he will order huevos rancheros). Of course, like any man with two eyes, he finds her modesty a little hard to believe. But Walters laughs, "I earned the lines on my face. And my days of being the hot, sexy, slutty girl in the bikini are long over." Well, not so long over. Walters chuckles that for three months, she obsessed about having to wear a bikini on Melrode "I was worrying about the scene since October," she smiles over a fruit plate. "But did I lose one pound? No. Did I do one sit-up? No. And then it comes time to put the bikini on. Talk about intimidating. I'm standing next to Heather Locklear [Amanda] and Lisa Rinna [Taylor], and if that wasn't enough to lower my self esteem, I basically sashay down the stairs, whip off my robe and say, 'Kyle, come and get it" and he says, 'No, thanks.' The scene did wonders for my ego." Bathing-suit phobia aside, Walters loves playing Christine. "She has so many secrets," the actress enthuses. "I have no secrets. Someone meets me and within five minutes, it's all out there. Christine has these chunks of dialogue. And she babbles - just like I do in real life." It should be noted' however, that Walters is a lot happier than Christine and actually has something to babble about. In addition to a high-profile career, there is also wedded bliss to her handsome husband, a star in his own right (Mortal Kombat). Walters's eight episode stint on MP is due to come to an end soon, and no one could be less happy about it than her "I had the best time working on this show," she declares. "They were all so nice. Rob [Esles, Kyle) was wonderful. And [Executive Producer] Frank South --- I adored him. Everyone embraced me. I don't remember having a job where I laughed as much"
Walters didn't smile a lot when she was on LOVING from 1983-86. "Lorna was always crying," she recalls. "And I got some 'advice' from another actress who said, 'Drink a lot of coffee and have a doughnut in the morning and nothing else all day. ' By taping time, I would be so low, it was easy. The low-blood-sugar school of acting. I would be a basket case.," To hear Walters tell it, save for meeting Ashby - her future husband and father of their two children, Grace, 6, and Savanah, 5- LOVING was not a terribly pleasant place to he. "We had an executive producer who was tyrannical," she remembers. "We were all panicked every day. Basically, [the producer] would call me to his office once a month to get me to cry. He would tell me how stupid I was, or that I was ugly. Or he would just make fun of me or the size of my breasts. After I started going out with Linden [who was playing Curtis], it didn't get to me anymore. I had to work hard, but after Linden, well, I found an amazing amount of strength."

Ashby, a martial arts enthusiast, teases his Georgia-born wife that she has always been the tougher of the two. "She could eat nails and live," he quips. Walters responds, "I don't think I would ever use the word 'demure' to describe me. But here is this totally macho guy who can be scared to death of some waiter. I mean, really. I send food back if I don't like it. And he thinks I'm so tough. He'll sit there and moan and groan and I'm like, 'Honey, send it back.' But he never will. Men and women really are from different planets, aren't we?" last year, when Walters was on location in New Orleans starring in the USA network series THE BIG EASY (she had the role that Ellen Barkin played in the movie version), she decided that family was more important than career, so her next role will be closer to home.
Listen up, daytime producers: Walters would love to do a soap. "It was so hard not being with the girls all the time," she sighs. "Our family works best when I'm the mom and Linden is the dad. When they came to the set I would sleep three hours a day. Finally, I told Linden, 'We don't need the money. We have enough stuff I can't do this anymore. I need to be home. I love acting. But my No 1 priority is my kids and my family."

Just the Facts:
Birthdate: Set. 28, 1963
On a Melrose Place return: "Let's just leave it at I don't know how that would be possible."
Point well taken: "I'm so Type-A with everything I do. I run four miles a day. Even needlepoint --I do that quickly too."
On the spot: "I did a Zest commercial with Thomas Calbro (Michael on Melrose Place) years ago. I'm sure he doesn't remember. I was a girl in the car."
Laugh or cry? : Me getting DEAR JOHN was a flike. Casting people would always say to my agent, 'She looks the part, but can she come back when she's funny?' I thought I was funny, but I suppose I have a lot more to offer dramatically ."
Humor Me: "I suprise people. Like (my husband) Linden, I can let a bathroom joke fly now and then."