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GL's Krista Tesreau is:
Looking for the Purr-fect Pal!
Soap Opera’s Greatest Stories and Stars
April 1984

Can a sweet young girl from a close-knit family in St. Louis find happiness in the big city? She can if she’s Krista Tesreau who plays Mindy Lewis on GUIDING LIGHT. For 19-year-old Krista, it’s all a dream come true.

“It doesn’t even seem like work, I enjoy it so much,” she says enthusiastically about her job on the soap. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing.” With her perfect pitch, she started picking out tunes at the piano at two. At four she was taking lessons and is now an extremely accomplished musician - as well as a fine dancer.

“I’ve always been involved in entertainment,” she explains, “so this seems natural.” Her grandmother is one of 18 children so there have always been enormous family reunions - with Krista providing the entertainment, even as a small child. “I don’t know whether they wanted me to do it or not,” she laughs, “but I did it anyway!”

But as happy as she is, both with her new job and her new home, it has been an adjustment. “Last year I was wearing a little uniform at an all-girl Catholic school. And here I am now, doing romantic love scenes. I often wonder what the nuns will think - but they don’t have TV’s so I’m pretty safe!”

Her family is a constant source of love and support. She speaks almost daily to her mom and her oldest sister, Kim, writes her a letter every day. “Isn’t that a great sister?” Krista says, grinning from ear to ear. “I get a lot of mail, but I look forward to her letter so much. And she sends me little gifts, too.”

Her dad writes her almost every other day and “sometimes he sends me ten dollars for cab fare, ‘just in case I haven’t gotten to the bank’ he says. I have the most loving family.”

She’s very close friends with many of her GL co-stars, as well. Judi Evans (Beth) and Michael O’Leary (Rick) are especially close pals. “Michael is a GREAT guy,” she enthuses. “We’re not dating or anything, but we hang out together a lot.” And as far as her “aunt Trish” and her “uncle Josh” are concerned she reports, “Rebecca Hollen is like a sister and Robert Newman is like the big brother I never had (she has two sisters, Kim and Kelly). They’re wonderful.”

But, living alone can still get lonely and that’s why Krista decided to go to the Bide-A-Wee Home Animal Shelter and adopt a kitten. As you can see from the photographs, there were a lot of adorable animals that needed a loving home. But instead of a kitten, Krista fell in love with an almost grown, 8 month old cat. since she had been thinking in terms of a “baby” animal, she decided to do our interview upstairs in the office while she thought over the prospect of adopting “Cece” (the cat’s name).

We did the interview, Krista called her mom for advice, and she made her decision: she would adopt Cece AND get a kitten later on to keep him company. But, fate had other things to mind. When we went downstairs to make the arrangements - Cece was gone! A woman who had come back several times to see him, had just adopted him a few minutes earlier.

“Oh, no. I don’t believe it!” was Krista’s understandable reaction. But the story has a happy ending. When Krista was home recently visiting her family, her mother had a surprise for her: a beautiful new kitten. As soon as this new baby is all settled in, Krista is going back to Bide-A-Wee to get her kitten a pet! And we predict - they’ll all live happily every after! #