Kari’s
story
From Hollywood sets to the boxing ring, I’m proof that your strongest years can still be ahead of you.
The girl with her nose in a book
I grew up in Manhattan Beach, back when it was a sleepy little beach town, all empty lots and sand dunes. I swam for the Surfside team, trained as a junior lifeguard, cheered, and read every Nancy Drew I could get my hands on. Stories were my escape, and looking back, they were my first acting class. So when acting found me, it felt like coming home. It had been in my soul from the start.
Discovered
over pizza
I was a psychology major at USC, out for pizza in Westwood with my sorority sisters, when Chad McQueen walked over and told me I needed to meet his acting coach. I had never acted a day in my life. I was curious, so I went.
That coach was Allan Rich, and he changed the direction of my life. Soon after, I was on my first film set for the biker cult classic Savage Dawn (1985), alongside Lance Henriksen, George Kennedy and Karen Black. Acting felt like a second skin.
Allan gave me rules I still live by. Be very nice to everybody on your way up. Make friends with the grips, because they're in charge of how you're going to look.
And the one that stuck hardest: you show up, and if the director says jump, your only question is how high.
Where it all started. Back when Hollywood knew me as Kari Gibson.
My days as the original Dixie Cooney on All My Children, the role I won out of 12,000 hopefuls.
Becoming
Dixie Cooney
Through Allan I met Bobby Hoffman, head of West Coast daytime casting at ABC. He took one look at me and said, "You're her. You're flying to New York."
For six months I flew back and forth for screen tests. Twelve thousand girls were considered for the part. What carried me through was a quiet certainty that I was the only one who could play her, and I poured that into every audition.
In 1988, at 24, I became the original Dixie Cooney on All My Children: Palmer Cortlandt's long-lost niece, a country girl from Pigeon Hollow, West Virginia, who rolled into Pine Valley in a pickup truck with hounds in the back. I walked to the studio every morning. I had a sandwich club with Susan Lucci. I watched Ruth Warrick arrive in diamonds and fur and leave the same way. I learned from James Mitchell between takes, and from Kathleen Noone, who told me, "Don't you ever let that fire go out of your eyes when you act, because that is your magic."
My first tough knock
I was hired during the writers’ strike. When the writers came back, they wanted to take Dixie in a different direction, and I was let go. It was the first real knock of my life. I went through a depression and started therapy. I’ve been an advocate for it ever since, because everybody should have someone to talk to.
The chapters in between
I kept working. I became the spokesperson for NBC’s Hot Country Nights (1991) and starred in A Little Tailor’s Christmas Story (1994), written and directed by Allan Rich. I studied with Ivana Chubbuck and at Brian Reise Studios, and I learned I am a character actress at heart.
I saved what I earned from acting and bought a house in Pasadena. I also went back to USC and finished my psychology degree with straight A’s.
I married shortly after. We bought a home together and had two wonderful children. I chose to stay home and raise them myself, and I loved every minute of being a mom and a wife. Through it all, I kept working on my mental health and on becoming a better parent.
FROM THE SOUNDSTAGE TO THE BALLROOM
In 2009, my daughter, Grace, and I signed up for ballroom lessons as a mother-daughter hobby. My son, Holden, did his homework at the studio while we practiced, until the day I caught him tapping his toes and asked if he wanted to try. Dancing runs in the Fraser family. My father-in-law, Scotty, taught himself to dance and competed all over Scotland.
Within a year, we were competing nationally as the Fraser Family Dance Group. We practiced nearly every day, and two to three hours a day before a competition, all around homework and school. We went on to win 344 first-place awards on the International Latin ballroom circuit.
I still dance today, and the ballroom taught me what I tell my clients: show up, put in the hours, and the results follow.
In 2018, I stepped back in front of the camera for the AFI film Spectacle.
It was a full life. But somewhere along the way I lost my creative spark. By my late fifties, I was heavier than I wanted to be and spending too many afternoons on the couch in front of daytime television.
I’ve dreamed of Dancing with the Stars since 2012.
I’m ready when you are.
The right fork in the road
In the ring with my coach, Joe Hanks, at Brick City Boxing in Pasadena. He who stands still in the boxing ring is roadkill.
My friend and medical advisor, Rebeca Cuatro, a triple board-certified nurse practitioner, looked at me and said, “Wait a minute. You used to be on a television show. You’ve got to get moving.” Then my daughter called after taking a boxing class and said, “Mom, I think you’d really like to hit something.”
She was right. At 58, I found Brick City Boxing three minutes from my house, made an appointment, and met my coach, Joe Hanks.
His first thought was, “What am I gonna do with her?” Today I’m one of his strongest boxers: the only petite woman in a gym full of guys, the first one in at 5:30 a.m. and the last one out. My ring name is Mer the Beast, and I’ve earned it.
Where I am now
At 62, I box four mornings a week, deadlift twice a week, run, and do Lagree Pilates on the weekends. I start every day with 10 military push-ups before I do anything else.
I am not ranked, because nobody in America is fighting in my age category. So I call myself exactly what I am: an amateur-trained boxing enthusiast. Boxing gave me strength, and it gave me something I did not expect, which is peace.
What I believe
You have two choices: do it, or don’t. Start with the hardest thing, the one you’re dreading, and the rest of your day is a cakewalk. Usually the hardest part is just getting in the car and getting to the gym. Once you’re there, you’re having a ball. And in the ring, whoever stands still is roadkill, so keep moving.
I’ve been a reader all my life. It started with Nancy Drew, and I never stopped. Books still feed my mind the way training feeds my body. My copy of Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love, highlighted and tattered, still sits by my bed as a reminder that you either win or you learn, but you never lose.
The choices you make today shape who you’ll be tomorrow and five years from now. That’s the message I share as a coach, a speaker, a podcast guest, and a proud brand ambassador for Rejuvenate Health and Wellness.
It’s never too late to reinvent yourself. Embrace discipline. It’s your friend, and it will help you accomplish anything you set your mind to.