It isn't much of a mystery.
Any amateur sleuth would put two and two together during The Bookfair Murders and figure out the film's star is the angel in Philadelphia Cream Cheese commercials.
"You know it. I'm hawking cheese," Linda Kash confirms.
Starring in The Bookfair Murders Sunday at 9 p.m. on DE doesn't even come close to the amount of screen time she has enjoyed in five years as a Kraft spokes-cherub.
"Initially I thought, 'Oh my God, it doesn't matter what I achieve in my lifetime -- I'm going to be the cream-cheese angel,' " says Kash, adding she has now grown accustomed to her job as a dairy queen.
"There's something very sweet about being in people's living rooms every single day. People approach me with no intimidation whatsoever," Kash says. "When I take the kids to school, I get swarmed by little kids. It's fame on a microcosmic scale."
Cream cheese aside, Kash is best known in Canada for roles on Go Girl! and Max Glick. Stateside, she has appeared in Seinfeld, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Waiting For Guffman.
In the first of CTV's Mystery movie series, Kash takes on the role of Judith Cass, a freelance journalist who travels to the Frankfurt Book Fair to do a fluff piece on a Halifax author. The story turns into a headline when the author turns up dead.
"The whole project was such a different experience for me because I'm so used to blatant comedy, sketch and live-audience sitcoms," Kash says. "This is a totally different deal. It was a plum role."
Luckily, Kash was surrounded on set in Halifax and Frankfurt by experienced dramatic actors. Bookfair Murders' cast includes Saul Rubinek, Eli
Wallach and Samantha Bond (007's most recent Miss Moneypenny) as Judith's best friend Marsha.
"I was a sponge. Everybody had a different way of working and I was just ready to learn," Kash says.
It was a desire paralleled in the script.
"Judith wants to get off the small item beat and get into some meat. I'm sure every journalist feels that way."
Judith plays detective as the scope of the story grows to include powerful corporations, stolen art and Nazi connections. She's a sleuth who owes more to Peter Falk than Helen Mirren.
"She looks like she doesn't know what she was doing, but Judith was actually looking for very specific information," Kash says.
"The difference between Columbo and Judith -- other than physically, I hope," she says, "is that he knew a long time ago who it was and we watch the penny drop for Judith."
One relies on instinct, the other on tenacity.
"She barks up the wrong tree often, but she does it with gusto because she's so emotionally charged," Kash says.
Her character appears even more emotional when paired with Marsha. Even when named a suspect for murder, the publishing executive played by British actress Bond keeps an icy demeanour.
"I had to keep a contrast with Martha, who's pretty straightforward, practical and pragmatic. I wanted to sort of go the antithesis of who she was," says Kash.
"I knew my rhythm would be more squiggly and messy and hers would be neat and straightforward."
Kash says she hopes to partner with Bond on a case again and the precedent has already been set.
Both of CTV Mystery's next two presentations -- Love and Murder on April 16 and Deadly Appearances on
April 23 -- star Wendy Crewson as Gail Bowen's criminologist Joanne Kilbourn.
"I know there are other novels by Anna Porter that follow these two women and there's certainly mileage in this relationship," Kash says. "You can go just about anywhere with a journalist. There's, like, whispering, but it hasn't actually gotten to the talking point."
Kash is currently doing voiceover work, including the series Emmy-nominated series Angela Anaconda, but is limiting on-camera work.
"I'm six months pregnant right now, so I'm not selling any cheese. I just signed a deal to do them for five more years, though," Kash says. "I'm going to be aging on the cloud -- that's the only fear."
And, yes, Kash does eat the product she pitches. Although the expectant mother has different cravings these days.
"Pears. I love pears. I have at least two a day. It's not pickles and ice cream, but pears."
How about pears and Philly cream cheese together?
"Now you're making me hungry."
