By John Kiesewetter
The Cincinnati Enquirer

National TV exposure on Who Wants to Marry My Dad? has landed Heidi Mueller, daughter of Dad star Don Mueller, a role on NBC's Passions soap opera.

Mueller, 21, a part-time model and Liberty University senior, will play Kay Bennett, the manipulative daughter of Police Chief Sam Bennett, on Passions at 2 p.m. weekdays on WLW-TV (Channel 5).

By being hired by NBC, Mueller loses an opportunity with ABC. She had been scheduled to audition as a co-host of The View Sept. 22-23, if she was not working for another network, she says.

Heidi, whose only acting experience was in Landmark Christian School productions, will start taping Passions Sept. 8 in Los Angeles. Her first episode will air Oct. 23, NBC says.

"I always wanted to be an actress - that was always my dream growing up - but I didn't think it was ever going to happen," Mueller says.

The Glendale resident was the one who frequently delivered the bad news to women eliminated from the five-week Marry My Dad? reality show, in which Don Mueller's four grown children picked a mate for their divorced father.

The Mueller family was "discovered" through Heidi, who had attended a reality TV audition at Cincinnati Union Terminal on April 6.

The Mueller family returns to Los Angeles to tape a Marry My Dad? reunion show Saturday with all the contestants.

It will air at 10 p.m. Sept. 1 on NBC.

The hit summer series ended last week with Fairfield business owner Don Mueller proposing to Christena Ferran of San Diego.

Marry My Dad? was watched by an average of 9.3 million people, NBC says.