ALL MY CHILDREN
With this job I became an adult, even though I was playing a kid. It was a big deal. My parents no longer had to help me pay my phone bill, and I got my own apartment in a NYC DOORMAN building. I had made it. It also allowed me to buy real furniture for my place. It did not, however, give me good taste as was in evidence with my decorating. Sherbet green shag carpeting, white couch with pink throw pillows, pine tables and a lot of fake flowering plants. In retrospect: " Little House on the Prairie" meets Carvel. YUCK!
Being on a Soap Opera is hard work!
Five days a week, sixteen hours a day, fifty-two weeks a year. Especially if you were involved in a big storyline, or in more than one. I was. I played Julie Chandler, a young love to both Nico and Charlie, and my virginity! I was always involved in family drama. My mother, Ellen, gave me two dads - Mark and Ross. My grandfather Palmer was always up to something, and I worked at the local dress shop with Myrtle. Then there was my boss who was in a relationship with Erica Kane…yep, Julie Chandler was in everybody’s business! To this day I always tell directors and producers that if they want an actor who has a strong work ethic and will always be prepared, hire someone with a soap on their resume.
The day usually started around 7am with rehearsals. Then hair and make-up, and after lunch you were shooting the show. That was done when you got it right. That night you were learning your pages for the next day. The hair and make-up room became the place to eat, run lines, and gossip. Pretty funny, considering there was a lounge to be used for those things, but somehow you just never ended up there. Maybe because you had to learn to multi-task. Eat while you run lines, run lines while you get touched up, etc. During all of that we managed to have wardrobe fittings, do interviews, tried to exercise (when else would that happen?!), and walk our dogs. I had two, Tom and Vicky, and there were many more in the studio. My dressing room (I shared with Cecily!) was more familiar to me than my tacky apartment.
It was 20+ years ago that I played Julie Chandler
That is half my life ago, and I can barely recognize myself - yet I am still stopped constantly. Malls, airports, people still remember. The fans of soaps are so loyal. Maybe because you were in their homes every day, you became familiar, accessible. All your character's trials and tribulations became theirs - they didn’t see you on the red carpet, they saw you distressed and in another crisis. When I was stopped, people would give me advice on how to deal with my latest predicament or clue me in on the true motives of other characters. Most of the time I would listen to their advice, as reminding them that I was an actor frequently seemed to confuse them! Incidentally, my character left to work in Washington…and she loves it there!
