Not Young, Still Restless (11 page)

As has happened more times than I can count over all these years, Katherine and I had hit simultaneous low periods in our lives. She was feeling as “used up” as I was. Both of us had children who’d grown up and gone out on their own. Katherine was facing the added torture of knowing that Jill’s precious growing son had been fathered by Katherine’s late husband. (Okay, Katherine switched Jill’s baby with someone else’s at birth, but I’ve never claimed she wasn’t moody.) To rub further salt in the open wound, Jill had now married Katherine’s dear friend and former lover John Abbott. Derek was gone. Felipe was gone. Katherine was fighting her alcohol addiction again, and there didn’t seem to be much left for her to live for.

Bill wrote a gorgeous scene that was as easy to play as it was excruciating, a scene that perfectly expressed what both Katherine and I were struggling with. Katherine and Dina (John Abbott’s ex-wife and a confidante of Katherine’s, played by the wonderful Marla Adams) were in Katherine’s bedroom after some sparkling social occasion or other. (Remember sparkling social occasions in Genoa City, especially at the Colonnade Room? I miss them terribly.) While they talked, Katherine slowly began disassembling herself, removing her glittering gown . . . her makeup . . . her false eyelashes . . . at that moment in time, as far as she was concerned, the whole carefully constructed disguise she wore to trick people into thinking she was still an attractive, vibrant woman. As she looked in the mirror, her façade crumbled, exposing the flawed, fading, empty shell she felt she’d become, and she began baring her soul, first to the much younger, happier Dina and then to herself, in a beautiful monologue of quiet despair that ended with a helpless, hopeless “God, someone help me.” It was one of my most memorable performances as far as I’m concerned, probably because it wasn’t a performance at all, and I can still feel Terry Lester’s arms around me when it was over. Terry originally played the role of Jack Abbott and played him brilliantly for many years. We were very close off-screen; we shared each other’s joys and knew each other’s demons without judgment, and we understood why that scene had made us both cry and impelled him to run onstage to hold me and let me hold him for a long time the instant the director yelled, “Cut!”

(Terry left the show in 1988 and passed away, far too young, in 2003. I think of him and miss his friendship every day.)

I give Dr. Glassman a lot of credit for agreeing to perform my face-lift “live” on worldwide television and the patience with which he tolerated the often tedious and cumbersome production preparations. More than his share of colleagues was strongly warning him against it. I think the word “crazy” was even tossed around. Who wanted millions of people watching in the unlikely event that something went wrong, after all? But he stood his ground and had the courage to rise to the occasion, and I’m eternally grateful to him for that.

I’m also grateful to an actor named John Beradino, by the way, who had nothing to do with it whatsoever, other than showing up for his scheduled gall bladder surgery and discovering that he’d been “demoted” from Operating Room 1 to Operating Room 2 because of
Y&R
filming. “My gall bladder is taking a backseat to some soap actress’s face-lift?” I’m told he said as they wheeled him into Room 2, and if the situation had been reversed, I’m not sure I would have been as good a sport about it as he reportedly was.

For obvious reasons I don’t remember the surgery itself. I have vague memories of spending that night at a first-class surgical recovery center in Beverly Hills. And I certainly remember being surrounded by cameras while Katherine and I had our bandages removed and got our first “live” look at the results. There was some concern that the unveiling might be too graphic for daytime television, but I promised I wouldn’t bleed, and sure enough, I didn’t. Millions of viewers saw Katherine’s new face at the same moment she and I did, and with bruises, swelling, and all, it was too exciting to be scary.

The shows themselves were artfully done. My on-screen surgeon’s hands, for example, were intercut perfectly with Dr. Glassman’s hands when the bandages came off, and the postoperative instructions were written into the dialogue to make the whole experience as real and informative as possible. Our ratings soared. I think I was on every national and local talk show in the country, and I got literally thousands of letters from people all over the United States and Europe telling me that watching Katherine Chancellor’s face-lift defused their fears of plastic surgery—a big accomplishment in the 1980s, when it wasn’t nearly as common a procedure as it is today. It was even more gratifying that, as I’d hoped, the vast majority of mail came from men and women who’d been considering plastic surgery not for the sake of vanity but to correct some birth defect or trauma-induced disfigurement that had created a barrier between themselves and their God-given right to enjoy full, confident lives.

In fact, I had the honor of meeting one of those people, and she holds a special place in my heart to this day. A few weeks after the face-lift shows aired, I was in Dr. Glassman’s office for a checkup when he asked if I’d mind talking to a woman who’d flown in from San Francisco for a consultation and was in his waiting room, hoping for a chance to talk to me. She was in need of some extensive reconstructive surgery after a terrible car accident. Her face had been so badly damaged that she’d become reclusive, hiding from the world in her small apartment but too afraid of the idea of plastic surgery to explore her options, until she watched
The Young and the Restless
and saw Katherine Chancellor go through it from beginning to end and emerge healthier and happier than ever. The woman and I had a great talk in Dr. Glassman’s waiting room, and well beyond my assuring her that it was the nicest, safest present she could possibly give herself, I think seeing me thriving in person, with no TV lighting, makeup, and clever camera angles between us, eased her mind just enough to summon her courage and let Dr. Glassman work his magic on her. She wrote me a gorgeous letter several months later to thank me for giving her back the full, happy life she’d had before the accident. All the credit for that goes to her and Dr. Glassman, of course, but I was humbled to know that Katherine and I, along with the whole
Y&R
team, played some part in making a difference.

And on that same subject, I must say it made me happy to do something that benefited Katherine Chancellor after all she’d done and continues to do for me.

That televised face-lift was rewarding in countless ways, from the overwhelming fan response to the fact that, without my asking, Tom Langan saw to it that I was given a raise, not only because I initially paid for the surgery (with my agent’s help) but also to thank me for the surge in our ratings. Again, isn’t it amazing how a voluntary, unexpected gesture of gratitude from your bosses can win your loyalty and respect far more effectively than yelling, threats, and complaining ever could?

So there you have it, the reason I will always proudly maintain that in 1984,
The Young and the Restless
and I cocreated television’s very first reality show.

Chapter Six

Awards and Other Dramas, Onstage and Off

T
here’s a real sense of community among soap actors that’s very unique in the television business. You’ll find it within specific prime-time shows and maybe some talk shows and reality shows, for all I know, but you won’t find it across the board among, let’s say, all sitcom actors, or all one-hour-drama actors. We long-term soap actors, no matter which network we’re on, who’s producing us, and who’s writing for us, have too much in common to not cheer for one another’s victories and feel one another’s pain when the chips are down, the stakes are high, and we’re being told on a sickeningly regular basis that this medium in which many of us have loyally, lovingly dedicated the majority of our adult lives is dying of old age. (We don’t happen to believe that, by the way. We really are bright enough to know the difference between “dying” and “being killed.”)

Being a soap actor means working your ass off, memorizing vast amounts of dialogue day after day, with no long hiatuses and few, if any, reruns, therefore few, if any, residuals. In fact, a friend of mine, whose career began on a soap before she went on to a distinguished film career and married an insanely wealthy man, once told me that if she had to work for a living again, she’d go back to her waitressing days before she’d audition for another soap, because by comparison being a waitress was so much easier.

Being a soap actor means watching executives and writers come and go, whether or not they seem to have respect for the show, the storylines, or the cast. It can be infuriating, for example, not to mention intensely discouraging, to read interviews in which your newly hired boss is taking pride in never having watched a single episode of the show of which he’s now in charge.

Being a soap actor means being asked to take pay cuts every time your contract is up for renewal because of the economy, budget constraints, blah, blah, which would be a bit more palatable if the executives who are so concerned about our budgets were taking pay cuts as well.

Being a soap actor means devoting the majority of your professional energy to shows that are rarely given a fraction of the promotion and publicity prime-time shows enjoy.

Being a soap actor means being given some storylines you adore and some storylines that make absolutely no sense to you at all, and when the latter is the case, knowing your input, even your expertise, about what your character would and would not do, or what might be a really interesting direction for your character to take, is about as welcome among the executives as a swarm of bees at an outdoor wedding.

Being a soap actor means enjoying a theoretical illusion of job security with a constant awareness that at any given moment, you could be let go or replaced for “budget” or “storyline-dictated” reasons, or, in this new era of disregard for our time-honored legacy, your show could be canceled completely because those in charge have stopped paying attention and/or giving it the support and respect it deserves. And, of course, there’s also the inarguable fact that networks can produce a game show or “lifestyle” show for a fraction of the cost of producing a soap, and if it means saving money, who cares that audiences don’t have the slightest interest in watching them?

Being a soap actor means working with some of the best professionals in the business, sometimes on more than one soap, so that sooner or later it feels as if you’ve all worked together somehow, somewhere, and especially in the good old days of the Soap Opera Digest Awards and the more generous Daytime Emmy Awards, you’ve most certainly partied together.

Being a soap actor means pulling for other shows as surely as you pull for your own, because when one goes, it hurts everyone.

Being a soap actor means having the most extraordinary, loyal, generous, passionate, knowledgeable fans any medium could ever hope for, fans to whom you’re enormously grateful and whose frustrations you share when their input is dismissed.

It’s no wonder then that soap actors are, in the end, a community, and, for the most part, will close ranks to protect, defend, and support one another in public and try our damnedest to work out our personal problems among ourselves. Unfortunately, on rare occasions, that becomes impossible.

O
nly because many of us are still asked about it by fans and the press twenty years later, or I wouldn’t bother to bring it up at all: probably the most widely publicized battle within the
Y&R
cast was the backstage physical fight between Eric Braeden and Peter Bergman. It happened in 1991, and Eric, Peter, and the rest of us have long since moved on, but I might as well address it and get it off my mind and out of the way.

I’m not sure exactly what happened or what started it, beyond some ongoing tension between them on the set. Mercifully, I wasn’t at the studio that day, and the details are for someone else’s book, not mine. My only comment on that truly sad incident was and is my reaction to one of the many solutions that were being thrown around in the executive offices as the suits discussed what to do about it: when the suggestion was made that the easiest way to prevent such a thing from happening again was to fire Peter, I made it clear to anyone who would listen, and even some who didn’t want to, that if Peter was fired, I’d walk right out the door with him, and I meant every word of it. It had nothing to do with taking sides and everything to do with my outrage at the inequity of that solution. I didn’t want either of them fired, but only one of them? Are you kidding? Where would be the integrity and the fairness in that? And if we don’t stand up for what’s fair, aren’t we basically just taking up space?

The good news, of course, is that cooler heads prevailed in the executive offices, neither Eric nor Peter was fired, appropriate apologies were offered and accepted, and twenty years later
Young and the Restless
viewers are still blessed with the pleasure of watching the classic rivalry between Victor Newman and Jack Abbott as no one else could play it.

A
s far as I’m concerned, though, that fight was just a minor tiff compared to the battle I had with my publicist in 2004, and it all started with what sounded like a perfectly wonderful honor.

I was notified by the
Y&R
office that I was being presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at that year’s Daytime Emmy telecast. I was thrilled, flattered, grateful, and genuinely proud at the thought of sharing a stage with the other 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award winners, all of whom I’d admired so much throughout our long careers: Rachel Ames (Audrey Hardy of
General Hospital
); John Clarke (Mickey Horton of
Days of Our Lives
); Eileen Fulton (Lisa Grimaldi of
As the World Turns
); Don Hastings (Bob Hughes of
As the World Turns
); Anna Lee (Lila Quartermaine of
General Hospital
); Ray MacDonnell (Joe Martin of
All My Children
); Frances Reid (Alice Horton of
Days of Our Lives
); Helen Wagner (Nancy Hughes of
As the World Turns
); and Ruth Warrick (Phoebe Tyler Wallingford of
All My Children
). Who on earth wouldn’t be proud to stand side by side with such an esteemed, historic group of professionals, or knock herself out to find the exact right gown, shoes, and jewelry . . . not knowing that she could almost have shown up in her pajamas for all it mattered?

Those were the good old days when the Daytime Emmy Awards were held in New York City, and I was so excited on the trip there, not only because of the Lifetime Achievement Award but also because
The Young and the Restless
was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series, my dear fabulously talented castmate Michelle Stafford was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, and my great pal Anthony Geary, the legendary Luke Spencer of
General Hospital
, was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor. There was always something energizing about driving into New York, checking into the hotel, and getting ready for the nonstop activities to begin, and it was all I could do not to skip into Radio City Music Hall for the telecast rehearsal. My fellow award winners and I greeted one another with a thousand hugs and kisses, which is my last happy memory of that particular event.

The first indication that I’d let my soaring expectations run away with me was the news that there would be time constraints on the Lifetime Achievement Award presentations because on that same evening, on that same telecast, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences had decided to honor
Sesame Street
, with a fairly lengthy appearance by Big Bird and the many stars who’d appeared on that show over the years. Now, let me pause right here to emphasize that I think
Sesame Street
and Big Bird are as good as it gets in children’s programming. God bless them all, I love
Sesame Street
, love Big Bird, can’t compliment them enough. I didn’t take exception for a moment to their being given a well-deserved tribute. I did, however, take exception to the news that our Lifetime Achievement Award segment would be abbreviated so that the television audience could get their fair share of Big Bird, which translated as far as we were concerned, to about three and a half hours (in real life, it was probably six or seven minutes). “So, sorry, Lifetime Achievement people, but there will be no film clips from your vast bodies of work, and there will most definitely be no acceptance speeches. In fact, we’ll thank you all to keep your mouths shut and not say a word so we won’t run the risk of cutting Big Bird short.

“But wait, there’s more—rather than have all of you waste a lot of valuable time walking onstage and off again, we’ve arranged for a very unique and exciting entrance for you. You’ll all gather below the stage, and each of you will stand on one of these clever platforms that will actually lift you up to stage level and then lower you back down again when your segment is over with. Won’t that be fun?”

“Fun” in this case was clearly a euphemism for making us feel as if we were there not for an award but for a lube job, and what an especially well-thought-out plan for the one Lifetime Achiever who happened to be in a wheelchair. But not to worry, we were assured, there would be small bolted-down stool-like devices behind us to hang on to in case we lost our balance during this brief, insipid elevator ride.

I admit it, I was ready to decline the award and walk out on the whole show. But the director took me aside and swore to me that our dignity would not be compromised in any way, and it would be a huge disappointment to our fans if any of us failed to appear. It was the one argument that was guaranteed to work on me. I finally and reluctantly agreed to go through with it. Not happily, but I did agree.

Already feeling quite pushed aside enough as the lead-in act for Big Bird (and one more time, I
love
Big Bird), I headed off to a publicity event at Gracie Mansion with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and several Emmy nominees. I was especially looking forward to meeting Martha Stewart, whom I admire tremendously and who I’d heard wanted to meet me. But it wasn’t that kind of day. The event was chaotic. Everyone and everything was running late. Martha Stewart left so soon after I arrived that I didn’t even get to introduce myself, and we were all being hastily shoved into a variety of smiling photo clumps by a variety of strangers, all of whom were so busy yelling, “Over here! Hurry!” that none of them remembered to say, “Welcome and congratulations. Would you care for an hors d’oeuvre?”

At some point I was being herded toward Mayor Bloomberg for yet another clump-of-people picture when the mayor made the mistake of reaching out and grabbing my arm to pull me into place. I reflexively yanked my arm away, looked him in the eye, and growled, “Don’t touch me.” I remember Meredith Vieira finding this hilarious, along with a few others within earshot, and I also remember not feeling a single twinge of remorse about it. If Mayor Bloomberg came away with the impression that I’m a disrespectful, short-tempered bitch, let me just say, “Not always, but I have my limits when it comes to being treated like a prop.”

Then, of course, it was back to the hotel to get ready for the Daytime Emmy Awards telecast and off to Radio City Music Hall, where, at the appropriate time, we Lifetime Achievement honorees were ushered into a small green room and then onto our assigned freight lifts to be presented to the audience and to stand there smiling and waving like puppets as each of our names was announced, after which we would magically disappear again into the earth’s bowels. Why they didn’t just finish us off with water balloons I have no idea.

Incidentally, I found out later that the televised version didn’t include our vertical entrances and exits—too time consuming, presumably, or maybe the producers decided it looked as ridiculous as it felt—and that as we were introduced, brief dialogue-free clips were shown of us early in our careers, ending with a freeze-frame of us “way back when” beside a huge photo of us as we looked today. I’m sure it was meant to be an homage to our many, many years in daytime. In practice it looked like a documentary on the aging process.

Once we were gratefully below-stage again we were directed to a young man standing in the wings with a cardboard box, out of which he pulled our actual Lifetime Achievement Awards one by one, read the engraving, and handed them over with an unceremonious (for example) “Okay, Jeanne Cooper? Which one of you is Jeanne Cooper?” It was exactly as touching as I’m making it sound, although it certainly wasn’t the young man’s fault that I think at that moment each of us would have happily traded our statuettes for cab fare back to our respective hotels.

We were then directed upstairs to the pressroom, which involved about eighty-five escalators. Mind you, I hadn’t seen my generously paid publicist in hours, and I thank God to this very day for James Michael Gregary (Clint Radison on
The Young and the Restless
, who shows up every few years to kidnap Katherine Chancellor again). Michael was my escort that night and had no more of a clue than I did where I was supposed to go, but he kept me from getting lost all by myself and/or heading straight to the airport and catching the first flight to Los Angeles, gown, no luggage, and all.