Marlena Refreshed and General Hospital Done Right

By Marlena De Lacroix a.k.a. Connie Passalacqua Hayman

Hi, darlings!   How do you like the marlenadelacroix.com site’s new look?  Marlena needed to be refreshed, so I went in for some work.  If Jeanne Cooper can have her face lifted so publicly on screen as Katherine Chancellor so many years ago on The Young and the Restless, and the equally sublime Linda Dano went on record with  having had portions of her face touched up when she  was on  Another World (where she played Felicia Gallant). I’ll be out there and publicly acknowledge … some “surgery” done … on this blog.  I’ve brought aboard a photo of  the  statue of  “The Thinker,” (right)  which Marlena saw at the Rodin Museum the last time she was in  Paris, as some inspiration for all of  us Thinking Fans.  You think a chisled male body is something they invented for  just for soap operas? Marlena loves Mr. Thinker for his  brain and his reflective nature, of course!

Speaking of beauty, I just want to give an admiring shout out to the hair and make-up   departments of General Hospital for making Kristen Alderson look absolutely gorgeous for Starr Manning’s singing date at this week’s opening of The Haunted Star.  I also liked Alderson’s sweet voice.

I might kick GH around a lot, but when they do something right, they do it so well.  The opening camera shot revealing (to Todd and us) that Blair was back in Port Charles was quite creative and striking. Todd came to his door and bent to pick something up and the camera picked up the high heels of a woman standing there, then panned up Kassie De Paiva’s ultra-skinny hot bod to the her face.  Our powerful, sexy Blair (and the always great Ms. DePaiva!) was certainly back in town!

The following scenes in which ex-spouses Blair and Todd recapped their long history together, a love story that is still filled with conflicted emotions (Blair is presently engaged to Tomas) were nicely produced and quite maturely well written (by One Life to Live veteran Scott Sickles), really getting to the heart of the characters’ twin twisted, twisted psyches.  Those of us who have been in a long term … as we say, always messed up … on and off again relationship can really relate to that special wrenching mix of pain and joy expressed here. (Marlena readers: remember Phillipe L’Ouef?)

Both performances here were first rate. As you know, acting phenom Roger Howarth’s plays Todd. Why oh why is Marlena always writing about Todd?