When Soaps Give Great Comfort

I’ve been writing this column for decades on weekends but today I am having a lot of problems. A neighbor and close college friend named Marty, in the hospital with both cancer and heart problems, passed away early this morning. When we went to visit him yesterday, he was not conscious. His PA told us he was on end-of-life care. I was beside myself. He was my age — too young to die.

Gio (left) introduces Emma to his old pal Michael Thomas Scott

Marty was also one of the best and most supportive friends I’ve ever had. How do I know that? Through soaps, of course. In 1986 I did a two-day part as bitchy nightclub critic Connie Bronson on “Search for Tomorrow.” My character chased Stu’s (Larry Haines) singer girlfriend Wilma (Anita Gillette) out of Henderson with a critical review. VCRs were not perfected yet, so to see my TV debut, Marty brought his TV set into his social work office. I’ll never forget that! My own mother didn’t even watch me.

When we got home from the hospital, to keep from sobbing, I tuned in “General Hospital.”  As always, a soap was there to pull me through. My favorite young character Gio (the handsome and talented Giovanni Mazza) was taking his look-alike girlfriend Emma (Braedyn Bruner) to New York to see a Broadway play, “Aladdin” at the New Amsterdam Theatre. In the story violinist Gio, who had once played in the show’s orchestra during his friend Michael James Scott’s long run as the show’s star, Genie, brought Emma to visit him and see the show.

Aw! I love young love stories, even those as corny as this one. But I sensed there was more to this story than meets the eye. Damon Jacobs, who was this column’s brilliant Soap Shrink for many years, informed me that Disney, which owns ABC (and “General Hospital”) also owns “Aladdin.”  Of course, today’s soap scene (and the world) is all about cross-promotion. I did see on-line that some fans thought this was a waste of soap airtime. Well, it was far from Shakespeare, but Gio and Emma’s joy in each other and their burgeoning young love expressed on this outing made me feel a lot better.

And I know from long personal experience that there has been a long, strong link between Broadway and soaps. When most soaps were still produced in New York, not in California as they are now, many soap actors worked simultaneously on stage and in soaps. Great names like Larry Bryggman (John, “As the World Turns”) in shows like “Death of a Salesman” and other stellar performers like” ATWT”’s Henderson Forsythe (Dr. David Stewart), and actresses like” One Life to Live”’s Judith Light (Karen)  and Florencia Lozano (Tea) trod the boards, often in the same day.  Doing a soap during the day and Broadway at night was quite common and called “doubling.”

As a young soap fan, I used to take the bus from Queens all by myself to see Broadway shows that had soap stars. I loved the young and beautiful Christopher Reeve, who starred on “Love of Life” as Ben Harper, and remember seeing him one high school afternoon in “Deathtrap.”  When I grew up to be a professional soap journalist, in the Eighties ABC used to have so many soap stars in Broadway plays they gave us press tickets to write about them. Not only that but they assigned us star escorts. My assigned date, for a reason I never figured out was Jean LeClerc, who played Jeremy Hunter on “All My Children.”  One night we saw Catherine Hickland (the hateful Lindsay on “One Life Live”) in “Les Misérables.” I thought she was inaudible and awful and of course wrote that. All these years later I hope she’s forgiven me, but I doubt it.

I learned a lot more during those years about the strong ties the ABC Soaps had to Broadway. Regulars on “One Life to Live,” “Another World” and other soaps appeared frequently in plays. Executive producer of “OLTL,” “AW,” and other soaps, the late Paul Rauch, lived for the theater and that’s exactly how he cast his shows. He had exquisite taste. As I have written so often before, I was very lucky to have been mentored by him. He used to invite me along on Broadway auditions so I could watch him pick his actors. This was an invaluable experience, almost impossible to duplicate today. I think of that time often as I watch “General Hospital.”  Gio’s friend Mr. Scott will soon be putting in a follow-up appearance on the soap, and I look forward to it.

So again, on a sad day I’d like to thank all my faithful Marlena readers for reading this and making me feel much better. In the end, it’s the comfort of watching soaps and sharing our opinions with one another here for years that always makes Miss Marlena happy.