Erika Slezak On The End of 'One Life to Live' And What Is Next For Her

Erika Slezak On The End of 'One Life to Live' And What Is Next For Her


Jonathan Harris
San Diego City Buzz Examiner



After 44 years on the air, winning over 50 Daytime Emmy Awards and filming more than 11,000 episodes, ‘One Life to Live’ said goodbye on January 13, 2012. The show has been replaced by a weight loss makeover show that has been floundering in the ratings, losing ABC nearly half of the audience commanded by ‘One Life to Live’.

Erika Slezak has portrayed Victoria Lord (who if she included all of her married names would be Victoria Lord Gordon Riley Burke Riley Buchanan Buchanan Carpenter Davidson Banks, seemingly Buchanana again) on the hit daytime series ‘One Life to Live’ for more than 40 years. In that time her character has dealt with the torment of realizing in her adulthood that as a child she had been repeatedly molested by her father, having a heart transplant, losing a daughter, losing husbands, surviving breast cancer and more (she has also had some fun, she has traveled back in time).

Her incredible portrayals of those storylines, and countless others, has made Slezak the backbone of ‘One Life to Live’, a staple in daytime television and won the actress a record six Daytime Emmys.
Advertisement

Now, with ‘One Life to Live’ cancelled, the online relaunch on-hold, Slezak talked to me about some of her first obstacles with the role, why she thinks people feel such a devotion to these shows in comparison to other programs, how she felt when she found out the show was cancelled and the online relaunch plans had collapsed, if the show has a future and whether or not she would be willing to stick with it and, along with some of her former ‘One Life to Live’ co-stars, head to ABC’s last remaining soap opera ‘General Hospital’ as her ‘One Life to Live’ character.

Jonathan Harris: What was the first obstacle you remember running into when you first began portraying Vicki?

Erika Slezak: Number one, I was replacing somebody and the girl that I was replacing had only been playing it for a brief time, I think less than a year, but I was replacing a very loved actress, Julianne Spencer who had created the role of Vicki and left after two years. And all I heard was how clever she was and how funny she was and how brilliant she was and how when she played Nicki it was so funny and I thought ‘oh boy’. And I guess what you have to do is try to find your way and make it your own and I had never seen her so I couldn’t copy her. They hired me because they saw something in me I guess that I could transfer to Vicki that I could play. So that was one thing. And I tried very hard not to think about how wonderful Julianne Spencer had been and when I got to meet her years later I told her this and she laughed. She’s a super lady and a wonderful actress. And I guess the next thing was the speed in which you work on daytime. Now granted when I started we were a half hour show, we had masses of rehearsals, we started at 8:30 in the morning and we didn’t tape until 4:15 in the afternoon, so the rest of the day was spent in rehearsal and running the lines and getting notes from the director and hair and make-up for a little bit but we had an awful lot of rehearsal, but for me having come from repertory theatre where you rehearsed a show for four or five weeks that was something that I had to learn to do very quickly. To make a decision, decide how I was going to play a certain thing, pick something and go with it and try not to second guess yourself all day long because you don’t have the time for that. And thank God that when I started the show was only a half an hour because when we went to 45 minutes and an hour then we had no rehearsal at all, virtually no rehearsal at all. You just have to kind of jump in.

JH: I remember watching the live shows and how interesting it was, watching how different actors dealt with that. Watching you, a person almost couldn’t tell it was live show because you were able to do it the same way.

ES: Well I think for most of us it was, there were a couple of people that were really, really nervous and those were people who had never really done theatre and never done anything live but it worked, it worked.

JH: It did.

ES: The third obstacle was having to learn the lines that quickly. Again I was used to having four or five weeks of rehearsal and you don’t have that, so I would get my script a week in advance but if you’re working five days a week, you can’t go and learn Friday’s show the Sunday before because first you have to get through Monday, Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday and you’ve got to kind of do those shows, get them out of your head and then focus on Friday. You have to focus on each show individually.

JH: Oh I see.

ES: Yeah, I had to learn the lines the night before and learn them well enough that I could come in, in the morning and be completely off book. And again when you’re used to having five or six weeks of rehearsal, eh you know.

JH: That’s a bit abrupt.

ES: Yeah, It’s not as much dialogue, but even so, there were days over the next 40 years where I had 80 pages, 60 pages of dialogue. Not a lot of days like that but a couple of them and you just learn to do it. So those were sort of the biggest hurdles. The other thing was – David Pressman who was our director in the beginning – David, God bless him because he taught me how to act on television, well how to work on television, not act on television because you act the same, how to work. And I had been working in theatre and mostly in the rounds so it’s constantly moving, constantly turning, where all gestures are kind of large and normals, you know. When you’re working on television you have to reduce everything because essentially –you know they say we’re talking heads, but most of the shots are much closer and you have to learn to put everything into your face, you can’t go wandering about on the set, you can’t go waving your arms about because nobody will see it. You have to put all the emotion and the feeling and everything into a much smaller picture.

JH: That totally makes sense, that was actually going to be one of my next questions, how is it different working on television compared to working onstage.

ES: You have the same emotions, you cannot make them as large, because on the stage you’re projecting out over 25 rows or whatever and in television the camera is ten feet away from you. So you have to make it smaller and reduce it but with the same intensity and the same feeling so that the audience gets the same feeling from you as they would in the theatre. It’s something you have to learn and as I said it took me a while. My first day on the show David came out to me after the first rehearsal, the director, and he put his hands on my face and he said, “You’ve got to hold still.”

JH: (laughter)

ES: “You have got to hold still!. And he said, “And you’ve got to lower your voice because you’re making the audio man insane.” Because everyone was talking for the microphone and I was speaking for 38 rows. That’s all I knew.

JH: One of my favorite storylines is actually from when I first started watching the show, when Jean (one of Viki’s alters) kept Dorian locked in the basement of Llanfair. What do you remember about filming that storyline?

ES: Well let’s see, Jean was the second one to appear after Niki. There was Niki who had been around sort of on and off for a while, Toni was the first of the alters to appear and then Jean. And what do I remember about it? The difference, how we had to be very, very specific in playing the alters. In real life, the alters are not necessarily that different from each other and we had to make sure that the audience, if they weren’t watching Monday or Tuesday, could tune in on Wednesday and know exactly which alter it was. So we did a lot with the clothes and the make-up and the hair and stuff and Jean wore glasses, so that’s different. I remember working with Robin (Strasser) who I always, always adored working with and having to pull everything in, because Jean is the gatekeeper and she’s totally devoid of emotion, she’s pure reason and to play scenes with Robin, which is really hard because Robin gives so much and to have essentially no emotional reaction to her whatsoever. Jean is pure reason, she has no emotions, they don’t exist for her. She doesn’t feel sorry or sad or happy or anything she just is pure reason – ‘this is what’s practical this is what we do’.

JH: I remember when she put her in the trunk, it was like a math equation.

ES: Yeah. It was necessary, you know, and that’s how Jean is, she does what’s necessary and she doesn’t feel badly about anything because she has no emotions. She has no feelings.

JH: So that was one of the things that was difficult, trying to have no reaction when playing that character?

ES: No reaction whatsoever. You know I think there are times where all of us would like to be able to say to someone exactly what we feel and not feel guilty and Jean doesn’t feel guilty. I know I had scenes with Clint where he was begging me to let Viki come back or whatever and I (Jean) simply said, “I have nothing to do with this. This is what has to happen now, it’s necessary and as unhappy as you are, tough. But I don’t feel bad, I don’t feel unhappy.” It’s a very curious kind of thing because human beings are not like that.

JH: Who was your favorite alter to play?

ES: Niki.

JH: Was it Niki?

ES: Oh sure. She’s outrageous. She’s another one of those characters – wouldn’t we all like to one day, just screw it and have no responsibility and just do whatever we feel like doing? No sense of responsibility to anybody else? That’s who she is. She doesn’t care, she only lives for herself, for pleasure. And sure we’d all like to do that. And she’s funny too.

JH: She’s hilarious! Do you prefer playing Viki or her alters?

ES: Oh I think I prefer playing Viki but it’s a brilliant thing to every once in a while get to not play Viki and play the alters. Viki is more comfortable for me but Niki was, my God I had fun doing that, an outrageous amount of fun.

JH: Obviously you’re aware of the huge viewer outcry when it was announced that the show was cancelled.

ES: Oh yeah.

JH: What do you think it is about these shows that garners such devotion, whereas other shows, generally don’t?

ES: People watch daytime, I think, for the same reason that they watch nighttime television – it’s escapism, it’s entertainment, but we’re in their living rooms five days a week. It’s not like watching a series where it’s ‘Big Bang Theory’, which is once a week and very funny and brilliant, but it’s once a week and there is no sort of through-line to it, they can pick up and drop in anywhere they want. In daytime it’s like reading the world’s best, longest novel. Not necessarily the best but it’s a novel that has no end. When you read something really, really wonderful and you really become attached to the characters and you enjoy them and you kind of think you know them and you know what they’re going to do and you just can’t wait to turn the page to see if you’re right – is that what’s going to happen? And I think it’s that. It’s a wonderful hour of, put your feet up in the afternoon, no matter what you’re doing and just kind of drift away into somebody else’s life. There are people who have been watching these shows, certainly our show, since the beginning, 43 some odd years and they are totally attached and devoted to these characters. They love them, they love to hate them. What’s the best book you’ve ever read (novel book)? Think about that and think, why did I like that book so much, why did I absolutely not want it to end, and it’s the same kind of feeling. I’m not comparing our writing to theirs because our writers have to turn five, one-hour scripts a week, that’s very difficult. You’re a writer you know that.

JH: Definitely.

ES: But still the investment that people have in the characters, it’s the characters more than the stories, is remarkable. Over the years, most of the letters I have received are about that. ‘Oh my God I love seeing how you react to things, how a grown up takes care of things.’ I used to get a lot of mail from teenagers, ‘I want to see what I’m supposed to do when I grow up, I want to see how I should behave’ and Viki was a model like that when she was herself.

JH: One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about Viki is how, in all of the madness, she is always the calm voice of reason.

ES: Yeah. She is. And that’s why I liked playing her so much. She’s a wonderful woman. She has her problems and her issues and she’s allowed herself to grow and to grow up and to develop a better sense of humor and to kind of take life’s punches as they come. But she always gets up and fights, she always does that. There’s never a time when she says ‘that’s it, I’ve had it, I can’t do this anymore’. Even running away to Paris, Texas - she needed to clear her head and so she went home with a whole different, more positive experience and a more positive attitude. She’s a wonderful character.

JH: I really liked that storyline when she went off to Paris, Texas. It was sort of a reboot for Viki, it kind of put her back at the forefront and really rebooted that character. That was probably one of my favorite storylines for her. I really liked it.

ES: Thank you, me too.

JH: I have a storyline related question I wanted to ask, which is one of the things I have always wanted to know and I know has been somewhat unclear, and I know they didn’t resolve in the conclusion – who killed Victor Lord, your father Victor Lord?

ES: Well, several people over the years. Initially it was Dorian. As Robin Strasser says, ‘I didn’t do it because I wasn’t playing it then.’ Initially it was Dorian because Victor has a heart attack or stroke and she had his medicine right there and she just looked at her watch and she’s a doctor, so she knew exactly how long it would take for the medicine to be useless and she just let him lie there until it was too late and then she called the hospital and the ambulance and she said ‘oh my goodness Victor had a heart attack’ and he eventually died in the hospital.

JH: Right.

ES: Then they decided to re-write history and at one time Tori, one of my alters, strangled him or suffocated him with a pillow in the hospital. And then he came up being back, he turned out to be alive when he was going to trade Natalie’s heart , I don’t remember the whole story, Mitch Lawrence had him propped up in a wheelchair and was going to give him Natalie’s heart because that was his grandchild and it was a perfect match. I don’t know it was crazy. So I don’t know who killed Victor.

JH: That was one of those things I always wanted resolved. There was a time, I don’t know if you remember, when Viki and Dorian were trapped in, I think it was Asa’s wine cellar, and it almost sounded as though Dorian was going to say she had in fact killed Victor.

ES: That’s true. The implication was there but it was never resolved.

JH: It wasn’t! And I was thinking ‘they have to resolve this, it’s kind of like the ultimate murder mystery on the show’ and they didn’t!

ES: No they never did and you’re absolutely right, it was hinted at and Robin even asked, "What does this mean?" when we did the scene. She said "What does this mean, did I do it, did I not do it? If I did it we have to deal with it." and the writers said, “Well, just don’t pay any attention to it.” It was very strange.

JH: It was and when I found out they were actually concluding the show (and it wasn’t going online) I thought, they have to finally resolve this and they didn’t.

ES: Yeah, nope, they didn’t.

JH: Can you walk us through what the roller coaster ride was like of finding out the show was cancelled in April, then un-cancelled in July and would go online and then effectively cancelled again in November, to now being in limbo. In many ways I felt like the viewers and the actors somewhat went through that together. Can you tell us what that was like from the actor’s perspective?

ES: Sure. When the show was cancelled, I actually received a call from the President of (ABC) Daytime and he told me (that the show was) cancelled and I was not surprised because the rumors had been rampant for six months. Yes we’re cancelled, no we’re not, yes we are no we’re not, yes we are, and I thought, those kinds of rumors when they float around that long, generally there’s truth to them. That’s backed up by the knowledge that Brian Frons, who was at that time, President of (ABC) Daytime, did not believe in the genre of soap opera, did not like them and was quite ready to get rid of them. That being said, this was not his decision entirely.

JH: That’s what a lot of the viewers have been saying.

ES: No, no, no, he didn’t have the power to do that. This was done by ABC and Disney. Disney is run by Bob Iger and the overall boss under Bob Iger was Anne Sweeney. They had to sign off on this. You can’t blame Brian Frons for it entirely. Although he made it clear when he took over, that he really did not believe in the genre and was quite happy to see it go. So I was not surprised, I was disappointed and unhappy, not so much for me, because after 40 years, you can’t be selfish and say I need to keep this job forever.

JH: We wanted you to though.

ES: Yeah, I mean I would have stayed and I was going to stay with Prospect Park. So, obviously I went to work the next day and everyone was just really sad. And I said it is a terrible shame, especially because our numbers were so good, our ratings were high and the stories were good, we had a brilliant Executive Producer, Frank Valentini, who is now running General Hospital. It was sad but I think everyone in their minds kind of made peace with it and we’d all moved forward, mentally. Ok, what do we do next, where do we go? Then comes the story that Prospect Park is going to revive the show, and I thought, wow that’s a brilliant idea and it is a brilliant idea. To do original programming when you have nothing but airtime. Oh my God, there’s so much space on the internet. Original programming, have a little online network and it was such a good idea and they were going to save both shows, put them on immediately following our demise on television and I thought, this is brilliant, it really is because eventually everything is going to run through your computer anyway. Everything, you can watch television on your computer, you can feed your computer through your television, at least my son can do it, I can’t, he can (laughter).

JH: (laughter)

ES: So everything eventually is going there, most televisions are made computer ready now anyway right?

JH: Right.

ES: So we were all kind of excited about it, but somehow because of the time it took between the cancellation and the announcement, everyone had already gone ahead. People had been making plans to move, to go to California, to do this, to do that, take another job. So it was like, oh my God. And I think the enthusiasm was somewhat dampened by the space of time and yet I thought, this is a wonderful idea. Unfortunately Prospect Park – and in their defense, they had every intention of going through with this.

JH: That has been a question for many of the viewers and I’m glad to hear that.

ES: Oh no, they had every intention of going through with it. I have spoken with Jeff Kwatinetz and obviously it was a telephone conversation, but it was lengthy and the man was very honest with me and he said “we just couldn’t make it work in the time”. They’ve produced other shows, they have nighttime shows, they have Royal Pains on cable and a couple of other things. But that’s one show a week over a 13 week period. I think they really didn’t have a clue how much work it takes to produce five hours of television 52 weeks a year. I think they thought it was going to be easier. They immediately said “we’re buying the sets, the costumes, the props”, then they wanted to deal with the actors, unfortunately their union negotiations were sort of left until the later end and that was a big stumbling block because that doesn’t happen quickly. I think if this were going to happen they should have given themselves at least a year. They didn’t have a studio for us to go to, they didn’t have agreements with the unions, they didn’t have all the actors, although they got a majority them.

JH: They got a very large portion of them with One Life to Live.

ES: We had a very large portion with One Life to Live because people were excited about it and then because of the delays with the – and I can’t blame the unions, it’s just that’s not just something where you can sit down and say, let’s make a deal and they say, ok cool, it’s done. It’s not done. It’s not done that quickly. They had lawyers – and this I believe is true because I heard it from one of the writers – they had lawyers who were entertainment lawyers, instead of labor lawyers. And they finally said, let’s deal with labor lawyers. If they hadn’t intended to go through with this, they would not have gone and hired a whole new contingent of lawyers, that’s not cheap. They fully intended to go through with it but then they lost their financing because of the delays I think.

JH: How was that, finding out that things had sort of collapsed?

ES: Well, we finished shooting on November 18th and so much was undecided that a lot of people were already saying, I don’t know if this is going to happen. Our producer was really questioning whether it was going to happen or not because of the delays and because certain things were not getting done. And so on the 18th of November, we had a wonderful wrap party that ABC threw for us and I made a little speech and I said, “I’m not going to say goodbye because I’m hoping that we will all be together again in a couple of weeks.”

JH: So were we.

ES: Unfortunately on November, I think it was the 23rd, because it was the day before Thanksgiving, it was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, our Producer called me and he said, “It’s dead. It’s finished. They can’t do it.” So I thought, ok, you get your hopes up, but not that high, because in your mind you’ve already gone somewhere else, and when it was finally dead I thought, this is so freakin’ sad because of the incredible loss of jobs and the hope and the enthusiasm people had for it going forward. But at the same time, I thought, maybe we knew all along that this was too good to be true.

JH: That’s kind of what the viewers were thinking. We all kind of thought, we must have known this wasn’t going to happen, as much as we wanted it to, in the way that they said.

ES: It could have happened. They needed a lot more time to get it done. They wanted literally for us to finish on the 13th of January and start on the internet on the 16th. There was no way to get it done in that short space of time. And no one was more upset than they were. And they’re hoping – they own the licensing rights for a year, so hopefully they can do something with them, I don’t know. I can’t put any hopes on that, but we’ll see.

JH: That was going to be my next question, if Prospect Park is still able to sort of pull it out of the fire, and get One Life to Live going either online or on another network, would you still be onboard?

ES: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

JH: That’s awesome.

ES: Yeah. I mean, if I’m available, but right now I’m available.

JH: Four of your One Life to Live co-stars (Kassie DePaiva, Roger Howarth, Kristin Alderson and Michael Easton) are heading over to ABC’s last remaining soap, General Hospital as their One Life to Live characters, at least for a short time, I know there’s been some question as to how long they will be there.

ES: Two of them are going for a short term and two are going for long term. At least that’s my understanding.

JH: Oh ok, because there has been some question about that because I know Kassie DePaiva recently tweeted something about it not being long term.

ES: I think for Kassie and Roger it’s short term thing. Michael Easton and Kristen Alderson I think it’s a long term thing.

JH: Oh, ok.

ES: I think. But I’m not the boss.

JH: If they asked Viki to visit her family in Port Charles (the town in which General Hospital is set) would you be up for that?

ES: Sure, why not?

JH: Oh that’s great!

ES: Los Angeles is warm this time of year.

JH: Last year Robin Strasser headed over to Twitter, to a very warm welcome, will we see you on Twitter anytime soon?

ES: No you will not. (laughter)

JH: (laughter) No! Why not?

ES: I do not know how to do that and frankly my life is so boring I would have nothing to tweet. So you won’t see me on Twitter. (laughter) Well, you know what? Never say never, but in my mindset right now, no.

JH: So are there any immediate plans for the future, are you going to return to stage or are you going to enjoy the break?

ES: I will do whatever someone wants me to do. I have no plans right now but you know, if somebody wants to hire me, here I am.

JH: Hopefully we will see you very soon. Ms. Slezak, thank you so much for your time.

ES: My pleasure. And thank you for watching all those years, I really appreciate that.

Ms. Slezak, thank you for giving millions of viewers, a sometimes funny, sometimes heart-breaking, always brilliant, compelling performance to tune into for over four decades. It has been priceless.

allison13 wrote:I'll miss her most of all.