Biography | Library | Emmys | OLTL's Viki | Official Fan Club | About site  
Home Email  
 
More Articles
71 Spoiled with Love
72 DTV Cover
72 Memories Family
73 Lived like Gypsy
74 Not Ready
74 Miss SuperCool
75 Life Story
76 Five Years
76 Sensitive
77 SOD Cover
77 Surprised
77 ATVA Cover
77 RBD Cover
77 Lost her Touch
77 Daytime Stars
77 Like Yesterday
78 DTV Cover
78 Long Distance
78 My Rules
79 SOD Cover
79 Don't Step


70s Favorite Holiday
70s Loving Memories
70s Most Popular
70s Viki's Life Story
70s SOD Cover

80 On Her Own
81 So happy
81 More Children
81 2nd Pregnancy
81 Will she
83 ATV Cover
83 SOD Cover
83 Good Life
84 Bouncing Back
85 Niki Smith
86 Viva Miss Viki
88 Own Life
88 OLTL 20 years
89 Private Lives

90 Share Alike
90 American Dynasty
90 Day in Life
90 Shattering Myth
91 SOW Cover
91 Leading Lady
91 Two Emmys
91 DTV Cover
91 Lady of Manor
91 No Substitutes
91 20 Quotes
92 SOW Cover
92 Episodes Cover
92 Lunchtime Fav
92 SOM Cover
93 SOD Cover
93 OLTL 25 Yrs
94 New Age Innoc
95 SOM Cover
95 24 Years
95 SOW Cover M
95 SOW Cover A
95 With Reservations
95 SOW Cover O
96 Victorious
96 Thank the Lord
96 Her Life to Live
96 Multiplicity
96 In Step
97 Adores Her Job
97 One Life to Give
97 Who Says
98 30 Something
98 Life's Work
99 High Notes
99 SOD Cover
99 Changing Times
99 When Blondie
99 SID Cover
99 SOW Cover
99 TV Guide Online

00 Daytime Divas
00 SOW Cover
00 The Babe
00 Performer
00 Life Goes On
00 Tell All
00 Will Survive
00 Incomparable
00 SOD Cover
00 To the Mob
00 Promo
00 SID Cover
00 Last Chance
01 Thanks
01 Sentinel
01 Regis
01 Pictoral
01 Big 3 0
01 Click
01 Roundup
01 Good Show
01 Celebrates
01 Tribute
01 SID Cover A
01 Wedding
01 Soap Net 1
01 Soap Net 2
01 Soap Net 3
01 Time To
01 Secrets
01 Luncheon
01 OLTL Luncheon
01 Emmys
01 Perf of Week
01 SID Cover J
01 Fight
01 Wild Nightmare
01 Inmates
01 Real Life Love
01 Postcard
01 SOW Cover
01 Reveals
01 Changeling
02 Dear Niki
02 Promo
02 SOW Cover
02 Together
02 SOU Cover
 
Erika Slezak Library

Soap Opera Digest, July 26, 1988


One Life to Live Celebrates Twenty Years


Erika Slezak, in dreamy yesteryear hairdo, is the third actress to play Victoria Lord, the most show's most enduring heroine. Ms. Slezak says that, in part, she has based her characterization on her own mother.

Also, actors new to the rigorous schedule of producing five shows a week found inventive ways to remember their lines. Erika Slezak remembered Ernest Graves (Victor Lord) and Lynn Benesch (Meredith Wolek) spending their lunch hour cutting their script into strips and taping them to leaves on trees on the terrace. Ernie had this row and Lynn had this row cause she was shorter. I had a scene with her on the terrace where we were having tea. She was very clever. She took the tea pot and she put a line a horizontal angle and I said, “How are you going to be able to read that?” And she said, “That's what I say when I'm pouring,' I thought that was genius.”

Viki's out-of-body-experience, which featured all the dead characters from the show coming back for several weeks, was a wild affair that kept actors and crew on hand almost 24 hours a day. Viewers loved it.

“I had such an extraordinary reaction from that story,” says Erika Slezak. “People stopped me on buses and instead of saying. “We'd really like to meet you,' they said 'It made me feel so much better about dying because it gave me another alternative.' We all say, 'What is it when we die, where do we go, what do we do?' This gave you a picture. Granted, it was entertainment, but everybody's looking for an answer to that question.” Performing in Heaven was one of Slezak's toughest assignments. “I think that probably that was the biggest challenge because it was the most rewarding when it was done.” she says. “I just loved every second of it. I wasn't bored because I never had a chance.” In addition to the love story of Clint and Viki, Heaven is one of the stories that Rauch thinks have come off best. One day he'd like to take a look at the flipside of the hereafter. “I'd love to go to hell sometime,” he chuckles, “but no one will let me. And I've got a great bunch of people for that. Don't ask me who.”

Erika Slezak's dressing room is, as you might expect, the kind that can be straightened up in thirty seconds. After seventeen years on OLTL, the two-time Emmy winner is used to the structure and the rules of soap opera living. “I know what's expected of me, my children know what is expected of them and me and my husband is certainly aware that our life has a certain form.” she says. “I mean, who keeps a job for seventeen years in this business?” Her husband, actor Brian Davies, chose not to work out-of-town when their children, Michael and Amanda, were very young to provide maximum family unity. And, in the studio, Slezak has seen all sorts of performers come and go, but when asked which character she would bring back if she had the choice, Ms. Slezak did not hesitate. “Dorian, Tina is not a replacement for Dorian,” she insists. 'Tina is a whining, wimpy, little brat who has no power, who has no sophistication, she has no class, she has nothing. She can't do anything on her own. Dorian was great. I mean Dorian would buy people off right and left. She was never better than when she had the money and the power and working to turn things her way.” Erika Slezak snaps her fingers and says, “I'd bring Dorian back like that. I'd give Robin Strasser anything she wanted - anything - because I think she's brilliant.”

In a Roundup Poll...What Were Your Best/Worse Scenes on the Show?

Erika Slezak - “I haven't done either on of them yet.”

 
 
Biography | Library | Emmys | OLTL's Viki | Official Fan Club | About site
Copyright 2002 ESFC    Home    -   Email