1991 No Substitutes

Soap Opera Digest
August 20, 1991

Daytime's Top Ten: When it Comes to these Soap Characters Accept No Substitutes

By: unknown

One Life to Live
Erika Slezak as Viki Buchanan

Remember the old proverb, "a great actress is someone who could recite the telephone book and make it sound interesting?" Well, that describes Erika Slezak to a tee. She can take the most improbable storylines, and somehow make us swallow them hook, line and sinker. While other soap matriarchs merely fret over their broken marriages, Viki worries what part of the time barrier she's going to crash through next. She's already been to heaven, hell, Eterna and stopped off to visit her own great grandparents back in 1888. Even in Llanview, her escapades often defy reality - and we buy it. In fact, we love it when she goes on "automatic pilot" and turns into her trashy alter ego Niki.

Slezak may not be the only star with a twenty-year tour of soap duty behind her, but who else plays a loving wife, devoted mother, sharp businesswoman, ex-mayor, haughty socialite and part-time schizophrenic rolled into one?

As long as she wants to stay, rest assured they'll never run out of Friday cliffhangers for her. She's the heart and soul of the show.