2025 Visit w ‘Todd and David’
Soap Opera Digest, November 3, 2025
GH’s Erika Slezak and Y&R’s Roger Howarth Dish Their Real-Life One Life to Live Reunion (Excl) Link
On One Life to Live, Roger Howarth (now Matt/Mitch, The Young and the Restless) and Erika Slezak (now Ronnie, General Hospital) played half siblings Todd Manning and Victoria Lord. It came as a shock to both characters when they discovered in 1995 that they shared a father, Victor Lord, and that Todd was the heir to Victor’s nearly $27.8 million dollar fortune — especially since scheming David Vickers, played by Tuc Watkins, had tried to pass himself off as the true heir. Viki and Todd ended up forging a unique and loving brother/sister bond, and as for David Vickers? Well, they tolerated him (most of the time). Off camera, though, all three actors get along swimmingly, and recently had a reunion in Los Angeles. Howarth and Slezak told Soap Opera Digest all about it.
Kitchen Confidential
It was Howarth who instigated the reunion, which took place while Slezak, who is based in Connecticut, was in California for her three-week stint on GH, on which both Howarth and Watkins used to appear. (Howarth played three different roles, Todd, Franco and Austin, between 2012-23, while Watkins played baddie Pierce Dorman from 1996-97.)
Explains Howarth, “When I found out that Erika was coming to Los Angeles, I sent her an email and I said, ‘Hey, let’s have dinner. And we should have it at Tuc’s house because he’s got a really nice house and he’s a great cook.’ So yeah, I just kind of invited us over to Tuc’s,” he teases. “It was a lovely night. Tuc’s kids,” 12-year-old twins Curtis and Catchen, “were there, too, and it was just really nice to see her.”
Slezak remembers the outreach email slightly differently. “He said, ‘I’ve just been sitting with Tuc in his backyard, and he’s got a really nice house and we have decided that you should come for dinner, so no arguments, it has been decided.’ That was the email,” she smiles. “So I emailed back and I said, ‘I would love it! I would absolutely love it.'”
It’s an invitation she is thrilled to have accepted. “It was fantastic,” she says of her reunion with Howarth and Watkins, “two people that I love dearly. I’ve loved Roger since the day I met him, when he first came [to OLTL] as a young man and he was a bit of a pain in the ass. But he was always very good and very talented and we worked together so well because he listened and he reacted. And then he went away and he was on As the World Turns for a while [playing Paul Ryan from 2003-10] and when he came back [as Todd], he came back a grown-up, and it was such a pleasure to work with him. And then Tuc — obviously, it was always a joy to work with him, because he’s Tuc, and David was crazy [laughs]! David was a nutcase!”
Continues Slezak, “Can I tell you how special that evening was? It was like the first real conversation I’d ever had with both of them because it had nothing to do with work or what we were doing; it was about life, their lives and my life, and it was a wonderful conversation. They were just lovely. We were sitting outside — and Roger was right, he’s got a really nice house, Tuc does, with a little pool in the back and they have a dog, a border collie named Archie, and it’s just a lovely, comfortable home. It’s beautifully done. And we sat outside and we talked for like an hour-and-a-half and then we went inside and they lit the fireplace and we chatted a bit more and took some pictures. It was absolutely wonderful. It made the whole trip [to Los Angeles] worth it just to see the two of them!”
Freeze Play
Ever the gracious guest, Slezak did not show up empty-handed. When the dinner invite first came to her via Howarth, Slezak says, “I emailed Tuc and I said, ‘What do your kids like?’ I mean, what do you bring a 12-year-old child? You bring wine for the adults, but what do you bring [a preteen]? And he said, ‘You know what they like? Ice cream!’ I said, ‘Ice cream?!’ He said, ‘Yeah, we don’t buy the nice ice cream for them, we only buy the cheap ice cream.’ He said, ‘If you happen to find Ben & Jerry’s or Haagen-Dazs…’ and I said, ‘Great! What are their favorite flavors?’ He sent me a list of like 12 or 14 flavors that they love and he said, ‘Don’t bring them all!'”
Slezak disregarded those instructions, she shares with a laugh. “The day that I went there for dinner, which was a Saturday, I went to the local market there, Gelson’s, and they carried Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s and I bought every single flavor I could find [from the list Watkins had provided] and the kids went, ‘Oh, my God, Dad, look, look, this is my favorite!’ They loved it and they piled them all up high into a tower that was about three feet high of pints of ice cream and we took a picture of the three of us with all these ice creams.”
Seeing Watkins’s children was another highlight for Slezak, who marvels, “It was the most amazing thing, because the last time I had seen Tuc’s children, one of them was in a baby swing and the other was in a little stroller; they were just barely a year or a year-and-a-half old. I walked in and I went, ‘Oh, my God, they can’t be your children!’ And he said, ‘They are!’ They are 12 years old and gorgeous-looking kids. Curtis looks exactly like Tuc, which is brilliant, and Catchen looks like Tuc, but a female version of Tuc! She’s beautiful. They are such polite, well-mannered children.”
Slezak, of course, made a strong impression on the children, as well. She winks, “Tuc wrote me a couple of weeks later and said, ‘You have to come back! We’re almost out of ice cream!'”