Meet Pamela Musetti-Souza of the San Francisco Bay Area, our lucky soapoperadigest.com contest winner. With a click of the mouse, Pam and a friend won the chance to tour the soap set of their choice and, being a longtime GENERAL HOSPITAL fan, Pam chose to visit Port Charles.
With friend Jodi Mayhood in tow, Pam flew to Los Angeles for a two-night stay at the Renaissance Hotel in Hollywood.
It was a trip that happened almost by accident. “I’ve been a faithful Digest subscriber for close to 20 years,” Pam explains. “But I didn’t realize that my subscription had lapsed and all of a sudden, I wasn’t getting my magazines. So, I went online to renew. Now I had never ever been on the Digest Web site before. I renewed my subscription and on the right-hand side there was a sign that said, ‘Win a trip to your favorite soap set.’ I thought, ‘That would be a blast,’ clicked on it, put my e-mail address in and sent it off. I never entered again and about four weeks later, I got an e-mail saying, ‘Congratulations, you won our contest!’ I thought it was some advertisement [laughs]. I almost deleted it! I e-mailed back just in case and I heard back, ‘Here are the dates you can choose from.’ I couldn’t believe I really won it. It was such a fluke!”
On Tuesday, November 11, Pam and Jodi found themselves at the Prospect Studios in Hollywood, where GH tapes. “We went through security and were looking for the building,” she explains. “We saw nothing and we apparently looked lost because we saw Kelly Monaco [Sam] in the parking lot and she goes, ‘Excuse me. Do you need help finding something?’ We said we were looking for GENERAL HOSPITAL and she comes back with, ‘Are you the contest winners?’ We were like, ‘Um, yeah.’ She came over, sweet as could be, introduced herself and explained how to get in the building and said, ‘I’ll see you in there!’ What an introduction.”
Once inside, the ladies went to the green room (basically a reception area), where they met me (Digest‘s GH editor), and our guides, GH publicist Mitch and intern Katherine. Then they met the newest GH cast members, the babies who play Robin and Patrick’s daughter, Emma. “They were so precious,” Pam coos. “Identical baby twins. Jodi has twin nieces, so she was fascinated with them.” The gang watched the scenes that were being taped with Robin and Mac on the monitor. Shortly after, John J. York (Mac) finished and popped in to say hello. “He was very pleasant, very friendly,” Pam shares. “He told us how fast the time had gone by. When he joined the show, he said his daughter was the size of the babies.”
Afterward, we all went onstage to watch scenes being taped with Kimberly McCullough (Robin), Jason Thompson (Patrick) and Kirsten Storms (Maxie). “That was really interesting watching them, and we watched them from the set across the way, which was the hospital waiting area. I just saw it on yesterday’s show and I was like, ‘I was sitting there!’ It was fascinating seeing the sets all set up and how much smaller they are than they appear on TV. Jason’s penthouse was the only one I thought looked close to the way it appears size-wise. I couldn’t believe how small Sonny’s desk was! It looks so big on TV. And we got to see a couple new sets that haven’t appeared yet, so that was cool.” On a break, “Kimberly came over and said hello. Jason was very nice. He seems very easygoing, a happy-go-lucky guy. He was joking with the crew, who were just incredible to us, so warm and welcoming. They really seem like they’re having fun and enjoy being there.”
Back down to the green room and all “the kids” came in. “Everybody was talking to everybody,” Pam smiles. “Bradford [Anderson, Spinelli] was very pleasant, as were Kirsten [Storms] and Julie [Marie Berman, Lulu]. I have to say when Brandon [Barash, Johnny] came into the room he was so friendly, so nice, I had a completely different impression of him. I know the actors are different from their characters, but he was so open and friendly. For whatever reason, I didn’t expect that.
“Then we headed to the commissary for lunch, where we met Carolyn Hennesy [Diane] and she was very much like her character, I thought, in the way she carries herself. She was witty and well spoken. You can tell she’s intelligent, very sweet. She asked us a lot of questions, too. She was cast very well [laughs]. After lunch, on our way back, we passed the GREY’S ANATOMY stage. All the extras were outside in their scrubs with their scripts. It really looked like the outside of a hospital.”
Back in the now-familiar green room, in came those baby blues belonging to Steve Burton (Jason). “Oh, he was a doll,” Pam grins. “No question. He’s very well built, very tall. I thought he’d be shorter [laughs]. Yes, there’s not a question that he’s attractive.” After a nice chat, it was back up to the stage to watch scenes with Lulu, Maxie and Spinelli. “It was very THREE’S COMPANY,” she giggles. “I must say I was amazed at how Bradford’s demeanor changed when he got into character because he was completely the opposite of Spinelli when we talked to him earlier. Even the way he walked changed.”
Then came stops to the hair/makeup department and the wardrobe department. “It was cool in there,” raves Pam. “You could smell the hair products and it was filled with great photos from recent to long-ago people. I could have stayed in there for another hour just looking at pictures. Then we went to wardrobe, and talk about organization. The shoes amazed me. They had a photo of the shoe outside all of the drawers. It was easy to spot Jason’s rack because it was all black leather. Same with Claudia, mostly black and a little red. And the wardrobe girls were so informative and helpful.”
As the day wound down, it seemed only fitting that the last person they saw was the first. After a quick tour of the dressing room area, we bumped into Monaco, now all dressed, made up and ready for her scenes, which were up next. “She was definitely one of the sweetest people we met that day,” Pam nods. “She signed a special autograph for my husband, Dean, and my son, Brian — complete with a kiss mark on it. My other son, Drake, is a little young for the show [laughs].”
As we headed out of the studio after thanking everyone involved for such a great day, Pam remarked, “We didn’t get to meet Maurice [Benard, Sonny], though. [Editor’s Note: There was a change in the schedule. Benard’s scenes were moved until the end of the day.] That would have been nice. I’ve been watching him for a long time and he’s adorable. We took a couple pictures outside his dressing room, though. I’ll just have to come back another time to meet him. You can bet I’ll be checking out the Web site a lot more now!”
