By Jason Bonderoff

Just The Facts
Birthday: June 22
Hometown: Baltimore, MD
Husband: Craig Newman, a marketing exec
Daughter: Michele Marlene, nearly 4
How She Feels About LOVING's Current Cast Purge: Torn.
Her Human Side Says: "How dare they!"
Her Business Side Says: "I understand this decision absolutely."
Wouldn't It Be Great If: "This whole summer turned out to be Gwyneth's bad dream."

Christine Tudor sits in her elegant Manhattan living room, clutching a box of Kleenex and her daughter's favorite stuffed animal. It's the only way she can talk about this. After 10 years on LOVING, she's worried that her job — along with the jobs of many castmates — is in jeopardy. The low-rated soap has just announced Operation Scrap Everything — a grand scheme that includes renaming the show, changing its locale, downsizing the cast, then building the new, post-Corinthian era around post-PAPER DOLLS' Morgan Fairchild. (No, really, we're not kidding.) "I've gone over and over and over how to talk about this," declares Tudor, whose next contract cycle ends on October 4. "The ego side of me wants to say, 'How could they?' The business side of me thinks, 'My God, if this works out, if they end up with a new show that's brilliant; the network ought to give whoever came up with this strategy a medal, a Nobel Prize, well, at least a raise! Still, it's a big, fat if. I've been there through eight regimes. I don't know anything about TV production or the corporate side of things, but I'm not sure that the way to gain an audience is by killing off cast members of a show that doesn't have the ratings [now]. If I tell you that next week, on Show X, John, Mary, Sue and Ellen are going to be mass murdered, [would it matter] if you've never watched that show? You wouldn't care. You certainly wouldn't turn on a show to see people [die] that you don't care about.

"In October, I don't know if I'll be here or not. I mean, I go from thinking I will be one of the actors let go to I won't be let go. I think, 'Should I put my home on the market? Should I move out of New York?' But at my worst, worst moments, I tell myself, 'Look, Christine, by doing this, ABC is putting X number of actors out of work, instead of hundreds of cast and crew. Look at how many jobs we're talking about — cameramen, caterers, clean-up crew, production people, security guards. When this is all over, maybe there will be 16 actors out of work instead of 600 of everybody else."

Thankfully, in the midst of this maelstrom, Tudor's personal life is thriving. On October 16, 1991, she and her husband, Craig Newman, welcomed a daughter, Michele Marlene. "It's the hardest thing I've ever done," she confides, then laughs. "My husband says I'm a perfectionist. I love order and neatness, but guess what? All that goes out the window when a child comes home. The minute you think you've got a handle on it, they change the game plan."

Shel (as Christine calls her) often visits the LOVING set. "She goes immediately to the wardrobe room," laughs Tudor. "The shoe closet flies open, and Shel gets out every pair of high heels imaginable. Then, she hits the jewelry department and picks out six necklaces and two pairs of earrings. Then, she goes to the makeup room to say hello to everybody." Weekends belong to Daddy. "Craig's fabulous," admits Tudor. "When it's my turn on Saturday to sleep in, I get up and they're out. They've already gone to the bakery or driven out to our country home on Long Island to see the ducks."

Michele rarely watches TV (she much prefers her own Disney videos), but when she does channel-surf, she's fascinated by kids in commercials. "She asks me, 'Why is that child on TV?' I tell her they're actors," says Tudor. "Because of her interest, I may look into commercial work for her. If she has fun, fine; she could have a nice college fund out of it. If she doesn't like it, it's history."

Tudor is equally philosophical about her job status, though she wishes the changeover wasn't shrouded in such secrecy. "If LOVING must kill off exciting, viable characters, so be it," she says quietly. "However, let's give the actors some reasonable notice. We all know by now about the proverbial 'leak.' Frankly, I'd prefer to be informed of my last shoot date by my executive producer, not by the press. Soon after this article runs, Gwyneth may be dead. However - either way - I wish the show, which will evolve, every success. I'm grateful to ABC for 10 years of work; that's hard to come by in this profession."

Happy Home "Wrecker"
Three years ago, Christine Tudor uttered those five fatal words that every husband dreads: We need a bigger place! "It took me eight months to find the place I wanted," she sighs. "I looked at 250 apartments in Manhattan. Ask any realtor who worked with me. They were all about to hang me!" Her dream apartment, a five-room Edwardian flat, had the basic layout she needed, but not much else. "It was a rental, and it hadn't been touched in 27 years," she says.

Send in the contractors! Old walls came down, new walls were added and cramped, dark interiors gave way to bright, sunny living areas splashed with color. (Smartest move: gaining an extra room by turning the front hall into an elegant, formal dining area.)

While the new accent is on delicate antiques and collectibles (25 wall mirrors in the dining room alone), two concessions to the man of the house remain: the bedroom is mostly "beige on beige on beige" (Craig's three favorite colors) and a wild jungle print dominates the living room floor. "Craig loves sitting in there now. It's his thinking space," she claims. But we have a hunch the rug's history is richer than that. Any rug stories we can print? "No, but I'll tell you this," Mrs. Newman laughs. "If there's any space in this apartment that gets all your juices flowing, that rug does it."

This article originally ran in the August 15, 1995 issue of Soap Opera Digest.