Catching Up With Anthony Herrera
Viewers know veteran actor Anthony Herrera will soon be onscreen as AS THE WORLD TURNS’ James Stenbeck, but do you know what he’s been up to offscreen? Catch up on the causes close to Herrera’s heart.
Soap Opera Weekly: I know you live in Argentina now. What can you tell me about what you’ve been doing since you left ATWT?
Anthony Herrera: I have two main projects. One is PoetryTheatre.org. What’s interesting about Poetry Theatre is that when I had cancer in 1997 — I had a bone marrow transplant and it was a very rare, deadly cancer (mantle cell lymphoma) — I was coming and going on the show, and I always wanted a one-man show of poetry. So I put it together and then the cancer came back. I was in and out of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston [for treatment] off and on for three years. I’ve been friends with the Willie Nelson band since 1987, and one night on Mr. Nelson’s bus, Willie says, “You know, you gotta put your one-man show on the Web.” Willie is so incredibly smart. So, anyway, he says, “You gotta put your poetry on the Web, because the Web is powerful.” So I teamed up with Steve McGraw, who loves computers, and he built the Web site. When we got the technology and got everything running, I went to Mr. Nelson and I said, “Willie, this was your idea, and now I want you to do something for it.” He is really a phenomenal guy — and that’s the reason we have Mr. Nelson on our site.
Weekly: And this is all to foster more awareness of poetry and the oral tradition?
Herrera: I’m putting a two-hour DVD in every high school in Mississippi. That was going to be this fall, but now the show has come along, so it will probably be early next year. So that’s a lot of work, but that’s one project.
Weekly: Your second is your book, The Cancer War, and your advocacy for cancer awareness and stem-cell research?
Herrera: My book is now for free on the Web (www.anthonyherrera.org). You can download it. The reason for that is because I was in Argentina, and some people who were diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma e-mailed me and said, “I want to buy your book.” I didn’t write the book to make money, so I said let them download it. I spent a year with two different Spanish teachers, three days a week, and the book is now translated into Spanish.
Weekly: That must have been an incredible undertaking.
Herrera: They have very good medicine in Argentina, and I’ve met with one of the big boys down there who runs around with one of my guys. I worked with the best brains in the world, or I wouldn’t be here. These [doctors and researchers] are international superstars. I’ll call them, and it’s like, “He is in Stockholm and he is going to be back…oh, no, wait, he’s in Rome.” With my super nurse, I’m like, “I’m coming through; can we have dinner?” and she’s like, “Well, I’ll be in Japan.” This guy in Argentina lined me up with a lymphoma society down there. I go to some of their meetings, and they are going to work with me when the book is ready in Spanish. That’s been a lot of work and an adventure. That’s what kept me busy down there, between the poetry and the book. I’m trying improve my Spanish and my tango, but it isn’t easy.
Weekly: What’s wonderful, too, about your book and a talk you have posted on your Web site is the emphasis on how attitude plays into cancer survival.
Herrera: So many people get stunned. You are hit with a huge impact and you get scared. I think it’s important to have stuff out there like that. There are so many people who will say to you, “There is nothing you can do; you are going to die,” so it’s important to have hope in the illness. There are so many treatments, and it can go on for years, and if you lose hope you’re not helping the situation.
Weekly: Absolutely. I have to tell you, people are so glad to have you back on the show. It’s awesome.
Herrera: Oh, well, thank you. It’s amazing. There’s a page in my book, the Stenbeck page, and there is a picture of Colleen (Zenk Pinter, Barbara) and I in 1980. There’s a picture of James with a .357 Magnum, and there is a picture of Barbara and James taking in the 1990s. I got curious, so I e-mailed Vivian (Gundaker, producer) and asked, “When did ATWT first air?” April 2, 1956. So, when I sent that page of my book with the three pictures, I wrote, ‘First aired 4/2/1956; James Stenbeck first appeared in 1980.’ That boggled my mind. I don’t know if it boggles anybody else’s (laughs).
Weekly: No, it’s so wonderful that the show has been on this long and impacted so many lives.
Herrera: I was chatting with [the ATWT publicist] about the cancer and my 2005 Senate testimony, and afterward, I was looking at [the testimony again]. Senator Thad Cochran, who is on the appropriations committee — which means he has his hand on the money of the USA — he talked about ATWT. Even they realize that [soaps are] an important part of our society.
Conversation
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