Five Minutes With Eileen Davidson
Former Y&R star Eileen Davidson is happily ensconced in a new front-burning storyline on B&B, but her workday hardly stops when she leaves the studio. The devoted wife and mother is in the midst of launching a clothing line and in the throes of writing a book. No “downtime” here!
Soap Opera Weekly: What can you tell us about the book you’re working on?
Eileen Davidson: It’s with Penguin Books and it’s a mystery novel revolving around the soap opera world.
Weekly: The saying is, “Write about what you know best.”
Davidson: Yeah, exactly!
Weekly: How far along are you?
Davidson: We have to have it to the publisher by July/August, so I’m knee-deep.
Weekly: Do you find yourself able to write at specific times?
Davidson: Not yet. If I make myself write, it all comes out. It’s just making yourself sit down and [do it].
Weekly: It must be hard though, since you’re always working at B&B, and there’s the clothing line and being a mom and a wife. You’ve got to have the creative energy to put into that.
Davidson: It’s like nothing was really planned, it just all happened.
Weekly: When and how did you come up with the idea for the book?
Davidson: My husband [Vincent Van Patten, ex-Christian, Y&R] just wrote a book with Bob Randisi, and we had him over for dinner last year. Jokingly, I said we should do something set around the soap opera world. He said yeah. Then, a month later, I called him back. I said, “Were you serious?” He said absolutely. So we wrote a line and sent it to Penguin, and they took it. Then we got our deadline. He’s prolific. He writes constantly. I’ve already written him a bunch of pages and outlined the characters and the world of soaps. We have [developed] the voice of the lead character, so we’re on our way.
Weekly: Is it giving you a different sense of creative fulfillment than acting?
Davidson: Oh, yeah, a whole different thing.
Weekly: Have you ever thought about writing TV scripts or screenplays?
Davidson: Sometimes, but everything has its own time and place. Right now, I don’t see that happening, but you never know. Depending how this book does, it could very well be a TV series or a TV movie.
For more with Eileen Davidson, check out our feature interview with her in Soap Opera Weekly, on sale April 30, cover date May 8.
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Soap Opera Digest does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.