Singing A New Tune
Julia Barr would like a second crack at Brooke and Edmund’s wedding day. “If I had known I was going to be in the wedding dress for six days, I would have said, ‘We’re not going to have a veil so I can move,'” groans Barr. “I should have known the culmination was going to go over a week. The week after, the crew kept joking, ‘Julia, isn’t it time to get back into that wedding dress?’ I said, ‘I’m going to have to kill you…or kill myself!'”
Maria may have spoiled Edmund and Brooke’s long-awaited wedding, but it threw Barr into one of ALL MY CHILDREN’s hottest stories. “I always thought that as long as John (Callahan, Edmund) stayed on the show, Eva (La Rue Callahan, Maria; Callahan’s real-life wife) might come back,” admits Barr, who raves about the scenes surrounding Maria’s return to Pine Valley. “When you see something that is well-written, the actors can get behind it. It all comes together and has a synergy that does not exist without those things in place. I realize it can’t be that way all the time, but when it is, boy is it great.” Fans agreed. “A lot of comments online were like, ‘Wow! Those were great shows.'”
But some fans freaked because the upstanding Brooke lied to Edmund about Maria being alive. “It’s weird, because you have to learn to justify things,” sighs Barr, who is used to fans calling her character on the carpet. “Playing a bad character, you don’t feel that as much because people are expecting it. Last year people got upset during Laura’s heart transplant story. They thought Brooke was buying Leo. They said, ‘Brooke thinks she’s holier than thou and better than everyone.’
“Some things have been bad luck, that’s all,” she continues. “She lost her daughter and never got over that guilt. As much as she loved Edmund, she needed to make a family for [Jamie], and Tad went after her and said, ‘I want to marry you, I love you.’ That was the beginning of her long road of heartache. It wouldn’t be bad to have that addressed.”
Especially since Brooke has lost Edmund again. “People were very upset Brooke and Edmund were not going to end up together this time,” relates Barr, who wishes the show would have brought the couple together a year ago so the conflict would have been even greater when Maria came back. “She thought she had found a safe haven in this man that she loved, and who would have thought out of the blue his wife would return? With Maria back in the picture, the only way Edmund and Brooke would get back together is if Maria never remembers and says, ‘I can’t do this, I’m sorry. As much as I’d like to make a life with you and it’s heartbreaking, I can’t do it,’ and she goes off with somebody else.”
It’s not like Brooke is waiting around for Edmund — she had a tryst with ex-hubby Adam last week. And this week she’ll find Adam in her bed, again. “Adam and Brooke together is like fire and ice,” smiles Barr. “In terms of my favorite relationships, that one is right up there. There is an edge my character has with Adam, which has always been part of her bad girl days. It livens up her character from being this victim all the time, and I like it. I hope they go with it for a while. She’s not married. She has lost [Edmund] forever. People find comfort where they can, and sometimes something interesting happens as a result of it. She has to do something human — she can’t be long-suffering forever.”
After 26 years on the show and two Daytime Emmy Awards, Barr insists she’s still happy playing Brooke. “I’ve had my share of time on the back burner and things I have not particularly liked, but I’ve been given a chance to get out there and act. This profession has fed me creatively and allowed me to have a home life and a private life. When I go home, I can say to my husband, ‘Oh, my God, you won’t believe what they’re having me do.'”
Her 18-year-old daughter, Allison Hirschlag, who assumed the role of GUIDING LIGHT’s Lizzie in August, can also now relate. “I’ve encouraged her [acting] in terms of how much interest she has shown,” explains Barr. “She’s done a lot of theater and she’s taken acting classes, but she’s never been in a professional work situation before. The more information she has about what she’s interested in, the better she can decide,
‘I love this,’ or ‘I’m not sure this is for me.'”
With Allison leaving for Vermont’s Middlebury College in February, the family recently welcomed a new addition: Lucy, a dog they adopted from the North Shore Animal League. Barr was a little hesitant to get a new pet after Nell, their dog of six years, passed away in January. “When you have an animal, you know you will say goodbye to that animal at some point. We thought about it for a long time. We had to make sure the timing was right.”
Barr’s love of animals led her to record her first CD, From Our House…To Yours; all proceeds will go to The Fund for Animals. (Barr has been a spokesperson since 1999.) “I’m very proud of it,” she beams. “It’s for a great cause, and I think people are going to respond to it.” The project was a family affair — her husband, Dr. Richard Hirschlag, and Allison contributed vocally, and he also played the instruments and did the CD artwork. “Working with my husband, I thought we would be at each other. As close as we are, our styles are so different. But it didn’t happen — we were surprised.” (The CD is available online at www.fund.org or by calling 888-405-FUND.)
Just because Barr has released a CD, don’t expect Brooke to break into song anytime soon. “It would have to be in the context of the story,” insists Barr. “Not getting up at the Valley Inn and going, ‘I’d like to sing a few songs.'”
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