This interview originally appeared in the April 30, 1991 issue of Soap Opera Digest.
FEARLESS
Snakes, Alligators, TV Producers — Noting Fazes This B&B Beauty
At first glance, Hunter Tylo is such a regal knockout it’s intimidating. Sitting in her dressing room in form-fitting pink suit, hair and makeup camera-ready, she seems too perfect to be real. You steel yourself for an ice princess or some fatuous model type, especially after noting the tiny bag of carrot and celery sticks she’s calling lunch. But then Hunter starts talking and it’s instantly clear that there’s a lot more to her than meets the eye.
She loves reptiles, especially snakes. She’s two years toward a pre-med degree. And with her quirky sense of humor, you also get the feeling she started a lot of food fights in the high school cafeteria.
True, Hunter’s grown up since her soap debut as Robin McCall on ALL MY CHILDREN. “I even smoke now,” she jokes apologetically, motioning to a half-empty pack of cigarettes lying on the table. Even her name has gone through a total metamorphosis. (Back then, she was Deborah Morehart, née Deborah Hunter.) The surname change is easy — Hunter married AMC co-star Michael Tylo. The reason she took her maiden name as a given name is more complicated.
“I wanted to change my whole name and image after I left AMC,” she explains. “When this male producer came on the show, he began to make Robin kind of sleazy. I wasn’t pleased with the way they were portraying the character and I was always arguing with them about it. I felt I’d be stereotyped as a bathing-suit bimbo because that’s what Robin had become, and I wanted to get rid of that image in a big way. So as soon as I left the show, I immediately changed my look, my hair color and everything, including my name.”
“This is my natural hair color,” she says, holding up a lock of her long dark brown mane. “I kept getting blonder and blonder on AMC as this guy kept pushing me into the bombshell look. I wouldn’t be playing a doctor on B&B if I still had that image.”
This — oh, shall we say reptilian? — producer also wreaked havoc with Hunter’s personal life when he tried to put the kibosh on her engagement to Michael Tylo, who was playing Matt Connolly on the show at the time. “We had a falling-out with him because he didn’t want us dating or getting married,” she reveals. “Another actor who’d dated a co-star on the show experienced a similar problem and he warned us about it, but we thought our situation was different. We dated secretly for about six month, then told the producer we were getting married, and it caused a little explosion. I don’t understand it myself. It was very strange. I think they’d planned to put us in a love triangle and were afraid that the fact that we were married might make it biased. But I simply don’t know.”
When AMC asked Hunter to work without a contract, she told them to forget it and left the show. She and Michael married on July 7. 1987. Their son Micky — Michael Tylo II — was born April 24, 1988. “He was the honeymoon baby,” jokes Hunter, who has another son, ten-year-old Chris, from her first marriage. She digresses a moment to talk about that union. “It was a mistake,” she declares. “I was eighteen when I first married and I don’t think I knew what I was doing. We lived in the country outside Fort Worth and after graduation, all of my friends would go work at the Dairy Queen. I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. In fact, I never even dated high school guys, I always dated guys from the city who were older than me, like my first husband, who was seven years older. Michael is fourteen years older. I guess I double it each time — although I don’t plan on doing it again, believe me.”
Hunter laughs, then resumes her story. “The marriage lasted three and a half years, but it was really over in the middle of my pregnancy. Having a child that young was a shock to me because I didn’t realize how much responsibility it was. But I’m glad it happened because it really caused me to grow up. It motivated me to get a career going instead of doing nothing with my life.”
After leaving AMC, however, Hunter was perfectly happy to take a break from acting and focus on being a mom. During her second pregnancy, she also decided to fulfill a lifetime dream and earn a pre-med degree. Hunter enrolled at New York’s Fordham University and, so far, she’s completed two years of the program. “I like the medical field a lot,” the multi-talented actress explains. “I’m really interested in research and science, but it doesn’t pay well, so I figured I’d make my money now and have that as a backup.”
Hunter’s college sojourn was interrupted when husband Michael won a role on GENERAL HOSPITAL that required a move to Los Angeles. “I can’t even remember the name of the character he played [Charlie Prince — Ed.],” Hunter says. “It was such a short stint we’d like to forget it.” With both wage-earners unemployed, Hunter admits that things grew a little tense. “It’s completely understandable, especially when you have two children,” she says. “I think I’m a little more laid back about it than Michael is. When he’s working and I’m not, I don’t feel like I have to go get a job. I’m perfectly happy doing commercials, going to school and spending time with the kids. That’s what I did when we first moved here.”
Still, Hunter was excited when she found out she’d landed the much-coveted role of Marina on DAYS OF OUR LIVES. She thought she’d scored a casting coup. Boy, was she wrong. “That was nasty,” she says bluntly. “I didn’t know what I was getting into and I don’t think I would have taken the role had I known. They were looking at people for a long time for Marina, and everyone was trying to get this role but, once I got it, I realized what a lion’s den I’d thrown myself into.”
The problem had less to do with the show than with DAYS fans’ rabid reaction to her role as Patch’s manipulative first wife. “There’s a Patch and Kayla fan club, and some of these people are fanatics,” Hunter shares. “They became irate. It was scary. I literally got threatening letters that said, ‘Watch your back,’ and ‘Stay away from Patch if you know what’s good for you.’ I did the show for six months and that was all I could stand. My departure was a mutual decision. Things were getting crazy. Stephen [Stephen Nichols, ex-Patch] seemed tense about the situation, too. He and Mary Beth [Evans, who plays Kayla] were very close and had been in this storyline for a long time. Plus, I think he was already tired of his job and wanted to leave. I just knew there was no way the role would ever turn into anything but aggravation.”
With Hunter’s DAYS stint over and Michael on the verge of wrapping up two seasons on the V series ZORRO, the couple decided it was time to move back to New York. Hunter even re-enrolled at Fordham. Then the role of Taylor Hayes came up. The pre-med student couldn’t resist the opportunity to actually portray a doctor. “They offered me the role and worked out the deal literally as the furniture rolled out of the driveway,” she shares. “I was like, ‘Wait!’ Actually, it wasn’t even worth stopping the truck because we’d already paid for it. So now we have New York and L.A. furniture.”
Hunter’s thrilled with her new role and relieved that Joanna Johnson’s (ex-Caroline) fans have accepted her as Ridge’s new love interest. “I have a lot of fun on this show,” she says. “We’re all pretty silly. I do things to Ronn — like throw food on him!”
Hunter also relishes the lighter schedule of a half-hour soap, which allows her time to shoot commercials for products like Clairol and Clarion Cosmetics. “I love doing commercials,” she enthuses. “You get to be somebody different from your regular character. It’s like making a tiny movie. I did one for Buf-Puffs where I played a clown who took off all her makeup, then pulled off a skull cap. That was a really fun change of pace for me. And I really enjoy the residual checks. You work one day and make money all year long. Being a mother, you can’t beat it.”
Despite the fact that Michael prefers New York, the Tylos are getting used to the idea of staying in Los Angeles. IN fact, after two years in temporary lodgings, they’re finally shopping for their own home. “I want a yard,” Hunter says dreamily “I love animals and I’d like to get a dog, some more cats, some birds, and a king snake.”
Whoa — a king snake?
“I love reptiles, I let them crawl all over me,” Hunter grins, then adds nonchalantly, “I had two or three boa constrictors when I was growing up, and an alligator named George. My brother Jay and I ordered him through the mail, without permission, when we were kids. My mother got the mail while we were at school, open the box and this foot-long alligator fell out on the counter. She just about freaked out. He scurried under the couch and she stood on a chair for about five hours waiting for my dad to come home.”
Hunter and Jay were duly punished, but they were also allowed to keep George for four years. When he hit four feet in length, the family decided it was time to find him a new home at the Fort Worth Zoo. “Michael won’t let me get any more alligators, but I would love a snake,” Hunter says. “I didn’t want pone while Micky was a baby, but now that he’s two years old, I think I could tell him to stay away from it.”
A reptile aficionado, a doctor-in-training, a woman with the guts to completely redefine herself — could Hunter Tylo top these revelations? “Well,” the beautiful star says with a devilish look in her eyes. “I do have a crazy sense of humor.”
Uh-oh. Someone had better hide the mashed potatoes at the BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL cafeteria.
JUST THE FACTS
Birthdate: July 3, 1952
Height: 5’6 ½”
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Born: Ft. Worth, TX
Raised: Springstown, TX
Siblings: Older sister and brother, Elizabeth and Jay; young brother, Cliff
Favorite Foods: “Goat cheese and chocolate, but not together — although I did that when I was pregnant!”
Favorite Comedy Film: Steve Martin’s The Man With Two Brains
What People Don’t Know About Me Is: “I’m about 45% Cherokee Indian on my mother’s side.”
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