Tina Sloan: Face for a Cure
Tina Sloan was the center of one of GUIDING LIGHT’s most memorable storylines when Lillian battled breast cancer. Fifteen years later, Sloan looks back with Weekly.
Soap Opera Weekly: What was your first reaction upon learning that Lillian would have breast cancer?
Tina Sloan: It was [then-executive producer] Jill Farren Phelps that did it. I remember thinking, “How lucky I am to to know that Lillian is going to make it when all of those poor women in the world get that diagnosis and don’t know if they’re going make it.”
Weekly: How did Lillian learn she had cancer?
Sloan: Lillian found the lump herself when she was checking her breasts. This was, I thought, a very good way to do it, because it showed people, “You should be doing this [self-exam].”
Weekly: What was the most difficult aspect of the storyline?
Sloan: Like Reva, Lillian didn’t want to share [her diagnosis] with anyone. She didn’t tell anybody except Ed, who was a doctor and whom she was madly in love with. The loneliness of it was very hard for me. You’d see Lillian go through these things, like throwing up, but you’d never hear her complaining about them or talking about them. It was a wonderfully isolated thing. It was simple and pure and very painful and lonely.
Weekly: What was most difficult for Lillian?
Sloan: I remember the character being very scared of losing her breast. She didn’t know what was going to happen when she went in [for surgery], and that was terrifying to her. And then she thought there was a recurrence. Ed came over with the news that the tumor wasn’t malignant, and they were jumping up and down and happy and that’s when she slept with Ed.
Weekly: What impact did the story have?
Sloan: There was a tape that was used in Europe that women would watch when they went in [for treatment]. It was a tape of all of the shows [in the storyline] that somebody put together. They used it at different hospitals. I went to Italy and talked about breast cancer. It was quite a big deal when we did it, because it was the first breast cancer storyline that was done, so it was opening doors all over the world.
Weekly: Didn’t you speak at Harvard?
Sloan: I spoke at Harvard Medical School. I remember going to my husband, who went to Harvard, saying: “Isn’t it funny that I’m the one, the soap opera actress, who is speaking at Harvard.” A girl who had breast cancer watched the show and showed it to the medical school. They were so impressed with the way we did it.
Weekly: Did you do any public service announcements?
Sloan: I went on every day and said, “You’ve got to have a mammogram.” I’d have people call me at the studio saying: “My mother’s about to go under and have a double-mastectomy. Could you talk to her?” I would tell her that she was going to be all right. I would have girls writing: “I have a lump and the doctor says it can’t happen at 16 years old.” I’d write back, “Yes, it can.” It was the one time that I really paid attention to my fan mail, which was just massive.
Weekly: Do people still talk to you about the story?
Sloan: People will occasionally say it was one of their favorite stories because it was beautifully written. There was this one scene where she said to Ed: “Will any man ever love me again? How can anyone ever look at me? How will anybody ever touch me again?” It was after she had found out how bad [the cancer] was and that she was going to have an operation. People are always saying that was one of the great scenes. My whole body started to shake during it. I had all the writers call me and say, “What a great choice!” Well, it wasn’t a choice, it just happened. You never know what your body will do.
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