Scene And Heard

To hear Finola Hughes (Anna) tell it, the most popular GH cast member is Jophielle Love (Violet). “Oh, my God. I can’t with her! Like, you have no idea. To be near that child is to live! I mean, she is everything. That kid walks on the set and me and Michael [Easton, Finn] turn into these pathetic blobs of Jell-O and we just stare at her. Anything out of her mouth is not only adorable, but also profound. I mean, the girl says the most extraordinary things. Her parents are French, so she’s uniquely chic. We just are all under her spell. The grown cameramen even. Even Frank [Valentini, executive producer]. Frank is run- ning the show and he’s got to make all these decisions, but he comes out to the set and he’s speechless. She just brings a light. I can’t say enough about her. She’s quite extraordinary. It is like having Kimberly [McCullough, ex- Robin] on set when she was a little girl because we had the same thing with her. She was just as extraordinary. She just says what’s on her mind. We literally are pathetic human beings just staring at her. It’s ridiculous.”

Marla Adams (Dina, Y&R) reveals a close friendship she has shared with a certain co-star for decades. “Eric Braeden [Victor] and his wife, Dale, have been my best friends for a very long time,” smiles the actress. “There are so many magnificent things about him that people do not know. For one, he started a playhouse, but the most impor- tant thing is he founded the German-American Cultural Society, which is for dialogue between Germans and Jews. It’s the most amazing organization.” Adams also notes that she’s met many interesting individuals through Braeden. “You don’t need to go to New York and visit the United Nations because you’ll get the same experience when you come to Hans [Gudegast, Braeden’s birth name], that’s what I call him, and Dale’s backyard for one of their par- ties,” she marvels. “I have met the ambassador from Israel and all kinds of political people. I feel so privileged to know Hans and there’s always a woman behind the man andt hat is most certainly Dale. Hans is very much like Victor in how much family means to him. I just adore him.”

B&B's Monica Ruiz (Penny) was thrilled when the writers gave her character a first name, indicating she'd be sticking around. "It's been exciting," She enthuses. "I thought this was going to be a quick little thing, just a couple of lines, but to get more of a story and flesh out a character.... It has been great." Her alter ego's moniker has prove especially meaningful. "You know what's so weird is that I have two boys," she says. "And before I knew if I was going to have a boy or a girl the second time around, I said, 'I don't know why, but I think the name Penny is so cute. If it's a girl, should we name her Penelope?' It was so strange, and when B&B told me the doctor's name was Penny, I was like, 'What? That was my girl name!' It was so funny, like somewhere in my mind, this came back. Maybe it was a premonition because it's not a typical name. Either way, it was just meant to be."

Deidre Hall (Marlena, DAYS) revealed on Digest’s podcast, Dishing With Digest, that she wasn’t too thrilled in 1982 when the show killed off Marlena’s twin, Samantha, played by Hall’s real-life twin, Andrea. “[Then- Executive Producer] Al Rabin had come to me and said, ‘We’re going to pretend to kill the character,’ ” she recalls. “It’s especially painful for me because it means guess what? You’re going to kill my sister. I just thought, ‘Can’t we be triplets? I mean, really? You’re going to give up this incredible character?’ It was a heartbreak for both of us for quite a long time and I was more than a little upset with the show for doing it.” Once the show aired in New York, fans believed it was Marlena. “When it aired here there was a picket line around NBC in Burbank,” Hall relayed. “[Al] came to my dressing room and said, ‘We think we’ve got to do something. We’ve got media here. We’ve got everybody here.’ And the problem, of course, is if I walk out and talk to the press, somebody is going to figure out that I’m at work. And how can you be at work when you’re dead? It was a problem to be dealt with, and the greater minds said, ‘We need to do it.’ So I put on my pink scarf with whatever I was wearing that day and walked out to meet with the fans for a second. We didn’t actually say, ‘She’s not dead!’ But any thinking person.... You would have known. So we sort of broke that fourth wall and let fans know.”