FOR THE AGES: Having played roles on GH, CAPITOL, GENERATIONS, B&B and DAYS, Marla Adams (Dina, Y&R) is a bonafide daytime veteran, but her very first soap job was on SECRET STORM, where she portrayed the not-so-nice Belle. “Before I read for the role, I went to Saks Fifth Avenue and had my hair done in a double bun,” recounts the actress. “When I went in front of [Creator] Roy Winson, he said, ‘I found my Belle.’ She was only supposed to be on for six months and then die, but I told myself, ‘Well, we’ll just see about that.’ They decided to keep me around and my character survived. I was paid all of 175 bucks a show and that was big money then.” In those days, there were no studio hairstylists. “You were expected to do your own hair,” notes Adams. “So, I paid for my own stylist to come to the studio. Not long after that, the show hired a hairstylist, so I like to think that I was responsible for that happening. I was on the show for six years and loved it. I was the bitch of daytime and now I’m the old broad.” However, Adams is embracing her golden years. “I’ve never had any [cosmetic] work done,” she boasts. “I’d rather work on my inside than get an injection or something pulled. People applaud me for that but others write in and say, ‘Tell that old lady to get a facelift! She’s ugly!’ There are people who always want to tear you down, which only makes me believe I’m more famous than I thought!”
HAVING A BRAWL: Jessica Tuck enjoyed getting down and dirty with Michelle Stafford (Nina) when Cassandra and Nina had a nasty catfight on GH. “We had a lot of fun together,” Tuck reports. “She’s so game. I just love that she is so beautiful and wears these amazing clothes but she is just such a girl’s girl. We had a stunt coordinator who showed us the choreography of how it was supposed to go but, you know, it’s never as exact as it’s supposed to be. She was, like, grabbing my hair and we were beating the crap out of each other and we were very careful to check in with each other to make sure that we were both comfortable. Poor Michelle was so sick that day; her kids had been sick and then she got sick, too, but on camera you never see any of that because she continued to show up and was just incredibly professional. There we were, throwing each other around, and she wasn’t feeling well. I was very impressed by her.”
HEAVY LIFTING: DAYS’s Casey Moss (JJ) is proud of the performances that his co-stars gave during the Theo shooting story. “Everyone’s been incredible,” he raves. “While I was watching Sal [Stowers, Lani] or James [Reynolds, Abe] shooting the scenes, it didn’t impact me as much in person as it did watching it after. When I was there in person, I had all my own thoughts and I had all these other feelings going on, but then when I’m watching it, I’ve been absolutely blown away by Sal and James’s performances. They were absolutely heartbreaking. The scenes that James and I shared were incredible. He’s really, really powerful, watching him on-screen. All of them are, and I’m so glad that it all came together so well. It’s really hard, it’s really heavy, but I’m glad we did it. I’m hoping we do other stuff like this, too. Actually, there’s a storyline that Marci [Miller, Abigail] is doing right now, and she is killing it. She is incredible. It’s just one heavy story after another, man. Ron [Carlivati, head writer] is doing such a good job.”
NATURE BOYS: It’s no secret that B&B’s Ingo Rademacher (Thorne) is a rugged outdoorsman, and son Peanut, 9, is following in his father’s hiking boots — literally, in the case of one treacherous trek in the California wilderness. “We’ve climbed Mount Baldy twice, in the snow, but I really wanted to hike from Wrightwood over to the other side of the valley,” explains Rademacher. “I knew it was possible to do but I had no clue what to expect. But now with Google Earth and reading up on a few things, I was able to zoom in and get a feel for the path. There were cliffs on either side — major drop-offs. A hundred percent chance of dying if you slip, so I had him tied up and it got a little bit emotional in some spots for him. But one of the reasons I wanted to do it was because I wanted to be in the middle of nowhere with him — and we also ran a lot of it, too. It was brutal: Twelve miles in seven hours, but he did great! I was the one who was feeling it, especially in my knees, and he was like, ‘It’s okay, Dad [laughs].’ ”