GETTING CHEEKY
Beth Maitland (Traci, Y&R) found her recent trip to Genoa City more rewarding than usual. “I do definitely see that we are in a new comfort level with the atmosphere on the set where everybody is happy and grateful to be still here,” the actress explains. “Last year saw a lot of changes, especially toward the end of the year, with actors leaving, regimes changing, a sort of reshuffling with ratings issues, the changes in storyline and new characters coming in. What I feel about working with my Abbotts again — Peter [Bergman, Jack] calls us, ‘My Abbotts’, so we always say ‘My Abbotts’ — is that I think there was a relaxation to Eileen [Davidson, ex-Ashley] after having a little bit of a break, and feeling rested and herself again. Everyone seems in a personal happy place and that’s where I want us. I’m like Traci in that way.” Maitland also enjoyed sharing scenes with Daniel Goddard (Cane). “He’s a charming kid and if you can take your eyes off his dimples long enough to remember your lines, then you can survive them,” she chuckles. “When you share scenes with him, you find yourself gazing into those dimples, then all of a sudden, you’re saying, ‘Oh, is it my cue?’ ”
MOTHER OF RE-INVENTION
Playing legendary dancer/choreographer Gwen Verdon, wife of Oscar-winner Bob Fosse, in FX’s FOSSE/VERDON, was an eye-opening experience for portrayer Michelle Williams (ex-Jen, DAWSON’S CREEK). Williams has praise not just for how Verdon handled her professional life, but for being a devoted mom to her daughter, Nicole Fosse. “There’s this big gap in her career that was intentional because she wanted to stay home and be a mother,” notes Williams. “She wanted to be present, which is something that we all struggle with as working mothers, where something is going to suffer and, like, what’s it going to be? It’s a dilemma. The other thing she faced, which is different from what I’ll face in my career, hopefully, is that as a dancer, there comes a point when you can’t do what you used to be able to do. As an actress, my path, hopefully, will be different. So, that slowed her down, but then she metamorphosed and started doing more acting, which you saw later in her life. So, some of it was just a pure matter of physicality, and some of it was a matter of wanting to devote herself to being a mother.... What Nicole and others have shared with me is that she was constantly trying to rise above and be her best self at all times.”
MAN WITH A VAN
“My living situation right now would probably be considered very unusual to lots of people,” says Max Gail, who commutes from Texas to his job as Mike on GH. “Recently, I had seven grandkids in six years. The youngest two are almost two years old now. My mother had three sets of twins, and when [my grandkids’] mom, who lives in Austin, found out she was having twins, she pointed her finger at me and looked me right in the eye and said, ‘You know, Dad, you’re on the hook for some of this!’ I realized that I would have to spend some time down there. I was renting a place out in Malibu and my lease was up, so I ended up moving in my van to the wonderful, beautiful yard of my son and daughter-in-law. It’s so beautiful here and I can be right near my grandson and near my other grandkids, who are nearby.” He says that the atypical lifestyle suits him just fine. “I’ve been a van person for about four decades, anyway. It’s very easy for me to live out of my van!”
CHILD’S PLAY
On a recent Dishing With Digest podcast, Bryan R. Dattilo (Lucas, DAYS) reported that kids Gabe and Delila are doing well. “He’s 19 now. He’s 6-foot-3½,” shared the actor of his eldest. “He is [like a] GQ model, you know, no fat on him, has a cute little girlfriend, he’s in his second year of radiology school. I think his mom’s already got him lined up for an internship at all the posh plastic surgeons in Orange County. He should be okay. He drives a BMW. What does he care? He’s got the life now. And he’s good-looking.” As for his daughter, “[She’s] about to be 5 in June. She’s doing the preschool/kindergarten thing. She did get two acting jobs. She’s actually acting now. She got two Amazon commercials. She’s worked twice this year, which is almost as much as me! We have the same W-2 amount right now. She’s tearing it up. She’s really into Beauty and the Beast, so I have to recite every line from Beauty and the Beast. I have to act like I’m the beast who is dead. ‘Oh, Belle, you came back for me.’ And then she says, ‘Of course I came back for you.’ And I say, ‘It’s okay. At least I got to see your face one more time.’ And then she says, ‘Oh, but it’s all my fault!’ ... And then I have to turn into the prince and she has to say, ‘Oh, those are your eyes.’ And then we dance.... I have to play that out about 15 times a day: ‘Daddy, be the Beast and you’re hurt. Go ahead. You’re hurt.’ ”