A Star Is Torn

A Star is Torn
Guiding Light's Maureen Garrett Will Play Any Part ... Except the Diva.

By Charlie Mason
Soap Opera Update
August 8, 1995

She's kind of mysterious, that Maureen Garrett. I mean, we know her work-she's boffo as Guiding Light's Holly-but the woman ... we really don't know her at all.

We want to, but we don't.

Jay Hammer knows her, I'm sure. He plays Fletcher. His character is married to hers, so he must know her, right?

"Jay," I say, "you've got to help me. I'm doing this interview with Maureen, and I don't know anything about her."

No sweat, he says. "She's a day at the beach. There is nothing complicated about her. If there is, I never see it."

He doesn't hear it, either.

"She has a wonderfully musical, infectious laugh," he says. "I compare it to the sound of water over rocks-it's soothing. It makes you smile. It's the kind of laugh that makes you fall in love with people."

Wow. Now I really want to know Maureen Garrett. Over lunch, I try to get to ...

SOU: In all the years I've been watching soaps, I've never read the definitive Maureen Garrett interview, so that's what I'd like to do this afternoon-the definitive interview. So like, for starters, what's the meaning of life?

MG: Oh boy.

SOU: Joke, joke. That was just a joke. Why don't you tell me what you know now that you didn't know when you started on the show in 1976?

MG: I didn't know anything then. But I was very bold. (Casting director) Betty Rea has repeated this to me: I offered to turn a cartwheel at the audition because they all just kept looking at me. I said, "What do you want? A cartwheel?" I can't remember if I did it or not, but I used to do wild things like that. I just had that kind of spirit that you have when you first come to (New York) of, "Hey, I'm going to get me a piece of this!" You haven't been said no to enough yet, so you just go for it.

SOU: You don't seem to have lost that quality necessarily.

MG: No, I guess not. Actually, when you asked the question, I thought, I still feel very close to the person that I was when I first came in. A whole lot of other things have happened to me, but I guess I've always felt kind of like an outsider with the business . . . with celebrity, that kind of thing. It really embarrasses me. I've never lost that. I'm really happy to be here, but I've just never gone after publicity. At first, I didn't even do it. I thought, "Well, I just won't until I'm absolutely forced to."

SOU: Maybe that's why I've never read the definitive interview with you.

MG: Yes, and you probably won't.

SOU: Jay Hammer says something to the effect that there's not a pretentious bone in your body. Would you say that's a fairly accurate assessment?

MG: Yeah, probably to my detriment. I don't have much guile, but it's fun to play.

SOU: There's enough pretense in this business anyway.

MG: Yeah. A lot of it gets embarrassing. Like I went to the Emmy thing (the Daytime Emmys, that is), and against all the walls when I walked through the lobby (of the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York, where the awards ceremony was held) were a lot of my peers in this business, who were doing this whole thing (preening, pouting, posing) for the cameras. I walked through this sea of women doing this, feeling totally invisible. I looked at all of them, and I thought, "I've got to get out of here! I don't belong here. This is not me, so I'm not going to do it." I went up to the revolving restaurant (in the hotel) and had dinner with a friend. I skipped out on the whole thing.

SOU: It's strange that you've stuck with the business this long, since the celebrity stuff is such a big part of it.

MG: It's a wonder to me that I'm drawn in this business, that I was ever drawn to this business, because of those very things that I don't . . . that I can't do. It just doesn't come to me.

SOU: There is an upside to celebrity. You get to lend your name to causes and such . . .

MG: That' s true. Everything I've done with that has been very rewarding . . . environmental issues, breast cancer, the AIDS Walk. That's made me feel better about it. But I don't trade on it much.

SOU: It's like a job perk you never asked for.

MG: Yeah. See, I like the work. I like the play of it, and I've left the business at times, but I've always come back because I enjoy it. Nothing else gave me that charge. There was nothing else I was much good at. I keep thinking I'll find something else and start my second career, but I don't.

I ask Maureen if she now feels like she's been interviewed definitively, and she laughs her laugh . . . that wonderfully musical, infectious laugh.

"Tip of the iceberg," she says.

Jay Hammer, I understand completely. I'm in love.

SIDEBAR within the INTERVIEW:

SOU: Michael Zaslow (Roger) is possibly the most intimidating person I've ever met.

MG: He'd probably love that.

SOU: Did he ever intimidate you?

MG: No. When I started way back when, I didn't know to be intimidated. I know he puts a lot of people through changes. I just know how to deal with him. A lot of stuff I just let roll off me. When you've looked into those eyes and acted every kind of emotion . . . I just know him so well. He can piss me off sometimes, but he can't intimidate me.

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