hollywood

“Guiding Light’s Maureen Garrett: Goodbye Holly, Hello Hollywood!”
By Joanne Douglas , Soap Opera Digest, February 17, 1981

When I first interviewed Maureen Garrett in the summer of ’79, the quality that shone through above all else was her restlessness. Like most actors, she’s always seeking challenge and adventure … needing the exhilaration trying something new and different brings. She thrives on danger and uncertainty ... the thrill of “living at the edge.” Add to this her childhood as an Army “brat” who traveled from place to place, and you can easily understand why Maureen becomes discontent with sameness and security—it’s simply against her nature, against what she’s used to.

Over the past year and a half, though, this peripatetic soul seemed, at least superficially, to “settle in” for the first time in her life. She purchased a spacious uptown co-op, spent months decorating it, acquired a gray kitten named Benny, re-signed a one-year contract with Guiding Light, and bought a cottage in Montauk, Long Island.

Nearly every weekend, Maureen found herself escaping to her rustic retreat, and before she knew it, she’d fallen totally in love with country living. The actress delighted in spending time chatting with local fishermen and the townspeople. She loved the fact that they didn’t know she was a soap opera celebrity and treated her like she was one of them. During these respites from tension-filled New York, Maureen discovered a kind of peace while sketching and photographing Montauk’s magnificent scenery. She could be a kid again, romping along the beach with Benny and drinking in the fresh air and plentiful sunshine. Montauk filled a needful place deep within her.

These idyllic “mini-vacations” drastically changed Maureen’s perceptions of New York and lowered her tolerance level. The city became less and less palatable, and it distressed her that Manhattan drained her of the energy she’d store up in Montauk.

Whenever Maureen wasn’t fleeing to Long Island, she’d head for California to escape the growing oppression she felt in New York. She found the West Coast lifestyle much to her liking and decided, with her usual resolve, that the time was right to give notice at Guiding Light and relocate in Los Angeles.

The role of Holly is one which most actresses would have their right arm for, so I wondered if Maureen feared she’d regret giving up such a popular part. Without hesitation, she replied, “No, because I think I would regret it more if I stayed and didn’t make the change and try to do something else. It is simply time to go, and I want to see what else I can do. I’m ready for new adventure. I felt I’d spent my time with this show, and I always knew while I was doing it, that at some point I’d have to go. It was over a period of a few weeks that I came to the decision to leave, and now I don’t have a doubt in my mind about what I’m doing.”

Since Maureen’s character has been in the forefront the past few years, she was disappointed when the show’s writers relegated Holly to the background during her last six months on the show. It was especially painful for Maureen because Holly had developed momentum, and she wanted to keep it going. Maureen had also, in her three-year tenure on the soap, evolved the character from a weak, spoiled, selfish girl into a mature, giving, strong woman who was anxious to grab hold of life and live it to the fullest. But instead of devising new trials and travails for Holly at his crucial point, the writers reduced her storyline to practically nothing. Most disconcerting of all, Holly seemed to regress to her former passive self.

Asked what direction Maureen would like to have taken Holly in, she responded: “I would have had her make a play for Ed! Rita’s so wrong for him, and we all know that. They don’t belong together. Rita’s going to hurt Ed so badly again—it’s so obvious. I believe that Holly must feel it’s very much within her power to get him back. Ed needs a strong woman, and Holly could be that for him. She must sense this in him, and you’d think she’d say, ‘Come on, after all we’ve been through . . . ‘”

“Besides, Holly must be very frustrated—she hasn’t been with a man in ages!” Maureen added, laughing. “It’s unnatural! And she moved back in with her mother! What happened to the woman who was saying, ‘Nobody’s going to stop me now! I feel I have a very special purpose in live. I’m on a quest.’? Holly’s not a complete person any more; she has no personality. It’s disappointing, especially after having played her at a time when her awareness had been cracked wide open. The writers could have developed Holly as a strong heroine. That’s what she’s supposed to be.”

“I can’t respect the fact that Holly’s stepping aside from the one thing she wants in life—Ed. She won’t fight for him, even though she knows he cares for her,” Maureen continued thoughtfully. “When she’s been through all kinds of hell, I don’t understand why she won’t try to grab something sweet in life. I can’t respect someone who doesn’t go after what she wants when she knows what that something is.”

Unlike her TV counterpart, Maureen won’t let anything stand in the way of what she wants, and right now a successful career in night-time television is a top priority. What sort of parts does she envision herself in? “I want to do something different from what I’ve been doing,” she revealed. “I need a change. I want to do a variety of things, try new roles on. I feel that television is my medium because of the experience I’ve had with it. TV gives you a lot more opportunities to explore; there’s more variety in TV scripts than in movie scripts. Also, only a few films are made a year, and a lot of those don’t even get distributed, so to make a feature film doesn’t lure me.”

“I’d like to do comedy. I’m a goofy, silly person, actually,” she confessed. “I know I seem serious, but I love comedy and would enjoy doing it even if there were just canned laughter after a line. I’d even take a pie in the face, just to do something different.”

Although many New Yorkers are attracted to California’s breath-taking natural beauty, ever-present sunshine, and relaxed lifestyle, once living there, they find themselves longing for the convenience, fast pace, and excitement of the world’s number-one metropolis. Maureen is hoping that won’t happen to her: “In California, I think it’s possible to find a lifestyle where I can incorporate a pleasant living environment with work. Out there, I won’t have to travel three hours to grab something I need to sustain me as a person. Having discovered Montauk this last year, I seethed every time I returned to the city, to the tension. I thrive in the country; it gives me so much energy. Maybe I’ll go out to L.A. and find that I can’t breathe, but I hope I’ll like California. And I hear the smog’s cleared up and it’s beautiful right now.”

Should the smog prove to be unbearable, Maureen would consider returning to New York—and maybe even doing an encore as Holly. That is, if she’s embroiled in a meaty storyline. “Allen Potter [GL’s executive director] told me to stay in touch, and if I didn’t like it in California, perhaps I could come back to the show. I’m not closing the door at all. You never know,” she mused, “I might switch on the tube in a while and see Holly going through some fabulous emotional stuff. I’ve dealt with doing a soap, and it is a wonderful way for an actor to make a living. It’s steady work and for a single woman to have that kind of security is terrific!”

Since it’s often been said that the serials are a great “training ground,” what are some of the main things Maureen gained from her soap experience? “I learned how to handle a script, how to deal with the cameras, and not to clutch when the lights go on; learned lines like nothing,” she said. “I’ve had the chance to play a lot of different emotions that Holly has gone through. So I’ve stretched a lot of muscles for the camera, which is so different from playing roles on stage, my only experience before this. Being on this soap has been incredibly valuable.”

After mentioning to Maureen how devastated her fans would be when they learned she was leaving the show, I asked if she wanted to convey a parting message. “I would like people to know that while I was playing Holly, I was very proud of representing a woman who was struggling through incredible odds to survive,” came Maureen’s quick reply. “She was admirable, I felt, in her courage and her strength.”

Maureen Garrett, too, is admirable for her courage and strength. It’s not every actress who’ll leave behind the security and financial rewards of soap stardom to venture into the “wilds” of Hollywood. Most of us are only comfortable with what is known, but Maureen has always been acutely aware of the importance of taking risks and gambling against the odds. She has learned that you’ll never get anywhere by staying in one place too long.

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