Kodak

When It Comes To Michael Zaslow’s Favorite Model—
Money’s No Object! Proud Papa Confides:
“I Have To Stay In Soaps . . . To Pay My Kodak Bills!”
By Valerie Davison
Soap Opera Stars, May 1985.

When David Renaldi first appeared on the scene in ABC’s One Life to Live, it was with no small portion of suspense and more than a touch of class. The dark and handsome stranger who insisted on obtaining the position as Llanview’s orchestral conductor, yet lurked behind potted palms in his tuxedo to hide his identity, promised to become the perfect foil, and at least, the perfect match for the wonderful witchery of Dorian Lord Callison. And so he was, until he himself was bewitched by Jenny, and turned into something of a pussycat. How did that happen, and will it stay that way?

“Well, they wanted to pair me up with Jenny,” says Michael Zaslow, the dark, handsome actor who plays David. “The tried me out with various people, and I think Brynn (Thayer) and I did everything we could to show them that the chemistry was such that this would be a good idea. But now they’re getting me involved in intrigue again, and I think it follows a classic formula in a soap opera, where characters can be mysterious and you’re not really sure which way they might turn at a given point. There’s got to be a danger to the character; he’s got to have some danger inherent in him to really be interesting and fascinate people.”

While Michael has been interesting and fascinating on other soaps, most notably as Roger Thorpe, the man-you-loved-to-hate on The Guiding Light, he jealously guards his love for the stage, an affection which blossomed during his UCLA days when, as a political science major, he spent more time in the theatre arts department. Leaving television from time to time to do theatre—or sometimes doing both at once—he appears frequently on Broadway and regional stages. One of these appearances was in The Petrified Forest with a fellow named Frank Roff, where he met an actress named Susan Hufford, who was later to become a novelist, and his wife.

“I think I’ve left one given soap opera more times than any other actor,” he laughs. “The going away parties got smaller and smaller. It’s a very insidious situation when you start depending on this paycheck; the dreams you had of the theatre could just go down the drain. But television is a very good workshop. There’s a new script every day and you have to be fast on your feet. You’ve got to have other things besides your glibness you can draw on to make it sing, make it alive.”

Also an accomplished musician, Michael has actually written some of the music emanating from David’s piano. “Originally,” he explains, “the part was an architect. But when they asked me to come on the show and found out I was a pianist, they changed it to a world-renowned conductor and pianist. At one point they wanted me to play some sort of lullaby, thinking about my daughter when she was a young girl. I had written a piece of music for a little girl, and I said, ‘How about this?’ They liked it, so I did that. Then I wound up writing both ‘Cassie’s Theme’ and ‘Jenny’s Theme.’”

The “little girl” in question might well have been an almond-eyed, two-year-old Korean cutie named Marika, the Zaslows’ adopted daughter. Pictures of her abound in his dressing room, and his natural charm expands and his natural reserve abates when he speaks of her. “I have to stay in soaps,” he kids, “to pay my bills to Kodak.”

Marika arrived one “snowy, slushy” night by plane, at the ripe old age of four months. “She flew half way around the world,” he remembers. We went out to Kennedy, got there about two hours early. I went right to the bar! It was very exciting when she came off the plane. She was wearing a sleeper when she just recently outgrew, so you can imagine how big it was on her. She looked so cute. Her hair was standing straight up; she looked like a punk rock kid. We wanted to dye it orange and send her out to a disco! I drove about three miles an hour on the way home, and gave her a bath in the kitchen sink. We were terrified, but she put up with all our fumbling, even though she was obviously used to very expert care. Marika must have known she was in the hands of rank amateurs! But she never let out a peep. So we put her to bed in this sweet little Victorian cradle, and we assumed she’d be up all night. But she slept right through, and WE were up all night!”

Drawing partially on their own experiences as well as a heightened social consciousness, the multi-talented Zaslows have written a screenplay called Allison, which dramatizes the crisis in the lives of a couple faced with infertility. The man, while dealing with the discovery that it’s “his problem,” becomes obsessed with a little girl who has been snatched off the city streets. “I have not seen a fertility problem really tackled in a screenplay before,” Zaslow says intently, “and it’s very potent stuff, emotionally. No matter what your education, or how well equipped you think you are to deal with it, it’s a struggle.”

Again putting his concern for the plights of others into creative form, Michael is also working on a new musical dram by Elizabeth Perry about the homeless of our cities. “This is a very Darwin-esque society,” he says uncomfortably. “Either you can cut it, or it’s just too bad for you. People will sooner aid a sick dog lying on the sidewalk than to try to find shelter for a sick person. It’s too much to deal with. I mean, what can you do?”

He for one is doing something, in the best way he knows how, through his art and craft. It would seem that the man chosen to play David Renaldi is as complex and many-faceted as his character, and we look forward to watching both for some time to come.

Back To
Truly Madly Deeply:
Memories of David and Jenny