Logan Crosses Over

"Logan Crosses Over" by Michael Logan
Soap Opera Digest
September 27, 2005

In this monthly column, TV Guide's Michael Logan explores the worlds of the spiritual and supernatural --- usually he gets help from famed CROSSING OVER psychic John Edward, but with Edward on vacation, Logan found a new source of inspiration.

For some weird reason, I've been thinking a lot about Michael Zaslow. Though the Emmy-winning actor, best known as the wicked Roger Thorpe on GUIDING LIGHT, died nearly seven years ago, I've had this won't-go-away feeling that I should drive out to my storage unit, pick through endless file boxes and find the transcript from the last interview I did with him. This being a hassle right up there with doing my taxes, I stalled, procrastinated and stalled some more. But I finally did it and I'm glad. I'd been looking for a guest expert on matters of the soul, and I found one in Zaslow. His final two years with us were a true spiritual odyssey, one that was as inspiring as it was tragic.

Here's what happened: In the fall of 1996, Zaslow began exhibiting a slight slurring of speech. Over the next few months, the slurring escalated, he lost weight and his facial muscles began to atrophy, causing Procter & Gamble to freak out and dump him from GL. It was a devastating blow to Zaslow, but it also lit a fire in his belly. He was eventually diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) -- a deadly and incurable neurological disease also known as Lou Gehrig's disease -- and he decided to go public. Appearing on 20/20, TODAY, LARRY KING LIVE and other top programs, the actor put a face on ALS and passionately campaigned for
research funding.

In a miraculous show of decency that still makes me weep, ABC hired Zaslow to return to ONE LIFE TO LIVE as pianist David Renaldi, a role that he'd played in the mid-1980s. The recurring gig -- which started in May of 1998 -- didn't give Zaslow a whole lot of air time, but he relished having a place to work, a place to belong, a place that wanted him.

The OLTL crowd marveled at the guy's piss 'n vinegar. "Having ALS has galvanized Michael's energy," Robin Strasser (Dorian) told me at the time. "He uses his heart and soul and righteous indignation as jet fuel. He is a warrior." The soap's then-executive producer, Jill Farren Phelps, said, "I don't know of any other performer -- prime-time, movies, whatever -- who has so openly said, 'Is there room for me?' That's the kind of courage he has." But his close friend and former OLTL co-star Brynn Thayer (ex-Jenny) said, "He doesn't want sympathy. He wants the world to see what really happens to ALS patients. He knows that if he stays in your face, you have to pay attention."

I went to see Zaslow in November of that year, at the Manhattan apartment that he shared with his wife, psychotherapist Susan Hufford, and their two daughters. I was braced for a tough experience -- at that point he was extremely gaunt due to a bout with pneumonia, his face barely moved and he'd lost all ability to speak. But when he greeted me at the door in his battery-operated scooter-chair, I was instantly blanketed in a profound feeling of calm. Yes, Zaslow had been fighting his disease like a demon -- the slogan on his ZazAngels.com website was "A Cure By 2000" and he adamantly believed that it was possible -- but he'd also come to this fascinating, Zen-ish place of peace. He made it extremely easy to be in his presence that day, his eyes radiating affection and good will, and though he could only "speak" by typing into a voice-synthesizing computer, he could still laugh -- loudly, deeply, boisterously. And so we laughed a lot ... at the antics of his dog, at the goofy noisemakers (a duck, a mouse, a banana) that he used to get Susan's attention and at the famous Michael Zaslow ego, which was still as healthy and vital as ever.

"My vanity is not dead -- ha-ha-ha," he typed. "I laugh when I see pictures of myself as I am now ... maybe so I won't cry, but sometimes just because it is really funny how much I've changed." Somehow, he could even find the bright side of ALS: "It's so much easier to go to the Sony movie complex in our neighborhood when you're disabled," he said. "You take a great elevator. You get your own little private viewing area. I love it."

Both he and Susan were overwhelmed by the compassion of others: At one point, Zaslow (whose thoughts came faster than his fingers could hunt and peck) had trouble telling me about the time pals Fiona Hutchison (ex-Celia, ATWT; ex-Gabrielle, OLTL; ex-Jenna, GL) and John Viscardi (ex-Tony, OLTL) carried him up two flights of stairs so he could attend a play, and Susan had to finish the story for him. Then, with eyes misting, he typed, "We are treated with such generosity of spirit," and touched his hand to his heart.

We also discussed stuff that got his dander up: His shabby treatment by P&G and his subsequent lawsuit (it was settled out of court); how the insurance companies were screwing ALS patients by refusing to pay for medical necessities; and how hard it is for ALS patients to hear that they've only got a two-to-five year life expectancy. When I asked how he was preparing his family for his possible death, Zaslow replied: "I am not preparing myself or my family for anything but life. If you love your life, you have to fight. If you believe in life and progress and possibilities, you have no choice."

Zaslow had recently lost both his parents, yet they were still spiritually intertwined. "Milton and Edith were also fighters," he said. "Mom worked in the sweat factories and was jailed for supporting her striking workers. Both were activists for human rights. In their 80s, they were passing out pamphlets in California shopping centers, still working for the rights of the underdog. They never stopped. And I will never stop. Now that I am the underdog, it has brought it all home to me in a poignantly different way, of course. But I feel their presence. They would approve."

Zaslow died unexpectedly just a couple of weeks later, and my TV GUIDE feature, which was supposed to be an inspiring story of survival, hurriedly became an obituary. Looking back, I wonder if Zaslow knew that the end was near. John Edward says that the soul starts preparing for the transition to the Other Side six months to a year before death actually occurs. Did that explain Zaslow's almost Buddhist-like detachment from the tragedy he was living? I don't know. But I do know that he still believed in miracles.

"In my dreams I sometimes walk and talk and sing, and Susan and I start dancing up and down, we're so out of our minds with happiness at what has happened," he said. At first, he'd awake from these dreams feeling furious and cheated, but in time he came to think they could have real value. "Maybe, the body learns from dreams," he said, making a valiant effort to shrug. "Maybe the muscles, the neutrons, revitalize. I don't know."

In his waning months and days, this man offered us a master class -- in bravery, in that great old cliche, "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game" -- and I think that's why I was "urged" to go retrieve Zaslow for this column. We still have so much to learn from him.

If you'd like to read Michael Logan's final interview with Michael Zaslow, click here: A Fighting Spirit: "His bad boy battles on the soaps won over fans, but Michael Zaslow's true courage showed itself against a very real foe -- Lou Gehrig's disease. His final interview." By Michael Logan, TV Guide, December 19, 1998.