Robin Strasser: The Witching Hour

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The Witching Hour:
Toil and Trouble Ended Her LIFE,
But Robin Strasser is Making New Magic On PASSIONS

By Adam Kelley
Soap Opera Digest
January 2, 2001

It's a funny thing, interviewing Robin Strasser. She seems to be wholly incapable of self-censorship, even when the talk turns to the most private aspects of her personal life. Nothing is off-limits: sex, health, work, money, therapy. If you've got the nerve to ask, she's got the nerve to answer.

For example, she is 55 years old. She does not drink --- not because she has a problem with alcohol, but simply because it doesn't agree with her. She has never had a face-lift, but isn't ruling anything out. She is post-menopausal (two years and counting ... ), lactose intolerant (a favorite treat is Soylicious) and twice divorced. And at this point in her life, she is practicing celibacy. "I don't want to sound preachy at all, but I am really looking for a more spiritual kind of relationship, the deepest kind of soul-to-soul communication. I think that is so sexy. When I find that, then I'll get out the black lace underwear."

In other words, she's a reporter's dream, even if after a while, her candor generates certain conflicting feelings: You're mostly praying that the tape recorder doesn't malfunction, but a teensy part of you --- the part that stands in awe of her frankness and is starting to love her for it, journalistic impartiality be damned --- hopes that she shuts up for her own good.

Luckily, she never does.

November 20, 2000 Strasser calls at the appointed time --- 11:30 a.m. --- to discuss a year that started off poorly ("New Year's Eve is just so loaded with the presumption that you're going to have a gorgeous, elegant time with someone you love. It makes you want to slit your wrists") ... and quickly got worse.

"I started my New Year with a question mark," notes the actress, whose contract renegotiations with One Life To Live had very publicly belly-flopped only a few weeks beforehand. And while nobody was really surprised that the show and the star couldn't come to an agreement --- after all, she'd been making lemonades out of lemons story-wise for the better part of two years --- the development nevertheless generated a storm of controversy and curiosity: How could a 20 year relationship fall apart so fast ... and why couldn't it be fixed?

In answering that question, Strasser actually assigns herself a sizeable share of the fault. "The expression 'high maintenance' is used about me sometimes," she admits, adding that her overall candor and her now-infamous telephone hotline, which she used to keep fans abreast of Dorian's comings and goings, probably didn't endear her to ABC. "[One exec] once told me not to say that I wasn't working next week because then the fans wouldn't watch. I said, 'If you're afraid the fans won't watch if they know I'm not working, then how 'bout putting me to work?' Maybe that was sassy, but it was true."

Also true: She wanted a better deal. "The actors' holding pen is cold and damp and not good for my ever-worsening claustrophobia," she sighs, referring to OLTL's basement dressing rooms, "as well as certain other health conditions I have, like the beginning stages of osteoporosis," Shorter hours would certainly help that, while guaranteed time off would allow her to make plans she'd be able to keep. "And New York has a very long winter, there are no hiatuses in daytime, and my mother is in her 70s and living in California. So those were the sorts of issues I wanted to discuss."

Unfortunately, she represented herself in negotiations and wound up playing hardball when she shouldn't have. "My lawyer said to me, 'The only way you would get these things is if you walked away from the negotiations.' And so that's what I did. I walked away." In return, ABC called her bluff. "I would never leave a part that good, and the co-workers and fans, in such a cavalier fashion. I really expected that they would come back and be more reasonable about the things I needed, every one of which I knew somebody else in the cast had. The plain truth is I took a gamble and lost."

Please, God, don't let the tape recorder malfunction ....

Strasser returned to Manhattan in mid-February to tape Dorian's final scenes. "Let me tell the story on two levels," she says. "One, my fellow cast members were the people I really wanted to have a goodbye with. Kassie and Jim DePaiva [Blair and Max] opened their home and gave a beautiful party. Erika Slezak [Viki] got me the most gorgeous cake I have ever seen. Two, on my last day, I hope this wasn't intentional, but I had the last scene of the day, so I got out much later than everyone else. Everybody was at my going-away party except me.

"I got there quite late, and by the time I got there, I was an emotional wreck," she continues. "It was like going to a funeral and being the body in the coffin and then singing at the wake. I felt such a mixture of things because it was so hard for me. There was crying, but I was also trying to hold myself together. And I was moving in two days. There were just so many stresses all at once, and I got violently ill two hours after the good-bye party. I had to make a bed for myself in the bathroom."

You'd think that was rock bottom, but somehow, the ground opened up, and Strasser fell through to the magma. Her hormones were fluxing, her nest was empty, her work schedule was erratic, her social life was nonexistent. In a weird way, Dorian was her life. "So leaving was ... an amputation. It might as well have been an arm, or my left breast, right over my heart.

"And I'm still dealing with it all," she adds. "With the post-traumatic stress or the grieving period or whatever it is. I went to a counselor to discuss it. I said, 'What's going on? So much is beautiful in my life and yet I feel such depression.' And he said, 'Having left something that you loved so much, maybe you should just give yourself the right to grieve.' Yes, there was a loss, but in other ways, my life is so full right now."

For that, PASSIONS deserves some credit. At the end of the summer, Executive Producer Lisa Hesser offered Strasser the role of Hecuba, no audition required. And while jumping back into daytime so quickly left her feeling a little like a widow who remarries the week after her husband dies ("But what could I do? Throw myself on the funeral pyre?"), the timing really couldn't have been more perfect for her, and neither could the role. "From the time I was an ingenue, I was playing a version of the witch, thr troll under a bridge, the bitch."

What gives her such an aptitude for those parts? "I had a very scary childhood, a lot of feelings of abandonment and feelings of loss over never having had a father," Strasser explains. She describes a years-long legal battle that started when she was 4 years old: After her parents divorced, her mother wed an African-American --- and her grandmother was so appalled, she sued for custody of her.

"This was the 1950s, and interracial stuff was not selling big. My grandmother felt that I was losing my culture and religion by being raised in a home with a black person," Strasser sighs. Grandma won the first battle in People v. Strasser , but the Supreme Court of New York overturned the ruling on appeal (thanks in part to the testimony of Strasser, who was by then 7) and returned her to her mother and stepfather. "It was just a very difficult time." Ironically, it was also a period of incubation for Strasser's talent. "I had so many interviews with social workers, and my mother prepped me for all of them, so I sardonically refer to her as my first acting coach. The idea was always to maintain a cheerful, resilient outer aspect because of course, if I had seemed at all weak and confused, it would've gone another way." Not surprisingly, the trauma has had a lasting impact. "To this day, it's very hard for me to ask for help, to confess that I'm really not feeling totally in control of myself or a situation. But you know, menopause really cures that for you," she laughs. "When you don't have enough estrogen, you just start crying."

Not that she's got much else to cry about these days. Living in L.A. allows her to hike and bargain shop with her mother on weekends, ride her broomstick during the week and make big plans for the future: improv classes, a dressing-room makeover, film festivals and dinner parties, a deeper involvement in women's health issues, more updates on the hotline, which can been reached at (212) 414-5300. Oh --- she'd also like to make peace with ABC. "I still think it's a great company. I watch THE VIEW. And I wish now that I'd been able to handle some of the difficulties with the people I worked for better ... I could have done better. Were they to sit down just to have closure, I would apologize because I really do think ... it's all our jobs on this earth to find a way to get along with just about anyone."

November 20, 2000 Again. Ten minutes after the interview ends, the phone rings. It is the PASSIONS publicist, who has Strasser on the other line. Strasser says she would never dream of telling Digest what to write, but if she were editing the story, she might leave out the stuff about the celibacy because she fears she sounded like an abstinence absolutist, which she certainly is not. Digest explains that confessions of celibacy are few and far between in the world of soaps, and please, please, please can we keep it? Strasser very graciously leaves the matter to the magazine's discretion. Digest hangs up, feeling like a jerk.

November 21, 2000 Strasser has left a voice mail message, wanting to revisit her interview. Digest braces for another attempted repossession of the celibacy quotes, but Strasser never mentions it again. She has other things on her mind.

"If I'm going to say as much as I'm saying, I might a well just nail the coffin," she sighs, taking a deep breath. "Jill Farren Phelps took over [as executive producer] with an agenda that some have said included a 'hit list.' And not wanting to pull the trigger herself, she me to stay."

Please, God, don't let ....

Why does she think that? "That's another whole story. I did not take a job she offered me when she was at GUIDING LIGHT. She offered me the part of Alexandra Spaulding. Beverlee McKinsey had just walked out, and Jill wanted me to replace her. But she couldn't offer me the job right there and then," she continues. "And in the meantime, I kept my promise to ABC to let them know when I was ready to come back to New York City and do daytime. "At that point, [OLTL] dropped negotiations with a wonderful actress who had been playing Dorian and told me, 'You've got to come back.' So I did. I went back to ABC and a part that I loved, instead of assuming another role on GUIDING LIGHT. I don't know if Jill took it personally, but some have said that might have been the genesis. And then, not everybody digs you, you know?"

Phelps respectfully declined to comment.

And that's that. "I think it's important to say because it's the other part of the question --- you know, 'If she would go to PASSIONS, why did she just stay at ONE LIFE TO LIVE?' It's because nobody asked me to. Believe me, whenever the phone rang during that period, I ran to it like a jilted lover, going, 'Is this the call?' I so hoped that some powerful person would call me and say, 'I'm the one who can fix this.' But that didn't happen. Nobody called." Strasser starts to say good-bye. Digest tells her to feel free to call anytime. "Oh, I won't be calling again," she laughs. "It's got to end sometime."

November 29, 2000 Strasser leaves another message: She wants to talk about ABC's announcement that Phelps will soon be transferred from OLTL to GENERAL HOSPITAL and teases that there has been a "development" in her personal life.

First things first: With Phelps at GH and Strasser working without a contract at PASSIONS, a return to OLTL is, at the very least, theoretically possible now.

Digest: Would you go back?

Strasser: Hmm ... hold on for a second while I think about that. If they did call me ...tl good parts are hard to find in this world, and I always felt that Dorian was one of the best parts in daytime. So it would be an interesting call. Especially with Gary Tomlin there. And I'd like to say that I wish Jill all the best.

Digest: Can you really say that wholeheartedly?

Strasser: You know, I can. We had bad professional chemistry, but yes, I can really say I wish her well in her new job.

Digest: Do you expect a call from OLTL?

Strasser: No. I expect nothing. If I had expectations, then I might set myself up for disappointment. At the same time, the job I have right now is a lot of fun, and I don't know where it's going, but I love playing Hecuba.

Digest: Do you hope PASSIONS puts you on contract?

Strasser: Oh, it's probably flowing better exactly the way it is. It's kinds of like you're going steady with somebody: Do you want to get engaged or married, or do you just want to enjoy going steady?

On that note, the personal news: Strasser has met a man! "Yes!" she squeals. "I just wanted you to know that if you got into my social life, I am definitely feeling more receptive to romance right now. I met somebody who is geographically undesirable because he lives in New York City, but it was like the old, high school reaction --- your knees getting weak and you have to keep reminding yourself to stay calm, and I thought, 'Thank goodness --- I'm still alive!'"

So far, the duo has been out on a few dates, but at press time, the streak is not over. "I'm not making an announcement," she laughs. "I'm just saying that I met somebody. So don't play Frank Sinatra, play John Tesh. You know, he and Connie Selleca were celibate till they got married. Not that I would go that far."

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Truly Madly Deeply:
Memories of Jenny and David Renaldi