Wholly Holly

Holly Wholly
By Adam Kelley, Soap Opera Digest
November 21, 2000

JUST THE FACTS
Born on: August 18 z Birthplace: Rocky Mount, NC z Pets: Hunter, a 5-year-old Hungarian pointer z Alma Mater: Temple University z Siblings: Two brothers, Michael and Tom Jake zHouse Beautiful: Garrett just renovated her new home and did such a good job, Law and Order asked to film there!

Holly Wholly:
With Michael Zaslow No Longer By Her Side, GL's Maureen Garrett Is Forging Ahead On Her Own

It's been years since everything went haywire at Guiding Light—years since Michael Zaslow started slurring his lines, years since his controversial dismissal, years since the recast of his iconic Roger, years since Zaslow was diagnosed with ALS. It's even been years since he died. And still, the man and his myth lie beneath everything Holly says and does. "She's never really gotten out from under [Roger's specter]," muses Maureen Garrett, who's played Holly off and on since 1976. "The writers have always seen the two of them together, or else seen her with this albatross. All the men in her life have either been Roger or somebody who wanted to save her from Roger."

That's fine with Garrett. "Michael was, perhaps, my best working partner ever," she says. "The first time I worked with him, it was a scene where our characters were fighting or estranged or something. I think [Holly] was married to Ed. The cameras were rolling, and all of a sudden, he reached out to grab my face. And it startled me. It wasn't rehearsed at all. From then on, I knew we could go . . . further. He didn't play it safe; he liked to get in your space and push you. That was rare. You only realize afterwards how rare it was."

Indeed, many things about Zaslow and Roger, and about GL and show business, are more apparent in hindsight. The last time Digest spoke to Garrett at length was 1996, and Zaslow seemed to be healthy. GL was going full steam ahead with the Roger/Holly/Fletcher/Amanda quadrangle, and while the conventional wisdom was that a Roger/Holly reunion would be in the cards, the show bided its time, holding its ace. "It's like they didn't want to overuse us or something," she reflects. "In the last years, we waited and waited to work together. We were always waiting."

In the end, they ran out of time. Zaslow slowed down on-stage; the show, not knowing what to do, initially refused to address the problem. "There were months when we all knew there was some trouble, and I said, 'Holly can't be looking at him and not realizing there's something wrong. Can't I say something?' But I couldn't. As actors, we didn't understand why they wouldn't deal with it in some way. Michael didn't understand it because he had bought into the illusion that we are a family and that sort of thing, and that you protect your own. At one point, I walked him down to the writers' office, pushed him into the room and said to them—there was a table full of writers—'Talk with him.'"

In retrospect, incorporating Zaslow's illness into the storyline seems feasible—after all, he reprised the role of David on One Life to Live—but at the time, says Garrett, nothing was clear to anybody. "It was a very tricky situation; nobody knew what was going on. The writers and producers didn't know if he would get better or worse, and they had to think of the show. They didn't know if he was going to . . . suddenly die. So when [Zaslow was let go], that was their decision to make, and I respect that. I'm sure it was a very difficult decision."

"There are so many unanswered questions," she continues, "I'm constantly asked about what happened with Zaz and the show. The best thing now is to forgive. Forgive the writers for not taking a stand about writing his story. Forgive the producers for making the decisions they had to make. Forgive Zaz for his intense anger at the show. Forgive everyone and let it rest. Then we can get around to celebrating his tremendous contribution to Guiding Light."

With Zaslow gone, the show brought in Loving vet Dennis Parlato (ex-Clay) to fill his shoes. That didn’t work, so Roger went to California and Holly went nuts. "This 'Nursery Rhyme Killer' story started, and we were all wondering who it was," Garrett laughs. "It never occurred to me that it might be me. Then, a couple of weeks before the reveal, I started hearing rumors that it was me! So I went down and said, 'Are the rumors true?' 'Yes, they are.'"

The actress was stunned. "It felt very unfair because as an actor, you want a chance to develop something like that, something so extreme. It's difficult with warning, but with no warning, it's worse. Suddenly, I had to me much weirder than I had any idea that I was. I always felt . . . off-kilter with that story. Holly's always been a little crazy, which I guess was the justification for it, but it was very difficult to play. I don't think it was my shining hour, acting-wise."

Of course, you can't really blame her for that, given that the story climaxed with a moonshine swiggin' Holly kidnapping—wait for it—every child in Springfield. "I've played some weird things before, but that was off the page," she laughs. "I played it a little bit campy because I didn't know what else to do. I was skulking around with the black-leather jacket, which I loved, by the way, and the sunglasses and the gloves, and . . . I didn't know what to do. Am I supposed to froth at the mouth? Should I be drooling a bit? I had nothing to draw upon."

Luckily, Holly now seems to be more stable, as evidenced y her cautious approach to Billy Lewis, her new love interest. "If she has any self-awareness at all, she knows she's not ready to jump into a relationship," notes Garrett, who has high praise for her new co-star, Jordan Clarke. "He's delightful. At the beginning, I wasn't sure about his commitment," she confesses, alluding to his off-screen problems, "but he has certainly proved to be very serious about, you know, showing up."

All in all, it gives her hope for an exorcised Holly, one who won't always be haunted by the prefix Roger and. "I think the new writers want to put that to rest, to deal with it and move on," she says, referring to the team headed by Claire Labine, whom she knows from her days as Elizabeth on Ryan's Hope. "That intrigues me." And for Garrett, intrigue is key. "If I wanted to walk away from it all, I would," she swears. "But I'm excited about my future here, especially now: I feel a depth of understanding with Claire. She asked me what I wanted to do with Holly that I haven't been able to do in my first 25 years, and I told her. Hopefully, that's going to happen."

Final Farewell

A month before his death at the end of 1998, Zaslow was able to share one final moment with Garrett. "There was some kind of [fund-raising] event in Queens, and we were both there," she recalls. "I remember him wheeling out into the middle of the dance floor and looking across at me, and we just looked at each other for a long time. And I was thinking how we had looked into each other's eyes so many times, for so many years. His eyes were so familiar to me. And that was our way of saying good-bye. It was so sad." That said, it was also an important lesson for the actress. "Live your life now," she says. "Do the things you want to do. It's worth the trouble. With Michael, it happened so quickly, and now it's already been years. But we're still talking about him, so he's not forgotten. And certainly, he lives on in the fans' minds."

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