Scene and Heard

Rachel Melvin (ex-Chelsea, DAYS) felt a deep connection to her co-stars while filming the funeral for DAYS’s Victor, played by the late John Aniston. “John’s presence was so big that it still feels like he’s here in a lot of ways,” she reflects. “It was really great what the writers wrote, but also the cast sharing their actual off-screen memories about John was so great, as well. There wasn’t one memory that was shared that wasn’t about him being funny and making light of things. He was just so overly positive and refreshing, and to just talk to everybody and reminisce about that kind of a person, especially in today’s world, I think was really cathartic and helpful for all of us. And it just brought this unexpected bright spot to a sad situation. I think what was actually harder was just seeing people like Suzanne Rogers [Maggie] — I grew up watching her before I was on DAYS. She’s just the most amazing person and I love her, but I did feel like she was really missing John, and her performance was fantastic as she was playing it. I know she worked with him a lot and they were very good friends and it just made me sad to see the impact that his absence has on someone like her.”

“I’m old enough and secure enough now to tell this story,” prefaces Beth Maitland (Traci, Y&R) about her first TV gig, a commercial she starred in before landing her soap gig. “I was new in Los Angeles, and didn’t have my Screen Actors Guild card, which was the only way one could get union work. A friend got me an audition for a non-union commercial for the Schick Center, which was a weight- loss clinic that used aversion shock treatment to help people lose weight. I did the commercial, which included a photo shoot, and it got bumped to SAG contract, so I got my card as well as a little raise in pay.” However, that job took on a life of its own. “Here I was a 20-year-old hoping to break in to show business and I found myself in full page ads in the L.A. Times holding out my clothes at the waistline with a pained expression for a shock therapy center,” the actress sighs. “It was an early lesson in a few things: First of all, it prepared me for the future Y&R storylines of bulimia, diet pill addiction, and bullying that Traci would soon face. I learned the truth that body image was driven by advertising and judgment, and had nothing to do with who was inside that body. And secondly, I learned to think through my choices. I had done something a bit embarrassing, so I had to really process what the consequences would mean to me. And last of all, and a great win, I got my SAG card! It didn’t hurt anyone, or compromise my values, and it opened doors I didn’t expect. I had to embrace my physical shape being not commercially accepted and it made me appreciate the opportunities to tell these tales at Y&R with honesty and commitment.”

Michael Corbett (Evan, B&B et al) was thrilled to reprise his judicial role on B&B. “There is a beauty of getting to work with people I’ve known for many years,” he says. “Kimberlin Brown [Sheila], I just adore. She is wonderful and lovely. In my first round back on the show, I got to work with Don Diamont [Bill]. We were on YOUNG AND RESTLESS together [as David and Brad, respectively], and there is Supervising Producer Ed Scott — and, of course, Brad Bell [executive producer/head writer], who is the ship’s captain. Being around all the people like Katherine Kelly Lang [Brooke], who I have known for many years, it really is like coming home, as well as seeing so many people in wardrobe and makeup and crew who I knew from YOUNG AND RESTLESS. It’s just great.” Corbett notes that going from Y&R killer David Kimble to a judge on B&B was an adjustment. “The hardest part about being a judge is you have to know all your legal jargon,” he chuckles. “That is always tough, and my first day at B&B, I had a six-page monologue of legal jargon. That was shocking.” But now after his latest appearance, he adds, “I now know more about the judge and his background and who he is and I’m like, ‘Okay, that makes sense.’ ”

When she popped in to GH as Blair, her former ONE LIFE TO LIVE alter ego, Kassie DePaiva was delighted to bump into her Llanview love interest Roger Howarth (Austin; ex-Todd, OLTL) on the set. “I hadn’t seen Roger in many years,” she says. “But he texted me when I was sick with leukemia, and we’d talked during the first year or so of Covid because somebody asked him to send me a birthday wish on Cameo [the celebrity video message platform Howarth joined to raise money for Feeding America]. It took my breath away. I called him up and said, ‘You didn’t have to do that!’ He said, ‘Somebody paid for me to [laughs]!’ But his message was so sweet that I had to call him. I said, ‘It was great to see your face and all, but I want to actually talk to you!’ So, we caught up a bit and then he called me when he was on a hiatus from GENERAL HOSPITAL and he was coming up to my neck of the woods [in upstate New York]. But seeing him again was wonderful and I’m glad we took pictures!”