Weren't Born and Bideaux married in real life for a while?

Yep, I do believe they also had a daughter.

So who was the guy from another soap that RWP was seeing?

I was watching some SB on YouTube the other night, what a fun show. Very vivid characters and actors (I also think this show wins the award for soapiest character names). Really wish SoapNet would have gotten its act together.

From the 7/16/85 Digest. Network Publishing Co.

Edited November 22, 201015 yr by CarlD2

I saw this guy in a clip I watched the other night and I got to thinking, "Does any dude on the soaps sport a full beard these days?" (and please no JPL jokes, I'm asking seriously).

Michael Muhney did every once in a while on Y&R.

It seemed so random when B&B brought McKee back for a few episodes last year. I guess it pays to still have a good body even after being off soaps for so many years. I don't care a lot for guys with the overdone bodies but he's generally an exception...

(I wonder if there are any of him with a hairy chest, I've seen that in a few photos).

Michael Muhney did every once in a while on Y&R.

It seemed so random when B&B brought McKee back for a few episodes last year. I guess it pays to still have a good body even after being off soaps for so many years. I don't care a lot for guys with the overdone bodies but he's generally an exception...

(I wonder if there are any of him with a hairy chest, I've seen that in a few photos).

Not from SB, but here's one from B&B: B&B Jake. Here's a recent article on him also that explains the B&B thing: http://santabarbara-online.com/index2.htm

Edited October 25, 201015 yr by Urabamba

Thanks for the interview. I'm glad he's found a good job. That's such an extensive site! I hope I'm not posting anything they already did.

From the October 20, 87 Digest. Network Publishing Co

Edited November 22, 201015 yr by CarlD2

From the August 25, 1987 Digest. Network Publishing Co

Edited November 22, 201015 yr by CarlD2

From the July 1, 1986 Digest. Network Publishing Co

Edited November 22, 201015 yr by CarlD2

From the September 20, 1988 Digest. Network Publishing Co

Edited November 22, 201015 yr by CarlD2

Also from this issue.

Frelich is deaf and has been since birth. The handicap hasn't stopped her from winning the theater world's most coveted trophy for Best Actress in Children of a Lesser God, nor a subsequent Emmy Award nomination for the acclaimed Hallmark Hall of Fame special, LOVE IS NEVER SILENT. She has presented her one-woman show, Sounds of Silence, to SRO audiences and frequently lectures at colleges and universities, as well as for corporations such as IBM. She is married to actor Bob Steinberg and the mother of sixteen-year-old Reuben an fourteen-year-old Joshua. Still, for Frelich, as for most members of the deaf community, it's been an uphill battle for recognition and opportunity.

"I am often asked, 'What's best for the deaf?'" she says, speaking through her interpreter, actor Bill Pugin, "and I always answer, 'We don't want anything special. We just want what everybody else has - the same access to jobs, to events, to places.'" Yet, she herself admits, "I never dreamed I'd find myself on a soap opera."

SANTA BARBARA's Nancy Grahn (Julia) proved to be the conduit between Phyllis and the show. The two met last March at a celebrity benefit, A Night at the Movies, and hit it off marvelously. By coincidence, a few days later, SB's executive producer, Jill Farren Phelps, weary from the effects of the writers' strike, half-jokingly announced to the cast, "I'll pay ten bucks to anyone who comes up with a good storyline."

"And I'll do anything for ten bucks," cracked Grahn. She immediately went to work devising a plot line that would heavily feature her and Frelich. Nancy's idea was nixed (though production staffers who read it insist that it was superior to the one the show ultimately settled on) but Phyllis got cast anyway.

That is, after a degree of deliberation. Reports Grahn, "They were hesitant about it. They worried that the audience wouldn't like a deaf character or that a story line with a deaf character would be boring or that it would be difficult to communicate the plot points. All the typical things that someone who's never worked with deaf performers might think. But I just didn't let up on them. It got to the point that when Jill saw me coming down the hall, she'd lock her door, moaning, 'Shaddup, already. I don't want to hear about it any more.'" The determined actress even made her pitch to Brian Frons, NBC's vice-president of daytime programming. Once victorious, Grahn applauded the decision. "Hooray for them for trying it. I didn't think it was risky, but for them, it was. That's the one thing about SANTA BARBARA, it takes risks. I was so confident that they would love Phyllis - and they did. When she does her scenes ,everybody comes down to the studio floor to watch her work. The other day, she had the hair stylists crying."

While the steady paycheck may be thrilling, the even greater triumph for Frelich is the chance to tackle a role that could have been played by a hearing actress just as easily. Past opportunities to do so have been all too rare. "In The Hands of Its Enemy, a play I performed in on Broadway and in Los Angeles, my character was a playwright who was writing a play about her past in order to exorcise a demon - a demon that had nothing to do with deafness. But there were critics who wrote, 'Well, if this part has nothing to do with deafness, then why cast a deaf actress?'" More and more, though, Hollywood execs are ignoring the ignorant and tapping the valuable resources of the deaf acting pool. Says Phyllis, 'I was offered the role of an advice-to-the-lovelorn columnist in a SPENCER FOR HIRE episode. I read the script and called the producer and asked, 'Why me? This has nothing to do with deafness,' and he answered, 'That's the point.' I thought, 'Good for you!'"

An avid campaigner on behalf of Deaf Awareness, Frelich has, somewhere along the line, developed a reputation for being, well, militant. "There are people who think I'm tough," she concedes. "I don't think that, as an actress, I am demanding. I think I'm the opposite. I think I'm very easy to work with. But I am, quote, 'an honest person.' I don't play around. I'm really straightforward. I say what I want. I say what I feel. But I'm more worried about other things than gossip."

Much of the bum rap may be due to confusion between Frelich and her milestone role as Sarah in Children of a Lesser God. The character, a deaf woman in love with a hearing man, ranged from feisty to fierce to downright ferocious. It was an amazingly volcanic performance, one that left Broadway audiences slack-jawed and got the prying press to wondering. "At the time, interviewers would ask me, 'How much of you is in Sarah?'" she recalls. Maybe the mixup was understandable. Children of a Lesser God, written by Mark Medoff, was often reported to be a dramatization of her own real-life relationship with husband Steinberg. Not so, Frelich asserts, though the script is lightly peppered with some of her experiences. "There is a scene ,for example, where the man feels guilty for playing music around the woman. Bob did feel that way after we married. For the longest time he wouldn't play records or buy any because he felt he couldn't share them with me. Finally, I said, 'Oh, c'mon, you're being silly.'"

Winning the coveted Tony was hardly a one-way ticket to the top. "Although I felt that I'd really broken through, when the play closed after two years on Broadway, I didn't work. My co-star, John Rubenstein, got so many offers, I didn't get any. But I wasn't surprised. All along I knew that people in the entertainment industry, by and large, don't like to risk trying something new. What, after all, were they doing to offer me?"

Frelich, please understand, is not one to harvest sour grapes - even when Tinseltown royalty thumbed its nose at her by giving her part to barely-out-of-her-teens Marlee Matlin when it came time to make the movie version of the show. Coupled with co-star William Hurt (during the filming, he became her off-screen paramour, as well), Marlin went on to win the Best Actress Oscar - undeniably a victory for all deaf artists. But, with the studio system being what it is, the flick was loaded with liberal sex and proved to be a rather out-of-kilter rendition of the original. If the snub hurt at the time, you wouldn't know it now. Says Phyllis, "Maybe I was too old. I'm not 'Hollywood Beautiful'"

But Marlin's headline-making effort to speak at this year's Academy Awards ceremony was hardly something Frelich could overlook. "It caused a big stir in the community," she reports, "because Marlee didn't 'sign' the names of the Best Actor nominees. I thought she had a right to do whatever she wanted, but there are many deaf people who feel we've been fighting too many years to have the hearing world assume that all deaf people can learn to speak. They measure a deaf person's success by how well he can copy a hearing person. There was an article in a Southern California paper that said, 'The Deaf Can Speak, Marlee Proved it on the Oscars!' It then went on to praise teachers of deaf children across the country for being so patient. I have nothing against speech, even though I have no such ability myself, but it's important to understand that there are all kinds of deaf people. Some are oralists, some are not. Some can be, some will never be."

It's this very variety, she believes, that should inspire show biz to create more ways for deaf players to communicate a script. "It's not always necessary for a speaking actor to repeat our lines for the benefit of the audience. Subtitles could be used, like they are for foreign films. If I met you on the street, we could communicate to a degree. We could! We could make do. Or we could write on a piece of paper if we had to. Films and TV should experiment, find new ways for the characters that we play to communicate."

Born in Devil's Lake, North Dakota, to deaf parents, Phyllis, the oldest of none deaf brothers and sisters, is nevertheless encouraged by recent progress.

"More roles are being created that don't focus on deafness as this big obstacle to overcome. Because it isn't. My problem in life is not deafness. Not at all. My problems concern my work, my family, money. On SANTA BARBARA, Sister Sarah's deafness simply isn't important, and that's good.

"Sometimes I think, 'Oh, things haven't changed,' but then I look back of the last decade and see that there have been big changes in awareness. For example, TV shows were not captioned until ten years ago when the half-hour ABC EVENING NEWS became the first. Today, between network, local and cable stations, there are 280 hours of captioned shows per week. Still, though, everything is not accessible. THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW is captioned but DONAHUE isn't - and I go for DONAHUE. The play Children of a Lesser God had a great effect and the movie version an even greater one. When I was on Broadway, they started putting infrared headsets for the hearing impaired in every theater. Then the deaf community started complaining, so many productions began offering special interpreted performances. Sign language was not respected or encouraged in the past. It was assumed to be a language for the illiterate deaf, which it certainly isn't. There was a time when ,if a hearing person knew sign language, it was assumed that he taught the deaf. So times have changed. Today, people learn sign language for fun, just as they would a foreign language.

"Yes, the entertainment industry has had such an influence," concludes Frelich. "That's why I choose to reach as many people as I can by doing what I'm doing. I'd much prefer to be an actress than a politician or a welfare worker who is working toward the same goal. Art! For me, that's the way to do it."

Edited November 1, 201015 yr by CarlD2

I really enjoyed that Bridget Dobson article, a great read. Thanks Carl. I could see it all playing out like that Dynasty bts TV movie. Why didn't SoapNet ever think to do more fun programming like that? I wish they would have taken Soapography to the next level... two hours with the Dobsons, New World, JFP, the cast and all dishing the Santa Barbara experience would have been extraordinary. Thank God for We Love Soaps. If they started video recording their interviews it would be the total package.