AW: Anne Heche as Vicky/Marley

[Queen]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7vUedTD5xU

Wow. I just discovered this clip of Heche as Marley and I am blown away.

How do the people who got to catch her run as Vicky and Marley feel about her stint?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

She was phenomenal from what I saw on SoapNet. She was extremely layered and raw in the role. She's by far the best Vicky/Marley I've ever seen. She brought so much vulnerability and fierceness to the double roles.

I've never liked Jensen Buchanan's "acting." I found her to do dull, and so lifeless in the role. In fact, I loved it when Cynthia Watros temporarily replaced her as Vicky, and I remember NBC promoting that too. LOL It was something like, "She just won a Daytime Emmy, so what's she doing in Bay City? Find out this week on AW on NBC Daytime." That had to hurt Buchanan.

I've only seen Ellen Wheeler as Marley during the show's final year, so I can't really comment on her.

[BayCityResident]

I was fortunate as a long time viewer of ANOTHER WORLD to watch all three actresses play Marley (and even a 4th regular, Rhonda Lewin play Vicky....everyone forgets about her). Ellen Wheeler was a phenom as the first Marley. She definitely made Marley hers. By the time they did the rebellious twin story and had Ellen play Vicky it came off too cartoonish for me. Ellen did a fine job but it was a very stereo-typical characterization on the writing. When Ellen left Rhonda Lewin immediately started playing Vicky (the day after) and could not compare to the actress that Ellen is so not too long and she was written out. Anne Heche came in after a break for the character, and as a newbie actress, Anne was initially hard to watch compared to Ellen (tho having a new 'mom' Philece Sampler in the role instead of Anna Stuart didn't help the transition for a new Vicky). Anne was definitely a quick study and made Vicky her own very quickly. She had a much harder edge to the part that seemed real compared to Ellen's version. My personal opinion is that Ellen Wheeler owned Marley and Anne Heche owned Vicky. Anne Heche's Vicky was someone that could be bitchy but loved and that endeared her to many fans. You always seemed to understand why Anne's Vicky was acting the way she was. Moreso than when Ellen played the part.

I'm a big fan of Jensen Buchanan as well, but her portrayal of Marley did nothing for me. Her strength was definitely Vicky which is probably why they brought back Ellen Wheeler at the end because to most fans she WAS Marley.

I so miss watching the days of Anne Heche on AW. That was by far my favorite time for the show.

[SteveFrame]

I agree with Bay City Resident's estimation.

I couldn't say it any better.

[juniorz1]

Make that a double word to BayCity Resident's post. I've always thought that Wheeler was the best Marley and Heche the best Vicky. One minor quibble, though: you're too kind to Jensen Buchanan, who was completely miscast as Vicky. I could tolerate her as Marley but her Vicky was all wrong.

[Dr Neil Curtis]

i just watched some clips of Jensen as both Vicky and Marley when Marley came back for the wedding in 1997, She played Marley like she played Sarah on OLTL. I think by the time she got the role of Vicky they was just about ready to tone the little twit down a notch and Jensen was not good as redeem Vicky. redeem Vicky was like having two Marleys. Anne was the best Vicky I seen by far along with Cynthia Watros. Ellen Wheeler is the Marley of all the Marleys.

[Ann_SS]

Anne Heche was amazing as Vicky/Marley on AW. She is very talented. I was convinced that she was going to be a huge star one day. She got sidetracked, but that doesn't take away from the fact that she is a good actress.

Jensen Buchanan was not good in the role. She is a very limited actress and it showed.

[Paul Raven]

An article from SOD May 92

An actress puts her reputation on the line when she signs on to play twins Vicky and Marley on ANOTHER WORLD. Not only does the dual role demand a high level of technical expertise and the ability to make swift emotional transitions, it also can make or break an actress's career. The first two actresses to play Vicky and Marley, Ellen Wheeler and Anne Heche, made their names playing the twins: They both won an Emmy for their popular and critically acclaimed performances. Both performers attest to the toll that playing Vicky and Marley took on their lives. In the seven years since the characters appeared together, Vicky/Marley has become the most concentrated dual role on daytime — and arguably the most difficult role to play.

Former AW writer Gary Tomlin, who created the role with Gillian Spencer, says Ellen Wheeler was already playing the more sympathetic Marley when the dual role was conceived in 1985. Tomlin says NBC was opposed to developing a twin story on the show. "There were so many twin stories at the time, it scared them off," Tomlin, who is now writing for SANTA BARBARA, notes. We defended the character, and they came around."

Ellen Wheeler reveals that the impetus for Vicky came from an observation Gillian Spencer made when she caught Wheeler unawares on the set. "She told me that something in the look of my eye made her think that they weren't tapping something inside of me," Wheeler says. Up until that time, Wheeler's colleagues at the studio generally regarded her as an innocent girl I'm Utah whose ears were too pure for ribald backstage banter. "I was really this nice sweet girl," Wheeler remembers. "People would apologize if they swore or told dirty jokes in front of me." That all changed the afternoon she made her entrance as Vicky — in a tank top, tight jeans and cowboy boots. "All of a sudden, it wasn't a big deal to swear in front of me. Men said things to me in the afternoon [when she taped Vicky's scenes] that they wouldn't have said in the morning [when she taped Marley's scenes]. It was a greatt study in human nature."

It was also the beginning of a two-year period when Wheeler would work harder than she ever had in her life, marry her leading man, Tom Epiin (Jake), and bring ANOTHER WORLD much notoriety. Wheeler's basic working schedule for one year consisted of sixteen to eighteen-hour days, four days a week. On weekends, Wheeler and Epiin made public appearances. While she loved the creative challenge of performing both roles (especially when Vicky pretended to be an ill Marley), Wheeler confesses that the media storm took her by surprise. "I didn't realize how much attention I was getting," she says. "Things like getting the Emmy never really crossed my mind. It took me a long time to realize that I was actually on TV."

The implications of fame did come crashing in when Wheeler won the Emmy for Outstanding Ingenue in 1986. Wheeler was unprepared for what she calls the "folderol" that came with it. "It took a few months for it to sink in that I won. I was a newlywed; it was all pretty overwhelming."

Eventually the role took its toll on the star, in more ways than one. Sixty pages out of a ninety-page script contained dialogue for Vicky or Marley, and Wheeler went to the writers to ask for a break. "I loved what I did so much that it didn't dawn on me that I would wear out," she says. "Had I been smarter, I would have said something. By the time I realized I was exhausted, I couldn't handle it and needed a rest." A three-week leave of absence didn't help; Wheeler and Epiin filmed a pilot. The couple was overbooked — they spent their first Christmas together doing interviews — and Wheeler finally left the role in 1986. Though she says on-the-job stress was not a factor, Wheeler's marriage to Epiin broke up soon after. She went into self-imposed exile and did not return to TV until she accepted another Emmy-winning role on ALL MY CHILDREN as AIDS-afflicted Cindy.

Aside from her professional accomplishments as Vicky and Marley, Wheeler established an important precedent for other actors playing dual roles on daytime: better pay. A union spokesperson reveals that, with the rise of dual roles on soaps in the 1980s, the American Federation of Television and Recording Artists had to enforce what they call a doubling provision that guarantees a performer another program fee when he or she appears as two characters in one episode.

Wheeler's mastery of the split-screen technique also enabled AW to push the characters into the forefront of the story. "We would tape one side of the scene and whatever space I had left for the lines I had to fill exactly, to the second," she says. "I loved doing them. It's great fun to overlap [the characters' dialogue].

Wheeler's successor in the role, Anne Heche, also excelled at her use of the split screen. And she shared an unusual, almost telepathic, relationship with her double, Debbon Ayer. "Our minds were so tuned into the way the other was thinking," says Heche. "We knew all the technical things so well." Ayer was Heche's double for a year and a half. "That was just a blessing," Heche says. "That was the key to doing it because you can't act by yourself."

Heche played the twins longer than anybody else, 1987-1991, and reveals that, in the beginning, "It took a long time for everyone to get used to me — the cast and the audience. I never had a problem thinking people hated me; you're fed to an audience every day. Eventually they got used to me, but it took two years." The most intense period of her tenure as the twins began in 1989, when the writers sent Marley away for six months and she had time to work on the twins as two complete, separate characters, which allowed for the reintroduction of, Heche says, "a new Marley, not the buttoned-up-to-the-top woman. The new Marley was a complete person, not just the opposite of Vicky."

Heche's hard work paid off with a 1991 Emmy for Outstanding Juvenile Actress. Heche had already left the show and heard herself named the winner in a hotel room in Lincoln, Nebraska, while she was working on the TV movie version of Willa Gather's 0, Pioneers! "I was shocked. It was very nice," Heche says. "I was alone in my room, but then all the people from 0, Pioneers! came knocking on the door and had a party for me in a little hick bar."

The vacancy left by Heche was keenly felt by AW producers and Head Writer Donna Swajeski. "Anne Heche was the show, and that was dangerous," says Swajeski. "What taught us a lesson was when we were faced with losing her. We knew we were going to take a hit in the ratings." Recasting the roles proved controversial, as Ellen Wheeler auditioned for the part and did not get it. Wheeler's past with Epiin might have directly affected the decision not to recast. "Ellen is so identified with Tom Epiin, and we're building a romance with Jamie (Russell Todd)," Donna Swajeski said in the October 15, 1991, issue of SOD. Swajeski was grooming Jensen Buchanan (ex-Sarah, OLTL) to be her new Vicky/Marley. "The glamour [we had with Heche] also befits Jensen," says Swajeski. "We keep her visually exciting and made her a lot more volatile."

To avoid any more actor burn-out, the writer says that AW has cut back on the amount of air time the characters receive. "We can only write Jensen a few times a week, three days. We've reduced the amount of scenes Vicky and Marley have together. We're at a point in our budget where we've been told to pull back.

The recession may be a blessing in disguise for Jensen Buchanan. She attests to the difficulty of trying to live up to the legacy left by Wheeler and Heche. "The hardest thing was to follow someone [Heche] who was so loved and play this kind of ballsy smarty-pants," Buchanan says. "It's hard to come in to a new group and put on that persona. Part of the reason that I took the roles is that I saw them as a really challenging way of becoming a better actress."

When she arrived at AW's Brooklyn studio, Buchanan says everyone told her that "Vicky's the fun one, Marley's boring," and since then she's "struggled" to make Marley more colorful. Criticism for her interpretation of Vicky initially upset her. "Nobody thought I could do it. I had some really long nights dealing with that," she admits. "Now I feel pretty comfortable out here at the studio. It's not nearly as difficult." Swajeski agrees that Buchanan has gracefully "delineated" the two characters. "She was always the Marley type. Now we put a lot of the heart into Vicky."

Speaking from her dressing room on a day when she is playing both sisters, Buchanan reveals that her double is pregnant and unavailable. She's looking forward to a twelve to thirteen-hour day, the kind that makes her "sense of humor deteriorate to zero. I'm changing hair, clothes, makeup, lines, mentality and blocking." To combat the stress these roles generate, Buchanan has moved with her husband, Gray O'Brien, to Brooklyn, where AW tapes. Tomorrow she's going on vacation. Does she get more vacation time because she plays two roles? "No," Buchanan blurts out, "but that will be a big renegotiation point!"

The continuing appeal of this good twin/ bad twin combo is clear — for the audience and performer. "It has a lot to do with women seeing the good and bad sides of themselves," says Gary Tomlin. "It's a role an actress can hide behind and go to extremes," says Donna Swajeski. "They can put on masks and stretch themselves as performers."

Since Vicky and Marley are so arduous to play, has ANOTHER WORLD ever considered hiring two actresses to play each of the sisters? Swajeski said it would certainly make life easier with the scheduling of vacations, but she said the show would only contemplate such a plan if "it proves to be that hard on Jensen. Then we would consider it."

Ellen Wheeler doesn't think that would ever work. "I know it's very hard and costly," she says. "But the rewards far outweigh the costs. I think the audience really loves watching one person pull off the personalities. It might actually be harder to find two people than to have one who is performing two sides of one person. I'm not sure two people could have that connection." Unless, of course, they were twins.

[juniorz1]

Makes me sad to be reminded that Ellen Wheeler auditioned to play Vicky/Marley again after Heche left. Had the producers made the right choice, I wouldn't have had to endure 8 years of Buchanan torture.

It's funny- there's a thread on Hulu where they actually argue that Jensen Buchanan was truly the best Vicky/Marley in AW history. I scoff at that- I chose not to even bother posting the truth, since those posters are obviously delusional. Whoever says Buchanan was the best Vicky never really 'got' Vicky in the first place.

[Dr Neil Curtis]

so true, Jensen was just not Vicky or Marley to me. by 1996-1999 she was playing Vicky playing Marley. Redeem Vicky was just like Marley without even bringing Marley back to town. Jensen was not great in role, though she had chemistry with some people, she just wasnt Vicky. Vicky later became more like Rachel to me.

[DRW50]

I do think JB's Vicky became much too much of a generic heroine. The time I thought she went back to some of her roots was when Richard Culliton was headwriter again, around the first half of 1998. She was somewhat tougher, and he also made her the pariah of Jake and the Loves. She was on the outside looking in and no one was treating her as a saint. She also had a more complex relationship with Grant at this time. All this was reverted back to saintly Victim Vicky by the second half of 1998, but I thought the first half was good stuff.

[DaytimeFan]

I really agree with BayCityResident's assessment of all the Marley's and Vicky's...Ellen Wheller's Marley wasn't as dull as she was when anyone else played her (that's not a slight against the actresses, I think the character just burned herself out). Anne Heche played Vicky for all she was worth.

I think it also helped each actress when they were able to work with Anna Stuart. Phelice Sempler (I'll never spell that woman's name right) was just AWFUL as Donna...why any producer thought that role was recastable is beyond me. Anna Stuart WAS Donna Love and Donna Love WAS Anna Stuart. I think of all the actresses to play against Stuart, Anne Heche had the best chemistry (Heche wrote very warmly about Stuart in her memoir, portraying Anna as a madcap, yet superior, actress who was her surrogate mother in New York).

Jensen Buchanan was much better playing Vicky than she was as Marley. But I agree with CarlD2, Jensen's characters were generic heroines (although I did love her work during Ryan's funeral)...

[bellcurve]

I didn't think Jensen Buchanan was BAD, but she was the only Vicky I remember(although I do remember wishing Cynthia Watros would stay on AW, because she was better).

After seeing Anne Heche's run as Vicky/Marley, I have to agree that Heche is probably the better Vicky of the three. She was such a troublemaking bitch, but you couldn't help but to root for her. Especially when compared to boring Lisa Grady. I saw a clip of Wheeler as Vicky and she played the character as some cartoon.

I've often posed the question of whether I was rooting for Vicky because I knew how the character's life ended up or whether it was because of Anne Heche's portrayal. Or both?

[DeliaIrisFan]

Jensen Buchanan was Vicky when I started watching AW regularly, and I would gladly take her work as Vicky over so much of what dominates most soaps these days. That said, Anne Heche did phenomenal work in her run, which I have now seen in its entirety on SoapNet and Hulu, but she also had the best material at the time on a show that wasn't perfect by any means but was probably in the best shape it had been in in its last 20 years or so on the air and she rose to the occasion. It was not nearly in the crisis mode under which it operated for much of JB's stint. Jensen grew a lot as an actress on AW and I agree did especially memorable work with Ryan's death.

I don't think she was playing a fundamentally different Vicky...the character grew, yes, but she had already grown a lot as a person by the time Anne left, through her relationship with Ryan and being a parent and standing by her sister whom she had resented after the rape. If anything, Vicky took a huge step backwards when Jensen took over the role and she became enthralled with Grant (who might as well have been a different character after Dack Rambo passed away, and should have been - casting Ryan aside for his brother is the last thing Vicky would have done after her history with Jake and Marley). But after that senseless detour, Vicky got back on track and continued to grow. Yes, she became a bit like Rachel, but I think that's a compliment - it has been said that Vicky was named for Victoria Wyndham, and clearly Stephen's paternity story had parallels with Jamie's paternity, and Vicky losing Ryan who was so beloved in Bay City was a throwback to Rachel losing Mac.

Marley was obsolete by that point not because Vicky became Marley, IMO, but because there were too many rich characters on the show by that point. There was no shortage of heroine heiresses, and the Cory daughters had more history and more ties to the canvas. Jake and Paulina essentially became Jake and Marley, without the baggage from the ill-advised, short-sighted rape story that the writers clearly regretted within a year. Yes, Vicky became a bland heroine in the last years of the show, but virtually no one was acting like themselves by that point. I don't blame Jensen for that any more than I blame Ellen Wheeler for Marley turning into a clingy psychopath obsessed with her rapist. In the eleventh hour we saw a bit of a resurgence, and I believe the way Vicky ended was more or less in keeping with where she came from and the woman she had grown to be.

That said, I was horrified reading that article about Ellen Wheeler auditioning to reprise her role as the twins and being turned down...after she had won another Emmy on AMC, no less! Donna Swajeski's "vision" for AW was not all that, IMO, and as I said she did Jensen no favors with the way she wrote for Vicky after she took over the role, despite the fact that I do believe she eventually grew into the role. As controversial as EW's stint as executive producer of GL has been, I have to say I kind of get a kick out of the fact that she eventually became DS's boss - a small victory for Vicky/Marley, I say.