What role did legendary stage actress Uta Hagen win an Emmy for on this soap? IMDB doesn't list anything but her bios all do...

My research, such as it is, pulls up a role named "Hortense" (no last name). That was before I started watching so I don't know who she was. Hope that helps.

I don't think she actually won the Emmy. She was nominated for something like Guest Actress. She was only on the show for a couple days.

It was a nothing role. She made fun of doing the show too, basically calling the show and the actors pathetic. She was nominated because she was an extremely well known and a respected acting teacher.

Total joke.

What role did legendary stage actress Uta Hagen win an Emmy for on this soap? IMDB doesn't list anything but her bios all do...

Eric was watching back then and it was a "blink and you'll miss her role". Yes, she played "Hortense", but honestly, I can't for the life of me remember the particulars because the role was that small.

I only remember her because the soap mags made such a deal out of her appearance back then. I vaguely recall her in some leotard and flowing skirt get up with a long head scarf in a few scenes with Karen and Marco. Maybe at the Waterside Inn. It was very much a Snoop Dog/Bo Buchanan situation.

I wonder why she even did it. A favor? Payment on the vacation home? Her classes kept her vey busy, she was one of the most celebrated acting teachers of all time along with Strasberg, Adler, Meisner...

Robin Strasser has said that she wishes she had the chance to work with her when she was on the show.

Uta wanted to be remembered as an actress and not an acting teacher (she was the original Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf on Broadway, Beverlee McKinsey played her Honey in the London poduction), so even if it was "only a soap opera", maybe she was just so hungry to *act*, stretch those muscles for what she knew would only be a couple of days.

Thanks guys. I just found the kinda rare (and not on CD) 4 LP complete recording of the original cast of Virginia Woolf at a used store and it's wonderful so it got me on a Uta kick. And some of her obituaries online claimed she won a best supporting actress for One Life--but ntohing came up. Now it makes sense.

The woman was a huge talent and very generous in many ways but she WAS very snobby not just about tv work but about movie work too. Part of it was bitterness i have no doubt--she wanted the film version of Woolf (and as much as I love Liz taylor, Uta coulda got it, Liz was too young for starts) and that further turned her against it. And depsite some snobby comments the woman didn't want for things--she had a lot of money from her stage and teaching work and several houses when she died--it is odd she did One Life. Maybe the role was planned to be bigger? Maybe she felt she had to do it when Liz Taylor did her GH and AMC cameos

Eric, I gotta get my hands on one of those recordings, would love to hear it. Sandy Dennis is one of my favorites and once upon a board we were discussing Iris Cory recasts and I recommended Sandy. I'm not sure if I knew at the time of the Sandy/Beverlee Virginia Wolf connection.

There's some good Uta stuff on YouTube but I'm sure you've seen it already. She was on Oz too. She had a stoke before she passed, it slurred her speech as you can see in the Broadway Golden Age doc.

I know this is almost two years old, but, I was reading through an August 85 SOD and they talk a little about Uta's role. This was in Tony Rizzo's West Coast reporting section. Burrell's character Jinx was involved in a story with Marco -- she said they were sort of Remington Steele/Nick and Nora Charles (I don't remember Jinx).

Elizabeth Burrell (Jinx, OLTL) had a little time off from the show and popped into L.A. for a rest. When I ran into her she told me about working the the great actress Uta Hagen. "She played Hortense Halderwood, a woman who tries to scam the hotel by claiming a valuable jewel of hers is missing. Actually it was a fake, but she's such a great actress she could convince you of anything. I had read her book about acting and asked her to sign my copy. She is really a wonderful and very sweet lady. It was her first time ever doing a soap and the first day you could tell she was a little nervous being in a new medium. But by the end of the week, she was very comfortable. It was amazing to watch her," remarked Elizabeth," she really cares about the details of her work. She would ask questions about things if they didn't make sense and they would stop everything and when they would realize she was right, they would change it. She loves to run lines with the actors she is working with a lot until she really knows it - most stage trained actors are like that. She seemed amazed at how quickly a soap is done."

Edited October 22, 201015 yr by CarlD2

I know this is almost two years old, but, I was reading through an August 85 SOD and they talk a little about Uta's role. This was in Tony Rizzo's West Coast reporting section. Burrell's character Jinx was involved in a story with Marco -- she said they were sort of Remington Steele/Nick and Nora Charles (I don't remember Jinx).

Thanks for sharing that Carl! I would love to see some of her work as Hortense, and it most definitely still exists. It sounds like she was offered the Respect for Acting (haha) she deserved, though I get the impression that back then everyone had the opportunity to pause for a sec and ask questions and work things out for the common good. Forbes March said in that interview a while back that OLTL still does this, but I'm not even going to touch that right now.

Thanks for reading it. I know that might already be on here somewhere but I posted it here as this was the thread most directly about her appearance.

I'd like to see some of it too, especially since I don't know a lot about what Marco did in those last few years after Karen left, before he left for a while. It would also be interesting to see Uta against some of the other cast members. The Rauch era of OLTL isn't exactly what I'd look at for Method or for very studied acting, so I wonder how that worked. I'm glad that Burrell had such a happy experience with her, as all I'd ever heard about her appearance was her complaining about it and Mimi Torchin complaining about her.

Edited October 22, 201015 yr by CarlD2

Interesting, that sounds vaguely familiar, what did she say? Was it something about lack of rehearsal time and Mimi being all "Get with the program!" or something?

It was something in one of those Weekly editor columns she had where she talked about people who thought they were better than soaps, or something, and she talked about how everyone assumed Uta would win the Emmy and she was happy when Leann Hunley did instead.

I wonder what Mimi thought of Linda Gottlieb.