A&E Intervention Woman--old AMC and Doctors actress?

[SteveFrame]

Yes Slezak auditioned for Mary Kennicott.

[jcar03]

I remember seeing Slyvia update on the show and she nearly took her hand off trying to open the wine bottle.

[SFK]

Yeah, I was cringing through that whole sequence, I've sliced my own hand open getting pissed and frustrated trying to uncork a bottle.

[DaytimeFan]

And to think Sylvia (or Carla, whatever the hell her name is) broke a knife in half trying to get the cork out of the bottle...riveting episode.

[Pine Charles]

Wow! What an episode. I always try to catch "Intervention", but missed this particular one.

Sylvia must return to the screen. She reminds me of Joan Crawford........ her life is like a movie.

[DaytimeFan]

Isn't it the best episode ever...there is a sense of drama to Sylvia's story that is just vacant from the rest of the show. Her "Where Are My Babies" thing is like a scene out of a Tennessee Williams play...it's EPIC.

[Pine Charles]

Agreed!

Maybe I'm going to hell for suggesting this, but someone just make a song mix to Sylvia's "WHERE ARE MY BABIES?!?!?" (à la the Christian Bale set meltdown).

[DaytimeFan]

If you're going to hell for that request...I'll see you there. I'll bring the sunscreen, you bring the sunglasses.

Honestly, I have probably watched Sylvia's episode 50 times...it's on my Ipod, I watched it three times on a flight to Los Angeles and was riveted each time...I sure hope she was playing Betsy back in the day on AMC like my memory tells me she did...otherwise the producers at AMC missed out on a helluva lotta drama.

[Pine Charles]

I also liked the "Thank You, Mommy...... for ruining my life!"

I'm happy she's off the sauce (still, I hope). I have a feeling she's just as much a drama queen without it.

[DaytimeFan]

Lest we forget her monologue...

"How am I gonna go to this ball game...Why do I have to go to the friggin ball game! Why do I have to go to the friggin ball game and be the beautiful, wonderful aunt?! With great class and great style and be dressed the RIGHT WAY and say the RIGHT THINGS!? Why do I have to do it?! You wanna know why I have to do it?! Because I've ALWAYS done it!! I've always performed, I've been performing my whole life!"

[rangethatrover]

BRAVO SYLVIA ANN!!!!

This woman is the BOMB. I have her entire episode saved on my DVR.

The BEST BEST BEST BEST moment is when she is drunk and is doing a pregame rehearsal/improvisation of a typical conversation see 5:18- She says now that she has called a cab, she can DRINK, and that she can DRINK, she can do her SHOW! Places everybody! And SMILE!

This woman is brilliant. She makes those little nip bottles, somehow, elegant??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUCjmM3-Dyw...feature=related

[SFK]

DTF, you said it best... it's riveting. You know how you get impatient on YouTube and start skipping? Well never for a moment with Sylvia Anne. And I'm not trying to be cute, but that monologue seriously looks like something we would have cut and pasted for the "Favorite Lines of Dialogue" thread, it is very soapy. A little Reva Shayne, a little Joan Crawford, a little Sally Field, and ALL Greek... she is literally screaming to the heavens from the pit of her soul and there's not a single false note. That's how you play "big" folks. But she's not "playing", so there you have it.

In Ivana Chubbuck's book she talks about how she and Halle Berry made the choice that her character in Monster's Ball would drink out of those little "red tops" because she could somehow convince herself that she wasn't an alcoholic if she only drank out of those itty bitty things. But Syl was drinking upwards of 15 (!) a day, and drinking them straight mind you, not a bottle of tonic water in sight. Geesh.

[DaytimeFan]

Exactly SFK! There is no way I think anyone could skip a second of that episode.

And you're also right that Sylvia's monologue could have been taken from the Favorite Lines of Dialogue threat...it's like Sylvia had Agnes Nixon writer her a 'lil something for when life hit the skids...it's almost like Sylvia had done that monologue, over and over and over until she'd gotten it just right...of course, having seen the episode, it's clear this whole woman's life was a one woman show and that nothing was rehearsed. Not one false note, right about that...it's true, that's how you play "big"...riveting!

I'm going to watch the episode again! Charting be damned!

[DRW50]

Thank you for telling us about this episode. I don't watch Intervention because everyone I know who watches it only watches to make fun of the participants, but this was a great episode. As trashy as some of the show may be, they're doing a service. This woman reminded me so much of one of my aunts. She thought no one knew she drank. She had so much pain, mostly thanks to her parents and lost love, and so many secrets none of us really knew. When I was young, I would see her being crazy and dramatic, in very theatrical angst, much like Sylvia, and I thought she was just funny. Then later on I realized how tragic she was. She rarely left her house, she just sat at home, felt sorry for herself, tried to be friendly if she could, and then went to her room to drink. I know the old cliche is that someone who is unhappy as an alcoholic will be even more unhappy sober, but I wish a show like this had been around for her, because most of the family was enablers and they just thought that was all on her and they would only make her worse.

I hope Sylvia has remained happy and sober.

The most interesting part for me was seeing her at work, all the constant excuses to go take a drink, how sure she was she was fine because she was able to recite the alphabet in case a cop pulled her over. The meltdown after her mother took all the liquor was also gripping, and when she was tearing apart her mother's kitchen to open the wine bottle. The lengths she went to, seeing her get drunk while her mother and sister were in the living room...words can't express.

[SFK]

I wondered why her boss didn't fire her, then I thought of my beloved co-workers from the past and wondered if I'd be capable of firing them were they battling addiction... it's a rather gray area.

Not to make light of her situation, but soaps could really use a couple of Sylvias. There have been a million alcoholism stories, but it's the sum of all those human idiosyncrasies that sucked us into Sylvia. Soap writers too often serve their ideas/concepts rather than focusing on the living breathing people. If it were fiction, Sylvia would be an Oscar/Emmy winning role.