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DRW50

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happy - and you're not."

"Women's Lib has helped enormously. It has helped lots of women to take possession of their own lives without guilt. That old thing about: 'Can you mix marriage with a career?' Well, can you mix marriage with anything? Can you mix it with motherhood? That in itself is a conflict!

"I don't think it's possible to come out of a marriage without feeling like a failure. Either you actually failed or you feel like a failure because you were stupid enough to get into the situation in the first place. You feel responsible. It's a big help to find out just how much of it you were really responsible for.

"With my marriage, I'll take 50 percent of the blame and not one bit more. I'm not going to look back in anger or forward in fear. If waste is the biggest sin, then regret is the biggest waste."

Psychologists and other marital experts agree that the process of learning how to be a single independent person continues from the time of separation until the divorced person gradually frees himself or herself from the past and begins to emerge on his or her own.

Juli concurs, "Really, it was almost like getting a whole new life. Because suddenly I was a whole new person. In December I was a married woman. In January my entire status had changed. So my focus changed, too. I finally got around to thinking: 'It's my turn. Who am I? What do I want? Where am I going?'

"I remember saying to a friend: 'I wonder how I'm going to dress when I start choosing clothes for myself. Or what kind of music I'm going to play for me. Or what my home will look like.'" Her eyes wander around the antique-decorated living room of her Mediterranean-styled home up in the Hollywood Hills above the Sunset Strip. "This room has been completely changed. Before, it reflected Michael's taste. And there's nothing wrong with that. But now it's my house and it looks like mine."

If she were teaching a course in How to Survive a Divorce, what would Juli recommend to her students? "Well, I was given two very good pieces of advice. One friend said, 'Absolutely no emotional involvement for at least a year. Taking away all the alternatives to getting your life together.' So I did just that and it made the going easier.

"The other piece of advice came from a friend, who is a psychologist: 'What were you doing the day before you met him? Go do that.' Which was great. Because that day I had been hanging around New York, taking classes and doing all the things one has to do to be an actress..."

Born in Erie, Pa., to parents who were both teachers, Julianna had wanted to be an actress since the age of 15. Her greatest pleasure was derived from Saturday during the Thirties and Forties. "I'd go home - pretending to be whomever I had just seen in the movie - and then be amazed that my mother recognized me!"

The McCarthys hoped their daughter would follow in their footsteps. Attending the University of Iowa, she says, "I spent three years shopping in the catalogue and ended up with enough hours for three different majors in none of the required subjects. So I was facing a senior year of freshman English. I didn't graduate from college," Juli laughs. "It was imperative that I not get my teaching credentials."

Juli returned to Erie. She worked on a factory assembly line for six months to save $500 to go to New York to study acting. "I thought I could go forever on that amount of money. But it did keep me going for a couple of months."

In New York, she met Michael Constantine, another struggling young actor, after acting classes. They fell in love and were married. "We got a place in Greenwich Village, three rooms and one window. The tub was in the kitchen and the john was down the hall. That was great." She smiles, remembering that point in time, when you're young, and you're in love and you can take anything.

"We were always broke. We were so used to them turning off the lights and the gas that one time I came into the kitchen and flicked on the switch and nothing happened so I automatically got out the candles. We were going around by candlelight for about two weeks. Then a girl friend came over and turned the light on in the living room. The bulb had burned out in the kitchen. Well, we never had electricity long enough to have had a bulb burn out. It just never occurred to us that there was still power in the house!"

Juli and Mike were both in the hit play Inherit the Wind. He was Paul Muni's understudy in the Clarence Darrow role and got many chances to play the part. Later, Mike played a Darrow prototype in another play Compulsion. Juli left Wind to have their first child, Thea, and Mike's career moved ahead. He became guest "heavy" on all the TV crime shows like The Untouchables and commuted back and forth to the West Coast on a regular basis.

"It was getting silly, all that traveling," says Julie. "So we came out here to live. Then Mike started making films and leaving the country - Justine in Tunisia, Hawaii, If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium. I was here with the children. By then there was Brendan. Thea was named for Mike's Greek grandfather. So we had to keep the Irish side of the family happy, too. But about all of Mike's traveling - I've never been off the continental shelf. I went to Tijuana once. But that's the extent of my world travels. I'm a terrible traveler." She looks up at the ceiling. "I won't go up in a plane. Scared to death of flying. I lose 10 years for every hour I've saved. I don't like boats either. I didn't realize how high they are." She laughs. "But then I get vertigo just changing a light bulb!"

With Mike's success, Juli's own acting career had been curtailed. "It's a progressive thing. At 26, when I had my first child, I was still going to be an actress and have a career. If you get caught up in being married and having children, a career starts to be something you want, something you're going to do. Suddenly you find you're 35 and the days start passing quickly. Then my son, Brendan, was born and a career was no longer my main focus of attention.

"But once the marriage ended, it went up on the priority list as to what came first in my life. It got back there among the first things. Fortunately, I had continued to take classes with Mike at Theater East all along and getting back into the business wasn't quite as traumatic as one would suppose. The casting director for The Young And The Restless saw me in a workshop production and recommended me for the part of Liz Foster. I guess it was my grey hair that got me into the office of John Conboy (Y&R's producer)."

Constantine has remarried (his new wife has two children from her previous union) and lives less than a mile away from Juli and his kids. "Mike is a helluva good father. He's here a lot. There is no visitation schedule. There's no schedule for anything around here. I live completely without one!"

Asked if she would consider marrying again herself, Juli answers: "I've tried to stop thinking in those terms. If something wonderful happens, that will be great. But as I said, there's no schedule in this house. None. What I'm saying is that I don't want to run away from anything or close anything off. I don't want to miss it. Before in my life, I had so many exits covered. Really, I was so anxious about the future.

"If a woman found her marriage breaking up and sought my help, I would tell her to be a friend to herself and to say: 'I have a friend who's in terrible trouble. What can I do for her?' And then go do that for herself. That's what saved me and helped put my life back together again."

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Thanks for sharing Carl!

I loved seeing Gina in this ep. Danny was certainly an ass wasn't he? Thus began four years of Paul/Christine/Danny with Phyllis as the interloper.

How long was this after Nina's miscarriage? I always had hated that story--it was too sad.

I thought Bergman really hammed it up there when Jack told Jill "I have an Amerasian son!!". The end scene with the Abbots was over the top corny.

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I could swear Nina was pregnant at some time in winter or late fall - I can't remember now.

That line was just hilariously awful and I'm surprised it got through. I imagine people laughing about it. At the time I enjoyed this story and thought it was touching. I still do, but I just can't take anything with Jack anymore.

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Im just happy that the unreleased era of Y&R (1994) is finally showing up on youtube. Late 1994, at that.

I loved the Jill/Kay/Nina/Ryan scenes, but I STILL cannot stand that child actor as Phillip. He gets on my nerves, and i'm not surprise that Jill didn't come to visit him more, cause she probably felt the same way i do. LOL. I guess this is Jill trying to put herself in a good light so that she could get custody of Billy after she divorced John. This is one of the scenes that leads to that big catfight at the courthouse.

It's great to finally see Keemo and Luan, but i agree with Carl that line was really cheesy. It's too bad Bergman had to force himself into this story, since he admitted years later he hated it.

Again, is that Rick or Blade LOL?

Danny,Danny,Danny.... These scenes just prove how much of a Jerk you are, Paul should have decked you. Sorry if I offend, but looking at this onscreen finally, there is something that totally smells like LML/MAB with Danny marrying Phyllis.

The Hope/Victor scenes were kind of boring. I think they were trying to recycle the Jack/Nikki baby story, only they let Hope keep the baby. Too bad that this child, now disgraces the show as well.

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