Sun July 31 1977
‘Life’ Lived Again By JON-MICHAEL REED
NEW YORK — One life is apparently not enough for some people to live. While one character was buried on ABC’s “One Life to Live,” another one was brought back to life. Naomi Vernon was so distraught when her psychiatrist husband Will left her in hopes of winning the heart of a younger woman that she plotted a suicide attempt with the intention that she’d be found in time, thereby creating enough sympathy to win back her husband. Unfortunately for Naomi, no one came to her aid before the suicide pills worked their terminal end. “I had conflicting emotions doing Naomi's death scene,” says actress Teri Keane. “It was a humdinger to play since it was so well written. But I certainly 'hoped that the audience would not view Naomi's action as a solution to her type of problem.
"AFTER ALL THIS was a human who played by the rules most of her life, but the bottom dropped out anyway. It’s a situation many middle-aged women face, but suicide is definitely the coward’s way out. As a strictly dramatic situation, Naomi’s death was necessary to the writer's plot. But it's only fiction and was merely a reflection of an unbalanced woman's muddled mind, not a reflection of life as it should ideally be faced.” Keane, a veteran of eight soap operas, including a dozen-year stint as Martha Marceau on “The Edge of Night,” departed “One Life to Live” in high spirits, despite her character’s helpless demise. During rehearsals of the scene where Naomi’s body wasfound. Keane wore a specially made T-shirt that read, “Are you sure, ABC?”- The serial, meanwhile, was certain it wanted to resurrect the character of Paul Kendall, the presumed-dead husband of heroine Pat, who had since become engaged to another man.
ACTUALLY, PAUL has been working undercover for a CIA-type government agency. And the actor hired to portray the returning character is Tom Fuccello, who was last seen as Mark Elliott on “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing.” Since that show, Tom has been working in Hollywood, appearing in nighttime TV i series guest spots, most ; recentlv a segment of “Family.”
“It was terribly difficult for me on ‘Love Is,’ since I was one of the many replacements for the original jactor in the role of Mark, David Birney, whom audiences identified with strongly. It’s certainly a relief to originate this new role on ‘One Life’ and not have to follow in somebody else’s footsteps,” says the bachelor from Bloomfield, N.J.
Another newcomer to “One Life” is David Reilly, as Richard Abbott, the deceased Victor Lord's nephew. Reilly, a former art teacher, won the critics’ hearts in Tennessee Williams’ ill-fated recent Broadway drama, “Vieux Carre.” In that play, Reilly played a low-life hustler, but on “One Life” he’ll portray an intensely brash voung reporter.
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Paul Raven ·
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