Observations from a former soap opera star about drama and marriage

Tina Sloan, who played Nurse Lillian Raines on the Guiding Light was on NPR quiz show Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me a couple weeks ago.   I have never watched Guiding Light but some of the things she had to say were so interesting I had to post it and didn’t know exactly where to post it so put it here.  I especially was interested in the last bolded part about no divorces.  I wonder how the Day’s characters marriages in real life are?

Q:  What happened to you as Nurse Lillian Raines?

I’ll give you the minutes. Okay. My daughter drowned in a lake, leaving one red shoe behind. She came back to life. She was blind, aphasiac, burned in a fire. She drowned again, leaving another red shoe behind. This time she came back as a totally different character named Lorelei, who looked exactly the same, right down to the mole on her chest, but I don’t recognize her – her mother. Then I do recognize. I murdered someone. My daughter murdered someone. My granddaughter at the age of seven murdered somebody.  We have very good genes. I get breast cancer, which is a very nice thing. I mean nice that it was a good storyline. But, of course, I had to fall in love with my doctor, who was my breast cancer surgeon, but also happened to be my best friend’s husband. She found out about the fact that we slept together, called us a suburban cliche, went off a cliff and killed herself.

Q: People really used to physically attack you because of the mean things you had done on their fictional TV show?

Ms. SLOAN: Truly, they did, because I stole a woman away from a man on "Somerset." And this woman came up with a shopping cart and she just rammed, she kept ramming me. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

SAGAL: Is there anything you miss about it, the soap opera?

Ms. SLOAN: Oh, I miss it every day. I mean where else? I mean, you go sit down for Thanksgiving dinner and there’d be somebody murdered in front of you or a ghost would appear at the window. I mean it was so much fun.

SAGAL: Do you ever try to recreate those in your actual life just to keep yourself interested?

Ms. SLOAN: You know, nobody on the show was divorced, in production, in the makeup room, the hair room or any of the actors. And there were about 100 of us. And I swear to God it’s because we got all the drama out there. I’m waiting to hear when the divorces start now that we’re off the air.