Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva

by Victoria Rowell

  Humiliating.

  She went back to waiting tables, occasionally taking in work as a masseuse. One of her regular clients happened to be Executive Producer of the hit prime-time sitcom Shirley, You So Crazy. He offered her a job as a production assistant and she offered him a Happy Ending.

  The Shirley gig led to various prime-time episodics. Edith’s big break came when she was named an Associate Producer for one of the WBC’s prime-time soaps during its first season.

  By the time the wildly successful show was canceled, twelve seasons later, Edith had moved up to show runner, heralded as “The Woman Who Saved the WBC.” This led to several high-profile prime-time projects, all of which flopped.

  Attempting to make good on their investment and avoid paying an expensive severance package if they fired her, the WBC gave Edith the position of President of Daytime Television. The network figured they could utilize her expertise to make their daytime soaps, which had been struggling since the first O.J. Simpson trial, a booming success. The move effectively made Edith Norman Augustus’s boss.

  From day one in her new position Edith had done everything in her power to take control of the Barringer empire, determined to make Augustus pay for ruining her dreams of becoming the next Meryl Streep, though she would have settled for Rhea Perlman.

  Like a spider, Edith licked with her feet. She thought she might finally get the chance she’d been waiting for with Augustus’s declining health, leaving at the helm his ambivalent son, Auggie Jr., who’d been trying for years to persuade his stubborn father to sell the soaps.

  She malevolently reminisced about a recent call Auggie made from her office to his dad in the hospital.

  “But Dad, we could make a bundle if we sell outright to the WBC . . . forget about licensing!” he had reasoned.

  “I already make a bundle,” Augustus replied. “How many times do I have to tell you, success is not a miracle? I have given you the reins of our family dynasty on a silver platter and all you can do is look for ways to give it away. The answer is no, and that’s the way it’s going to stay!”

  MEOW, MEOW. An inside source on the set of The Rich and the Ruthless texted moi with news of quite the catfight in the wardrobe room this morning.

  Apparently Lead Cat-ress Alison Fairchild Roberts wasn’t exactly purring when she found out another soap tigress would be donning the legendary wedding dress she wore a kabillion years ago for her first of seven soap opera weddings to Wolfe Hudson’s character Vidal Vinn Hansen.

  The tigress in question, Calysta Jeffries, was equally ticked at the very thought of having to wear Roberts’s tacky taffeta hand-me-down.

  You mean to tell me daytime’s number one soap has resorted to recycling wedding dresses? LMAO. Sounds like somebody better line up a few more detergent sponsors!

  The Diva

  CHAPTER 10

  Wardrobe Malfunction

  After leaving Randall’s office, I beelined it to the wardrobe department to meet with R&R’s Nazi wardrobe mistress, Penelope Wilcox. I needed to discuss my wedding gown for Ruby Stargazer’s upcoming nuptials and honeymoon scenes. Even though I was on my way off the soap, I intended to go out with sizzle and style, a no-expense-spared fashionista bang.

  Shannen and I jokingly referred to Penelope as the Pattern Cutter behind her back. With a swamp brown, cobweb-looking beehive, she ruled over the wardrobe department with iron pinking shears.

  “Hi, Penelope, got a second?”

  “Not now, I’m very busy letting out Alison’s DKNY pantsuit for next week’s Fink Enterprises boardroom scenes,” a jittery Penelope snapped, on her fourth cup of coffee. “She’s put on a few more pounds, poor thing, menopause. Alison’s going to be featured on MTV Romania,” she added, never looking up. “Oh, by the way, bring in your Patricia Underwood cloche and your Kai Milla dress tomorrow. We’re reshooting a scene from last week before you leave the show.”

  “Not the scene where everyone clapped. The one the cameramen hooted and whistled and bought me drinks at Formosa Café afterward for. Not that scene?”

  Everyone knew green-eyed Alison Fairchild Roberts never hesitated to phone up her henchman husband, demanding he target certain actresses for their stellar performances, making them do a scene over and over and over until it sucked. If that evil shrew could keep a daytime diva from getting a Sudsy, she was guilty as sin.

  “Calysta, I don’t have time to watch a soap. I barely have time to read scripts, let alone dress a cast with weight problems.”

  “Friggin’ unbelievable.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I said, I’ll come back later this afternoon to discuss my dress.”

  “What dress?”

  “Uh, my wedding dress? You do realize we’re shooting those scenes this week?”

  “Oh . . . that, right, they must’ve forgotten to tell you—”

  “Tell me what?”

  “You won’t be getting a new dress,” Penelope replied. “No budget. Sorry.”

  “Are you serious? No budget for Ruby Stargazer’s wedding dress?”

  “Yep, Mr. Roberts sent out a memo to crack down on frivolous spending.”

  “And you consider my wedding dress ‘frivolous spending,’ yet you find more than enough money to take Phillip McQueen out to lunch, then to Rodeo Drive with his portable color palette, searching for threads that ‘complement his skin tone’ and ‘bring out the robin’s egg blue in his eyes’? I know you’ve grown accustomed to relying on me schleppin’ in most of my own wardrobe, but sorry, not this time. I don’t happen to have a couture Jane Wilson-Marquis wedding gown hangin’ in my closet.”

  “Oh relax, will you!” She sighed, slamming down her pinking shears, and grabbing a fistful of keys, skittered across the linoleum floor to unlock a huge metal door bolted like Fort Knox. It swung open. An oversize fan whirring in the corner struggled to circulate the stinky ether, kicking up floor-to-ceiling funk from costumes dating back to more than thirty years ago.

  “I already have the perfect wedding dress for you. Wait right here and don’t touch anything,” she ordered.

  Did she really think I wanted the two dozen recycled Spanx shapers hanging over the dryer? Or was it Maeve’s Halloween sweater? Oh I know, it must be Alison’s shoulder-padded apple green tweed jacket with the magenta-dyed rabbit collar.

  The Pattern Cutter disappeared into racks and racks of sequins and feathers, returning like Moses parting the Red Sea moments later with an ivory hot mess, bouffant leg-o’-mutton sleeves and faux pearl embroidery across the breastplate. The train wrapped around her arm looked to be the length of two football fields and was attached to a crown of rhinestones, giving new meaning to “gluegunning.”

  “See, now won’t this be absolutely perfect? As for shoes, before you ask, we have the Lucite or the flesh-colored Capezio heels.”

  Speechless; my eyes widened as I took hold of the flammable fabric for a closer look at the monstrous confection.

  “Be careful, it’s vintage,” Penelope warned.

  “Did I miss something in the script? Are Ruby and Dove having a seventies theme wedding?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, this is a superlative dress. It took more than eighty yards of imported silk-faced poly-satin and taffeta, the expertise of two dozen seamstresses, and more than six hundred hours to produce. You’ll look, how do you say . . . bangin’.”

  “Uh, it’s six sizes too big.”

  “So, I’ll have Thomasina take it in a bit.”

  “Why does this dress look familiar?”

  “Yoo-hoo, Penelope, are you finished yet?” interrupted the nasal shriek of Alison Fairchild Roberts.

  She was standing at the door, looking like yesterday, with her hands on her hips in a gold-monogrammed white terry cloth robe, a towel turban wrapped around her head.

  Alison’s nose was upturned, not because she was born that way or because she was the ultimate snob, but because of a botched rhinoplasty that also had the undesirable side effe
ct of leaving her forever sounding like Miss Piggy on helium.

  “I’m sorry, Alison, as you can see my work has been rudely interrupted. I haven’t quite finished letting out your slacks, but I’ll have them ready by the end of the day,” a cowering Penelope promised.

  “No worries. But make it snappy, don’t forget we have a Tsumori Chisato fitting for my next Cliffhanger Weekly cover shoot.”

  “Uh, didn’t you say Alison wouldn’t be needing that pantsuit till next week?” I reminded Penelope. “I would think my wedding dress for scenes in a couple of days would take top priority.”

  “Oh yeah,” squeaked Alison. “Ruby Stargazer is getting married this week, huh? Right before getting whacked on her honeymoon. Bummer.”

  If there was one actress I despised more than Emmy it was that Valley of the Dolls train wreck Alison. As R&R’s first breakout star and one of only four original cast members left from the soap’s 1972 premiere (the others being Wolfe, Dell, and Maeve, who played Alison’s mother), Alison hadn’t exactly been pleased when I joined the sudser. I quickly gave her a run for the distinction of being one of daytime’s most popular actresses.

  Before Alison could come up with another dig, she spotted her dress on Penelope’s cutting table.

  “Hey, what’s my Givenchy-inspired wedding gown doing here?” she asked as she rushed over to snatch it up. “Penelope, you told me it was part of an exclusive costume display at the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.”

  “Your wedding dress?” I asked incredulously.

  “Yes, the first time I wore the dress was in 1976 when my character, Rory, married Vidal, that was the year of the bicentennial,” she marveled. “Then after our divorce in 1980 we remarried in 1984, me symbolically wearing the same dress. We went on location to Tortola. Now those were soap opera weddings to remember. You wouldn’t know anything about that, though, would you, Calysta, since supporting actors don’t get to go on location shoots?”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Penelope, you were going to put me in the same dress Alison wore when Nancy Reagan was running the country?”

  “I was going to have it dyed peony pink, Calysta. Jeesh, we’re not going for a virginal bride here.”

  “Are you crazy?” Alison demanded. “No one else is wearing my dress!”

  “All right, calm down,” Penelope said, gathering more of the taffeta. “Of course I was going to ask for your permission first.”

  “Which you most certainly would not have gotten,” Alison snapped, pulling more of the fabric toward her. “This dress is sacred. How do you think my legions of fans would react seeing her in it?”

  “They’d probably wonder why the hell my size four figure was in your tent.”

  “You miserable—”

  “Alison, please let go,” the Pattern Cutter begged, pulling in the opposite direction.

  “I will not! I’m taking my dress with me for safekeeping!”

  “It’s property of Barringer Dramatic Series. Be reasonable.”

  “No, you goddamn traitor!”

  “Alison!”

  I stepped back and stared in bug-eyed bewilderment at the bizarre fiasco unraveling.

  As the two tussled over the taffeta, Alison’s turban and robe came undone, revealing her wet, overbleached tresses and saggy ass.

  Maybe I’ve been too hard on Randall. Nah, they deserve each other.

  After a loud rip signaling the dress was torn, Alison squealed, “Oh my gawd. Look what you did!” as she pulled her robe shut.

  “Me?” the Pattern Cutter exclaimed in shock.

  “Penelope, you’re in so much trouble. You’ve ruined a masterpiece! Wait until I tell my husband. And as for you, Calysta, I can hardly wait until you’re finally off R&R. Randall and I are planning one helluva party the day you fall off that goddamn boat.”

  Alison flung the remains of the ripped dress in Penelope’s face before storming out, leaving the Pattern Cutter convulsing in tears.

  Wow, I thought as I slipped out to prepare for my scenes, these wack-a-doodles are crazier than I thought.

  CHAPTER 11

  Nipplegate

  The Rich and the Ruthless had never hired an African American writer in its thirty-seven-year run. I was forever rewriting my scenes for the production, and they loved it. Who wouldn’t? It was free! Randall and Edith knew I was passionate about my work, all of it. They got me on the cheap and looked the other way while someone else got credit for it. My scripts were always covered with penciled-in rewrites and personal notes.

  Fans always wrote in asking, “Calysta, who writes those feisty lines for you?”

  “Me do it,” I’d write back.

  “Cut!” boomed Randall, sitting in the control booth next to Julius, who was eating popcorn, one of three rotating directors. “Calysta, I can see the outline of your nipples through your sweater. I told you to wear those Nipples-No-More,” he shouted over the loudspeaker. With a live feed throughout the WBC studios, anyone could watch and listen to us taping and they always were.

  “The glue from those patches gives my silver dollars a rash.”

  “What?”

  “My areolas? Maybe if you didn’t keep the set so damn cold it wouldn’t be a problem.”

  The set was kept at what felt like two degrees above freezing at all times, supposedly to keep us all alert and perky. It felt like a meat locker. On second thought, that’s what it was.

  “Since you’re on a Nipplegate bender again, Randall, why is it that you don’t make any of the guys wear the Nipples-No-More? Ethan’s are twice the size of mine and have piercings,” I retorted. I’d bet Derrick and his costar were laughing hysterically back in his custom double-banger trailer, the duplex of actor housing, across the lot.

  “Very funny,” Randall said stiffly as he dialed.

  “Hello, wardrobe,” Penelope warily answered.

  “Get those nipple busters down here stat!”

  “Sorry, Randall, we ran out. You said we didn’t have it in the bud—”

  He hung up.

  I said, “Can we get back to work? We have eighty-two pages to tape, and that doesn’t include the scenes we have to do because of Maeve’s bronchitis.”

  A reluctant Randall nodded in agreement.

  “Okay, let’s pick it up from your line, Calysta,” the director said.

  I took my place, nipples and all.

  Will Edith Norman finally hire a new writing team and get rid of that hack Felicia Silverstein? I’ve got a great idea! How ’bout the cutting-edge number one daytime soap opera hiring a few top-drawer minority writers? I hate that word “minority,” it sounds so, er, racist and condescending. But you know, black, Hispanic, Indian, Asian, oh you get it, actual “color” television. To my knowledge, there’s like three black scribes in all of soap operaland. It’s just my opinion but isn’t it time for CHANGE?

  The Diva

  CHAPTER 12

  Who’s Writing This Crap?

  From the bed in his private hospital suite, Augustus Barringer yelled, “Sonofabitch, who’s writing this crap! And what happened to the lighting?” He was watching an episode of The Rich and the Ruthless.

  “Daddy, you have to stay calm,” Veronica Barringer, his debutante daughter, warned. “You can’t risk your blood pressure going up.”

  “How the hell do you expect me to stay calm when someone’s writing b.s. like that on one of my shows? I want you to get Felicia on the phone now!”

  Veronica sighed. She knew allowing her father to watch episodes of his struggling flagship show was a bad idea, but her mother had insisted, “Television is a defining aspect of your father’s life.” Katherine Barringer reasoned, “If we take that away from him, we might as well start digging his grave now.”

  “Daddy, I’ll speak to Felicia as soon as I get back to L.A.,” Veronica promised. “Right now I’m focused on you getting better.”

  “Never mind that. I’ve got a team of overpriced doctors and your mother to worry ab
out that. I need you to jet back to Los Angeles and head up writer duties on R&R and oversee The Daring and the Damned until I get out of this damn bed and back on my feet. Should’ve hired you out of college, Ronnie, and fired Felicia the day she suggested we stop using real fur on the show after she came back from that goddamned PETA fund-raiser.”

  “Daddy, you’ve gotta be kidding, I’ve only dabbled in writing. A few articles a year in Artforum, that’s it.”

  “Look, I didn’t donate all that money to Syracuse and get you into the Newhouse School for nothing.”

  “But there’s no way I can manage writing scripts and oversee story content for both shows! Besides, I’m not going anywhere until we figure out what’s been causing these strokes. The shows will survive.”

  “You’ll do what I tell you to do. And whaddya mean there’s no way you can manage both shows? Hell, I wrote both soaps for years and the only vacation I ever had was open heart surgery. You kids today have no ambition.”

  Any other time, Veronica would have launched into a heated discussion with her father about how the soap world had changed, but instead she decided to let him have the last word.

  “God knows your brother isn’t capable.”

  Veronica’s older brother, Auggie Jr., who had been blessed with more than most in the hunk department, oversaw the business aspects of The Rich and the Ruthless and The Daring and the Damned, acting as co-executive producer alongside Randall Roberts during Augustus’s absence. That is, when his golf game and partying allowed him the spare time.

  “How’s your father doing?” an elegant Katherine asked in her trademark brahmin voice, walking in chicly dressed in Escada.

  “Everything’s fine, Mother,” Veronica said with uncertainty in her tone.

  “The hell it is,” Augustus bellowed. “R&R is disintegrating into an Obsessions circus, thanks to Felicia’s barbaric writing, and our son and Randall are just sitting by letting it happen! Next thing you know, The Rich and the Ruthless will be The Lost and the Forgotten. And what’s this business about Randall wanting a pay increase? That bum’s already overpaid. Is he out of his mind?!”