ESPRIT LIBRE // Press Archive

My Set Visit: One Life to Live (Soap Opera Digest 5/22/07)
By Lauren Flynn

After getting a few helpful hints on the magic of hairpieces, it was time to see the men of the hour: Forbes March (Nash) and Jerry verDorn (Clint) for a Q&A that ran in our 5/8/07 issue.

I was escorted to the dressing room and March was there with bells on -- literally. Adorning his feet were green slippers with tiny bells on the ends! This only briefly distracted me from spotting competitors' magazines strewn about the table. "What is this?" I cried. March hastily pushed them off and said, "What magazines? What?"

Thankfully, verDorn cut the tension with his arrival. "It's like being a father again," he joked of sharing a dressing room with March. It became instantly clear that these actors have a silly rapport, as illustrated by the following dialogue:
March: Before we begin, you have to rub the lucky fairy. [VerDorn groans, pointing to a fairy statuette atop the television set.]
Soap Opera Digest: And what does the lucky fairy do?
March: The lucky fairy blesses us with positivity.
verDorn: Yeah.
Digest: Where does the lucky fairy come from?
verDorn (laughing): Actually, I'm ashamed to say I own it.
March (to Digest): You just rubbed the fairy's breasts! She's underage, I'll have you know!
verDorn: Some people question our sexuality having this in our room, but we're confident in our manhood.
March: If you don't rub the fairy, the set demons will get ya.

VerDorn then went on to clarify that the fairy was actually given to his wife, a teacher, who suggested it might look better in his dressing room than in their home. As March happily rang his feet, I noticed that verDorn was wearing some snappy cowboy boots with Clint's dress pants and blazer. VerDorn explained that while cowboy boots are a Clint staple, they're his favorite footwear, too.

Once the actors were settled and the laughter subsided, we got down to the task at hand, an Oprah Winfrey Show-style Q&A between two actors. VerDorn asked March to talk about his unorthodox way of preparing for a scene. "I fall down. I find it's a good icebreaker," he replied, then regaled us with a story about James Dean walking up to his Giant co-stars and urinating on the parking lot to get their attention. (That wasn't the only time public urination was mentioned during our talk; see Gossip, p. 64.) When March finished his tangent, he turned to verDorn and said, "Didn't we have instructions? You were to cough if I went in the wrong direction!" Regardless, the interview was everything I'd hoped for, and it was a treat observing some lighthearted banter between two actors whose characters are so often in turmoil.