Anniversary Exclusive

The year was 1977. Newcomers Jackie Zeman (Bobbie), Leslie Charleson (Monica) and Stuart Damon (Alan) checked into GH in January, August, and September, respectively. Little did this troika know that their Hospital stay would last for two decades - and counting. SOM reminisced with these inimitable stalwarts about their 20 years in Port Charles, and how their show, their characters and their own lives have changed.

Damon: It feels like it went by in a minute. It's been the most amazing experience, because so much has happened in my personal life. When I started on the show, I was 27th or 28th in seniority. I'm like second now, and (Alan is) now the chief of staff.

Zeman: Nooo way! But that's life. When Stuart showed me a picture from (his son) Christopher's high school graduation a couple of years ago, I got goosebumps. I said, "I remember when you first came on the show, he was 18 months old and just started walking." And I'm looking at this good-looking 18-year- old guy! It's one of those moments I'll remember for the rest of my life.

Charleson: I got a call from Tom Donovan (then producer of GH). He had produced and directed (the now-defunct daytime soap) Love Is a Many Splendored Thing and I just loved him to death. He asked me to replace the gal who was playing Monica, Patsy Rahn, and I couldn't turn him down. Of course, then he pulled a fast one on me and quit, leaving me alone, never having seen GH, not knowing who the hell any Webber was. It was in the middle of a strike and nobody liked me because they had fired Patsy rather rudely. They had producers pushing cameras and secretaries doing makeup. It was a nightmare of all nightmares. All I remember is thinking there had to be a better way to make a living than what I was being subjected to. Then (former executive producer) Gloria (Monty) came on. I had worked with Gloria in New York on these late-night mystery movies, where I was holding the hand of quite a few actors who got out of show business altogether thanks to Gloria. So I knew what to expect - but those who didn't dropped by the wayside.

Damon: When I came to California in 1977, I didn't have two months' rent in my pocket and I had my wife and two children. I was living in a motel where a lot of transient actors lived in Hollywood. My agent sent me to see Tom Donovan. I got to audition and then screen test - again and again. Somebody at ABC couldn't make up their mind and they kept dangling for five weeks. Finally, my agent said: "If you want to keep him on the hook, it's gonna cost you $1,000 a day." And that was it.

Zeman: It was an exciting time for me, because OLTL was my first big TV part and I loved that show. I was very sad to be killed off. But then all of the sudden I was offered GH. They just said, "Would you like to go to California to play this part?" It was funny because I was on both shows at the same time. My body was laying there, with brown hair, dead on the sofa at OLTL, and then an hour later I'm popping off the elevator at GH much thinner and with red hair. I starved myself for four days because I had gained about 20 pounds to play Lana.

Damon: He was very wealthy and very right wing, and he had been capable of being a professional athlete. He was a guy who did it by the book, and he was supposed to be well brought up and well mannered. A very strong character.

Zeman: I remember having a meeting with (then-GH head writer) Doug Marland. I remember being very nervous; I had to get the seal of approval from him because he created Bobbie. Originally, he said "a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who had no advantages as a young girl." But I remember him saying "This is a survivor. She will overcome whatever obstacles are put in her way. This is not a princess. She works for everything she gets."

Charleson: (laughing) They didn't tell me anything. Tom just said, "Make it your own." Patsy had been playing her for about a year and a half, and I remember one of the directors always saying "Oh, Monica can do that" and "Well, Monica wouldn't do that." Finally, about two weeks into it, I said to this director, "What the (pick the word - expletive) is 'a Monica'? Is this something that comes around about eye-level and is green? Finally, I learned what Monica was all about: She was crazy about Rick Webber, but she married Jeff Webber. But I guess any Webber would have done.

Damon: I did my screen tests with Leslie. I was so damn nervous. I was worried that my heart was pounding so hard that you would be able to see my suit moving. But Leslie was very nice. We had the kind of chemistry right away that I think we've been able to maintain the last 20 years. We were friends right from the start. When I started on the show, my wife had to take a job in a department store because we literally had no money at all and we only had one car. Leslie used to pick me up and we would go to work together. And one of the big jokes was I used to bring all my clothes to the studio in one of those big black garbage bags - I didn't even have enough money to buy a gym bag. Six months later, one of the cast members took pity on me and bought me a gym bag.

Charleson: There were three guys auditioning for the role. I don't even remember the first one, but the other one was this god-awful game show host. He kept winking at me. And I thought, "Does he have an eye problem?" So I was pretty happy that Stuart got the role. I've auditioned with a lot of people and it's been my history that as soon as they ask me who I like, they immediately pick the other person, so I was fearful of saying anything.

Zeman: Stuart and Leslie were absolutely wonderful. I had recognized them from their other work, but I had never worked with them before. And, of course, working with Prince Charming! Wow! (Damon starred in a TV version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Cinderella in the '60s.) To my kids, Stuart's a big cheese. We went to see a road company of Cinderella and my daughter Cassidy said, "Mom, that prince on the video is much better!" I told Stuart and he loved it. He said, "That's gonna be my epitaph when I die: that I was Prince Charming and Alan Quartermaine."

Zeman: The one conversation I've always had with the powers-that-be - whomever they are at the moment - is that I need to deal with reality-based storylines. That's why I got into soaps. I don't want to be involved in the adventures and the shootings and the aliens. It just doesn't work for me, and I have a hard time saying lines about stuff like that.

Charleson: Stuart's very tall, so we go in as a team. (Laughing) When there's a problem, Stuart and I will talk about it. If I'm off base, he'll talk me around it and vice versa. If we decide there is a problem, we tackle it as a team. We protect each other. I have to protect Stuart because he has a tendency to become silly, especially when he doesn't care about what he's doing.

Damon: No. Alan is very chameleon-like. He's capable of being the worst villain, the toughest guy, and on the other hand he's capable of being the most loving, loyal, funny human being on the earth. I've tried to make him as gray as possible, so that the audience never is sure what he's going to do next.

Zeman: (laughing) I would like Bobbie to find the right husband! I would like Bobbie to find a real romance - that's the one thing she's never had. Bobbie has certainly loved her relationship with Tony, but it wasn't a real romance. They started off as best friends. There wasn't that, "Oh my god, I'm walking into telephone polls because I'm so in love I can't see straight." I think she's earned it and deserves it.

Charleson: It's hard. You can't go back to the days of Luke and Laura. That was magic time. The second time Gloria came back was about the gloomiest time. She, in no uncertain terms, announced that the Quartermaines were old hat, passe, not interesting - and that was a hard pill to swallow. It got to the point where we would just sit in our dressing rooms while the Eckert thing was going on, and we would be told by the stage managers to just "know your lines, because we're not going to be rehearsing anything." It was like saying, "Okay, get there, hit your mark, do something and get out because you're not really important." But the upshot of the Eckerts was the discovery that people were not that interested in watching people stir spaghetti sauce and then sing songs from West Side Story. And to have most of the surviving Eckerts end up in the Quartermaine living room was poetic justice.

Damon: It's a much easier place to work now; maybe that also come with my seniority. I look forward to coming to work, and they get the best of Stuart Damon because Stuart Damon has no fear at GH. The worst enemy of any actor is fear - and I have none here.

Zeman: The entire medium had changed in every way, and for the better. The audience's perception has also changed. When I started 23 years ago, soaps used to be the butt of jokes at parties. Soaps used to just be about women by women and for women, and it wasn't ever really about the man. Now soaps are such an important part of what's on TV, and that means whatever it is we're putting out is making a contribution to society.

Damon: Alan is much more multidimensional character than he was to start with; Alan was much more predictable than he is now. I would think Alan would have difficulty going to the bathroom because his ass was been sewn up. But over the years, I have tried to inject my personal sense of humor into Alan's bloodstream. I think he's much kinder and loving - yet I don't think he's lost his edge. He's not the kind of guy you want to cross.

Zeman: As you go through life there's always a little piece of where you come from left in you. There will always be that girl from the wrong side of the tracks who has a problem with self-esteem. There are so many choices for Bobbie today. I'm very curious and very excited to see where we go next.

Charleson: Definitely not age! With each year you get a little more experience in your own life that you bring to the character. In the past two years I've been awfully glad to have Monica around because my personal life has been nothing less than a soap opera - with the loss of my parents, and my sister's suicide. To go to work when I'm losing my own family and have this other family to go back to...I am eternally grateful.

Damon: I'm a grandfather. A very important 20 years has passed in my life. I'm much more eventempered and I'm just a much more easygoing human being. When I started on the show, my back was to the wall with a gun at my head. And now, as of July, I own my own house. But I've never found myself very good copy because I'm not a Hollywood guy out on the tow. I've been married to the same woman, I've raised my children, I have a grandchild. So I don't consider that stuff that people really want to read; nothing you could put into The Star of The Enquirer. I'm one of those guys who just plugs along. My wife and I are actually bringing up our grandson, because our daughter wasn't in a position to be able to give him what he needed at the time. I loved bring up both my kids, but I never had the time then to see what I see now in this little boy.

Zeman: I still want the same things I wanted then, except now I have so much more. I used to think that when you're younger you have more choices and have more possibilities, but now I realize it's just the opposite: so many more choices, opportunities and fun times lie ahead. Having my children has taught me that.

Zeman: I love my work; I think the greatest acting job in the world is getting on a soap opera. The medium works for me. I worked on a few movies and I was bored to death. It doesn't so much matter to me who the next husband is or what the next story is, as long as there's a spiritual growth within her, so people will always look and go back to what Doug Marland first told me: "She's a survivor."

Damon: I'll never leave. When I did think about it occasionally - when I was first here - my wife said "Like hell you are," and she put her foot down. She said, "I was poor long enough being married to you!" I'm not retiring. If I'm still on the show, they'll have to carry me off feet-first.

Charleson: As long as we have something to do, I'm there. Besides, I want to be around to see these people who are gonna carry Stuart out feet-first. Have you ever seen those feet? It's going to take two people for just one foot.

Zeman: The B.J. storyline was probably the most emotionally challenging storyline I've ever done as an actress. We dealt with a parent's worst nightmare (the death of a child). As a mother it affected me more than any other storyline.

Charleson: The most rewarding one was the breast cancer storyline. It was the hardest, and I was most grateful that Stuart was the one I was playing opposite because it was a very vulnerable time.

The most humorous?A scene that wasn't supposed to be. We're in a bedroom with dead Uncle Herbert. As David Lewis (ex-Edward) passed by, he whispered (out of earshot of the microphones) "I'm taking mother (Lila) to wee-wee" and he left Stuart and I there to finish this very sad scene. We both knew if we looked at each other it was all over. David Lewis could break us up all the time.

Damon: The two that were the most fun were at opposite ends of the pole: When I was trying to kill Monica and Rick - that was fun being a villain. And when Lucy Coe was my mistress and we finally got married. That was a great relationship that was based on nothing but lust.

The twisted triangle of Rick, Monica and Alan electricfied GH fans in the late '70s, helping to catapult a show that was close to cancellation to the top of the Nielsen ratings in the '80s.

Head writer Doug Marland gave GH a dose of shock treatment in the '70s when he created hooker-turned-student-nurse Bobbie Spencer. Back in Bobbie's bad-girl days, she tried to come between Scotty Baldwin and his love Laura.

To love, honor, and cherish: After two decades of failed marriages, including one to abusive entrepreneur D.L. Brock, Zeman would love to see Bobbie have a true romance.

Both Charleson and Damon cited Monica's bout with breast cancer as one of their favorite storylines. In one poignant moment, Monica offers to adopt Emily, the daughter of her friend Page, who succumbed to cancer.

A rare moment when actor and character were alike. "I keep everyone hysterical," says Damon. "You couldn't think of Alan doing that. I mean, his ass if pretty tight - but Stuart Damon's isn't."

"Part of the reason the audience has related to Bobbie so well is because she came on with a past," says Zeman. The Spencer family includes Bobbie, her brother Luke, and their Aunt Ruby.

Charleson was grateful for the support of her GH family when she suffered through the loss of her own family - most recently the suicide of her sister, Kate, who had a brief stint on GH as a nurse in 1978.

Monica's "trial" for jilted lover Dorman is probably the closest thing Monica had ever had to an exciting adventure, something Charleson muses would be fun for her character.

"People say, 'Oh well, it's not brain surgery - it's only soap.' But when you get into your car and drive home at night you'd like to feel like you did something special," says Zeman pictured with Bobbie's ex-husband Tony.

"We're all a little bit nuts," says Damon of all the actors portraying those quarreling Qs. "And those actors who have come and gone over the years were either not strong enough or not nuts enough."