proud of her growth. Do you think Linds really changed her spots?
I’ll be honest with you: I didn’t have it set one way or the other. I played her very carefully towards the end so it would be ambiguous. When I was standing there on the set and Frank said, “If we go on to Prospect Park, I really want you to come back.” I said, “I can’t live in New York I have this whole other life on the west coast and we just broke ground on this huge studio, editing bays and the whole thing. We’re opening our own production company, so I’m not walking away from that.” Whether or not I came back for a short-term visit or they recast Lindsay, I wanted to make sure that Lindsay was left open because she’s more fun when she’s bad. That little look I added outside the door was deliberate on my part. And they didn’t edit it out, which thrilled me!
Favourite story?
Omigod…. My year in prison with Alison Perkins was awesome. The whole thing and the live show. I remember Gary Tomlin… our executive producer… he really got how to entertain people. He got that concept. When [Linds] was sent to prison, I was told not to worry because they were going to create this whole prison life for me. We had Lorraine Broderick and Chris Whitesell writing at the time. And who is better than Lorraine? Nobody. I got to kick ass in prison. We had the prison breakout, which led to our musical storyline. Gosh, I got to work with great Broadway people. I had great fun on ONE LIFE… until Brian Frons came in and ruined everything. I also had great fun with Michael E. Knight when he crossed over to the show for Fan February, too.
Would Linds and Tad ever get it on?
Oh, that would be such a fun story. It wouldn’t even have to be romantic. I love acting with Michael because he’s so magnificent.
Did you ever think the industry would die like this back in the glory days? I never did. I’m so blessed I got to experience ‘em. Even though I’m 12!
[Laughs] Ditto! No, because my mind doesn’t work that way. If you had asked me this when ABC was cutting everyone’s salary in half, sure, I would say I saw this coming; but 20 years ago? No. I live in the here, in the now.
Now is a great time for you to write a sequel to your amazing book, THE 30 DAY HEARTBREAK CURE: The Soap Fan Edition!
Actually, I tried very hard to get booked on news shows and cable talk shows when AMC left the airwaves because I wanted to talk about the visible depression and grief fans were feeling. [Sighs] Wow — people were really mourning. But right at that time, the Conrad Murray trial for Michael Jackson’s murder began that week, so that took over the airwaves. I haven’t tried to get on regarding ONE LIFE’s end because I’ve been so busy, but I think this demise is going to be even tougher for fans.
Ditto. It’s not going to be fun…
When I watched the last show of AMC, my rage intensified again because the show got so much better — and it could have been like that all these years.
Any plans to release a soap memoir anytime soon?
I will be! I have a lot of cool stories to tell, obviously! I’m working on a really cool book now — and I’ll let you know more when I start it. We’re all writing these days: Todd, [his mom] Debbie Reynolds, and [his sister] Carrie Fisher are all writing! You just interviewed, Carrie, right?
Yep! She was a hoot. You need to invite me over for dinner. Talk about a table of gay icons, yourself included. Finally, it’s ironic ONE LIFE was originally titled BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL because it ended up in limbo: it’s cancelled but it may not be over for the show.
Yeah! You and I know what is happening behind the scenes right now… and I hope it makes it, too. [My boyfriend Todd Fisher] and I have a beautiful sound stage with state-of-the-art facilities, so if anyone wants to get ONE LIFE up and running there wouldn’t be a gigantic cost involved of renting a studio. I would love to see ONE LIFE live on.
Get in line, baby!
SUDSY NEWSSTAND
In Depth Robo-Voting Exposed
We are soap fans, hear us roar! First we saved Becky Herbst’s job on GH, then we got Hoover to pull its advertising on ABC, and then we got the attention of Prospect Park (which ended up being fruitless, but nevertheless, that’s neither here or there). The latest achievement? A sleuth Internet sleuth contacted UNCENSORED with detailed analysis and reporting of stealth robo-voting on SOAPS IN DEPTH’s poll with various serial voters.
For example, one Kelly Sullivan fan posted over 130 of the same votes under different user IDs in the same pattern each week — and at the same time of the week. Incredible.
At the time, Simms responded to concerns from his readers (the emails were forwarded to me) by first stating he doesn’t pay attention “to such things,” and then later, explained it was pointless to revamp the system because a new robo-voting scheme would just pop up again (sounds like the philosophy over at NATAS to me). Moreover, he stated that the magazine doesn’t rely on Internet votes to determine its editorial decisions. However, the majority of the top five actors and couples are feature on SID’s cover prominently (the reader also provided me with spread sheets on this correlation).
While SID appropriately claims they delete all the double votes, blatant serial cheaters are casting 130 votes each under different screen name. According to our data, there is no way over 130 people could realistically vote in the same pattern, at the same time each week, in every poll, in the same order.
After Y&R’s Michael Muhney, Sharon Case and Maura West — who, along with many others, have long suspected the results were being skewed by a minority — joined the conversation did SID finally relent and changed its rules. Unfortunately, actors do pay attention to these polls — and in many cases, as attested to UNCENSORED, are used by agents during contract negotiations (sad, but true) and for other reasons. One doesn’t have to look any further to the actors begging fans to vote on Twitter or Facebook to realize how important these meaningless polls are. And just because a few shows may not pay attention to fan polls, doesn’t mean all of them don’t (There's a reason why they exist, alas).
Due to the polling controversy, SOAPS IN DEPTH recently announced:
“We wanted to let you know of some big changes that we’re going to be instituting regarding our Readers’ Poll, effective with the very next round of voting. The most important change is that we will now be only accepting votes on the questions (with your comments) on the website. However, our policy on duplicate votes remains the same. Multiple votes from the same reader will be discarded and not counted, so please save yourself the effort and postage by only voting once during each two-week voting period. In addition, while the CBS issues of SOAPS IN DEPTH will continue to give the results for B&B and Y&R, the ABC editions of our magazine will now also include favorites from the CBS soaps and NBC's DAYS in the actors, actresses and couples. So please feel free to vote for your overall favorites and don't feel restricted.”
Makes money “cents” if SID only allows print ballots to be mailed in — not copies of ballots or online votes — since they’ll only profit from that rule change. Ie. You have to buy an issue to vote; not cheat the online system. I’d like to know how many voters actually buy SID.
What is not clear is how the new rules will change since the magazine has combined all network coverage each week — and renamed the magazine CBS ABC NBC SOAPS IN DEPTH.
Um, why not just re-brand the magazine as SOAPS IN DEPTH? Not only would their weekly coverage be increased to four soaps from two or one (and NBC could finally be included fairly each week instead of receiving just a special section in the CBS issue), but they’d also make more money by traversing to a weekly magazine from a biweekly one like DIGEST and WEEKLY. Also, ABC and CBS fans who buy at the newsstand every two weeks would have to purchase each week to get their coverage.
But that’s not the only SID drama making news this week. In the current issue, IN DEPTH makes a giant error with its eye-catching headline: GH’s CARLY AND JOHNNY HAVE SEX. Turns out they don’t. The magazine apologized to its readers this morning with this statement:
?
??In our current ABC issue, we made a big, big mistake. (But at least it was a sexy one.) We misinterpreted some of the information we received and jumped to the conclusion that, when GH Johnny and Carly got "hot and heavy," they actually made love. But they didn't! Needless to say, we are red-faced over the error. (And, we can't deny it, still sorta titillated by the prospect of those two getting it on... ) Our apologies to you, our readers, and to GH. Cold showers all around?”
Moreover, on the human resources front, UNCENSORED hears from an IN DEPTH mole one New York editor was let go, as well as the magazine’s west coast photo editor.
Finally, we’re hearing photographers are being banned from the GH set temporarily until Cartini gets the show in order. As expected, however, controversial photographer Jim Warren will lose his resident office and exclusive access to GH. Makes sense since Warren was persona non grata over at ONE LIFE for a variety of reasons (Warren is banned from CBS).
Um, now you get why ONE LIFE featured SOAP OPERA WEEKLY on their show — and not IN DEPTH!
2012 EMMY WATCH
So close, yet so far: Another Daytime Emmy Award Change!
A few months