Life Story, 1977
“I remember my first day like it was yesterday…
By: MERRILL CHERLIN
Although Erika Slezak claims that the stage is her first love, she also maintains that playing the
lovely lead in "One Life To Live" is the most exciting, fun, terrific thing she can imagine doing with her life.
"Time flies when you're having fun!" she laughs. "The six years I've been on the show have flown.
It seems as if I just started. I remember my first day like it was yesterday. If I'm on the show less than four days a week I feel awful. I run to the producer and say, 'What's the matter, don't you like me anymore?' I've had the time of my life. The people I work with are great, there are no conflicts, as there are, I hear, on other shows.
A few years back, Erika was delighted when ABC-TV
invited her famous actor, father Walter Slezak, to make
a guest appearance on the show as her godfather.
That's Walter's dad, Met opera star Leo Slezak, in the portrait.
Although Erika Slezak claims that the stage is her first love, she also maintains that playing the lovely lead in "One Life To Live" is the most exciting, fun, terrific thing she can imagine doing with her life.
"Time flies when you're having fun!" she laughs. "The six years I've been on the show have flown.
It seems as if I just started. I remember my first day like it was yesterday. If I'm on the show less than four days a week I feel awful. I run to the producer and say, 'What's the matter, don't you like me anymore?' I've had the time of my life. The people I work with are great, there are no conflicts, as there are, I hear, on other shows.
"I was in repertory for four-and-a-half years before 'One Life To Live,' and at one time I did off-Broadway while I was on this show. That was incredibly difficult. I'm lucky, I've been asked to do other things, but I just can't. It takes away from the energy I devote to this show. I have to go to bed at 9:30 to get up early enough. If I do a play and stay uptil one, I come in here crabby, and the make-up men complain because I have bags under my eyes. This show is my first, priority-there's no such thing as spare time. I'm so heavily used on this show, I don't have the extra time to devote to anything else. This is what I do.
"I'd love to go back to the stage but I'd never give up TV. I'd also love to do films someday. I'm a kid and I'm a ham, so I love to get up there on the stage and fool around."
In the storyline, Viki Lord has always held a certain
romantic attraction for her brother-in-law Larry Wolek. But off-screen, Michael Storm and Erika are just good friends.
Erika has one of the largest fan clubs in the country – and some very devoted fans! At one of her fan club's yearly gala gatherings, Erika signs autographs and chats with many admirers. But Erika's fans are in no danger of losing their favorite daytime TV star, she intends to stay
on "One Life To Live" as long as they want her. "They could always replace me, or kill me off, but I hope not."
At one of her fan club's yearly gala gatherings, Erika signs autographs and chats with many admirers.
When she first joined the show six years ago, Erika had her very first experience in front of a camera. Now she loves TV, but it took her a while to learn how to be more subtle in her movements -- she was used to having to project for an entire theatre audience. She says, "You must confine your acting to that little box, it's done for one eye, not lots of them. When I came on this show I drove the men on the boom crazy. I was blowing their ears out, I was shouting. Now I get voice notes saying I'm not talking loud enough."
Erika says it's really difficult for an actress to step into an established role that has been played by another actress. "You feel all kinds of insecurities. You wonder, 'Oh, am I as good as the other people who played her before me?' I felt like I was auditioning for the first six weeks I was on the show-they could have gotten rid of me at any time.
"Additionally, it's hard to join a cast where everyone knows each other. You don't know anybody,
and it's like being the new kid in school-in the middle of the term! But this cast was so great to me, that now when we have new people on the show I try to go out of my way to be nice to them and show them around. I know how hard it can be. 'David Pressman directed my audition. He had to fill me in on the storyline. You should have heard him trying to explain Niki/Viki to me!"
What OLTL fan can forget the schizophrenic personality Viki Lord developed in the early years of the show? When Erika took over the role she remembers, .'I did Niki flashbacks, but never had to become Niki on camera."
Perhaps her favorite time working on the show was when her real-life father. Walter Slezak, did four installments with her. Her parents live in Switzerland, but once, while they were visiting New York, Papa Slezak decided it would be fun to act with his daughter. The writers dreamed up a
character for him-Viki's long-absent godfather Lazlo Braedecker, an artist living in Europe who would be coming to Llanview to visit for a few days. It was during the time Viki was trying to get a divorce from Steve Burke in order to remarry Joe Riley.
Erika vividly remembers the very first scene they had together. Viki was to open the front door and greet Lazlo. Walter was supposed to say something like, “You're so beautiful, you haven't changed." Instead, he adlibbed and said, "You're so beautiful, you could be my own daughter!" Erika says, “He made me cry, I was so touched, and surprised!”
“We did four shows together; I even had to give up my dressing room for him. The men's dressing rooms were on the second floor and he didn't want to climb the stairs-he is 75 years old! But for dad, well, I was willing to give up my dressing room."
Of course Erika's famous father had a deep influence on her life, and his actor's lifestyle kept the family on the move. Erika recalls, .'When I was a kid, we constantly went back and forth from Los Angeles to New York. We'd take the train or drive. When my dad drove, we did it in five days. When my mom drove, it took nine days. She couldn't stand it, she'd stop all the time and quit for the day at five o'clock. Dad could yell louder, so when he drove he had his own way. Nursemaids, animals, my older sister, younger brother, and I were all packed into the car. I went to so many schools I can't even count them."
No two people could be less physically alike than Erika and Viki, even though they are the same person. If that sounds confusing, imagine yourself meeting the real Erika, who looks ten years younger than Viki, wears her baby-fine blonde hair in pigtails, wears absolutely no make-up, wears blue jeans all the time, and generally runs around appearing to be 14 years old.
Erika says of her character, "Viki's a very nice lady. She's a bit spoiled and used to having things her own way. She's a very strong character, considering what she's been through. She has strong roots and plenty of money and has never known what it's like to want for anything. Anything wrong that happens in her life comes as a great blow.
"I'm the last person to ask about, her, though. I try to make her as sympathetic to myself as possible. But she's very much closer to being perfect than I am.
"One of our writers says, 'Viki has no seams.' She's always perfectly, groomed, always wears perfect clothes. You never see Viki in the kitchen-never! But supposedly she's now a great cook. You never see Viki cleaning the house or doing anything menial at all.
"Another unlikely situation is that we live in this carriage house and have all this money but we never had a maid until Felicia came to help after I came home from the hospital with Kevin. That's so unrealistic, since I grew up in a houseful of servants."
Some wild things have happened to Erika due to the very different appearance she gives compared to Viki. She laughs as she relates one of them. "A very funny thing happened to me in Washington Square at the Greenwich Village art show. I was in my pigtails and jeans, no make-up as usual, walking my dog on a leash. Suddenly a lady ran up to me and said, 'Oh, Victoria!' Then she yelled for her daughter to come over and said, 'look who this is,' very excitedly. The
daughter looked me over, turned to her mother, and said, 'Who is it?' The mother said, 'It's Viki Lord from "One life To live"!, The daughter looked at me skeptically and said, 'You can't be Viki-she's pretty!' " What could I say?" Erika laughs. "I've had a lot of fun, traveling all over the place for this show," she continues. "I just went to Raleigh, North Carolina, for an ABC affiliate party. I had so much fun. I love doing those things. I'm such a kid I love going on a plane, having someone waiting for me, taking my picture. I think that's so great!"
And she says this not as a prima donna "star," but with a wide-eyed, wonder-filled excitement.
She continues, "I'm astounded at the power of TV. I'll go someplace where there will also be film and, nighttime TV stars and everyone will recognize me and not them! But I'm a character who's in their homes everyday. They have lived through my problems day by day. I'm not thought of as an actress who plays a role one night a week on TV. They see Viki in her most private, vulnerable moments. Viki has no secrets from the audience. They feel privy to that character.
Most people don't bother to make the distinction when they see me on the street. They want to know about Viki, not about Erika."
She admits she loves being recognized, by the public. She says, "It's annoying when people grab at me and scream, but I get a kick out of the recognition, like when a group of teenage girls sees me and they whisper to each other, 'That's Viki" You can hear them squealing all the way down the street. And when I go grocery shopping, the girls in the market say, 'You eat regular food? You do your own laundry?' Who do they think does it -- the leprechauns?
"I get a lot of fan mail-half asks for pictures or says nice things about my acting. But the other half consists of warnings like, 'Be careful! Dorian is really a bad person. Watch out, or such and such will happen!'
"One of the strangest of these was about a year and a half ago. Victor Lord was in a coma. He had a fan in San Diego who had written him for years. When he went into a coma she stopped writing him and began writing to me. At that time a similar thing was happening on "Edge of Night"-a doctor named Clay Jordan was able to save a character who was in a coma. These letters would tell me: 'The only way you can save your father is by getting Dr. Clay Jordan, who is currently practicing in Monticello. But hurry! He'll be going back to Europe soon, that's where he lives.'
"I ignored the letters, but each one got stronger, there were six or seven of them. They'd say, 'Do as I say! Get Dr. Clay Jordan, he's your only hope!' Some people get really mixed up about what's only a show and what's reality. I've lived this show so long I'm afraid it might happen to me!"
