Soap Opera Digest
August 20, 1991
Daytime's Top Ten: When it Comes to these
Soap Characters Accept No Substitutes
By: unknown
One Life to
Live
Erika Slezak as Viki Buchanan
Remember the old proverb, "a great actress is someone who could recite the
telephone book and make it sound interesting?" Well, that describes Erika Slezak
to a tee. She can take the most improbable storylines, and somehow make us
swallow them hook, line and sinker. While other soap matriarchs merely fret over
their broken marriages, Viki worries what part of the time barrier she's going
to crash through next. She's already been to heaven, hell, Eterna and stopped
off to visit her own great grandparents back in 1888. Even in Llanview, her
escapades often defy reality - and we buy it. In fact, we love it when she goes
on "automatic pilot" and turns into her trashy alter ego Niki.
Slezak may not be the only star with a twenty-year tour of soap duty behind
her, but who else plays a loving wife, devoted mother, sharp businesswoman,
ex-mayor, haughty socialite and part-time schizophrenic rolled into one?
As long as she wants to stay, rest assured they'll never run out of Friday
cliffhangers for her. She's the heart and soul of the show.
