Daytime TV 1978
“MY RULES FOR A PERFECT MARRIAGE”
1. Make sure your husband is your best friend.
2. Share everything – the big problems and the little problems, too.
3. When it comes to long separations, try you darndest to avoid them.
4. If you can't, well…a phone call is better than a lonely heart.
5. Tradition helps – use it to enhance your love.
Six years before she wed actor Brian Davies, One Life To Live's Erika Slezak predicted exactly the kind of marriage she wanted. “I'm waiting to find a man with whom I can have the same relationship that my parents have,” she told Daytime TV. “Daddy never went anywhere that he didn't take my mother along. Marriage is not easy and whatever my parents have together, they've worked hard for. I want the same kind of family life that I grew up in.”
When Erika became a bride this summer, she seemed to be following all her rules for a perfect marriage. She and Brian were best friends before they started dating; and during their four-year courtship, they learned to share everything. Early this year, when Brian had to go to Hollywood to work on the movie, Convoy, Erika was forced to break rule no. 3 about avoiding separations, but she followed rule no. 4 faithfully. In fact, Erika not only joked that the long-distance phone bills were bankrupting them, but they commuted back and forth between L.A. and N.Y. as often as possible to be with each other. As for rule no. 5, when they tied the knot at the Fifth Avenue Church in N.Y. with loads of family and friends on hand, the accent was definitely on tradition.
Erika chose an August wedding date, perhaps because it's a lucky month for her. Her birthday is August 5, and she won her first professional acting role on August 17, 1966. But marrying Brian has to be the luckiest move she ever made.
