A TALE OF TWO CITIES

When I interviewed Linda Dano (Felicia, AW; Rae, OLTL, Cynthia, ATWT) a few weeks ago for Soap Opera 451: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama's Greatest Moments, she generously shared so many wonderful stories with me that I promised readers of this blog some excerpts, in addition to what will appear in the book.

Below, Linda talks about her first days in Bay City, and... what was that other place?

I came from prime-time, where you rehearsed a lot and you did two pages a day – daytime scared the pants off me. I just shook like a leaf for probably the first six months. I did a scene where I had to hand someone a cup of coffee, and I literally had my hand over the cup because it was shaking so hard, and I didn’t want to shake it off the plate. I was not used to that kind of quickness, and then, as the years went on, I got more and more familiar with that one shot/let’s blow it out with one shot, and I loved it.

When I went to Llanview after leaving Another World, one of the scenes in the first week I’m there, I have to say, “Llanview.”

I can’t say it.

I’d call it Llanfair, Llanwood, Llansomething.

I couldn’t remember Llanview. I don’t know why.

Well, probably because I was terrified, being on a new show. “Oh, my god, they hate me, they don’t want me to be here!”

And finally I said, “Bay City?”

After that, all the cameramen put a sign up – Llanview. So I did it the next time.

For more from Linda, click here.