LESSONS LEARNED

I was interviewed by National Public Radio recently about this article I wrote for Kveller.com.  I don't know when it will air yet and, considering the host introduced me by promising that our discussion "will push people's buttons," I also don't know how I'll come off sounding.

Since NPR is headquartered in Washington, DC, I did my interview from a local PBS studio.  And the entire experience made me think of A Martinez.

I'll explain.

In 1994, I was working for E!'s Pure Soap, a live, daily, half-hour talk show about, what else? soap operas.

Over the course of the year during which it was on the air, we had some phenomenally terrific, gracious, fun guests, most notably Eileen Davidson, J. Eddie Peck, Darlene Conoly, Wally Kurth, Louise Sorel, Catherine Hickland, and Jean Carol, among others.  (We also had some truly obnoxious ones, but I won't be listing their names here.  Like I wrote in my post about figure skating below, I'll pen my tell-all book when I'm sure I never, ever want to work in the business again.)

The guest who impressed me the most, however, was A Martinez.

The Santa Barbara star (this was pre-General Hospital and One Life to Live) was on to promote his record album (yes, we still had records then).  When blew me away about him was that, in addition to being wonderful to the cast and production staff, A also went out of his way to introduce himself to every member of the crew - stage manager, camera-men, audio, etc... - asking their names and shaking their hands.  Before leaving, he said good-bye and thank you to each one individually.

His behavior stuck with me to the point that, eighteen years later, I tried to do the same when it was my turn to be in front of the microphone.

There aren't a lot of actors - or people, in general - you can say that about.