“It’s okay,’’ she said of the show closing, then took it back. “Well, no, it’s not; our ratings were good, and the stories are great, and the reason we were given — I rarely curse in public — but it was bull.”
In the past week alone, Slezak’s Viki has been shot, journeyed to purgatory (referred to in the script as “Between Heaven and Hell,’’ a deft reference to Nixon’s original title for the soap) and beaten out a 25-year-old — “half my age and with a tenth of my intelligence!’’ Viki declared — for the affections of her second and perhaps future husband. Over the years, she’s survived rape, betrayal, kidnapping, the loss of a child, a stroke, a heart transplant and breast cancer. (The former Mrs. Rudy Giuliani, Donna Hanover, played her cancer doc.) Oh, and “I have no kidneys,” having given one away on at least two occasions.
About 10 years ago, in her 50s, Slezak went to Hollywood to do a TV movie and was asked whether she wanted to do more of that kind of work. “And I said, ‘Sure,’ and the woman I was talking to said, ‘Good, because there are lots of old-mom parts.’ And I thought, ‘No, I’m going to go back to Llanview and get in bed with my next hubby.’ ” She’s won six daytime Emmys for work that included time travel to the 1800s, four trips to heaven and two stints in elected office.
So did Viki run as a Democrat in the swing state of Pennsylvania? Slezak wasn’t sure, but she said her favorite thing about the character was the way she’d matured from someone who knew all the answers to someone who knew better than to think that. By far, her favorite relationship, she said, was Viki’s with her rival-turned-soul mate, the fiery Dorian Lord, played by Robin Strasser.
Had the show gone on, Slezak said, Dorian, who’d been appointed to an empty U.S. Senate seat vacated in a sexting scandal, was going to become president.
As Slezak spoke, Strasser swept into Slezak’s dressing room as if on cue, in what she called “a very Dorian look’’ — a chic checkered suit with a trailing fur stole and amazing jewelry. The two women embraced and got misty all over again. “I knew you’d wear ‘Dorian red,’ and I’m wearing ‘Viki red,’ ” Slezak told her friend.
The mob of fans at “The View” taping, many of them in T-shirts that said, “I can’t cope without my soap’’ or “Property of ‘One Life to Live’ since 1968,” were there to pay tribute to the actresses and their co-stars, who’ve been in their living rooms for so long that they think of them as family.
“I’m devastated,’’ said Maria Sordi of Brooklyn, who added that she was hooked on the soap opera because “it makes you laugh every day.”
The reality show that’s replacing “One Life” is called “The Revolution,’’ which includes Tim Gunn and will offer lots of tips on how women can lose weight and otherwise improve themselves. It promises to be a far cry from the memorable matriarchs of Llanview, and I, for one, plan to improve my life by not watching.
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