Within the past two years, Grant Aleksander (Phillip Spaulding), Beth Ehlers (Harley Cooper) and Beth Chamberlin (Beth Raines Spaulding) all returned to their roles on GUIDING LIGHT--and to the all-too familiar chaos of soap opera romance. Over pasta at an Italian restaurant near the show’s Manhattan studio, the actors tried to untangle their characters’ collectively snarled lives—-but tangents like lingerie, hickeys and Ron Raines (Alan Spaulding) were waiting in the wings...
Digest:
Phillip came back to GL in 1996 and didn’t have a date for a year. Now, he’s got two heroines fighting over him.
Aleksander:
I know. They were terrified to put him with somebody else because of all the history with Beth.
Ehlers:
And because they’ve always wanted Phillip and Rick together.
Aleksander:
Well, we’ve played that.
Digest (to Aleksander):
You must have been pleased when Beth Ehlers came back and you suddenly had a story again.
Aleksander:
I thought it was a good way to...no, actually, I’ll tell you the truth. Beth and I always got along; we always worked well together, but when they told me they were going to put Phillip and Harley together, my initial feeling was, “I really can’t see that working.” But yeah, it was absolutely good to have something to do again, because I was going to leave the show. I had pretty much made up my mind to play out the rest of my contract, collect my money and go.
Ehlers:
I had an easier time seeing us together because I knew we would be able to fall back on our senses of humor. Also, I think he was remembering me as being much younger.
Aleksander:
Yeah, you had changed a lot by the time you came back to the show. And then it turned out the fans liked us together, which was nice.
Digest (to Chamberlin):
Was that disheartening? When you were last on the show, everybody wanted you with Phillip, and now, practically nobody does.
Chamberlin:
Actually, it was sort of refreshing for me. Before, Beth was so boring. Now that I’m the third wheel, I get to run off and do all these crazy things.
Ehlers:
She’s no longer taking her medication. It’s like, “This is not the Beth I remember.”
Chamberlin:
I mean, when I came on again, the writers TOLD me that they wanted the audience rooting for Phillip and Harley. So I know what my role was.
Ehlers:
And also, rooting for a couple is not like you have three colors in front of you and you pick your favorite. They’ve obviously writing toward Phillip and Harley being together, so that’s the way the audience is going to be swayed.
Digest (to Chamberlin):
Still, you can’t have expected that Beth would be taking off her clothes and jumping in front of cars.
Ehlers:
Did you ask for that storyline?
Chamberlin (laughing):
No, I didn’t ask. I HOPED, but did not ask. But I liked that stuff because it was so pathetic, so absolutely humiliating, that, as an actor...
Aleksander (interrupting):
As an actor, that’s every day.
Chamberlin (ignoring him):
As an ACTOR...
Ehlers:
She said “actor.”
Aleksander:
I heard her.
(Chamberlin convulses with laughter.)
Aleksander:
I thought you found some nice moments in those scenes.
Chamberlin:
Oh, thank you.
Aleksander:
The pasties were a nice choice.
Digest:
Was it embarrassing to have to take off all your clothes like that?
Chamberlin:
It’s quite uncomfortable.
Ehlers:
Suddenly, there were, like, 50 or 60 crew guys on the set.
Aleksander:
Most of them had just been released from prison.
Chamberlin:
You tell yourself, “This is just like wearing a bikini at the beach.” But it’s different. You’re in lingerie, and there’s just no getting around that.
Ehlers:
And you’re on the set, the lights are on you, everyone’s in the dark...
(Ehlers and Aleksander begin to wonder what thoughts could have been going through onlookers’ minds during Chamberlin’s lingerie scenes.)
Chamberlin (to Digest):
Do you think I’m too highbrow for these two?
Aleksander:
Highbrow. Now that’s the word that comes to mind when I think of you.
Ehlers:
Did you see “Showgirls?”
Digest:
Have any of you done any scenes recently that you’re especially fond of?
Ehlers:
I liked the lighter stuff we did, the loony bin and the New York stuff.
Aleksander:
I tend to like the simpler stuff, too. I’ll do the heavy stuff when it’s required, but I don’t enjoy it as much anymore. Like, last week we had the culmination of the murder mystery, and we all cranked it up, got the waterworks going, left blood in the aisles. That’s what the story required. But I always end up feeling a bit silly after I do that now.
Digest:
Did you know from the start that Lizzie was the killer?
Aleksander:
I did.
Ehlers:
Grant knows everything.
Digest:
Were you told straight-out?
Aleksander:
Yeah. It wasn’t like, “I’m going to tell you, but not anybody else.” I just had a conversation with someone and they said, “I’ll tell you, but don’t tell anyone.” Because they knew I wouldn’t.
Ehlers:
He never told me. I never knew. (Suddenly, Ron Raines, who plays Alan, sends a message to the table from outside the restaurant. Digest goes out to meet him.)
Digest:
Why don’t you come in and have lunch with us?
Raines:
I don’t have time. Tell them I would, but I don’t like any of them [laughs].
(Digest rejoins the group.)
Digest:
Ron won’t eat with us because he doesn’t like any of you.
Aleksander:
He is so catty.
Ehlers:
You know, one comment about how bad he smells, and he takes it so personally.
Aleksander:
“Get back into life with Depends,” that’s what I told him.
Chamberlin:
Ron came up to me with the best pickup line the other day. He goes, “Come to my room; I need to check you for fleas.”
Digest:
Does it ever get confusing that there are two Beths and a Beth character on the set?
Aleksander:
All the time.
Ehlers:
But we’ve sort of gotten to a place where people can handle it. Except every once in a while, someone will call, “Beth, come to the stage.”
Chamberlin:
And we’re like, “Which one?”
Digest:
Grant, what would people be surprised to learn about both Beths?
Chamberlin (in anticipation):
Grant?
Aleksander (takes a deep breath):
Okay...is all the silverware gone? Hmm, I think this change in Beth Raines has been good, because it really offers a window into the soul of Beth Chamberlin. Things are being confirmed now that people have suspected for years. But I can’t really think of anything that’s very surprising about them. They’re both arrogant, obnoxious divas. I mean, look at [Ehlers’s] scarf. Is that you being a diva, or are we hiding a hickey?
Ehlers:
I don’t see my husband enough to have a hickey.
Digest:
What would people be surprised to know about Grant?
Aleksander:
Bring it on.
Ehlers:
He’s uncooperative, unsupportive, sarcastic and, at times, cruel.
(Chamberlin laughs uncontrollably.)
Ehlers:
You just have to hope his cruelty is not directed at you. When it’s directed toward other people, it’s hysterical.
Aleksander:
That is a total fabrication.
Digest:
And yet, you all manage to suppress your personality flaws enough to make the storyline really work.
Chamberlin:
I think--I’m being serious, now--that we are all pretty passionate about wanting to make the scenes as good as possible.
Aleksander:
Right. I can be a pain in the ass, but I’m generally a pain about trying to make things better.
Ehlers:
The thing I like about the three of us is that we’ve all been at GUIDING LIGHT, we’ve all left, and we all came back. So it’s really about the work for us. As opposed to people who are just starting out, who get caught up in daytime and kind of lose themselves, it’s really about the work, with us. We’re all married in real life; we’re all happy. We go to work, leave in the evening and go home.
Chamberlin:
We’re stable.
Aleksander:
Although, talk about being a pain, I hate doing photo shoots.
Chamberlin:
Grant, I saw the funniest picture the other day. It was of the three of us, and I was draped over one of your arms, and Beth was on the other, and you’re in the middle with a tiny smile on your face, like, “Ain’t bad, is it?” It was so hysterical. It was the other side of Phillip Spaulding, where he’s thinking, “Hey—I’ve got two babes fighting over me.”
Aleksander:
Well the truth is, there ARE worse situations.
Three’s Company