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Phillip Spaulding: Tycoon or Teddy Bear?
GL's Grant Aleksander Sets the Record Straight
By Richard Spencer
Soap Opera Update
May 15, 1989

Grant Aleksander doesn't give many interviews. Not because he has something to hide, or nothing to say. Believe it or not, he's kind of shy about his popularity.

Flat out, straight up. If the truth be told, he not crazy about publicity. "I don't do many interviews or personal appearances," tells Grant Aleksander, "...and to tell you the truth, I don't know what motivates me to do the ones that I do. There's no rhyme or reason. I try to do as little as I can because it is not something I enjoy a lot, because you do go through some where you are misquoted or misrepresented."

Few, though, would think it is editorializing to say that Grant Aleksander plays one of daytime television's most developed male characters. Soon after joining "Guiding Light" in 1982, Grant became part of one of the most tender and well-received young story lines on the soaps. Together with co-star Judi Evans (currently Adrienne on "Days of Our Lives"), Phillip and Beth even helped snag a few million viewers from "General Hospital" to give "Guiding Light" a turn at the top of the ladder. And when you make waves like that, you're bound to get popular. Grant Aleksander did. He was amazed and encouraged, and a few years later he left the show and New York with girlfriend and actress Sherry Ramsey to move to L.A. There he spent most of his time working on the now defunct soap, "Capitol." Grant returned to "Guiding Light," and although Phillip was still carrying around his emotional heartache over his manipulative father and his deceased lover, Phillip had changed dramatically. He had taken his place in the family business. Certainly his zealous fans had mellowed or changed, as Phillip did from romantic hero to mature executive?

"I think any mail you get, if you are a male character, is based on the story line," Grant analyzes. "When the Phillip and Beth story line was very popular and our show was at the top of the ratings, I got a ton of mail. If you took any other two people and put them in that position, the response may have varied one way or another, but not a great deal. The most important thing in anything entertainment-wise is the writing. If your writing is good, it is going to be good. You can get by with a lot of actors, but you can't get by with bad writing for long. I think if I were doing a romantic story with an actress, I would expect the response to be fairly similar…I do have more mature women writing to me now," Grant shares, "but still a lot of little girls. Mostly little girls," he repeats with a gentleness that would make them faint.

And they would. A Greek god is how Phillip was once described. Grant Aleksander has been deemed the perfect matinee idol, yet he admits he often feels uneasy about being approached. "I'm a real private person," Grant explains. "I'm not very comfortable with meeting people in general. So most of the time when people come up and say hello, or whatever, I just try to be as pleasant as I can. Answer questions if they have any, but I'm not a very gregarious person, at least not at first meeting.

"A lot of different reasons," brought Grant back to "Guiding Light." With Grant and Sherry's families both on the east coast, and the couple being true "Easterners," Grant reflects that, "it just seemed right. We felt like fish out of water in California." Did he plan on doing things differently this time at GL?

"I made a conscious effort to try not to get sucked in to some of the aspects that I think are unattractive," Grant says. "There's a lot of games being played, all the unpleasant sides of the business. Anytime you get a bunch of insecure egos together in one place you are going to have certain negative sides. I tried to stay as much away from that kind of attitude, not just in others, but myself. I really want to do it this time."

And he has changed since his first tenure with "Guiding Light." "There is an unfortunate thing that happens once you've done it for a little while, and the blush is a little off he rose," he illustrates. "You see things a little bit more from the business standpoint. I think the thing that changes, at least in daytime, is the constant balance you're trying to seek, and I think I have moved more towards being able to realize the limitations of the medium…I would take that frustration over the fact that we didn't have enough time to get it right, home with me. I don't do that very much anymore."

His first home, where he was raised, outside Baltimore, Maryland, was a happy one for Grant. "I was your basic insecure child growing up. I was a fat kid. I was a bit ostracized when I was young, but that's a normal problem. Actually it was good for me because it made me spend a lot of time by myself, reading and being introspective. That is a major reason why I ended up doing this."

Phillip's struggle over love has been a plight Grant admits he can't parallel with his own life. "It might have had the same kind of story as Phillip and Beth, but I met Sherry, it's coming up on ten years ago. We fell in love right away, and were married last year. We've had a wonderful life together."

Grant Aleksander has seemingly found the happiness of life that has so eluded his Springfield counterpart. Perhaps Phillip should learn a thing or two from Grant.