After Three Very Low-Profile Years, GENERAL HOSPITAL's Nancy Lee Grahn Is Making A Big Splash On Soaps Again
Just the Facts
Born On: April 28
Pets: One golden retriever, Wags
Why She Has To Do Everything Herself Nowadays: "Louise Sorel [Vivian, DAYS OF OUR LIVES] took my personal assistant."
She Lives Two Doors Down From: MP's Brooke Langton (Samantha)
On Tying With Debbi Morgan (ex-Angie, ALL MY CHILDREN) At The 1989 Emmys: "They called Debbi's name first. But once they said it was a tie, I knew it was me."
How's this for a Hollywood absurdity? After SANTA BARBARA was canceled, casting directors would put out calls for "a Nancy Lee Grahn type"... but they didn't actually want the newly available Nancy Lee Grahn.
"That happened to me more than once," sighs the actress, who attracted legions of fans, incessant critical praise and a Supporting Actress Daytime Emmy during her eight-year tenure as SB's beleaguered Julia. "And I'm raising my hand, going, 'I'm right here!' And they only wanted a type, someone like me! How insulting is that?"
Insulting? Nah. Near-sighted? You betcha. But either way, Grahn's getting the last laugh. Last September, GH Executive producer Wendy Riche handed her the role of feisty Cassadine attorney Alexis Davis, no audition required; this year, Grahn snagged eight hilariously malevolent weeks as Matt's sister-in-law, Denise on MELROSE PLACE. "It's been such a nice switch," she laughs. "It's fun to wake up in the morning and think, ' What show do I do today?' "
Paradoxically, her three years off -- not that it really was time off, since she produced a pilot, wrote a script for ANOTHER WORLD and acted here and there all along -- started out as a self- imposed exile. Right after SB was axed, almost all her castmates found new gigs on other shows; Grahn herself deflected advances by AS THE WORLD TURNS about the role of Margo.
"I really needed some downtime," she explains. "When SANTA BARBARA ended, I felt like I had given birth. I was tired. The creative well was dry. I wasn't even sure I wanted to act anymore. I needed to do other things, and I did, which is why I ultimately had no regrets about [not going to ATWT]. But I did think when I wanted to get back [on a soap], I would be able to, which wasn't necessarily the case."
To say that Grahn has definite feeling about why that wasn't the case would be a bit of an understatement. "If you're a lawyer and you do a good job, you can go and get another job at a different firm simply because you're qualified. But that's not how [the TV industry] works. The truth is, they're very focused on the young. If you're over 35 -- or actually, 32 is probably the cutoff -- they're not terribly interested in you, no matter how qualified you are."
Hollywood's focus on youth and beauty actually gets the calm, collected actress pretty riled up. "This industry is cruel to women as they get older," she charges, "and it has got to change. The media has got to stop putting skinny, bulimic women with fake breasts on televisions and saying this is 'the look.' Nobody should feel badly because they don't look like that." She grins, a concession that she's up on the soapbox. "I really want women to know their worth."
That desire was borne long ago, when Grahn was growing up in Skokie, Illinois. "I don't think my mother would mind me saying this, because I'm so proud of her, and so proud of what she's instilled in me," she says quietly. "My mother grew up with a cleft palate, and the amount of abuse she took as a result of that is horrifying to me. But you would never know it from her. And I was homecoming queen and top cheerleader and I would say things like, 'I look so terrible and I'm fat.' She could so easily have said, 'Let me tell you something, pal.' But she never told me about all the abuse she took, not until I asked her when I was in my 20s.
"And my point is," she continues, "I don't want women to feel badly because they don't look like the women on soap operas. I don't want my mother to have felt badly because she had a cleft palate. Nobody should feel badly because they don't look like some ridiculous woman that hair, lighting and makeup had disguised. But it's hard not to feel that way when the only women on TV are quote-unquote beautiful."
The irony, of course, is that Grahn herself is beautiful. If she wasn't, she might not have won her first soap role, as ONE LIFE TO LIVE's Beverly Wilkes. She might not have kissed Tom Selleck on MAGNUM, P.I. She probably wouldn't have worked on MELROSE PLACE.
"You know what?" she says evenly. "I think that's too bad. I think, 'Lucky for me, but how unlucky for a lot of these actresses who may not have been as physically good-looking, but were much better actors.' It's not fair. And if I can do anything to change that, then I will."
In the meantime, Grahn's having a blast at GH, "where substance is emphasized." Much like SB's Julia and V herself, Alexis is a woman with definite opinions. "I like her because she's smart," the actress says. "I won't play a woman who isn't because that's very limiting."
Although she started as a recurring character, right now it looks like Grahn will be under contract and on GH long enough for Alexis to develop some serious longings... possibly for Ned. The MP rile is more up in the air. "I'm not scheduled to come back next year," she reports, "but it's like Aaron [Spelling] says: 'If you don't get blown up, then you never know.' "
That's fine with Grahn, who's actually applying that wait-and-see attitude to her personal life as well. Never married, though she did spend two well-publicized years with SUNSET BEACH's Sam Behrens (Gregory), the actress would like to settle down, but says the anxiety that once pushed her is no longer there.
"I would love to find the right guy," she muses. "And I'm not saying I'll never get married. But I remember talking with a very wise man once, and he said, 'You need to get to a point in your life where it will be okay if you don't meet the right person.' And at the time, I thought. 'That's not okay at all.' Well, guess what? It is okay."
One way or another, Grahn does plan on having children -- but in the meantime, she's enjoying being an aunt. "My nephew started calling me 'Ninny,' because he couldn't pronounce 'Nancy,' " she laughs. "Somehow it took, and now my best friends and family, nieces and nephews all call me that."
That and other things. "If someone yells 'Ninny,' I turn around," Grahn smiles. "If someone yells 'Nancy,'' I turn around, If someone yells 'Julia,' I turn around. And I'm looking forward to when someone yells 'Alexis' and I turn around for that, too.
Thanks to Ali (ShoshanaNP) for giving me this article!
Sidebar:
Scenes From A Career
Here are Grahn's thoughts on working with some of the most famous faces in daytime and prime-time, including: