LauraAddicts Articles
WRIGHTEOUS!
Facts
Born on: september 11.
Pets: Two Dalmatians, Shake and Rain
Previous Jobs: Gas station attendant, RFK Stadium pretzel girl, Video club clerk, Tanning Salon salesperson.
How she got hired on LOVING: "It certainly wasn't talent; I can guarantee you that."
She collects: the Wizard Of Oz dolls.
After Some Hard Times In (And On) The CITY, GUIDING LIGHT's Laura Wright Is Finally LOVING Life!
Though she played Ally on LOVING and THE CITY for a combined total of six years, Laura Wright has, until now, been the focus of only one major soap opera digest article -- way back in 1992. And the actress, every bit as no-nonsense as her brand-new GUIDING LIGHT character, Cassie, isn't about to pretend the slim coverage was an oversight or an accident. "I was on a low-rated show and you didn't care," she laughs. "Let's just be honest."
Honesty is, in fact, a quality Wright cherishes -- and on she has fought hard to practice herself since 1991, when a videotaped audition magically transformed her from a gas station attendant in Clinton, MD, to a Manhattan soap star. It sounds like a Cinderella story, and Wright, though she was falling apart on the side, bought into the fairy tale.
"When I moved to New York City, I didn't know anybody, and a lot of the time, I was sitting in my apartment, alone," she begins. Solitude soon took its toll: Wright gained major pounds, ate junk food, smoked enough to single-handedly keep R.J. reynolds in business. "And I was like, 'Oh, my gosh, I'm on a soap,' but it was all so superficial. I was being phony and telling myself I was happy, and there was really nobody there to say, 'No, you're not.'"
Wright did make friends, of course, her first being ALL MY CHILDREN's Kelly Ripa (Hayley). For the longtime ABC fan, it was yet another trip through the looking glass. "My first day at LOVING, Rena Sofer (ex-Rocky) said, 'What do you want to do?' And I said, 'I want to meet Hayley,'" she remembers. "so we all went out for dinner together, and Kelly and I clicked instantly. We would smoke cigarettes together and justify ordering cheese fries. We were so close."
Four years later, Ripa would be instrumental in putting Wright's life back on track. "you can't lie to Kelly," she explains. "She won't let you. And I remember that after Lisa Peluso's (loving's ava; AW Lila) bridal shower, I felt very sad. I was tired, I couldn'T sleep, I was getting really thin, I was in an aweful relationship, LOVING was being cancelled and Paul Anthony Stewart (ex-Casey) had left, which broke my heart. I saw Kelly at a function, and she said, 'I'm sorry, but you are way too skinny.'"
Ripa's observations fortified conclusions that Wright had been nearing on her own. "One night, I was sitting in my apartment, and I had all the lights off and the candles lit. I wasn't meditatin, I was just freaking out," she recalls. "And I was taking all tyhese diet pills to get skinny and I just thought, 'This is not me; this is not normal. I want to be a happy person and this is not right.' And i made the decision to take the bad out of my life."
That night, the actress also decided to call architect John Wright, whom she had dated on and off since she was 16, but hadn'T seen for over two years. "I said, 'Hi, it's Laura,' and he says he knew right then that he was going to marry me,' she smiles. Three weeks later, they were engaged; another 12 weeks and they had tied the knot. Friends thought they were crazy, but says Wright, "When you know, you know."
While Wright sings John's praises up and down ("he's literally the nicest person I've ever met"), she is careful to point out that he was not responsible for the positive U-turn her life made. "I really don't think one person has the answers to your life, and you can't put that pressure on someone else to be your savior," she muses. "I was honest with myself, and I grew up, and I knew what I wanted and that's why my whole life changed."
Since then, her life has continued to change; emotionally speaking, Wright is a work in progress. "I don't trust very easily, and it's taken me up till only recently for him to say 'I love you' and for me to be able to just say, 'I know,'" she shares. "Now, I trust that he's always going to be there for me. And that gives me the courage to face the things that hurt me, and to find out who I am."
That strength and presence of mind came in handy not long ago when LOVING morphed into THE CITY and half of Wright's co-stars got the pink slips. "I wasn't angry about LOVING being cancelled, because it wasn'T me who got fired," she says. "But I was extremely sad." The anger came later, when THE CITY had Ally lusting after Danny, the guy who was basically responsible for the death of her husband, Casey. "i hated that," she says. "It was aweful. They should have just gotten rid of Ally and made me her twin sister or something. It really took away from what Ally and Casey had as a couple." she wasn'T the only one mystified by the asinine plot twist. "I was like, ' Who am I playing?' And directors would say, 'I don't even know what to tell you.'"
Understandably, the actress was almost relieved when THE CITY went to that great soundstage in the sky. "I really wanted to do something else, but being on a soap is a great job, and I don't know that I would have had the courage to just leave by myself. So I was actually kind of excited. I had no idea what I would be doing."
Less than three months later, she had her answer: GUIDING LIGHT. "I'm having a great time here," she grins, citing co-stars Kim Zimmer (Reva), Ron Raines (Alan) and Cynthia Watros (Annie) as primary sources of on-set pleasure. "Plus, I love my character," she adds. "cassie is such a challenge -- she's a far cry from Ally."
But not as far as the actress herself is from the Laura we first (and, okay, last) interviewed five years ago. "I look back at old pictures of myself, and I just wasn't happy," she marvels. "Now i see that, because I'm having such a great time in my life today. And I just go, 'Wow!'"
The Dating Game
"I have the best memory in the world," says Wright. "It drives my husband crazy. I'll says 'Don'T you remember...' and he's like, 'I remember the situation, but I don'T remember the shirt I was wearing.' and I'm like, 'The red one.'" That said, we decided to test the actress's recall of certain key dates in her life...
DIGEST:When did you meet Kelly Ripa?
WRIGHT: Well, let's see. I screen-tested for LOVING on June 7, 1991. I started work on Friday, June 9. And that Friday, we went out to dinner.
DIGEST: When was LOVING cancelled?
WRIGHT: I know the cast found out on June 10, 1995, but wait, that was Lisa Peluso's wedding, so I guess we found out on June 14.
DIGEST:When did you get back together with John?
WRIGHT: We had dinner on June 18, 1995. We got engaged on July 8. Saturday October 7, we got married. Then we started taping THE CITY on October 9.
DIGEST: When was THE CITY cancelled?
WRIGHT: Okay, uh, it was the Friday before Thanksgiving, whatever that day was. The last day of work on THE CITY was March9, though my last day was March 7. The last air date was around March 28.
DIGEST: When did you screen test for GL?
WRIGHT: June 7, 1997. Isn't that funny? It's the same day I auditionned for LOVING, six years earlier. GL told me I got the job on June 9, which was the date I started taping at LOVING. My first day at GL was June 20.
DIGEST: What was your first GL air-date?
WRIGHT: Oh, now you've got me. hmm. Oh -- the 4th of July was my first air date. And June 25, 1991 was my first air date on LOVING.
DIGEST: When did PAul Anthony Stewart quit LOVING?
WRIGHT: No! You've got me on that one. It was June. No, it was May. Because June 2 was the Emmys, and he had already been off the show a couple weeks by then.
DIGEST: This is really incredible!
WRIGHT: I know. My memory is so good, when we needed to do flashbacks on LOVING, the producers would come to me and ask when such-and-such happened so they could find the tape!
By Adam Kelly
Soap Opera Digest, 1997
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