All this and brains, too !
By Lisa Hallett, Soap Opera Digest, 1990	Home   Cette page en Français

Don't expect to find Nancy Grahn cavorting with big hair and fanny-framing pants in the next Jackie Collins miniseries. Not that she doesn't have the physical attributes, mind you. It's just that the portrayal of women on television and in film is a subject about which the Santa Barbara actress feels impassioned - actually one of many subjects. And, as you might guess, Grahn prefers to step into the skins of characters who have some gray matter thriving between their ears. "Women who use their sexuality as a way to get what they want are not interesting to me, unless there's a payoff and you see that it's not really a smart thing to do," she states, rattling off a list of character types she abhors. "Women who are not smart. Women who are indecisive. Women who are not three-dimensional and are vacuous and vapid... which a lot of them are. I would much prefer to do this."

She is referring to her stint for the past five years on NBC's Santa Barbara as attorney Julia Wainwright Capwell, a role that garnered Grahn a Daytime Emmy in 1989 for Best Supporting Actress. On the road to Santa Barbara, Nancy spent four years in New York, where she attended the Neighborhood Playhouse, portrayed villainess Beverly Wilkes for nearly a year on One Life to Live and performed in regional repertory productions. In Los Angeles, she did practically "all the top-ten shows of the time" (e.g., Magnum, P.I.; Knight Rider; Murder She Wrote) before she signed on with Santa Barbara. Grahn recently re-signed with the show, citing a "business" decision and her closeness to the character as reasons for continuing. "This is not to be taken in any kind of psychotic form whatsoever, but Julia has become a friend to me," she laughs. "I really like this character, and I like how I play her. I learn things about myself through playing her, and I think the way I play her is beneficial to other people."

Grahn shakes her bangs off her brow as she juggles a cranberry beverage and a cup of chicken soup in her dressing room on the Burbank lot. It is not yet time for dress rehearsal, so a bare-faced Nancy is outfitted casually in jeans, sneakers and a hand-knit cardigan. In conversation, the actress starts to describe a feeling or idea, often interrupting herself to search for more appropriate words. In doing so, she reveals a desire to effectively express herself, a trait perhaps acquired through therapy and much self-admitted soul-searching.

"Julia," she continues, "is a very good role model. There are very few female roles on TV that are good role models. I think that the perception of women in this day and age is one of the most important things, because we need to switch over in a matriarchal position. I think the female side needs to come out more in the world, in terms of nurturing the planet, in terms of being kinder to people. We're in trouble and we need to start taking care of each other. That‘s a very female thing, and that's why they call it Mother Nature."

It is evident that this confident woman has a keen interest in what goes on at Studio Eleven. Grahn does not hesitate to offer the writers and producers her input into a particular storyline involving Julia. "They have an hour show each day and twenty-five characters, so it's not reasonable to think that they can go into the depth of my character as well as I can. I give a lot of thought to her - it matters to me. I also have a very smart following. The people who watch the show like me, support me, and are very smart people, particularly smart women I got very intelligent letters, and you can't pull stuff off on them because they don't buy it. (Santa Barbara's writers and producers) clearly see that if I'm not buying it, the (viewers) won't."

On this particular day, Grahn is occupying her thoughts with the recent storyline involving Mason's alcoholism - it hits disturbingly close to home. Grahn's father was an alcoholic throughout Nancy's childhood and young-adult life, and those years had a profound effect on Nancy, her mother and two sisters. Her father's own battle with the bottle "makes me a lot more self-conscious about the telling of the (Santa Barbara) story. It means a lot to me that they do it well and that they show Julia's point of view. That's been my argument all along - the alcoholic is an element that needs to be dealt with, and I think that's evident. There's no insurance for rehabilitation for the family members, and they're just as sick as the alcoholic. And they don't get to swallow the drink or take the pill, so there's no escape for them."

Nancy's mother eventually got through to her husband and convinced him to enter a care unit (which just happened to be across the street from the Grahns' Skokie, Illinois, home). In her early twenties and living in Los Angeles at the time, Nancy flew back to Illinois to help her father during this difficult period. With the strong support of his wife and three daughters, Bob Grahn stuck it out for the three-week program. "Once he got better, I all of a sudden realized there was something wrong with me," Nancy reveals. "Why am I like this ? Why am I in relationships that are hurtful ? Why do I always create chaos ? I thought, "God, I'm a terrible person. There's something really wrong with me." Well, immediately I got put into a therapy program for children of alcoholics."

Nancy claims an ability to spot the offspring of alcoholics within a few minutes of talking to them. "I'm generalizing, but it's very common that you tend to have relationships with people who have personalities of alcoholics or are alcoholics, because it's unfinished business. Or you'll go after someone who can‘t give you what you want. That's true for people who have fathers who were absentee or left the family. There could be a man in my life that would be saying things that, in my mind, I'd be going, "Well, that's really quite inappropriate." But I would just block it, and then make up the dialogue for him and say, "He didn't say that. What he really meant was this. He didn't mean to drink. He can't help himself, so I‘ll take the responsibility." It's really very complex." Bob Grahn has been sober for nine years now, and actually went back to school to become a counselor. "He is clearly the most important man in my life," Nancy says of her father, adding, "I can't imagine how anyone could ever be more important than he is."

Julia Capwell might say the same thing about Mason. It is with some sadness that Grahn rehearses a couple of crucial scenes in the final few days of working with buddy Terry Lester. "I'm very connected to (Terry) at this point, and I love him. I wish he would stay. And I wish they wouldn't replace him, so that maybe a romance (for Julia) could start all over again. She needs somebody colorful... somebody witty and smart and tragic and professional, because she is those things. If you give her somebody less than that, the chemistry is not interesting."

Hopefully, the ingredients that make a fictional couple spice up a set will be found in Grahn's new pairing with Lester's replacement, Gordon Thomson (ex-Adam Carrington, Dynasty). Of her new mate, Grahn says : "I hear that he is a delightful man, a hard worker and smart. I hope everything goes great. Change is always difficult, but a way of life, and I hope everyone will bear with us while we find our way together."

There's a certain strong-mindedness that exists in both Julia and Nancy. Both are committed to various causes - Nancy, of course, speaks out on alcoholism and helped form the pro-choice organization called Daytime for Choice. And while the actress has been involved in a few serious relationships, her discriminating taste has kept her from settling for "just anybody."

The similarities don't stop there. Nancy believes she would be the kind of mother Julia is - caring and committed. "I have the desire to have a child, as Julia did. And, the way things are going," she laughs. "I may end up having it the same way." (On Santa Barbara, Julia struck a deal with Mason to sire her child before they ever became a couple.)

"I'm not saying it would be the ideal situation," she continues. "I really have a desire to take the attention off myself to take what I've learned and try to help somebody else. I would also like to give someone a loving chance in this world, but I have some concerns about the way the world is right now. But I‘m looking positively toward the future, and I think everything will work out fine for me. It has so far, so I don't have reason to believe that it won't."

And what type of man would fit her qualifications ? "Somebody solid and self-assured. A sense of humor is incredibly important, and, basically, somebody who just has a certain wisdom. I was talking to a friend of mine, and I said, "It's going to be hard for me to find the right man - someone I would want to marry and be the father of my children." I think it‘s why I wasn't ready up until now. I want to be a mother more than anything, but because I have known such pure, unconditional love (from her family), my expectations are high. Once you have that, anything less is certainly something you can understand, but nothing you want to live with. That's interesting," she adds thoughtfully. And Nancy Grahn sets off down yet another path of self-discovery.