The dramatic end told by Cruz
By A Martinez, Télé 7 Jours, 1993	Home   Cette page en Français

"January 8, 1993. This date will remain engraved in my memory forever. With a figure : 2137. The number of the last episode of Santa Barbara, precisely shot this 8 January and aired on January 15. Of course, since I left the show to play in L.A. Law, I am undoubtedly a little less concerned. But this brutal end, dramatic, I wanted to share it with all these actors, these actresses who, after years spent together, became friends. I were there with them - and with others like Robin Wright and Marcy Walker, who left before me - when had been shot the first episode, a little more than eight years and a half ago. I understand that the network NBC is not a patron, and the ratings law is even harder in the United States, as it seems to me, that in the European countries which I could visit, thanks to Santa Barbara. Each episode had become too expensive compared to the ratings. They however received many letters, the producers and the persons in charge of the network, but all the fans who begged that Santa Barbara has been kept on the air did not obtained satisfaction. The combat was too unequal.

I am happy that the executive producer, Paul Rauch, decided to give to Santa Barbara at the same time a dramatic and romantic end with, for each main character remained in the cast of the show, a very well imagined destiny. It has been very difficult for the actors, who really wanted to cry while playing some scenes - as told me Judith McConnell - knowing that they would not return any more in these studios where they lived a part of their life.

Judith, in the role of Sophia Capwell, finds happiness with her ex-husband, C.C. Capwell, my old buddy finally not so old than that Jed Allan. Julia Wainwright, sorry Nancy Grahn - but with force, one ends up calling the actors of the name of the hero - does not need us to be sorry for her either ! First, with her husband of the show, Mason Capwell, she has the right to the last image of Santa Barbara, that which will enter the history of television, and in more she awaits - always in the show - a child. It is even after a part of arm-wrestling, very peaceful, and whereas Mason seems to gain - a nice idea of scenario - that she acknowledges finally the happy truth to him.

There has been a lot of weddings in Santa Barbara - of which mine of course, with Eden Capwell - my friend Marcy Walker. Then the writers decided that, for this end of show, there would be two new ones. Initially, the one of Ted Capwell played by Michael Brainard, with Lily Blake, the daughter of Gina Blake - Robin Mattson - and who has the pretty face of Paula Irvine. And then the one of B.J. Walker - Sydney Penny - with Warren Lockridge, my friend - still one - Jack Wagner. Sydney, one of the last arrived in the show, is proud to have had this honor, with a dress of which she would not even dare to dream for her own wedding. They shot this grandiose party on January 10 and 11 - it was thus at the real end of the shooting - in the splendid garden of the hotel The Ritz Carlton, in Laguna Niguel, close to Los Angeles. Nancy told me that with the frozen wind - the ocean is very close - she was close to catch the flu ! If you want unpublished details about this wedding, you must know that during the ceremony, one discovers that Andi (Krista Tesreau) intends to kill Jodie Walker-Kim Zimmer of who she is jealous, because she is madly in love with the husband of Jodie, Reese-Forry Smith. Fortunately, the police officer Connor McCabe-Charles Grant, in love with Kelly-Eileen Davidson, comes to his help and the wedding does not finish in a blood bath.

If I say to you police, you undoubtedly think of me, Cruz Castillo ! The producers - and I understand them - did not want that one speaks about me, nor of Eden Capwell in the last episodes of the show. I specify for all those who do not know it yet, that Eden continues her life far from Cruz and their children. And that Cruz left the town of Santa Barbara to continue to maintain the secrecy that Jodie Walker-Kim Zimmer, of course, had held hidden during twenty years : the daughter of Jodie and Reese is actually the natural daughter of Jodie and Cruz, born during a night of passion whereas they were 20 years old.

Some tragic scenes which one cannot compare to the end of the show. The director, Rick Bennewitz, entrusted to me that he had never seen such anxious actors, therefore desperate. The photos which were taken at the time of the wrap party, someones would like to believe in a goodbye, should not mislead you. Of course that we laughed, that we embraced each others, but that does not prevent sorrow. The technicians we had ended up knowing well, because the team was very welded, were not the last to cry. Fortunately that Eric Preven, one of the producers was there to say to us to have fun, to dance and to drink whisky and champagne, because some of us preferred to remain sat to evoke memories.

The creators of Santa Barbara were also there : Bridget and Jerome Dobson. For them, it was, even more than the actors, one of the saddest evenings of their life. They discussed a lot with my wife, Leslie, who knew them well. They expect one day that another show will be able to bring together the actors of Santa Barbara with another scenario. If they try this new adventure, they even want to convince me to take part in it. I do not say not. I did not leave while banging the door, but in all friendship. The televiewers, with their reactions of sympathy, proved, indeed, that if the ratings had partly fallen in the United States, they remained faithful to us. Perhaps what one does not know in Europe, it is that competition is terrible between the daytime soaps - Santa Barbara has been aired from 11 a.m. to 12 a.m. and that people were accustomed to other heroes on other networks. Eight years and a half, it is like a marriage which lasts : in spite of the love, one can be tempted to be unfaithful ! I try to make humour because I would not like to have told you this end of Santa Barbara only with sad words. There are of course other misfortunes in the world - and I think in particular of all the conflicts, of all the wars, of all those who are hungry and thirst, but one can be concerned with problems of the world and also love Santa Barbara. The proof : as soon as I could, in spite of my shootings, I continued to watch the show !"

Read also : The last adieu to Santa Barbara