Why Do So Many Stars Of Soaps Return Home?
TV Data Features
June 14, 1986
A recent GUIDING LIGHT scene: As the camera panned an elegant study of a palace supposedly in Austria, two men were heard talking. But as the conversation continued, one man was carefully photographed only at hip level, so that his face was not shown. But if the show's producers thought they were fooling anyone, they were wrong.
GL fans knew immediately from the mystery man's distinctive voice that the presumed-dead Alan Spaulding was very much alive, and that actor Chris Bernau was returning to his immensely popular role after a voluntary two-year absence. Here was another case of Returned Actor Syndrome (RAS).
On daytime soaps, almost as much drama is created by the comings and goings of actors as by the writers' plot twists. Because soap opera actors are so closely identified with their characters, it's especially tough to recast their roles when an actor wants to quit. A way must be found to write out that character.
But depending on the actor's luck in finding roles outside of soaps (aka Hollywood), chances are that sooner or later they'll come running back to the (financial) security of working on the same daytime soap they once spurned.
RAS is a relatively new phenomenon. In the '60s and early '70s, actors didn't leave daytime soap operas because there was no place for them to go. Then, casting daytime soap actors in nighttime TV and films was taboo. But now, because of the credibility that came from nighttime soaps, the taboo has been lifted.
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