FLASHBACK: Macdonald Carey 1966

A Soap Opera M.D. Again

Macdonald Carey Resumes Practice

By Cynthia Lowry
Associate Press
March 18, 1966

NEW YORK (AP) - Actors are considered by non-actors to be an artistic breed apart. They must be, or why would non-acting journalists constantly ask them why they took this part or that.

And actors, rising gracefully to a silly question, faithfully play the game - the story "excited" them, the part had great "potential." Few ever mention the crass necessity of a job and income, but this is belled by the high proportion of swimming pools and foreign sports cars owned by successful actors.

HONEST ANSWER

It was refreshing indeed when, asked back to soap operas, MacDonald Carey replied frankly: "There just aren't enough pictures being made in Hollywood. In fact, I've been to Europe at least once a year for the past 10 years to make movies.

"I had two plays - and they both closed before we could get to Broadway. And with the tours I've been on - eight plays and four musicals - I estimate that out of 24 years of my marriage, I've been at home about 12 altogether."

Carey, a tall, easy-mannered man, now stars in NBC's serial, DAYS OF OUR LIVES, a creation of the queen of the daytime dramas, Irna Phillips.

BACK TO DOCTOR

A respected, established stage, screen and television actor, Carey seems to have traveled in a big circle. Twenty-eight years ago he played a young doctor in NBC's radio soap, WOMAN IN WHITE. Now he is a doctor again - and a grandfather - in the series that started last November.

Carey confessed that doing a regular acting job close by...NBC studios are a 10 minute drive from his Beverly Hills home - did not turn out to be as settling as he anticipated.

"It took me a month to settle down to the business of learning a new part each day," he said. "Even now there are some horrible moments, but the mind is getting greased and it is easier to work. Actually, the discipline is very good for the actor."

QUALITY WRITING

Carey said he has been impressed by the quality of the writing in the series, and by the interesting themes being developed.

Although the show started off in a normal sudsy style with a granddaughter being picked up for shop-lifting, in recent weeks it has probed the reaction of a man to a heart attack, and very soon will get into, of all things, the water pollution problem.

"I like to think it is a little different, too, because we have an agreement not to play any of our parts as though we were sorry for ourselves," he added. "In fact, we even try to put a little humor into the show."

Carey was written out of the show for a few days so he could come to New York and appear on several NBC shows, plugging the serials.

"This," he noted with a wry grin, "is harder work than acting."