 |
Nelson Aspen with Anne Marie Howard in 1988 and 2014. |
After the demise of
Search for Tomorrow, I moved within my little Procter & Gamble community to its sister show,
Another World. I worked in the capacity as a Production Coordinator, a Writer's Assistant, an occasional "Under-Five" Character and eventually a Writer, too. This was the late 80s and, by many fans' accounts, the last great days of the long running show. Anne Heche was chewing up scenery as Vicky and Marley...Linda Dano's boa had feathers flying all over the studio..."Iris" and "Jake" returned to Bay City...and "super couples" were all the rage. Sam and Amanda, Donna and Michael, Matt and Josie, John and Sharlene...and for a couple years, Cass and Nicole. I became friends with Anne Howard, who was playing Nicole and we recently reconnected thanks to Social Media. (Find me on Twitter
@nelsonaspen) After our respective stints in Hollywood, we are both back in NYC now and had a long, lovely lunch to catch up about the intervening years and some of her memories of the Days of Her Life in Another (Soap) World!
NA: I knew you as simply "Anne" Howard. When/Why did you add "Marie?"
AMH: I had to add my middle name Marie when another actress by the name of Ann Howard removed herself from 'inactive' status in the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and became 'active' again. She had seniority and, at that time, they didn't allow two actors in the union to have the same name. Many actors had to add their middle initial or middle name, or change their name entirely to join the union. It was a bit of an adjustment for me, but my agents and friends got used to calling me Anne Marie or AMH for short. When I recently made the move back to NYC in January, my theatrical agent asked if I would mind going back to Anne Howard since that's what casting directors knew me as when I was on the soaps. I checked with the union and they've eased up on the rules a bit so I was able to take my name back. Now that I'm back in NYC where I started, it feels like I've come full circle.
NA: How much did
AW impact your life?
AMH: AW changed my life in the best way possible. First of all, it was the most exciting job I ever booked. I had just completed filming John Carpenter's
Prince Of Darkness and had starred in two television pilots, both shot in Los Angeles, one for HBO and one for NBC. Though the pilots were not picked up to go into series, work kept taking me to LA, so I decided to move there. I hadn't really considered acting in daytime drama, but I took an acting class with Milton Katselas and he told me it would be a good thing for me to do, that my look was right for soap operas and the discipline it required would help me become a better actress. So, I opened myself up to the possibility and a month later I was flown to NYC to screen test for the role of Nicole Love.