Ronnie Bard, we hardly knew ye! Daytime Emmy-winning One Life to Live legend Erika Slezak (ex-Victoria Lord) wraps up her whirlwind trip to Port Charles on Thursday, November 6, when Monica’s long-lost little sister heads back to North Carolina. Soap Opera Digest caught up with the star, who is back home in Connecticut after spending three busy weeks on the set of General Hospital, to reflect on her run, her many warm reunions on and off the set, and to answer the million-dollar question: Would she return for another stint?
The Simple Life
Slezak spent over four decades in the role of Victoria, which she assumed in 1971 and played through to OLTL’s final episode in 2012, then reprised on its short-lived Internet reboot in 2013. But even though she’d spent a dozen years away from the world of daytime, fans made it known to Slezak just how much she had been missed. “I think it was lovely,” she says of viewer reaction to her GH casting. “I’ve had so many letters, emails and texts from people who so enjoy seeing me back on the screen, even though I’m not playing Victoria, I’m playing somebody completely different from her. People have been so charming and so lovely and so nice — and apparently they really enjoyed it, which I’m delighted about, really.”
That Ronnie was so unlike Viki, who by no means had an idyllic childhood but was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, “was the challenge for me,” muses Slezak. “I’ve never played anybody like Ronnie… She’s just a hardworking woman who literally had to make her own way in life, because Monica sort of turned her back on her when she got out of foster care.” While Monica was taken in by Gail Baldwin, who put her through medical school, Ronnie had to go it alone. Notes Slezak, “At 16, she’s out in the world by herself. She’s got to get a job, she has to make a living, she has to find a place to live. She started work as a waitress and decided she liked it and never left it; she never aspired to anything else, except that she knew she was smart and she wanted to learn more, so she went to community college and she essentially educated herself. She wasn’t stupid, but she never had the advantages of a rich life. And I’ve never played anyone who was — and I mean this in a good way — as simple as Ronnie, who’s just worked hard her whole life. So, it was a terrific opportunity for me and I’m very, very grateful and glad that the audience accepted her and that our former One Life to Live viewers tuned in and enjoyed seeing me in a completely different role.”
Talent Show
For Slezak, the opportunity to go toe to toe with Ronnie’s chief sparring partner, Jane Elliot (Tracy), was the strongest incentive to sign on GH in the first place. “When Frank [Valentini, GH’s executive producer, who had held that position at OLTL] called me and asked me to do this [and] said I’d be working primarily with Jane Elliot, I went, ‘Yes! Okay, I’ll do it!’” she recalls. “I mean, that’s how simple it was because I’ve watched Jane for years and I’m still amazed at how good she is, how interesting she is, how she can twist a simple sentence into a whole lifetime. She’s amazing!”
Ronnie’s brief encounter with Laura, played by Genie Francis, was another highlight for Slezak. “It was almost the end by the time I got to work with her and I kept thinking, ‘Where the hell is Genie?’ Because I was in her dressing room the whole time,” Slezak explains. “And then they said, ‘She’s coming tomorrow! And when I finally got to work with her, it was wonderful, because I hadn’t seen Genie since we were backstage at The View [years ago]. She was wonderful, and again, so nice.”
Ronnie’s storyline arc began its wrap-up when Martin’s scheme was exposed, as was Monica’s real will, which dictated that the house go to Tracy and that Ronnie be granted the funds to purchase a home in her beloved Durham, North Carolina. The scenes called for high emotion, but, as Slezak winks, “I never had any problem with emotional scenes! But I’m glad it happened the way it did and that Martin finally got his comeuppance. It was just terrific, with Tracy barreling in at the end. It was my favorite line when [the Quartermaines] said to Tracy, ‘Have you read the will?’ Because she found the real will, and Tracy said, ‘No, I was too busy breaking the laws of physics to get here!’ It’s just a great line. I said [to Elliot], ‘I love that line. You should keep saying it over and over again [laughs]!’”
Slezak feels that she was able to get into the groove at GH over the course of her time there. “There are wonderful actors everywhere [on the show] — really, really good,” she muses. “And you have to pull up your A game when you work with people like that! I was a little nervous about that, because I hadn’t done it [in years]. I said, ‘That part of my brain that memorizes easily hasn’t been used in 12, 13 years!’ And for a while, it was touch and go. ‘Do I remember all of this now? Can I remember all of this now?’ The first couple of days were a little tricky, and then I kind of got back into the swing of it.”
