This is from the November 1, 1988 issue of Soap Opera Digest.

Ask Us
Q. Did Eden Capwell fall into a tank of sharks on Santa Barbara? If she did, how and when?

A. Yes, when she was chased by her crazed ex-husband, Kirk Cranston. (He wanted revenge because she dumped him for Cruz.) They ended up at a shark tank in an aquatic amusement park. The two struggled in the tank and, of course, Cruz saved his beloved and Cranston was arrested.

Q. Why was the role of Pearl, aka Michael Bradford III, written out of Santa Barbara?
A. Since the writers kept the character of Pearl on the back burner for so long (he really didn't have his own story line since the discovery of his brother - and even that was nipped in the bud), actor Robert Thaler chose to leave the show. No explanation was given.

Roundup
Q. How is being a soap star different than you thought it would be?
A. Chip Mayer, TJ Daniels, Santa Barbara

It's not as frantic as I thought it would be. And, the visibility - in terms of public recognition - is much greater than I expected.

Sounding Board
Superficial Teen Story
A cover line of the 8/23 issue read "Why Teens Get Hooked on Soaps," and even though I'm a teen and I know why I watch them, I decided to humor myself and read the highlighted article. Your so-called "incisive" piece painted a very disturbing picture of young soap viewers. Since when is the word "incisive" synonymous with the word "superficial"? Apparently you presumed that no teenager would be perceptive enough to notice that you disparaged an entire generation. According to the report, a group of college students spent an entire semester interviewing teens only to conclude that teens watch soaps because they're "really neat," or because their friends watch them. The researchers must have been monumentally disappointed. They could have simply picked up almost any magazine to find out that DOOL's Stephen Nichols and Billy Warlock, and Santa Barbara's A Martinez are popular with teens. Personally, I watch soaps for one reason: Lane Davies. I don't like him because magazines are full of pin-ups displaying his half-naked body (they're not) or because my friends like him (they generally don't know who he is). I watch Days and Another World, but only to make fun of the hapless, boring and pathetic characters. Maybe because most teens don't appreciate Mason's flawless looks, caustic wit, apt references to Shakespeare, admirable vocabulary, disarming charm, or his fiery, contentious relationship with Julia (Nancy Grahn). But to me and many other women, he is the paragon of what a sexy leading man should be, and he's living proof that tight jeans, bad grammar and bare chests found on many popular characters can't take the place of Mason's extraordinary raw talent and appeal. One teen said she "just like cried" when Roman and Diana (Drake Hogestyn and Genie Francis) got together, justifying her tears by squealing "They're so neat." I'll be my sixty SB tapes that I'm not the only teen that didn't shed a tear at the formation of yet another dull, pedestrian soap couple. If you let a small handful of teen viewers speak for the rest of us, you may be allowing a real talent like Lane Davies to slip into obscurity. SOD is too good for that.

Diva's Icky Men
TJ Daniels, Santa Barbara
A major icknoid. From the quasi-banana curls to the greasy tan, TJ is the beach bum who would not wash out with high tide. For this latter-day Moondoggie, life is an endless summer of surf boards, Mai Tais and sandy bathing suits, and he clearly needs a change of scenery, if not solar systems. I really can't take him slithering around town, leaving oil spots on chairs and Nautilus equipment. And that less-than-compelling "you know you love me" rap that he lays on Kelly is proof of his self-delusion: this man's best friend is not a woman, it's his sun reflector. And did you see him "cooling" Kelly off with that big ice cube? I had to leave the room. That any woman would sit next to him for five minutes or let him touch her (or go further!) is something I just cannot accept. Get thee behind me, Satan.

Soap's Murder Mysteries

The Crime: Murder
The Weapon: The killer's hands
The Setup: During the summer of 1985, there were a spree of murders in Santa Barbara. The victims were all beautiful, young blonde women. The murderer would seek out his prey, seduce her, and then strangle her to death. He then placed a white carnation next to her limp body, thus becoming known to police as "The Carnation Killer."
The Suspects: None
The Killer: Peter Flint. He went crazy after his fiancee, Kelly Capwell, broke off their engagement to marry her true love, Joe Perkins. In a deranged mental state, Peter methodically killed each blonde woman he saw, believing they were Kelly.

Synopsis

Eden is beside herself when she is unable to identify her rapist or give Detective Boswell anything to go on. The evidence that has been gathered in the forensics report doesn't prove that it was Critter, and the rapist is probably still at large.

Eden thinks somehow that she is responsible for the rape and finally breaks down. Cruz assures his wife that it wasn't her fault and gently suggests that she go see Heather Donnelly for counseling. After a few sessions, Heather tells Cruz that Eden is progressing to some extent - but she still has a long way to go. Cruz feels for his wife and wishes there was something he could do to help.

Meanwhile, in an effort to get on with her life, Eden throws herself back into her work. Though she knows it will be difficult, Eden decides to do a segment for the television news describing the horror that she has been through.

On the show with her and the host that day are two self-centered daytime soap stars who have performed a rape scene on General Clinic. It takes everything that Eden has to control her anger. She doesn't feel that these two actors have any idea what it is really like to be raped. Eden's suffering is clearly evident. Cruz watches the story on the monitor and relives his wife's pain along with her.

A miserable Cruz vents a lot of his anger toward Boswell, who doesn't appear to be doing anything to find the rapist.

Meanwhile, another woman is assaulted. It is Wendy, a nurse at the hospital who assisted Arthur Donnelly when he performed surgery on Jeffrey. After the police talk to her, Cruz and Eden approach Wendy and conclude that her rapist was the same man who attacked Eden. Later, Wendy finds a videocassette of her rape ... while Cruz finds a tape of Eden's rape.

Marriage appears to have softened Keith Timmons. He truly feels for Eden and Wendy and vows to find the rapist and put him behind bars. Recalling the time when Gina was raped, a concerned Keith calls his wife, tells her about the maniac who is on the loose, and orders her to lock the doors. Gina is surprised but delighted by the enormity of her husband's concern.

When he finally returns home that evening, Keith holds Gina tightly. He couldn't take it if anything ever happened to her, Timmons murmurs. Gina is so moved by her husband's sincerity that she can hardly speak.

Pretending to be Mason, Sonny finds himself being saddled into marriage with Julia. Noticing her fiance's lack of enthusiasm, Julia worries that Mason fell in love with someone else during the time that he was gone.

Michael, who has agreed to marry the couple, tells Mason how much Julia grieved for him when he was missing ... and scolds him for hurting her ever since his return. Later, Sonny storms over to see Gina. No amount of money is worth all of that "wedding talk," Sonny grimaces. Gina massages his temples and begs him to hang in there. Sonny agrees - for now.

The next step in Gina's plan to bilk CC of his fortune is for Sonny (posing as Mason) to reconcile with his father. Later, "Mason" and Julia have dinner with CC and Sophia at the country club. During the course of conversation, "Mason" can't take their demeaning remarks about cowboys and leaves. Julia is dumbfounded. Sonny races over to Gina's desperate for a bourbon and branch. Working with Michael on his alcohol dependency doesn't seem to be helping too much, Sonny admits.

Keith is under federal investigation. Panicking, he tries to dispose of his records by starting a fire in the evidence room. Julia is in the room and doesn't notice until it's too late. She passes out from smoke inhalation. Michael finds her and brings her to safety. The fire is put out - but a worried Keith realizes that very little has been destroyed, and that he's not out of trouble.

Jeffrey comes out of his coma but is in a catatonic state. This could result in brain damage, or he may come out of this perfectly normal. They will just have to wait and see, the doctor announces. Kelly vows to her parents that no matter what, she won't desert her husband.

Eden's physical wounds from the rape are healing ... but her emotional wounds are taking longer. Adding to her anguish is the fact that the rapist continue to make lewd phone calls to her. Cruz wants his wife to take a leave of absence from the TV station. She doesn't want to give in to her fear and continues to work.

Unbeknownst to the Castillos, the rapist has set up a monitor in their home so he can view their living room and hear everything. Although Cruz gets an alarm system installed, the rapist is able to learn the code when Cruz repeats it to Eden.

When Arthur suggests that Heather help Zack host a party, she agrees to do so only if her father reinstates Scott at the hospital. Arthur agrees. Heather is uneasy about the deal. Arthur takes advantage of the situation by sending Scott to London for a medical convention during the time of the party.

Late Breaking News

Watching over Gina: Just when it appears Gina and Keith will pay for their dirty work, Sonny will destroy Julia's evidence linking Gina to Keith's criminal activities.

Strike Two: The SB rapist who attacked Eden will strike again at a Halloween costume party. Lydia will come on to Cain while gathering evidence to prove that he's the rapist.

Opinion

Thumbs Up!

Rape is an act of violence, and that's exactly how Santa Barbara depicted Eden's devastating experience. Never on daytime has the brutality of the attack been so graphically portrayed. In spite of Cruz's attempts to protect his wife and her own sense of impending danger, Eden found herself defenseless, terrorized and overpowered. The usual constraints and tentativeness that mark daytime-television fight scenes were absent. Clearly motivated by anger, not lust, the rapist forcefully punched, kicked, tortured, and bloodied his victim, leaving her dazed and terrified. Creative staging and direction kept the viewer off balance - and helped us experience with her the moment-to-moment terror of a helpless victim who doesn't know whether she'll survive.

News Section

Lane Davies will be playing the title role in Cyrano in October and November at the Glove Playhouse, and I can't wait. I expect to be moved as deeply as I was when Lane breathed fire into the too-oft-lukewarm Hamlet ... Lane has also formed a theater company in Simi Valley, where he lives, and their first undertaking will likely be Man of La Mancha. Though few know it, Lane did many musicals in college and has an excellent voice. Nancy Grahn is hoping to be in the production ... Will SB's Justin Deas be back to romp with that rockin' Robin Mattson? Good question. When he left to put in his thirteen weeks on the new nighttime sitcom Studio 5-B (it's a Broadcast News-type theme), the actor didn't know for sure whether or not he'd be returning to SB ...

Logan's Outtakes

A few columns back, a reader, one J.H.F. of Tucson, AZ, wrote to gripe about the casting of Baby Chip on Santa Barbara. The tyke, originally played by a girl (Danielle Kolod) and currently by twin boys (Evan and Bryce Woolley), is supposed to be the illegitimate offspring of Hispanic Cruz Castillo (A Martinez) and, as I put it, the "whiter-than-white-bread" Victoria Lane Capwell (Kristen Meadows). J.H.F. penned, "Are we to believe that this blond-haired, blue-eyed baby is half-Mexican?" And since I have trouble swallowing this same bunch of hooey, I sided with her - much to the dismay of my postman. After lugging all of my hate mail, he had to buy a truss.

It seems like I've had problems with this SB toddler since Day One. And I mean that literally. As you may recall, Cruz and Tori (she loved him; he loved someone else) washed ashore on an island together where, to ease his wounds, she gave him morphine. While he was whacked out of his gourd, however, she took sexual advantage of him and, nine months later, gave birth to a bouncing baby Mormon. This of course, cannot be. Nobody who's blotto on morphine - not even superstud Cruz - would be able to ... hmmm ... how do I saw this ... ah yes ... rise to the occasion.

(There's more ... mostly he/she just gripes and reads from the mail, but doesn't end up changing his/her mind by the end of the article.)

Parallel Lives: What happens when the stories actors play on TV strike too close to home

Picture caption: Billy Warlock's much-publicized divorce from Santa Barbara star Marcy Walker was an ordeal. The actor says Frankie's breakup from Jennifer on DAYS helped him put his life in perspective.

Excerpt:
Sharing a strikingly similar experience with his soap character provided an emotional outlet for Trusel's DAYS castmate Billy Warlock (Frankie) when he was going through a divorce from Santa Barbara star Marcy Walker (Eden) last winter. Says Warlock, "Jennifer and Frankie's love was breaking up, but it was a totally different circumstance, because they were young love and I wasn't married to Jennifer. Playing Frankie pointed out the difference between teenage love and the real thing. I guess coming here and getting caught up in the foolishness of Frankie and Jennifer's childish problems helped me get through the pain of what was going on in my life at the time. The pain is gone now and Marcy and I are friends."

Survey: The 15 Hottest Stars on Daytime
This list was chosen by a panel of "experts" including producers, directors, actors, writers, casting executives and network executives.

#1 A Martinez
"He reminds me of my first boyfriend," - an actress
"He's really hot" - an actor
"He is so sexy, compassionate, and sensitive - and able to get that across. He's the man every woman wants in her life." - a network executive

#5 Marcy Walker, in a three-way tie with Ronn Moss and Robin Mattson
"She's an exceptional young heroine. She is beautiful and luscious and has great vulnerability - she has it all." - a network executive

#5 Robin Mattson
"Capable of sharing with the audience the character's feelings." - a producer

#6 Justin Deas, a five way tie with Stephen Schnetzer, John Hensley and two others
"I'm intrigued by him. He's comedic and unpredictable because he plays against type - he's wonderfully mischievous and I suspect everyone is wondering what he's up to." - a network executive