Just Breathe - A Sonny and Alexis Website

Soap Opera Weekly
May 2, 2000
Heaven and Earth
By: Jerry O'Neil
Think of this as a portrait of the harried, hectic life of a working single mother. The mom in this scenario is daytime veteran Nancy Lee Grahn who, on a typically frenzied morning, is trying to talk with a caller from the East Coast before shoving off for the General Hospital studios and her job as attorney Alexis Davis. Attempt is the key word, as distractions and interruptions abound. Her cordless phone, for one, is not functioning well, and the gracious Grahn apologizes, explaining that "Technically, I am having a bad morning." Intermittently, the familiar sound of call waiting interrupts us, and again she expresses her sincere apologies with a plaintive cry of "This is my life." Throughout our talk, her two year-old daughter, Kate, clamors for mommy's attention. Grahn, deft as can be, doesn't miss a beat, showering her baby girl with affection while responding to interview questions. Talk about multitasking.
Despite the frenetic moments, it's abundantly clear that this is a very happy and fulfilled woman, whose life is in the exact state she desires. Katherine Grace ("Grace is my favorite word, and it was a moment of grace when she was conceived.") has made quite an impact to say the least. "Let's put it this way," says Grahn. "I wished for Kate my whole life. Being a single mother is incredibly wonderful. I do the best I can, and Kate has a great relationship with her father. It's been everything I thought it would be and more." Befitting her spiritual inclinations, Grahn describes what she and her daughter share as a "heavenly connection. Cementing my belief in the connection between heaven and earth is still the best way I can sum it up, because it is so hard to put into words. I don't recall one unhappy moment in my life since I found out I was pregnant. There have been a lot of days of joy, and I don't expect them to go away. I look at Kate and what can I say? She rocks my world."
The degree of love and devotion she lavishes on her daughter makes one wonder. Can her career possibly still mean as much to her as it once did? Granting that "nothing comes before family," Grahn puts the issue in these terms: "A different part of me gets fulfillment in each of those areas of my life. My purpose in doing the work is twofold: to try to be truthful and entertaining for the audience and for myself, and also to provide a good living so I can give my daughter a wonderful life. Whereas before the merits of the work were all that mattered, now I consider more the financial and business aspects of my decisions."
Besides her GH gig, she's been appearing over the last couple of seasons on the WB's critically acclaimed 7th Heaven, in which she portrays, Principal Russell. Sure it's another paycheck, but it's also a labor of love for Grahn, who enjoys the show immensely. "Being on it is not stressful at all," she says, "and as a mother I love being a part of 7th Heaven. It's a pleasure. I did my three episodes this season and whether I'm back next year I don't know. It's a wonderful show for families to watch."
In general, the opinionated and articulate actress admits she's a much happier camper these days than at times in the recent past. As she puts it, "It's not that there aren't wonderful things to say about what I get to do on General Hospital, but not everyday on a soap opera is perfect. The work still matters enormously to me. Things there have certainly gotten better and more productive over the past year. People know who Alexis is. I think she's got the good stuff in her that an actress likes to play. She's complicated; she's got family issues and commitment issues. She has a wicked, border-line demonic sense of humor, and a sense of joy and fun. I don't want to play a smooth woman who doesn't have something to overcome, who doesn't make mistakes. Guza (Robert Guza Jr., GH head writer), more than anyone else, knows how I can stretch. He wrote my character on Santa Barbara. My desire to have this part as full-bodied as Julia is there."
Grahn is referring, of course, to the role closest to her heart, that of Julia Wainwright Capwell, for which she copped the 1989 Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress. After portraying Beverly Wilkes on One Life To Live from 1980-82, Grahn moved to Los Angeles and landed on SB, the show she still calls "the soap for smart people." Had it not been for SB's quality, she would not have remained on daytime. Harboring warm memories, Grahn recalls, "It was like doing a great play every day. I got to do some extraordinary things on that show. I'd look at prime time and think, I don't see anybody doing anything as interesting as what we were doing. That was the place where I got more of my artistic gratification, and I worked really hard."
Having toiled in the genre for a good portion of the past 15 years, Grahn believes soap opera can remain a viable entertainment form by fixing what she thinks ails it. According to her, a "backward and forward" dynamic is what is required. "Backward in the sense that the stories have to be character-driven and -motivated, not plot-driven," she says. "It has to get back to simple relationships and emotions. It has to look forward in the sense that it's a sophisticated group of people we're performing for out there; they've seen it all and done it all. There's got to be humor. There's got to be dialogue between people where they speak to each other in a way that seems truthful and real. Just make it fun."
Considering she's been plying her craft since the time she played the roll of a pony in a community theater production of Oklahoma! in her hometown of Skokie, Ill., it's clear Grahn takes her work, but not herself, seriously. Asked what drew her to performing, she utters a resigned groan. "My answer to that question would be almost too hard to understand, it's so esoteric. I can't even go there because I'm not sure you can make sense of it. Simple as I can make it, I was never an academic type. I'm bright, I was an A student, but I didn't enjoy academics. I'm not a scholar. My point is, I'm a more visceral, feeling person. I was born that way and it's my nature. When I danced or sang I was never technically good. But I'd get jobs because of the feeling and passion I'd put into everything. This job is visceral. It's perfect for me and I can't imagine doing anything different."
Those same qualities have no doubt made her willing to put herself on the line publicly as an activist and lecturer, especially in the areas of women's issues and alcohol abuse within families. "I was raised to think I was worth something, that everyone was worth something." she says. "There was no gender bias in my family. My parents shared work and home duties equally. That's what I thought was the norm. Once I got out into the world and saw people treated in a way that was different from that, it confused and angered me. But anger doesn't solve anything. There's other ways to achieve things without getting hot under the collar. I have always loved women; I have the best women friends. I have wonderful men friends, too, but I'm a woman, so I was interested in what it is to be one. I guess you help your own kind."
Grahn appeared on the talk-show circuit for awhile with her father, a recovering alcoholic, discussing the disease and its impact on families. Today, her father is "OK. He's suffering from emphysema, but more than that he has an enormous life force," she says. "That's what keeps him going. He's a teacher and a magnificent one. He wants to get back to teaching as soon as possible.
"My father was a great listener and would like to talk about things," she adds. "He'd say, 'Tell me how you feel.' Not that we lived an Ozzie and Harriet life: in fact, it was nothing like that. It was just a very open, loving, fair-minded family (she has an older and younger sister). Not without serious problems, of course." Those problems, she says, absolutely affected the choices she's made. "Which is great. Funny thing is, I don't look back and think, 'Oh, this or that was so horrible.' I don't think I would have been as good an actress without that past. It gives you depth of feeling. The yucky stuff in life propels you into the better stuff. So I don't have regrets about the rough times. They make you a better person and my life is more interesting."
Currently, thanks to motherhood and her job taking precedence, Grahn no longer has the time or inclination to be on the front lines of causes. That goes for political battles as well, though she cautions, "That's not to say I'm not going to be involved politically again. I'm working on the Al Gore campaign, even though I liked (Bill) Bradley a lot. I'm still a supporter of Bill Clinton, and Gore has been around him a long time. I'm clearly not voting for a Republican. I just don't want to fight against anything at this point in my life. I'll do whatever I can to assist people in being happy. If you ask me what my purpose in my life is, it's being happy and spreading joy," she says, cracking up.
At this juncture of her life, Nancy Lee Grahn exudes joy - a word she might as well spell K-A-T-E. Her precious child is her cause now, and she thinks of herself as being in training, in "'learning how to be a mother' school. I have to be ready for her when she's ready to test life. Which means, wish her into happiness and stay out of the way. I'm going to learn how to let go and be supportive. I want to be a role model for her. I want her to believe in her dreams and make them happen, just as I believed mine could happen, and they did. The best mother I can be for her is to be an example of someone who is happy with her life."