A lot of actors just do whatever they do, and wherever the camera is, it is. They don't pay much attention, but I always did. I was always very close to the camera crew. They were my best buddies, no matter what movie or show I was doing.
Abby was designed to be the troublemaker and stir things up. She wasn't evil, she was naughty.
Abby would do things that weren't very ethical, but she was never evil. She had a humanity that characters like her on the other soaps didn't have.
Dallas and Dynasty would be finished at 4:30 in the afternoon. On Knots, we never shot less than a 12-hour day. Everybody tried to make it special. And I think it showed.
Early on in my career, I'd go into the makeup trailer, and they'd spend an hour doing my makeup, and I would hate it. I'd go into the bathroom, wash it off and start over again, which took an enormous amount of time. So I just started doing it myself.
Even colors were important to me. If it was a somber scene, the colors were muted and dark. If it was a happy or seductive scene, the colors were brighter.
I also loved musicals because I was a dancer.
I always loved Bette Davis - she's probably my very favorite. She had an influence on me in that I felt I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking the things she wanted me to know about. When you're in extreme close-up, all you have to do is think, and the thoughts will read.
I always wanted to go against hat grain because it was too restricting.
I always wanted to know what lens they were on, how close they were. I didn't do it with a plan in mind, but I would instinctively gear what I was doing toward what lenses they were using.
I always wore the highest heels possible, because the other women on the show were tall.
I did a video... and now I have an eye-makeup kit out. I did the video because I got so many letters. I did my own makeup.
I feel more comfortable in front of a camera than anywhere else.
I found through my fan mail that women... really wanted a role model.
I kept bugging them about making it more upscale, because I felt Abby, through her cleverness and business sense, was a character who would move up. And that's what she did.
I really want to spend as much time as I can with my daughter and really participate in her growing up. I'm very active in her school.
I thought it was very important that femininity wasn't lost.
I was always cutting dialogue out when we were rehearsing, and when I produced movies, too. I felt that people don't say things in life - they act, they do things. I always wanted my characters doing, rather than saying what they were doing - which was redundant.
I was brought up Catholic, and my family is still very religious.
I was tired of playing the goodie-two-shoes.
I'm back to doing everything I used to, loving life as ever.
If there is anything I would do differently in my life, it is that I would study business more. I'm trying to teach my daughter Chloe at an early age about investing and money so she's not afraid of it.
My father was a middle manager at an oil company, but I never knew anything about his work. Whatever business acumen I have just got gleaned over the years.
My message is - keep moving. If you do, you'll keep arthritis at bay.
One of my favorite movies is The Little Foxes.
Rita Hayworth in Gilda... there's not a shot of her in that movie that isn't gorgeous.
Scarlett O'Hara didn't think she was manipulating. That's just the way she got what she wanted.
Somebody like me doesn't get arthritis, doesn't get all the other diseases that come along. Well, it happened to me.
The lighting is so important. One thing that makes me nuts about the lighting now is that they spend an enormous amount of time lighting the set, the background. But the most important thing in the scene is the actor.
The sound department was constantly yelling at me. I don't have a very loud voice to begin with. A lot of times, they'd put a lavaliere mike on me and crank it up.
There were episodes where I would wear seven or eight outfits. It took a lot of time to get those together. What the character wears is very essential to how I create the character.
They sent me to catechism classes and then to first grade in a Catholic school, and apparently I cried and moaned and bitched so much that they took me out.
You know, when they called me about the role, I thought Knots Landing was a show about a houseboat with Andy Griffith!
You really have to love the work. You can't look for stardom. That's a by-product.
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