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MICHAEL EASTON

Michael Easton's first One Life To Live fan event was a sold out success at the Jersey shore. The actor shares his thoughts on John and Blair and what its like to work with Kassie de Paiva, Branden Buddy and good friend Susan Haskell. From Caleb to John McBain, Easton shares it all....

By: Rhonda

While the Soaptown USA crew was in LA for the GHFC weekend I had the pleasure of attending the 1st Michael Easton fan event at the beautiful Jersey shore. Uncle Vinnie's in Pt. Pleasant was the setting for this sold out event which was attended by 125 fans. The room was set up theater style with lots of seats to accommodate all the happy fans. Since it was going to be all Q & A this made it easier for Michael to get to all the questions.

This enormously popular actor entered to huge applause, so genuinely pleased to be there among his fans. Right off the bat Easton introduced Alan Needleman, he is the Stage Manager at OLTL. After the introduction, the questions came fast and furious- right off the bat someone shouted "Kick Todd's butt" and have sex (with Blair not Todd!) and Michael said he did this past week! A fan then asked when John finds out Marty's alive and Michael said he had just worked with Susan Haskell this past week. Easton, the actor, said it was weird to work with her as an actress as opposed to being a personal friend - since she and Thorsten Kaye are his very close friends. In fact he said that he met them in 1994 in a bar in NY.

Getting back to Trevor St. John - someone asked if any of the scenes with Michael & Trevor are improvised and he said some are - Michael doesn't always do his lines as written and he added that Trevor is really a funny guy. He also likes to do comedic scenes with Tuc Watkins - it reminds him of scenes he did with Nolan North - Chris from PC. Which of course led into a discussion of Port Charles. He said he misses Caleb and working with Kelly Monaco - he said she's magical. He was sorry that the storyline was never able to be wrapped up for the fans.

Michael talked about meeting Ginevra, his beautiful wife of 4 years, in Toronto while he was working. Although he is originally from Long Beach, CA he had lived in NY for 11 years, went back to LA to attend UCLA, but is really happy now in NY. In fact his first job as an actor was a play in NY with 3 friends. A woman from NBC came backstage after the show and told him that she thought he had potential and he should give her a call - from that he flew to LA to screen test for Tanner on Days and got the job.

Multi-talented Easton’s new book, Soul Stealer, was a major topic of conversation and he said there has been interest in making it into a movie.

Another fan asked if he kept in touch with Nathaniel Marston (ex Michael) and he said he speaks to him all the time and he hopes he gets another chance to do daytime someday.

Someone asked if he had resigned and he said he would like to stick around if that's ok with the fans which of course had everyone cheering. He said he's really blessed to have this job - but honestly I think we're the lucky ones. It really sounds like he is extremely happy at OLTL and as long as they keep writing and telling good stories he's in it for the long haul.

Michael spent the next 3 hours signing autographs and taking pictures with his adoring fans.

While busy making the fans happy a surprise guest arrived - Melissa Archer!. This of course had the fans snapping away for even more pictures. Melissa got up on stage and just chatted - answering questions and hanging out. She looked great and could not have been sweeter.

Before the start of the second show and after meeting with every fan, I had a chance to spend a few minutes talking with Michael. He was very open in his praise of Brandon Buddy and Kassie De Paiva - he really enjoys working with them. I asked him if he saw the sparks when he started working with Kassie and he said he didn't, but that the writers are taking their time putting them together. I did ask him if there were any feelings about losing the Emmy to GH after winning the writing and directing Emmys - and he said he was sure it would be nice to be recognized by your peers, but he didn't think in the end it mattered. They do 250 shows a year and the actors are more concerned with performing inventive storytelling and they just try to keep and increase their audience. He was concerned that daytime's moving in the opposite direction( in other words disappearing) and he just wants to see them stay on the air and hopefully some new shows emerge.

Michael said he knows how hard the writers are working on the show and he said when he and his cast mates walk out of the studio, they know they have done a good job. He just wants the ratings to increase so that they all have jobs - something he mentioned several times during the Q & A.

When I asked this handsome, charming and funny man what he hopes to be doing in 5 years, he said he hopes to still be at OLTL - how lucky for us!

Michael's 3rd book, Tales of a Green Woman will be out in April 2009.For more info on Michael's books go to www.michaeleaston.com.

Thanks to Linda at Coastal for making this very fun event happen & Dino & Jerry at Uncle Vinnie's.
For info on upcoming events go to unclevinniescomedyclub.com

photos Soaptown USA