It makes no difference whether you're a network executive, a new staff writer, or just a fan: When you need to know the history of "One Life to Live," you call Margo Husin Call.
The show's post-production coordinator and official historian, Husin is a walking website of dates, names, and trivia from the beloved soap. She even gets consulted by the managers of the show's actual website at www.abc.com/soaps/onelifetolive.
Go ahead. Test her.
How many times has Viki Lord Carpenter gotten married in her 28 years on the show?
Answer: "Six, maybe seven. There was Joe, Steve, Joe again, Clint, Clint again, Sloan. And it depends whether you count her marriage to Roger Gordon in Eterna [a supernatural city located beneath Llanview, which was introduced during a 1980s science-fiction twist in the soap's plot]."
What was Llanview's tabloid called before it was The Sun?
"It was called the National Intruder. When Todd Manning bought the Intruder, he made it his own newspaper. The new name is a pun: when he found out that Victor Lord was his father, he called it The Sun, because it's a pun on "son." There was another paper [besides the show's major paper, The Banner], called the Chronicle at one point, but it doesn't get mentioned anymore, so I assume it went out of business."
And so on. What Husin doesn't know off the top of her head, she keeps in a binder or on her hard drive at the "OLTL" production office in Manhattan.
Husin's "Life" story began an amazing 22 years ago as "just a job." She had worked in Canadian educational TV, as an assistant on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," and then as assistant casting director on spin-offs "Rhoda," "Doc," and "Phyllis." She even worked as prize coordinator on the Alex Trebeck game show "The Wizard of Odds." But in 1976 she came east to New York, looking for work, and a director friend put her in touch with the producers of "One Life to Live"‹a show she said she'd never even watched before.
Part of Husin's job was to keep track of the characters so that new script writers wouldn't introduce story lines that conflicted with or repeated something that had happened years earlier. In 1991 her job was upgraded as the editing technology changed, and her status as historian was made official. Aside from some of the crew, she is now the "OLTL" off-camera person with the longest tenure.
Among Husin's favorite plotlines: Viki's murder trial‹at which Karen Wolek admitted on the witness stand that she had been a prostitute‹closely followed by Jenny's discovery that her own baby had died at birth, and that the child she'd been raising was not her own and had to be given back.
Over the years, "OLTL" introduced dream sequences, a Western plotline, and the aforementioned sci-fi detour. But Husin says, "The stories are now getting back to the old way. I like the this-one-cheating-on-that-one stories best, and I think the audience likes that, too."
The Historian says she's even made a little "One Life" history of her own by suggesting a plot line that was incorporated into the show‹but she declines to say what it was, out of deference to the writers. Coincidently, the show has contributed a major character and plotline to her own life: Husin married Anthony Call, the actor who used to play Herb Callison (formerly married to the "OLTL" character Dorian), and the two of them have a real-life daughter who is set to appear Dec. 29 on "OLTL" 's Christmas show.
DAVID: WE CAN CUT FROM HERE TO END FOR SPACE (193 words)
Husin seems particularly proud of the many theatre folk who have appeared on the show over the years. Jerry Orbach once played mobster Irwin Keyser, Dick Latessa materialized as a ghost, and Marsha Mason incarnated the New Age goddess Sabrina.
What do Philip Bosco, Frances Sternhagen, and Tony Roberts have in common? They all played judges on "OLTL." Eileen Heckart played two different roles, Ruth Perkins and Wilma Bern‹the latter taken over from Elaine Stritch.
Other actors who have spent time meddling in the affairs of the Buchanans, the Carpenters, and the Rappaports include Tommy Tune, John Cullum, Sammy Davis, Jr., Mario Van Peebles, Peter Allen, Laurence Fishburne, Phyllis Newman, Al Freeman, Jr., Christian Slater, Orson Bean, Imogene Coca‹even Uta Hagen.
What is it about "One Life" that draws these talents, not to mention Husin's fascination? "We have good characters who are always doing something interesting," she responds. "We don't go so much for glamour; we go for the unusual and the unique. In the long run I think people are really interested in that, more than a pretty face."
And 30 years is a "long run" by any show's standard.
‹Robert Viagas