Post by sfisgr8 on May 15, 2011 14:38:11 GMT
Boldest of 'em all
Love her or loathe her, Stephanie Forrester is one of the main reasons millions of people tune in each week globally to super-soap The Bold and the Beautiful.
As matriarch of the Forrester fashion dynasty, Stephanie has been married and divorced from husband Eric multiple times and is usually at war with arch-rival Brooke.
That rivalry has temporarily been set aside as Stephanie battles lung cancer with Brooke's support.
"Oh my goodness how long can it possibly last? You have to have some conflict here and there, don't you, otherwise where is the drama," laughs actress Susan Flannery down the line from her home in Santa Barbara.
"I am sure I'll take a gun out and shoot her."
Flannery has been with Bold since it began in 1987, having previously starred in Days of Our Lives. She has four Emmy awards for outstanding lead actress and is likely to be nominated for another in Los Angeles tomorrow.
Flannery also won the 1975 Golden Globe for most promising female newcomer for her role in the movie Towering Inferno.
Today The Bold and the Beautiful celebrates its 6000th episode with a dramatic life-meets-soap story as Stephanie tries to convince her cigar-smoking son, Nick Marone (Jack Wagner), to kick the habit after learning he has a spot on his lung. She stages an intervention that incorporates interviews with real lung cancer survivors including Emmy Award-winning actress, Kathryn Joosten (Desperate Housewives).
"In trying to reach him and scare him, Stephanie thinks the best thing would be to introduce him to some sort of support group and is surprised to find out there are no lung cancer support groups in Beverly Hills in real life," Flannery explains.
"They found that out in the research so they decided in order to tell this story, and in a way kind of make it a public service thing without being preachy, to inject a kind of reality format within the drama."
With Stephanie facing her own mortality, she begins working with homeless people, a storyline that in February saw the series win a humanitarian award from the Catholics in Media Associates.
Flannery said the producers hired homeless people who were rebuilding their lives and working their way back into society. "It's a story that is really bad here in this country," Flannery says.
"In Santa Barbara County, which is a large county but not as many people as Los Angeles County, they figure there are 1000 children on the street at night who are homeless.
"In Los Angeles County, you can imagine with the larger population it's even more and a lot of it is not necessarily because their parents are into drugs or alcohol or have mental and emotional problems. It's because they lost their jobs and then they lost their homes.
"We are all very proud of Bradley Bell (head writer and executive producer) that he has come up with this idea and carried through with it so effectively."
Flannery made her first trip to Australia in 2008 to help her daughter Blaise enrol in university and plans to visit Sydney in October when she graduates.
The Bold and the Beautiful airs weekdays at 4.30pm on Ten.
au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/entertainment/a/-/television/9348674/boldest-of-em-all/
Love her or loathe her, Stephanie Forrester is one of the main reasons millions of people tune in each week globally to super-soap The Bold and the Beautiful.
As matriarch of the Forrester fashion dynasty, Stephanie has been married and divorced from husband Eric multiple times and is usually at war with arch-rival Brooke.
That rivalry has temporarily been set aside as Stephanie battles lung cancer with Brooke's support.
"Oh my goodness how long can it possibly last? You have to have some conflict here and there, don't you, otherwise where is the drama," laughs actress Susan Flannery down the line from her home in Santa Barbara.
"I am sure I'll take a gun out and shoot her."
Flannery has been with Bold since it began in 1987, having previously starred in Days of Our Lives. She has four Emmy awards for outstanding lead actress and is likely to be nominated for another in Los Angeles tomorrow.
Flannery also won the 1975 Golden Globe for most promising female newcomer for her role in the movie Towering Inferno.
Today The Bold and the Beautiful celebrates its 6000th episode with a dramatic life-meets-soap story as Stephanie tries to convince her cigar-smoking son, Nick Marone (Jack Wagner), to kick the habit after learning he has a spot on his lung. She stages an intervention that incorporates interviews with real lung cancer survivors including Emmy Award-winning actress, Kathryn Joosten (Desperate Housewives).
"In trying to reach him and scare him, Stephanie thinks the best thing would be to introduce him to some sort of support group and is surprised to find out there are no lung cancer support groups in Beverly Hills in real life," Flannery explains.
"They found that out in the research so they decided in order to tell this story, and in a way kind of make it a public service thing without being preachy, to inject a kind of reality format within the drama."
With Stephanie facing her own mortality, she begins working with homeless people, a storyline that in February saw the series win a humanitarian award from the Catholics in Media Associates.
Flannery said the producers hired homeless people who were rebuilding their lives and working their way back into society. "It's a story that is really bad here in this country," Flannery says.
"In Santa Barbara County, which is a large county but not as many people as Los Angeles County, they figure there are 1000 children on the street at night who are homeless.
"In Los Angeles County, you can imagine with the larger population it's even more and a lot of it is not necessarily because their parents are into drugs or alcohol or have mental and emotional problems. It's because they lost their jobs and then they lost their homes.
"We are all very proud of Bradley Bell (head writer and executive producer) that he has come up with this idea and carried through with it so effectively."
Flannery made her first trip to Australia in 2008 to help her daughter Blaise enrol in university and plans to visit Sydney in October when she graduates.
The Bold and the Beautiful airs weekdays at 4.30pm on Ten.
au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/entertainment/a/-/television/9348674/boldest-of-em-all/