"General Hospital"'s Stephen Macht: Character Actors Can Save Soaps

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   Every week for months, there have been rumors that Stephen Macht's tough mob lawyer character, Trevor Lansing, is about to be whacked on GeneralHospital. So while there’s still time, I'd like to say that I’m really enjoying Macht's performance. Macht is a 60ish actor with facial pockmarks, slitty brown eyes and a formidable stack of gray-white hair. I’d bet he's never heard the word "hottie" in his life.

 
But, oh, can this actor talk and talk and talk and talk. Or, more precisely, confront, confront, confront. It's been Trevor's job to protect the Zacchara family business, led by the seldom seen, loony-bin-incarcerated Anthony. The way he has done it is to have repeated confrontations with Sonny/Jason and just about every mob-connected person in Port Charles. As a constant combatant, Macht has infused GH with great energy. His intensity and the intelligence of his work have brought a much-needed spark to a cast full of young, pretty but vapid faces. Plus, I suspect he has made the gassy, habitually pretentious middle-aged actors in that cast work much harder to find the acting truth in their brainless, illogical Bob Guza scripts.
 
Macht has 40 years as a continuously working actor and at least that many roles on television series, miniseries and TV movies. He's worked in every TV genre, from prestigious series (Cagney & Lacey) to zillions of genre things (Kung Fu, Star Trek, Deep Space Nine, Babylon5). A character actor who specializes in villains, he's played two of the most iconic: Benedict Arnold in the 1984 miniseries George Washington (starring Barry Bostwick) and German championship boxer Max Schmeling, defeated by Joe Louis in the TV movie Ring of Passion (1978).
 
Macht is far from the first character actor to appear in and really punch up the quality of daytime soaps. Several come immediately to mind: Larry Haines as the incomparably funny and heartfelt Stu Bergman on Search for Tomorrow; Gerald Anthony, who brought years of excitement and raised stakes as villain Marco Dane and his twin brother Mario to One Life to Live and later briefly to GeneralHospital. I even remember Rue McClanahan in the 1960s creating a real sensation when her deliciously wicked housekeeper character, Caroline, kidnapped the Randolph kids on Another World.
 
That was a long time ago. But as daytime soaps seem to be so tragically in the autumn of their years, a re-emergence of interesting, watchable, ultra-experienced character actors can perhaps help save them. Most casts besides GH are drowning in a sea of perfect-looking but callow young actors who add nothing to their already flat material. If these young thesps are lucky, they get to do scenes with the old pros. Watch and learn, kids. The old folks will propel you to a new level of plausible acting.
 
Look at how Brian Kerwin--who also has more than 35 years of TV, movie and theater experience--improves the performances of the beautiful but not very accomplished John Brotherton on One Life to Live. (They play secret father Charlie and son Jarrett.)
 
And David Rasche, another actor with 35 years of TV experience (he was hilarious in the nighttime series Sledge Hammer) is going to pay off big-time as Rob Gardner for All My Children
 
I've followed Rasche's eclectic TV and  New York theater work through the decades since he played Wes Leonard on Ryan's Hope in 1978 and he is terrific, just the kind of sharp and versatile acting partner you need for pros like Michael Knight, David Canary, Darnell Williams and, hopefully, Miss Lucci.
 
But getting back to Stephen Macht, let me say just one more thing before Trevor is somehow killed. What's really interesting about superb character actors is that even thought they can play the same type of role over and over again, they rarely repeat themselves. They know how to be creative and mix levels of emotions. Though Trevor has been truly vicious (he even has little vulnerability to his own biological son, Ric), he still has a non-stereotypical inner life, especially for a psychopath. He thinks. At times he sounds more like a Ph.D. than a thug.
 
Marlena has always treasured intelligence and real thinking in her soap characters and in soap actors. In the illogical, immoral, upside-down world of writer Bob Guza, I suspect it must be hard for Macht to keep Trevor believable. Too bad this unusually interesting GH character has to die...too soon.
 
Read more Marlena and friends at http://www.marlenadelacroix.com.
 
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