Breaking Up is Hard to Do....
Daytime TV
by Anne Marie Allocca
Thanks to Anne in Australia!
When Cruz and Eden Castillo (played to perfection by A Martinez and Marcy Walker) started having problems on Santa Barbara, our office received stacks of letters protesting the end of their marriage. The phone calls came, too. One woman called begging us to tell her that the couple would reunite, but of course, we couldn't. She told us her ninety-year-old neighbor rang her doorbell in tears. "If they break up Eden and Cruz," she moaned, "I might not live to see them reunited."
It looked touch and go there for a while, but Cruz and Eden are on the road to happiness once again. Unfortunately, in the land of soap opera, that doesn't hold much credence.
Santa Barbara viewers believed Cruz and Eden were different. Nothing could destroy the love and respect that the Castillos shared. Their courtship was one of daytime's longest. The duo had survived an earthquake, an avalanche, a fire, bouts of amnesia, a shark attack, a near drowning, paralysis, several murders, marriages to other people and a life imprisonment sentence.
On April 1, 1988, Cruz and Eden were wed at Pebble Creek, the spot where C.C. and Sophia had conceived their daughter Eden.
Both Marcy Walker and A Martinez had high hopes that their marriage would survive. "Part of the relationship's charm is that the audience, from the very beginning, has been on our side. They have wanted to see us as man and wife," said Marcy to an NBC representative at the time of the wedding.
"I've never tried to analyze it, because it's so special. What blossomed between A and myself is unexplainable. It's sort of like love: If you don't search for it, it will fall in your lap. Our professional relationship bloomed and gave both of us a chance to create and achieve something that we never expected," continued Marcy. "You have to have two people, who, as characters, tell each other in a credible way that they love each other. They have to have respect for one another and be communicative. If these feelings are missing, it shows. People like to see people who love each other and are good to each other. There are too many people out there in the world who love each other, but don't treat each other very well."
From the moment that Cruz and Eden said "I do," viewers were waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. They felt that, like many married soap opera couples before them, the Castillos would soon split. They were fooled -- at least for a year and a few months.
Then the mysterious stranger Robert Barr, (Roscoe Born) came to Santa Barbara. He was the one factor that could end Cruz and Eden's marriage. Even A Martinez knew that the handwriting was on the wall. Last year, when A was in New York filming She Devil, Santa Barbara's Jill Farren Phelps spoke with him. "She mentioned that they were going to bring in Roscoe Born to play a long-lost love. She laid it out that I should prepare myself...I have gone on record a couple of times saying that they will split them (Cruz and Eden) up over my dead body. The first thing that crossed my mind was 'Well, they got Roscoe.' You are talking about a formidable man, as well as a fine actor. It immediately meant it would probably work," said A when we spoke in his dressing room not too long ago.
The audience response to Eden and Robert was startling. Viewers actually wanted to see them together. Surprisingly, so did A, for a brief period. "A percentage of the audience has been moved by their work together. They have made it acceptable to do from a business point. I found myself looking at their early scenes...recreating their relationship...especially the episodes that were well written. I thought they were magic. I thought Marcy really convinced me that she was younger. She had a freedom and a joie de vivre that was distinct from what Eden is like in the present. Roscoe is just an actor with a true heart. He does not do anything that is false as far as I can tell. We have a recipe for something that is compelling, and of course, that serves the show. I made my peace with the idea. I think that it has provided me with a chance to trot my stuff a little more in the last few weeks. There is nothing like facing the central issues in your life to put you in a deep performance mode both as an actor and in real life. I find myself at times rooting for Eden and Robert. It amazes me because I have always been a big fan of Cruz's. I have to pinch myself. There have been times during the unfolding of the story that I felt Cruz behaved stupidly and their (Eden and Robert's) feelings for one another seemed so delicious that it seemed like 'Why bother with this jerk cop? Let go and go to the new guy who is also the old guy!' That is amazing. I do not like that. I want to be able to root for Cruz, but it is just the way it works sometimes," A noted.
As soon as Robert and Eden got together the viewers let their opinions be heard. "Most of the people who write me are very much against it," said A. As for Marcy's letters, "She is too much of a gentle woman to tell me what the percentages are," laughed A.
As this story is being written, word has come in saying that Roscoe Born is exercising his eight week out clause. Other rumors are floating around that Cruz and Eden will reunite soon -- and probably will be back together when this magazine hits the newsstands. Some say that the mail for Cruz and Eden far outweighed the mail for Eden and Robert. "The show is very respectful of what the people think. They do a lot of research and log everyone's opinion. They pay a lot of attention to what people write. The show is very much into letting the audience talk to them," said A. Proof positive that you do count. Whatever happens to Cruz and Eden, take comfort in the fact that you have helped this couple find happiness -- even for a little while.
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