Rena Sofer (Eve Cleary on Melrose Place) has such striking dark hair, deep blue eyes, beautiful cheekbones that it's easy to understand why she was discovered by a modeling agent at the young age of fifteen.

     She was living in North Bergen, NJ, just outside of New York at the time. "I was hanging out in [Greenwich] Village in New York shopping with a bunch of friends and this woman came over and introduced herself. She was a scout with Elite Petite Models. Since I'm only 5'6", I'm too short to be a regular model, but she thought I'd be perfect for a petite model.
     So on her recommendation, I began to take private acting classes as well as some acting classes at school (Rena attended Montclair State College for less than a semester). It was a couple of years later when I was 17 that this same agent got me some auditions and I tried modeling professionally. I modeled for about two weeks and then decided it was not for me. I hated it because they don't really look at you, only at what you look like.
     "By then, the same woman was an agent at a New York talent agency that handled actors as well as models, so she began sending me out on acting auditions," Rena says. "I auditioned for and got the part of "Rocky" McKenzie in the soap opera Loving. Rocky was an ingenue, a young girl who falls in love and marries a foreigner to keep him in the country. I played that part for 2½ years."
     Rena left Loving to play a small part as a Hasidic Jew's French bride in A Stranger Among Us (1992) with Melanie Griffith. After that, she headed to Los Angeles where she auditioned for General Hospital. She got the part of Lois Cerullo, an outspoken, brassy New Yorker who marries Ned, the son of a prominent family, played by Wallace Kurth. She was on General Hopital for three years, and with life following the script almost exactly, Rena and Wally, who had separated from his first wife, actress Cynthia Ettinger, began to fall in love.
     Rena says getting that part was one of me most important things that ever happenned to her - because she met Wally. "Wally makes me laugh harder than anyone in my life," Rena told People magazine. "He makes me feel safe. And he makes me extremely happy. That's something I've never felt before." The two met during her audition for the part of Lois. Rena was the last of 250 girls to audition for the part and Kurth says he knew right away she was the one for the part. In an interview with People magazine he said, "She had moxie, the look, the demeanor, the accent." The producers wanted to see her do the scene one more time, but Wally told them, "You know she's right. Hire her and let's go home."
     He was right, Rena was awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1995.
     It wasn't long after their TV characters married and had a child, that Rena and Wally did the same in real life. Their daughter, Rosabel Rosalind, is now two years old. Wally also has a 12-year-old daughter (Meghann) from a previous relationship.
     Becoming a mother had a profound impact on Rena's life. "I love being a mommy," says Rena. "We go to 'Mommy and Me' classes together and I definitely want to have more children in the future," she says.
     Soon after the birth of her baby, Rena became unhappy with her role on GH and decided it was time to move on. "I wasn't happy with the way the storyline had wavered. And I never really had a storyline of my own. I was always part of Ned's [story], the wife and mother... I told the producers I'd be glad to stay if there was a storyline about me, but it never came. And then my pregnancy leave almost perfectly coincided with the end of my contract, so I took [leave] and never went back."
     But ever since her departure, there has been talk of a possible return to General Hospital. She and Wally seem to agree that her storyline ended without closure for the characters Ned and Lois. Wally says he misses working with his wife, but is proud that she has moved on to nighttime drama. "I want her to come back to GH as an actor," Wally recently told Soap Opera News. "But as a husband I'm a little bit reticent about bringing her back because I know I want her to do other things too..."
     After leaving General Hospital Rena did guest appearances on Ellen, Seinfeld and Caroline in the City as well as several made-for-TV movies (The Stepsister in 1997, Hostile Advances: The Kerry Ellison Story in 1996 and Nightmare Street in 1998).

(clickable)

Up On Her Soap Box
     Rena got the part on Melrose after doing a pilot called Glory, Glory for Aaron Spelling. The drama, an hour-long Civil War romance in which Rena played a Southern belle in love with a Yankee, didn't get picked up for the fall season. But Spelling apparently saw something he liked in the 30-year-old actress. "Mr. Spelling called me and asked me if I'd like to be on Melrose Place. Of course I jumped at the chance."
     "I love soaps," Rena says. "Working with the same people all the time, you really get close and make friendships with some wonderful people. In a soap you're always playing the same character so you get to develop your character in a way you don't with a one-shot part."
     Rena says she also enjoys being able to stick close to home (She and Wally currently reside in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles). "Wally and I don't like to travel to work. I have no aspirations of being a big movie star and traveling all over the world to do movies. Acting isn't my life. It's a job." Even so, it's one she enjoys doing. "I love acting, goinq to work, doing my job," she says.
     And despite recent problems between Rena's character and her on-screen hubby Peter Burns (Jack Wagner), Rena hopes to stay on Melrose for a while. "I love playing Eve," she says, "and I think she and Peter will work it out."
     When she's not workiing hard on the set, Rena says she spends most of her spare time with the kids. "I love having weekends at home with my children, and hiatus time is great for doing a movie of the week or taking a road trip with Wally. Last year we drove all through the California gold country, stopping at small hotels and enjoying the magnificent scenery along the way. We left the kids at home and just went wherever we wanted with no schedule. We listened to books on tape along the way. It was heavenly.

A Strong Foundation
     Rena's own parents divorced when she was only two years old, and Rena and her brother David, 4 at the time, remained with their father, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, in Arcadia, Calif. They later moved to Cambridge, PA and then to New Jersey. Her mother wanted to go back to school and pursue a career of her own, so she left and became a psychology professor. She now resides in Boston. Rena says that growing up with such strong parents gave her power and made her strong. But there is a part of her that missed having a mother in those formative years.

It Taken Two...
     Maybe it's her parents that inspired her to try so hard at keeping her own marriage strong. "Marriage takes work, and Wally and I work hard at ours. We go to seminars and workshops together and explore new philosophies and thought processes.
     We have studied with teachers from Colorado and Sedona, Arizona. Then we try to integrate what we'd learned into our lives and our marriage.
     We search for the best thinkers and ideas and paths that are out of the norm. We read books that go beyond self-help to the caring and experiencing of your personal power. We've studied with energy workers, healers and therapists."