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Best Recast

Kevin, One Life to Live

Kevin Stapleton would have been an immediate hit with OLTL viewers if he hadn't been the third actor in a year to play Kevin Buchanan. As it was, we took our time warming to a character who'd been through almost as many face changes as Viki's been through personalities. But Stapleton is too good to ignore. He's just what Kevin Buchanan always should have been -- a cocky charmer with a great sense of humor, plus and underlying earnestness and compassion. Suddenly, Kevin Buchanan is front-burner material with one of OLTL's most intertaining storylines. (Who'd have thought a flirtation with oh-so-settled Cassie could generate heat?) Not bad for a soap newcomer.

Kevin
The
Hard
Way

After eight years of paying his dues, Kevin Stapleton hits paydirt in OLTL's unluckiest role.

Mere days after reporting to One Life to Live last January, Kevin Stapleton feared he might be back among the unemployed. "I was sitting with Wendee Pratt [Andy]," the actor laughs, "and she said, 'I was going to take a vacation, but now I can't, because of the stabbing.' And I said, 'Oh, really? Who gets stabbed?' She was silent for a minute, and then she looked at me and said, "You do.'"

Stapleton figured his contract was up right then and there -- a logical conclusion, given his character's somewhat jinxed history. "I never knew I was, like, the 85th Kevin until after I got the role," he says. "But then, people kept making all these remarks, so I did some research and I was, like, 'Jeez -- they have had a lot of Kevins, haven't they?'? Understandably, Pratt's disclosure was cause for concern. "I thought, 'Oh, what did I do?' I started smelling my armpits! I had no idea what I had done wrong."

Now, nine months into the role, Stapleton has pretty much exorcised the ghosts of predecessors Kirk Geiger (who was rumored to have been let go for being too short), Jack Armstrong (too one-note) and Ken Kenitzer (too...um...beefy), as well as the various other Kevins that appeared before OLTL aged the part. Not that job security came without a diet, mind you. "During my second week, I sat down with Nathan Fillion [Joey], and he was showing me these Online postings. The consensus was that I was fat and uncarismatic." Around the same time, ABC dropped some subtle hints. "They said, 'You will have scenes with your shirt off, you know.'" Thinking back to Adult Kevin No. 1, the now-trim Stapleton admits, "I was huge. But at least I'm 5 feet 11."

In case you can't tell, Stapleton has a good sense of self and great sense of humor -- and it is those qualities, not his height, that make him the Kevin Most Likely To Last An Entire Contract Cycle. Whether he's sparring with Laura Koffman's Cassie, bickering with Fillion's Joey or appeasing Erika Slezak's Viki, he makes every scene fun. Which makes sense, since "fun" is sorta what he majored in when, at 17, he left his home in Bayonne, New Jersey, and headed to the University of Colorado at Boulder.

"I majored in commercial recreation," he explains, "which really is a major. It means you plan large parties and events. You're a glorified camp counselor, basically." After graduation ("I got my B.S., ha, ha, aprops"), he came back East and got a job in Manhattan, organizing play openings and planning all-expense-paid weekends for big companies like American Express. "It was great until they had me do sales, which is when you sit in a cubicle, get on the phone and lie to people. That turned my stomach, so I started looking for other things to do."

And that's when Stapleton, who only previous dramatic work had been a turn as Little Boy Blue in grammer school, became an actor. "I started taking acting classes just for hoo-ha's, and I realized it was pretty cool." More specifically, the profession debunked a number of social myths he had always believed. "It just kind of reaffirmed that anything I did was okay, really. You don't have to go to school, get a job, have 2.5 kids and a Mercedes station wagon. Acting said to me, 'If you just want to be a bohemian, that's fine.'"

At least, it was at first. Stapleton moved to Los Angeles, waited tables, auditioned, waited and auditioned. Bohemia grew less rhapsodic as the years passed and the fabled Big Break remained elusive. Every now and then, he did a play, or something better, like a tiny part on Melrose Place in 1992. (His line: "Excuse me, are you Alison Parker?")

Three years later, his professional life got comparatively complicated. Stapleton got the call to test for OLTL while filming the upcoming sci-fi flick, Carver's Gate. He admits he was hesitant about testing for a soap, but "It was more exposure than serving pasta, so I did it." Around the same time, his girlfriend, Kally, relocated from New York to L.A. to live with him. As soon as she arrived, he got the job at the New York-based soap. "It was great and joyous and everything, but all her boxes were being shipped [to L.A.]. It was like 'Don't even unload 'em.'"

These days, it's their boxes. Stapleton and Kally eloped this past May 16 to Key West, Flordia. "We only went for a vacation," he confides. "But once we were there, it seemed like the thing to do. I proposed on a Tuesday and we got married on Thursday. We just went to the courthouse with our $88.50." He admits that his now-divorced parents, who ran a funeral home while he was growing up, might have felt cheated out of a wedding. "But that really didn't concern me," he quickly adds. "I wanted to be cheated out of a wedding. I don't like ceremonies and circumstance. We did it the way we wanted to."

That philosophy extends to his job, as well. "I just take what they give me and do what I feel is best," Stapleton shrugs. "If it works, it works. And if not, if they think they've made another mistake, they hey, they gotta find another Kevin. That's all. But so far," he says, looking around for some wood to knock on, "so good."

Just The Facts

Born on:
December 7

On George Clooney's Hair:
Marlon Brando had that cut in Julius Caesar. It's not new."

Siblings:
One younger brother, one younger sister.

Dinner Is Served, Sort Of:
"I can make a whole meal out of condiments. Mayonnaise sandwich with a little relish on it? Mmmm."

Third Time's the Charm

From the gossip section, December 3, 1996

Eagle-eyed fans might have caught a glimpse of Kevin Stapleton (Kevin) in a too brief OLTL appearances several years ago. "When I was acting off-Broadway for five years, the only paid television work I got was on One Life To Live," Stapleton reveals. "Wanda had a 50th birthday party, and I was in the background waving and saying, 'Surprise!' Then, I was a character on Fraternity Row (OLTL's soap within a soap). I came in and did a scene with Jessica Tuck (ex-Megan)." Stapleton didn'tm ention his OLTL experience when auditioning to play Kevin. "I don't think they remembered me," he admits, "and I wasn't like, 'Hey, why didn't you hire me five years ago?'"

Couple of the Month

He's heir to the Buchanan fortune.
She's married to the town minister.
Together, OLTL's Cassie and Kevin share an obsession for news, but is love written between the lines?

Woodward and Berstein have nothing on roving reporters Cassie Carpenter and Kevin Buchanan. These two will go to any lengths to out-scoop each other. But a nose for news isn't the only passion this couple shares. Kevin has been in hot pursuit of Cassie for months. There's just one snag--she's married.

When Viki's eldest son found himself working alongside fellow newshound Cassie, the two immediately became flirtatious adversaries. Cassie quit her job and went to work at rival rage The Sun when she felt Kevin was getting all the plum stories. She won an exclusive interview with mobster Carlo Hesser; Kevin found her notes and printed the unedited version of the interview. In retaliation, Cassie brought her son, River, to Asa's sanity hearing and begged Kevin to watch him while she took notes, promising she'd share them. But when it came time to write the story, Cassie refused to hand over the transcript.

With each prank, Cassie and Kevin grew closer. But it's not all fun and games when Kevin accidentally deleted one of Cassie's news stories. Feeling terrible, he helped her rewrite it. The two were so in sync, they even finished each other's sentences.

Kevin never hid his romantic feelings from Cassie, but she refused to admit she was attracted to him. Even when Andrew confronted his wife about her relationship with Kevin, she insisted that she regarded him only as a fellow reporter. Was she lying to Andrew...or to herself?

Performer of the Week

Forgive us for taking our time focusing on Kevin Stapleton--One Life To Live's game of musical Kevins made it hard to take the role seriously. Stapleton was handed the part after the two other actors had fumbled it in the space of a year. But now that we can tell Stapleton apart from equally attractive castmate Victor Browne(Drew), not to mention those gorgeous look-alikes on Guiding Light, it's clear OLTL has finally gotten it right. (Hunk-hunting and talent searches are not, it turns out, mutually exclusive endeavors)

Stapleton plays Kevin as a cocky charmer, though he hasn't lost the good-hearted earnestness that has always been central to the charcter(and should be--this is Viki's son). This is a fun Kevin, ambitious and hard-working, but playful, too. (Remember that mud wrestle in the woods with Cassie?) Different characters bring out the different sides to Kevin: With Patrick, he's a driven investigative reporter working diligently to bring Carlo Hesser down. With Cassie, he's a lovesick schoolboy, pulling pranks like playing dead in the woods to get her attention. With Todd, he's the voice of outraged conscience refusing to say uncle. And around his mother, Viki, well...the confident demeanor wilts like Dorian's hair on a humid day.

Speaking of Viki, OLTL's tentpole, the character of Kevin will always be defined, in part, by his mother. Stapleton's sincere performances seesaw between eager-to-please boyishness and sheer terror at Mom's irrational rage. Kevin is his mother's son, compassionate (as he was soothing a frantic Blair after her baby's kidnapping), yet with an appealing quirkiness that's all his own.

No wonder the minister's wife finds him irresistable.

August 27, 1996; Page 58 Digest: Which OLTL actor would you like to work with that you haven't already? DePaiva: I think Laura (as Cassie) should have a fantasy sequence. In each scene a [different] actor comes in and takes his clothes off and she sleeps with him. The first scene should be with Kevin Stapleton [Kevin]. Koffman: I like him. DePaiva: There was this scene where Cassie is suppose to be speechless when she sees Kevin without his shirt on. [In real life] Laura said, "Oh, my God." Koffman: I was so mortified, he opens up the door and I was like [shows a stunned look]. I blew all my lines. DePaiva: It was right on cue. Koffman: And Robyn Goodman [supervising producer] said, "Nice chest, huh, Laura?" Strasser: Does he have a nice chest? DePaiva: Yes.

OLTL SHOCKER: KEVIN WANTS ANDY

Hold onto your hats, ONE LIFE TO LIVE fans: Andy and Antonio's fragile romance might just fall apart when Kevin Buchanan breezes back into town in early March.

"Kevin expects to come right back into his relationship with Andy," reveals Head Writer Michael Malone, who notes that Ms. Harrison was deeply hurt when Kevin high-tailed it to London last year "to find himself." He returnes - literally - a changed man, but will she take him back? "She's going to make it clear that she's pretty angry about the way Kevin blew her off, and that this isn't a casual thing with Antonio," Malone says.

Even so, Antonio will *not* be amused by the new arrival. "He's already having a hard time with his mother, Carlotta, seeing Clint Buchanan," Malone points out, "and here comes another damn Buchanan moving in on the woman he loves."

As the battle for Andy's affections heats up, Kevin will dig up some dirt on Antonio that the former gang member would just as soon keep buried. Will Kevin find out that Antonio got the money to finance his mom's diner not from the bank, as he told Andy, but from the loan shark R.J.? And if Kevin does, what will Andy do?

Kamar de los Reyes (Antonio) thinks his alter ego "should open up and show her he's willing to communicate." That's the only way Antonio can hold onto Andy, the actor maintains. And what if honesty isn't enough? "Kevin is going to get his ass kicked," grins de los Reyes.

TAKE THREE: OLTL RECASTS KEVIN

After a round of miscasts, the ONE LIFE TO LIVE brass is confident they've found the *right* actor to portray Kevin Buchanan. On March 1, soap newcomer Kevin Stapleton becomes the third actor to play the part since Kirk Geiger was let go in October, 1994.

Executive Producer Susan Bedsow Horgan frankly admits that casting blunders have been made. "The last mistake was glaring," allows Horgan, referring to the most recent Kevin, model-turned-actor Ken Kenitzer. "It wasn't my idea [to hire him], but I allowed myself to [take the blame]. We've all learned a lesson, which is that you have to cast somebody who has personality, a sense of sexuality *and* acting ability." Horgan believes Stapleton has all three qualities.

"I must have looked at 30 actors and put six or seven of them on tape," says Horgan of her latest casting effort. "We looked at Greg Watkins [ex-Evan, AS THE WORLD TURNS], and we looked at people who were blonde and blue-eyed. Stapleton is dark and, in our opinion, the best one."

Horgan readily agrees that Geiger, the original Kevin, was a great actor. "I think Kirk Geiger was certainly the best of all the Kevins we had," she confides. "But I just don't think he quite made it as a drop-dead leading man."

Watch for Kevin, last seen in July, 1995, when he was sent off to London, to become enmeshed in the Irish intrigue storyline.

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