This article appeared in the March 1973 issue of DAYTIME TV.
It is accompanied by photos of Francesca James (Marcie Wade).
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Francesca James Believes in Equal Values and Other Women’s Lib ideas … But, also
“I LOVE HAVING A MAN ADORE ME”
How This Girl from Warren, Mich., Conquered New York in Three Short Years
When Francesca James was playing thee psychotic Marcy Wade on One Life to Live, people hated her. That’s how good she was at being nasty.
And then she came down with mononucleosis, which turned to hepatitis and her mother, Mrs. Mary Rubino, came in from Detroit to help nurse her back to health. (Kendall March stubbed for her as Marcy.)
After coming back to the Marcy role, Steven Burke (played by Bernard Grant) killed her, and Francesca was out of work again. But not for long, because Agnes Nixon, creator of both One Life to Live and All My Children, thought she was just too good to lose.
So Miss Nixon created a new character on All My Children, Kitty Shea, and Francesca became Miss Shea starting April 1972.
Now Francesca is playing a good person, who of course has lots of problems, and handsome Larry Keith (as Nick Davis) is interested in her.
A lot of exciting things have happened for this sweet dark-eyed, dark-haired girl from Warren, a suburb of Detroit, Mich., since she arrived in New York three years ago. But, to start at the beginning, she was born a Jan. 23 in Montebello, Calif., and the Rubino family moved to Caseville, Mich., a year later. When Francesca, an only child, was 11, the Rubinos moved to Warren, Mich.
Her Father, Joseph Rubino, had a restaurant, and Francesca recalls, “I used to dance on the tables of the restaurant, and I needed very little encouragement to perform. I took tap dancing lessons when I was six, and I always responded to music and dancing and acting. For a time I thought I’d become a commercial artist. But when I was 11, our school staged Oklahoma! in six weeks and I was in it. I liked the experience so much, I guess I was hooked on show business.”
When time for college came Francesca wanted to go to Carnegie Tech, where they have a fine drama course; but her relatives were shocked. “Francesca ought to get married and settle down!” they argued. “What does she want with the college stuff?”
But Francesca’s parents went along with her. “Whatever I wanted was okay with them,” Francesca recalls. “They’ve always been wonderful to me.”
Francesca went to Carnegie Tech for two years, worked in summer stock and did some industrial films for Jam Handy in Detroit. Among other jobs, she was resident ingénue at the Allenbury Playhouse in Bolling Springs, Pa., in early 1970, then moved to New York.
Her Parents, of course, insisted that she live in a nice apartment in a good neighborhood in New York, and helped her choose such an apartment. During her first year in New York, when she wasn’t earning enough, they supported her. But of course, now, Francesca is doing well, and her parents and relatives are very proud of her.
She had done a couple of spots on As the World Turns before she became Marcy on One Life to Live, and she was doing the musical, Plain and Fancy, in Pennsylvania when Bud Kloss, producer of All My Children, met her backstage and invited her to read for the Marcy role on OLTL when she got to New York again. That’s how it all happened.
Was she scared being in New York alone, trying to make her way in fiercely competitive occupation? “No. I had friends, and knowing my parents were behind me was very reassuring.”
She’s five-foot-two-and-a-half-inches and 103 pounds. She’s no Sophia Loren in figure, but she has that Italian mixture of fire and feminity that’s so captivating. She has a romance going with an actor; but she won’t reveal his name.
As for Women’s Lib, compared to the traditional view, “I like something from each viewpoint. I believe in equality in wages and jobs, of course; but I also love having a man adore me.”
“Also, I don’t think it’s men vs. women, as Women’s Lib seems to say. It shouldn’t be a war between the sexes. We need each other too much.”
She’d like to marry, but she would not want to give up her career. She loves acting and music too much. She’s very musical – can sing, play piano and guitar – and played one of the leads in Broadway musical, The Rothschilds, last year.
She likes the stage the most, “But you can’t make a living from stage roles, and it’s great to be able to work on a daytime serial.” She loves to work because “I want to grow in my craft.” She’d like to be in the movies. “I’m interested in everything, and I don’t want to set limits to what I want to do. I’m here to explore my talent, an I don’t see anything as being out of bounds.”
She loves to travel, and hopes to visit London this summer. In fact, she wishes she was more adventurous, like her friend Lynn Benish (Meredith Wolek on One Life to Live), who went to Africa on her last vacation and barely made it to the boarder in Nairobi during the civil wars there. “Lynn says she’d like to be more like me – in control – and I’d like to be more like her, unafraid and adventurous.”
There’s a tranquility about Francesca. Perhaps it’s her faith and her upbringing in an Italian-American family. There’s a beautiful gold cross near her bedroom, and she explains, “It belonged to my grandmother, Rose Palermo, who died.”
But she’s not always soft-voiced and quiet, she protests, “I’m not always low-key!” There’s a suggestion of mischief when she says that.
Her apartment is cozy. There’s the kitchen featuring natural-grain wooden cabinets. And there’s the large living room dominated by a plum rug, and she was delighted that we recognized it as plum. “I love purple and lavender and plum,” she explains. I have purple sweaters and lots of purple and black dresses. I even have a lavender pillow, and the woman who made it said the only other person she ever made a lavender pillow for was Kim Novak.”
Music is the dominate note in the living room: a couple of guitars, the piano, a tape recorder, recording machine, radio and TV, and even an antique zither with gold lettering: Hopf’s Jubelklange. “I’m going to have the zither re-strung so I can learn to play it!”
And when Francesca says she’s going to learn to play that zither, you can bank on it!