From: Soap Opera News, November 4, 1997
Story by: Rosemary Rossi
Photography by: Donn Thompson


Port Charles' Matt Harmon has a pivotal career challenge at his fingertips, and he meets his obstacle head-on, impressing fellow doctor Ellen Burgess with his strength and courage. Ellen, who has faced her own obstacles in making her way to the top of her field, sees in Matt the same strength of conviction that's driven her to succeed against the odds.

This week on PC (November 4, 1997), Matt prepares to meet with the hospital board about a position in the surgical rotation. Knowing the doubts that Dr. Boardman has about his capabilities - and his limitations - Matt learns the value of testing his own boundaries as he fearlessly confronts them. Before facing the board, he and Ellen once again connect in their special way, through mutual respect and belief. Then Matt tackles the board's lack of understanding or knowledge of how a man in a wheelchair would or could perform surgery. He fields some tough questions that could easily throw him into a bitter confrontation and educates the board with his eloquent approach. The board deliberates for a short period, and then Boardman and Alan Quartermaine congratulate Matt on his presentation - and inform him that he's been accepted onto the surgical team.

Ellen also has kind words for Matt and shows her boundless support for him personally and professionally. He's truly moved when she presents him with an antique set of surgical instruments, saying she knew he'd pass their tests. As their mutual admiration continues to grow, it's the words that they don't speak to each other that carry the real weight.


"Ellen is the kind of woman who's very reserved, who certainly doesn't carry her emotions on her sleeve," explains Debbi Morgan (Ellen). "She has great respect for Matt and can relate to him on certain levels because of the hardships she's been through to get to the career point she has. She sees that same conviction and that same strength in Matt. He's overcoming what certain people would look at as a disability, although Matt certainly doesn't view it that way. I think Ellen appreciates that in him. That's what the tie is - and that's what makes her let down the barrier a bit with him. They both appreciate those strengths in each other."

But the obstacles this pair face in their careers may be nothing compared with the obstacles Ellen and Matt confront as a prospective romantic couple: race, disability and the work environment. Morgan has passionate feelings about what she hopes is - and is not- played out in this storyline. "One of the things that I hope is not dealt with is to bring up the race issue," she says with conviction. "It taints it. They have so many other obstacles and hurdles to get over, I don't think race has to be part of it. For these two characters, you already have how people might look at him because he's a paraplegic and maybe there's discrimination from certain people because of that. Then, for Ellen, to get to where she is, being an African-American woman. "But to also play it in the relationship, I don't think that it's necessary," adds Morgan, who was briefly involved in an interracial relationship as Dr. Angie Hubbard on All My Children in the 1980's. "It's been played out too many times on shows." In 1997, we can deal with problems in a relationship where one person happens to be white and the other person happens to be black," she insists. "I think we're at a point now where it would be almost insulting that they'd feel they'd have to keep feeding that to the audience. "I have friends in interracial relationships. I know they have problems and that race is definitely not one of them. Somebody needs to take a stand and take the audience where it is that they want them to go. I know that sometimes they feel that they have to address certain areas of the country. But it doesn't have to be an issue in every single interracial story that you do on every single soap. Let one storyline not make an issue of it."

"They both understand each other's plight and each other's need to overcome in the medical field," Mitch Longley (Matt) says. "The individual things they need to prove, while they seem the same, they're actually very different. While there is some connection to me, perhaps, understanding what it's like to be an African-American woman, her having some understanding of what it's like to have a disability of sorts, they're still so personal and so individual that there's no way either of them could truly understand until they start to talk about it."

Unlike the soap opera norm, Ellen and Matt are learning to appreciate each other on a personal level first, without the hormones kicking too quickly into high gear. Morgan is very glad about that slow and realistic progression. "They're at the point now where they're becoming very, very close friends," she says. "I think that's important for any relationship before it would move in any other direction. Looking at it from Ellen's perspective, if she was feeling anything romantic, it would definitely be unconscious, something she's not even aware of. She thinks Matt is a really great, very bright and intelligent man and sees a booming career for him. She wants to give him whatever support she can, especially when she sees he's being knocked down by people like Mark Boardman. "In terms of my take on it," Morgan adds, " I could definitely see where that could be developed. These two characters have a very special chemistry between them. That has to be foremost before any kind of romantic relationship could ever work. Sometimes people are put together and it's kind of forced on the audience. The chemistry is not there and it falls apart." Morgan also believes Ellen is the type of woman who sets her brain into motion before her heart takes over. "She's the kind of woman that if she did make a decision somewhere down the line that she was going to start some kind of romance with Matt, it would be something she'd take a long, hard look at," the actress insists. "I don't think she wants to mix business and pleasure. It's a fine line with her - there are certain boundaries you just don't cross. It's going to be very interesting if this develops, how they develop the relationship in terms of her acceptance of it. I'd think it's something that she would very easily throw up her hands and go, "I like this guy, he likes me, so what the heck."

Whatever the outcome, whether it be friendship or romance, Longley is thrilled to be working with Morgan. "Bottom line, I am grateful to have been working with Debbi Morgan so much," he says. "Personally, because I don't have a lot of experience as an actor and she is so seasoned and so pure in her work that I feel like it elevates my performance. Of course, I would love to see any kind of relationship between the two as they continue to be truthful and honest with each other."

As Matt and Ellen both witness and fall prey to the lack of understanding from both hospital staff and patients, Longley explains where Matt is and how he tackles the hurdles of life at the hospital. "You have to test your limits to know what your limits are," he points out. "In the past, he has tried to achieve not perfection, but the best that he's capable of doing without looking back. He knows that he has to create foreseeable and realistic limits and expectations of himself as a surgeon and when other people's perceptions fall short of his own, then he needs to step up to the plate. It's his own self-knowledge and his own awareness that his abilities far exceed the perception of some others. "Dr. Boardman represents the epitome of a naive ignorance toward the potential of disabled people," Longley declares. "Matt has dealt with it before, as most disabled people have dealt with this depth of ignorance. Sometimes you need to raise your voice and get a little anger in your eye to be able to let people know that you're serious. Although it is a level of anger and frustration, Matt is intelligent enough to understand you can't change people's minds by being out of control emotionally. Besides, in the medical world, which is more or less an intellectual world, controlled emotion is the desire."

Longley has been in a wheelchair since the age of 17, so he says he certainly can relate to the struggles that his PC character is going through. "I have been comparing Matt's determination to becoming a doctor to Mitch's determination to continuing working as an actor," he says. "In both fields, people wouldn't expect Matt to say 'I'm a doctor' and people certainly don't expect me to say 'I'm an actor.' I often get asked what I'm doing in L.A. When I say that I'm an actor, I get everything from 'Oh, that's cool' to 'But that's rare.' You so rarely see characters with disabilities."

Longley does, however, understand the plight of producers trying to cast a role. "I do think if producers can't find that right person to play the part, disability or not, and they go to somebody who is not disabled, I don't fault them for that," he says. "What they're looking for is the right person. Sometimes that comes down to one individual performer. But I get a kick out of being able to tell people that I'm a working actor because it's so rare in this industry. But on the other hand, it's so needed, not just in this industry, but culturally and socially."

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