Victoria Wyndham, who celebrates her 25th anniversary with AW on July 14, has the distinction of being the soap's longest-running performer. She assumed the role from Robin Strasser in 1972, after a stint as Charlotte Bauer on Guiding Light, and has led Rachel from her early days as a conniving homewrecker to today's mature, married mom. With daytime actors coming and going through the industry's revolving door every day, Wyndham's milestone is especially meaningful.
So, how does she feel about her spectacular achievement? To tell the truth, a bit befuddled. "It's surprising to be reminded constantly that it has been 25 years," she admits. "It doesn't seem it. In one respect it seems I never been anywhere else, and in another, it certainly doesn't seem like it has been so long." Wyndham has kept her feet planted in Bay City over the years not to take a shot at breaking daytime longevity records, but for much more pragmatic reasons. Put simply, she stayed for "the paycheck," she jokes. "Rachel, too. She's really an interesting character."
World History Interesting is an understatement. Rachel is one of AW's most complex and beloved characters. Her troubled past includes several marriages (a few to the same man) and kids who have made mom's life hell with their intense hatred for their step-dads. For Wyndham, observing her character's evolution has been like watching a young woman come into her own. "At first Rachel existed to corrupt the good little girl," she says. "I felt that she was a bright young woman who needed some guidance. She needed to think though some things. She's a woman who started out life with compulsive antisocial drives and run by her emotions. She slowly but surely learned that in the end, all that matters is love."
Striking Matches Rachel found love and redemption in husbands Mac and Carl, while in their portrayers, Douglass Watson and Charles Keating, Wyndham found her favorite-acting partners. She calls herself fortunate to have been paired with actors of their caliber. "Acting is like a tennis match," she explains. "It's much more fun when the people your playing with are good."
Not only do Wyndham and Keating click as the Hutchines, but they enjoy working together off the set as well. The two have put together Couplets, a collection of poetry and dramatic readings and have performed the piece all over the country. They expect to release a CD of Couplets this summer through Shanachie Records and have another joint project in the works. Perhaps outside collaborations such as these are what has kept the actress going strong in soaps for so long.
Wyndham's talents are by no means limited to acting. With her German Hanoverian, Grand Prix-level horse, Andante, she schools herself in dressage, an art form that she likens "to ballet on horseback." She also has dabbled in ballet and wrote the libretto that world -premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, has managed rock bands, and has one of her sculptures on permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian. "In the 1970's," she recalls, "the show wanted a vocation for Rachel. They asked me, "What would she do?' I said, 'Let her sculpt."
So, Wyndham and Rachel began sculpting on AW. Before long, she says, "The Washington Post picked it up. Pretty soon I was on the front page of the Arts and Leisure section, and then the Smithsonian got interested."
That question will have to remain unanswered. Wyndham enjoys living in the moment and doesn't put stock in planning the future. "I don't spend a lot of time thinking about what I am going to do in a few years," she says. "I pursue what interests me. If that will lead to somewhere else then it will lead me somewhere else. If it means I stay, then it means that I stay." Article by Lauren Baier Kim