Wally's World

"Can you call me back in about a minute?  I have to give Sally her medicine."  Sally, the 6-month-old Shepherd mix dog-pound puppy, arrived home today from getting "fixed at the critter hospital.  Yeh, Wally Kurth has a dog now.  And a yard for the dog, in back of the house he lives in with wife Rena Sofer.  As for the job that pays for the house and the dog, Kurth is now into his fifth year playing General Hospital's Ned Ashton, whose wife is Lois Cerullo Ashton, played by Sofer.  Yet another major storyline for the pair is blasting off.  Also picking up speed:  the songwriting and recording for a new Kurth & Taylor CD, aimed at a release date sometime in the second half of 1996.

But anybody out there who is thinking in press--headline phrases like "Wally Kurth Has It All" better prepare for an argument from Kurth himself.  His self-image is deeply rooted in being a regular guy with regular problems and obstacles:  Forget the show-biz illusions please.  The mid-30's Montana native very much wants to be perceived and accepted as one of the gang.  As he laughingly points out later during this two-hour talkathon, "How can anybody named 'Wally' be anything other than an everyday Joe Schmo just walking down the street?"

When Kurth's phone rings for the second start of the conversation, Sally has swallowed her pill like a good girl and is heading for a quick trip to the canine ladies' room out back.  Sofer's in Vancouver, filming the TV movie, so Dad is pulling fulltime duty.  "I'm looser with Sally than Rena is," he chuckles.  She adores this puppy, but also knows there need to be rules and boundaries.  It's probably good training for us, in some ways, for, you know, kids..."

The dog sort of symbolizes the "having it all" thing to which Kurth reacts the very moment it's mentioned. "Yeah, my life is pretty good right now.  But each part of it takes effort.  Everything in life is always 'in progress,' you know?  Like with Rena and me, it takes work to keep a relationship strong.  To use a surfing metaphor, yeah, it feels great to ride the waves, but you've got to paddle out there to catch each one."

The small-city world of a place like Billings, Mont., can teach a kid plenty about paying for great rides with time and sweat.  The youngest of five siblings, Kurth began early to learn both the costs and the blessings of a so-called "ordinary" life.  "Today, I got back from visiting Rena in Vancouver.  Before that I was in Montana, singing at an annual event for an organization that my father belongs to.  The people back home...what stands out about them for me is hard to describe."  Kurth is stymied for a moment.  "It's partly that the priority in people's minds out there is the outdoors:  working, hiking, gardening.  Sometimes here in L.A., my whole life becomes acting.  I love acting, and I'm very serious about it.  I couldn't live without it.  But people in this city can forget that the rest of the world isn't wrapped up in the entertainment business, you know?"  His low-throated laugh mixes with a small sigh.

"I visit home as much as I can.  I definitely plan on living there again some day.  Probably part-time at first.  I think of a little cabin, with a big library, and a sattelite so I can catch all the UCLA basketball.  The heartland values include sharing what you sweat for.  "My parents are very conscious of making people feel good, and feel happy.  The whole time I was growing up, they always invited people who didn't have a family to have holiday dinners with us.  That's the sort of thing I watched as a kid"

Kurth believes he has benefited from what he saw at home.  "The up side of wanting to make people happy is that I can in fact, strive for that, and there are lots of rewards for me there.  I was in line for customs coming back from Vancouver today, and I noticed this woman in line with us who was struggling with a heavy box and some other stuff.  She lost her place in line more than once, because people just walked ahead of her if she wasn't moving the box fast enough.  So I went over and helped her.  My friend said, 'Wally, that's so generous.'" Kurth laughs like a boy getting away with something.  " I said.  'No, it's selfish!  It makes me feel good.'  There's the whole autograph thing, too:  It takes just as much effort, I think, to say 'go away'as it does to write out the autograph and give it to the person.  And again, because they feel good, I get to feel good, too.

"The downside is my tendency to want to please people sometimes rather than tell the truth in relationships, because maybe the truth will make the other person feel bad.  And sometimes I try to please to the detriment of my artistic vision:  When I'm co-writing songs, occasionally I'll hold back because I don't want to step on the other writer's toes.  Generally, I want to make sure that everybody around me is OK and that they know I still like them."  People-pleasing proved useful during the much-documented dry spell in Kurth's career:  Aside from time logged as a production assistant for a TV commercial company, his primary source of income came from catering and restaurant jobs.  Everyone likes a waiter who wants to make them happy; if they like him a lot, they might even ask him about himself.  "I had left college to do that long gig in Pirates of Penzance, and ended up playing the lead on Broadway.  But there I was, back in L.A., in this five-year thing of almost no acting gigs at all.  Still, I think it's so ridiculous when I talk about 'my struggles,' because I struggled so little compared to others in the acting business.  Plus, the 'struggling actor' syndrome is such a cliche in L.A.  SO I stopped telling people I was an actor and told them I was a student.  Which I was.  Going back for my degree at UCLA and doing plays at the same time kept me sane."

He doesn't seem to be exaggerating.  "When people ask me if they should study acting or theater, I always tell them yes,t hat no matter if they ever work as an actor or not, they'll learn a lot--about life and about themselves, and they'll be able to use what they learn.  Art is healing, for the person who makes it and for whoever appreciates it.  Art can do that much for people:  It is survival."

Kurth's songwriting, singing, guitar and piano also feed his soul.  "When I came to L.A., I went out and got a tape recorder for my writing work at home, and kept moving along on my own material.  I knew I wanted to do both acting and music, although I didn't know how I was going to do it.  Supposedly you can't have both; the two things always seem to be in conflict.  People ask me which I'd choose if I had to choose one."  Briefly he falls silent.  "But whichever I'm doing, I'm always telling a story:  Whether, I'm acting or doing music, I'm always a storyteller."  Aha!  The proverbial lightbulb goes on.  "Hey, that's it!  That's how I'm going to answer that question from now  on.  I mean, that's what people pay artists for:  to tell a good story."

Now it's a matter of finding what story the Kurth & Taylor band wants to tell.  "THe band's LP from 1994 was made up of demos Christian (Taylor) had done, demos I'd done, one's we'd done for GH.  Fans were clamoring something on record.  THe artistic duo LP that Chris and I did was more reflective of who we are, with half of it songs we like to perform and half originals.  But the only way we're ever going to get a record deal is to know even more about who we are.  We haven't worked enough doing live shows, still, to know. Plus, it's a weird situation, because we have this 'Eddie Maine and the Idle Rich' character that we play, but we're not Eddie Maine's band.  So it's a little difficult to walk that musical line."

Like many of us, Kurth has more heart than he has hours in the day; media wags call it "time poverty."  When we're done talking, I have to see a co-writer I'm working with on a song.  I like to co-write, partly because they have home studios, and I'd rather just have my acoustic guitar and piano in my house to absorb my attention.  I also like to co-write because otherwise I might not get any writing done."

Frustration laces through his laugh.  "That's the word--it is frustrating, a lot, trying to balance the music with GH.  It's hard to write a new song when I've got 20 pages of dialogue to learn!"  Still, the way he delivers those words carries no serious complaining.  Instead, he conjures up a dream scene, a rough draft of "Wally Kurth, Almost Having It ALL."  In Almost Land, daytime series would give all their actors three sold months off per year, coveted to do other projects and/or hang with their families.  ("the shoes would keep their people forever, I swear!")  Kurth would put at least some of that time into theater, as well as helping to create and launch original musicals for TV or the big screen ("but I wouldn't write the songs").  He'd have a successful songwriting/playing/singing/recording career.  And, of course, there would be Rena, plus Kurth's 10-year-old daughter, Meghann, and other soul treasures like the one virtually every Joe Schmo lives to find and protect. The UCLA basketball games could be a negotiable issue.

First comes love, then comes marriage. . .

After exchanging "I do's" twice on General Hospital, Wally Kurth and his leading lady, Rena Sofer, took the matrimonial plunge for real March 31.  The pair wed near the groom's hometown, Billings, Mont.

"I asked Rena to marry me on Valentine's Day," says the romantic Kurth, noting that he and his bride-to-be started making plans immediately.  "We knew when we wanted to get married.  All my family was in Montana for a family gathering (at the end of March), so we knew we could have everybody there."

According to Kurth, the nuptials were "a very small affair.  It was just our family and friends.  Rena and I wrote our own vows.  It was a beautiful, beautiful ceremony."

Their ceremony incorporated "a combination of elements" of both couple's faiths.  (Kurth is Christian; Sofer is Jewish, the daughter of orthodox rabbi, Martin Sofer).  "We created it for ourselves," says Kurth.  "Rena's dad gave us a blessing."

THis is not the first time life has imitated art--and vice versa--for Kurth and Sofer.  "Certainly when Rena and I met each other, it was sort of an obvious thing that we were falling in love, " notes the actor.  "And the writers just continued the characters down that path."  Slowly and steadily, much the same way Kurth and Sofer's romance blossomed.

"I tried to take it one day at a time with Rena," adds Kurth, "because I'd already been in a marriage and was not thinking that way at all.  For the first time in my life I was just trying to go day to day and let it unfold.  And everything unfolded beautifully."

Now the newlyweds are awaiting the birth of their first child.  SO are their GH counterparts.  "We are expecting in September.  So we are further along than Ned and Lois are," grins Kurth, admitting that it's "strange" playing this storyline turn because of the circumstances surrounding it.  (Lois discovered she was pregnant while the two were estranged.  They recently reconciled, but still must cope with parenthood from vastly different Quartermaine and Cerullo perspectives.)

Kurth is thrilled about becoming a dad again.  Although he already has a 10-year-old daughter, Meghann, from a previous relationship, he anticipates this chapter of fatherhood to be totally different.  "I didn't have Meghann every day and every night.  It wasn't a day-to-day thing," he says noting that his daughter lives with her mother. "So this is going to be a completely new experience for me.  I know it's going to completely change our lives. Rena and I are going to be completely transformed.  That's the truth.  It's going to be amazing.

"We're both looking forward to this new chapter," continues Kurth with a smile.  The newlyweds are actively preparing for it, too, by making room--literally--for the new addition to their family.  "We're in the process of building on to our house.  We're adding on an extra room for the nursery."--Janet De Lauro