Following in the stiletto-heeled footsteps of great soap vixens like PORT CHARLES' Lucy Coe and ONE LIFE TO LIVE's Tina Lord, SUNSET BEACH's Annie Douglas, played by sultry Sarah Buxton, is vamping and tramping up a storm in her misguided attempt to secure love and money.

The soft-spoken Buxton has been in the business more than 15 years, and though she has ammessed quite an array of credits, Annie is unlike any other role she's played. "I'm lucky...playing Annie is like playing many different characters at the same time. And I don't think I'd be happy playing an easygoing or sweet character," she purrs. "I honestly had no idea what kind of character Annie was going to be when I signed on for the show. They told me nothing about her, so I had no idea what kind of journey I was in for. It's been so much fun. I think that's what keeps me going: I'm addicted to this storyline now."

Annie's camp value has not been lost on the actress. "I feel like I'm doing SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE," she says, "because a lot of the things Annie does are so funny. Making the transition from prime time and films was so hard. If this were a film or primetime TV series, I'd develop the character over a period of days or weeks, but now it's all I can do to trust my instincts and go. There's so much material, all you can do is improvise a lot of the choices. I know the lines, but I just go with it and see what comes out."

SUNSET's ratings have been disappointing since it's January 1997 debut, but evil Annie has developed quite a following nonetheless. "I was on my way to Palm Desert and stopped in Taco Bell," Buxton recounts, "and these girls started screaming at me through the drive-through window: 'You're so bad, Annie! You go get 'em, girl! You deserve the money!' I was laughing so hard. I didn't know how to react."

The adoration isn't the only thing Buxton has had to adjust to: She got her first taste of daytime's notoriously heavy workload soon after signing her contract. "At the first table reading they handed us a stack of papers this big," she says, holding her hands as far out as possible. "It was at least six episodes, plus the bible. I was overwhelmed with paperwork, and thought: This must be a joke! I asked (Executive Producer) Gary Tomlin if they had cue cards, and I think he got a little nervous after that. But I was just scaring myself. It's not as hard as I thought it was at first."

Still, Buxton has had to alter her lifestyle since stepping into Annie's open-toe pumps. "When your doing a soap, you don't have time to get your nails done or go to the gym," she says, laughing. "Thats a joke, by the way. I'm very sarcastic about things, and sometimes I'm misunderstood in print."

The actress is serious about the effect her job has on her social life. "I don't even have time to see my really good friends. But they know I'm out here in soapland," she explains.

"I've changed. Definitely. It's strange," she continues. "My life is much quieter, in the sense that I have to be disciplined at home. But there's this whole other side of the industry, the publicity side, where I have to be 'on' so much. Basically, your work is your life. I find myself very abrupt with people, which I don't like at all. I am really trying to calm down, because it's not that big a deal if I can't make it here or there. I just have to learn to say, 'No, I can't make it.'"

Ah, the glamorous life of a soap star. "I can't even go to the movies," she says, groaning in jest, "because when I'm there I think about the fact that I have to learn my lines when I get home. And if I go to a late movie, I fall asleep. It's a real thrilling life, I tell you."

Was she always such a fuddy-duddy? "Oh, no. I grew up in LA. I lived in the fast lane. I wasn't a bad girl, but I couldn't be called a goody-two-shoes. I definitely lived the club life," Buxton admits without embarrassment. "I had fun, and I'm still fun - I swear!"

Once she gets rolling, Buxton has a great sense of humor, and, despite her work ethic, there's a party girl inside who's dying to get out. "I tried to burn the candle at both ends after I got this job, but it didn't work," she admits. "I get envious of my friends who still go out all the time, but I know my body and I know I can't handle that."

If Buxton sounds like an old pro, it's because she's done a lot and seen it all since she started acting at age 15. The story of her big break sounds suspiciously like a Hollywood fairy tale. She was "discovered" when "a woman tapped me on teh shoulder in a market," Buxton explains, "and she put me in acting school." The woman was Gwendyn Swift, who went on to become Buxton's manager, "and she had me going everywhere."

Buxton's early auditions included well-known TV series and films like Tootsie, but no soaps. "There was a period of time when there was snobbery, and the agents would decide for you that you didn't want to do a soap," the actress says. "Then, from the ages of 18-22, my agent wanted me to read for soaps, and I auditioned for ANOTHER WORLD and GENERAL HOSPITAL."

One of Buxton's only regrets is that she never attended College. "I battled with my family because they're so education-oriented," she says. "Strangely enough, my stepfather, who has a master's degree in both psychology and mathematics and is a professor at UCLA, was the one person who pushed me in this direction. I managed to manipulate that, actually. See, I do have a little bit of Annie in me!"

Buxton was aware that sho business is cutthroat, "but I was blind to that, and that's what my parents were so worried about," she explains. "All I saw was that I was having so much fun in this exciting world. I'll always remember what Diana Muldaur said to me when we were doing a pilot together: 'I've done 90 pilots. Go to college, honey.' And I didn't listen to her."

"Once you become 18, it's hard to work regularly," she continues. "I've spent many times driving home from my auditions crying, because I put everything into it and the person I auditioned for was eating salad and talking on the phone while I was reading for them."

The ruthless and callous people in the entertainment business don't intimidate Buxton. "I've been curling my hair since I was 15, ditching my last class of high school to get to an audition," she explains. "And not because my parents were pushing me. For some reason, I've always been driven to be an actress."

Buxton maintains that she's in show business for the long haul. "I don't think I'm good at anything else," she says. although it's hard to tell if she's being sarcastic or brutally honest. The actress adds that she wants to have kids, "but I want to get married, and the time is not right. Definitely in the next few years. But I have to find my match." For the time being, she's found her match in Annie.