If only he didn't lead such an incredibly charmed life, Ingo Rademacher (David, TITANS) would be surfing the South Seas right about now. "I had all these plans for after I left GENERAL HOSPITAL [as Jax]," he sighs. "I'd been working for four-and-a-half years nonstop, and it went by so fast, I just thought, 'Hello, let's live a little here.' So, what I wanted was to go to Indonesia for a couple of months—just to kick back, hang out on the beach, grow a beard.
     Instead, he's still in L.A., still clean-shaven ... and, alas, still hard at work. "This incredible opportunity came along," he says, referring to his role on Aaron Spelling's latter-day DYNASTY, TITANS. "It was the sort of thing I just had to do. And I figure if it doesn't work out, it could lead to good things."
     Judging from his GH experience, it'll work out. Rademacher sailed into Port Charles in January 1996—and by February, he was literally and figuratively the show's golden child, the Coppertoned calendar boy at the heart of Jax-and-Brendamania. "It was pretty amazing how that storyline took off," nods the actor, whose life changed overnight. Rademacher suddenly found himself mobbed at personal appearances ... on the covers of TV Guide and Playgirl ... chatting with Rosie O'Donnell ... posing for posters.
     "It's weird because I always forget I'm on TV," he laughs. "Like, I'll be walking down the street with my friends, and I won't notice anything, and my friends will be like, 'Dude, all these people are looking at you.' It's like, you just live your life and do normal things ... like I call up Pacific Bell to change my phone plan, and they're like, 'Oh, Ingo, you're on GENERAL HOSPITAL.' And I'm always surprised by it. Always."
     Looking back, he's hard-pressed to articulate the secret of his success with Jax. "I'm not really sure what it was. I guess I came on the show with a lot of energy and life and that Australian kind of ruggedly laid-back attitude. I think that's what Americans love about Australians, and my character was very much like that when he first came on. And my accent, although that started to dwindle out toward the end."
     Unfortunately, the loss of Vanessa Marcil's Brenda in 1998 precipitated a major dwindling of Jax's story, as well. The character got weak—and his portrayer got restless. "I probably should have left after three years on the show, right at my peak," reflects Rademacher, who extended his contract bit by bit out of financial concerns. "I was trying to set myself up." He explains. "That's just my nature. I'm a Taurus, very grounded. If I don't have a safety line on me, I'm not gonna climb that wall.
     "I don't really regret [staying as long as I did], but it was a little frustrating toward the end," he continues, "There were a lot of words exchanged. I had people from high places at ABC come up to me and say, 'Sorry, we haven't really done a lot with you.' And I'm like, 'I know.'" In the end, that dissatisfaction made his departure pretty easy. "There was absolutely nothing they could do to make me stay. No amount of money. Nothing they could have promised. If they had said, '$10 million a year,' I would have said, 'No.'"
     That resolve has less to do with the actor's healthy savings account ("I didn't need to make TITANS") than with is resumê. "There are a lot of things I want to do. It's like, were you watching the show when Vanessa left? That was the first time I ever had material that heavy, and I want more of it. I want to dig deep. I want real drama. And that was never gonna happen on GENERAL HOSPITAL. It's just not written that way; it's more of a fairy tale."
     Recognizing that, Rademacher fulfilled his obligation, got his congratulatory cake, checked out his dressing room one last time and "ran to the beach." He forgot to watch his final episode, which aired on August 28. He doubts he'll return. As for his character's fate, eh shrugs, "If they recast him, they recast. If he dies, whatever. I'm on to the next thing now." That said, the actor insists that his overall experience on daytime was positive. "Believe me, I'm very grateful for the opportunity. I'll have my [GH] mug with me on every set I ever work on."
     Certainly, he has it for coffee breaks at TITANS, which he got partly because of his soap pedigree. "I got this job without reading for it," he grins. So, what did Spelling see in him? "Um ... If I was him ... I think he knew that I was leaving and just basically hopes that I can draw the daytime audience. Hopefully, people will follow me from [GH] to this. Just from a producer's point of view, that's money in the bank. I mean, that would be my guess. But whatever it is, it's very flattering."
     All in all, it's bringing him closer to the goals he set six years ago, when he started commuting from Australia to L.A. every pilot season. "I had been coming close to a lot of nighttime shows, one-hour dramas," he says, and now that's he's nabbed one, he's thinking about where it might lead. "I'd like to venture into film," muses Rademacher, who decided to forsake his annual beefcake calendar for the good of his professional life. ("They're probably not the best thing for your career. Some people might think, 'That's kind of cheesy.'") "I'm gonna wait and see what happens, hopefully do a movie on my hiatus." Long-term, his ambitions are grander. "I'd like my own production company, to get involved in all aspects of the industry—writing, directing, all that."
     There's just one other thing Rademacher wants, something he's not likely to get soon—but a guy can dream. "It would also be nice," he says, "to have a vacation."