"Every Underdog Has Her Day"
'Love Has Proved that Anne Sward Is More than a Nurse with a Nightclub Act'
(from SOD)

"I am nineteen years old and trapped in this middle-aged body." That is the real story, says this thirty-seven-year-old ("Is this bad?") Anne Sward, taking an ironic view of her role as a woman ten years older on AS THE WORLD TURNS. "And I did it for the soap. Actually, under this cellulite is a taut nineteen-year-old. But for the soap, I had to climb into this body of bags."

She has never looked like the mother of two married children in their late twenties. She has usually been a satellite in other people's stories--never the star. There was Lyla at the nurses' station in her uniform and purple sweater, available to listen to everyone's problems when she had a persistent one of her own--no identity. Single soap opera mothers with no romance in their lives rarely have stories and no one knows that better than Anne. The soft and elegant blue-eyed blonde describes her six years as ATWT's resident underdog as "the most frustrating thing in my life. It was the kind of thing where I should have gone off and said, ' Use me or lose me.' But I got accustomed to getting a check every week."

She was also, surprisingly to herself, a survivor. "I watched them come and go... on every level," she says of the job turnover over the years at ATWT. "On every level... countless actors. I can't even remember them all." Having lived through the regimes of Freddie Bartholomew and Mary Ellis Bunim left Lyla and Anne in the hands of the show's present executive producer, Robert Calhoun, and head writer Douglas Marland. Meetings with them saw the beginnings of an improvement for lonely Lyla. She told Marland that she wanted to sing on the show. "I wanted to have an identity other than being a mother to these children," she says. "That was basically the conversation. And Doug thought of ways we could do that. You know, getting out of the hospital or out of the house or develop another relationship with the music, or play it, you know, why is this woman so alone?"

First came the black evening gown, then the red. Lyla's nightclub act was soon in full swing. Anne sang standards like "Come Rain or Shine" in a rich husky voice to a full house at Mona Lisa. She was sexy and sophisticated; the purple sweater in figurative mothballs.

Then came Dr. Casey Peretti. The young, brash intern, who had been wasting time hankering after wholesome Frannie Hughes, caught Lyla's set one night at Mona Lisa and met her afterward. He took one look at Lyla's decolletage and quipped, "Great pipes."

Lyla had her man. The instant chemistry between Sward and Bill Shanks eventually found its way into the script where, Anne says, the bold print eventually read CASEY LOOKS AT LYLA IN A NEW WAY. Finally she had her something to play besides concern for others. ATWT went slow on this May-December romance, exploring Lyla's insecurities about her age, whether her inability to have more children would send Casey packing, and her fear that this bold move would make for social stigma in Oakdale. Lyla told off snotty ex-lover John Dixon when he disapproved and backed down from romance when the possibility of true happiness made her nervous. It's been Anne's best year on ATWT and she is clearly grateful to Calhoun and Marland, whom she calls "exceptional, gifted people." She is nuts about her co-star Shanks. "He is adorable," she raves. "He has a wonderful sense of humor. He is just easy, he is cuddly and he is a good actor."

Born in Bronxville, New York of Italian and Swedish parentage, Anne Sward came to acting by way of her natural talent for music and her lackluster academic record. "I had a teacher back in high school. His name was Dr. Kaufman," she recalls. Dr. Kaufman lover her in her first show, Guys and Dolls, and, looking at her poor grades, told her to stick to theater. "He was the first person to ever say that to me." She studied drama at a small (now defunct) college in Iowa and with an actor named Al Russio ("You turn on any gangster movie and he played the gangster," says Anne). She eventually graduated from Emerson College in Boston and went on to get her M.A. in theater arts and speech at the University of Miami.

Five years before Lyla snagged Casey, Anne had already found herself a younger mate, without any Lyla-esque jitters. Second husband, California-born Bob Hansen, is six years her junior, a fact she insists not knowing during their two-year bicoastal courtship ¾ until she signed their marriage license during a two-week break from the show. Evidently bad at guessing ages, Anne picks up a photo of her fresh-faced, rugged, very handsome husband and defends herself. "Look at this. He works out of doors. He has a beard. I mean how old would you think he is? I didn't know. I was slim and trim and fit and he didn't know how old I was. I guess we never saw each other on our birthdays. I just never questioned what his age was. It was never an issue. We were getting our license and I saw 1956 and I was like, '1956! How the hell old are you anyway?' And he didn't know how old I was either."

The increase in relationships between older women and younger men is something she sees among her own women friends. Anne attributes it to gains women have made in the workplace. "Now women are not getting married. They are developing the time to promote their careers. So now you might have a woman my age and you know it takes an extra whatever to get to the top so she hasn't had the time to devote to relationships. She is now thirty-five or forty years old and has money and free time and then the men in that time frame, they are either married, divorced or preoccupied so you don't even want to be with them, or they are gay. So most available men--they are younger men."

With Lyla and Casey's wedding coming to the home screen, Anne has another reason to celebrate. She has recorded a single, "From Now On," a love theme written for Casey and Lyla by Mark Mueller and Ken Hirsch, for MCA records. Anne worked with ATWT Musical Director Jill Diamond in looking for original material and they settled on the Mueller-Hirsch tune, which Sward describes as a country ballad.

The culmination in her story line and her musical career excites Anne, but she is actually proudest of what she has been able to accomplish on behalf of the American Indian. Mention the quality of life among Indians and all traces of her easygoing temperament vanish in a flash. "American Indian reservations are the apartheid of America," she declares in the impassioned manner of a born crusader. "It is a very heavy statement, but what is going on is very heavy. And if people found out about the atrocities that happen, it would stop tomorrow."

Among the abominations Sward lists are woefully inadequate medical care with some reservations in Oklahoma, Arizona, and North Dakota six hundred miles from the nearest medical facility; 90 percent alcoholism rate; massive unemployment and unhealthy housing, with some of the tribe elders freezing to death.

To alleviate these wretched conditions, Anne has become a tireless lobbyist, organizing clothing drives, toy drives, meetings with senators and congressmen to alert them to the plight of these isolated and forgotten 1.4 million Americans. Her dressing room counter is covered with handmade Indian jewelry that she is selling at work. An open black leather briefcase is stacked with notebooks, brochures and appointment books for all of her Indian-related activities, which include an auction of Indian art and artifacts next spring at the Phillips Auction house in New York to raise money for Anne's pet project, the American Indian College Fund.

Anne's commitment to the Indians has been a powerful experience. At a toy drive in North Dakota last winter where Anne and her assistants brought seven hundred gift-wrapped toys (two thousand kids, not all of them Indian, showed up) she was singing "O Come, All Ye Faithful" when she came across a poor Indian women and her six children. She was so moved by the pain and neglect written all over the woman's face that she broke down in the middle of the song.

In all of her pursuits, Anne can count on support from her husband, but Bob maintains his distance from the television milieu and is not involved in his wife's fund-raising efforts. He has his own hands full, developing a custom-home construction business. Anne adores her husband. "It takes a very special man to marry an actress," she says. "You know, the hours and everything and now this"--she points to the counter--"I'm working all the time. He is on the phone until nine or ten o'clock at night. We have two phone lines. Thank God he is not the type who expects dinner on the table; I don't know what he eats. I haven't the slightest idea what this man eats."

Their life might sound a little hairy at the moment, but Anne and Bob are also in the process of adopting a child. After one ectopic pregnancy and other surgery for gynecological problems, they've decided that's the most sensible route to take. But with her current streak of luck, Anne wouldn't be surprised if even that situation changed. "Everything is coming to a head," she smiles. "My story line, my record deal. I'll probably get pregnant tomorrow."

Link to Picture: Lyla & Casey

--by Robert Rorke