I had so much fun with the team of Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me! I was invited to play a game called “How can it be an opera if it’s over in just an hour?” Three questions about musical operas.

Click here to listen to the show:
or read the transcript below…

PETER SAGAL, host:
And now the game where we invite on people who did one thing brilliantly and ask them to do something else entirely. The soap opera “Guiding Light” ended its 72-year run on radio and TV last year. For 26 of those years, our guest, Tina Sloan, played Nurse Lillian Raines. Tina’s new book is “Changing Shoes.” Tina, thank you so much for joining us on WAIT WAIT…DON’T TELL ME! Great to have you.

Ms. TINA SLOAN (Actress; Author, “Changing Shoes”): Love being here.

(Soundbite of applause)

SAGAL: So, here’s the thing about soap operas, they’re great. They’re involving, but so much stuff goes on.

Ms. SLOAN: Yes.

SAGAL: It occurs to me that if like a fraction of the things that happens to a character like yours would happen to somebody in real life, they’d have gone mad years ago.

Ms. SLOAN: I hope so.

SAGAL: Tell us some of the things, first of all, that happened to Nurse Lillian Raines.

Ms. SLOAN: Okay, do you really want me – want to hear this?

SAGAL: Go down the list. Go down the list.

Ms. SLOAN: I’ll give you the minutes. Okay. My daughter drowned in a lake, leaving one red shoe behind. She came back to life. She was blind, aphasiac, burned in a fire. She drowned again, leaving another red shoe behind. This time she came back as a totally different character named Lorelei, who looked exactly the same, right down to the mole on her chest, but I don’t recognize her – her mother. Then I do recognize. I murdered someone. My daughter murdered someone. My granddaughter at the age of seven murdered somebody.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. SLOAN: We have very good genes. I get breast cancer, which is a very nice thing. I mean nice that it was a good storyline. But, of course, I had to fall in love with my doctor, who was my breast cancer surgeon, but also happened to be my best friend’s husband.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. SLOAN: She found out about the fact that we slept together, called us a suburban cliche, went off a cliff and killed herself.

SAGAL: All right, season two, go.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. SLOAN: I could. I could keep going.

SAGAL: Wow. That’s a lot to keep track of. I mean, did you ever like show up for work and you’re like, who am I sleeping with and who do I hate this week? Did you know?

Ms. SLOAN: Yeah, I usually did know. I didn’t sleep with a whole lot of people, unfortunately.

SAGAL: Oh, well, you know.

(Soundbite of laughter)

SAGAL: What about your relationship with the audience? Because you went through a lot as Nurse Lillian Raines. I’m sorry, I keep saying it that way, Nurse Lillian Raines.

(Soundbite of laughter)

SAGAL: Did people ever come up to you and express their sympathy for your latest tragedy?

Ms. SLOAN: Oh, yes. Oh, my lord, yes. I mean, but before Lillian, I was a really bad person and people used to smash me with their carts in the A&P or something.

SAGAL: No. Really?

Ms. SLOAN: Oh yeah, they just hated me.

SAGAL: You mean you played a villain on a different soap opera?

Ms. SLOAN: I did. I played a villainess, a bitch goddess.

SAGAL: Oh really? Which did you enjoy more?

Ms. SLOAN: Oh, are you kidding? The bitch goddess.

SAGAL: Oh yeah.

Ms. SLOAN: Yeah.

(Soundbite of laughter)

SAGAL: People really used to physically attack you because of the mean things you had done on their fictional TV show?

Ms. SLOAN: Truly, they did, because I stole a woman away from a man on “Somerset.” And this woman came up with a shopping cart and she just rammed, she kept ramming me. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

(Soundbite of laughter)

SAGAL: Wow.

Ms. SLOAN: Yeah, it was quite upsetting.

SAGAL: And since you played a nurse, did anybody ever ask you for medical advice?

Ms. SLOAN: Oh, I’ll tell you. I was on a plane coming from Phoenix and there was – somebody had a heart attack. And they came over the PA and said, is there a doctor onboard? Nothing. Is there a nurse onboard? Nothing. I had been a Nobel Prize winning cardiologist on another show. So I went up to the…

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. SLOAN: I truly did. I truly said to the stewardess, I said, look, this guy’s in real trouble. I can say all the right words to him. You know, tell him about his blood pressure and the arrhythmia and calm him down until we get him down on the ground. But I said, you know, I’m not a doctor, but I played a Nobel Prize winning cardiologist.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. SLOAN: I know the words.

SAGAL: And did you do that? Did you actually…

Ms. SLOAN: I did it. I swear I did it. I calmed him down. And I sat, you know, he was lying down on the ground, and I was talking to him and pretending I was taking his pulse and his blood pressure. And, you know, telling him that he was fine and that he was doing really well. And I did all the things that I was supposed to do.

SAGAL: If you had gotten really carried away, you would have started sleeping with his best friend I guess.

(Soundbite of laughter)

SAGAL: Or something like that. Now you say you had to fake all that, but in the book you talk about how when “ER” and those other medical shows went on the air…

Ms. SLOAN: Yeah.

SAGAL: …you had to start, like, getting more realistic in your medicine.

Ms. SLOAN: Yes. And I did this operation. They decided we should do an operation like “ER.” And, of course, I had the worst sense of anything. I hated the sight of blood. But they put little chicken livers in this person’s pretend stomach. And I was…

SAGAL: Wait a minute. What?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. SLOAN: Little chicken livers.

SAGAL: So was there an actual person who had to have chicken livers, or it was a fake person?

Ms. SLOAN: No, no. It looked like, you know you had the thing, the gown open and it looked like we cut them open.

SAGAL: Oh wow.

Ms. SLOAN: But I remember, instead of a scalpel, I said, here’s the spatula.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. SLOAN: And he kept asking for the C-SPAN instead of the C-section. I mean, it was just ridiculous.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. SLOAN: And he has killed 39 people, the doctor that I was working with.

SAGAL: What?

Ms. SLOAN: Thirty-nine. He was called Dr. Death.

(Soundbite of laughter)

SAGAL: So wait a minute. So how would he kill them? How had he killed them?

Ms. SLOAN: Oh, every time you went to an operation for him, you were going to die. I mean, that was the end of your contract. You sort of knew it.

SAGAL: I mean, really, so when they decided that they wanted to get rid of you as an actor in the soap opera, they decided your character got ill and had to go see that doctor?

Ms. SLOAN: Absolutely.

SAGAL: Oh, that’s terrible.

Ms. SLOAN: I know. And we’d just – you’d be insane, because you didn’t know if they were going to let you die or they were going to kill or not. But the minute you said, oh, I’m going to see Dr. Bower, everybody would just go uh-oh.

(Soundbite of laughter)

SAGAL: Is there anything you miss about it, the soap opera?

Ms. SLOAN: Oh, I miss it every day. I mean where else? I mean, you go sit down for Thanksgiving dinner and there’d be somebody murdered in front of you or a ghost would appear at the window. I mean it was so much fun.

SAGAL: Do you ever try to recreate those in your actual life just to keep yourself interested?

Ms. SLOAN: You know, nobody on the show was divorced, in production, in the makeup room, the hair room or any of the actors. And there were about 100 of us. And I swear to God it’s because we got all the drama out there. I’m waiting to hear when the divorces start now that we’re off the air.

SAGAL: Really? Because you think you all…

Ms. SLOAN: Yeah.

SAGAL: Got like your need for drama and craziness out fictionally?

Ms. SLOAN: I think so. I do, Peter. Think about it. You got to scream and yell and cry almost every day, so you never did it at home. It was all gone. And now there’s plenty of energy for it.

SAGAL: Tina Sloan, we’ve invited you here to play a game we’re calling?

CARL KASELL, host:

How can it be an opera if it’s over in just an hour?

(Soundbite of laughter)

SAGAL: We don’t know why soap operas are called operas because, among other things, nobody sings and you all speak in English. So we’re going to ask you three questions about musical operas.

Ms. SLOAN: Oh, wow.

SAGAL: Get two right, you win our prize for one of our listeners, Carl’s voice on their home answering machine. Are you ready to play?

Ms. SLOAN: Sure.

SAGAL: Carl, who is Tina Sloan playing for?

KASELL: Tina is playing for Andrea Porreca of Abington, Pennsylvania.

SAGAL: Here is your first question. Operas, of course, are sometimes accused of being inaccessible. That may be particularly true of a new opera that just opened in the Netherlands because the opera is what? A, performed entirely in the dark? B, performed in Klingon? Or C, because it is three days long?

Ms. SLOAN: Oh, I think three days long.

SAGAL: The entire opera three days long?

Ms. SLOAN: Yeah.

SAGAL: It’s actually in Klingon.

(Soundbite of laughter)

SAGAL: Klingon, of course, being the made-up language created by fans of the TV show “Star Trek.” The opera tells the story you so well know of the first Klingon emperor, Kahless the Unforgettable.

(Soundbite of laughter)

SAGAL: All right, you still have two more chances. This will go well. I know it will because you’re a soap opera star. It always ends happily, right?

Ms. SLOAN: Mm-hmm.

SAGAL: As the saying goes, it’s not over until the fat lady sings. But back in 2001, a leading opera diva, Deborah Voight, did not sing at all. Why? A, she was too fat and wouldn’t fit into the black cocktail dress required for her? B, she had a terrible bout of hiccups? Or C, the theater refused to accommodate her demand for her own pony in her dressing room?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. SLOAN: I hope she couldn’t fit into the black dress.

SAGAL: That’s right.

(Soundbite of bell)

SAGAL: She was too fat, even by opera standards.

(Soundbite of applause)

SAGAL: The director decided she wouldn’t look right in a black cocktail dress he wanted for one scene. The dress stayed. She left. But she did eventually lost the weight and come back. All right, you got one out of two with one to go here. You get this one, you will in fact win, and all shall be well. New operas are being written all the time. Opera lovers will soon be able to see a new work based on the life of whom? A, the presidency of Millard Fillmore? B, the balloon boy? Or C, the late Anna Nicole Smith?

Ms. SLOAN: Oh, I hope it’s Anna Nicole Smith.

SAGAL: It is Anna Nicole Smith.

(Soundbite of bell)

SAGAL: Well done.

(Soundbite of applause)

SAGAL: Stuff that happened to her wouldn’t have flown in your soap opera. The opera based on her life will be premiered at the Royal Opera House in Britain.

Ms. SLOAN: Wow.

SAGAL: Carl, how did Tina do on our quiz?

KASELL: Well enough, Peter. Two correct answers, so Tina wins for Andrea Porreca.

SAGAL: Well done, Tina.

Ms. SLOAN: Thank you, Peter. Thank you everybody.

(Soundbite of applause)

SAGAL: Tina Sloan appeared in “Guiding Light” for 26 years. She’s the author of the book “Changing Shoes,” in bookstores now. Tina Sloan, thank you so much for joining us.

Ms. SLOAN: Thank you, Peter.

SAGAL: Bye-bye.

Ms. SLOAN: Bye.

SAGAL: Bye-bye.

(Soundbite of applause)

2010 has a banner year for WE LOVE SOAPS TV. We have enjoyed bringing you the hottest news stories, deepest interviews, classic clips, historical articles, and cutting edge indie soaps, 365 days of the year. We have relished the opportunity to witness, and at times be a part of, the changing landscape of the soap industry, both on and off-screen.

We wanted to end 2010 with a special list of individuals who compelled, captivated, and fascinated us this past year. These are people who one way or another broke new ground making soap history, blazed new trails, and inspired the creative souls of their audience and their peers. Below is our list of the 15 Most Fascinating People of 2010.

Tina Sloan (Theodora, EMPIRE; Katherine, VENICE)
Why Is She So Fascinating? Sloan demonstrated inspiring new vitality and spirit after the ending of the 26 year role as Lillian on GUIDING LIGHT. She wrote “Changing Shoes,” an autobiographical piece that entertains, inspires, and enlightens like no other book you have read in 2010. She performed her one woman play of the same name for thousands of fans around the country including former President George H.W. Bush.

She also appeared in multiple films including Oh My Love, Black Swan and Happy New Year. Sloan grabbed the Indie Soap Revolution storm by taking on a second role in 2010, a hilarious portrayal of the conniving and manipulative villianess Theodora on EMPIRE, which brought comparisons to her bitchy Kate Cannell on SOMERSET in the 1970s.

For the entire list of the “15 Most Fascinating People” click here.

As I am wishing my friends, family, readers, and fans a Happy New Year I am also so pleased that a wonderful film, of the same name, is in post production. In Happy New Year, the film, I am the proud mother of a marine. As art so often imitates life…I AM ACTUALLY A PROUD MOTHER OF A MARINE. Luckily for me, my real life son returned home from Iraq safe and sound. My film son returns, badly wounded, to the post traumatic stress disorder ward in a VA hospital. Here’s a clip for you to see:

Tina Sloan Discusses “Happy New Year” from Happy New Year Film on Vimeo.

I hope that this New Year all of us will remember those courageous men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for us, those recovering from their wounds, of all kinds, and the family and friends who love and support them.

Let’s make 2011 a wonderful, happy, and peaceful New Year!

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010
by Charlene Giannetti on Woman Around Town

Actress Tina Sloan spent 26 years on the CBS daytime drama, Guiding Light, so it’s fitting that she is now proving to be a guiding light for so many others. In her book, Changing Shoes, she not only tells her own life story, but also offers advice to help women edit and perhaps rewrite their own scripts.

Tina has always loved shoes and she uses that metaphor to encourage women to make the small changes that can make a big difference. Sometimes adopting a new attitude can be as simple as slipping on a new pair of shoes. Tina is traveling around the country in a one-woman show based on her book. While she tells her story, clips from her past—TV commercials, scenes from Guiding Light, and other performances—flash on an overhead screen. The juxtaposition of what is on the screen and her commentary prove insightful, ironic, and humorous. Recently, she performed the play in Houston before a sold-out house that included former President George H. W. Bush and his wife, Barbara. She met the first couple backstage afterwards. Barbara told Tina: “I wish I had known how wonderful this play was because I would have gotten everyone in Houston to see it.”

Tina’s message resonates with audiences, presidential and otherwise. Although her publisher initially saw the book appealing to an older female reader, younger women, as well as men, are finding wisdom within the pages. Both the book and the play follow Tina’s journey, beginning with the time she spent as a young girl living in Paris—“the world was my oyster”—through her many years on a daytime drama, where she dealt with her disappointment as her onscreen time decreased as she got older. “I didn’t always handle it well,” Tina says about her diminished role on Guiding Light. “I gained 40 pounds.”

Any comparison between GL’s Lillian Raines and the real life Tina falls short. While Lillian was married twice (TV wedding photo, left) and encountered many soap-opera type dramas, Tina has been happily married to Steve McPherson, a businessman, since 1975. While her TV daughter, Beth, was married too many times to count, and died several times (each time she left a red shoe behind), Steve and Tina’s son Renny, graduated from Harvard, served as a captain in the U.S Marines, doing two tours in Iraq, and now is at Harvard Business School.

Meeting with Tina in her home, she is every bit as beautiful and gracious as we were led to believe. Her assistant Emily Talamo is busy in the dining room, handling the details of Tina’s increasingly busy life. Beside promoting the book (the two went on a multi-city tour), and performing in the play, Tina is working on a line of products using the shoe motif. She proudly shows off a small tote bag, sketches of shoes on each side, that she will sell on her website and at her book signings.

We settle in Tina’s living room to talk. While Tina’s life seems charmed, there have been bumps along the way. Aging, of course, often spells the end of an actress’s career, the reason so many resort to fad diets and numerous rounds of plastic surgery (something Tina has vowed not to do). Writing the play based on her book with Joe Plummer, Tina dealt with the issue right off the bat. “I had to explain to him—you would love this—what it’s like to become invisible, have your power taken away,” she says. “He’s 31 and adorable, and he just couldn’t grasp the idea. But it’s what makes the play work, because he finally got it.”

Tina’s wakeup call came one day when she was with the actress who played her 20-something daughter on Guiding Light. Accustomed to being noticed (when younger, Tina had literally caused a traffic pile up when crossing the street), she found that the most attractive man in the coffee shop was staring, not at her, but at her younger co-star. “NO ONE was looking at me,” she writes. “NO ONE.”

While she was dealing with her own age issues, Tina found herself caring for her aging parents—her father was diagnosed with blood and bone cancer while her mother suffered a series of small strokes and began the descent into dementia. Many women—and men—will relate to her struggle, holding down a demanding job while also being a primary caregiver to elderly parents. “I want to be a mentor to the people behind me so that they don’t make my mistakes,” Tina says. She succeeds at that goal admirably, sharing her own experience and then providing lists that people can follow to prepare for themselves (or for their parents). “You’d be amazed at how many people give me a blank stare when I ask if they have a living will or long-term-care insurance,” Tina writes. During our interview, she spoke about a young woman who, after reading Changing Shoes, was motivated to act. “She told her father, `we’re going to a lawyer to do your will,’” Tina says. “That’s great!”

If the role of mentor seems to come easily to Tina, she learned from one of the best. As a young girl, she lived in Paris with her mother’s good friend, Aga Church. “I think my parents had hoped that Aga would talk some sense into me,” Tina writes. “They couldn’t have been more mistaken. To me Aga was the epitome of female independence.” Aga taught Tina how to choose her shoes but, in reality, she was teaching Tina how to make life choices. “Tina…always make sure the shoes you wear are your own. That way your feet will know where to take you.” When Tina returned to America, she decided to pursue her dream of becoming an actress, against her mother’s wishes. “She thought acting was déclassé,” Tina says.

Tina, however, was a class act, whether she was selling Tetley tea (“The big tea taste of Tetley Iced Tea. It grows on you”), Maybelline makeup, Dove soap, or Colgate toothpaste. The camera loved her, audiences loved her. She went on auditions, took acting classes, and the jobs kept coming. Then, one day she received a call from Gail Kobe, Guiding Light’s executive producer, who wanted her for a role on the show portraying Lillian Raines, a nurse coping with an abusive husband. Tina’s character caught on with the audience and a temporary job turned into a fulltime one. (Photo above shows Tina with her GL daughter played by Beth Chamberlin, and her grandaughter played by Hayden Panettiere).

Since the end of Guiding Light (the daytime drama broadcast its last episode on September 18, 2009), Tina has been appearing in two online dramas, Empire and Venice. She also has roles in two upcoming films, Happy New Year, and Black Swan.

Tina has met so many challenges during her life (she’s run eight marathons and climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro), that asking what’s left on her “bucket list,” produces a moment of silence. “I want to go to Egypt,” she says finally. After another pause, she adds, “I’m so happy right now. Who knows? Changing Shoes could go somewhere. What I have found is that I want to inspire someone today and that’s what I keep hearing about the book, that it’s inspiring people to take tap dancing, play the piano, or do whatever it was that they really wanted to do.”

Changing Shoes ends with wise words: “I think this idea of raw possibility is what we need to hold onto as we get older. Our lives can be filled with whatever we want: romance, work, friendship, adventure—we just have to be brave enough to look for it. And have the right pair of shoes.”

For more information on Tina’s book and show, go to www.changingshoes.com.

To purchase the book on Amazon (it makes a wonderful holiday gift!), click Changing Shoes.

To watch Tina in the online soap operas, go to www.empiretheseries.com and www.venicetheseries.com.

Woman Around Town’s Six Questions
Favorite Place to Eat: Amaranth, Park Ave Winter
Favorite Place to Shop: Any bookstore.
Favorite New York Sight: Coming over the Queensboro Bridge and seeing the city laid out in front of me. It TAKES MY BREATH AWAY every time, especially at night when it is all lit up.
Favorite New York Moment: The everyday walk in Central Park with the seasons changing.
What You Love About New York: EVERYTHING and especially that I am a part of it. No where else gives you the world right there.
What You Hate About New York: NOTHING and I do mean that. I don’t mind the garbage or the subway or the rude taxis—they are all part of the fabric of the excitement of the city

MADE ME SMILE A LOT!!!

Click here to see the comments on YouTube. Let me know if it makes you smile too!!!

I love doing these interviews. More to come from my book tour.

TV Guide Magazine: Congrats on getting a real publisher to put out Changing Shoes. None of this self-publishing stuff for Miss Tina Sloan!
Sloan: And Publishers Weekly just wrote the loveliest piece about the book! I’m so excited about that! The book deal happened just a few days after 60 Minutes aired its segment on the cancellation of GL [last fall]. In fact, I found out about it the night the play opened.

TV Guide Magazine: It’s a super read. You deliver some great truths about aging. You make people want to grow up to be you!
Sloan: A lot of people say that to me now and I love it. All my life I’ve wanted to be a mentor. That’s what I’ve dreamt of being my whole life because I didn’t have anybody there to help me when I started out. It’s why I wrote it all down for the next generation. I worked so hard on the book — morning, noon and night — and I think it paid off. The book is very different from the stage show, much more honest in many ways. Things got to the point at GL where I felt so diminished by all the attention on the younger women that I withdrew from life. I basically lost five years! I’d sit around the house in my bunny slippers gaining weight, reading murder mysteries and watching the Pride and Prejudice TV series with Colin Firth, like, 25 or 30 times. I became a recluse. And when I did leave the house, I’d go to theaters and watch the Bridget Jones movie time and time again, eating my popcorn and my M&Ms, and loving it because she was allowed to be fat — and she wasn’t even that fat! But she got the nice, handsome guy in the end and I took a lot of solace in that.

TV Guide Magazine: You eventually pulled yourself out of that dark funk and, now, you want to help others in the same situation. But will they listen?
Sloan: I think I’m pretty normal and very relatable to all sorts of people, men included, and I know the secret to finding joy again! I share my struggles and my miseries and how I found my way out. These are tough times and a lot of people feel like giving up, but there’s still so much joy and fun and light. So much is going right! It’s all about staying in the game, staying frisky, keeping a twinkle in your life.

TV Guide Magazine: Still, there are those who’d consider a TV star to be someone of privilege and that your problems — being sidelined on a soap by increasingly younger, hotter beauties — isn’t comparable to life’s real problems.
Sloan: But it is! It happens everywhere. If you’re working at an office or at bank, there could be a young, smart, peppier girl coming up and sort of pushing you out of the way. It could happen if you’re working the counter at McDonald’s. I’m relatable because I’ve had a long marriage and a lot of stars don’t. I’ve had my son serving in Iraq. A lot of stars don’t. I took care of my parents when they got old. A lot of celebrities sort of put their parents away. I don’t mean that unkindly, but they do. I think I’m pretty normal, really. Even [in the book] where I’m climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and crying the whole way up because I’m a bit of a spoiled child in my pink boots, people will still want me to get to the top of that mountain. And, hey, like a lot of people in this country, I’m outta work, too! I don’t feel removed from reality. I’m honest. I keep coming back to the truth.

TV Guide Magazine: We seem to be experiencing a pandemic of denial in our culture and that’s a big thing to battle. We’re all about the distractions — texting, tweeting, cell phones, dopey celeb gossip.
Sloan: It’s so true. Women who change their faces with facelifts are trying to deny that they’re aging. They deal with a child who is on drugs or a husband who is straying by living in a state of denial. Gaining weight, going through menopause, dealing with aging parents — which I go into a lot in the book — can also leave you in denial. I don’t know why we’re all hiding from the truth. We’re all pretending things are perfect like we’re living in some kind of 1950s TV show.

TV Guide Magazine: The upside of all this: One’s troubles can lead to very good things!
Sloan: [Laughs] It got me my book and it got me my play! I allowed myself to feel diminished by the world and then I decided I wasn’t going to let that happen anymore. I fought back. I lost a lot of years but now I realize that loss made me who I am right now. For a while there, I resigned from the world. At GL, I stopped going into the production office to talk to the people who make the show. I just stayed in my dressing room eating and eating. But when I started going back into that office, and chatting with the other actors in their dressing rooms, that’s when I started to come alive again. That’s how Crystal Chappell and I became great friends, and that’s why I’m on [Chappell's web soap] Venice. When they called me to do [the web soap] Empire, I said yes! You have to keep yourself relevant. And as I started writing the book I started losing weight because I was happy again. It’s so easy to slip into that place of nonexistence. It’s like going into a coma. You’re there but you’re not there, like you’re living in a wide-awake dream.

TV Guide Magazine: So what’s the secret to life?
Sloan: I asked that question when I went to Kyoto to meet the marathon monks. They literally run a marathon every single day of their lives for seven years — 26 miles one way, 26 miles the other. At the midway point they have dinner and then run back. All I wanted to do was see them and find out what they were all about, so I was taken down to meet one of them in his hut. I said, “Tell me the secret to life.” And, with the help of a translator, he said, “Just put one foot in front of the other.” That’s it. It’s that easy. That’s all you have to do — but do it in a great pair of shoes, of course!

I find this very upsetting and yet true. All that should matter doesn’t if you are not touched by the kiss. A man you may have felt was dull, boring can simply kiss those thoughts away. And that is right. The kiss is a truer validation of the goodness, brightness or better rightness of one being for another. A kiss has made me want to see someone again, someone who had not interested me by his conversation, or hobbies. I had been fooled by the outer man; the kiss was the true man and he was someone interesting.

As a woman I have kissed men I liked, as an actress I have kissed men I didn’t like — some who were gay, some who were happily married — and always the kiss revealed the power, or strength, or weakness.

Is it instinct or learned? My son at two years old possessed instinct. He came to me and said, “I give Mommy a red kiss,” and planted a kiss directly on my mouth. He then warned me not to wipe it off and toddled back to his cars and trucks. The instinct to kiss a woman when she’s not expecting it, to make it interesting (red, no less) and then to be strong about it (don’t wipe it off) was a great gift of his love.

His father has given me blue, pink, orange, and purple kisses as well as vacuum kisses and silly kisses. All in all, kissing is my favorite hobby.