Greg In Hollywood chats with soap star Ilene Kristen of One Life to Live, pro-gay marriage on-screen & off

When I met One Life to Live star Ilene Kristen at the recent Live Out Loud event, POZ’s third annual fund-raiser for AIDS Walk Los Angeles, I kind of geeked out.

“You were Delia on Ryan’s Hope! I still remember when you pushed Frank down the stairs!”

Ilene, not appearing at all scared of me, replied cool as a cucumber: “It was by accident. It was totally an accident.”

Then I ask her how it is that more than 30 years later, she still looks the same as she did back then. I loved Ilene’s answer: “Chinese herbs and a lot of sex.”

She was just 22 when she landed the role on Ryan’s Hope and her background had mainly been in musical comedies on Broadway. She played Delia Reid Ryan for much of the show’s 1975-89 run and also had stints on the soaps Loving and Another World.

But since 2001, Ilene has been playing the role of beautician Roxy Holden on One Life To Live and has earned two Emmy nominations for her performance.

Roxy is a confidante of Kyle (Brett Claywell), one-third of the show’s current love triangle that also includes Oliver (Scott Evans) and Nick (Nicolas Rodriguez). Some of her scenes with Kyle have been absolutely wonderful because Roxy has helped him to face his true feelings about things whether it’s his feelings for Oliver or his decision this week to marry Nick in a symbolic group ceremony.

“I really like it,” Ilene said of the storyline. “It’s important and it’s important to be yourself. She says, ‘Let your freak flag fly’ and she really is the embodiment of that for sure. This is my feeling about it: I like men so why shouldn’t you? I don’t know if that’s Ilene’s quote or Roxie’s quote but I think we’ll both take it.”

“If you want to marry somebody, why should I care? Go have a blast,” she added. “With all that’s going on with the show, I think it’s such a good storyline and working with Brent Claywell is great and also working with Scott Evans. I haven’t worked that much with Scott but I’ve had a couple little run-ins with him.”

I wondered if Ilene could have imagined such a storyline when she started out on Ryan’s Hope back in the mid-70s. She could not but is glad the time has come: “I don’t think it’s creating a problem at all, I really don’t. Because a lot of our audience is gay and now it’s bringing this incredibly faithful audience who have some power and speak their minds. It’s great.”

Ilene with Bold and the Beautiful star Brandon Beemer at last week’s Love Out Loud event!

Related posts:

Daytime Soap Clip: Kyle accepts Nick’s marriage proposal on One Life to Live, crushing Oliver

Daytime stars turn out for Love Out Loud event in Hollywood to benefit AIDS Walk Los Angeles