Many of us have been unable to reach Robin Strasser's infamous hotline (212.414.5300) since the tragic cancellation of ONE LIFE TO LIVE and ALL MY CHILDREN was announced. The Emmy winning actress sent this message out to her public late Friday night as a response to the devastating news. In her own words, unedited and uncensored, here is Robin Strasser's message: "Yes, thousands of calls have crashed my HOTline and apparently a LOT of other people's phone lines too, at the answering service I use.
The technicians are TRYING to rectify but because the volume of calls was so great...it burned out more than 100 other numbers.
That's good and bad news. I apologize for the inconvenience and frustration you may have had trying to reach me.
There is MUCH to regret in ABC's decision to cancel All My Children AND One Life to Live. My fan/friends are calling in to hear what I think. That's what they do.
So huge were the numbers of them, that as of last night: the phone service t...echies HAD to dis-connect the number, so they could continue to service those other 99 persons.
They promise they will figure something out and even if the number has to be changed, they'll have the HOTline UP and running again.
If they can 'salvage' the message I made, yesterday...exactly one hour after I heard the appalling news...they will. I hope they can.
Long time callers clearly understand why it's always been called Robin's HOTline (lol).
I am INCAPABLE of GRIEVING and LYING at the same time..
and ya know as many things as I need to change about myself--that is NOT one of them.
I'm part of team headed by Frank Valentini, the best Executive Producer EVER in this genre...and in a 43 year career, I worked with a lot of them!
He pledges (with the positive affirmative intelligence that is his personal brand) that we will bring the show to a close with the BEST ending possible!
Great! I am SO ON-board!!!!
And yet...I ask myself ... why do I feel over-come with a mad-ass recklessness that compels me to tell the truth? (albeit the truth as I see it in this moment)
Surely you can't send out a press release calling the two soon to be cancelled shows 'Iconic' and then toss them out?... is it me? but I cannot make sense of this concept or how it works for any one?
I'm perched on that slippery slope of being judgmental...but too saddened to lie, I confess: my jury is in! This seems a cavalier and misconceived idea...excuse me, but possibly celebrating the loss of SO MANY jobs with the spin-maker use of the word 'EVOLVING' is inappropriate?
I've got a healthy addiction to Classic Movies...here's my current fave flashback montage:
Peter Finch shouting out the window and getting others to join in:
'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more'
note: he died soon after after giving that performance...
Amazing Susan Hayworth with her awesome sparky retort to her jailers in I Want to Live:
'What are you goin' to do? Kill me?'
and just for some release of tension add Bette Davis nervously trying to light her own cigarette in Dark Victory:
'I'm told I have a sense of humor'
It is NOT all about me...but as a human being, as one who has been BLESSED to be able to earn her living ALL her life doing work she LOVES...I just have to acknowledge that the pain is palpable.
From my viewpoint:
All the revisionist corporate spinning can NOT diminish or squelch the VALUE, the PASSIONATE LOYALTY, and the LOVE our audiences have for these shows.
A suggestion? In your way, be creative, and come up with ways to be as positive as you can muster but-- I implore you: put 'thought into action'... be pro-active.
If MY little Hotline can be CRASHED BY THE VOLUME OF CALLERS----what MIGHT happen if the energies of our fans went in other effective directions? I'm just asking.
Would you kindly help a Veteran Diva with a computer skills deficiency out?Please?
Blast, Twitter,Facebook and Chat Room this unexpurgated and un-edited piece of my mind.
And DO NOT DELETE THIS PLEASE:
I THANK YOU...OUR ENTIRE CAST/CREW/PRODUCTION AND DESIGN TEAMS THANK YOU...AND THE FAMILIES AND FRIENDS OF THOSE AFFECTED BY THIS IMPENDING LOSS: THANK YOU...THANK YOU...THANK YOU!!!!!!!
(yes, you are right...paraphrased shamelessly from James Cagney's Oscar winning Yankee Doodle Dandy)
BIG SHOUT OUT:
Please...may I count on applause from MY fan/friends for Michael Logan of TV Guide and his sagacious and courageous EARLY report that AMC and OLTL were going to be cancelled?
People give truth tellers a hard time...and I'm suggesting that his accurate prediction deserves some appropriate HONOR. It is because of that 'leak' that the plan could not be hidden nor the reveal delayed...
Six hundred of us about to lose our jobs, appreciate the advance notice in order to intelligently come up with Plan B.
LOVE, LIGHT, AND HOPE!
Robin
PS: I'll be moving to Los Angeles when the show closes down...and I'm gonna Twitter as soon as I can learn how...AND I am gonna pick a fight back with Chelsea Handller who dissed me at length on her show...oh yeah, uh huh...Plan B is shaping UP...more later!
Disclaimer: the opinions expressed are ONLY MY OWN. I have no ghost writer nor editor nor sought legal counsel before pressing 'send'.
(I did run on, but if not NOW, WHEN?)"
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