Decking the Halls with Deidre Hall at Holiday Benefit Fundraiser

Deidre Hall with the "Rudolph" cast. Photo courtesy of Rick Aguilar Studios

On December 7, the soap world and the theater world collided in Chicago when Days of our Lives star Deidre Hall (Marlena) was a special guest at a fundraiser for the Hell in a Handbag Productions theater company.

We arrived early and after walking up five (!) flights of steps, we waited for the doors to open and talked in the hallway, a conversation that led to – what else – talk of Days. Several Deidre fans had been waiting there for a while already. One woman I spoke to had traveled from Indianapolis. Another flew in from the East Coast.

Most of the Days fans chatted about when they started and the obvious couples: Marlena and John, Marlena and Roman, Bo and Hope, Jack and Jennifer. A few were quite verbal in their displeasure of how Sami and EJ ended. (My mention of Don Craig, Marlena's husband back in the day when my mom was a Days fan, was met with blank stares.)

Harding & Fisher: Making the Case for a 'Harder' Story on 'The Young and the Restless'

If you've seen the hashtag #Harder on Facebook and Twitter, you may already know about the social media response to the potential pairing of longtime The Young and the Restless character Kevin Fisher (Greg Rikaart) with handsome newcomer Det. Mark Harding (Chris L. McKenna). Fans have noticed chemistry between the actors, especially during recent scenes where Kevin was was questioned by "Officer Yummy Pants."

The hashtag is filled with innuendo (Harder? Insert teenaged Beavis and Butthead laugh here) but it's rallied some fans around the idea of a romance. A social media campaign is one thing, but could a story like this become a reality? Would a romance between Kevin and Mark Harding be too big a leap?

In a Twitter discussion a few weeks ago, I heard from some users that it was too sharp of a turn for Kevin, a character who's been embroiled in several heterosexual romances (and marriages). It's too farfetched, they said, for a straight man to suddenly “turn” gay.

But I think there's something there to explore. I think there's a way to make this story happen that honors Kevin's history and yet opens new possibilities for him.

And for that, we need to get aboard the Big Purple Dream bus, and revisit the romance of Olivia and Natalia -- "Otalia" -- at the late and lamented Guiding Light.

Remembering Michael Zaslow as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Sweeps the Nation

Michael Zaslow
Photo Credit: Jessica Burstein/NBC/NBCU

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've undoubtedly seen The Ice Bucket Challenge, the latest viral meme, splash across social media pages. It's all over TV news, newspapers and magazines.

Everyone from your next door neighbor to Oprah Winfrey is being showered with cold water and ice in an effort to raise awareness about ALS - amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (or as it's also known, Lou Gehrig's disease).

It's also raising money -- as of today, over $40 million has been raised. (The ALS Association usually raises less than a tenth of that in an entire year.)

I'm really glad that ALS is getting some well-deserved attention and awareness. But for many of us soap fans, the person who shone a spotlight on ALS, and its horrible impacts, was the late Michael Zaslow.

For those that may not know him or his work, Zaslow was a New York based actor, and for many of us, he was Roger Thorpe, Guiding Light's most memorable villain, a man both dastardly and dashing. Roger was a passionate fighter, but his tormented relationship with ex-wife Holly, a woman he'd raped while they were married, was as much a battle of intellect as it was of heart.