One Life to Live‘s Michael Easton, Ted King, Kassie DePaiva and the cast’s doyen Erika Slezak have become the first actors to sign deals with Prospect Park, the company that in June acquired the rights to continue to produce soon-to-be-canceled ABC daytime dramas One Life to Live and All My Children online. Prospect Park just announcement the pacts with the four actors. (See statement below.)
Meanwhile, I hear that, after a two-week deliberation, All My Children star Susan Lucci has turned down Prospect Park’s offer to stay on the show. The offer was for a salary identical to what Lucci currently makes at ABC, but I’ve learned that she tried to gouge the producers for more money while also asking to work fewer hours and get a commitment for a primetime series. In light of that development, I hear that Prospect Park may reevaluate its short-term strategy for the two soaps and put its muscle behind the higher-rated OLTL, while moving AMC to the back burner. Prospect Park’s original plan was to re-launch both OLTL and AMC online in the first quarter of 2012. Lucci made headlines over the weekend with a leaked new epilogue to her book All My Life, in which she blasts ABC Daytime president Brian Frons over the series’ cancellation.
On OLTL, King plays Tomas Delgado, Easton portrays John McBain, DePaiva plays Blair Cramer and Slezak plays the matriarch of the Lord family Victoria Lord. Slezak has been on the show since 1971 and has won six Daytime Emmy awards for the role, an Emmy record. Here is Prospect Park’s statement on the quartet’s new deals:
Pending a final agreement with AFTRA, Prospect Park has confirmed that One Life to Live cast members Ted King (Tomas Delgado), Michael Easton (John McBain), Kassie DePaiva (Blair Cramer) and star of stars Erika Slezak who plays Lord family matriarch Victoria Lord, have agreed to deals to join the company’s new production of One Life to Live. This marks the first confirmation of cast members since Prospect Park began planning for the soap production to live on the new online network beyond its finale January televised date on ABC.
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