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Starr-Crossed Lovers

Kassie DePaiva’s favorite storyline is the relationship her character, Blair, shares with ex-hubby, Todd (Roger Howarth). “It’s a powerful story that’s compelled the audience to continue to watch to see if these characters will ever get back together,” notes the actress. “And I think there could definitely be a chance for Todd and Blair, but there are a lot of holes that need to be filled in.” Such as? “There have never been scenes explaining why Marty was so important to Todd and Blair wasn’t,” she states. “There have never been scenes showing that Starr (Kristen Alderson) is a part of both of them.” With perhaps the exception of the goodbye between Todd, Blair and Starr in the stables. “Those scenes were so sad but those kinds of moments are good soap opera - when you see two people in their own pain and in their own world,” declares DePaiva. “Blair and Todd want life to be different but there’s nothing they can do.”

Soap Opera Digest (1998)

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ABC Soaps In Depth (2010)

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Soap Opera Digest (2023)

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“I’m enjoying my dressing room by myself,” confesses DePaiva. “I shared with Laura Koffman (Cassie) and then with Susie Misner (ex-Grace), so now I’ve got it to myself, which is nice. I can sit in my own little corner in my own little chair, which rocks, so I like sitting in it. My mirror has little collages of pictures, like of J.Q. and from when I first started going out with Jimmy and this great bumper sticker I found in Palm Springs that reads, ‘I may be a cruel and heartless bitch but In damn good at it!’ That’s more for Blair than me though! It’s always cold in this building so I make sure to have a heater which I put next to the sofa. The sofa actually matches the carpet which I laid myself. I have a few shelves from ‘Hold Everything’ with things like books and CDs that fans send me and menus for restaurants so I can order food but the place is pretty bare. I can’t study my lines at home because the TVs always on and I’m getting pulled at, so I come to my dressing room to organize my lines. It’s my own little place for solitude. I do my own hair and makeup so my dressing table is usually pretty messy. The drawers are full of my cosmetics and I blow my hair dry here, although I borrow rollers from the makeup room when I need them. On the side wall, I have pictures of my son and Dreama. If I’m ever not enjoying what I’m doing, I look at those pictures and know life is good.”

Soap Opera Digest (1999)

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Kassie DePaiva and Robert S Woods (Bo) behind the scenes of OLTL in 2013

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BAD NEWS BLAIR

She May Be Llanview’s Resident Bad Girl, But ONE LIFE TO LIVE’s Blair Just Wants To Be Loved

In 1991, a conniving woman by the name of Blair Daimler (now Cramer) blew into Llanview. Mia Korf originated the role but when the Amerasian left the show in 1993, blonde-haired, green-eyed Kassie DePaiva took over. “Blair is perfectly dysfunctional,” laughs DePaiva. “She feels everything deeply, whether it’s happiness, anger, lust, jealousy, fear… I love that she’s a bitch with a lot of heart.” Here, in character, DePaiva remembers the ups and (mostly) downs of Blair’s life.

1993

“Viki and Sloan hunted me down because they needed me to verify something for his book on Victor Lord - they wanted to know if Dorian had admitted killing Victor,” recalls DePaiva. “They found me down in Miami with my boys.” Blair had kids? “I was hanging out with some young boy toys,” she laughs.

1994

As soon as Blair returned to Llanview, she began blackmailing Dorian (again) and hitting on Max (again). “I pursued Max in every way I could,” she grins.

Around this time, The Wild Rose Club casino opened, and Max became addicted to gambling. While Cord and Luna tried to break his bad habit, Blair encouraged it. “It was a way for me to spend time with him,” she explains. “Max was addicted to gambling and I was addicted to him.” One night, Luna kicked Max out. Feeling rejected, Max turned to Blair. “We went to Atlantic City and hooked up with RJ, who was a loan shark,” she explains. “Everything tailspinned from there. I became more obsessive and possessive as Max’s gambling addiction became worse.”

After their escapade, Max took his son, Al, to his ranch in Texas and Blair tagged along. But soon after, Luna arrived to patch things up. Cord kidnapped Blair and took her to Asa’s nearby ranch so that his friends could reconcile. With Blair out of the picture, Max, Luna and Al went to the local fair, but Blair escaped from Cord and took off in his truck. “I was driving to the fair to find Max,” explains the actress. “I swerved to miss Al and accidentally hit Luna instead.” Luna was paralyzed and Max broke things off with a distraught Blair.

“I attempted suicide by turning up the gas stove in my apartment,” she explains. Luckily, Cord found her passed out and stood by her while she recovered. “I finally realized that I was addicted to Max and started up a relationship with Cord because he was nice and safe.” Unfortunately, Blair found herself playing second fiddle to Tina and finally got fed up. “Around this time, I ran into Todd at Rodi’s,” she remembers. “Initially, I didn’t know who he was. We commiserated about what losers we were.”

That is, until Blair dropped her purse and spotted the prison I.D. bracelet that Todd was wearing around his ankle. “At that point, I thought, ‘Stay away from me.’” But the two lost souls kept running into one another, and Blair finally realized that Cord was never going to put her first. “On Christmas, I went over to Todd’s and offered myself to him as a Christmas gift,” she chuckles. The couple had sex and it was the beginning of what seemed to be a beautiful relationship.

1995

When Blair figured out that Todd was the heir to the Lord fortune, the money-hungry vixen set out to land him. “I tricked Todd into getting married by faking a pregnancy,” she admits. The couple wed on a beach in Key West.

Several weeks after the nuptials, Tina revealed to Todd that he was her brother and Todd inherited 27.8 million. “After Tina warned Todd that I was a gold digger, he made me take a pregnancy test,” the actress says. “I thought for sure I wasn’t pregnant but I was. It was hilarious!”

Sadly, when Blair was mugged a few weeks later, she lost the baby. “Those were really tough scenes,” DePaiva reveals. “Blair wanted a baby; so did Todd. It was the first thing that she would have had on her own.”

When Max informed Todd that Blair had originally lied about being pregnant, Todd lost it. “He almost raped me,” says DePaiva. Blair stopped Todd by reminding him of his past rape of Marty but the marriage was over. “We had lost the baby and that was a reason for us not to be together.” Todd filed for a divorce.

But Blair soon discovered that she was pregnant - again. “Everybody thought I was lying this time for sure,” laughs DePaiva. “But I really was pregnant. I contemplated not having the baby, until it brought Todd and me back together.” The couple remarried at St. James church. “We were really, really happy,” she smiles. Before they could go on a honeymoon, Todd decided that he wanted to make amends with Marty and flew to Ireland. “It was always about Marty,” DePaiva sighs. “I thought the only reason that Todd loved me was because I looked like her.” In Ireland, Todd was mistaken for Patrick, shot and presumed dead. A bitter Blair blamed Marty for Todd’s “death.”

1996

Luckily, baby Starr filled the void in Blair’s life. After a run-in with Marty, an enraged Blair cut off her hair (because she didn’t want to look like Marty), then went into labor - but gave birth prematurely.

Soon afterward, Blair began chasing Patrick. “Marty took my man away so I wanted to take away hers,” she says. “At first, I just wanted to get back at Marty. Then, I really started to like Patrick.” When Blair finally got the poet to sleep with her, Todd “returned from the dead” and spied their sexual encounter. Figuring that Blair never mourned his death, Todd kidnapped Starr. Eventually, he returned the baby, and Blair and Todd were about to reconcile. But Blair learned that she was pregnant - yet again - this time, with Patrick’s child. “That ruined everything,” the actress groans.

1997

Blair and Todd remained at odds. Though Todd filed for custody of Starr, the judge awarded temporary custody to Blair. Starr became ill with aplastic anemia and was in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant. Of course, Starr’s best bone marrow match would have been Blair and Patrick’s unborn child.

“Then we had the car accident,” says DePaiva. On a rainy night, Blair and Patrick were on their way home from the hospital when a sobbing Kelly (who had just been dumped by Joey) ran their car off the road. “I lost the baby and thought I had lost Starr too because of the accident. Those scenes were very difficult because I was pregnant in real life,” she confides. “Looking back, I wish I’d never had to play it.” After the accident, Alex donated bone marrow to save Starr’s life. Meanwhile, Blair was hospitalized.

“I was in a coma and Todd hooked up with Téa to betray me yet again!” she exclaims. “While I was in a coma, he divorced me and took custody of my daughter.” But Blair fought back and after a speedy recovery, vowed to win Starr. Unfortunately, on the night before the custody hearing, something went terribly wrong. “Téa provoked me to the point that I pushed her out a window so I lost custody because of that,” DePaiva says.

1998

Mel and Cassie began looking into the Cramer family’s history of mental illness. DePaiva notes that Blair and her mentally ill mother, Addie, have a very loving relationship. “Starr and Addie are the two people who Blair would do anything for.”

While working to sink her claws into billionaire Ian Armitage - she thought his money would help in her fight to win Starr back - Blair hooked up with Max as part of a plan to double-cross Todd and give Ian control of The Sun. “My relationship with Max since then has continued as a love-hate relationship,” explains DePaiva, adding that she loves working with her real life hubby.

Blair also found herself working with Todd again when he re-hired her as a reporter for The Sun. “I think the Todd/Blair relationship is my favorite storyline because it’s so multifaceted,” she says.

Slowly, Blair and Max started to fall in love again, until she discovered that Max was working for Asa and using her to obtain incriminating information about Todd. Max apologized profusely and even proposed, but Sam entered the picture. “I just want to be loved - but honestly!” DePaiva cries, in character.

Today, Blair is torn between two men: she cares for Sam but is being blackmailed by Max, who knows that Blair knows Todd is faking his alternate personalities. And if the truth comes out about Todd, Starr will lose her father because Todd will be sent to jail. “I think Blair wants to choose the high road, but I don’t think she’ll ever be able to do it,” says DePaiva. “Blair will probably be the ultimate loser and get screwed over like she always does.”

Soap Opera Digest (1998)

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ABC Soaps In Depth (2009)

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Soap Opera Digest (2010)

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STAR OF THE WEEK: Kassie Wesley (Blair, One Life To Live)

Blair and Todd Manning remarried when they realized they were made for each other. A few days later, however, Todd was killed trying to help Marty’s friend, Patrick. Alone and pregnant, Blair was filled with anger and hurt because of her loss - and - she plotted her revenge against Marty. OLTL star Kassie Wesley’s powerful and heartbreaking performance as she confronted the woman she blames for her loss earns her SOAP OPERA MAGAZINE’s Star of the Week honors.

“She’s empty. She’s lonely. She’s scared. She’s angry,” Kassie says, describing her character’s state of mind. “She is full of vengeance. She’s in the darkest place she could possibly go. She’s full of pain, both physical and emotional.”

Kassie’s explosive performance reached new heights when Marty showed up at Blair’s office. “Blair holds Marty 100 percent responsible for Todd’s death, and she wants everyone in Llanview to know Marty’s a whore,” Kassie explains. “She brings her to a mirror, tells her to look at herself and says, ‘I wish Todd could see you for what you really are, Marty, not what he thought you were.’”

“Then all of a sudden, Blair realizes how much alike they look and she begins to think Todd only loved her because she reminded him of Marty.”

Suddenly, Blair grabbed a pair of scissors and started cutting off her hair - as Marty watched in shock. “She’s berserk,” says Kassie. “She’s totally flipped out. She’s obsessed with the thought of Marty killing Todd. She is hysterical and as she cuts her hair, she goes into labor. Marty tries to help her, but Blair pushes her away so Marty calls the paramedics.”

“Now, she has a little girl two months premature and she holds Marty responsible for that too!” Kassie exclaims. “But Blair’s so into this hate that she can’t even appreciate her little girl, which is very sad.”

Day after day, Kassie has turned in one outstanding and demanding performance after another - and she admits it’s taken its toll. “It was very exhausting,” she says. “It’s tough playing all that hate day in and day out.”

“Your body doesn’t know the difference between pretend and real so it goes into my gut - and it upsets me in my private world.”

Executive Producer Susan Bedsow Horgan has the highest praise for her star’s performance. “Kassie is so courageous as an actress - she will go to the absolute limits,” Susan says. “She isn’t afraid of taking emotional risks and going to emotional heights. As a result, the scenes were unbelievably powerful.”

“The way Kassie plays Blair’s hatred of Marty, she commits so totally to it that she breaks your heart,” she continues. “She’s the kind of bad girl you totally understand. You see her vulnerability and the reason for everything she does.”

“She was terrific in the death of Todd and I think she’s going to be very powerful with Patrick,” Susan adds, revealing a sneak peek at things to come.

[Soap Opera Magazine, January 1996]

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Daytime’s 10 Hottest Women

Kassie Wesley (Blair, OLTL)

“I consider myself a country girl,” proclaims Kassie Wesley (Blair). “I don’t feel sexy. If somebody thinks I’m sexy, I think that’s a hoot,” she laughs. “Sexy is a perception from people on the outside. But feeling sexual or sensuous is something that I do feel.” Costar John Loprieno (Cord) is happy to be one of those someone’s on the outside. “Obviously, the package she comes in is great!” he exclaims, “but I think a lot of it, for me, has always been her personality. I think her personality is what she brings to Blair too,” he adds. “She’s got that ‘I want to do good and fit in’ inside. Kassie has that energy, that desire to be in the game, to make a difference. I think that’s what’s appealing about her - what I’ve always found attractive and sexy about her.”

(Soap Opera Magazine, 1996)

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Soap Opera Digest (2008)

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Kassie DePaiva with co-star Pamela Payton-Wright (Addie) and the twins that played infant Starr (1996)

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Soap Opera Digest (2010)

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Soap Opera Digest (2013)

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Soap Opera Digest (2010)