A Man For All Seasons
Soap Opera Magazine Interview
With Stephen Nichols
By Robyn Flans
Stephen Nichols offers a rare glimpse of his spiritual self.
“I’ve always had a sense that there was some greater purpose in the universe and that it would support me in my life.”
If there is one message Stephen Nichols would like others to glean from his life experiences it is that you never know what’s around the next corner.
Growing up in Ohio, he certainly never imagined he would become an actor of any stature, let alone one who has enjoyed the fame his roles as Patch on Days of our Lives and Stefan Cassadine on General Hospital have brought him. Nor did his childhood offer any indication that he would ever have a fulfilling family life. Even Nichols seems surprised at having both a successful career and three beautiful children.
His appreciation for privacy wages war with parental pride when it comes to sharing the details of his home life. He feels his kids experienced too much attention during his celebrity at Days, but he’s so proud of them and they are such an integral part of his being, that it is impossible not to talk about them. His eyes light up as he describes his 18 year old daughter, Vanessa, from his first marriage, as a highly intelligent linguistics major who is a drummer/percussionist in the Santa Monica College Symphony.
His 16 year old son, Aaron, is into holistic and alternative medicine and Asian philosophy. “He’s very compassionate and he’s been very wise from the time he was a little boy”, Nichols says. “Once a week he would say those profound things that kids can say that blow you away. My kids are really wonderful people and I couldn’t be luckier.”
His 5 year old daughter, Dylan, from his current, 12 year marriage to Lisa, has rejuvenated him. His dressing room walls are papered with her art work, including a giraffe that Nichols boasts was drawn by Dylan at age 4. “Just having a little person that is dependent on you again for every little thing, is incredible,” says Nichol. “Not that teenagers aren’t, but they don’t come to me every minute. They have their own lives and they visit on weekends, but Dylan needs constant supervision.”
“I’ve always needed the kids to inspire me to do better, to improve myself and to keep going, because this life is not easy. There’s no easy street, and if there is, somebody please tell me about it,” he says wit ha laugh. “But the kids always keep me inspired to the point where I can get up in the morning, get to work on time and do my job well. That’s what I love. And I learn so much from each child. Dylan is teaching me a lot. I can’t even describe how much joy I get from having that little person around.”
Nichols’ own childhood had too few wondrous, light hearted moments. Born in Cincinnati, he grew up mainly with his grandparents. He never knew his father, a jazz pianist who played with the likes of Joe Pass and Stan Kenton.
“My memories are mostly around my grandfather. Cub scouts, winter sled rides with my grandpa pulling me and my sister along, and then my grandmother being very sick- and having to move out of their house and going to foster care several different times. When I was 8 years old, my mother remarried and moved us to Dayton, Ohio.”
His childhood was confusing, he admits, and often unhappy. “I can’t really pull together how it all happened, but I came to a very dark place. However, I do know that my mother did the best that she could, and I love her. She worked hard to give my sister, brother and myself the best clothes for school, and a very nice house in a safe neighborhood. In fact, my mother never bought anything for herself. She’s also responsible for teaching me excellent manners (Thanks Mom!).”
“My father was a victim of alcoholism. He was a brilliant musician, but he just couldn’t do life.”
He credits his grandfather with teaching him love and respect. “If it weren’t for him, I would be dead at this moment. I would have been lost in drugs or something. I just wouldn’t have made it. He gave me a lot of love and a wonderful work ethic.”
“He also gave me a faith in something greater than the material world. I’ve always had a sense that there was some greater purpose in the universe and that greater purpose would support me in my life. Even when people let me down, I knew I had a reason and a purpose for being.”
“In my adolescence I felt, ‘If this is all there is, I just can’t go on.’ I felt I had tasted just about everything there was to taste in life and that nothing was going to work out. I would take long walks in the woods and yell and scream into the universe, ‘If you are there- somebody, anybody- you’ d better make yourself known because I am not going to be here much longer’. ”
Fatefully, a friend turned him on to a book on eastern philosophies, which fascinated him. At 19, he went to the Self Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles.
“Things changed as soon as I got there,” says Nichols. “I started meeting the people and learning about the techniques, first and foremost meditation, and I got so jazzed about it. I discovered a whole new world inside myself that seemed more real than anything on the outside. So I decided to dedicate my life to being a monk.”
For three and a half years, Nichols committed himself to the lifestyle of a monk, but just as he was to officially go into the order, he reneged. It was as if lightning struck him. “The guy was standing in front of me saying, ‘It’s time to go’ and I knew I should not do this, that this was not the life for me. I remember that moment vividly.”
A couple of years later, Nichols had a similar revelatory moment while performing a scene from A Streetcar Named Desire at Los Angeles City College. “There was such a connection with the audience,” he recalls. “It was as if I was playing a beautiful song and people were enjoying it. I was almost in tears.”
“I grew up thinking I could never accomplish anything, that I would never amount to anything. That comes from people telling you that you can’t do anything, that you’re useless, and that you’re stupid.”
“Kids hear everything,” he says impassioned. “If you tell a kid once that they will never amount to a hill of beans, they will carry that with them for the rest of their lives; I firmly believe that. I had the work ethic grandpa gave me, but I had no self esteem until I was on that stage doing that scene and I knew in that moment, “By God, I can do something I am worth something. I can give to people. I have a talent.’ That was a profound moment that I’ve always carried with me.”
Acting also entered the picture at a fortuitous time. It was a period of turmoil for Nichols, then a music student in the midst of arranging to meet his father for the first time. “I was writing all sorts of love songs to my father, because I knew I was going to meet him in a couple of weeks. Then it was so disappointing. I didn’t know what to do. I was trying to practice, and do scales and inversions on piano and I just couldn’t do the physical labor- it was too dry. I wanted to use my creative instincts now. A friend said, “Let’s go over to L.A City College and audition for the theatre academy.’ I had done talent shows in school and had the bug, but I was still afraid. I auditioned and got in. It was a total fluke in a way, but not really as my path was unfolding.”
Nichols pauses. “I don’t want to paint a picture of a tragic childhood,” he says. “It was so long ago and I really believe that for people who go through anything difficult in life, even as children- and God bless the children, they shouldn’t have to go through this garbage- there is a reason and a lesson to learn and you can come to a new place out of it.”
Nichols acknowledges that the sum of his early challenges and soul searching actually served to make him a devoted father, even though his first marriage did not work out. “When my kids came around and I saw those little faces- and I was there when they were born, all three of my children were born at home- I realized what my life was really about and if I wasn’t going to be a monk, I was going to be a really good father.”
“Somebody said to me once, ‘If you treat your child like a visiting head of state all the time, like you have a guest who is almost royalty in your home, with that much respect and that much care, then you’re going to be a good parent’. I’ve never forgotten that. They are worth everything, every moment. Everything you can give. Kids are worth it. Children are our future. People seldom think of that. They just think of kids as animals- you can discard them, you can push them aside. It’s a crime the way kids are treated.”
“My children are my life,” adds Nichols, who credits his wife with helping him be a good father.
“She’s always been a strong, determined woman who will not settle for anything less than equality in the home. In America, we’ve grown up with this patriarchal system where, even if it’s not said by the husband, it’s implied that everything in the household revolves around him, especially emotionally, which is the scary part. Everything is to support daddy- ‘Oh don’t cry now because daddy can’t hear that right now. He had a hard day at work’.”
“Hey we all live here and it’s our job to do our part and share in the duties. Daddy changes diapers and Daddy puts the baby to bed, not just Mommy.”
Nichols sees his involvement with Dylan as pure joy. “It makes me appreciate my life more because I have those special moments with her. It’s just everything to me,” he says quietly.
He also loves his work. “I’m very grateful to be a working actor,” he says. “It’s not that just a good job, the people are nice and the actors are great, but it’s incredible to have a job doing the work I love. I could be out digging ditches. But whatever the job, now I know why I’m doing it- for my family.”
Nichols knows now that this is the very purpose he sought when he screamed as a teen in the woods.
“I’ve had a lot of teens and preteens write to me, some of them suicidal, and I always tell them there’s a reason for each and every person to be on this earth. You’re worth it. You just have to give it time and find out what your purpose is. And that’s real what happened to me. I was able to hold until I found out what my purpose was.”
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