Stephen Nichols’ Second Appearance on
‘The Marsha Warfield Show’
Fall – 1990
‘Crisis in the Middle East”
(Several audience members are family and friends of soldiers overseas)
Marsha: We’re back, Now he’s one of daytime’s hottest heartthrobs who is spending his last few days on Days of our Lives, and she’s the sassy victim who created a lot of commotion on Knot’s Landing…Welcome Stephen Nichols and Lar Park Lincoln!
(Marsha hugs Stephen and says “You look great.”)
They shoot hoops, Stephen misses, and Lar makes her shot. Stephen does a little dance to warm up the audience (and shows off his hair extensions).
Stephen: Thank you.
Marsha: Well you know how to stir up a crowd.
Stephen: Had to get them going, ya!
Marsha: Feeling pretty good.
Stephen: Well, it’s the hair, baby.
Marsha: Well your hair is very hot.
Stephen: You like it? Well, I’m doing a Matlock, and I had to play this…it’s called ‘The Biker’, and I play ‘The Biker’, and they wanted my hair longer, so I got these hair extensions. They sewed these to my scalp, baby. And it hurts!
Marsha: You mean that’s not you? (Lar is surprised also)
Stephen: No, my hair is underneath here somewhere, see….
Marsha: You never would have known in the dark.
Stephen (cute – flirty expression on his face): Never would have known.
(Audience cheers and whistles)
Stephen: Woooo, Marsha…
(Marsha makes polite commentary to Lar about her jacket which has lots of pins on it. Lar especially likes the poodle one because she collects poodles.)
Marsha turns to Stephen, pouting: So you’re leaving Days of our Lives?
Stephen: Yes, yes I am.
(Audience moans “oooooh”)
Stephen talks to the audience: Oh wow! Did they tell you to do that? Did somebody hold up a sign?
(He jokingly imitates them “ooooooh”)
Marsha: They’re genuinely affected by that.
Stephen: Ya, I have to do it. It’s been five years; it was a good long run. It did a lot for me. I had a lot of fun doing the character but, as an actor, you get the sense that you have to move on and do other things, or you feel like you are drying up inside. And the fans, I think, are understanding that’s why I had to leave, and five years is enough. You wouldn’t want to see Patch dry up on the vine and wither away. It’s better that I leave before that happens.
Marsha: So Patch isn’t coming back?
Stephen: No ma’am. As a matter of fact, Marsha just to reaffirm that fact I am giving you your Patch commemorative key chain, 1985 to 1990.
Marsha pouts: Oh well. Now, your daughter was on Days of our Lives?
Stephen: Yes she was; my daughter and my son.
Marsha: Your real life daughter?
Stephen: My real life daughter and son were on, on the same day with me. My daughter played my TV daughter at the age of 16. My son reprised his role as little Patch in a flashback.
Marsha: Well, we have a clip. Let’s take a look and see what they look like.
(Days clip is shown…Steve is in a tunnel on the way to heaven. Stephanie Kay, at the age of 16 as played by Vanessa Nichols, asks Steve/Patch not to go. Kayla tells Steve that is Stephanie in the future and he can’t see her again unless he comes back. Steve says he doesn’t want to go, he wants to come back.)
(Audience cheers as the scene ends)
Stephen does a fake cry, while Lar and Marsha seem to be really moved.
Lar: (inaudible) You’re making me cry out here!
Stephen: So sad!
Lar: It was sad!
Stephen: That was quite a day. I mean, wrangle in both of those kids and get my own performance together (laughs).
Marsha: Were you more proud than you were scared for them?
Stephen: Ya, because I tell them not to take it too seriously. You know, to do the work and just leave the rest to God…not to take it too seriously. So I’m not afraid for them ever. They have a good attitude about it. My son as a matter of fact, he asked me about 5 times during the day how much he was making. And he did everything, every rehearsal in one take, and he did his scene in one take. You didn’t see him there…but he…it’s incredible; everybody was asking him, “Where did you get that? Certainly not from you, dad.” It was fun.
Marsha to Lar: Now, you just had a new baby?
Lar: I just had a baby girl eight weeks ago.
Marsha: What’s her name?
Lar: Her name is Piper Annette.
Marsha: Did they deal with your pregnancy on the show?
Lar: No, we hid the pregnancy on the show. I was shooting love scenes 9 and a half months pregnant! Because I was 11 days late so we were still shooting right up to the wire.
Stephen: Mary Beth and I did that.
Lar: It’s hard, it’s really hard. I mean, you can’t get close enough to do a love scene for one thing, you know…
Stephen: For the first baby, we shot 150 pages on a Saturday, three days before she had her first child. She was out to here.
Lar: Ya, and you do everything from the neck up.
Marsha: Now, isn’t it kind of unusual to work so late into your pregnancy? Did you plan this at all?
Lar: No.. well I thought I would have had her sooner, but it was just taking a long time, so we went ahead and shot another show, and then after that night, after that scene I didn’t go back, and I had her shortly thereafter.
Marsha: Did you take any time off?
Lar: I took three weeks off and started back straight away.
Stephen: Wow. Three weeks, that’s not much.
Lar: No not much, but…
Marsha: Did you have any paternity leave? Did you take time out when your kids were born?
Stephen: (laughs)
Lar: My husband did. He took two and a half weeks paternity leave to be with the baby. It was wonderful.
Marsha: That’s great! (turns to Stephen). Is that something you would do or you think men should have the option to do?
Stephen: I would absolutely try to get some kind of time like that. I think men should have as much an option for that as women, because the bonding that the child gets with the father is just as important. When my children were born, they were both born at home. The first thing that happened was, well, they went on their mom’s tummy and then they came with me into the bathtub, alone, just me and the baby, and I held them and they screamed in my face, “Who’s this fool I’ve got for a father?” But we had that time to bond with each other, and I got to cut the chord on both of them.
Lar: That’s real good on that end. When I had this baby, I had been in labor so long; I ended up having to have a cesarean. She was 9 pounds 9 ounces… Sympathy! And they brought her in for me to feed, and I said, do you see that man? You take this baby to that man to feed, and leave me alone to sleep, and that’s what I did. Let them bond!
Marsha: Would you do it again? Would you have another baby and work that long?
Lar: I would do it again, I would like to do it when I had just time…not working. I think that would be easier. But I think I’ll do it again.
Marsha: Would you have a baby at home? That sounds like a very difficult thing.
Lar: No…(to Stephen) Did you plan that?
Stephen: Ya, we planned it. We had a midwife who did home births, and we were three minutes from a hospital. My wife was totally checked out before we had made the decision.
Lar: Oh, it’s very safe….it’s safe to do.
Stephen: … to be sure she had no physical problems that looked like it would cause any complications. As a matter of fact, when my son was born, the doctor did not show up in time and I caught him myself….
Marsha: Whoa…
Lar: Oh, my word!
Stephen: It was just me and my wife and the baby coming out. “Hello there!”
Lar: No, I wanted the doctor, and the nurse, and everyone. I wanted everyone there.
Marsha: And the mom and the dad, and a whole cheering section, and all the drugs you can get, I don’t blame you!
Lar: Absolutely.
Marsha: We’ll be right back and talk about some more stuff after these commercials.
Marsha: We’re back with my guests Stephen Nichols and Lar Park Lincoln and earlier in the show, we were talking with our audience about the Mideast crisis.
Marsha (To Lar): You were an army brat?
Lar: Still an army brat. Once an army brat, always an army brat!
Marsha: Does that give you a unique perspective on this whole crisis that we face right now?
Lar: I know it makes me feel a lot for the people going through it, the families, the husbands and the wives that are over there, the sons and the daughters… My father was in all the wars and I remember when he was gone.
Marsha: Do you support it?
Lar: I support our country in whatever step it is we’re taking, whatever we’re choosing to do. I support our men over there and our women completely, absolutely.
Audience claps and cheers.
Lar: When you’re a military child, you learn to support what the military asks of your family. That’s part of being military, that’s what it is.
Marsha: I can understand that, but having grown up in the 60’s, I still have the Vietnam fear that we’re being haunted by the ghosts of Vietnam. Does that bother you at all, Stephen?
Stephen: It bothers me a lot. You know, if these guys start coming back in body bags, I’m going to be back on the streets like I was, protesting this thing.
Lar: That’s true, also. But first of all, I don’t think that our young men and women over there are going to have the ridicule that the Vietnam veterans had. This country won’t let that happen again to our soldiers fighting. That’s important for them to know over there. When they come home, we will welcome them home.
Marsha: Oh sure…
Lar: Absolutely…
Marsha: But now, supporting our fighting troops is not always the same as saying you support the policies that send them there.
Stephen: Of course not.
Lar: That’s true, that’s true.
Marsha: And you have to be able to draw that line. We have people here that have a personal interest in this whole thing and some of them have things to say.
(An audience member says Hussein asked for this, she is proud of her husband, and when he returns home, they will have a second honeymoon because absence makes the heart grow fonder).
Marsha: We’ll come back after these commercials and try to wrap this whole thing up.
Marsha: We’re back…talking about sending messages to our troops overseas. I’m glad we’re in a position where we can do that, but I also hope this is the last time we’ll ever have to send any messages to anybody.
Marsha: Stephen Nichols, thank you very much for being here, and we’re gonna miss you on Days of our Lives, but we’re going to look for you on bigger and better things from now on.
Stephen: Thank you…the Matlock airs November 20th…and I want to say to the boys over there, be cautiously courageous, but don’t try to be macho just to be a hero. Be careful please! And the girls too, not just the boys.
Marsha: And Lar Park Lincoln, thank you for being here, and congratulations on the new baby. All the best to you from now on.
(Marsha thanks the audience)
(Transcript and pictures courtesy of nicholsevansfan)
**Please do not copy photographs without permission.**
no comments