Exclusive: All My Children’s T.C. Warner-Emotional Tribute To John Callahan

Former All My Children star John Callahan, who played Edmund Grey, passed away on March 28 of this year after suffering a stroke. He will always be remembered not only by devoted soaps fans but by his co-stars, too. T.C. Warner who played Kelsey Jefferson, the birth mother of Edmund and Maria’s adopted son Sam, fondly recalls working with the late performer.

T.C. Warner Remembers John Callahan

In this tribute, she shares what the actor’s life, as well as his passing, means to her.

“[John] was amazingly grateful, sympathetic, generous, funny and, of course, charming,” Warner shares exclusively with Soap Hub. “For all the cast that I have tried to keep in touch with, it was he who always responded and continued the communication.

“We’d share our personal lives and yet when it came to his love life, he was a little quiet because there were really only two loves he ever cared to share about: [his ex-wife] Eva [LaRue, ex-Maria] and [their daughter] Kaya,” Warner continues. “Being unafraid to admit his wrongdoings, he shared his fall into temptation and his inability to fix that pain he caused others, but his recognition and apology were widely known. This was one of the many lessons I learned from him.

“He and Eva were my ‘people’ when I first came on the show,” the actress notes. “They showed me everything and had a calming sense that I was able to pick up on when handed 40 pages a day to memorize. Their personal life balanced with work and along came their biggest blessing – Kaya. John has met my kids, my husband and both of us have shared talks of life’s blessings and difficulties. Our family would stay at his house in Rancho Mirage and he would come out to [my home] and stay at ours.

A Loving Father

“The one image I will always keep dear is his smile when talking of Kaya,” Warner recalls. “Like a kid at Christmas, his face lit up, and you knew his true happiness. My personal pain resides in the memory when I was 16 and lost my best friend, my guide, my everything also known as my father. It was sudden but far too similar to John’s… a stroke. Tears came quickly knowing that Kaya is and will be in the similar place I was in. This is something I would never wish on anyone.

“I am [a] ‘glass half full, there is a solution in this’ kind of person… but this one was tough to see the positive until Lorraine Broderick [former AMC head writer] said – ‘the good side of this is that he is bringing many of us back together in a time of social isolation.’ I was needing to hear just that… Yes, you are John.

“You are reminding us that we can still connect with each other no matter how much time has passed,” Warner says. “Jill Larson [ex-Opal] and I shared some humor about John and then reconnected … I then checked in with a few others to make sure they were safe and healthy… There are several folks I have missed for a long time. I get to reconnect now. Thank you, John. You will be truly missed, but you will live in our hearts. Although his place in this world has physically left, he will always live on.”

T.C. Warner played Kelsey on AMC from 1995-98. Her next project is the film The Man Who Thought He Was Salvador Dali.