Sharon Gabet was sought after by at least two different soaps after Edge of Night left the airwaves at the end of 1984. After playing Raven on the soap for many years, she opted to stay within the Procter & Gamble family and joined the cast of Brooklyn-based soap opera Another World.
Sharon Gabet Remembers Another World
Gabet debuted on the NBC serial in March 1985 as Brittany Peterson, a deaf woman who had once been involved with Catlin Ewing (Thomas Ian Griffin). Peter Love (Marcus Smythe) brought Brittany to Bay City, hoping she’d break up Catlin and Sally (Mary Page Keller).
During her two year-stint, Brittany regained her hearing, reconnected with Catlin, and entered an abusive relationship with Peter. Gabet found the gig creatively rewarding but also deeply challenging given the heavy material she had to play. In the second of a three-part interview, the actress, who recently released her updated memoir, From the Raven to the Dove, chats with Soap Hub about her time in Bay City.
Soap Hub: EDGE fans would have loved to have seen you and Larkin (Malloy, ex-Schuyler Whitney) on another soap. You write that “Magic and chemistry do not happen with mix and match tactics.”
Sharon Gabet: Larkin said that. I have quotes from him in the book saying that no matter where he went, he didn’t have the chemistry that we had. [P&G] could have taken us both and put us together on another show.
What was being on AW like?
I loved the cast at Another World. Everybody was wonderful. Linda Dano [Felicia] took me under her wing. Thomas Ian Griffin [Catlin] was wonderful to work with. But you didn’t get to know the other cast members like we did at EDGE. There, we were all on set together.
It was [also] really, really hard. I had just had a baby. One Life to Live had offered me a role around the same time. I had bought a condo which was two blocks from the One Life studios! I think they were going to have me play the Countess [Echo DiSavoy], the part that Kim Zimmer [Reva, Guiding Light] had played. They were going to take me on a remote to Venice [Italy] with Bob Woods [Bo], a friend of mine! Do you know how difficult that was to turn down?
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Why did you choose to stay with P&G?
It wasn’t about the money. One Life did offer less, but I felt a loyalty to Procter & Gamble because they’d given me Raven and had treated me so nicely when I was on EDGE. In my naivete, I felt this was how all shows would be. In this business, loyalties run thin. I should have taken One Life.
That building [we shot AW in] was ancient. My dressing room looked like an old classroom. It was just cold and dank and had brick walls. Bill Cosby was shooting [The Cosby Show] there. One time, he asked me to come into his dressing room for a drink. I declined. Imagine my surprise years later when I read he was doctoring drinks [for women]. He also asked me once if he could give me a ride to Manhattan in his limo. By that time, I was no longer a 20-year-old innocent. I [said], “No, thank you.”
Brittany was so different from Raven.
She was. I loved Brittany. It was fun in the beginning to do the sign language and play her storyline, which was very dramatic. I thought the beginning of that was some of the best work I’d ever done on daytime. Brittany got her speech back.
Then, it kind of sank in the second year…they paired Brittany with Peter Love (Marcus Smythe). I learned it’s much more fun to play the bitch than the victim! Sure, the bitch would get her comeuppance. I cried many times as Raven when her schemes fell through, but she’d come back and win more often than she didn’t. Playing a victim was horrible. I was pregnant at the time. But I didn’t say anything. They were paying me well.
How did you come to leave?
My husband at the time, Larry Joshua [NYPD BLUE], saw that I was losing it. He got on the phone for me. He called up and said, “I want her off this show right now!” I just sat there and listened. Sometimes when you’re in the middle of something traumatic you can’t think or function. It was fast. God bless them, they wrote me out quickly. I had two months to recover before my son was born.
Brittany and Catlin left town together while she waited on the appeal of her attempted murder of Peter. Gabet did make it to Llanview, eventually. Check back for the next part of our interview to learn how she became OLTL’s Melinda Cramer. To order Sharon Gabet’s memoir, From the Raven to the Dove, click here. To read the first part of her interview about her book, click here.
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