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Landing on her Feet Knots’
Stacy Galina has learned that when one door closes, another
opens.
By Lara De Losh (May 1993)
With the demise of Knots Landing, it
might be plausible to assume that Stacy Galina (Kate Whittaker)
could slip into the soap abyss never to be heard from again,
as many actors do. But don’t count on it. With the aggressive
attitude she assumes when tackling new endeavors and the talent
she’s showed on Knots, Galina has just begun to carve
a niche in the acting world.
Galina is not one to do things by the
book, and her blossoming acting career is proof of that. True
Knots fans know that when Galina first appeard on the show in
1990, it was not as the character she portrays now, but as Mary
Frances Sumner, Greg’s (William Devane) daughter. When
that character’s storyline came to an abrupt end - she
was assassinated be her boyfriend (he meant to kill her dad)
- popular demand led to Galina’s reinstatement several
months later as Kate, Mary Frances’ look-alike cousin.
“I went to do another show called
‘Paradise,’ ” Galina explains. “After
‘Paradise’, David Jacobs (Knots’ creator and
executive producer) came to me and said, ‘I think I made
a mistake killing you off Knots,’ and that is when I came
back.” She’s glad she did, espically because of
this past season’t juicy storyline involving a romance
with Gary (Ted Shackelford) - a significantly older man. “Selfishly
speaking, she says, “for me it was a great storyline.
Plus it provided me with the opportunity to work with Ted, who
I think is a really good actor, very focused.”
Galina admits that she took some heat
from the audience when her character became involved with an
older man, but she argues, “In real life, if I got together
with Ted people really wouldn’t think anything about it,
But because the character of Kate is so young and naive, people
thought it was wrong, when in fact it was no big deal. Everyone
reacted strongly to the storyline. The age difference is about
the same between Greg and Paige (Nicollette Sheridan), but I
think because Paige is a more sophisticated character they buy
into it more.”
A native of Atlanta, Galina stumbled
into acting when inhjuries cut short a dance career she’d
been preparing for since age 7. She left Atlanta at 11 to attend
the Professional Children’s School in new York. At 13,
she was awarded a scholarship to the School of American Ballet.
She went on to become a member of New York’s prestigious
American ballet Theater scholarship program, and later danced
with the Atlanta Ballet.
Galina, an only child, says that leaving
home at such a tender age was such a difficult decision, but
ultimately the best one. “It sounds like child abuse,
sending your young child off to New York, but when you got a
scholarship to go, you went. I knew I wanted to be a ballet
dancer and that this would be a stepping stone to get to where
I wanted to be. It was difficult for my parents to let me go,”
she says, “But in the long run they knew it was worth
it.”
It was through this experience, both
the good aspects and the bad, that Galina’s eyes were
opened to the possibility of a theatrical career. “It
was after I had a series of operations on my feet and I went
back down to Atlanta to recuperate that I started to seriously
think about acting,” she explains. “When I was going
to the Professional Children’s School, I saw my friends
working and acting on Broadway and I thought it was really exciting.
So when it became too painful to dance, I decided to try it.”
The fledgling actress moved to Los Angeles and, after a few
false starts, landed her Knots role.
The actress credits her parents with
her success, and they both remain strong influences in her life.
“I have a great relationship with both my parents,”
she says, “My mom is my best friend’ we’re
really lucky because we never really went through a conflict
stage. Part of that was because I was away from home and had
the freedom, but the other part was because my mom wasn’t
very restricting’ she is very open and free about things.
I was a weird kid anyway.”
With prime-time soap experience behind
her, would Galina consider a career in daytime? She says no,
but it’s not because she doesn’t admire the format.
“I couldn’t remember all the lines,” she confesses.
“Kathleen (Noone, who plays Kate’s mother, Claudia)
was telling me one day that when she was on ‘All my Children’
(as Ellen Dalton) they’d sometimes have 30 pages of dialogue
a day. I couldn’t do it; I have a learning disability,
and I can’t remember lines. - period. I have to have two,
maybe three nights with my scripts, so it would be ridiculous
to even try. Sometimes on Knots I got frustrated when they only
allowed us three takes, which is generous on daytime, because
you have no time to be creative or do the scenes in different
ways - and holding for those looks before they fade out...please!”
Galina says the biggest advantage to
working on Knots was the growth potential. “Working a
show like this is better than acting class because you learn
by doing,” she says. “I have learned so much from
everyone - Bill, Ted, Kathy, Keven (Dobson) - not only be interacting
with them but also by watching. I think I’ve learned most,
though, from just seeing myself in the dailies and trying out
new things so that I can see what works and what doesn’t.”
Now that Knots is history, Galina has
focused her attention on her jewelry designs one-of-a-kind pieces
made from rare gems and 18th-century gold coins (Moonlighting,
Vol. 4 Issue 10). She’s also searching for a new acting
niche - although she thinks it’s highly unlikely she’ll
turn up on daytime.
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