- - “One Life to Live ”Alum Erika Slezak Returned to Soaps for the First Time in Over a Decade to Work with This “General Hospital” Star (Exclusive)

Victoria EdelJanuary 30, 2026 at 6:00 AM

0

Erika Slezak in 'General Hospital'

Bahareh Ritter/Disney/Getty

Erika Slezak opened up to PEOPLE about returning to daytime TV for the first time in over a decade

The One Life to Live alum said she knew she was going to say yes to her General Hospital role when producers told her she was going to work with this actress

Slezak played Ronnie Bard and teased she could return to the show in the future

Erika Slezak was tempted back to the world of daytime drama by one specific General Hospital actress.

Slezak, 79, just wrapped up a story arc on General Hospital as Veronica “Ronnie” Bard, the sister of Leslie Charleson’s Monica Quartermaine. Charleson starred on the show from 1977 until her death at age 79 in January 2025, and Ronnie arrived in town shortly after Monica died on the show.

GH executive producer Frank Valentini called Slezak to ask her if she wanted to join the show. “I thought, 'Wow, can I still do this?’” Slezak told PEOPLE. The actress won six Daytime Emmys during her tenure as Victoria “Viki” Lord on One Life to Live, a role she played from 1971 until 2012 (and briefly reprised in the 2013 online revival). She had previously worked with Valentini on that show.

Slezak was immediately interested, but the producer sealed the deal when he told her who she’d be working with. “Frank said, ‘You're going to be working with Jane Elliot a lot,’ and I went, ‘Yep, I'll do it,’ because she is probably one of the best actresses I've ever worked with in my life. She's amazing,” the actress explained.

Jane Elliot (left) and Erika Slezak in 'General Hospital'

Bahareh Ritter/Disney/Getty

Elliot, 78, is a daytime icon in her own right. She debuted as Tracy Quartermaine in 1978, and in the show’s modern iteration, she’s the last survivor of her generation of Quartermaines. Elliot, who’s also appeared on soaps All My Children, Days of Our Lives and The City, is a four-time Emmy nominee, with one win.

“I've never known anyone who could say the worst, nastiest, meanest things in the world with a smile on her face and make it work,” Slezak said. When Valentini told her she’d get to work with Elliot, “I said, ‘I would love to.’ ”

In the show, fans learned that Ronnie and Monica were orphans who were separated in foster care. While Monica ended up with a wealthy family, Ronnie struggled. After her sister rejected her in adulthood, Ronnie had to support herself. “She was not sophisticated in any way,” Selzak said, calling her “a simple girl, not in a bad way, but in a good way.”

“No pretensions, no artifice to her,” she said. “She was just straightforward Ronnie, who had learned a lot on her own and knew about working and hard work.”

Jane Elliot (left) and Erika Slezak on the set of 'General Hospital'

Bahareh Ritter/Disney/Getty

For Slezak, that was a real challenge. “I had never played a character like that, ever. Even when I was in the theater for six years, I played Shakespeare, I played Chekhov, I played Noel Coward, but I'd never played somebody as simple and straightforward as Ronnie. And so I had to kind of figure that out.”

“It was very interesting to play a completely different character who had none of the advantages that Victoria had, that all the characters I've ever played had, and that I personally have had,” Slezak said. “I had parents who educated us and sent us to college. I mean, I went to the Royal Academy.” She graduated from the prestigious London acting school in 1966.

Instead, Ronnie was “simple,” while Elliot’s Tracy got to be the wealthy elitist who looks down her nose at her.

For Slezak, adjusting back to the pages and pages of dialogue that comes with soaps as a learning curve. “In the beginning, I had a lot of trouble, especially with the long speeches, where I would just in the middle of a speech go, ‘I have no idea what I say next,’ ” she said.

But Elliot helped her out. “She said, ‘Let's rehearse on the weekend on Zoom,’ ” Selzak explains. “And I went, ‘Great," and I hung up and I called my son and I said, ‘How do I Zoom?’ And he taught me how to do it. It was very generous of her to give up her time. She's a really nice woman, very smart woman.”

Slezak’s arc wrapped up in early November, but she says “we’ll see” about a return for Ronnie. On her last day on the Los Angeles set, production presented her with a “huge” bouquet of flowers.

“And I said, ‘That's just lovely, but I'm on a plane at eight o'clock tomorrow morning,” she said with a laugh. “So I put them in Jane's dressing room.”

on People

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”