The Best Days of Their Lives : Hundreds of Soap Fans Work Up a Lather Over Chance to Meet Their Idols

Stockton psychologist Purna Datta and his wife sat outside the Grand Ballroom of the Beverly Garland Hotel in North Hollywood. They would wait six hours while their 14-year-old daughter, Aparna, lived a dream they could never comprehend.

At home, she has 1,000 photographs of soap-opera star Matthew Ashford taped to the walls of her room. Now she was meeting the man in the photos.

On another bench sat Angie Eakins, a 22-year-old psychology graduate from Springfield, Mo. She seemed lost in a world of her own as she recalled meeting the soap star for the first time at a banquet the night before.

“He sang to me,” she said. “He sang ‘Angie’ and then kissed me on the cheek. I can’t believe he was looking at me, looking at my eyes and singing my name to me. It was like nothing I had ever hoped for. Men in real life should be like men in soaps.”

At 6 p.m., the door to the Grand Ballroom swung open and there he stood, resplendent in black tie and tux, one of the reigning heartthrobs in daytime TV, facing a line of about 300 people, mostly women, that stretched three-deep down the outside of the hotel.

They stepped nervously up to Ashford, whose stardom has skyrocketed over the past three years as his character, Jack Deveraux, has been transformed from a rapist to a leading romantic interest. He hugged each one and welcomed them to the final event in a marathon Memorial Day weekend fan celebration given by stars of “Days of Our Lives.”

“He’s got a nice body--great eyes,” said Cindy Hinkel, 33, a typist at a medical systems company in Milwaukee who said a kiss on the cheek from Ashford was worth every penny of the $1,000 she spent on the trip.

In an era when some actors are stalked by weirdos and others are shielded from the public by batteries of publicists, various cast members of “Days” spent hours mingling with their fans, posing for thousands of photographs, signing untold numbers of posters and 8x10 glossies, answering questions about their characters, and even singing Rodgers and Hammerstein hits to bursts of applause.

For two days, Ashford and other “Days” stars entertained hundreds of fans from throughout the United States and Australia.

On Saturday, Richard Biggs (who plays Dr. Marcus Hunter) and Lisa Howard (April Ramirez-Corelli) had a ‘50s-themed breakfast; Camilla Scott (Melissa Anderson) gave a tea; Drake Hogestyn (Roman Brady) hosted a formal dinner. On Sunday, Charles Shaughnessy (Shane Donovan) gave a brunch. The events were attended by people who heard about them through fan letters and soap-opera magazines and had opted not only to pay their way to Los Angeles but also to lay out $40 to $65 per event.

Then it was Ashford’s turn Sunday night. His dinner would conclude the weekend.

As his oldest brother, Davis Ashford of Anaheim, manned a video camera at the back of the ballroom (copies would go on sale at a later date), fans crowded around tables buying up photos, posters and T-shirts reading: “I’m Having a Jack Attack.”

Matthew Ashford took the stage. Comedian Jay Leno, he said, had sent him a note saying his secretary is such a big fan of “Days” that she wondered if she and her sister could visit the set. He said sure, adding that even Captain Kangaroo’s secretary was a “Days” fan.

Fielding questions from the throng, he was asked what it was like playing intimate love scenes. “My wife and I practice the night before,” he quipped. “She puts in her edits and cuts.”

At one point, publicist Caren Day took the microphone to announce that Ashford and the other actors had to take time out to eat.

“Don’t take a picture while they’re eating, otherwise I’m going to come around to each table and take a picture of you with your mouth wide open,” Day said as dozens of flashbulbs went off.

Shannon Murphy left a husband and three children--one 10 months old--back in Tulsa, Okla., to come and see Ashford.

“If I weren’t married and he weren’t married, I tell you what, I wouldn’t let him go,” she said of the actor. “But I think he has a beautiful wife and I have a beautiful husband and three beautiful children.”

Then she added: “But it is a fantasy--to live in everlasting romance.”

Jean Ann Slavings, a library technician from Mabelvale, Ark., took out a loan from her credit union to be there. “There are two theme parks in Arkansas: Dogpatch, U.S.A. in Harrison, and Magic Springs in Hot Springs. He’s been to both of those. There aren’t a lot of actors who come to Arkansas.”

Karla Koerber, a 22-year-old journalism major at Cal State Long Beach, said 15 of her Gamma Phi Beta sorority sisters love the character so much they rush back from class every day at noon and crowd into the TV room.

“We sit there and scream and cry and just have a great time and we all love Jack,” Koerber said. “He is just so, so cute. . . . He is something all of us wish our boyfriends could be. They’re pigs in reality. That’s why we like Jack so much. He’s so sweet to Jennifer (played by Melissa Brennan Reeves).”

Ashford hasn’t always been so popular with “Days” viewers. He initially broke up the hot couple of Patch and Kayla.

“I’d get letters with three words on them: ‘Die, monster, die,’ ” Ashford, 31, recalled. “They were picketing NBC to get my character off. There was a massive letter-writing campaign against me.”

Ashford said he went into a coffee shop one day and the waitress wouldn’t come out and serve him. He said another actor on the show stayed away from him at first because “he saw me as a jerk.”

“I realized within the past year or two that nobody wanted to see the villain,” he said. So the transformation began. First, Ashford added humor to his character. Then the writers provided an unusual romantic twist: They paired his loathsome character to Jennifer Horton, a sweet, virginal blonde.

Today, they are one of daytime TV’s most popular couples. But on the soaps, what tomorrow brings is anybody’s guess--and that is why the performers were so willing to court their admirers.

Many actors like Ashford have formed nationwide fan clubs, which not only answer their mail, publish their newsletters and sell their merchandise at public appearances to pay for the mailings, but deluge producers and head writers with letters and postcards in a coordinated effort to demand that their favorite actor or actress get more air time or better story lines.

Carol Perkins of Downey, a secretary at a metal products company and president of the Matthew Ashford Fan Club, said that she believes the clubs can influence the way a show is written.

“If you have hundreds of people writing the show, they (producers and writers) have a tendency to bend the story line,” Perkins said.

“You cannot believe the network of people that takes part in write-in campaigns,” said Steve Corvese of Warwick, R.I., an unemployed accountant and Ashford’s fan club coordinator for three New England states. He is one of 25 coordinators throughout the United States and Canada who work with Perkins to promote Ashford as he stumps the country almost every weekend making appearances at shopping malls, university campuses and beauty pageants.

At “Days of Our Lives,” producer Al Rabin said that he can detect when a write-in campaign is under way. “When we get 500 letters from Pittsburgh, all in similar handwriting, but not from the same person, we know.”

Instead, Rabin said, he looks for “intensity” in the fan letters. “If they’re not intense about it, then we’re missing something,” he said. “The (actor) is not making an impact. As the character comes on the screen, we want the fans to say, ‘My God, what is going to happen?’ ”

Rabin said that fan clubs serve a dual purpose: “I think the actors enjoy being appreciated by the fans and the fans enjoy contact with the characters. Oddly enough, it doesn’t carry over into other projects. You would think it would help their careers elsewhere. I don’t think that’s the case.

“I believe it’s because they see this character and that is what they want to see. They are not too excited to see this actor in other parts. They are really committed to the character.”

Occasionally, the behavior of some soap fans can border on the bizarre.

“I’ve been invited to 13-year-olds’ slumber parties,” Ashford said. “This one little girl said she would pay my way to Chicago. I’ve had people give me directions to their house or apartment, telling me to walk up the stairs and not to mind the cat, just come in the door.”

But “Days” also touches people in poignant ways, Ashford said. “I get letters from people who say they were raped and never told anyone.”

Monica Lewinsky, 18, of West Los Angeles said that she doesn’t really identify with obsessed soap fans, but believes watching daytime dramas can be therapeutic.

“People who are always saying daytime TV is something that is not to be credited are wrong,” she said. “ ‘Days of Our Lives’ adds spice to a life, rather than being the essence of a life.”

As she spoke, dozens of women crowded around a seated Ashford, who signed autographs and put his arm around their shoulders as their friends snapped photos.

It was after midnight, and he would stay until everyone got the autograph and snapshot they wanted.

“I really think there is magic,” Lewinsky said. “Daytime really wants to give something to the audience, and I think that in nighttime they want to take something.”