leslie's articles & interviews

Heading For The Hills
Janet Di Lauro - Episodes - January/February 1993

With that trademark basso profundo voice that she claims to have had since kindergarten, Leslie Charleson lets out a gutsy horse laugh, shrugs hopelessly and says, "Welcome to my home-or as it's more commonly referred to, the Money Pit."

Since moving into the 1950s Hollywood Hills split-level in 1989 with her then husband, Bill Demms, and her cocker spaniel, Freeway, the actress who plays GH's ever-harried Dr. Monica Quartermaine has been well harried, "Either people in the fifties were much smaller than they are now, or they loved to squeeze into little, tiny rooms," winces Charleson who spent the first year in her new home busting through virtually every wall possible. She ripped out plumbing, replaced the air-conditioning system, blew an unanticipated 10 grand to keep the hill behind her house from sliding into her living room and as she puts it, "reported to the set every morning for months with sawdust in my bra."

To those unaware of its history, the Charleson abode seems to be quite well organized and remarkably under control: light, roomy, airy, and almost minimalist in its lack of clutter and pretense, the house gives a visitor no clue of the headache brought on by it renovation. But the hilariously madcap Charleson who tells a story as if she were zapping from TV show to TV show with remote control-swears it was almost her undoing.

To begin with, the move was precipitated by her sudden marriage to Demms, an old high school chum from Connecticut with whom she got reacquainted at a 1988 class reunion. In whirlwind time, they courted and said "I do," and quickly discovered Charleson former home was too cramped for two. So the GH'er went house hunting and breezily snapped up the first place she looked at (though she says she did have to battle for it with M*A*S*H star Jamie Farr).

Previously owned by a drama professor, it was a chock-full of 50's kitsch, including cement fountains outside the front and back doors and life size artificial deer in the back yard. She kept the deer but deep-sixed the fountains. "There was simply too much tinkling going on," says Charleson. "Everyone who came to visit immediately has to ask for the bathroom." As for the major alterations the four time Emmy nominee slaps her cheeks and screams like Macualay Culkin in Home Alone: "It was a nightmare! I had the worst luck with hired help. And I never saw such strange tattoos. I'm sure some of those guys were fresh out on parole and using the renovation of my home as their reintroduction to society."

Her Yugoslavian cabinetmakers really had her in a tizzy. "If a door wouldn't shut properly, they'd say. "Eeeets Yur-o-peee-an." If there was a big gap between the cabinets, they'd tell me, "Eeeets Yur-0-peee-an!" I kept saying, "But this is California!" They resented any kind of input. Talk about role reversal, by the time they were halfway through the job, they had me convinced that I worked for them! I was actually walking around thinking to myself, Gee I can't open this cupboard anymore, but hey that's okay. Eeeets Yur-o-peee-an!"

For months things were so congested that she and Demms couldn't use the bathroom with going outside, walking halfway around the house and coming back in another entrance. One day at the star's request a pair of workers hauled out the former owner's antique bathtub and set it several yards up on the hill behind the house. She christened it her "Pout Place" and retreated there with increasing frequency as the chaos inside became overwhelming. "For the ultimate irony," says Charleson with a weary chuckle, "I looked around one day and though, My God. this house isn't any bigger than the other one!"

And, as if there wasn't enough disorder in the actress's life, her marriage to Demms was collapsing. They decided to divorce a mere year after the wedding. "It ended not with a bang but with a whimper," Charleson says, cuddling Freeway on her lap. "Looking back, I never would have gotten married until we knew if we actually liked each other. I mean, 'love' is one thing, 'like' is another."

As if to break the melancholy mood, Freeway suddenly lets out a whoop that would frighten a tyrannosaurus. "You've got to stop doing that Freeway," Charleson scold. "He did that this morning for no good reason at all when the pool man was here and gave us both heart attacks. Freeway, you're not popular."

But, of course he is. Formerly owned by Steve Bond (ex-Jimmy Lee Holt, GH) Freeway is so named because he gets sick on the freeway. ...clearly rules Charleson, which also includes Carmen her house keeper of 17 years.

"That woman is absolutely irreplaceable," the actress announces. "Carmen knows my life so well, she found my lost car keys in an empty dog food can. One time, she located my earrings in the shower drain. They day she quits is the day that I commit suicide."

Then there's BJ a part-time wardrobe mistress for such shows as "Cheers" and "America's Funniest Home Video's," who has been Charleson's gal Friday for the past six years. And rounding out the makeshift family is Andarra, a prize winning Andalusian mare who is boarded just minutes away.

"Animals and the outdoors," Charleson says, "have always been of most interest to me." Looking barely lived in, her kitchen and dining room are certainly proof of that statement. (Not the domestic goddess type, Charleson says it once took her 11 tries to soft boil an egg when her grandfather came to visit!) She prefers to hang out on the patio, where she's madly planted trees and shrubbery and covered the wall with a mural of palm fronds, birds of paradise and other exotic flora. The swimming pool, which she had drained and repainted midnight blue, is a popular watering hole for visiting creatures, squirrels, raccoons, deer and coyotes.

Animals fill the indoors as well. The Horse Room as Charleson calls it, is a den/spare bedroom, its name springing from the equine design on the couch cover and the adjacent bathroom, which is decorated with dozens of Andarra's horse show ribbons. Even the living the room which such splashes of femininity as oversize floral couches, an antique desk, and intricate beveled glass windows is peppered with prints and etchings of horses and dolphins. Dolphins (in pewter, silver, wood, porcelain, brass, glass, you name it) also adorn the mantle and shelves. There's an eye catching collection of photographs as well: Charleson with Anthony Geary, with entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. and swimming with a dolphin (from her costarring role of Day of the Dolphin). And you can't miss the framed snapshot of a chunky Elvis Presley in the rhinestone-studded-jumpsuit Las Vegas Days. But is it the real Elvis?

Harrumphing at the very idea that the King's number one fan would display a picture of an impostor, Charleson purse her lips in mock indignation and replies, "Elvis Presley's US Army serial number was US 53310761. Is there anything else you'd like to know?"

Yes, How exactly does the actress explain incongruity between her obsession with the dead rock-n-roller and her more down to earth affinity for the planet's less flamboyant creatures? Well, after all, as even Elvis admitted, he was nothing but a hound dog. Which is perhaps accounts for his place of honor in the Charleson menagerie.