TV Guide
By Sasha Anawalt
August 14-20, 1982

The camera's focus softens; clouds of mist fill the screen, then settle, in the clearing stands Nola Reardon. She is dressed in a winter-white gown studded with beads of gold. She takes a slow, seductive, Bette Davis pull on a cigarette.

Nola Reardon is dreaming that she is the star of the 1942 film classic Now, Voyager. A new phenomenon has hit the soaps: The Fantasy. And no one has more elaborate fantasies than Nola, played by Lisa Brown, on CBS's Guiding Light.

Brown's real life reads like something Nola might have dreamed up: small town girls leaves Kansas City for New York to become a star. On Aug. 2 (her 28th birthday) she began as the leading lady in the long-running Broadway musical 42nd Street, singing, dancing and acting six nights and two matinees a week along with her Guiding Light duties. But Lisa Brown (who still bristles at her father's having asked a friend to help her get on the Kansas City Chiefs' drill team when she was 13) likes to emphasize that she has earned her stripes by working off-Broadway and pushing hard to get noticed. "To be given anything is cheating," she says.

Brown exits her dressing room, costumed in a red-chiffon evening gown for a dance-fantasy sequence. She crowds by me in the hallway. Not a word or a smile as she goes past. A first impression of prima donna is hard to avoid.

Lisa Brown takes her place on stage. The music starts and she moves across the set with an arabesque, a pirouette–then her gown unfurls.

"Stop. Lisa, can you take it again?" asks director Bruce Barry.

"Yeah." Shuffling her feet over the course, gesturing with her hands for the twirls, she marks the steps back to starting position.

Meanwhile, Barry privately confers with the cameraman No. 2. "There is dialogue at the end."

"At the very end," Brown adds from halfway across the stage. Nobody seems surprised or considers the interruption rude: Brown is, as usual, interrupting, contradicting, if need be–and making everything her business.

"I always want to know: why don't things work?" she explains. "So I make it a point to get involved and to learn every aspect of my profession. People respect me around here, but I've earned whatever say I have. Now, they'll let me do the choreography or pretty much anything I want."

The next run-through is noticeably more relaxed. And before the tape is played back, Brown flirts with her fiancé, Tom Nielsen, 27, who plays Floyd Parker on the soap. "We met on the show, were engaged last October and we'll be getting married this October," says Nielsen.

About a year ago, they came a breath away from saying "I do"–as Nola and Floyd. But Nola, characteristically changing her mind, announced "I can't" and ran off, leaving Floyd standing alone at the altar.

If Nola wasn't sure, neither is Lisa. "I'm scared to death," she says. "When Tom and I first started dating, I knew he wanted to marry me, but I couldn't handle it, so we split up. I'm still afraid–but it has nothing to do with Tom. The fear has to do with keeping an understanding, and that means talking. I find it scary just opening my mouth to talk." But not when it comes to business, obviously: the dance videotape is ready; Brown sits dead front center before the screen in the viewing room. As the tap sequence flashes by, Brown bangs the table hard with her fist: "More feet! We hardly ever get to see the feet!"

"OK, OK," director Barry concedes. "I'll pull the camera back to show you from head to toe. Let's take it one more time."

"Everyone in the viewing room knew the shot had to be head to toe; they were just afraid to say it," Brown asserts later.

"I often wonder what I would have been like if all this had happened eight years ago. If I had become a success. I don't know. I don't think I could have appreciated it the way I can now." Since Brown came to New York at the age of 18, she's had many off-Broadway stints, including two principal parts in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Then came Guiding Light and her recent leading role in 42nd Street.

"I'm an only child, which kind of insulates you from the rest of the world. I used to be very shy as a kid. I'd hide in my closet from babysitters–that kind of thing." She demonstrates by bending over double. "This is how I started out and, at 28, I'm just beginning to be able to stand up straight. I'm getting rid of the fear of not being liked."

And the fear of failing? "I know there will be a time when I can't get work. I don't ever want to believe that I'm invulnerable to the downswings."

From there Brown muses again about earning what one gets–which bring her back to the topic of stardom. It's a full circle: success; fear; failure; merit; success. And her own professional models? "Colleen Dewhurst or Bette Davis. Oh, look!" Brown jumps to her feet and points to a letter taped on the wall. It is from Bette Davis, praising the Guiding Light's rendition of Now, Voyager. The final line reads: "Tell Nola she has it."