The Roadless Traveled

She chucked hollywood after Peyton Place (And a messy split from Ryan O'Neal), But Life's a BEACH today for Leigh Taylor-Young.

JUST THE FACTS
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Birthday: January 25
Colege: Northwestern
Sister: Actress Dey Young. "She is married to [Alan Ladd's son] David Ladd, a big executive at MGM."
Brother: Lance young, who worte and directed film Bliss, out soon. "I'm in theat briefly."
How Briefly? "It is indeed a provocative role."
How far does she go back with Spellings? "I visited candy in the hospital the night Tori was born."

It's been a long and winding road from Peyton Place to Sunset Beach for Leigh Taylor-Young.

Back then, she was an ingenue, unprepared for the fame that came with playing Rachel Welles on prime-time sudser. Or the notoriety that came with dating and marrying co-star Ryan O'Neal. "I never really had a love interest on the show," quips Taylor-Young, "But I married Ryan out of it, so I did -- on the side."

She can joke about it now, but back then the whole thing was as complicated as (Sorry!) Peyton Place. "I come from an extremly intellectual and educated family," the actress begins. "I fell in love with acting more through the classics that from watching movies or T.V. I moved to Hollywood when a passion to be great. When I did, Peyton Place, they wanted me in bathing suits because I looked a certain way. Then I met Ryan, and it all began to create a person I was not. The late '60's had to do with your body and taking off your clothes, and I didn't have moral judments about that. My problem was that I was much, much more than that."

So what did she do? "I was not very bose at that time," she replies. "I internalized a lot of this. Then, after the breakup of my marriage to Ryan, I took a very philosophical, spiritual turn."

O'Neal and Taylor-Young had a son, Patrick. WHen pressed for details, Taylor-Young chooses her words carefully. SHe hates talking about this. "[We were married] nearly seven years, but together maybe three-and-a-half," she says softly. "Ryan and I tried, but it was pretty much over by the time Patrick was 2." What broke them up? " He went off with a very big star." Who? "Barbara Streisand." How did they meet? "Whats up, Doc? was the movie that came out of their relationshio." Taylor-Young was one of the last to learn of the affair. "He finally had to tell me because it was all the papers," She explains. "I had been in Europe working, and during that period, they had taken my son out with them. I got back -- completely unknowing -- and a certain moment, he felt he'd better tell me." Why? "Because I was bulding us a house."

Yikes. How did Taylor-Young take it? "I would say it was about as brutal as any left. I just said, 'God bless you, have a good life, enjoy it all. I'm leaving.' What could I do? I loved him very much. It's your first love, the father of your baby. And not only being the wife of a famous person, being famous yourself. With a new baby at 22,23. There was such a sense of betrayal."

Taylor-Young quit Hollywood, pakced up a little Patrick O'Neal and moved to Santa Fe, NM. "We lived there on and off for five years. I was getting a big movie offers and I literally walked away from career." (She had already starred in the 1968 comedy I love You, Alice B. Tklas opposit Peter Sellers.) "I look back at myself then, nad I'm very proud of my choices. Even though, in many ways, it cost me a career, it gave me the richest of lives."

The actress sepnt the next few years focusinnng on her son and taking classes. Then she moved back to L.A. for the schools and her career. "I had saved enough money to sustain me all this time, but I started to feel that calling again ... somewhat reluctantly, I must say. It's alway been a reluctant love affair with acting."

But a successful one. She starred in The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight with Robert De Niro and Soylent Green with Charlton Heston, among many others. Around this time, her personal life picked up too. "I married a fellow named Guy McElwaine, a top talent agent in town. He had been my agent before I left for Santa Fe. We were married for about seven yeras." They broke up when they realized,"We just weren't meant to be together anymore." SHe has no regrets there, either. "I don't buy into this belief that [a marriage] is unsuccessful unless it lasts a lifetime." She took the plunge a third time, with a "Doctor of Oriental medicin. He had been a friend for many years." They eventually divorced, but still speak. "I stay friendly with everybody," She affirms. Everybody? "I don't speak to Ryan. Not out of an enmity at all, just cirumstance."

Today, Taylor-Young's son is in his late 20's pursing acting, writing and production. "He is very, very talented," she says, literaly beaming with bpride. "I feel very blessed. To me, it's like we grew up together. We shared so much challenge because I was dealing with very difficult cirumstances -- and he was part of it all." When asked if Patrick was dating, she lights up again. "He is with beautiful gifted actress, Rebecca De Momay, whom I adore."

As for Patrick's relationships with half siblings Tatum and Griffin (Whos mother is Joanna Moore) or Redmond (Whose mother is Farrah Fawcett), Taylor-Young says, "You know, it's interesting. I really don't know, and I'm not being coy. I let him tell me what he wants to tel me. I don't ask."

As for her own family, the actress grew up with two fathers after her mothers remarried. "I hyphenated my name baecause I loved both of my fathers," she explains. "When I became a professional actress for my first Broadway show, I had to chose a name. When I lived with one father, I would be Leigh Young, when I lived with the other, I would be Leigh Taylor. So I thought, 'Oh my god they are both going to come to the play. Who am I going to be?' So I made it Leigh Taylor-Young and there you have it." Carl Taylor (a diplomat) died in 1970. Donald young (an executive) in 1992, and her mome, Pauline, in 1995. "She was read to go, and she wanted to be with my dad," Taylor-Young states simply.

And then... "OUt of a clear blue sky, we heard that Leigh Taylor-Young might be interested in SUNSET BEACH," reports Aaron Spelling. "We're old buddies, so I talked to her. And she said, 'Sounds like fun to me.' Here's somebody who had just won an emy for PICKET FENCES!"

"Aaron was very much a friend in my second marriage," the actress lobs back. "I've always had a great love and immense professional respect for him. But I thought, 'Oh god, daytime?' I've never watched a soap opera in my life." She signed on, of course, to play earth mother Elain, and has no thrown herself into SUNSET BEACH with the same passion she applied to everyhthing else in her life. "I've been doing 40 pages," she marvels. "The murder! The Son! The daughter! It's exhilarating, but utterly exhausting. Welcome to daytime."

Leigh Taylor-Young relates to Elaine Steves, because they both have faced rotten times and come out healthy and smiling. "I have had a wonderful life," the actress grins, "with an extraodinary amount of experiences and interterests. And I've followed them all."

(Soap Opera Digest, April 26, 1997 - By Carolyn Hinsey)