It’s a well-known fact in Tinseltown that the luminaries of tomorrow are often plucked from the melodramatic ranks of daytime television. Indeed, for the hunky soap star, the chance to follow in the footsteps of Christopher Reeve, Luke Perry and Ted Danson –all of whom began their careers as sexy serial studs– ain’t half bad.
That fact got us to thinking: Who better to partake in a hunt for the big screen he-men of tomorrow than the good folks right here. Hence, in the grand tradition of all things PLAYGIRL, we made a list; this time it was comprised of all our favorite daytime dazzlers. Then, in the grand tradition of all things terribly difficult, we narrowed it down. The fun came in the form of chatting up each of our to-die-for finalists, not to mention our cover shoot with Antonio Sabato, Jr, General Hospital’s and only Jagger. Call it our own private Star Search. Unless, of course, you’d prefer to think of it as a new version of Fantasy Forum…
Walt Willey
“The biggest difference between me and Jack,” explains Walt Willey, star of ABC’s All My Children, “is that Jack sees women as a source of pain, whereas Walt just loves them.” The 41-year-old actor –who’s been filling the well-worn shoes of Jack-the-Cad-lawyer for five years now– admits he sometimes wonders why his characters is perceived as such a ladies’ man. “I mean, the man is a serial monogamist,” says Walt. “He’s practically a monk. Every so often I find myself wondering am I so sleazy that I actually leak through into Jack?”
Some folks, however, might say that Jack leaks through into Walt. “I have to deal with his reputation,” Walt complains mildly. “People expect me to be able to walk into a bar and go ‘I’ll take the blonde and the redhead,’ which is ridiculous. That’s not the way it works,” says the actor, who once worked as a private eye. “I walk in and women say ‘Oh he thinks he can walk out of here with anybody; well he ain’t walking out with me!”
But Willie –who’s currently single– says he’s never relied on his looks for anything anyway: “I stuttered really badly when I was a kid. So when I finally did get women, I never even presumed it was my looks. I always thought that I laughed a lot more women into bed than I seduced. You know ha ha ha… let’s go to bed!”
Antonio Sabato, Jr.
Don’t say being on a soap opera hasn’t played with this man’s brain. “Sometimes I find myself thinking that life is a soap opera, but life is a lot worse,” says Antonio Sabato Jr. who portrays Jagger on ABC’s General Hospital, “because in life you have to deal with reality; in a soap you can always change the script and be with whoever you want.”
Not that Mr. Sabato –whose face has graced the pages of countless soap opera fanzines since he made the tube last June– is having too many problems getting whoever he wants. It’s just that he doesn’t always know who that is: “A woman that I’m dating has to respect my work. If she’s jealous of my soap opera relationships,” says Sabato, who recently played Janet Jackson’s love interest in her Love Will Never Do Without You video, “then I just don’t want to be with that person… I can always tell when a woman’s going to be the jealous type… I know about those things… well sometimes I think I do now and then I don’t know. It’s weird…”
Maybe young Antonio would get into less trouble if he followed in the footsteps of his soap character. “What I like about Jagger,” says Sabato, who started acting as a child in Italy, “is he doesn’t tell anybody anything. He’s mysterious with women. With me I just tell people too many things. Even if I don’t want to tell them things, I still do, because that’s just the way I am.”
You won’t find us complaining…
Judson Christopher Mills
“Do you mean sexual ones?” Judson Mills asks eagerly, when questioned about his on- camera relationships. It seems the 23-year-old actor has slightly more going for him in the way of sophistication than Hutch, the way-naive farm boy he portrays on As the World Turns (CBS). “it’s very important that my character becomes more interesting sexually as he grows up,” says Mills, “because in daytime TV everything is about sexual tension.” This is one actor who’s obviously done some thinking about how to hold on to his coveted job. And Judson –who shares an apartment in New York with two pet snakes– has got a reason to do so: He’s addicted to the attention. “Some guys get embarrassed by the the adoration we get from our fans but I feel like I was born to do this. I love it!”
Raised in a tight-knit family in the hills of North Virginia, Jackson puts his personal life first when talking about the future: “What’s most important for me is to have a healthy relationship with a woman and to have a family with her, be able to raise our children to do the right thing and to always be there for my Mom and Dad.” Could there be a bit of the farm boy in Judson, after all?
… continue reading and meet all 10 hunks on PLAYGIRL+
Patrick Muldoon.
