After getting a firsthand look at the voting process for the
Daytime Emmys, Charleston native Lesli Kay did not think she had much chance of winning
one of the awards.Charleston native Lesli Kay earns soap opera
Emmy
SUNDAY GAZETTE-MAIL
Sunday May 27, 2001
By Marina Hendricks
flipside@wvgazette.com
After getting a firsthand look at the voting process for the
Daytime Emmys, Charleston native Lesli Kay did not think she had much chance of winning
one of the awards.
The George Washington High School graduate, daughter of Marsha Albert and the late Jack Pushkin, was nominated for outstanding supporting actress in a drama series for her role as Molly in the CBS soap opera "As the World Turns" (which airs at 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on WOWK-TV 13).
She also was asked to help choose the best performer in a children's special. In Daytime Emmy competition, a panel of 16 judges reviews the nominees' performance tapes and then votes.
"I saw how the system worked. The person I really felt deserved the award didn't win," she said in a telephone interview last week from her home in Belle Harbor, N.Y. "I so didn't think I was going to win."
As it turned out, Kay was wrong about that. The first-time nominee took home the supporting actress award from the Daytime Emmy ceremonies May 18.
"It just goes to show you, you don't really know who's in those [judging] rooms," she said. "The people who voted for me, God bless them."
She was so convinced that someone else would win that she did not prepare an acceptance speech. But she started to rethink that when two of the judges in her category came up to her at the pre-awards dinner and said that her performance tape was the best.
"At that point I said, ‘Maybe I should prepare a speech.' This was an hour before the Emmys."
Terri Conn and Paul Leyden, two of her fellow actors on the show, presented the outstanding supporting actress award. They told Kay at dinner beforehand the card they had used at rehearsal had Kay's name listed as the winner.
"I said, ‘Oh, you should have saved it. There's no way I'm going to win. There's no way they would rehearse with the winner's name.'"
Kay recalled seeing Conn burst forth with a huge smile as she announced the winner's name. "My whole body went numb, and it stayed numb until after the broadcast."
Despite not having a speech ready, she made it through her moment on stage. "Of course, I forgot some people. You don't have any time. I got the important ones out."
"I really didn't feel that I could lie or be politically correct for the sake of it. I thanked the people who hired me. It's an ensemble [cast]. Some days, it's your day. I got my point across without screaming."
Kay was accompanied to the awards by her boyfriend of 2 1/2 years, former "As the World Turns" actor Keith Coulouris. The two have a 15-month-old son, Jackson.
"Keith could not believe the feelings that came over him," she said. "He actually thought I was going to win. He started crying, which he did not expect."
The couple attended a post-awards party and then went back to their hotel to relax and order room service. She woke up the next morning at 5:55 a.m., she recalled. "I look over and see that Emmy - ‘Oh my God, it's real!'"
To avoid disturbing Coulouris, she sneaked downstairs to call her mother, who now lives in Florida.
"In a way, she did win," Kay said. "She's put up with my wanting to be an actress. There were times she used to get so discouraged. She'd say, ‘Lesli, you're so good with hair.' I'd say, ‘Mom, don't worry.'"
The only down side of the whole thing, she reflected, is that her castmate, Tom Eplin, did not win for outstanding lead actor. He plays Jake, the romantic counterpoint to Kay's Molly. "I would have enjoyed it more for [him] than myself. He's phenomenal. Anyone who's ever played opposite of him has been nominated for an Emmy.
"I feel that we're a team in this effort. I would have turned my statue in three times over for him to have a win."
Kay and Eplin have bonded over more than just their roles as a daytime television couple. Like her, he possesses a capital city connection.
"His dad and my mom were in the same class at Charleston High," she said. "It's just a small world."
"My first Christmas party at ‘As the World Turns,' Tom came up to me and said, ‘You're from West Virginia.' I thought he was making fun of me. I said, ‘You're a jerk.' He said, ‘No, I'm from there. I can say Kanawha right.'"
Kay said she hopes to visit her hometown in the near future to help her brother, Michael Pushkin, promote Club 812. Pushkin is helping to run the new nightspot, which is located downtown on Kanawha Boulevard.
"I am very proud to be from Charleston," she said. "I tell everyone. Tom and I give Charleston a lot of publicity."
Their characters came together on the show when Molly was in a coma after falling down some stairs. Jake visited her at the hospital every day. "When I woke up and he was there, he became my sounding board, my inspiration."
Recently, Molly and Jake were married. "We just kind of understand each other," she said. "We get silly and have fun. I don't think that married has to equal no fun in daytime. Jake and Molly, to me, are really fun to watch. They've got a lot going on. The audience seems to get it.
"I've known Tommy for a long time and I always had the feeling that if we got to work together, it would be a Hepburn-Tracy thing."
As for life beyond Molly and Jake, Kay said that is hard to predict.
"I've got a movie that starts shooting in the fall," she said, adding that it is an independent venture featuring "Saturday Night Live" cast member Darrell Hammond. "I can do that and stay with ‘As the World Turns' and keep my steady income so I can afford to feed my family.
"Daytime's a really good gig for a mommy. It's basically 9 to 5 and you never work five days a week. You don't work on weekends. I take [Jackson] to work with me. He's the little ‘As the World Turns' mascot."
While a regular gig is hard to beat, she would not mind going to Los Angeles at some point.
"All of Keith's friends are in L.A.," she explained. "As much as it would kill me to leave ‘As the World Turns,' it might happen. Then again, I might be playing Molly until I'm 65."
To contact staff writer Marina Hendricks, use e-mail or call 348-4881.
© Copyright 2000 Sunday Gazette-Mail
Charleston, West Virginia
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