Nancy Lee Grahn is sweating at lot these days on the set of General Hospital, and it's not due to those cancellation rumors. It's because she's going somewhere Susan Lucci never dared ? this week her character, Alexis, will be declared menopausal! TV Guide Magazine spoke with the Emmy-winning Grahn about the dreaded M word, how she copes with ageism in soaps and why the hell she can't stop …
Nancy Lee Grahn is sweating at lot these days on the set of General Hospital, and it's not due to those cancellation rumors. It's because she's going somewhere Susan Lucci never dared — this week her character, Alexis, will be declared menopausal! TV Guide Magazine spoke with the Emmy-winning Grahn about the dreaded “M” word, how she copes with ageism in soaps and why the hell she can't stop tweeting.
TV Guide Magazine: Many a daytime diva would refuse to do this menopause story. How you handling it? Grahn: I say bring it on! I was called into the producer's office and asked if I had a problem with it. Who am I kidding? I'm going through menopause myself. I'm always hot and crabby. I'm tweeting things I don't mean. When someone startles me I scream like I've been stabbed in the eye with a knife. I won't allow the heat turned on at home, so my poor daughter has to wear a parka in the house. [Laughs] Plus, my memory is going. The other day, I kid you not, I could not remember the word “party” if my life had depended on it. I was, like, “What the hell do they call it when people get together and have fun? It starts with a P.” It's terrible!
TV Guide Magazine: Yeah, but, does the audience want to see this? Grahn: Do they want to see one more mob shootout? In the 15 years I've been on GH we haven't had many stories told about women from a woman's perspective. I think I can make this funny and entertaining and relatable. Besides, it's very timely.
TV Guide Magazine: Uh…why would that be? Grahn: Because the soaps are also going through menopause! Women can either think of this stage of life as death or a chance to transition into something wonderful, and that's what the soaps need to do. To survive, they need to change with the times. They need to adapt. [Laughs] They need some damn hormones!
TV Guide Magazine: It was Jill Phelps who gave the green light to this menopause plot but now she's out as exec producer. Will your new boss, Frank Valentini, stick with it? Or will Alexis make a miraculous recovery? Grahn: Frank doesn't like the idea of Alexis having menopause because he thinks it makes her too old. Now if she turned into some dried-up old hag over this, well, that would be very painful to watch. But there's no need for that. I had a great love affair in real life, a really amazing romance, after I started menopause, so I know it's not the end of life as we know it.
TV Guide Magazine: But now Alexis can longer have unplanned babies with insanely inappropriate men! Grahn: Not unless you want the baby to have three heads. [Laughs] Though that would be a soap first!
TV Guide Magazine: Actually, I think they did that on Passions. Speaking of tweeting things you don't mean, what's up with that, doll? You've gone crazy on Twitter! Do we need to stage an intervention? Grahn: I'm a performer, a communicator. It's my way of doing PR for myself. It's called survival, because most of the time the media isn't interested in us soap actors.
TV Guide Magazine: You've blasted everyone from Vera Wang, because she's a soap snob who wouldn't make her dresses available to GH, to that poor girl who beat out Lexi Ainsworth for the Daytime Emmy last year. Grahn: I was pissed! I saw those Emmy tapes. There was no contest. That award was Lexi's. It was like they were asking, “Who's prettier, Angelina Jolie or Phyllis Diller?” And then they opened the envelope and the winner was Phyllis Diller! Don't me wrong, I love Phyllis Diller. But, c'mon, let's be real here! And my Vera Wang rant was very well deserved. It reached 100,000 people. How else is someone like me going to reach that many? I'm not on magazine covers. I have no voice. Twitter is a place for me to say what I think and get some response back. [Laughs] It's a place for me to vent about the Kardashians. And I have very funny and intelligent people responding to me, so it's like an ongoing dialogue, a conversation.
TV Guide Magazine: No worries that this could backfire? Grahn: If I do an article regarding soap stuff, I have to watch what I say because I'm an employee of ABC. I am mindful I'm in business with a big company. But there are other matters where I have very strong opinions that have nothing to do with my place of employment, matters that I absolutely can and should talk about. Like when Jet Air f–ked me over, I said so. When Jet Blue was great to me, I said so. I'm not tweeting boring, stupid stuff like, “Hey everyone, it's Sunday!” or “Guess what? I'm at Starbucks!” I try to tweet something with content, with value, with humor, something that's interesting and provocative. I'm trying to keep myself relevant. I have 37,000 followers which may seem minimal but it's a lot for daytime people. I have no apologies!
TV Guide Magazine: Not even when you gave away that major GH plot spoiler by revealing Sam [Kelly Monaco] was pregnant? Didn't you catch hell for that? Grahn: [Laughs] I did! I've gotten in trouble a couple of times. But let me tell you what happened there. I had not been watching the show at the time and I thought that news was already out. Fans were Twitter-tricking me. They were asking, “How do you feel about your character becoming a grandmother?” and “Isn't it great that Sam's pregnant?” And I'm, like, “Oh, yes!” not realizing I was confirming it. I was rightfully reprimanded by the network. It was an honest mistake, I swear. I would never be that stupid.
TV Guide Magazine: Well, I just gotta ask: How do you feel about Alexis becoming a grandmother? Grahn: I'm really happy, actually. It's such a cliché to have grandma issues. Look, I handled it very well when the writers suddenly decided that Sam was Alexis' long-lost daughter, which basically made my character 110 years old. I'm just fine with it. Women, and actresses especially, have such a problem dealing with age and talking about age. There's such a stigma still attached to it, and I'm all for helping wipe that out. I want to make aging hip. I want to make menopause cool. [Laughs] Just as soon as I stop sweating.
Post-menopausal women are 35 percent more likely to suffer hip fracture if they take indigestion drugs, known as PPIs, a figure which increases to 50 percent if they are also current or former smokers, suggests a study published today on bmj.com.
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THURSDAY, Jan. 26 (HealthDay News) — New genetic factors associated with a woman's age when she begins menopause have been identified by an international team of researchers. Researchers identified 13 loci (specific location of a gene on a chromosome) linked with immune function and DNA repair, which have an effect on when menopause begins, said the researchers from the Boston University Schools of Public Health and Medicine and colleagues
( Elsevier ) Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, announced today the publication of a position statement by the European Menopause and Andropause Society in the journal Maturitas on the role of vitamin D in postmenopausal women with summary recommendations.
A new study published in the January 2012 issue of the American Journal of Medicine contained both good news and potential concerns about sexual activity for older American women. The study,1 written by three researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and based on responses from 806 older women who live in a San Diego area planned community and whose health has …
Women who took pomegranate seed oil pills to relieve symptoms of the menopause, such as hot flashes, were found to receive no significantly better benefits than those who were given a placebo pill which contained sunflower oil, researchers from the Medical University of Vienna wrote in the journal Menopause. The authors added that theirs is the first (albeit small) proper clinical trial to test …
( Boston University Medical Center ) An international team of researchers from the Boston University Schools of Public Health and Medicine and other institutions has uncovered 13 genetic loci, linked to immune function and DNA repair, that are factors in the age of onset of menopause.
( The Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry ) An international team of researchers has discovered 13 new regions of the genome associated with the timing of menopause. These genes shed light on the biological pathways involved in reproductive lifespan and will provide insights into conditions connected to menopause, such as breast cancer and heart disease.
FRIDAY, Jan. 20 (HealthDay News) — Younger women with breast cancer may experience a decrease in their health-related quality of life because of increased mental distress, weight gain and other factors, a new study finds.
( Journal of the National Cancer Institute ) Younger women with breast cancer experience a decrease in their health-related quality of life, associated with increased psychological distress, weight gain, a decline in their physical activity, infertility and early onset menopause, according to a study published Jan. 20 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
17-01-2012 14:05 Balanced Hormones and Health is featured on Fox News with Dr. Connie Casad talking about bioidentical hormones and their positive effects on menopause.
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18-05-2011 12:54 Postmenopausal women have a new health message to hear. Two annual dental checkups aren’t enough. Older women need more, according to research findings from the Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine and the Cleveland Clinic
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FRIDAY, Jan. 13 (HealthDay News) — An estimated 50 percent to 55 percent of pregnant women in the United States develop varicose veins, according to the Society for Vascular Surgery.
There’s a ton of information available about menopause – and a ton of misinformation, too. Here, we separate the myths from the facts: Myth: You Should Never Have Hormone Therapy.
Good Samaritan Hospital doctor talks about how to deal with changes Every woman will experience menopause, some in the normal course of aging and some before. It can bring on a host of symptoms in addition to hot flashes
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