BETWEEN THE SHEETS WITH JOE AND SIOBHAN
1982
interview Suzanne Weyn
© unknown & date unknown 82′ approximate
“I warned both my parents. Beware!” laughs Marg *Helkenberger (sic), the strawberry-blonde actress who portrays the irrepressible Siobhan Ryan of Ryan’s Hope. She is recalling how she felt about her first steamy (literally) love scenes with with co-star Roscoe Born who plays Joe, her ne’er-do-well husband.
“At first I was uncomfortable,” she recalls. “For instance, the first love scene we had started off in the shower. It was ridiculous because, even though I had something on, once it got wet it was pretty see-through. Granted you didn’t see anything on camera, but there were stagehands and everyone else so…” Her voice trails off as she starts to relive the embarrassment for a moment. “That was pretty bad.” she says with a smile. “There I was trying to pretend everything was cool. It was tough. Now we’ve done so many of those scenes it’s kind of old hat now. Roscoe is really easy to work with.”
Marg admires her leading man’s professionalism. “Roscoe is very funny,” she observes. “He makes things very comfortable. Yeah, he is sexy, but that’s not what he’s there to do. He’s there primarily to play a role convincingly which he does.”
“What makes those scenes racy, is the implication that Joe and Siobhan have been in bed for days. It’s funny what they–the censors or the moral majority or whoever– what they decide can be aired and what can’t. Sometimes I think their decisions are strange. I mean, you can’t say damn or hell, but you can have a couple who are in bed for weeks on end. It doesn’t really make much sense.”
Back in North Bend, Nebraska, where Marg was born and raised, her forewarned parents have been able to take their daughter’s on-screen cavorting in stride. “I think while they were watching they probably were wondering ‘Is that our daughter!?’ but they are really excited. It’s funny when I call them or they call me. They always want to know the inside scoop on the characters. You know the gossipy kind of stuff.”
Like the character she plays, Marg was raised to believe in traditional values, which she says helps her understand the Ryan clan. “I was raised a very strong Catholic and there’s quite a bit of naiveté that goes along with that.” So living in Nebraska and the whole Midwestern conservative thing I can definitely relate to the Ryan’s.” She reflects for a moment and then adds, “I disagree with a lot of those things now, but I can understand them.”
The string of events that transformed Marg from a small town girl who worked at a meat packing plant during her summer vacations from school to a successful actress living in Manhattan were relatively swift.
However, life in the Big Apple hasn’t come as a total culture shock to Marg since she had, as she says “Chicago as a stepping stone.” while attending Northwestern.
And Marg, also has, as she puts it “a male friend” in the city, who was a former classmate at Northwestern. She admits, “He’s definitely an added attraction to being in New York.”
So with Roscoe Born making her career struggles on Ryan’s Hope easier, and with her male buddy making her personal life in the big city pleasurable, Marg is enjoying her life to the fullest.
And she’s certainly luckier than most young women starting out– She’s got two men in her life! Who could ask for anything more?
contributor ~ Sabrina Hernandez
Please do not re-post without the expressed permission of contributor–Thank you.
*Helkenberger- I cannot confirm a name change or misspelling of Helgenberger’s name.