Royal Wedding Shines On 'Guiding Light'

Actress Laura Wright Talks About Big Day, Her Rise To Fame And Her Baby On The Way

We've got the 411 on one of the biggest daytime weddings of the season. What's "The Guiding Light's" Cassie going to wear when she marries Prince Richard? And what does Cassie think about going royal?

Move over, Camilla Parker-Bowles: There's a new would-be princess in San Cristobel. Actress Laura Wright, who plays tough-girl-turned-princess Cassandra Layne, gives us the royal treatment.

Wedding Wows
I reach Laura Wright at the home that she shares with hubby John and 19 month-old Lauren in rural Pennsylvania.

"It's going to be an interesting phone call, because I'm in the hot tub with my daughter," she says, laughing.

I hear a big splash in the background.

And a big splash is exactly what viewers are expecting when Wright's CBS character Cassie marries Prince Richard of the fictional San Cristobel.

Wright tells me that the big day can't come soon enough: "Everyone is dying to see the wedding."

The details of the wedding, which was taped three weeks ago but won't air until next week, have been a well-kept secret, but Wright gushes, "It's an incredible wedding. It's beautiful. It has to be the most beautiful I've seen on daytime television ever. Visually, it's absolutely stunning."

She says that the episodes were very elaborate and it was hard work to tape them.

"We were there until 1 o'clock in the morning. We were on our feet for 18 hours," Wright tells me.

And it was worth it.

"(The crew) did such an incredible job," she says.

GUIDING LIGHT TRIVIA Quiz: "Guiding Light" history

"It's like watching Cinderella. It's like watching a cartoon come to life. It's fabulous."

But no fairy-tale wedding would be complete without a dress to make the bride truly feel like a princess.

Wright can't speak fast enough when she says, "For the character, I think it was perfect. For a princess it's unbelievable.

"It has an eight-foot train. It's stunning. Truly, I put on the gown, and everyone was like, 'Oh, my God.' It's definitely incredible."

And did she feel like a real princess when she put on the wedding dress?

"The first time you and all the bridesmaids put on the gowns, everyone looks beautiful," she says. "You're like, 'Oh, wow.' A couple of hours later, when your feet are killing you, you're like, 'OK, I'm over it.'"

A Little Bit Country
"I have a place in New York City and a place in the country," Wright says of her dual city and country life.

But life outside the big city is familiar for Wright. She grew up in Maryland with middle-class parents -- a world away from show business.

Nevertheless, she caught the acting bug.

"It started in high school, when I did plays," she tells me.

Despite her early foray into acting, Wright's parents didn't think the theater offered enough job security.

"My dad said, 'No, you're not going to go starve in New York City, you're going to own a gas station like me.' So I worked at my family business my whole life. I worked in a convenience store," she says.

How did she go from convenience store clerk to soap star?

Her story is pretty much a daytime storyline in itself:

"In 1991, I was a big fan of ABC shows, I watched them every day," Wright tells me. "I got a call from this woman who found people (acting) jobs here and there in the Washington, D.C., area.

"They were auditioning on videotape girls for a part on the soap opera 'Loving,' and I was one of 25 girls they put on tape. Then I was called in a week later for a screen test, and two days later they said, 'Move to New York, you start work tomorrow morning.'"

Was she in shock?

Wright laughs and nearly shouts, "Of course. I was like, 'What am I doing here? Are you kidding me?' I'd never lived away from home."

After six years on "Loving," where she played Ally Rescott Bowman, Wright went to the short-lived "Loving" spinoff, "The City," which was canceled in 1997.

Without taking a breath, Wright soon found herself taping a Warner Bros. TV pilot in Vancouver.

When that show was not picked up, Wright auditioned for "The Guiding Light" and within a week was cast as the dazzling Cassie Layne.

Here Comes The Bride
"I think that (Cassie's) excited and extremely overwhelmed and in shock and just not knowing at all what's in store for her life," says Wright of her character, who was once a stripper. "She knows it's good because she trusts Richard and she loves him, so she knows she's going to be with him, so that's great. But it's a 100 percent turnaround in lifestyle."

Cassie is a tough young woman who first appeared on "The Guiding Light" as Reva Shayne's (Kim Zimmer's) long-lost sister. Now her life is finally charmed by the love of Prince Richard Winslow (Bradley Cole).

"I'm marrying Richard. Edmund (David Andrew Macdonald's) is the evil brother. Richard is the reigning prince and was raised and sculpted his whole life to be the prince," Wright says of the storyline.

But this is daytime, after all, so there has to be a twist. And there is.

"There's probably a part of Richard deep down inside that wants to give everything up and be a regular guy. But Edmund is bad, and he knows that Edmund would just do the country in," Wright says.

Wright On
"Mine lasted a whole weekend," Wright tells me of her own wedding.

The differences between Wright and her onscreen persona don't end there.

"No, I'm not Cassie at all. There are parts of Cassie's personality that definitely come from me. (But) we're two totally different people," she says.

Would she change her character in any way?

"I think (Cassie) could be a little more ballsy, like she was when she first started," she says. "But the character has evolved and her place in San Cristobel now. Being a princess to the prince, she really can't run her mouth or be the tough girl."

Big Hats, Big Purses, Big Surprise
"I'm pregnant again," Wright tells me with excitement.

She's due on Dec. 30. "I just pushed out this week," Wright says, laughing about her growing abdomen.

But what about that wedding dress -- was it a bit snug?

"The wedding dress was a bit tight. The first fitting was before I found out I was pregnant, and then when I had to wear it, I thought, 'Oh, my goodness,'" Wright tells me.

Will the producers write her real-life pregnancy into the show?

"I think they're going to write it in when I'm like four and a half months pregnant," she says. "I'm going to be carrying big hats (over my stomach), I guess. Last time I was pregnant, I carried around big purses."

Lucky Star
"At this point, I'm OK with (being famous). At first, how I got my first job was luck. Let's just say it was," Wright says of her rise to television notoriety.

"Here I lived in a small town, managed a tanning salon at nighttime, worked at a gas station during the day and sold pretzels on the weekends at RFK Stadium so I could watch the Redskins games. I was a hard worker, and I loved to work, but there are tons of people in New York City that have been struggling for years trying to get a break (who) hear my story and say, 'You've got to be kidding me.' And I can understand that. I really can. But since I landed the role, I've worked my butt off and did whatever I could to get the respect," Wright says.

As a novice, Wright says her first role on television was a challenge for her colleagues.

"Looking back, there were a lot of people like, 'Great, this is who I get to work with.' And they were rightfully feeling that way, because I really sucked," Wright tells me.

But despite the glamour of television stardom that she now has, Wright manages to keep it all in perspective.

"I'm committed to having a family and having a life as well," she says.

"The work I do on daytime television I really do love. But it's not the most important thing to me. Neither is this job, and neither is this business," Wright says. "Hello, it's a job. It's a job where we are judged on our physicality."

And this philosophy is evident when I ask her what she is most proud of.

"My marriage and my daughter," she says. "We do a job every day where lighting and hair and makeup and how thin you are is so crucial," Wright tells me. "And when you can come home and you're on the floor playing with your kid, or they walk for the first time, or they run over and give you a big hug and kiss before they go to bed -- nothing beats that. Nothing anyone else can do is going to make me feel as good as that.

"I'm really, really happy with my life right now."

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