High on life After 21 years playing recent pill popper Alan Quartermaine, Stuart Damon still is hooked For the past few months, the always edgy Alan Quartermaine has been on a downward spiral. His newborn drug addiction has grown so hard to hide that even he has realized its magnitude. At any moment, he could be exposed…..revealed…humiliated. Everything that he holds dear could slip through his fingers. So, in a series of stunning scenes set in a motel room, the doctor tried to heal himself, to kick his bad habit. And his portrayer, Stuart Damon, rose to the occasion. "Those were some of the most difficult scenes I've ever done", he admits. "I didn't speak to anyone for those four days. I stayed totally in character." As a result, Alan's trauma took a toll on Damon as well. "I gave it everything I had," he says. "They put dark circles under my eyes and white make-up on my face, but when I took my jacket off, the sweat you saw was real. I was just dripping from exhaustion." But the result of Damon's suffering for his art was startling drama: raw, real, remarkable. "Stuart is tapping into some extraordinarily resonant material," marvels headwriter Bob Guza. "What I particularly like is that he gives a strong indication of this man of prominence unraveling. He's not just anybody unraveling. You see his dignity stripped away, and you see him begin to hate himself for doing it." It's a rare (of late) oppurtunity for Damon to take center stage, and he is duly thankful for the chance. "I've had a supporting role in a lot of plots over the years, but the drug addiction storyline is the first that I've been able to call my own," he notes. "I'm so grateful to have been able to play it for so long." And it ain't over yet. " This is not the beginning of the end for Stuart," hints Guza, "not by any means." The Fruit Of His Labors While Damon says Alan is embarrassed by his "total lack of success with various members of his family," the actor himself has no such problems. "I've been married to my wife, Deirdre, for longer than most people in Ripley's Believe It…. Or Not!" he chuckles. "The secret to staying married for 37 years is being able to walk away from an argument you can't win. Neither of us ever believed in talking things to death." Looking at the pictures lining Damon's dressing room wall, it is easy to see that he and his actress/dancer wife have lived an extraordinary life together on the stage, on the screen, and at home. "In July of 1977, I came back to the States from London with my wife, two kids and no job, and I auditioned for GH," Damon recalls. Flash-forward 21 years, and the actor's life is much the same, but with one important twist: The child he tucks into bed each night now is his grandson, Alexander. Unlike the Quartermaines, who fantasize about raising grandson Michael, the Damons actually are raising daughter Jennifer's child, and loving it! "When you are older like this and have a baby, you notice things that you never saw in your life before," he maintains. "I'm not struggling for a job and trying to make the house payments anymore, so I'm able to spend time with Alexander that's very special for the both of us." Damon's face lights up like a Christmas tree when he talks about the 2-and-a-half-year-old tot. "When I sleep with him on Saturday night and reach over to see if he's all right, he takes my hand, holds it next to his cheek and won't let it go," says Damon, beaming. "There are no words to describe how that feels. "Sundays are our special days together," he continues. "We go out to breakfast and then hit the park, where there are lots of kids. People laugh hysterically when they see us together because he puts his hands behind his back and walk just like me!" R-E-S-P-E-C-T Damon, who grew up in Brooklyn as the son of two hard-working Russian immigrants, lived a very different life from the one he wants for his grandson. "I wish I'd listened to my mother when she told me to get out of the pool room, because if I had,I would have been able to get to the work that I needed to a alot more quickly, instead of trying to turn into a wise guy," he admits. "Growing up in Brooklyn in the '50s, that was the thing to be. But I was never tough enough." Damon credits his father, though, for being the biggest influence in his life. His dad taught him the value of respect - the one thing Alan can't seem to get from his family. "I plan to send my grandson to tai kwon do lessons when he's 3 because I want him to learn discipline and respect," he reveals. "I'm from a generation where I never talked back to my father. And while we live in totally different times now, I still think it's important for him to learn those kind of values." It's been two decades since Damon traded in his prolific theater career for the steady paycheck of daytime TV, but he has no regrets. "That part of my life has to stay in the past because in order to go back to it, I would have to leave GH," he confides. "And I'm not about to retire. I'm going to stay here until I die! They're going to carry me out feet first! By Kelli M. Larson, Soaps in Depht, June 30 1998