This article originally appeared in Soap Opera Digest

 By Donna Hoke Kahwaty 

 JUST THE FACTS
 Birthday: April 2
 Birthplace: Albany, GA
 She Was Named For: Her great aunt. "I always felt special because I  had a name I didn't run into a lot. It gives you something to live up to  somewhat."
 If She Won The Lottery: "I would want to secure [my home] and then  I would want to send my parents around the word, and produce a Broadway  show."
 Advice For Walking On New York Streets: "Don't be happy, don't be  pretty, don't be nice."
 Hobby: Gardening: she plants tulips and gladiolas outside her  brownstone.
 If She Were a Huxtable: She'd be Sandra, the oldest daughter.
 

 "I come across like Donna Reed, I know," says Amelia Marshall with mock  disgust. "There are certain parts of me that are like that, but there is  another side of me that rebels against the whole image." 

 The Donna Reed side likes routines, dislikes living in New York and might  enjoy a big November wedding. The rebellious side--ambitious enough to  draw her to New York--revels in the Big Apple's offerings, says having  children is "beyond thought" right now, and considered inviting her fiancé  to the studio for quickie nuptials after Gilly and Hamp's (her Guiding  Light characters and Gilly's husband) ceremony. 

 "For a split second, I [paused], but then said to myself, 'He will never  buy this,'" Marshall recalls. "He" is her fiance, Daryl Waters, a musician  who probably wishes Marshall were a bit more traditional. 

 "I've been with Daryl for five years, and he's probably been wanting to  get married for three," Marshall says. "I kept putting him off because it  seemed like it would complicate things; it never felt like a necessary  step. Last winter, he said, 'Make a decision one way or another.' 

 "I've got to be one of the strangest women on the face of the earth,"  Marshall laughs. "I have to do everything backwards. I have to resist the  rules. I told him, 'I don't want [an engagement ring]. All I want is a  wedding band with a few nice-sized diamonds. Don't waste your money on the  solitaire.' Then he says, 'Could you describe what you are thinking  about?' And I said, 'No, I'll just go with you. Don't strain your brain;  I'll go with you.' He says, 'You're really insisting on taking all the  romance out of this.'" 

 Marshall freely admits that Waters is the more romantic of the two of  them. "He's a musician," she says, "and musicians are an interesting  breed, anyway." Obviously, Marshall understands the breed, which explains  not only her involvement with Waters, but also her chemistry with her  GL co-star Vince Williams (Hamp). 

 "Had we not worked out, I wouldn't be here," Marshall observes, in  reference to the fact that GL had pulled her from day player status  so that she could be paired with Williams. "It's just something that kind  of happened. Vince has charm by the bucket, and it was so easy to relate  to him and easy to be with him. It was never a problem. He has a temper,  but I've gone one too." 

 It's easy to see why Marshall is taken with Williams, but the  contradictory lady is also drawn to the wily character of Roger Thorpe. "I  love power," she confesses. "That's probably why I like Michael  Zaslow/Roger; it's a turn-on. I would certainly like to be more powerful  than famous. [I like] the control aspect, the ability to mold and shape  things. I came to New York as a dancer. On the totem pole of prestige,  recognition and power, they are on the bottom--to the point that dancers  wouldn't get a rest break if it weren't for everybody else. That's an  exaggeration, but they [just] want you to dance, and dance as you are  told." 

 For someone with ambition and a desire to speak her mind, that kind of  life was an impossibility. Still, Marshall counts herself among the lucky.  Dancing was her one-way ticket from Texas ("Houston is not pretty; it's  black, hot and humid") to New York, and, six months after she arrived, she  was successful enough to say good-bye to waitressing and secretarial jobs  forever. "I've gotten so many jobs I shouldn't have gotten," Marshal says,  still incredulous. "My guardian angel is always there. I've done three  Broadway shows as a dancer/singer, and I always felt like, 'How did I get  this?'" 

 She doesn't give herself enough credit. 

 Marshall was raised in Texas after living in Georgia and Amityville, New  York (before the horror made it famous); the moving process all but wiped  out her Southern accent. The child of a schoolteacher and an insurance  man, Marshall says her upbringing was typical and her family comfortable,  if not middle-class. "I remember trying to get my mother to pinpoint,"  Marshall says. "'We're middle-class, right?' And she would say, 'Are you  kidding?' But it didn't bother me. I was realistic, even then. When we  moved out to Houston, what I wanted most of all was a piano. Then my  mother got pregnant, and she was honest enough to say, 'You can't have a  piano and a baby brother at the same time.' Finally, a year after he was  born, we got it." 

 In school, Marshall says, her sister, Valerie, was the straight A student,  and she was content to get B's at Houston's High School of Performing and  Visual Arts, as long as there was time for cheerleading and dance classes.  When both dance and academic scholarships came her way,  Marshall--considering her teacher mother's wishes--detoured from dance and  earned a business degree from the University of Texas. Her business  background earned her a job as a repair supervisor at Southwestern Bell. 

 "I had eleven men and one woman working under me, and you could say it was  power, but it was really just a good working relationship," Marshall  recalls. "I was able to say, 'This is what I want; this is what I need'  and I got it. It wasn't a challenge. I found myself bored, and that's when  I started dancing again. I figured life is too short to sit around. My  mother didn't believe me at first, but then she came over to my apartment  and saw that I was packing up boxes. When she realized I was dead  serious, she turned completely around and threw me a brunch as a good-bye  celebration. Now, to a certain degree, I think she can't believe it. You  sit around watching soaps with your daughter, then she's on one." 

 And can Marshall believe it? "I want to accept my limitations," she says  cautiously, "but that doesn't mean I don't have to strive to do as much as  I can do." 

© Soap Opera Digest 2001