All-out war was being waged on the set of All My Children. Obscenities - andsmall objects - were flying behind a closed dressing- room door. As the soundsdrifted into the hair and makeup areas, an actress being coiffed for her screentest looked increasingly alarmed. In all her years in movies and on prime-timeTV, she had never encountered behavior of the sort being displayed by thefeuding actors down the hall. One of the hairdressers, gamely trying to allay her fears, ventured, "They're rehearsing" - just as a chair crashed into a wall.     Kelly Ripa and Matt Borlenghi, now the best of friends, had been going through a rocky period of adjusting to playing on-again, off-again teen couple Hayley and Brian on the Emmy-winning soap, so they decided to work out their professional differences in Ripa's dressing room. If their way of working thingsout seems a little over the top, well, so much in daytime is.     Actors who labor in the medium spend up to sixteen hours a day, five days a week, playing another person - sometimes a thoroughly despicable person - yearafter well-compensated year (annual salaries range from about seventy-five thousand dollars to well over a million). For large chunks of that time, theymay be called upon to whisper sweet nothings to someone whose ears they'd ratherbite off, or do steamy love scenes with a costar who turns them on but shouldn't because he or she has a mate and three kids at home.     Working on daytime presents its share of mental challenges too. When actors are "front burner" - meaning they're involved in a prominent story line - theyfrequently have to memorize forty pages of dialogue a day and perform it with aminimum of rehearsal. Talk about high-stress. Then, if their character isrelegated to "back burner" status, they have days - sometimes weeks - at a timeto sit and wonder whether they'll be picked up for the next thirteen-week cycle or, perhaps, be conveniently snuffed out by some homicidal maniac. ("The bad news," former Loving executive producer Jacqueline Babbin told one, actor, "is we're killing you off.  The good news is, we're getting a great story line out of it.") This can be high-stress too. And boring.     To be sure, most soap actors are troupers who take it all in stride, who meditate or do needlepoint in their dressing rooms and who go home, however late, to their families. But who can blame the ones who choose more-creative ways of letting off steam or keeping themselves amused?  Things like, oh, the farting contests indulged in by two leading men on one soap. Or the Best Buns competition at General Hospital, when male cast members lined up (some droppedtheir jeans) and allowed their female costars to rank their rears (Tony Geary - now Bill, formerly Luke - won). Or the bizarre practical jokes (rubber chickens flapping past windows in airplane scenes; burly stagehands in merry widows, prancing around bedroom sets) and the even weirder ideas for plots, which they pitch to dumbfounded head writers.     "Every hero wants to be a villain and every villainess wants to adopt an orphan," says former Another World head writer Donna Swajeski, who recalls once having been cornered by an actor who suggested a love scene incorporating cross-dressing. "You sort of wonder," she says.     Pam Long, who's written for four soaps, most recently Santa Barbara, which aired its last episode January 15, after an eight-and-a-half-year run, reportsthat a cast member - "the sweetest actor, with incredible integrity" - offered to do the first full rear view nudity in daytime. "In other words, what this wonderful, esteemed actor was trying to tell me was that he wanted to show hi sbutt on the air," she says. "I'm like, (When did you start feeling the need to express yourself in this way?'"     In the world of daytime, it seems, the drama never ends.   There are fistfights (The Young and the Restless star Eric Braeden head-butted castmate and two-time Emmy winner Peter Bergman a year ago in a dispute over who got thelast line) and fits of temper (one over-sixty grande dame stripped and streaked to demonstrate pique over a lack of air-conditioning). And, of course, there areaffairs - lots of them - many right on the premises. And nobody, but nobody, loves to gossip about such shenanigans more than the actors themselves. "We sit around the makeup room like spiders waiting for good dish," All My Children's Ripa says. There are plenty of mouth-watering morsels to go around. As oneleading man drawls with an arched eyebrow and a sly grin, "There's more going on behind the scenes than in them."    All My Sex Scenes     That's no small claim, considering what's been going on in those scenes over the past several years; almost every taboo has been broken. Last spring, OneLife to Live even dabbled in S & M when two of its characters, vampy villainess Alex (Tonja Walker) and soon-to-be-murdered mob boss Carlo (Thom Christopher, now reincarnated as Carlo look-alike Mortimer) engaged in wickedly funny sexgames. Walker, told that her character was about to become a dominatrix, wailed, "Can't I just be a bad girl like Erica All My Children's archvixen, played bySusan Lucei and show up in places I'm not invited?"     And oral sex - yes, that too - has been hinted at on six of the ten soaps on the air, reports TV Guide soap columnist Michael Logan: "They don't actually show it - the scene fades as she heads due south past his abdomen - but, honey, you know she's not going down to tie his Reeboks!"     Sex, to one degree or another, has been adding sizzle to daytime TV since the midseventies. And the actors and actresses who steam up the screen day after day approach the taping of love scenes with varying amounts of enthusiasm. Linda Dano, Another World's stylish and sophisticated Felicia. says that the daybefore a sex scene with someone new, she whips herself into such a frenzy ofterror she has to have a drink to take the edge off. And she always keeps thesheets pulled up to her neck, "like I have the flu or something. I'm a real sexkitten, I'll tell you."    Perhaps it has something to do with the actors with whom she's been paired. "One of them was so shy, he'd get into bed fully dressed, and put his golf club between us," she says. "Another was just of a different sexual persuasion, so to do love scenes with him was a little tough. He was like, Oh, do we have to? I think if we just hugged it would be enough.' Naturally, it didn't bring out my feminine wiles."     Conversely, Fiona Hutchison, One Life to Live's deliciously devious Gabrielle and now Jenna on Guiding Light, is a tigress in her sex scenes. She brought so much jungle fever to bed with James DePaiva and Nicholas Walker (who followed each other in the role of Max on One Life to Live) that everyone, including the entire cast, was convinced she was really sleeping with them. Her own husband accused her of having an affair with DePaiva. "And," Hutchison admits, "I don't blame him. We certainly were pushing the envelope with those scenes, bordering on some very dicey stuff." Hutchison later separated from her husband and did become involved with someone from the show - not DePaiva orWalker, both of whom are married, but John Viscardi, who played a priest!     Guiding Light executive producer Jill Farren Phelps is well aware of the strains sex scenes can place on a marriage. "I know many actors and actresses whose husbands and wives have stopped watching the shows," she says. "I have one friend whose wife would hit him when she watched."     Ken Sherber, a soap publicist who was married to a daytime actress, adds, "My wife used to make sure I was out of the house or roaring drunk when she had one of those scenes, because it would just make me crazy."     On the other hand, Kim Zimmer, three-time Emmy winner for her portrayal of Reva on Guiding Light, and most recently Jodie on Santa Barbara, says herhusband, actor-director A.C. Weary, is never jealous of her sex scenes - eventhough she admits, "I always develop little crushes on my leading men." That roster has included Alec Baldwin on The Doctors, Larkin Malloy and Robert Newman on Guiding Light, and A Martinez on Santa Barbara. Zimmer describes her lastSanta Barbara squeeze, Forry Smith, as "a gorgeous hunk of man."     "Maybe because he's in the business, A.C. understands that work is work," she says. "But he can also tell when I'm a little more into it than I ordinarilywould be. I mean, Robert Newman and I used to love to kiss each other, and A.C. knew it. In the beginning, with Robert, it was very passionate - we couldn't keep our hands off each other. Later, we became close pals and it was uncomfortable, because it was like making love to my brother."     Generally, though, Zimmer is so at ease during her bedroom scenes that she slips out of her strapless bodysuit and does them au naturel.  Most of the menwear bikini briefs or boxer shorts to bed, but Guiding Light's Phelps says thaton another soap she worked on, one very well-known actor did all of his lovescenes naked.  "He was such a wild guy.  He would walk out in his robe and getunder the covers, and no one would know until the woman would say, Hey!  What are you doing?!'  But everybody loved him. He could get away with it. When he got outof bed, he'd moon the crew."     Crew members. say the actors, show up en masse for these scenes - especially if a participant is someone new to the show whom they want to check out. "All of a sudden." says Lisa Brown, As the Would Turns' spunky Iva, "you look up and there are guys adjusting a light where there is no light."     So, just how hot does it get under those lights?  Very. say the actors - although some cite the distraction of all the people on the set, plus the intrusion of the director telling them where to put their mouths, hands, and legs, as proof that it's impossible to get totally carried away. Zimmer laughs at such claims of professional detachment. "More often than not, I'd say, the men get excited," she says. "There was one guy who sometimes had to lie aroundin the bed for a while after the scene was over, and everyone knew why. I used to pride myself on it - you know, another notch in my belt!" And a leading actorconfides: "I've had scenes where I couldn't get out of bed or out of a bathtub.It's, (Hey. what do you mean it's a cut? Give me a break. guys, we're not quitefinished here.'"  As the Real World Turns     To hear soap veterans tell it, a lot of the steamiest action takes place when the cameras stop rolling. Costars fall in love - or in lust - on a regular basis, a phenomenon head writer Swajeski credits to easy access. "I sat down with one actor who was getting married and said, (With all the leading ladies you have, do you think you could ever be faithful?' And on the eve of hismarriage, he said, No, I don't think so. It's too tempting.'"     Mimi Torchin, editor of Soap Opera Weekly, views offcamera romance as an occupational hazard - or benefit - depending on whether or not you're single."Imagine that you're playing (in love' for two or three years," she says. "it'snot unusual that something real should happen. In fact, I find it strange,almost, when it doesn't."     Yet dalliance in the small world of daytime can be a logistical nightmare.  "I had a married client from one soap who was having an affair with his costar, who was also my client," says publicist Sherber. "She was also sleeping with thestar of another soap on the same network who was also my client and who washaving a fling with a woman on a soap on another network - swear. I had half adozen numbers, and when I'd call, I'd have no idea who was going to pick up thephone. Finally, they all had second phones installed, which they would hide inclosets, so they knew that if you wanted to reach this girl at this guy'sapartment, the phone in the closet would ring."     To avoid being found out by real-life mates and lovers, many daytime costars confine their behind-the-scenes bedhopping to the studio. And dressing rooms areby far the most popular trysting spot. "The makeup counters are just the rightheight," one leading lady purrs. "And there's always a wonderful mirror," adds aleading man. Another allure of the dressing-room rendezvous, he says, is thedanger: "Anyone can walk in at any time. Everybody has passkeys - the wardrobeand makeup people, the security people - and if you have a roommate, that can be interesting. You've got to keep quiet, and it's got to be fast."     Peter Reckell, Days of Our Live's original Bo, admits that he and his then-castmate and fiancee (they later married and divorced) used to fool around at the studio. "Our dressing rooms weren't next to each other, so we had to slipdown the hall," he says. "It was sort of fun. One time, all the electricity wentout in the studio, so I said, (Honey, let's go waste some time together,' and wedashed off to my room."     One of General Hospital's dressing-room Don Juans was dashing off a bit too frequently with too many of his female costars; he arrived at the studio one  day to find his room trashed by three of them who'd gotten together and compared notes (he later checked out of General Hospital and in to prime-time TV). The cast at another soap has adopted a variation of the old college-dormtie-on-the-doorknob routine. When the lever-type doorstop that's used to hold a dressing-room door open is uselessly turned down on a door that's closed, "that means that somebody is (down' inside," says a cast member.  One Life to Love     Sometimes fast-and-furious flings blossom into full-fledged love affairs, even long-term unions. As the World Turns alone has turned out six marriages.  "There must be something in the Oakdale water," goes the inside joke about thefictitious town where the soap is set. Peter Boynton, who until recently portrayed Tonio, says that when he and real-life wife Susan Marie Snyder (Julie) played lovers on the show, "our big joke was that we'd get up in the morning,roll out of bed and get dressed, go to work and get undressed and get back into bed, finish the day's work, get back out of bed and get dressed, and go backhome and get undressed and get back into bed. It was really kind of fun."     Margaret Reed and Michael Swan played one of daytime's all-time most popular couples, Shannon and Duncan on As the World Turns. (When they married on theshow, Marlon Brando sent them a note of congratulations, signing it "A friend."Says Swan, "We know it was Brando, because Liz Smith told us so.") Behind thescenes, they were also involved in what castmate Eileen Fulton (Lisa), athirty-year show veteran, calls "one of the greatest romances of daytime." The  off-camera affair lasted two years, and when it ended - badly - the actors had to continue to play lovers on the show. "That sure makes a grown-up of you in a hurry," says Swan. "But we were pros, and we realized if we wanted our scenes to look good, we'd have to become friends."     Has the experience made Swan swear off backstage romances? Not at all. "If you're both available and you're attracted to each other, I think it's wonderful," he says. In fact, on several occasions the actor has asked the show's producers to pair him with another leading lady he's attracted to (but who isn't quite available) in hopes it will carry over into real life. "They told me, (No chance, Bucko.'"     Guiding Light producer Phelps sighs and says she wishes there were a no-sleeping-together proviso in the contracts or costars. "It provides endless complications, "she notes, including keeping cheated-on spouses from doing damage to cheating costars. Swajeski says that when she wrote for General Hospital she was once followed into the ladies' room by the wife of one of theshow's stars. "She was threatening to get even in a very physical way with his costar, because there was hanky-panky going on," Swajeski recalls.     Mostly, though, it's broken hearts and bruised egos that cause the complications Phelps and others dread. Not many soap couples can pull off a civilized denouement to an offcamera relationship. They would probably prefer never to see each other again. Instead, they may end up spending the very nextday on the set - in bed - pretending to be in love.     One of daytime's highest-paid and hottest leading men confides this tale of woe: "We did some very intimate scenes. Then, after we broke things off, we still had to do those scenes. And, pardon me if this sounds pompous, but ifyou're a good actor, it's real when you're doing a scene like that - it's all there, that's the woman of your dreams in your arms. So you can't help thinking of past times, what might have been. It can make you want to go retch!"     Writer Pam Long says she can track a couple's off-camera attraction to each other by watching them on the set. "At first they're gazing into each other'seyes, and the crew will say things like, You know why this is working, don't you? She's got a huge crush on him.' Then I'll see them on the air awhile later,and there's just not the same intensity there used to be, and someone will say,Well, they're burpin' at each other now.' You know then that it's over."       The Young and the Repulsive?     Still, even the savviest soap writers can be deceived by good acting. "When I took over Guiding Light, I inherited a love story with two actors playing a happily married couple," says Douglas Marland, whose head writing credits include The Doctors, General Hospital, Loving, Guiding Light, and currently, Asthe World Turns. "I thought they had this incredible chemistry together - theirlove scenes were just dynamite - and I marveled at her because I thought he waskind of a dodo. Well, about three months later, when I got to know the actress,I said, You're so wonderful with him,' and she said, (I hate him! If you wouldget me away from him, I'd love you for the rest of my life.' So I did. I set herup with someone else. And we recast the dodo."     Our Life to Live's Tonja Walker likens working with a repulsive costar on another soap to desensitizing herself to a rat she had to hold while playing a scene as Olivia on General Hospital. "I had the rat wrangler take the rat out of his cage and hold him in front of me. And then I touched the rat - his tail -then I held him, then I let him crawl all over me, and I kept repeating, This is one of God's creatures.'" So when she had to do love scenes with "this sleazebagslimeball - oh, gross! - I wouldn't even have drinks with this person," sheagain told herself, "Okay, it's just another one of God's creatures...."     Talk to enough soap actors and you'll realize that most have devised their own methods of dealing with less-than-desirable on-camera lovers. "I fantasize a lot," admits Nicholas Walker, who's played leads on four soaps. Once, he was partnered for six months with a heavy smoker. "I told her, You know, kissing you is like licking an ashtray - we've got to do something about it.' She said, (Well, tough luck, that's your problem.' So the next time we had a scenetogether, I ate a couple of cloves of raw garlic beforehand. And she said, (What the f--- did you eat?' She never stopped smoking, though, and I never stopped eating garlic, and we had a kind of cold war about it. And in a funny way, because of all the tension, the audience thought the sex stuff was real hot."     Nancy Grahn (last seen as Julia on Santa Barbara) was also involved in a love-hate thing with a leading man - but, she says, the tension had a negative effect on their scenes. "For the first two years we worked together, we were very close," she recalls, "and then I don't know what went wrong. During the last eight months, he was sarcastic and cruel to me on-camera. He'd turn a line that was meant to be caring into one that was cruel. And he wouldn't kiss me when he was supposed to. Off-camera, he wouldn't even speak to me. The crew found it funny, because it was like watching a bad version of The Newlywed Game, but I was horribly hurt."     Grahn admits this is her take on it all: "I'm not an angel," she says.  "There is another side" - one that her ex-costar shared with the French press after leaving the show. "He told them he quit because of me - how do you say(bitch' in French?" And, says Grahn, although networks try to keep it quiet,more soap couples end up feuding than falling in love.     Fiona Hutchison reports heading off a potentially explosive pairing at the pass - literally - when One Life to Live was recasting the role of Max. JamesDePaiva was leaving the show (he returned in late 1991 after a twenty-month absence), and Hutchison was asked to screen-test with an actor who was a favorite of the producer and the network. "I took an instant dislike to him - hewas all over me," she says in her crisp British accent. "It was a love scene,but he went beyond the barriers, putting his hands where they didn't belong,trying to swallow me in one big swoop. It was horrible!"     She continues, "I had to think during the scene: Do I stop for ethical reasons, or will I be destroying his chances of getting the job? And I made a quick decision, which was: I don't want him to get the job. So I put my knee between his legs and said, (If you don't stop that, I'm going to hurt you.' And then I went and took a shower."     Leading men can be just as picky. One actor tried a similar method of sabotage when a love interest was being cast for him. "I screen-tested for weeks with fifteen women," he recalls. "After a while, I said, They're all fine butone. Please don't hire her - anybody but her.' She was cold and nasty and stuck-up. So, of course, they hired her. For six months, our bed scenes had tobe choreographed because everybody knew we didn't like each other. Once, in the middle of rehearsal for this intimate scene, I got very playful with her, andshe said, (Let's not get personal, it's only a story line' - right in front of everybody. I was so crushed and ashamed.     "One day," the actor continues, "she started scratching me on the back of my neck, and I was in love. I mean, men are like dogs - if you rub their bellies,tell them they're a good boy, they'll do anything. Then, later, we were on aremote, shooting this big scene. It was two-thirty in the morning, and we wereon a break, and she comes up to me and says, (Don't you know I have you peggedto be the father of my children?' And she runs away. I'm like, (What? What did she say?'"     What Susan Keith said to James Kiberd that day she meant, as evidenced by the fact that Susan, now Shana on Loving, and James, now Trevor on All My Children, have been married for six years and are known as one of daytime television's most solid real-life couples.     And they never, ever watch each other's love scenes! Copyright 1993 Hearst Corporation