"I was talking to one of 'the producers the other day, and Justin and I had just finished doing a scene where we had a lot of fun and the producer said, 'Wow, the chemistry between you two is better than ever,' " Hutchison recalls. "I said, 'Oh, good, I'm glad, because now, before we go on we're- talking about how  many diapers do I change today?  But I have a growing understanding of Justin,  now more than ever, because of the children.

"Before I had Hutch (her son, John, Hutchison Viscardi), I couldn't understand, as I do now, when Justin would tell me that one of his boys wouldn't let go of him and wouldn't let him out the door.  I now know exactly how it was for him to come to work that day; before, I would have thought: OK."

But the glow Hutchison radiates on -screen isn't entirely due to motherhood, nor to her successful marriage to John Viscardi  (ex-Father Tony Vallone-OLTL).  Perhaps it can be attributed  to the sense of satisfaction Hutchison feels not only about herself but her belief in the viability of daytime television. Hutchison has always felt that acting is acting, regardless of the medium.  It seems that  the rest of the industry has finally caught on, too.

"My whole attitude daytime has always been slightly different from the norm, and that it is a job, and it's  a good job, and there's absolutely no difference between working on a soap for a year or six months or three years, and getting a play that runs for 10 months on Broadway, or a primetime show that gets picked up and you get a good season or two out of it.  A job is a job is a job.

"When I was on One Life to Live (as Gabrielle Medina Holden), at that point, 10 years ago, your agent had to decide, 'Do I put this performer in daytime?  Will they ever get out of daytime?  Will they be pegged forever and ever?'  Well, there are two things.  No. 1, not every performer in daytime is good.  I think it's getting harder for unprepared actors to survive in daytime.  Also, the audience is much more educated these days, so it's a different realm :to come into.  You have to know your stuff  You do have to have some theater background," she says. - "There is more need for somebody who's a bit sharper on the uptake than perhaps there used to be.  Also, the industry treats daytime differently now -- very differently in the last two years.  Every job that I've gotten in LA, for the first time in my life, the advice I got was, 'Absolutely! Show that you've done daytime,' because it was money in the bank for the producers.  Because of all the independent projects and  independent films around the world, if you're in a show that was rated highly in Europe, then you're going to be a helpful sales pitch for the distributors."

"This is stuff that we saw coming, all of us who work in the industry, but it had to happen, and now," Hutchison adds with a triumphant smile.  "Daytime is probably one of the most exciting areas in the business now, because it's exploding."

Hutchison's life, both professional and personal, has been a series of explosions since she left GL in 1994 after three years.  During the summer of  '94 she married Viscardi whom she met when they were both on OLTL.  They to the West Coast, where Viscardi became a development assistant at Warner Bros. Television (he's the right-hand man to the head of comedy and drama development), and Hutchison found work on the stage.  She starred in Dial M For Murder, The Secret Rapture, and "then I did a play called Three More Sleepless, where I was pregnant and suicidal."  Happily, the only similarity to her real life was that Hutchison was also pregnant; Hutch made his debut Sept 3, 1996.  "When I got the audition, I told them I was pregnant, so the playwright allowed [the character] to be pregnant.  They said it would work out fine."  Hutchison won a Dramalogue Award for her performance.

On prime-time TV, Hutchison played a ghost in an episode of the syndicated Poltergeist: The Legacy, and made four feature films: Rage (which went directly to HBO), The Prey of Jaguar, (co-starring Stacy Keach and Maxwell Caulfield, AMCs Pierce, it's due out this Year), Deep Cover and Something to Believe In.  In Deep Cover, Hutchison plays an undercover agent. a part written for her after the producers, who met Hutchison at the audition, didn't feel she was right for the role she was reading for, but wanted her in their film nevertheless.  Something to Believe In" is about the weeping Madonna in Italy that cures.  It's a love story, and I play the heroine's best friend.  I work in Vegas as a card dealer," Hutchison says.  The film co-stars Roddy McDowell and Robert Wagner.

It was while Hutchison was in Australia in October 1996, co-hosting with Robin Leach a new series called Gourmet Getaways  (which first aired on cable's Food Network May 4), that. she got an intriguing message from her agent, Harry Abrams.  Apparently, GL's then Executive Producer,  Michael Laibson, wanted her for the show's 60th anniversary celebration.  "But I had a film (Something to Believe In) booked for the  exact dates that they wanted me to come back, and Harry wasn't happy with it, so we said no."

Hutchison traveled to Malaysia and Japan for Gourmet Getaways, but when she returned home about a month later there was another message from her agent.  "He said, 'Paul Rauch is talking over Executive Producer], and he  wants to give you a call," she says., 'And he did, that very night.  He said, 'I want you back."  Hutchison, although flattered, told her former boss (he had been the executive producer of OLTL when she played Gabrielle) that she wasn't interested in a short-term gig; Rauch made it clear that he was talking about a contract.

"When Paul called that Sunday night, I knew that he meant business,, Hutchison continues.  'I could tell in his voice that he was going to stop at nothing to make it work. out." The result: Hutchison signed a unique three-year deal that stipulates, a 52-week cycle, as opposed to the 13 or 26-week cycles most daytime actors have.  She returned to a front-burner storyline in which Jenna wants to be with Buzz, the father of her child, but is being blackmailed by her husband, Jeffrey, to stay with him. (She finished Something to Believe in before returning to GL) Since she works frequently, Hutchison employs a full-time nanny, and often brings Hutch to the GL studio.  She and the baby live in the apartment she bought with her former husband during her OLTL stint, and Viscardi, who on the West Coast, visits as often as he can. Guiding Light provided us with plane tickets, so we could go see each other this first year," she says.  "I speak to him at least twice a day - in the morning, and also when Hutch wakes up in the middle of the night.  He talks to Hutch on the speakerphone..

Clearly, Hutchison is over-the-moon m love with her baby boy, whom she considers her greatest achievement during her absence from GL.  "John and I decided when we were in Los Angeles to try to have a baby.  I had done a couple of different projects, and things were going weIl- she says.  "His job was going very well at Warner Bros.  We thought: Well, when are we going to have this window of opportunity again?  The soap schedule is a very hectic one, and I always felt, when I left Guiding Light, that it would be a good thing to have a baby once I left, as opposed to getting pregnant while on the show."

"I heard from a lot of people about how difficult having children is: 'It's going to change your life.  No more hanky-panky with your husband.  You're never going to have any peace and quiet.  But it's all worthwhile.  There's nothing like it in this world.' And I was thinking: Wow.  I mean, he's 8 months old, and I'm still waiting for the downside.  He's brought me nothing but joy.  Having a child hasn't interrupted our life in any of the ways that we expected it to, and it has been much more fun, much more joyous, than we were thinking it would be."