Knowing that Fiona Hutchison is British and a former ballerina, you might picture her as a tiny ice princess, polite yet unmistakeably aloof.  If so you’d be surprised at the warmth she exudes as she greets an unexpected visitor in the lobby of ONE LIFE TO LIVE's Manhattan studio.  "I was told the ,Interview was to be next week," she says, standing before me without a smidgen of makeup in a lilac warmup suit.  "But today would be fine," she adds with a smile.  "Come on down." Fiona has reason to be in a good these days.  Gabrielle, her character on OLTL, has regained custody of the baby she gave up at birth and is enjoying a new romance with Steve Holden.  Off- screen, on October 3, the 27 year old actress became the bride of Sean Dromgoole, a British-based assistant director, in an old fashioned ceremony at a country church.  Among those lending support was bridesmaid and co-star Andrea Evans (Tina).  Speaking just days before her departure for the wedding, Fiona happily shared her plans for the big day.

     "I'll be wearing a Victorian dress and corset," Fiona says, laughing. "It’s going to be quite a performance.  Sean will probably need hours to get me out of it.  I'm taking off the week before the wedding so that I can get over jet lag.  We get married on Saturday, fly back on Sunday, and I have to work on Monday.  We'll have our honeymoon just by being together."

     Since joining OLTL almost a year ago, Fiona has had to endure prolonged absences from her fiancé, whom she met two and a half years ago on the set of a British movie called Biggles.  "We've handled the separation amazingly well," she says.  "I think absence does make the heart grow fonder because we're more in love than ever, and there's great trust between us.  He goes out with his friends and is busy and happy and I do the same.  There are days, of course, when I think, 'Why am I doing this?' On the show, when my character’s father died and I gave up my baby, I was crying on the set for weeks at a time, and it was hard to turn those unhappy feelings off when the scene was over.  I'd go home and think, 'I hope I'm doing the right thing.'

     "Sean was thrilled I was offered the part," Fiona insists. "I had great about reservations about it -- making a commitment really frightened me -- but now I’m here I love it." Pausing, she adds, "Of course, OLTL has the option to get rid of me whenever they want.  And to be perfectly honest with you, I had no idea I'd be here as long as I have.  I didn't think the audience would respond to Gabrielle coming in opposite Tina.  But perhaps the chemistry that Andrea and I have has filtered into our work." 

     Hutchison and Evans became fast friends from the moment they met on the plane to OLTL's location shoot in Argentina.  "She's the biggest hearted person," Fiona says.  "She has taught me a lot about working on this kind of  schedule. There are days when I'm saying, 'What?  What's next?’ and she is always centered." When Andrea threw a pre-wedding lingerie shower for her Fiona crowed, "There must be a thousand girls who would give anything to have ‘Tina’ giving them a bridal shower!  Andrea's a sweetheart, she really is."

     Called to the set to rehearse a scene in which she breaks up a fight between Max and Steve, Fiona jokes with her handsome co-stars and the crew.  The scene ends with Gabrielle and Steve's first kiss, and a cameraman shouts, "Get your hands off that woman!  She's betrothed." Back in her dressing room, Fiona says, "I like (working on a soap) because it's a wonderful family unit.  I'm used to being in ballet companies, and this is the next best thing.

     Ballet was the focus of Fiona's life for fourteen years, beginning at age five.  The daughter of a British movement doctor and an artist, she was born while her parents were stationed in Miami (giving her dual citizenship), then spent several years in Jamaica. At ten, she left for London to study at the Royal Ballet School, transferring to New York's School of American Ballet five years later after her father began having heart problems.

     When she was only nineteen, Fiona's world shattered.  Her beloved father died, and several months later, while rehearsing Giselle, she fell and fractured her spine.  Full recovery took two years, and her dream of becoming a great ballerina ended.

     "The real feeling I had during that time was anger," she says now.  "The one thing that people never say about a someone dying is that you get so angry at the person for leaving you. It messes up your life, and you have to carry on.  My injury was nobody's fault.  I was weak at the time from grief, and I probably shouldn't have been doing the rehearsal schedule I was doing.  Afterward, I thought, 'if ballet isn't going to be the road for me, I'll find something else."'

     But what?  By her own admission, Hutchison hated school.  "I was a terrible speller and I hated to read," she recalls.  "My English teacher in Columbia, South Carolina, where we lived for awhile, used to scream at my parents and say, 'All this child does is ballet.  What kind of life will she have if something happens to that career?' Well, he was right.  Though I had the credentials, I didn't have a high school diploma.  All I ever wanted to do was dance."

     Friends urged her to consider acting, but Fiona protested, "I can't memorize mines and say them in front of people" She relented when told that she wouldn't have to speak to work in commercials.  The more commercials she did, however, the more she enjoyed speaking and, to her amazement reading.  "When you're interested in something reading comes naturally," she notes.

     Work came rather quickly, with small parts on GUIDING LIGHT and AS THE WORLD URNS and landing roles in the movies Biggles and American Gothic, starring Rod Steiger. (Both films are scheduled for American release.) 

     Now, in playing Gabrielle, the actress finds herself drawing on the painful experiences she has lived through in real life.  "There were scenes with Gabrielle's father dying that were very similar to my real father’s death, and (the writers) brought in the fact that I used to be dancer," she says.  "I've been allowed to open the gates and deal with what has happened to me before.  It sounds very therapeutic and 'California,' as somebody told me, but if you're an actor, things in your own life are going to show through at some point or you're going to look like you're holding back."

     As Fiona looks ahead, she feels confident that she and her new husband can continue their trans-Atlantic juggling act - at least for a while.  "When the time comes for us to have a family, I will give strong consideration to what I'm doing," she says.  "I can't say I'd stop acting, because I adore it, but I do want to raise my children in England. It’s not something we've planned just yet but I was thinking, well, Gabrielle has had Max’s baby - now why doesn't she have Steve’s. They could get married and then she could get pregnant.  And if  I just happen to be pregnant at the same time ... it sounds too perfect doesn't it?" *