Since the ratings demand that soap plots thicken, Karen is unlikely to become a happy housewife. But then neither has the 32-year-old Light, who has never been married. "I want a man who is intelligent, communicative, sensitive, vulnerable, willing, committed, funny, generous, sensual, loving and, most important, has a similar vision about our work and what we want to do with it," she explains. A new actor boyfriend fills that formidable bill, she confides (though Light says he prefers anonymity), but wedding bells won't necessarily follow: "A career used to be more important to me than a relationship. I'm afraid of getting intimate with another human being, but at the same time I want to. Casual sex doesn't work for me. That's why I think marriage is so wonderful—it allows you to break down the barriers. Karen still feels she will never be loved or valued for herself. I know I am, but there was a time when I didn't."
Light credits her new self-awareness to yearlong therapy. "I once had a list of things I didn't like about myself," she says. "Today all I can think of is stuff like my nose and thighs." She has also been able to mend a once fractious relationship with her parents. "It was difficult for them to accept that I'm a grown woman who can take care of myself," says Light. "I could have been the nice Jewish girl who got married and lived in New Jersey, but I would have missed too much."
The only child of an accountant and a model turned women's wear buyer, Judith was raised in Trenton, N.J. After graduating from private school at 16, she earned a drama degree from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Tech in 1970. Four and a half years with rep companies in Seattle and Milwaukee finally led to a small role in Joseph Papp's A Doll's House in 1975, a bit part on Kojak and, in 1977, to One Life to Live. "I didn't want to do soap opera because I thought it was plastic acting—flat, no emotion, a monotone," she admits. "But the value of the work made me stay. Soap opera forces you to be emotionally facile. When the time is right I'll leave the show, but right now there are real advantages to staying."
Not the least of which is the convenience of a six-figure income. "Success allows me to have two sets of friends stay over from California," says Light, who bunks them in her lavish three-bedroom duplex on Manhattan's tony Upper East Side. After 10-hour days on the set, Judith unwinds by playing the piano, reading or working out at a health club. When the impulse is upon her, she likes to throw dinner parties for her friends (French cuisine is her specialty), who include co-stars Robin Strasser and Michael Storm as well as Sammy Davis Jr. and John and Annie Denver. "When I first met Judy five years ago," says actress Kate McGregor Stewart, "I was a little overwhelmed and suspicious of how open she is. She'd offer you the shirt off her back, and I had never met anyone like that." Still, Light is a driven performer, and sometimes it shows. "People say I'm demanding, but that doesn't bother me—it bothers them," says Judy. "I'm like a Thoroughbred racehorse—I run my own race."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
