Rogers pauses, not savoring the memory. "I don't think Al meant it," she says.
Perhaps Al was not aware, as are All My Children fans, that Rogers, 25, already has claimed her share of the spotlight as one of the livelier new faces on daytime TV—and one of the most prominent young blacks on the soaps. In the past year and a half, as willful Taylor Cannon, Rogers has rapidly gone from bratty young thing to feisty police cadet. Costar Richard Lawson, who plays Taylor's stepfather, Lucas Barnes, is impressed by her progress as an actress. "She's kind of like a flower opening up," he says.
Her biggest acting challenge so far came last summer, when rookie cop Taylor went undercover—disguised as a white woman—to infiltrate a racist student group. "Psychologically, it was weird," says Rogers, who underwent two hours of makeup each day for the transformation. "It caused a lot of discomfort. I had to examine the whole black-and-white thing." But not too closely. "Hey," she says, laughing, "we're talking about a soap opera!"
In real life the "black-and-white thing" has brought more joy than discomfort to Rogers, whose husband, David Jon Fryberger, 23, is white. She and Fryberger, a fellow actor, wed in October 1992 in Manhattan. Their interracial marriage has turned a few heads on the street, she says. "There have been comments from" black men, like 'What are you doing with a white man?' "
But it has never really been an issue for the couple or their families. "We talked very openly about it with his parents," she says. "There was no sense of not belonging there. And my family is very mixed. I have white relatives."
Her parents, Michael and Joan, who are both black (and now divorced), live in the Toronto area, where Ingrid was born. Most of her preteen years, though, were spent in Jamaica, where her paternal grandparents owned a cement-block and tile company. "It was just beautiful there," she says. "They had an amazing house. I had absolutely everything. A doll house so big you could walk inside it. I was quite spoiled—probably not a very nice child to be around. I always had to get my own way." Her parents split when she was 13, four years after she'd returned; she and younger brother Ethan, now a 22-year-old college student, lived with their father, who owns a construction business. (She also has an older stepbrother, Stephen, 29, a minister.)
After graduating from Dunbarton High School in 1987, Rogers, prodded by her dad, spent a year studying business at the University of Toronto. "I was taking these computer courses I didn't give a damn about," she says. "Then I got into acting in plays, and I really enjoyed it." She then studied drama for a year instead and, with her teacher's encouragement, applied to New York City's American Academy of the Dramatic Arts in 1989.
There she was spotted by a talent scout from All My Children; she took up the role of Taylor after she graduated in 1992. It was also at the Academy that she met Fryberger, who grew up in Colorado. "He would always come down to the school library where I worked and flirt with me," she says. Teasingly "he'd get the atlas and ask me where Toronto was."
His geographical horizons have expanded considerably. Since March, Fryberger has been off in Japan, receiving aikido instruction for a possible new career as a martial-arts teacher. He'll be back by Christmas. In the meantime Rogers is subletting a brownstone apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side while their own place, across town, is being renovated. She and Fryberger keep in touch via daily faxes, but, she says, "the separation is not really as bad as I thought. I love going to the museums, the zoo, listening to Luther Vandross, watching movies."
One of her favorites is The Godfather. She didn't think to tell Pacino that. Maybe she should have.
TOM GLIATTO
SABRINA McFARLAND in New York City
- Contributors:
- Sabrina McFarland.
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!
