December 20, 1994
Soap Opera Weekly

An intimate interview with Michael & Hunter Tylo on their separation and reconciliation

Kissing & Making Up - The Tylos set the record straight about their separation and reconciliation

Hunter and Michael Tylo met and fell in love on the set of a soap opera - All My Children - where he played soldier-of-fortune Matt Connolly and she was Robin McCall (the actress was using the name Deborah Morehart at the time). They married July 7, 1986, had a child together and moved to California, where they both eventually landed roles on the CBS sister soaps, working across the hall from each other. They seemed to have it all - until April 1994, when cracks appeared in the seemingly rock-solid foundation of their marriage.

Away from the fast-paced and often turbulent world of the daytime drama, the Tylos had been homebodies, sharing their private life with two sons, Christopher, 13 (from Hunter's previous marriage), and Mickey, 6. However, a very public curtain fell on this happy scene when Hunter left for India in March to star in a CBS miniseries, The Maharaja's Daughter.

Soon after, the couple announced their separation, settling off a sequence of events that could have been lifted from the pages of any soap opera script. It's a story that encompasses estrangement, life-threatening illness, child custody, a car crash, suicide, culture shock, meddlesome friends, miscommunication, deception, stress, jealousy, anger and money.

Michael spoke first, in a statement (April 27), saying he might have bone cancer (later tests proved he didn't); that Hunter had asked him (via long-distance) for a divorce; and that consequently he had assumed custody of their sons. Divorce and an ugly custody battle seemed inevitable.

After completing the miniseries, Hunter returned to B&B in August, while co-workers and friends wondered and whispered about how the couple would cope at work with only a CBS corridor between them. The Tylos' personal drama appeared to be back-burnered, however, until late October, when they announced they were reconciling.

In an exclusive interview with Soap Opera Weekly, they Tylos relive the pain of the past year, and the circumstances that led to their reconciliation.

At the outset of this interview, the Tylos emphasized that their main reason for speaking out about their personal situation is to put to rest the many rumors circulating about them, among them that Hunter converted to Hinduism while in India. "No, never, never! This is such a bunch of BS," she says. And, says Michael, "If we can be any kind of inspiration to other people to work out their problems and to keep their marriages going and to keep their lives sane, then I think it would be worth doing the article."

It was a complicated chronology of events and issues that led to the separation, and one that isn't always easy to follow. During the interview, for instance, Hunter volunteers that the suicide of her sister's husband during the autumn of '93 was a harbinger of misfortune. "It caused my and Michael's problems," she says bluntly. "It caused my brother and his wife to get a divorce. Even my children were confused by it. That one event did have a domino effect."

Hunter describes the past year as "a hellacious period," because "at the same time, we were building the house." The family was moving from California's San Fernando Valley to a dream house in Las Vegas. "We both wanted the house," she says, "but boy, there are all kinds of expenses you try to hide so the other one doesn't get upset about it. So you cover up something, but you end up having to explain yourself later, and then it's, 'Well, why didn't you tell me?'" Hunter calls it being "overprotective" of the marriage partner.

She also blames "outside factors that were making things difficult," creating rifts in the marriage. "There were negative people in our lives who were a major contributing factor to a lot of our arguments, a lot of our problems," she says, "and then my going to India didn't make things any easier. We left a lot of things unresolved." Hunter says these people have since been "cut out" of their lives. Hunter is on the verge of identifying someone by her name, but Michael interjects, "I don't think that's necessary." Hunter agrees: "Let's just say it's an ex-friend of mine."

With 20/20 hindsight. Michael says, "We recognize now that we should have talked to a counsellor before [Hunter left for India]. But she was working on B&B four to five days a week, and I was working on the house in Vegas. With our schedules, there was no time. But now we know you'd better make time, because this stuff can happen."

Michael was also guilty of the aforementioned "overprotectiveness" of the spouse. When doctors told him he might have a pre-lymphoma or leukaemia condition, he persuaded his doctor not to tell Hunter, so she would depart for India on schedule. "I shouldn't have done that," he admits. "This is one of the issues; "Let's not be a hero here to your wife."

So Hunter arrived in India thinking her husbands health was fine. However, Michael was unable to hide his concern about his condition, which caused more confusion for the couple.

Any of their attempts to communicate their concerns to each other was sabotaged by the primitive telephone system in India. Hunter began to have anxiety attracts. "Michael was supposed to visit me in India, but then his schedule got to busy. Things started to get more and more out of control. I said, 'Well, we should use this time apart as a separation.'"

Michael says Hunter was suffering from "cultural backlash". She was vulnerable to some very bad, evil people over there, and that more than anything pushed her over. That's why it was so difficult for me to understand."

When the phones actually were working, Hunter's reaction to seeing all the poverty and disease in India came out in some angry phone calls home. "I got angry and slammed down the phone and stupid stuff like that, and we're thousands of miles apart. That really made it worse, because I was going through difficult things when I was there. [There were] people who jumped on my like a vulture. As soon as Michael and I were apart, these people started coming out of the woodwork."

Michael says he regrets issuing the April press release. "I should've kept my mouth shut. I've gone over it a million times. But I have never been that depressed or low in my entire life."

Towards the end of the location shoot in India, Hunter was in a road accident and broke her collarbone. Her mother, a nurse, advised her daughter via telephone to return to her home state of Texas for consultation, rather than risk surgery in India. Back in the States, doctors told Hunter she would probably require corrective surgery, but to wait and see if the shoulder would heal by itself. She completed work on the miniseries in Canada, returned to B&B and last month underwent the required surgery.

When Hunter first returned to work at CBS, she and Michael would meet and talk. But civil conversation often turned into bickering. Hunter explains, "I'd hear that he was on a date or something and I'd get mad. Why was I getting jealous if I didn't love him? I'd say, 'Who're you going out with, some tramp?' He'd say, 'Well, who are you going out with, some...?'" Hunter stops short and laughs. "Never mind, I'd better not say. The feelings were there, and that's what would cause these fights. But we were both given bad advice. 'Yeah, you should date.' Well, no, that wasn't the answer." (Hunter was dating her Maharaja co-star.)

During this time, Michael was building a second house, 10 blocks away from their Las Vegas home, so he could be near his sons. In the interim he was living in a separate quarters at the original house.

"We were getting along," reiterates Hunter, "but then we had a disagreement at the studio. I said 'Get your stuff out. I don't care if you have to say in a hotel until your house is finished. Get out!' So he did. And I didn't know where he was. I thought to myself, 'Do you want to live like this?'" The answer was no, and Hunter went looking for Michael, to have a heart-to-heart talk. That was the first step towards their reconciliation. During the estrangement, Michael says, "I never once said she was a rotten mother to the kids, and she never said I was a rotten father. We both realized it was traumatic enough on the kids to begin with."

Hunter concurs. "The main concern was making sure the kids didn't get caught in the middle. It was a difficult for them in school," indicating they heard classmates' taunts regarding the supermarket tabloid stories about their parents' separation.

The couple adds that there were no plans for a custody battle. "We had a whole agreement (for legal separation that would lead to divorce) drawn up and signed, about how we both would take care of the kids, how this and that would be done," Hunter explains. "But now it's all been cancelled. And we've both sat and cried about how close we got." Speaking of the boys, Michael adds, "We've heard horseshit rumours around that we're getting back together because the deal was that I had to come back to take care of the kids. Like it was negotiated like a contract or something, which is bullshit."

Hunter and Michael now see a marriage counsellor regularly. "We're working through these problems. Nothing has been swept under the rug. We've made discoveries about the fact that because we did love each other that much that we would argue and fight as hard as we did. Marriage is like everything else. You gotta work at it - and continue working at it. We still go to counselling. It's an ongoing process," says Michael.

Summing up, he says, "We just wanted to let people know that if you communicate, and you don't lose your temper, and you go to church and get some counselling, things can work themselves out. You don't have to throw away a perfectly good relationship in this totally disposable society.

To prove it, the Tylos plan to renew their wedding vows at their Las Vegas home on New Year's Eve.

Moment Of Truth

Though she has played many similar moments in her career, no scenario was more important to Hunter Tylo than when she realized she wanted husband Michael back and went to find him. After a fight that ended with her demand that he move out, "I came home and all his things were gone," she recalls. "The house seemed so empty without him. And I thought about the life we'd been building together for all that time. I realized I was on the brink of losing it all. It just scared me into reality. I said to myself, 'Wait a minute, no more of this pride crap, no more of this putting on an act of trying to make him come back to me or tell me he's sorry first. I'm not going to wait for that. Our marriage is just too valuable.'

"I stayed up all night crying. I couldn't figure out how to find him, and then I realized he'd be at church Sunday morning. I went over there and waited in the parking lot. I didn't know which Mass he'd show up at. I had to wait through five Masses, but it was worth it. When he pulled up and saw me, he had a shocked look on his face. I said, 'I think we'd better talk.' He said, 'Do you wanna go in to church?' I said, 'No, because I'm gonna cry.'

"So we went down the street and got some coffee, and I told him I wanted everything back they way it was, that I didn't want to tear down what we'd spent seven years building, that it was time for us to stop putting on an act - "No, I'm not hurt, I'm Ok; no, I don't need you' - that we should admit that to each other. We did. Then, we were both crying, and we were fine."