Marland Monday: The Smelling Salts of Port Charles
Jacklyn Zeman became a force of nature at General Hospital
Howdy everyone, I'm back with...Marland Monday!
As I continue writing these essays, I realize it is getting sadder because the performers Douglas Marland worked with are leaving us. A couple of weeks ago, we lost Elizabeth Hubbard. Last week, we lost an actress who gave breath to one of the first characters he created for General Hospital.
If you watched General Hospital in the late 70s, 80s, and 90s, you would see one or many of the following:
1. Nurse Jessie wearing a sweater and her nurse cap
2. Dr. Steve Hardy saying something in his booming Gregory Peck-like voice
3. Doctors Alan and Monica Quartermaine bickering about something
4. Bobbie Spencer at the nurses' desk, talking about patients and her love life.
Jacklyn Zeman grew up in New Jersey and worked briefly at the Playboy Club at age 18, which she would later tell Alan Locher helped her with talking with people and how to handle different personalities.
During the late 70s, she caught the eye of ABC executive Fred Silverman, who initially wanted her for a sitcom. She hesitated but was willing to meet with Douglas Marland, then the GH head writer. She revealed to Locher that Marland drove to her apartment, then they talked for hours. She immediately connected with him; she couldn't explain it, but they clicked.
Marland told writer Robert LaGuardia that watching the show then was an “utter chore: All the characters talked. And talked. There was no excitement, no fun. More than anything, I needed vitality. I needed vitality. I needed an actress to move through that hospital like a dose of smelling salts and wake everyone up."
Zeman was more than up to the job. She became the smelling salts Port Charles sorely needed.
Barbara Jean Spencer, known to everyone as Bobbie, came from Florida, where she was raised by her aunt Ruby after her parent’s deaths. She carried a secret: like her aunt, she worked as a sex worker in Florida. She was determined to leave that part of her life behind.
In her early days at GH, Bobbie was a student nurse who rented a room from Nurse Jessie. She set her eyes on Scotty Baldwin He was handsome and well off, and Bobbie thought he was the cat's meow. She tried to seduce him, but he only had eyes for Laura Vining. It didn't stop Scotty from visiting Bobbie's bed occasionally, though. She and Laura fought, and Laura was sent to reform school. Bobbie then said she was pregnant with Scotty's child, but eventually, all her lies came out. Still, she always tried to leave her problems at the hospital door and tried to be a good nurse.
She also met with her brother, the only person in the world who could call her by her real name Barbara Jean. His name was Luke. She asked him to break up Scotty and Laura. She didn’t know that Luke and Laura would become a super couple and that one day she would be Laura's bridesmaid at Luke and Laura's wedding.
Bobbie continued to work at General Hospital and was unlucky in love. She married four times and had affairs with several men. She adopted a daughter who was her namesake, but she was known as BJ. When BJ died tragically in 1994, Bobbie was helping Luke do undercover work and felt terrible that she wasn't there for her daughter.
Then it was revealed that bad girl Carly was Bobbie’slong-lost daughter. Carly was pregnant, and Bobbie's husband might be the father. It is a soap opera!
Through many years of marriages, romances, scandals, and tragedies, Bobbie did her job as a nurse, supporting the patients as they came and went through General Hospital. Zeman left the show in 2010 but returned in 2013 and 2017, mostly as a grandmother to Carly's children. At last month's annual nurse's ball, Carly introduced her mother to the crowd. Everyone cheered.
Last week when I found out Jacklyn Zeman died, I thought, wait, that can't be true. I was more shocked she was 70. She was one of those people that never aged. I'm on a learning curve with TikTok, so I made a tribute video and posted it. In a single day, it received 3000 views. Similar videos were popping up as well, with comments being: "Wow, I grew up with her,” "I feel like I've lost one of my family members,” and "She held the show together; it won't be the same without her for sure."
She brought the smelling salts to Port Charles for sure. Marland knew what he was doing. Now, we weep.
GH60DIGEST: Jacklyn Zeman: Asked abt being cast: "I was in NY playing Lana on OLTL & I got a call from Jackie Smith, who was the head of Daytime at the time. She said GH was casting for this part but they hadn't found anybody. Because of OLTL, I never auditioned for Bobbie. But she said, 'You have to meet the headwriter, Douglas Marland. He created this character.' He came to my apartment on the West Side. I thought I'd get 15 minutes with him if I was lucky. He stayed for 2½-3 hrs. & we talked & laughed & we just hit it off. He was such a joy. He was a legend. But he never said I got the part. Next thing I know, I got a call saying I'm going to California."