On this edition of THE INTERVUE, I am here at the 2022 Mid Atlantic Nostalgia Con here in Hunt Valley, Maryland. And here with me is a great, wonderful actress. You have seen her on the TV series JAG or Star Trek Deep Space Nine, or you grew up in the 80s with her role of Nurse Lucy Papandrao on St. Elsewhere, we have the lovely Jennifer Savidge!
How you doing today?
Very good, Dean. It’s very nice to meet you.
It’s so nice to meet you, too. Is this your very first Mid Atlantic Nostalgia Con?
Yes, it is. It’s the first in fact, it’s the first time I’ve done any of these.
That is amazing. How does it feel to be out here amongst the fans on Day#2?
Well, I had such a great time yesterday. I’m having a wonderful time today, too. And, of course, you probably know that my husband, Robert Fuller, is here as well. He persuaded me to kind of do this. I’m having a great time.
It didn’t take a lot of persuasion did it?
Well, not a lot. Not a lot, because I’ve met some of the fans before. And I knew that they were really wonderful people. So, it’s been great to see them in person.
You were known for first for your time on “St. Elsewhere” which is show I grew up watching with my mom, and I want you to talk about your role Nurse Lucy and what impact it had on your life?
Well, that’s a good question. Because St. Elsa was the first series that are nice. And I started out as a very small role on it. And it started develop because of my relationship on screen with Ed Begley, Jr. who played Dr. Victor Ehrlich. He was so funny to work with. And this character got created out of that relationship with him because I would be very sarcastic around him. And on the center of thing in the end, the producers and the writers pick that up.
They start developing that into a storyline. And the writing was so great on that show that it was a pleasure to go every single day and the ensemble of actors was truly wonderful, you know, Ed Flanders is one of our great American actors. And working with somebody like him was really an education in a way. We all had a wonderful time on that show. And it was very sad for all of us when it ended.
Absolutely. I remember for that series, it was groundbreaking for it was one of the first shows that addressed the AIDS virus early on, which I lost my mother to many years ago.
Well, I’m very sorry about that. We discussed a lot of things on that show that were groundbreaking. Remember the episode about Tourette Syndrome?
Yes
You know, that was widely unknown. And then there was a whole thing about colon cancer and a lot of different cancers and ways that you know, you should take preventative testing. People constantly talk about I’d run into medical students all the time, we’d say “oh my gosh, that that show. I’m going through med school right now. And that show is so important to us to watch that because we’re learning so much by watching the show”. So, if you were right, it was it was groundbreaking.
We go from one TV show to another one. I loved JAG growing up that at the time that JAG was on. I was also in Navy Junior ROTC. I felt like I was following the Navy career with this program. What were some of your fond memories of working at that show, especially since you played a judge for several episodes?
Well, one of the greatest things for me to do that show was wearing that uniform. Yeah, I will tell you another secret. I love men in uniform. So, there I was. Just all kidding aside. That was a terrific show as well. We had advisors on that show that told us what we could do what we couldn’t do. Wow we could wear a hair out, we couldn’t wear in our hair. So that was really interesting.
David (James Elliott) and everybody else on that show was really wonderful. It was hard work. And it was really hard for me because it’s a whole different language, that legalese. In the end, military legalese difficult for me to learn. I was really good at learning scripts, but boy, I had to work hard on that stuff. And of course, there are those scenes where I don’t have a lot to say but you know, “overruled” or “sustained”. I say, “wait a minute, am I overruling this?” This show was a blessing to me because I was on it for a long while. It was a good run.
So, tell us what are you doing nowadays?
Well, my husband wanted to retire from the business and he wanted to move to a ranch where I could have horses and he can have some bass ponds. He loves to fish for bass. The property that we found was in Texas, and we followed a friend of ours out there, Alex Cord, who recently passed.
And we found this property which was our dream property. I have horses and two miniature donkeys, and I love them dearly. And we’re having a wonderful life out there. I go back to Los Angeles and work every now and then. It’s a good life for us.
So what type of horses I may ask because I actually went to Hawaii not too long ago. And I did my very first horse first ride on I think was American Quarter horse.
Well we have two quarter horses. And one of them which is in that picture there, my Dakota. He and I did dressage together, because I wanted to learn dressage. He wasn’t happy about that. He died a couple years ago.
I have another horse now. It’s another Palomino. I just like to trail ride now. I have a lovely time just riding over the pastures and going on trail. And the other horse is my husband’s horse. I don’t do much with him. And he’s thrown me about three or four times. I don’t know, because somebody has to feed the horses, you know.
Don’t forget, folks, we’re gonna have more for the Mid Atlantic Nostalgia Con 2022.
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