One Life to Live Alum Kassie DePaiva Admits She Didn’t ‘Really Get’ Why Fans Loved Blair and Todd

One Life to Live fans loved Todd and Blair, but actress Kassie DePaiva’s feelings were a lot more mixed.

DePaiva, 64, opened up to Remind Magazine in an article published July 15 about her time as Blair Cramer on One Life to Live. She joined the series in 1993, taking over the role from Mia Korf, who was Asian-American. 

“I had no idea it was controversial until after I’d had a couple of callbacks,” she told Remind. “Someone said, ‘You know you’re replacing an Asian American actress.’ And I’m like, ‘What?’ I didn’t even think I would be considered, but three auditions later, I’m packing my bags and moving to New York and playing this character called Blair and it changed my life.”

Originally, Blair’s main love interest was Max Holden (played by James DePaiva, Kassie’s now-husband). But Blair’s romance with Todd Manning (played first by Roger Howarth and later by Trevor St. John) became the relationship that fans rooted for. 

“Blair was addicted to Max and obsessed with him, but she fell in love with Todd,” DePaiva said. “And Todd understood her.” 

But that doesn’t mean DePaiva understood it. “I still shake my head how that worked, but there was something really magical between Todd and Blair that I was like, ‘OK, I don’t really get this, but fans like it,’ ” she said. Both Blair and Todd were constantly trying to scam the people of Llanview and found it hard to trust anyone, but they ultimately bonded over their tough childhoods and became one of daytime’s most complicated couples. 

“I was just picking up scripts and keeping the story going,” DePaiva said, “But if you go back and watch some Todd and Blair stuff on YouTube, it’s really well written and it’s complicated, so it’s not just fluffy stuff. These people were really trying to figure out their relationship, their dark, broken pasts and now I get it.” 

One Life to Live was cancelled by ABC in 2011 and ended the next January. The character of Todd Manning crossed over to General Hospital, and DePaiva reprised her role to end the Todd and Blair relationship. “When One Life to Live ended and they took me to General Hospital for those three or four days to break Todd and Blair up so Todd could be with Carly, it was the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever done. That’s how emotionally attached I was to it, because I felt I’d worked 20 years to build this brand, and you’re gonna give me three days to be pissed off at Todd, and that’s gonna be it? That would never ever happen. Not in a million years. So that was hard,” DePaiva said. She also briefly appeared on GH again as Blair in 2023. 

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She called OLTL’s cancellation “a gut punch” and noted that she didn’t expect it to happen. “I just didn’t understand it and I missed it. I had to mourn. It took me two years to get over that, to grieve that loss,” she said. But she called her tenure on the show “amazing” and added, “I’m grateful. I don’t have a one little speck of regret whatsoever. It was wonderful.”

DePaiva joined another soap, Days of Our Lives, in 2014 as Eve Donovan. She stayed with the show until 2020 and returned briefly in 2023.