Lisa Cerasoli
(ex-v, GH)
Lisa Cerasoli’s life has taken many an unexpected turn since she left the role of GH’S Venus “V” Ardanowski back in 1999.
For one thing, she’s returned to her Midwestern roots, settling in her native Michigan. Back in 2003, when her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she recalls, “I left L.A. without much thought.” She intended to return to Hollywood, but within a few years’ time, she lost her father and her grandmother — and also got married and started a family of her own. (Now divorced, Cerasoli and her ex-husband share daughter Jazzlyn.) “I think I did come back [to L.A.] for one pilot season, but I started a life in Northern Michigan,” she explains. “I had started writing before I left L.A., so I thought, ‘I’m just gonna keep writing.’ It doesn’t seen like it was 15 years ago, but I’ve certainly come up with a lot of material thanks to Michigan and my life here! Life and death, marriage and children, love, hardship, sacrifice — that’s the real material.”
Case in point is her 2009 memoir, As Nora Jo Fades Away, chronicling her life as a live-in caregiver to her Alzheimer’s-stricken grandmother. A few years after its publication, Cerasoli began working on the young adult novel she has just released, Anna Either Way, written from the perspective of a 7 year old whose parents are divorcing. “Nobody knew about it,” she begins. “It seems weird to think that I spent five years on and off writing this book, but I felt so inspired by what was happening with my divorce and how Jazz was handling it. A lot of our divorce was messy, but we were very kind to each other, and I think it’s because we both put Jazz first. I was so scared about damaging her and I think he was, too. The laughter and the pain and the way we decided to handle it inspired this book. I would write it when I felt something and then I’d put it in a drawer, and then two years ago I read it and I thought, ‘You know, I think I need to finish writing this.’ ”
When Cerasoli committed to completing the manuscript, “I thought, ‘This book is missing illustrations’ — and I thought of Rosabel.” Rosabel is Rosabel Kurth, the artist daughter of her longtime friends and former GH castmates Rena Sofer (ex-lois; B&B’S Quinn) and Wally Kurth (ex-ned; Justin, DAYS). “I sent her the book and I said, ‘If you read it and you like it, I would like for you to illustrate it.’ A week later, she sent me 20 illustrations. She said, ‘I read it and I felt inspired and I couldn’t stop drawing.’ They’re almost all in the book. It was that easy!”
Cerasoli has known Rosabel since she
was a little girl. “Obviously, because of my friendship with Rena, I met Rosie ... I think when she was 4,” she notes. Cerasoli was working with Kurth on GH at the time. “The first month I was on the show, Wally said to me, ‘I think you need to be friends with my wife.’ I turned to him and I go, ‘Why don’t you be friends with your wife?’ I thought it was the weirdest comment! He goes, ‘That’s funny, Lis, but really, will you come over for dinner this week?’ I go, ‘Are you setting me up on a date with your wife?’ and he goes, ‘I am,’ and I go, ‘I’m in.’ He said, ‘You two will love each other,’ and he was right.”
She and Sofer remained close after she moved back to Michigan. “I’d stay with Rena all the time when I came to [California] to visit,” she explains. “I stayed her with her for a month once. Rosabel’s drawings would be up on the wall and she was always a talented artist — but now she’s an amazing, incredible, beyond-belief artist.”
Befriending Sofer is only one of Cerasoli’s fond memories of Port Charles. “I’m one of those weird people that had a blast in high school, and the soap was like high school with money,” she grins. “Everybody was so fun and it was so exciting to go to work every day. It’s the only job I was always on time for! I worked with such great people — Wally and Ingo [Rademacher, ex-jax; B&B’S Thorne] and Tyler Christopher [ex-nikolas; DAYS’S Stefan] and Nancy [Lee Grahn, Alexis] and Steve [Burton, Jason]. I still say hello to a lot of them on social media; I’m still in touch with Ingo’s whole family; and Sarah Brown [ex-carly], we’ve talked and texted.”
She began dabbling in writing while she was still on GH. “I really have that show to thank for my writing career, because it was a job where you actually have enough time,” she muses. “I’m so grateful to GENERAL HOSPITAL for that, and for the chance to cultivate lifelong friendships. I met my literary manager, Ken Atchity, while I was on GH, and I feel so lucky about that.”
In addition to her own writing, Cerasoli is now the VP of Atchity’s company, Story Merchant Books, and the founder and president of her own company, 529 Books, “a full editorial services and book design company. Ken’s company works on stories that could get turned into a TV series or a feature film. With mine, it could be anything. I developed a book with this amazing girl, a Children of God cult survivor; I’m working with an author now who’s a psychologist writing a book on stress. I get so excited to be a part of these people’s lives, to get to know people from all over that I would normally never get to know, and under-
“I thought acting was a blast, but I love what I’m doing.”
stand their stories. And I get to work from my house and drive Jazz around and go to all of her basketball games. I love it. I feel so lucky that I get to do all this in Michigan.”
Next up for Cerasoli, if all goes well, is a TV series based on As Nora Jo Fades Away. “It’s a pilot for television right now,” she reports. “Kevin is producing it and and we are in negotiations with a serious player. That’s been going on for the last few years. We’re really close right now. I’m hoping the next time you guys speak to me, I’m producing my TV show. That would be amazing! The overnight success story is never an overnight success story — but I’m kinda hoping by the 10-year mark, which is really just around the corner, that we can talk about my overnight success story [laughs]!”
She has no plans to leave Michigan. “People ask me all the time if I miss acting; I thought acting was a blast, but I love what I’m doing,” she enthuses. “Moving back here, I feel like it changed who I was. Maybe it built who I was. I miss L.A. to this day, I love my friends there, but I feel like I have evolved into somebody who has really felt life, love and loss. And I’m able to be a better mom, a better friend and a better writer because of that.”