Soap Opera Digest - Aug. 17,2004

Tonya Pinkins (Livia, ALL MY CHILDREN) has quite a story to tell. This is known to Digest even before she tells it; although it's been a long while (more than 13 years) since she's been the subject of a full-length profile in these pages, her tale has made its way to print in such distinguished sources as The New York Times, which devoted more than 3000 words to it in May, and 0, The Oprah Magazine, which earlier this year bestowed one of its "First Annual Chutzpah Awards" upon her.

Here is that story in a nutshell: in 1992, Pinkins, who left AMC in 1995 and returned last December for a short-term stint that resulted in a long term contract, became embroiled in a vicious custody battle with Ron Drawer, her ex-husband (and former music director of ANOTHER WORLD and AS THE WORLD TURNS), over their two sons, now 17 and 14. Although Pinkins was declared a legally fit mother, she lost custody to Brawer in 1993 and was ordered to pay him $25,000 a year in child support. (She successfully campaigned to have the judge removed from the case for bias against women.) By 2002, having birthed two more children, now 7 and 4, the single mom was on welfare, awash in debt, barely able to keep a roof over her family's head or food on their table and practically suffocating under the weight of her still-trenchant anger toward Brawer.

It is not, empirically, a happy story. "Somebody else could tell you the story of my life and it could be a bitter, vengeful story," nods Pinkins, who calls in to Digest on a rare day off, which she is spending at a park, watching her little ones play. "There were plenty of times that I did tell my story and it was!" Bitter and vengeful, she means ? but not anymore. The tale Pinkins tells today is one of hope, one of healing and one of forgiveness.

This story begins about two years ago, when she began seeing a therapist because, as Pinkins puts it, "I was sick of myself, of my own misery. I realized this bitterness wasn't hurting [Brawer] - it was poisoning me. And I didn't know how to stop the poison." But much to the actress's surprise and dismay, neither did the therapist. "She told me she couldn't help me," sighs Pinkins, "which was devastating, but ultimately a gift because it forced me to see that I had to help myself."

She figured out how with the help of the Agape Church of Religious Science. She had been attending lectures at the church's California headquarters for five years (Agape attracts such acclaimed speakers as the Dalai Lama and Gary Zukav) by the time she felt a call to join, but when she did, it was life-altering on every level. The church's theory of scientific prayer, Pink-ins explains, goes a little something like In Good Company: At a May arts benefit, Pinkins rubbed shoulders with (from I.) Edie Faico, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner. Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline this: "Every thought we have is a prayer. So, if you're thinking negatively, that's what you're going to bring into your life. And if you're thinking positively, that's what you're going to bring into your life." When she began applying the church's lessons to her own life, "The results were so quick that it was actually terrifying."

What kinds of results are we talking about? "I'm on welfare, I had no job, but suddenly I got a new home. Then I got a new car, even though the people at the car dealership were like, 'How did you get a house?' Well, I knew my thinking had done it because the only thing that had changed was me practicing seeing myself in this house and in this car, and really believing it, not just in a thought way, but really by conjuring up all the emotions of what it was going to feel like when I lived in that house and drove that car."

Pretty powerful stuff. And the more she practiced, the more results she saw. "When I saw these things happening with simple, little material things, I began to apply [the practice] to the area of work and employment and wealth," Pinkins continues. In short order, that led to where she finds her-self today ? starring in the titular role in the critically acclaimed Broadway musical Caroline, Or Change, for which she earned a Tony nomination; back full-time in Pine Valley; giving workshops that teach what she calls the "actropreneur attitude"; speaking at churches; and even writing a self-help book that consolidates what she's learned through and about scientific prayer, which will be published next year by Hyperion. 'These are things that have come to me," she marvels. "These are not things I put on my little goal list. When a publisher called me up and said, 'We're looking for a book,' I went, 'What? A book? And then I went. 'This is being brought to you. Just show up. Just say yes to what is being presented to you.'"

In the end, says Pinkins, learning to say yes has changed more than just her story ? it's changed her entire life and for the better. "This is a really blessed time for me," she agrees. "And having been up and down throughout my life, I've learned that there's a way to keep from hitting super lows, which is in how we greet what is right in front of us. You have to be willing to meet every experience with gratitude. I think that's the biggest thing that I've gotten out of this: The aware-ness that how we meet this moment creates tomorrow. We have to be willing to trust and accept that no matter what this moment looks like, there is some gift in it."