Soaps In Depth
April 16, 2002
Jailed

Lindsay is ordered to give up nearly three decades as payback for all the lives she has ruined.

Failing in her effort to avoid spending years behind bars, ONE LIFE TO LIVE’s Lindsay Rappaport learns her fate this week. While she doesn’t receive the maximum sentence, she does get hard time. “28 years!” marvels the conniver’s portrayer Catherine Hickland.

Facing The Truth
After hearing her sentence, Lindsay faints in the courtroom, and, of all people, Troy rushes to her side. If she reacted so strongly to being sentenced, how will Ms. Understood cope when she is fitted for an orange jumper? “Anytime a made-up, attractive, blonde, blue-eyed girl with a great haircut comes to prison with good jewelry and clothes,” jokes Hickland, “it’s not an embracing kind of thing.”

In fact, in the clink, Lindsay is likely to meet women even more intimidating than her foe, Nora Buchanan. “Prison life is not going to be kind to her,” predicts Hickland. “It is going to be hard!”

The She-Devil Is A Martyr?
That being the case, why on Earth did Lindsay plead not guilty and roll the dice with a trial? Because doing so protects Jen from a perjury charge. (During Colin’s murder trial, Jen testified that she was clueless about Mom’s involvement in Nora’s memory loss; in actuality, both she and Will were in the know.)

“Troy’s tactic is, ‘How do you think Jen will feel if she knows you [Lindsay] changed those pregnancy tests to break her and Cristian up?’” Hickland explains. “But that’s not really it. What it is really about is that she doesn’t want to do this to her daughter by making her get on the stand and then be perjured.”

A Clean Slate For Lindsay?
After all the dirty tricks that Lindsay has pulled, is there a chance that she could be rehabilitated? “That would be my fondest wish,” Hickland says.

In any case, by the time she gets paroled, she will have changed in at least one big way. “When I get out,” Hickland laughs, “my hair will be very long!”