On the Industry
Constance Towers And Helena Offer Halloween Party Tips
By Tommy Garrett
Oct 25, 2009 - 9:24:38 PM

BEVERLY HILLS —Constance Towers is just about the most elegant and classy Beverly Hills resident and movie, stage and film star anyone can imagine. Or is she? Canyon News recently caught up with the star after she spent the day rehearsing for the upcoming Richard Rodgers events this month in Hollywood, marking and honoring the life and works of half of the talented Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway and musical team. The events end on November 2.

"I really must insist you eat all of your frog stew, Luke!"

Constance is also still starring on ABC’s “General Hospital,” which also stars the legendary six-time Emmy winning actor Anthony Geary, Maurice Benard, Tyler Christopher, Steve Burton and Nancy Lee Grahn just to name a few. When Constance, who is the wife of businessman and former Ambassador to Mexico John Gavin, is not spending time with her family, working on TV, on stage or in films like “A Perfect Murder” that stars her on-screen daughter and son-in-law Gwyneth Paltrow and Michael Douglas, the beautiful lady can be found planning parties and entertaining.

Of Constance, the late President Ronald Reagan once told me, “She can be the most enchanting dinner date. All you need are candles, something delicious to eat, drink and I can just chat with her for hours.” The duo did so at many of the famed elegant State dinners First Lady Nancy Reagan was known for hosting when the Reagans inhabited 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Towers and Tony Geary, Helena and Luke, ABC

I asked Constance, who plays the vicious and dangerous witch Helena Cassadine to hold her wand away from me for a short while, to put down Helena’s broom and not to pick up the knives, and to please share with our readers some tips for throwing a Halloween party on a budget. Towers thanked me for giving her an opportunity to tell her fans and our readers how to throw a Halloween bash, but her alter-ego Helena Cassadine would not go away quietly, so she helped Connie come up with some spooky ideas for the party. See if you can choose which diva —Connie or Helena —gave me the best party suggestions.

Even though this was supposed to be an interview with Connie, Helena decided to offer her suggestions first. Connie gently reminded me, “Tommy, let her speak. She is not to be toyed with.” Helena Cassadine from Port Charles, N.Y. and Athens, Greece says, “To start the party would be a witch's brew disguised as soup. For the main course I would serve little scrawny birds like quails with quail eggs looking at you and dried asparagus lying lifeless on the plate. To serve the dinner I would have eight of my henchmen elegantly dressed in black. The dinner music would be screeching owls.”

Asking Connie to please top that suggestion, Towers added, “I would suggest you invest in a skeleton or a ghost and hang it outside your front door or even hang it on the door. It tells your guests that they are in for a Halloween celebration. Also, choose a Halloween color theme for your party. There are wonderful mums in fall colors. Mums are inexpensive flowering plants.” Then witch Helena said, “Oranges and burned cinnamons are a great touch. A black table cloth and black napkins with a fall leaf twist for a napkin ring or if you want a really interesting Halloween twist, little ghosts or skeletons around the napkins to set a tone immediately. Drippy candles look like Charles Adams.”

As Constance shook her head, she offered, “a pumpkin soup is always a good first course. Red wine served in a silver goblet is fun. A pork roast accompanied by sweet potato or yam soufflé. You can just puree them if a soufflé is too difficult, and a green vegetable. Crusty dark bread or a cranberry bread looks seasonal.”

As Helena scoffed at Connie’s suggestions, she added her own ideas for the next course of the meal. “Dessert can be a wild ghostly dark chocolate ice cream with dark chocolate sauce on top and surrounded by spun sugar that looks like a spider web. If you really want to create atmosphere use a little dry ice in a bowl under the dessert. It makes an eerie foggy, misty looking plate. You could play eerie music or the score from 'Young Frankenstein.' Rent a scary movie and you are set,” stated the Cassadine witch.

Connie concluded by adding, “Tommy, you really should stop calling Helena a witch. That’s not what a good host would ever do. However, if Helena made such a dinner as we have discussed, no one would eat it. They’d be too afraid of what she put in the food and desserts. That’s why she’s still a billionaire in this current economy. She does manage to save a lot of money.” While Helena insisted on having the last word, she quipped, “Connie dear, you really need to lose a few pounds or you won’t be invited to the next Cassadine soirée.”

Thanks to Constance Towers who plays Helena Cassadine for her Halloween party on a budget ideas to Canyon News readers. Please keep your children safe if they choose to Trick or Treat this year.