Too Much Holiday Spirit for Slezak?
Friday, December 11, 1998

Did One Life to Live matriarch Erika Slezak really get tipsy at an ABC holiday party? And was that the Emmy-winning actress singing a boozy parody of "The 12 Days of Christmas" on a New York radio station?

Z-100's morning disk jockeys told listeners on Thursday that Slezak got drunk at the OLTL Christmas party the previous evening. Later in the morning, the duo played a tape of an apparently liquored-up Slezak singing Christmas carols at the soiree.

It turns out the whole thing was a Yuletide prank. There was no Christmas party, and the tape was a phony. Why did the station single out the well-respected Slezak for its shenanigans?

"She's a friend of Elvis Duran, who works at the station, and they like to poke fun at each other from time to time," a Z-100 spokesman tells Dish.

Slezak herself was in on the joke. The actress called into the show, comically slurring her words and acting intoxicated. She assured the DJs that she wouldn't sue them for playing the tape, and added that her daughter is looking forward to attending a concert sponsored by Z-100. All in all, it was worth a good "Ho, ho, ho." — Jonathan Reiner