Eva La Rue
A stunningly beautiful and fiercely talented Southern California native currently on the longest-running soap opera in television history, General Hospital, is a dedicated mom passionate about horseback riding and dance. She shares so many heartwarming stories and memories and speaks candidly about her last few years of loss and grief.
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As a California native, what was it like growing up in Southern California?
Growing up in California was magical because I grew up in Norco, California, about an hour and a half east of
Los Angeles. It’s called Horse Town USA.
Every street has horse trails. The city ordinance does not allow sidewalks to be built. You can ride your horse to your favorite café or restaurant, and there you will find a hitching post and stalls. It was just an amazing way to grow up—to be able to ride everywhere, up in the hills and the riverbed. Many big open fields we rode on have become housing developments with brand-new homes. I still enjoy going there, especially to the Norco Rodeo. I was there over the weekend. I love it there.
The thing I love about California, in general, is that we’ve got everything in one state with the most amazing weather of any state. And we have a gorgeous wine country that rivals Tuscany. We’ve got spectacular mountains for skiing, and within two hours of those ski hills, you can go down to the beach surfing. You can lay on the beach in 80-degree weather and, on the same day, ski on white snow. We’ve got one of the most gorgeous coastlines I’ve ever driven. I haven’t been all over the world, but I’ve driven the coast of Kerry in Ireland, some of the coasts in South Africa, the south of France and Italy. Our Highway One is unbelievable: Big Sur, Carmel, and San Francisco. Then we’ve got Yosemite and Tahoe, which have all that natural beauty.
If you could live anywhere else, where would it be?
It would be Italy, possibly Croatia, or somewhere in southern France.
You are one of the most beautiful women in the world. When you look in the mirror, do you see the beauty your fans and the public see?
No, I’m the one who sees the makeup-free version of me with all the imperfections. But I do love to go makeup-free. We’re all always trying to get used to the aging process, especially in my line of work.
You are a wonderful mix of four cultures: Puerto Rican, French, Dutch, and Scottish. Which one do you feel closest to? Do you speak any other languages?
My mom spoke French, Dutch, and English. My dad was Puerto Rican, but some of his family came through the Canary Islands. They were Black, Spanish, and Indigenous. My dad spoke Spanish, but because my mom didn’t speak it, my dad never spoke Spanish in the house. So, I didn’t grow up speaking Spanish.
Even though I took Spanish in junior high, it didn’t stick because I never spoke it in the house. Speaking any language fluently requires constant home conversation.
Because I’m mostly Puerto Rican, I feel more Puerto Rican. Although my mom is a mix of many European things, I don’t feel very European, And I don’t feel close to my British or Dutch side. But the French part of me does make me a foodie. And the Puerto Rican part of me is the spicy part. Last year, I took up salsa dancing, and I’m crazy about it.
Tell me about your first acting job.
My very first acting job was a commercial for Del Monte Green Beans. I loved green beans, which was great. While shooting that commercial, I learned what a spit bucket was. I had to do so many takes of happily eating green beans and then spitting them out, or I’d have had a distended belly. It was a fun, positive experience, but I didn’t eat green beans for quite some time after that.
My mom entered me in a beauty pageant when I was about six. It was actually a series of beauty pageants. I won Little Miss Garden Grove and then went on to the Little Miss California pageant. I got lucky and won that, too. Some of the judges were talent agents, and I got an agent, and that’s how it all started.
How does it feel to be a part of television history now that you are on General Hospital, a soap opera that has been around for many years and entered the homes of millions of people worldwide?
I’m honored to be part of the cast of a show that has been around for 60 years—it’s the longest-running show.
The beautiful thing about soap operas is that they have touched generation after generation. I meet many people who say, “My grandmother watched this. My mom watched this.” People will tell me they started watching it with their moms, and when they went to college, they would schedule their classes around their soap operas, and everybody in the dorm would sit and watch at the same time. I’ve heard many stories about people watching it through their cancer diagnosis while sitting with their families and having that to look forward to every day.
I started watching All My Children when I was eight because my mom was a huge fan of the show. When I landed the role on All My Children, I was already a huge fan. Meeting everybody in the cast was a dream come true, and then getting to be part of the cast was extraordinary. It was one of the most amazing experiences. Now that I’m on General Hospital, several castmates from All My Children are also on the show, so it’s been like old home week. I was given an incredible welcome when I got there.
There are still so many General Hospital fans, soap fans in general, because there’s a nostalgia about how TV was done in the past. It’s the last remaining relic of how TV daytime dramas were done, and now only three are left on the air. When I started, there were 15 soap operas between the four networks.
What can you tell us about Natalia Rogers-Ramirez, your character on General Hospital?
My character is in a precarious position because she is struggling with accepting that her daughter is gay. She’s very conservative and old-school and has all these opinions about her daughter and her daughter’s girlfriend.
She’s stirring up a lot of trouble – that’s something we do not have in common. From what I know, I have a story arc where she will come to love and accept it. I don’t know how the arc plays out because they don’t tell us much beforehand. It’s interesting to play that role and say things I would never say to my daughter.
What drew you to the Baháʼí faith?
When I was 11, my older brother was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver. My mom went into
a spiral of depression. We all did, but especially for my mom. My ballet teacher at the time was a Baháʼí. My mom was searching for any kind of meaning, any lifeline, and that’s how she found the Baháʼí faith. And then, I was introduced to it through her. I found so much beauty in it and so much acceptance of all people, all religions, nationalities, and ways of being.
Is there a pivotal moment or experience that continued to strengthen your faith in the teachings?
Throughout my life, whenever I’ve faced major hurdles, my faith has protected and strengthened me. Unfortunately, like most of us, when it comes to faith, it’s always the traumatic times that we choose to get close to God again.
Some of the most important precepts of the Baháʼí Faith are unity of religion, one God, and unity of universal language so that everybody can communicate; everybody should be taught and have access to free learning because the only real way out of POV equality of men and women. Not until women are completely equal will we have a true opportunity for peace in the world. In the Baháʼí faith, we are shown not to speak badly of anybody else’s beliefs or religions. I love those things about the Bahai faith.
What has been the greatest thrill and satisfaction about being a mother?
To see your child start to blossom or see them as they are learning, growing, and becoming their own little amazing person. I wouldn’t miss any of that for the world. Our children afford us the ability to love them so much more than ourselves.
Is there something your daughter taught you that surprised you?
Patience and communication were essential, especially during the prepubescent and teenage years. We had to learn a new language so we could speak to each other, which was monumental, beneficial, and rewarding.
You are also a singer; did you ever dream of being a pop star?
No, I never wanted to be a pop star. I did, however, want to do Musical Theatre on Broadway. I sang and danced growing up, and I always thought, “I’d love to be on Broadway,” or “I’d love to do one of those musical movies.” I wanted to be a triple threat like Rita Moreno or Chita Rivera, singing, acting, and dancing.
What career path would you have chosen if you hadn’t become an actress?
I would have been a dance teacher. I have always loved dance as much as acting. I grew up doing ballet, and at one point, I wanted to be a ballerina until I realized it might not have been very lucrative and that there wasn’t much longevity.
Did you ever dance professionally?
Yes. In my teens, I started doing contemporary jazz and getting cast in music videos during the MTV era. But then, once I focused on acting and graduated from high school, I immediately started working as a professional actress and left the dancing behind.
Have your dancing skills ever come in handy in a film or television role?
No, but I wish they had.
Is there a project you’re working on that you want to share with us?
Yes. I have a project in development. I’m one of the executive producers and will also be starring in it, based on a true story that happened to my daughter Kaya and me a couple of years ago. We had a stalker for 12 years. It was when I was on CSI Miami. I was playing a DNA detective specialist on CSI Miami, solving every case in 43 minutes, not including commercials, and in real life, the FBI couldn’t solve our stalking case for 12 years, even with all the DNA they had collected. This was before the advent of 23andMe and ancestry.com.
The only means of DNA examination law enforcement had at the time was to access something called CODIS, which is the national database for DNA. The only people who are in CODIS are people who have already been prosecuted, which means 80% of the people there are already in prison for something, and the other 20% are John Doe. There are rape kits that nobody has put a name to yet, and the reason they haven’t is because they haven’t been picked up and processed for another crime.
If you haven’t been busted for anything, then you won’t be in CODIS. That’s why all these rapists DNA is in CODIS with no name. When 23andMe and ancestry.com came around, the two FBI agents who solved the Golden State Killer case, were the first ones ever to use the GEDmatch to find him and identify him. It was a huge case here in California that went unsolved for 43 years. The killer ended up being an ex-police officer.
After they resolved that case, they were trying to prove to the FBI that using GEDmatch was not a fluke and that it was an actual new technology, so they grabbed the next heavily DNA-laden case they could find to try and do it again, and that happened to be my case, and they solved it in two weeks. Now, the stalker is in jail, not for long enough, unfortunately. He’s only gone in for three and a half years. It’s horrible that he got such little time for what he did. And we weren’t the only ones stalked by him. There was another actress from another soap opera whose mom called me and said, “Are you getting letters from this person because they mentioned you in my daughter’s letter?” I said, “Yes, I am.” But she didn’t want to come forward when it came to sentencing and convicting. Had she done so, he would’ve been given more time. It’s frustrating when people choose silence. It’s understandable because people are scared and just want it to go away, but it doesn’t help the cause.
Are you looking to turn it into a feature film?
I want it to be a limited series or a two-hour made-for-TV movie. This is an important story because it can happen to anyone. People are stalked from all walks of life, both men and women. And to think that these criminals live among us in our everyday lives. For example, the stalker in the Bay Area was a father of two girls and, evidently, on the outside, was your typical soccer dad.
Do you cook? What is your favorite meal?
I do cook more now than I ever did before. But I never considered myself a cook because I was always a working mom. There wasn’t time to luxuriate over preparing an amazing meal, and not only that, but I didn’t enjoy standing in the kitchen for hours by myself after working long hours. Then, through COVID-19, the SAG-AFTRA strike last year, and everything else, I started cooking more because it gave me something to do. My favorite meal is Mexican food.
What charities are you close to?
The Tahirih Justice Center is the main charity I support. I’m their spokesperson. They have offices in New York, Houston, San Francisco, and Atlanta.
They are a large network of lawyers who work pro bono. These wonderful generous immigration attorneys decided to give their time and energy to help women and girls who have been sex trafficked into the United States and now can’t go home because their traffickers will either pick them up again or kill them because they know where they live. And they’re not allowed back into their villages or their homes because now they’re considered dirty and tainted.
They never wanted to be here in the first place, and now they can’t go home. The Tahirih Justice Center provides them with a pro bono immigration attorney or somebody who can do their immigration work for them so they can seek asylum in the United States. Without an immigration attorney, their chances of asylum are slim, just 16%. They need an immigration attorney to navigate it because many don’t speak English fluently.
Who would you want to be if you could be another actress for one day?
I would love to be Kate Blanchett. I’d like to be in her mind as she works because she’s unbelievably talented. I want to know what she does and what her process is. Where does she go to find what she pulls out and puts into her characters? She’s flawless and mesmerizing from the inside out.
Would you like to share anything we haven’t covered, and do you have any parting words?
My life has been like a roller coaster for the last four years. I had so many deaths in my family, starting with my dad. It all happened right around the beginning of COVID-19. Nobody died of COVID-19, but they all died during the COVID-19 pandemic. Six months after my dad died, my ex-husband, my daughter’s dad, died. We were still close friends. Then my mother-in-law, whom we all adored, died, my aunt died, and then my mom died last year.
It has been mind-numbing these last four years. Kaya and I both needed so much help getting through her dad’s passing. She was a senior in high school when that happened, and she was struggling. I was struggling along with her because I’d just lost my dad and then her dad.
We felt like punching bags being pummeled repeatedly. It’s been a year this weekend since my mom passed, and then last week, my beloved dog passed away. Our pets become such an important part of our lives. They’re with us all day, every day, through highs and lows. Especially through the lows. Even when people can’t be there for you, your dog is always there and becomes your comfort support.
It’s been a real struggle to float above all of it, and not because we were dragged into the depths of despair for the first couple of years. Thankfully, I have my faith, which I have been relying on and which has gotten me through it.
The biggest gift out of that major loss and grief is that I learned that all the silly little things just don’t matter. You start to become so grateful for what you do have. Another thing I did to help myself through it all was to start a gratitude practice. At first, I felt so heavy and wondered if I would ever get out of that feeling. However, once I started a daily gratitude practice for the things that I was grateful for, it started to change my brain chemistry. Now, it’s a habit. I don’t get out of bed without saying at least five to ten things that I’m grateful for. That sets my brain on a different dial. I dial into where I want to be dialed in instead of letting circumstances dial me where they want. I purposely dial into a frequency I want to be at.
What have you learned from all this loss and grief?
I have learned that only I can change. I cannot change what’s happening, but I can change my reaction. The other thing you can’t change is the grief. You’ll be decimated by the losses, but you can either stay drowning in that or pick yourself up piece by piece, gratitude by gratitude, and slowly pull yourself out of the mire. The lesson to me was to not stay stuck in it. Don’t get me wrong. There were times I was flailing and lost in it.
Do you ever get messages from your deceased loved ones?
All the time. Especially from Kaya’s dad. He’s so vocal. He’s a big, gregarious personality, and he took that personality with him. He’s always finding ways to reach out to us. Also, my dad. And this past weekend, even the dog. We all heard him walking down the hall. I believe they try to comfort us in whatever ways they can to let us know that they’re watching and helping.
Special Thank you to:
Eva La Rue
Photography: David Sobel
Makeup: Lisa Joy
Location: Richard Garnier Hypnomagnetism Practice
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