Millette Alexander is an American actress and concert pianist, best known for having played Dr. Sara McIntyre Gantry Werner Blackford Thorpe on The Guiding Light from January 1969 to January 1983. She was the third and best-known actress to have portrayed the popular role. She also is known for her three roles on television's The Edge of Night and for having played Sylvia Hill Suker, R. N. on As the World Turns. Alexander originally was interested in being a concert pianist, but turned her attention to acting. She majored in theater at Northwestern University. Alexander is best remembered for playing three different characters on The Edge of Night in the 1950s and 1960s. Those characters were named, Gail Armstrong, a commercial artist; Laura Hathaway Hillyer, a socialite, married to Orin Hillyer; and lastly, her long-lost identical twin sister, Julie Jamison Hubbard Hillyer. She later appeared as gun moll Gloria Saxon on the short-lived series, From These Roots. When The Edge of Night was casting its lead female role Sara Lane in 1956, Millette was offered the role, but declined. She did not want to commit to the role which was to be a longtime commitment. She was later to play three very diverse roles which she enjoyed. She also played on As the World Turns from 1964 to 1966 in the role of nurse, Sylvia Hill Suker. Alexander assumed the role of Dr. Sara McIntyre #3 on the serialThe Guiding Light from January 1969 until January 1983, playing the adoptive mother of character T.J. Werner, a role portrayed by T.J. Hargrave and later by Kevin Bacon, Christopher Marcantel and finally by Nigel Reed. Her character was married to Lee Gantry, Dr. Joe Werner, Dean Blackford and Adam Thorpe. The role had been created by actress Patricia Roe. Her character was written out of the storyline offscreen when Alexander left the show of her own accord. The move coincided with Alexander's wish to pursue the piano full-time professionally, with her duo-piano partner Frank Daykin. Millette's children are Adam, William and Jennifer. She is also a grandmother. She was the daughter-in-law of Oscar Hammerstein II before she divorced her husband. The piano duoAlexander and Daykin has performed in Paris' Salle Gaveau and New York'sWeill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall to critical acclaim. They have recorded two CDs for Connoisseur Society: Bach's "Die Kunst der Fuge", and "Paris Originals". The New York Times said: "They make music as one." And the Toronto Citizen, in a review of the Bach CD hailed them as "surely one of the finest piano duos in the world today." Millette Alexander is the founder of Chamber Music Central, a summer chamber music camp for children in Fairfield County, Connecticut.
