In Print
Follow the links to our archive of Thorsten's print interviews and articles about the characters he's portrayed.
Above: On the cover of the June 26, 2007 issue of Soap Opera Digest.
Related Sections
Love, Honor and Cherish
An old Celtic fairy tale brought these eternal lovers together under a full Irish moon. Two years would pass before the lovers were free to marry atop Llantano Mountain. "Margaret, I promise you - with all my heart - that our love is going to be a light. And it'll guide us through the dark and the sadness. All the way home."
Fairy-tale Weddings
ABC Daytime Press
by Gary Warner, Published 1998
Call it the luck of the Irish. As Marty Saybrooke sipped a hot cup of tea in a quaint Irish pub on the remote island of Inishcrag, she never suspected that a total stranger was about to steal her heart. Outside, a full moon brightened the October night, prompting the innkeeper, a sage old man named Kenneally, to share an ancient legend with his pretty young patron.
"The isle of Inishcrag is enchanted, you know," he recounted with a twinkle in his Irish eye. "Whoso kisses a newcomer beneath the full moon on this island - that man becomes yours forever."
During the days Marty was shipwrecked on a remote island, she finally realized that Patrick was the only man she truly loved.
Marty chuckled, not noticing the handsome stranger finishing his glass of whiskey and starting out the door. Just then the stranger froze in his tracks, a look of panic in his eyes. Two burly men had walked into the pub, and the stranger knew instantly that they were looking for him. He quickly turned his back, his eyes rapidly scanning the room. The came to rest on the girl with the long, flowing locks, peacefully seated on a nearby bench. He rushed to her side.
"Darling, there you are," he said to a startled Marty. Before she could utter a word in response, the stranger planted a kiss on her lips! Breathless, Marty broke from the kiss with an incredulous smile that quickly turned to fear as the impact of the moment set in.
"Let me go!" she cried.
"Please, miss. It's a matter of life and death. We've got to pretend we are lovers."
Without a second to ponder what was happening, Marty played along, engaging in intimate conversation with a man she'd just met. Meanwhile, the two thugs searched the pub but, not seeing their prey, took off into the night. The stranger breathed a hefty sigh of relief and thanked his "wife," she had helped him elude his hunters. She had saved his life!
"That was close," he muttered in a thick Irish brogue. "I always thought angels had halos."
In a flash, he was gone, hurrying out the door. Marty sat transfixed, overcome with an uncanny sense of wonderment and fear, attraction and apprehension.
The attractive interloper was Patrick Thornhart, a passionate and articulate man, a writer by profession and a poet by nature. Now this peaceful man found himself in the midst of a nightmare because he was being pursued by the notorious terrorist group, the "Men of Twenty-one," who suspected that he had a piece of coded sheet music that could reveal their militant plans.
"Tell it to my face. Lift up that veil, look me in the eye, and tell me that God didn't mean us for each other." On the day she was to marry Dylan, Patrick showed up at the church and tried, to no avail, to convince Marty to change her mind.
Over the next few days, Marty continued to assist her rough-hewn stranger, and they grew close.
"Tomorrow I leave and we'll never see each other again," Marty told Patrick. "Time will pass until it's like it never happened at all, like we never met."
"I doubt that'll happen. But if it does then time is my enemy," answered Patrick. A tense, almost unbearable silence followed as Patrick and Marty sat just apart, aware of every breath the other was taking. Marty broke the silence and moved to Patrick, putting her hand on his face. He took her hand and slowly kissed her palm.
PATRICK'S
WORDS OF LOVE
TO MARTY ON THE DAY
SHE
MARRIED
DYLAN
"There's a piece of land in the green hills of County Kildare, with a stream as blue as the sky and the nights are so clear and so crisp you can almost touch them, touch the stars with your fingertips. I want to build our home there, with roses tangled thick over the red front door and a great big fireplace made with the stones cleared from our land, a home made from the very earth it stands on. And we'll be warm there in winter And by the glow of the peat fire I see you standing there and you're holding our first child, she looks like you, God, she looks just like you. But she'll grow up loved like no other child. She'll not know the fear and loneliness you felt. She'll be free and fearless and loved as you are loved, Margaret, forever."
"Maybe we can make time stop," Patrick said in hushed tones.
"Just for tonight," Marty whispered.
He pulled her close and they made love, with all the abandon and tenderness of two people trying to capture a moment out of time, certain they'd never see each other again. Afterward, the lovers held each other close and gazed out the window. Naked, Patrick stood behind Marty, relishing the moment. He wrapped a lock of her hair around his hand.
Over the course of his tempestuous two years in Llanview, Patrick Thornhart proved himself to be Marty's romantic hero. The duo cherished their midnight picnics under the stars and restful evenings curled up before a fire of smoldering peat.
"I am looped in the loops of her hair," he whispered, quoting from "Brown Penny," a poem written by his favorite Irish poet, William Butler Yeats.
They made love again on that magical night, before settling gently into sleep, entwined in each other's arms. When Marty awoke the next morning, reality began to sink in.
WORDS OF LOVE
NORA CALMS MARTY ON THE MORNING OF HER WEDDING
"You have a real gift to share with the world. All your friends are very proud of you. And what you're doing today is the final step in the journey. The rest of a beautiful fairy-tale - and you're gonna miss it all, if you don't move it, Cinderella! Makeup - twenty minutes! Go!"
Terrified of her feelings for Patrick, Marty fled Inishcrag and returned home. Patrick quickly followed, unwilling to let go of what they had found together. Though they had known each other only a few short days, Patrick knew in his heart that he was meant to spend his life with his beloved "Margaret." The love he felt for her was complete, passionate, and all-encompassing. He had to see her again! Once in Llanview, he was amazed to find the woman he loved engaged to another man, Dylan Moody. On the day of their wedding Patrick pleaded with Marty to change her mind.
Their friends breathed sighs of relief when Patrick and Marty married without a hitch. But joy suddenly turned to terror when chaos erupted at the reception. Terrorists attacked before the couple could cut the wedding cake.
"When the priest says, 'Margaret, do you take this man to be your husband,' and the time has come to answer, the Margaret I know, the woman I love with all my heart, won't be able to utter those words, not to any living man, but me." Marty was torn. She both loved and feared Patrick.
"You say you're a simple man - but that's not true," she countered. "You're complicated, you're secretive, mysterious. And even now when you say the danger's over you're about as calm as a storm in the Irish Sea. It's like any second a tide could turn and a wild current would sweep you away again."
With tears streaming down his face, Patrick watched as Marty lowered her wedding veil and made the powerful decision to honor her commitment to Dylan. Only much later, after months of misery, did Marty realize that she had made a mistake. The only man she wanted to be with was her princely poet, Patrick Thornhart.
Months of pitfalls and obstacles would pass before Marty and Patrick were free to become man and wife. And for a couple as danger-prone as Marty and Patrick, their late-summer wedding atop Llantano Mountain came off beautifully, without a hitch. Though the reception following the ceremony was marred by violence that forced the newlyweds to flee Llanview, this was the wedding that Patrick and Marty had longed to have. It was truly the happiest moment in the turbulent lives of this unforgettable couple.
Patrick and Marty's Wedding Vows
September 12, 1997
Judge
"Margaret and Patrick, by
coming here today in the presence of
your
friends, you are performing an act of faith
with each other. Whatever
obstacles
you may encounter, nothing will turn you away from the joyful duty
of
loving
each other."
(In the background Patrick recites Brown Penny)
"I whispered, 'I
am too young,'
And then, 'I am old enough,'
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might Love,
'Go and Love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair.'
Ah penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair."
Judge
"By the love you are
pledging here today, you will
find the
entire
world in the light of each other's faces.
Patrick, do you take Margaret
to be your wife this day and for all your days to come?"
Patrick
"I do. Margaret, when I met
you for the first time under a
full moon
on Inishcrag I thought it was by chance,
but I was wrong. It wasn't
chance
at all, it was my destiny to find you and love you with all my heart
for
the rest of my days."
Judge
"Margaret, do you take Patrick this day for your husband and for all your days to come?"
Margaret
"I do. From the moment I
met you, the first night you
kissed
me with
the full moon shining on Inishcrag,
we were meant to be together. Now
and
for the rest of our lives. I love you."
Judge
"May I have the rings, please?"
(As Patrick places the ring on Margaret's finger, in the background he recites…)
"Love is the
crooked thing
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon."
Judge
"And so by the power vested
in me by the Commonwealth
of
Pennsylvania,
I now pronounce you
husband and wife."
(Patrick and Marty kiss.)