‘Many One Life to Live viewers remember Florencia Lozano for the way her portrayal of lawyer Téa Delgado set the small screen ablaze from 1997 to 2000. However, she herself recalls a time when the flames became a little *too* real. ‘I almost burned the place down,’ she tells Soaps In Depth. ‘I left a candle burning in my dressing room while I went up for camera blocking. When I came back downstairs, Crystal Chappell (ex-Maggie, now Oliva, on GL) said to me, ‘Florencia, you set our dressing room on fire!’ Luckily, Thorsten Kaye (ex-Patrick, now Ian on PC) rushed in with a fire extinguisher and put the fire out,'’she continues. 'It was like on the soap - Thorsten was the hero. Afterward, everything in the dressing room was covered in the horrible stuff that comes out of the fire extinguisher. I had been there something like two months when this all happened, and I was sure that someone was going to give me a stern talking-to, but everyone was so understanding. Even Crystal wasn’t that angry.’

Lights, Camera…Catfight!
Luckily for Lozano, most of the sparks that she generated at OLTL were onscreen, where her lawyer character not only represented Todd Manning in court, but also married him. Being Todd’s thrid wife often put Téa in conflict with wife no.1 and no.2 - Blair. During one particularly heated confrontation, the women traded blows as well as barbs. ‘I’ll never forget the time I crashed out the window,’ Lozano laughs. ‘Kassie DePaiva (Blair) had to push me, and she was so nervous about really hurting me that I actually had to calm *her* down. When all was said and done, though, the whole thing was really fun to do.’ Viewers enjoyed the action too. Lozano’s frequent frontburner status earned her a following that remains loyal to this day, almost two years after her exit. ‘I so appreciate that love coming at me,’ she acknowledges. ‘The response to Téa still overwhelms me. I left because I wanted to try other things,’ she continues. ‘I really want to do more theater, film and television other than the soap. When you’re doing a soap, it is really hard to do other things. It just takes so much of your time.’

Taking Center Stage
These days, Lozano is spending her time on-stage in New York, starring in the Manhattan Theatre Club production of ‘Where’s My Money?’ written and directed by John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck). The play is a dark comedy about two small time Brooklyn divorce lawyers and the women in their lives. Lozano plays a stay-at-home wife struggling with the harsh reality of her husband’s infidelity. ‘My character feels that she will find herself through her relationship with her husband,’ she says, ‘and that’s a real danger that I think a lot of people, including myself, can really relate to.’

LIFE Decisions
Lozano has been happily involved in her own relationship for the past five years with Christopher Welch, who will be featured in the Broadway revival of ‘The Crucible.’ With New York theater gigs keeping both her and Welch busy, Lozano plans to stay on the East Coast. ‘I went out to California, and I realized tht while I could work out there, I could never live there. There’s just something that feels like home about New York,’ the actress says. ‘And there is something about theater that just feels so satisfying. [It] is really what I love to do.’ As such, althought she remains fond of her OLTL character, Lozano has no current plan to return. ‘I loved Téa, and OLTL is full of actors whom I truly respect,’ she says. ‘For now, however, the soap is not really where I am thinking about being. But who knows what the future might bring?’"