First of all, it goes without saying that it's incredibly unfair to go into an interview with preconceived notions.  And AS THE WORLD TURNS's Bailey Chase has always been pleasant enough, but you had to wonder if you were detecting a trace of arrogance, a hint of disdain.  Was he truly happy to be there?  It was hard to tell.  So, on the way to meeting him in a Tribeca restaurant on this windswept afternoon, you are a little nervous.  But from the moment he sits down, he's exceedingly polite, smart, funny, sarcastic and ... nice.  The first indication that this might go well is his great and endearing affection for Gauge, a 9-year-old yellow Lab who has been with Chase since he announced to his astonished family that he would be moving to L.A. to be an actor - and who happens to attend Doggie Day Care across the street from the restaurant when his master is at ATWT.  By the time Chase describes his romantic status as "heartbroken." you have completely softened.  Get ready to be won over.

Not that this is necessarily a concern for him.  He isn't overly ingratiating; he'll sometimes try to sell the diplomatic answer, and then give it away with a laugh.  He doesn't seem to have a problem speaking up for himself, for better or for worse.  Take Chase's audition with venerable BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER mastermind Joss Whedon in 1999.  "He was looking at my headshot, and not that I've worked a lot, but I hadn't worked much at all before I got that.  And he flips it over to look at my resume, then the headshot, then my resume.  This goes on for probably a minute, but it seemed like 10.  And I'm like, 'I don't know what you're looking at - there's really not much on there.'  Dead silence and again, after a seeming eternity, he started to laugh and then everybody else in the room, that was their cue to laugh.  I got a call from my agent like 20 minutes later, and I got it."  He played Graham, an Initiative commando, for almost two seasons, and then was fired after asking for more money.  "There's a certain protocol after you start getting used on a show, to kind of distinguish yourself from people who are new.  You get bumps and you get some nicer fringe benefits, bigger accommodations and stuff like that.  I had some new managers and they got in my ear and said, 'What, you don't have this, this and that`?  That's appalling.'  They got involved and before I knew it.  I got notice that it was my last episode," he says, shrugging it off with a laugh.

As it turns out, Chase has always been pretty good at making the best of a bad situation.  His parents divorced when he was 2; at 14, they shipped him to boarding school.  "There were some discipline issues." he confesses.  "I got arrested a couple of times, for mostly juvenile-delinquent stuff - fighting, drinking underage.  I had stopped listening to my mother, which obviously wasn't the right thing to do.  It was tough at first, being 14 and away from home, but after my sophomore year, she gave me the option to come back home and I decided to stay."  It worked - Chase excelled, taking advantage of the school's first-class baseball and football programs.  That led to a full athletic scholarship to Duke University, where he majored in psychology and concentrated on football.  He considered a career in sports, but post-college, "The boyhood dream of becoming the next Clint Eastwood kind of prevailed.  Even though I'm not there and may never get there, Clint was my idol growing up."  Unfortunately, his parents knew little about it.  "They were shocked, because this was something that I hadn't really shared with anybody," Chase recalls, setting the scene: "I remember it like it was yesterday: All my family went out to dinner in Durham, North Carolina, and graduation was a day or two away.  It was, `So, what are you gonna do?' And I told them. It got very quiet at the table.  I softened the blow a little bit by saying, 'I just want to take a year off.  This is something I've dreamt about all my life.'  They were very supportive because I'd essentially paid my way through college and didn't have any loans or debt, and they weren't really in a position to tell me no.  But as that first year ended, Dad started dropping the subtle hints.  All of a sudden, I mysteriously received a subscription to Business Week."

But by then, he had already decided - in the middle of playing Lifeguard No. 2 on MARRIED... WITH CHILDREN - that there was no turning back.  "I didn't have to speak; I just wore a Speedo, but it was cool. And I knew then that this was what I really wanted to do." says the actor.  A Bally fitness club commercial, another for THE DATING GAME with Chuck Woolery and a memorable BAYWATCH make-out session with Yasmine Bleeth followed.  ("My torso got a lot of work those first couple of years.")

Next came a stint at the London Academy of Dramatic Art; he got BUFFY soon after returning to the States.  Then, with work getting scarce post-9/11, Chase started thinking about New York.  "I was kind of in a place where I wanted to come East.  Los Angeles is great and everything, but you wake up and every day is the same.  It's like Groundhog Day.  It's beautiful and sunny and I was just looking for something to stoke the flames a little bit.  New York has obviously done that."  Besides, Chase had friends here and his time overseas had made a lasting lifestyle impression: "It's so different in London.  Everybody's smoking, boozing and living every day like it's their last.  In L.A., everybody's in the gym.  To me, New York is kind of a happy medium."

But there aren't many steady jobs beyond soaps in the Big Apple.  And as a fledgling actor, a few days' work on YOUNG AND RESTLESS had left a negative impact.  "It wasn't as enjoyable an experience," he says carefully.  "Let's say I had more fun with some actors than other actors on that show."

It did. The response has been "overwhelmingly positive."  And yes, he's happy to be there.  "There was a time when I didn't think that I would do daytime."  Chase says, "but it was the right job at the right time.""

 

Did you know?

His sister-in-law is from Ocala, FL, "a small town where everybody knows each other," including hometown boy Mark Collier (Mike).

Chase starred in the horror flick Rats, which was shot in Bulgaria. "I got eaten by the rats - not to spoil the ending or anything - by digital enhancement. But some of the other actors had to have real rats on them. They were little lab rats, kind of cute."

 

Essential TVV

MARRIED... WITH CHILDREN: "I was Christina Applegate's [character's] boy toy for about 30 seconds.  I was actually surreal because it was my first job and I'd grown up with the show - it had been on like 10 years.  It was cool."

BAYWATCH: "The thing that struck me about it was, we were out on the beach in Marina Del Rey, and a few of the girls had to get in the water.  The water temperature was probably 60 degrees and they were in there for a while.  They were like, shivering, shivering, shivering - action!  Put on the face - and cut! Shivering, shivering... 'Get me out of this water,' basically.  So, it was eye-opening in that respect."

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: "The guns!  I had a really cool kind of a role in that I got to do a lot of action - shoot guns, fly in the helicopter and work with the guys.  We were just three guys on the set hanging out.  I made some good friends.  I loved going to work.";