Gretchen Oehler

Gretchen Oehler (December 13, 1943 – September 8, 2001) was an American actress born in Chicago, Illinois, best known for her recurring role as Vivien Gorrow across two NBC daytime soap operas and for her extended run in a celebrated Broadway production.

Oehler trained at the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago, the institution now operating as the theatre department at DePaul University. During the 1964–65 school year she received the Sarah Siddons Society scholarship. In January 1965, she took on the role of Miss Amelia Evans in a stage adaptation of Edward Albee's The Ballad of the Sad Café, performed at the Goodman Theater.

Her Broadway debut came in October 1977, when she joined the cast of the revival of Dracula as Miss Wells. The production proved a long-running success, and Oehler remained with it for 900 performances. During that run she appeared alongside Frank Langella and later Christopher Bernau, who was also known to soap audiences for playing Alan Spaulding on Guiding Light, in the title role.

While still performing in Dracula, Oehler joined the NBC daytime serial Another World in May 1978, playing Vivien Gorrow, the maid to the character Iris Cory, portrayed successively by Beverlee McKinsey and Carmen Duncan. She remained on Another World through February 1981, at which point she transitioned to the companion series Texas, entering that show in episode 134. Following Texas's cancellation on December 31, 1982, Oehler returned to Another World as Vivien for two further stints, from February 1983 to May 1984 and again from September 1988 to December 1990.

In the 1990s Oehler was diagnosed with cancer. She died on September 8, 2001, in Moose, Wyoming.