Rosie O’Donnell’s favorite TV soap from her early days was “Ryan’s Hope,” which ran on ABC for 13 years around noon time.
We often joke that Rosie thought the Ryans were her own family!
For most of that run, Ilene Kristen played bad girl Delia Ryan. Delia was an inventive schemer and liar, and drew huge ratings. Years later, Kristen was nominated for Daytime Emmys twice on “One Life to Live.” (She was hilarious.)
In real life, Kristen is behind a new documentary (you can watch it below) called “Heist.”
Ilene tells me: “We started shooting at the end of Feb. 2025 right after the St. Valentines Massacre, when thousands of Federal Civil Servants were sent emails that their jobs were approaching “a fork in the road” and maybe they just should retire before their inevitable firing was coming down the pike.
“You could cut the anxiety in Washington with a knife and many of the Feds could not even be interviewed for fear of being sued or jailed for violations of their contracts. So we (Rebecca Cammisa — Oscar nominated for docs Which Way Home and God is the bigger Elvis and me) followed every demonstration to see where the story would take us.
“We shot until July ‘25 so we could get this out fast…we wanted it out on YouTube rather than a streamer who might buy it and then buckle to the demands of this administration. It’s challenging getting the word out independently but so far so good. We were nominated for an Emmy back in May.”
“Heist” is just 40 minutes long, and is pretty riveting. It’s certainly got more dramas and cliffhangers than even the best soap — and it’s a true story about real people!
