LINDA DANO   Gretel Rae Cummings 1990 - PRESENT  1978-1980, 1999 - PRESENT

Linda Dano plays Gretel Rae Cummings, a powerful, dynamic relationship expert, who now prefers to use her middle name, Rae.   She returned to Llanview after a twenty year absence.  Rae traveled to Llanview as part of her ongoing search for her wayward husband Daniel,  who had suddenly disappeared with millions of dollars of her money.  Rae wasn't looking for Daniel because she wanted him back; she was looking for him, hoping he could give her information on the whereabouts of her long lost daughter.  As it turned out, Rae had given birth to a baby girl out of wedlock and the infant had been taken from her.  Rae is on a crusade to find the daughter she has never known.  She and LPD Detective John Sykes met and fell in love.  John has promised her that he will support her in the search for her child. 

Linda Dano was born Linda Rae Wildermuth on May 12, 1943, in North Long Beach, California.  She has become one of television's most beloved daytime stars, and thrilled her fans when she returned to One Life To Live in 1999.  Linda reprised the role of  Gretel Rae Cummings, a character she had played on the show from 1978-80.  In an unprecedented programming move, she took the character of Rae and crossed over to all four ABC Daytime soaps, including All My Children, General Hospital and Port Charles.  

Linda is well-known to daytime audiences for her 17-year run as Another World's Felicia Gallant, for which she won the Outstanding Lead Actress Emmy Award in 1993.   

She is also an accomplished television and feature film actress, talk-show host, designer, author, entrepreneur and columnist, among other talents, having hosted Lifetime Television's talk show, Attitudes, for six years, and has a personal line of fashion accessories on the QVC network.  Her popular books, “Looking Great...It Doesn't Have to Hurt” and “Living Great” were released in 1997 and 1998.  Linda has been president and CEO of Strictly Personal, a New York-based fashion consulting service, for over ten years. 

Linda began her acting career at 20th Century Fox Studios and has a extensive list of feature film roles to her credit, including Hello, Dolly!, The Boston Strangler, Wishbone Cutter and Star.  She has also appeared in numerous television series, such as Homicide...Life on the Street, The Rockford Files, Police Woman, Barney Miller and Starsky and Hutch, and was a series regular on The Montefusco’s.   

Linda’s television movies include Rage of Angels II, Perry Mason: The Case of the Killer Kiss,  and When the Vows Break.   She resides in Connecticut with her husband, retired advertising executive Frank Attardi, and her mother, in a restored house that dates back to 1730.   

In their spare time, Linda and her husband collect seventeenth and eighteenth-century furnishings for their home.