Exclusive Interview
Soap Vet Michael Dietz Reminisces Over Meeting Wife Paige Rowland & How Fate Reconnected Them
When Michael Dietz, who is doing a guest spot on Days of Our Lives as Dr. Jeffrey Russell, met his wife, Paige Rowland (ex-Kit Montgomery, All My Children), it wasn’t an instant love connection.
The duo, who celebrated their 23rd anniversary on April 6, first crossed paths 26 years ago when he was playing Port Charles‘ Joe Scanlon, and she was toiling in Pine Valley. “They flew me out for an ABC party at the Copacabana,” Dietz recalls of their initial meeting. “She was on All My Children, and I was with Ari Zuker [ex-Nicole Walker, DAYS]. We met and said hi.”
Fast-forward a year later when fate brought them together in Los Angeles. “Ari and I had broken up, and I was at Le Petit Four [a restaurant] on Sunset [Blvd],” he says. “She’s like, ‘Hey, we met a year ago,’ and I was thinking, ‘Maybe she’s a fan [laughs].’ She said, ‘We met at the Copacabana. I’m Paige. I was on All My Children.’ She ended up sitting next to me, and my mom was with me at the time. I remember saying, ‘Oh, my God, she’s stunning.'”
As Dietz was leaving the restaurant, Rowland left a big impression on him. “I remember her saying, ‘See you in the movies,'” he shares. “And I left. I was living with Kin Shriner [Scott Baldwin, General Hospital] at the time, and I remember getting back home and going, ‘I didn’t get her last name.'”
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At the time, Google was still in its infancy and information wasn’t as accessible as it is today, so Dietz reached out to a magazine reporter to learn more about Rowland. With her full name in hand, he then contacted the Screen Actors Guild. “I was like, ‘Who is she repped by?'” he relays. “They gave me her manager’s info, and I called her manager. She was out of town, and this was before cell phones and stuff, so I didn’t get a call back, and I was like, ‘Oh, all right.’ And then three days later, she called me, and we’ve been together since.”
The duo welcomed daughter Madison Michaela in September 2002, as Dietz’s career as a producer of reality series began to flourish. With credits like House of Villains, Love Island USA, and Generation Gap on his resumé, Dietz admits he sometimes has trouble taking off his boss hat. “After 20 years of just producing, every now and then I get in trouble with my wife and daughter,” he muses. “[They’ll say], ‘All right, you don’t have to produce the house and produce what we’re doing tomorrow.'”
Now, with Madison poised to graduate Duke in a few weeks, Rowland and Dietz are pitching their own shows to networks and finding joy in working together. “We’re very blessed,” he acknowledges. “My wife and I talk all the time about how we are so lucky to get to do what we do and have the experiences we’ve had and met the people we met. It’s just been so much fun.”
And though acting wasn’t on the front burner for Dietz before arriving in Salem, he wouldn’t mind sharing the screen with his wife. “I owe soaps everything; soaps brought us together,” he declares. “Maybe Paige and I will be back on one together playing a couple someday. It would be great. We’re definitely open to it.”
