 Joe was born December 9, 1961 to Virginia and Joseph Lando in Prairie View, Illinois. His sister Kathy who is ten years older than Joe, had been bugging her parents for a long time for a younger sibling and when Joe came along Kathy said "he was my baby." His grandmother lived with the family when Joe was growing up and it is she who encouraged his imagination. "I was a loner as a kid. I loved pretending, and I was a big fan of Daniel Boone, so I ran around dressed up like him" says Joe. Not much is known about Joe's younger days before he became famous on the daytime soap "One Life to Live" until a surprise guest turned up in the audience of the Oprah Winfrey Show on November 8, 1990. The show was entitled "Soap Casanovas" and Joe was one of the guests. The conversation went something like this: 
Audience Member: I've heard Joe Lando is as romantic in real life as Jake is on One Life to Live and I wanted to find out if that's true and also ---
Joe: Wouldn't you know? Audience Member: And is -- and also his nickname's Commando Lando and I wanted to know what that's from. Oprah: And how do you know this? Audience Member: I've known him for a long time. Oprah: How long?
Audience Member: Fifteen, Seventeen years? Oprah: Seventh grade? Audience Member: Seventh grade. Sixth grade. Yeah. Joe: Sixth grade, I think, yeah. Audience Member: Sixth grade. Right. Joe: Sixth.
Oprah: Did everybody think he was going to become an actor? Audience Member: From day one. Oprah: Really? Joe: I used to work for Marcia's father and at lunch the guys -- Audience Member: Nice job, huh? Joe: -- would sit around and it was in a big boiler factory-like deal and I would jump across the boilers and her cousin dubbed me Audience Member:: He would actually swing from the cranes in he warehouse. Joe: Oh, yeah, I'd take the cranes and -- Oprah: That was a great job, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Who had a question? (crosstalk) He used to moon you? He used to moon you? Joe: Nothing's safe. Mr. Wiley:I want to see it.
Audience Member:We're sitting at our - that's my mother, as a matter of fact. We're sitting at the dinner table and Joe and his friend came up and mooned us in the window and my dad took after him with a shotgun. Joe:Who was that guy? Your brother-in-law. Audience Member:My brother-in-law. Oprah:You were the other guy mooning? Audience Member:Yes.
Oprah:Oh, well, listen -- you mooned with Joe? Joe:Here we go. Oprah:Stand up. Stand up. You've mooned with Joe? Audience Member:Yes. Yes. This is my mother-in-law. This is my wife Michelle and Joe and I gew up together and we used -- Joe:My ex-partner in crime. Audience Member:We used to stir up a lot of trouble and no stone went unturned.
Oprah:How many times have you said that? Like you've seen him on television and he's beein in some incredible scene and you go, "Hey, I mooned with that guy." Audience Member:It was actually more than mooning, but -- yeah! Oprah:We'll be back. Joe's grade school was Kildeer Countryside School in Long Grove, Illinois
Photo courtesy of Liz Pohl Joe attended high school at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire    It was here he met the "first big love of his life" Alison LaPlaca who has also gone on to become a successful actress on prime-time TV. She was a senior while he was a sophomore and they dated for three and a half years.  "She would pick me up in her Pinto on the Long Grove Bridge" laughs Joe. "My mom dropped me off" -- It seems Joe was a "wild child" involved in numerous motorcycle capers and barroom brawls. "But for the sake of my mom, who was always saying, 'now what happened?', I finally just didn't let myself get on a bike anymore." 
 The Half Day InnA favorite "watering hole" for Joe and his friends.Joe was eighteen years old when he left home and moved to LA to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. He wasn't exactly discovered overnight and in fact, narrowly lost to Scott Thomson Baker when he appeared on Star Search in 1985. For eight long years Joe supported himself by cooking while struggling to make it as an actor. But the role of Jake Harrison on One Life to Live changed Joe's life forever and the rest is history! Familiar Faces
Photos of Long Grove and Prairie View courtesy of Sharon Pyne
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