Down in Pine Valley, Part II

Not now. I'm still eating Greg's ass.

Oh, Erica. I just found your dress for tonight's charity event. You put it in the bathtub! Whatever were you thinking?

We call her faux Silver. Get it right or go to the slaystack thread.

She was so much better than real-Silver #2--the plain-Jane who went apeshit and stalked recent-rape-victim Natalie, only to get killed by a stressed-out Natalie, stuffed in a drawer and then dumped into the pond at Cortlandt Manor. That was a weird, but, effective storyline. Kate Collins put the opera in soap opera.

"Faux" my ass. Just because my name was Connie doesn't mean I wasn't THE original Silver. Olga, don't you have a date with that Nazi, Lars Bogard, you old bag of bones?

I don't know anyone who didn't cheer when real Silver was killed. I don't know anyone who didn't love faux Silver.

A brief commerical message for those looking for the new OLTL thread

I have been watching some old clips of Kate Collins as Natalie, before she got the Mumsy hairdo and Janet came along. She was so fucking awesome as Natalie--probably my favorite AMC character ever. It was nice having her back in the last few years sometimes as Janet--she was still magnificent--but I always missed Natalie.

Here's a lot of the Natalie/Silver stuff.

Also some good Nina bits.

Nasty, chicken headed, real Silver. It was so nice when they offed her.

I liked Robin McCall, played by Deborah Morehart. She was cute and spunky. Hard to believe she is now that creature called Hunter Tylo!

bump

I started both these “Down in Pine Valley” threads, and after reading the now-closed at capacity “Mainline Express” thread, I hunted down some old AMC episodes on YouTube. I’ve been watching the “Natalie in The Well” 1991 saga in its entirety.

I loved it when it was on, but missed a lot of it because I was in high school and could only watch on breaks. I never saw how Natalie got out of the damn well.

i’ve got to say, that was some good, good stuff. Dimitri just got Natalie out and took her to Wildwind and they’re thinking about kidnapping Timmy. Janet is becoming increasingly desperate to consummate the marriage. Kate Collins should have gotten more industry praise. She gave two sterling performances. The introduction of Michael Nader was well done, too.

Also included in all this is the revelation that Adam is Hayley’s father, Brooke’s confession that Jamie is “dead” Tad’s son, Dixie being mawkish and mourning while fighting her attraction to Craig, Will beginning to get nutty, Erica trying to steal Jackson from Brooke, Ceara and Jeremy being a bizarrely mismatched couple, Helga cryptically warning Dimitri of his “responsibilities,” and Trevor being insufferable.

I have to say I’m loving every minute of it. I was really thrilled to see these episodes I thought I’d never get to see. Harold! Myra! Original Ruth! It’s a blast to see it all again and I really appreciate that someone took the time to put every episode on YouTube.

What was Erica's reaction when she found out her sister had been murdered by Natalie?

r13

you mentioned how you missed a lot because you were at school... Can you imagine having DVRs in the golden age of our stories? I know VCRs were around but by that time, most shows were shit or going towards being shit

You’re so right, r15. We had a VCR and my mom would tape AMC if she wasn’t going to be home, but rarely ever would tape it otherwise. So, I missed a lot. It’s nice to be able to see all these episodes 27 years later. I never could have imagined when I was 17 that I’d get to catch up on AMC when I was 44. Hell, I never imagined being 44.

R14, as I recall, it was just another excuse for Erica to hate Natalie. I’m sure someone else can fill in the details better than I can.

[quote]What was Erica's reaction when she found out her sister had been murdered by Natalie?

You know I don't think they really explored it that much once it was revealed Silver was dead. Palmer originally helped Natalie make it look like Silver had left town. Erica would confront Natalie about what she did to her sister (thinking she just drove her from town - not killed her and stored in in a drawer.) Natalie's conscience was also conjuring up Silver's ghost, so often Erica would confront her and she would be double-teamed by dead Silver. Meanwhile Travis staged a fake kidnapping which led to him being kidnapped and then Bianca being kidnapped. Erica fled town with Bianca and hung out in Sea City as a waitress (which eventually inspired Enchantment). It was during this time that the first Dixie found Silver in the bottom of the pound (she was a walking hill billy stereotype). I think Erica was out of town for much of the final resolution of the Palmer/Natalie/Jeremy/dead Silver story.

When Erica came back, she and Natalie would still have cat fights, but I don't think Silver was ever brought up I was in college with no VCR so I could have missed a scene or two, but I don't think they made it a big part of their feud once the story line was over. Erica confronted Natalie for trying to get Jeremy when he was dating Silver, but once ghost Silver disappeared for good, the character was never really mentioned again. I don't blame Natalie for Jeremy and Silver's break-up, but he really did turn on a dime. He spent months trying to help Silver and declare his love, and once she was safe he grew cold immediately and went to focus on Natalie who was then a damsel in distress. I remember a scene where Silver called him on it, and to give the show some credit, they let him look like a bit of a cad.

Travis basically became a bastard post-kidnapping story line. He was always a little overbearing, but it was pretty amazing how holier than thou he was both to Erica and Jackson as individuals and as a couple after the stunt he pulled. He never took responsibility for any of the relationship problems that occurred. When the second marriage blew up, his hatred for Erica and wanting to punish her trumped the fact that it might not be the best for his daughter to drag her across the country and cut her off from her mother who was very involved with her life.

AMC kept trying to break up Natalie and Trevor to put an end to the Collins/Kiberd feud, but the fans wouldn't hear of it. They were obviously fine working together at the beginning; Collins seemed to enjoy their scenes, but in time it was pretty obvious she loathed him. I know her future husband lived in Chicago, but I wonder if ABC had supported her more and ditched Kiberd, maybe she'd have stayed? She was probably also bored with the "mumsy" storylines.

Her best chemistry was with Robert Gentry...they even toyed with having Ross and Natalie reconciling. I'm glad they didn't go down that reformed rapist route.

One of the very few good things AMC did it in the last years was building the friendship between Zack and Myrtle. It was very sweet and you could see the love and respect Thorsten Kaye had for Eileen Herlie.

I loved Myrtle Lum Fargate.

I concur, r19. It grounded Zack and kept Myrtle relevant. Since Phoebe and Palmer were dead and Joe and Cat Ruth had no presence, it kept a semblance of the old guard in the story.

One of the things that appealed to me when I started watching AMC was how they had so many characters of all ages with storylines. They had the older characters like Ruth, Joe, Phoebe, Mona, Charles, Myrtle, Langley, Palmer; the 20s-30s Erica, Tom, Brooke, Donna, Chuck, Cliff, Nina, Mark, Devon, etc.; and the "teen" set : Greg, Jenny, Angie, Jessie, Liza, Amanda, Tad...

Plus the 40ish Ellen and Opal and Daisy..and of course, SILVER!

I was 12 when I started watching.

AMC hit #1 in the first week of December 1987, I believe, with the culmination of the Goldie/Silver/Erica/Dr. Lazarre storyline. I think that would be the last time the show would ever see the top spot. For the rest of the '80s, it would settle between #3 and #5, and then rebound in '91, where it stayed a solid #2 for 4 years.

Was the Wade Matthews, gigolo storyline the last 'real' story Phoebe had? I don't count those two episodes around Christmas where she has some short, cutesy vignette as an actual storyline.

^Yeah, pretty much. She was heavily involved with the Mitch/Hillary and Nico/Cecily storylines, the Chuck/Donna reunion, the Willow Lake Acres plotline, and Brooke and the 1,001 Pierces, but they weren't her stories. She was getting up there in age and had some serious health problems, so I think she wanted to cut back on her schedule

Yes - the last significant story she had a as a heavy was almost getting Mitch and Hillary killed when trying to break them up. Langley left her and Brooke, Hilary, and Cecily schemed to get them back together. After that she was the lovable opinionated aunt, Dear Aggie and a talk to for Brooke. Even then she was used less and less. I would have loved to have seen her more, but there was a point where her line readings got really flat (unlike Myrtle who could still act even when she appeared pretty frail), and I am not sure she could have done any heavy lifting by that point.

Ruth Warrick's health really went south around 1997/1998, I want to say. She made no appearance between 2002 (Brooke and Edmund's wedding) and her final appearance in 2005 for the 35th anniversary, but the network was kind enough to keep her on contract and a presence in the opening credits until her death. ABC was very good to MOST of its veterans on AMC, but treated the GH vets like yesterday's garbage.

R26=Jackie Zeman

^Or Leslie Charleson, or Genie Francis, or Stuart Damon, or Anna Lee, or Rachel Ames, or Brad Maule, or Kin Shriner. Take your pick.

r17, the fact that they would just ignore the effect of Silver's death on Erica is mind bogglingly bad writing. Knowing Erica, I would have assumed she would go after Natalie in revenge and attempt to kill her, herself.

r29, the Silver death thing happened during the writers' strike in the summer of 1988. I remember a throwaway scene of Travis telling Erica and Ruth (who had been close with Silver), but it didn't really impact Erica. That was it. Yeah bad writing, but the entire show was pretty bad during the strike. They wisely suspended progress on the Cindy AIDS story by sending Stuart/Cindy/Adam/Brooke to Paris on vacation. The only active stories was Natalie/Jeremy/Silver/Palmer, Travis faking a kidnapping, and Tom/Barbara wringing their hands while Skye was in a coma.

How were the shows able to continue during the 1988 writers strike? Who wrote them?

^Scabs...producers, directors, even actors. They worked off outlines already in place by the writers. I know that Richard Shoberg (Tom on AMC) contributed scripts during the strike. Evidently EP at the time Steve Schenkel guided the show based on Lorraine Broderick's outlines, but very loosely. If you scroll to 36:30, you'll see Kin Shriner and Jackie Zeman present the best writing award to AMC at the 1988 Emmy telecast, which took place smack dab in the middle of the strike.

Does anyone remember what became of Dimitri’s bastard son, Anton? I recall he had a weird relationship with Kendall (version 1), but how or why did he leave Pine Valley?

I think he simply went back to Hungary. I can't remember if he simply left when he and Kendall broke up or maybe when his mom the always crying Corvina went a bit over the edge in her hatred of Erica. It looked like they were going to set up a Julia/Anton/Kendall triangle, but I wonder if that got punted when Julia and Noah took off. I remember when Dimitri "died" they mentioned he came for the funeral, but was off-scene.

In the mid/late '80s I used to work near the studio and I would always see AMC actors during my lunch hour. Sometimes I'd talk to them. I'm sure I came off as a creepy super-fan, but so what. The really nice and gracious actors I recall were Jean LeClerc, Kate Collins (they would often be walking together), James Mitchell, Ray MacDonnell (much, much taller than he projected on screen), Julia Barr, Kathleen Noone, Eileen Herlie, Peg Murray (Olga), Carmen Thomas, Jennifer Bassey, and surprise surprise Natalie Ross (Enid). She was the nicest, warmest, most down to earth person, a total 180 from her character. Michael E. Knight seemed rather shy and standoffish, and a couple of actors were downright dismissive and rude. But for the most part, they were all very friendly and gracious. I met Kate Collins and Jean LeClerc at an autograph signing at a mall in NJ in 1987. She actually remembered me from the studio area; he did not lol. I also met Ruth Warrick at an autograph signing, and she was a real doll. Karen Lynn Gorney used to live in my neighborhood in Riverdale in the Bronx and I'd often see her supermarket shopping. Damn, even though the show was awful near the end and painful to watch, I still miss my AMC fix.

Kate Collins was just a darling, r35. When I think about AMC, Natalie is the heart of the show, despite Erica and Brooke obviously above her on the pecking order. For me, Natalie was just the perfect character. It's criminal that Kate didn't get Emmy nominations or ultimately the treatment she deserved as one of the top daytime stars.

r34, I was a huge fan of the Alexandra Marick character played by Finola Hughes (although i felt her twin sister Anna Devane didn't belong on AMC, being such an iconic GH character). I really wish they had let Fin keep playing Alex and maybe brought back Anton to become her lover or something fabulously torrid. She was such a great rival for Erica.

I met Kate Collins at a fish-fry in Savannah. Just the loveliest person. Girl loves her mac 'n cheese!

Kate Collins really is a lovely person. I’ve met her several times and found her to be very down-to-earth, witty, intelligent and without pretense.

I really wish things could have worked out between Kate and Jean LeClerc, they sound like they had something special

It was always my understanding that Kate and Jean were the best of friends and very loyal to each other, but that the “romance” angle of their relationship was manufactured by the soap mags to cover his being gay. It’s a pretty open secret, I believe. I was once very close to a (now) openly gay actor who worked with both of them and he spoke of Jean being gay in a very matter of fact way.

Did Chris Durham come between Jean and Kate?

I started watching around 1982, and the only thing I can remember Devon doing was being a mom to Bonnie and briefly thinking she was a lesbian. Did she have big storylines prior to that?

Wasn't Devon a drunk, too?

Jean and Kate were great friends, indeed, but Jean and Chris Durham were lovers for many years.

Interesting how a lot of gay male viewers adored Natalie, and how Kate Collins had such a strong bond with Jean Leclerc. What is it about gay men and Kate that just click?

Not true, R45. They were only lovers for two years tops before LeClerc dumped him when he tested positive.

Who was the sexiest man on AMC? Who was the most hung?

Sexiest guy on AMC was Will Cortlandt. Him and Skye were beautiful together. The actor is now on General Hospital so I wish they'd bring Robin Christopher back to GH so they could rekindle the chemistry.

Since they are separate threads now here's the OLTL one

Is Sam Page family? I remember hearing rumors about him and Jonathan Bennett hooking up.

I want to take a moment to praise the Nico and Cecily pairing. That came out of nowhere and just clicked. He was initially brought on to be Julie’s big love and that was a huge story (remember when George Michael’s Just One More Try was their song?). But in a stroke of genius, the writers conceived the story of them getting married so Cecily could get her inheritance and they had insane chemistry. They were one of the best couples ever and it killed me when they left the show at their zenith. That brief time when they were a foursome with Tad and Dixie was glorious.

Nico and Cecily WERE great....Rosa Nevin (Langschwadt??) is frequently overlooked when talking about AMC actresses, but she was really good in her first stint. When they brought her back a few years later to be a love interest for Chris Lawford's Charlie Brent, it wasn't as successful.

I think she was brought back to form love a triangle with Charlie and Hayley. That was Megan McTavish. Lorraine Broderick returned shortly afterward, and moved Hayley into the whole Alec/Arlene thing and then hooked her up with Mateo. Charlie and Cecily were left out in the cold. It really didn't help that in her second run they didn't flesh out her ties to the Wallingfords. She and Ruth Warrick barely shared any scenes.

Sue with Francesca James and a gaggle of brunching gays.

Let’s talk about Stuart and Cindy. Weren’t they insufferable? When they would get all giggly and queer, it literally gave me the heeby jeebies. And I remember being weirded out by Ellen Wheeler’s gigantic head and forehead and greasy hair. I get that it was “groundbreaking” because it was daytime’s first AIDS storyline but ugh. I was ready for Cindy to go gently into that good night pretty much immediately. And then when they gave her a dual role with her vixen sister (Karen?) it was a fail.

r56, Cindy's death was also ridiculous. She passed away in an elegant and serene state, not reflecting the frightening and tragic decline of AIDS victims whatsoever.

Slee unsuccessfully tried out for the role of Mary Kennicott. Upon leaving the studio after her audition, Hugh Franklin mistook her for Kay Campbell from behind.

I loved it when Devon became snatch-crazed and chased every wet pussy in town. No one was safe when Devon and her voracious appetite for vagina were lurking. Didn't she tongue-fuck Myra a few times?

Cecily is one of those rare cases where they reformed the vixen by her being self-aware and learning from her mistakes rather than some trauma such as rape. She felt bad that she caused Julie to run-away and had another wake up call when she almost married Sean.

I always wondered if the Cecily-Nico fake marriage was originally just supposed to be a temporary road block between Nico and Julie and saw the chemistry and went with it. Julie gradually faded into the background after that point (which is not necessarily a bad thing). It could also be that Lauren Holly had decided to leave and that changed the writing, but Nico and Cecily were entertaining.

I felt they really did not give Cecily enough of a chance on her return. By then they were already focusing on fewer people and they did not have great success introducing new supporting characters. There were a ton of characters introduced that never caught on and were gone, I think at least partially, because supporting characters went from being on twice a week to being on every couple of weeks. B story lines were sacrifice for whoever was the pet at the time.

I appreciate what they tried to do with Cindy and Stuart, but it did come off like an after-school special and their scenes were super-saccharine. Cindy practically walked around with a halo (although I think Parker did a decent acting job). She also died pretty quickly before she really had serious complications.

Unpopular opinion, but I always felt a little Stuart went a long way and he could really drag down a scene. I liked David Canary, and thought he could do some good acting, but not because of his dual role. I felt his Stuart mannerisms never came off as a real person, and seemed to be how a high school actor would portray someone mentally slow. I also thought they ruined Marion with pairing her with Stuart. She became a judgmental shrew always harping at Adam afterwards or she was sickly sweet cooing about Stuart.

Francesca James looks great in the pic at r55, La Looch looks magnificent, ‘natch.

Maybe James ended up inheriting some of Julie Harris’ estate after all....anyone know the details?

Why am I looking at a photo of Francesca James and Joe Pesci in a dress?

[quote]Francesca James looks great in the pic at [R55], La Looch looks magnificent, ‘natch.

They do look good. I think Lucci often looks better in the more candid shots. Some of the red carpet shots with the heavier make-up and teased hair emphasize that she has had work done.

I think one of Agnes's biggest mistake was killing off the next generation of English/Tylers. She killed off Ann and Paul's daughter (a Tyler and a Martin!), Chuck's son, and Brooke's daughter, and never gave a child to Linc and Kelly. What a shame!

R51, Sam is married to a woman and they have a young son. Bennett was best man at their wedding.

Jonathan could still have sucked Sam’s cock, though, R65. I’m believing it happened,

So which one of you bitches had an Erica Kane doll?

I also loved the Nico/Cecily pairing, outside of Greg and Jenny they were probably my favorite couple, they had terrific chemistry and the back and forth banter was very refreshing for a 'younger' couple, as those pairings are almost always 'star-crossed'. I remember being excited when 'Nico' showed up a few years later on GH, but alas, he was not the same...

I've told this here before, but my friend's dad was a limo driver, and one of his regular passengers was James Kiberd. He told me that Kiberd and Louis Edmond shared a dressing room for the few years they overlapped on the show. The pairing is almost surreal. Talk about your Felix/Oscar scenario. I can't imagine two actors more unalike.

Louis Edmonds barely had any screen time by the time Kiberd came to the show.

Kiberd would have essentially have had the dressing room to himself, except for maybe 2 times a month.

I loved that storyline around '97-'98 where Janet, Skye, and Erica teamed up to take down Dr. Kinder. It was a hoot, and Robin Mattson and Carrie Genzel were good as Janet and Skye, but I never could stop thinking how great it would have been with Kate Collins and Robin Christopher!

It's a shame that Kate Collins didn't stay with the show as Natalie, they could have brought Robin Mattson on as Laurel and all of us would be happy campers.

It just dawned on me that both Robin Mattson and Julia Barr succeeded actress Elissa Leeds as Hope Bauer and Brooke, respectively.

I wholeheartedly agree with r71 and r72. That would have been excellent casting with a Robin as Laurel.

Robin Mattson had a great knack for making troubled characters likeable. She might have been able to salvage the Laurel character.

I don't think they really knew what to with that character anyway. Kristen Jensen and Felicity Lafortune's portrayals (not to mention their looks) were like night and day.

I liked Felicity Lafortune in general, and thought she was a good actress. But, she was an awful Laurel, boring with Trevor. I could have seen her being a Mary Kennicott or Tara Martin, but to pair her with Trevor after the odd introduction of the first, blonde, model-type Laurel was a misfire. I remembered Felicity from somewhere. Ryan’s Hope?

Rewatching these episodes from 1991 with the Natalie/Janet/Trevor/Dimitri saga after not having seen them for nearly three decades, I come away thinking how much of a jerk Trevor was. He was nearly unappealing. I liked him as a kid, but, now he just comes off as an insufferable loudmouth.

I liked Felicity and I think she and Walt Willey had some good chemistry. It was also refreshing to see a leading lady who was hardly beautiful and a size 1. Not sure why they paired her with Kiberd. They had no chemistry at all.

Can we move off Felicity? This is a thread killer.

Whose brilliant idea was it to focus the show on Thorsten Kaye, Alicia Minshew, Cameron Mathison and Rebecca Budig? Kaye's a good actor, but making him a Cambias with no familial ties to the canvass was a huge mistake. Minshew was just an awful, awful actress with very extremely limited range. Mathison had appeal, but the show OD-ed on him. And Budig tends to be shrill and is best in doses, not daily. And then they tied them to Fusion, and you had a recipe for a show that repelled viewers.

I’d like to have seen Mary Page Keller on AMC.

^She would've been a terrific Nina recast.

R79 Frons I believe. He was big on Mathison and Budig in particular. I never liked Ryan and rarely did Greenlee either. I loved her mother though and wish they gave her more to do.

I never Cameron and Rebecca but I thought Thorsten kaye has the charisma of a doorstop. He killed the show for me. Actually him and Vincent Irizarry. Found them utterly charmless.

^^i never MINDED Cameron and Rebecca...

Irizarry always came across as a smug sleaze to me.

Ryan and Greenlee were both OK as characters early on.

It was after Ryan's return and after Ryan/Greenlee/Kendall were forced on us every day that we all got sick of them.

I thought Ryan was charming with Gillian and enjoyed early Greenlee. When she called Bianca "Lesbianca" she was fun. But they all became draining after a while.

I don't much understand Thorsten Kaye's appeal. Irizarry was a good actor (and a charming one) at one point but that was before his AMC days, sadly.

Did MEK and James Scott ever actually fuck, or was it just one big tease on Scott's part? BTW what's the story with Scott? Gay? Bi? Heteroflexible?

Greenlee was good early on when she was kind of an updated version of a young Erica. She and Lucci had a good chemistry and a more complex relationship. Once Kendall came along, having her and Greenlee and often Erica in the same story line had too much of the same character type in it. It also made no sense for Greenlee to want Ryan as her true love for so long, esp. since it was contrary to their actual early history. It would be like if they tried to force Erica and Tom as a viable couple all of Erica's 30's.

There was something a bit creepy about the Zac-Kendall pairing. He was the older dominant man who treated her like some child. Granted she was not exactly mature -- but it seemed like a pretty uneven relationship. Erica came off his equal and could hold her own against him but he steamrollered over Kendall. (I would not have wanted them as a couple, but he might have had better chemistry with Lucci as well.

r88, this sums up their relationship:

I always felt that the show moved from character-driven stories to plot-driven stories under Frons’ misdirection. The Greenlee, Ryan, Kendall, Zack, et. al over-saturation was part of that phenomenon wherein we had very little character development and a lot of posing people in situations like mannequins in whatever costume (villain, hero, etc.) was needed.

Frons tried to shoehorn GH's template into AMC and OLTL, with anti-heroes as leads and snarky leading ladies. That didn't work for either show, especially AMC. AMC was never really about that. The show was still salvageable under the weak Jeanne Dedario Burke in the early 2000s, but once Frons canned her and replaced her with his pal, Julie Carruthers, and they got their grubby little hands all ver it, the show was doomed.

Once the older generation of AMC characters died off, the show lost its charm. It had a small town appeal and humour about it, and the show took a misstep trying to make it gritty and sexy, probably to compete with GH.

[quote[Once the older generation of AMC characters died off, the show lost its charm. It had a small town appeal and humour about it, and the show took a misstep trying to make it gritty and sexy, probably to compete with GH.

Someone mentioned the appearance of the the Pine Valley big city skyline was a sign of its lost identity.

I barely remember the story line where Erica almost broke up Elizabeth and Philip's marriage.

Great picture, r93. Erica Kane realness from civilian Sue.

Erica with an even bigger queen.

You know Jean is thinking (in accented French), “Ehhrica, your eyebrows loooook wonda-ful. You must introduce me to your makeup man.”

Oui!

I’ve just gotten to the point in my viewing of November, 1991 episodes when Ceara runs from Jeremy to Corinth and their snooze fest storyline plays out on “Loving’ for awhile.

If I recall correctly, they come back in time for the Wildwind Ball in February of 1992. It’s been 26 years since I saw that last, but, I remember Ceara and Jeremy being present when Helga wheels out comatose Angelique just as Dimitri toasts his fiancée, Natalie, at the stroke of midnight. I remember Jeremy rushing in to protect his half-brother “TEE-mee.’

But, don’t they go back to Corinth after that. Jeremy died in Corinth by being buried in plaster of Paris. Did Ceara die there, too? I didn’t watch Loving and don’t want to turn this into a Loving thread, but, I can’t recall whatever happened to Ceara. Genie Francis was lost on AMC and turned in some truly dreadful performances during the whole incest storyline.

I’m just including this because I like the picture. Kate Collins and Jean were such good friends.

Darn. Trying again.

Again.

Do we officially have a Kate and Jean Were Such Good Friends Troll?

R98 They killed off Ceara on Loving. This was several months after Genie left the show. Ceara was returning from wherever she was and was shot at the train station after getting off and walking towards Jeremy. It was a stand-in playing Ceara and no face shots were shown. It was strange. Don't know if they even approached Genie to return for that or not.

Genie loved working on AMC and to a lesser extent Loving and didn't want to leave, but ABC pressured her into returning to GH.

When I was a wee lad, I remember a super old school Oprah (that I used to have on VHS) where she had soap stars and their diehard fans on the panel. Kate and Jean were there from AMC and they were being super coy about being lovers. The audience of 1988 fraus were going nuts at the mere thought that Jeremy and Natalie could be banging in real life. As a gayling watching this, God I wish I knew it was all spin and PR and that he liked dudes. It was the height of Reaganism and AIDS and homophobia.

R104, I totally remember that. I may even have it on some old VHS tape somewhere, taped off my college dorm VCR!

R103 Genie was on Days of Our Lives from.87-89 as Diana Colville and it was HEAVILY promoted by NBC, Jane Elliott from GH and who would also end up on AMC was on DAYS at the same time as Angelica Devereaux, Genie and Jane shared a lot of scenes on DAYS together

Genie hated her time on DAYS.

And hey, let's talk about AMC!

R107 because NBC thought she could replace Marlena (Deidre Hall), who was leaving, as the STAR of DAYS and Genie was instantly shoved down viewers throats

Ironically enough, Brian Frons was head of NBC Daytime at the time and a lot of that was his ideas. Frons preferred DAYS over the other NBC soaps of the 80s, Another World and Santa Barbara in particular, because DAYS was more action packed and younger and hipper with the super couples and occasional General Hospital type sci go storylines.

Days was NBC's only successful soap in the 80s and 90s. AW and SB were constantly struggling, and SFT and Generations were huge failures. Even when Days was particularly on fire, it failed to spark any interest in the other NBC soaps. But back to AMC, Jeremy and Ceara were a fairly popular couple on AMC, thus ABC moved them over to Loving with the hopes that viewers would follow them. Didn't happen. They tried the same thing with John Wesley Shipp's Carter Jones, but again, viewers didn't follow him to Loving.

I did not realize Carter Jones went to Loving. Was he still working on reforming or did he slip back into being a psycho? He pretty much terrorized two women during his time on AMC and had an epiphany at the end where it looked like he was going to try and face his demons.

Days had a lot of ABC soap viewers in the 80s because a lot of affiliates in the big city began airing Days as 12 noon instead of its official 1 0m slot opposite AMC, so a lot of faithful ABC soap devotees like my cousin and her entire sorority house would watch Days from 12-1 and then flip over to ABC for their soap line up (AMC, OLTL, GH), that partially explains why despite huge ratings for AMC, Ryan's Hope and Loving were flopping at the 12 noon time slot, because a lot of people in big cities who were watching AMC AT 1 were also watching Days as 12 noon

My affiliate in Philadelphia continued to air DAYS at noon until AMC WAS CANCELLED and in September 2011 finally put Days at the 1 pm timeslot since AMC was over

AMC's HH and demo ratings were so strong in the early 90s that ABC was toying with the idea of putting it directly against Y&R, and then sandwiching Loving at 1:30 between AMC and OLTL. Thank goodness that never came to pass.

On General Hospital, on Tuesday, guess who's name was mentioned? Erica Kane! Maxie, who works for Crimson fashion magazine, was on the phone, with Erica Kane's assistant, with Erica not wanting to pay full price for an ad. I wonder if they might get La Lucci to make an appearance, sometime. I've always thought Crimson would be the perfect way to work her into a story on GH, imagine her going up the editor Nina, played by Michelle Stafford.

How old is Lucci these days? Still 39?

R114 Have you ever seen a pic of her and her husband, I swear for every year she shaves off her age, he gains five.

They look like father and daughter in some of the pics. Even grandfather/granddaughter in some.

And here I thought Lucci was going to DAYS to play Dee Dee Hall's grandmother.

How do we feel about this? It is odd to name drop Erica on GH. I could see this happening. Why not? It’s a stunt. Like when Susan Lucci was on that awful season of Dallas as Sheila Foley (worst soap name ever). But I don’t see Erica in Port Charles. She doesn’t fit on the canvas.

She'd be fine as someone who popped in once in a while. Let's not forget she knows Anna Devane.

But her appearances should be done with a light touch.

It would be a big deal when you consider she spent 41 years on daytime and never appeared on another soap besides AMC. She wasn’t a soap hopper like Jane Elliot or Genie Francis. And then there’s the “big return to ABC Daytime” angle. They will make a lot of noise around this.

I've never been a fan of GH, but I'd sure as shit tune in to see Erica Kane back on daytime!

Can one of you kind bitches direct me to the new OLTL thread.

Here you go!

Fuck that red-headed bastard child OLTL. This is not a place to discuss Landview.

I saw the clip of Maxie mentioning Erica Kane. She was trying to sound tough and making it seem like she could handle Erica with little difficulty. I have not watched GH enough to really know the Maxie character, but she seemed like some Erica could easily eat alive. It does not seem like it would be an even match.

Well, she could fit. When Henrick is exposed as Fasion's son, that will cause major problems for Aurora Media. I could see Erica, who had become a major media and fashion player by the end of AMC, trying to sweep in and take Crimson and going head to head with Nina and Maxie, and by extension Sam.

I highly down Lucci is coming to GH. Most likely it's just Frank the writers trying to build some "is she or is she not coming to GH" momentum to drum up some interest in the show. Kind of clever, actually.

I was hugely into AMC and OLTL and DAYS, which I still watch, and only sometimes watched GH, but my question is is Maxie played by Kristen Storms, who was Belle on DAYS in the early 2000s? I know,Kristen has been on GH FOR AWHILE NOW BUT I haven't watched it regularly since the late 90s

R128 Yes

R128 thanks.

What kind of name is Maxie anyway?

I think of Maxi pads

R127 I doubt, she would come on for a long-term role, but I'm sure they could get her to make a few appearances during sweeps. It's not like she is so in demand that she couldn't schedule it. R130 her actual name is Mariah Maximilliana Jones, named for Maximilian and Mariah Ramirez, remember her mother Felicia is a blond Aztec Princess.

People have been asking her on her IG feed if she's coming to GH, and she hasn't responded to any of them.

Susan who? Susan Lucky? Funny name.

That IS a funny name!

Fun facts about character-name switches I recall:

-Dmitri Marick was originally supposed to be called Bryce Cannon, but they decided to change the name to sound more gothic.

-Hayley Vaughan was originally supposed to be called Allison Vaughan, but they changed to Hayley at the last minute.

-Ceara Connor was also originally supposed to be called Allison, but they changed her name to Ceara, the name of Agnes Nixon's real-life niece.

-Mitch Beck: they'd originally cast actor Brian Fitzpatrick as a character named Trip Marshall, who was to serve the same purpose as Mitch (working class guy who was a new love interest for Hillary and/or Skye). At the 11th hour, the writers decided to make him Donna's long-lost brother Mitch.

-Eiizabeth Carlyle, Julie's lost-lost mother, was originally supposed to named Margaret Spaulding. The name was then changed to Margaret Cassidy. And finally, they changed it to Elizabeth Carlyle.

-Ellen Wheeler's character was originally named Cindy Anderson, not Cindy Parker. In fact, the other characters called her Anderson, and she was listed as such in the credits. Without any explanation, the character's surname was changed to Parker.

Don't say Erica to me!

That’s great trivia, r135. Thanks! Where did you find all of that?

I was ALL about AMC throughout the 80s until the early/mid-90s. I remember reading these tidbits in various articles in the mags throughout the years.

I could see why AMC changed the last name of a character from Spaulding.

Erica would work on GH as a guest character several times a year for a few episodes. It would be a lovely nod to Lucci's legacy and a nice way of letting her revive Erica without having to be the leading lady.

Geez, some soap fans are so gullible. They're just teasing the viewers. Lucci is not joining GH.

R141=Tony Geary on the phone with his agent.

That dreadful Donna Beck spread her legs for anyone who would pay her.

[quote] ERIKA would work on GH as a guest several times a year for a few episodes.

Ah, yes, I've fixed that now.

This is really obscure, but does anyone else remember when one of the local radio stations here in NYC ran a contest to name Tom Cudahy's new restaurant/nightclub? Not sure if the contest ran nationally. This had to have been 1985/1986. They eventually went with the name Panache.

Here’s some more trivia-at one point Opal’s sister Emerald (Em) was going to show up in Pine Valley with her trouble making daughter Ruby. Linda Thorson was initially cast but they decided not to bring in the characters and Thorson got a role on OLTL, instead.

Another character that was supposed to come on but was never realized was Greg's older sister Diana Nelson. She was talked about for ages, and the writers were ready to bring her on as a new love interest for Chuck Tyler. But then Richard Van Vleet quit, and plans to bring on the character were scrapped.

That dreadful Enid Nelson was an uptight old bitch.

I remember that they were going to do a senior love triangle between Myra, Jasper, and Kate Martin. I kid you not. There were plans to do that, and I remember Jackie Babbin, the EP at the time, mentioning that in an interview with one of the rags. Evidently those plans were changed. This was a good year or two before Kay Campbell's death, so that didn't factor into the decision to not move forward.

I always liked Tom Cudahy, but was too young to see him when he was with Erica in the '70s; when I saw him he was with Brooke, until he hit the booze. Did he wind up with anyone after that or did they just write the character out? I think he and Erica would have been good together (I couldn't stand Dimitri, Travis and she wasn't with Jeremy very long if I remember correctly).

Yeah, Tom was a pretty active character through the mid-90s. After Brooke, he married Adam's daughter Skye and then wound up having an extra-marital affair with Travis's ex Barbara. Tom and Barb later married, but then divorced after she cheated on him with Travis in order to get pregnant to produce a bone marrow match for their daughter Molly, who had leukemia! Tom later settled down with Livia Frye, with whom he adopted a son, Jamal. He and Livia were written out in 1995, but they both returned for occasional appearance through 2005 or 2006. Interestingly, Richard Shoberg was a "scab" writer for the show during the writers' strikes in 1988 and 2007.

R147, I wonder who they would have cast. Genie? Maybe introduce her around/at Greg and Jenny's wedding, right after she'd have finished her GH run? Bonus points for being one more poke in the eye to Kim Delaney.

[quote]Here’s some more trivia-at one point Opal’s sister Emerald (Em) was going to show up in Pine Valley with her trouble making daughter Ruby.

When Babe and Krystal first showed up, I wondered if it was going to be revealed that Krystal was Opal's sister. Initially, she was was much more trailer trash with an accent and Babe was a schemer modeled after Sammy Jo. Quickly they made Babe as a misunderstood saint and Krystal as some earth mother. Its too bad, because the show needed some new schemers at the time, and they were more interesting before they became love personified. There was also a bit of a disconnect between how we were supposed to view the characters and their story line, because while they changed the characters, they did not change their story line. They kept doing horrible things yet seen as the victims. To reinforce that Babe was good - they simply had people sing her praises but not do any actual redemption arc.

I think after Frons forced Julia Barr out, he wanted to have Krystal pick up her torch, but it never worked out.

[quote]I think after Frons forced Julia Barr out, he wanted to have Krystal pick up her torch, but it never worked out.

I heard that as well. I was actually not too upset he put Krystal with Adam because I thought it would be interesting to see him with a schemer. While I liked him with Brooke, I was not ready for another round of him doing something bad which would cause someone like Brooke to berate him and leave him yet again. What ended up happening is they defanged Krystal and instead of two gray characters causing problems together, they did another version of Adam and a victim wife. This is around the time I stopped watching regularly, so I am not sure how they twisted things so Krystal having a baby with Tad while married to Adam was all Adam's fault. Trying to make Tad and Krystal this great love was also another thing that came off like a lead balloon the last few years of the show.

Regardless of what they did with Krystal, they never should have gotten rid of Brooke.

Hey bitches, miss me?

Ugh...Zarf, go back to wherever it was you came from.

Zarf would not have been so bad, if she did not immediately sense what a great soul Babe was and ramble on Babe was love and just had an obnoxious personality in general (they did tone that down).

Also, if they had written some regular girl-girl relationships at that point that went through the normal soap couple problems. Instead she had just spent a year carrying a baby due to rape and then grieving the baby's "death", so the Zarf story line seemed like just another way to avoid a true same-sex relationship.

Zarf/Zoe was with Bianca, no?

[quote]Zarf/Zoe was with Bianca, no?

Yes - after a great coming out story line, they went out of their way not to have Bianca in a regular same-sex relationship. I think they just wanted the shock value of Bianca kissing a man (I don't think he had really begun transitioning at that time). That was one of the reasons why it was not a popular story.

Naremy or Jeralie?

Good god, keep Serial Asshole Nutjob and his ilk off here. Ugh.

Kate Collins is fabulous

Deborah Goodrich was the best.

Me! Meeeeee!

r165...

R166 Isn't that the year she thought she won but it was Flannery instead?

That's embarrassing to watch. However, when all is said and done about soaps, the only thing mainstream press and non-viewers will remember are Erica Kane and Luke&Laura. Goes to show you how truly disposable they are.

R166- that was such a Valerie Cherish moment, I can’t handle it. I’m sure in that 4 seconds she thought she was a multi-Emmy award winner she thought she was entering the Erika Slezak / Kim Zimmer realm of multiple wins. Poor thing.

The whole clip

Flannery was Ok but a little overrated.....that dyke got an Emmy every time she queefed.

Look at them all: Natalie! Jeremy! Tina!

Natalie and AMC were EVERYTHING to this gayling in 1986. She was such a fascinating character, even after the fraued her up and married her off to that pig.

[quote] That's embarrassing to watch. However, when all is said and done about soaps, the only thing mainstream press and non-viewers will remember are Erica Kane and Luke&Laura.

uh-uh. I will always be in a more elevated position to the public than those fools!

R168 Some might remember ole Bill and Susan Seaforth Hayes, from DAYS, as well, since they were the first ones to get mainstream coverage in the press, Time Magazine.

Funny, "Pine Valley" was my street name when I was turning tricks!

Lana Vu would be an interesting drag name.

And her sister, Deja

Back in the late 00's, one of those pathetic gayfraus on SON started a rumor that Vicky Rowell would be joining as Erica's long lost sister Onyx Kane. They kept perpetuating it.

R179 That would have been one HELL of a catfight!

Rowell is a crazy loon.

Phoebe's in her cups again.....

Erica kind of had the same luck as Mary Richards when she had a party. Something always went wrong.

Phoebe had a smelly old snatch.

R183 Does anyone on soaps ever have a good party? Remember the Ewing BBQ's on Dallas? There is always a fight, a death, a return from the dead, cheating, or a natural disaster. If I lived in a soap town, I would never expect to have a good party. It's like I never understood why Jessica Fletcher's friends kept inviting her to visit them on Murder She Wrote, they had to know if she came to town they or someone they knew would be murdered.

[quote] I never understood why Jessica Fletcher's friends kept inviting her to visit them on Murder She Wrote, they had to know if she came to town they or someone they knew would be murdered.

My Dad was pretty convinced she was a serial killer.

R186 That should have been the series finale, Jessica Fletcher is put on trial for being the world's deadliest serial killer.

Which fakeNina was worse? The blonde or the redhead?

The blonde one was the worst actress of the two, but the redheaded one was badly miscast. She might have been better in another role.

Wasn't the redhead also hindered by a really bad story where she had some sort of brain injury and thought she was a teenager and fell in love with Benny?

R182- that scene is something. I feel like Ruth is playing drunk the way a high school student would in a play. So over the top and embarrassing for everyone. How did the director not share a helpful note to take it down just a tiny notch? It actually makes La Looch look like an indie actress.

Oh please, the scene was hysterical. Ruth and the other actors played it very tongue in cheek.

Remember when Devon used to get a fiendish glee in her eyes whenever she was in the vicinity of fresh, young wet pussy? She became a slave to pussy.

Devon was a pussyhound. She tried eating mine.

Devon was snatch-crazed. It became an addiction and her ultimate downfall. Even Donna's petri dish of a snatch was fair game for Devon.

Forgot how beautiful Taylor Miller was.

Nina #2 was more gorgeous than Taylor Miller.

I remember when Devon was talking to Tad.

She told him "If it tastes like fish, it's a good dish. But if it smells like cologne, you better leave that snatch alone!"

Ah, memories.

The Devon troll is so irritating. Go. Away.

Taylor Miller looked French to me.

The actress that played Devon was so homely. Kathleen Noone, who played her mom was more attractive than she was and they made Ellen several years older than she was. She was just 3 years older than Mark La Mura was.

Fake Nina #1 (Heather Stanford) today. Can you believe she teaches acting now?! Oh, my sides.

Fake Nina #2 (Barbara Kearns) today.

Aw, c'mon now.

You know you want some of this Boo Boo Kitty!

meow meow!

Devon’s snatch was soooo moist and tasty.

Much like AMC went out of its way to make Marcy Walker look unattractive as Liza -- short haircut, polo shirts, etc. -- it also went out of its way to make Tricia Pursley look bland as Devon Sheppard with the unflattering outfits, oversized sweaters, Toni Tennille haircut.

Someone uploaded an episode of AMC where David Rampal (played by Trent Bushey) was working out in the gym. He was easily one of the hottest guys ever on the show.

He has some scenes with the also hot Charles Van Eman. He was rumored to have been fired for being difficult. He apparently was not liked by many people on the show at all.

Lots of hotties in that clip. The two guys mentioned above, plus James Patrick Stuart (now Valentin on GH) as Will Cortlandt and even (in a sort of oaf-y way) the guy playing Joey (later Jake) Martin.

Charles Van Eman, while hot, was very forgettable in his brief run as Charlie Brent during the “Erica robs the cradle” storyline in 1991. It seems he forgot all about it, too since he omits his time on AMC from his resume, bio, and IMDb entry.

Any specifics on his being difficult?

After a brief absence, Charlie became horse-faced Christopher Lawford with his Kennedy-esque mouth of too many teeth. He was dreadful too. He reminded me too much of his father, the creepy, unctuous Peter Lawford. At least Van Eman was easy on the eyes.

I, too, found James Patrick Stewart very sexy as Will Cortlandt even when Will was awful and raping Gloria and (very quickly) turning stupid Hayley into an alcoholic. He’s still a hot guy. Michael Brainard was cute, too despite his giant cranium and, yes, oafish quality (well put, r208).

As physically attractive as they all were, Lanie, David, and Charlie never really clicked in the young adult scene and were all written off pretty quickly. Paige was really the only one of the three that could act. I am not sure if her departure was her decision or the shows. Emily Anne and Joey exited relatively quickly as well, although at least Emily Anne got one hot story with the return of Billy Clyde.

As good as the Who Killed Will story was, they probably made a mistake making him a rapist and killing the character. Will Courtland as a mini-Palmer should have been a long term player on the canvas (no offense to Lonnie Quinn and the gratuitous butt shots they would show when he exited a room in his levis).

While Erica was incredibly flawed, Travis really was a vindictive asshole by moving Bianca to Seattle just to punish Erica, when it was clearly not in Bianca's best interest to tear her away from her mother and at some level had to know that he helped create the situation by emotionally manipulating Erica into remarrying him when he knew she was really in love with his brother.

Jack was also a bit of an idiot thinking Erica would welcome him with open arms after losing custody. Erica was not necessarily being rational or fair, but Jack was not exactly honest in his role. He would say -- "I told you we needed to be honest and tell him" That might have been a valid argument if he ended the affair with her after a week or two realizing she was not going to do it, but he continued to sleep with her for months. Both Montgomery brothers could be a bit self-righteous and judgmental.

R209 I just heard that he pressed a lot of the actors buttons the wrong way and wasn't easy to work with. Lucci didn't like working with him either.

Brainard was really unattractive.

One would be remiss in a conversation about AMC if one did not mention Adam Mayfield (one of the Scotts) and his enormous, double digit dong.

Grant Aleksaner (Alec) has a double digit dong.

God, Adam Mayfield was so hot. Gorgeous without really being pretty, tall, lean muscled build, and enormous endowment. Not much of an actor, but who cares?

I still dream about Justin Bruening’s flip flop feets. He and gf Alexa Havens were regulars at a pizza place in my neighborhood.

Ah, yes, Adam Mayfield was nice to look at—dongful and lean. I remember one long sequence of scenes lasting a couple of episodes with him shirtless in sweat pants. Scott had presumably been jogging, and they kept him sprayed with mist and damp for days. I could forgive his squinting, pointing and growling style of acting, which he must have learned from Cameron Mathison—because he was so bountiful where it counts.

He pops up in Lifetime movies from time to time. He’s thicker now, gruffer of voice, and his head seems larger, but he’s still bouncing around in his trousers. Still can’t act. Thanks, r215.

I remember the rumors. Wasn't it that he was asked to go on stage in his boxers at a personal event and the audience could see his enormous fuckmeat in his shorts?

Judy Barcroft was stunningly beautiful as Anne.

Judy's been married to AMC headwriter Wisner Washam forever. Their son Ian was one of the Little Philip (aka Charlie) Brents.

^I should add that Judy and Wisner were great friends with Jerry Stiller and Ann Meara. Ben Stiller and Ian Washam were best friends growing up. I wonder if the friendship among the parents helped AMC snag Meara as Peggy Moody throughout most of the '90s; Meara was also great friends with Larry Keith (Nick Davis), and they did a few plays together. Don't ask how I know all of this I just recall reading some articles about all of this.

Scott Thompson Baker, as Dixie’s husband Craig Lawson, showed an impressive, and oddly square, bulge, in baggy 1990s style gray sweat pants on several occasions. Craig was Dixie’s conman husband after Tad was presumed dead. The one who fucked Nurse Gloria during his honeymoon with Dixie just before ‘The Who Killed Will” saga of 1992.

This picture does do not justice to his man area.

Scott Thompson Baker was popular on General Hospital back in the 80s. He didn't really click with AMC viewers though.

I was surprised Gloria lasted so long on the show. She somehow lasted for 7 years. I was always so-so on her and they tried many different pairing with her.

Wasn't Baker a big ole fundie?

Teresa Blake was stunning, but she was never more than adequate as an actress. Gloria was a part of one my least favorite AMC tropes--using rape as a storyline. See Brooke, Erica, Natalie, Bianca, Julia...I am probably forgetting others.

Teresa’s line deliveries were always really awkward and she had shit hair. Never understood her prominence.

And Gloria just came from out of nowhere, not connected to any of the main families. I think she was the erotic obsession of the showrunner/network exec and that’s why she wasn’t let go way earlier than she was.

Actually, Blake was pretty popular. I don't recall which mag it was, but it was those rags were still doing their top 10 favorite actresses, probably the tail end, and I remember Teresa being the only actress on the show to make the top 10 regularly, beating out even Lucci, Collins, etc. And it was her choice to leave in 1998!

[quote] Gloria was a part of one my least favorite AMC tropes--using rape as a storyline.

I disliked this trope as well, but it might have been esp. bad for Gloria because it really was blatant in its bad girl gets what she deserves and changes for the better from the experience. Her character completely changed because of the rape redemption. Julia was pretty bad as well, esp. since what they considered being a bad girl - a bit self-centered and boy crazy was not exactly atypical college age behavior. Plus they really piled it on her, face sliced by a chandelier, rape, pregnancy, and getting mobbed for having an abortion (maybe the last abortion the show had).

At least Natalie had already softened prior to the rape (although she became a saint in the eyes of the town afterwards) and it was more in the line of showing you can be raped by someone you have slept with. With Erica it helped explain why she was so messed up, and the Kendal/Richard Fields story line was good soap. Brooke's was before my time. Bianca's was pretty obscene, because it seemed more like a shock thing to force the lesbian to sleep with a man and then the pregnancy allowed them to keep her asexual for another year. It also ruined Michael Cambias who could have been a good long-term villain which was needed with Palmer and Adam showing their age. Same with Natalie and Gloria's rapes ruining Ross and Will who should have been characters to keep on the canvas.

You forgot Kit Fischer - Jack's sister who they not only tried to make a heroine via rape, put her in the story line before they had a chance to see of she could act (she couldn't). I do remember thinking that Cameron showed he had some acting potential in that story line. I never saw that again.

Fake Nina. LOL

Why did Nixon keep killing off popular heroines? Meredith on One Life and Mary Mac on AMC. Later she killed off Anne Martin when Judy Barcroft refused to return. These were legacy characters. And Jenny! Blowing her up that way! Horrid.

Well, in Agnes's defense, Gwynn Gillis as NuAnn was not working out, so they had to fire her, The show at that point was getting ready to transition from the Tylers/Martins to the Cortlandts, so I guess they saw killing her off as no big blow to the show. As for Jenny, Agnes said that Kim gave the show such short notice when she quit, that they came up with the jet ski thing on the fly. They didn't want to recast Jenny because Kim was so popular. Also, Greg and Jenny were SO popular and at a happy point, they couldn't logically explain why Jenny would just simply leave Greg. Kim put them in a really tight spot.

r232

they could have just sent Greg and Jenny away alive

They weren't going to fire Lau, especially knowing that several of their main players had just left or would be leaving over the next year (Dorothy Lyman, Marcy Walker, Taylor Miller, Gillian Spencer, Richard Van Vleet...oh and Tricia Pursley lol).

[quote]You forgot Kit Fischer

She is best forgotten. An awful actress played her and she was obviously hired for her looks. When she called Jack "Dack", I wanted to puke. She was very disliked by fans online and was referred to as "That Kit Fisher Person".

[quote]Also, Greg and Jenny were SO popular and at a happy point, they couldn't logically explain why Jenny would just simply leave Greg. Kim put them in a really tight spot.

Kidnapped? Disappeared? Enters the witness protection program? Lost at sea?

I kid, kind of, but there were multiple other ways to send Jenny away without blowing her ass up on a jet ski.

[quote] She was very disliked by fans online and was referred to as "That Kit Fisher Person".

I think that is what Erica called her and it stuck with the fans. We were supposed to feel bad that Erica was mean to her, but it did not really work. I remember a puppet show she put on with Edmund was greatly mocked. I believe she was supposed to be his first post-Maria love interest. You think they would have done a better job trying to cast someone who was going to be easily criticized by Edmund-Maria fans.

Greg and Jenny were THE young couple, both of them so gorgeous. I hated that they killed Jenny off, a little while later, AMC teased the audience when there was a 'mystery women' following Greg and only shot from the back who looked like she might be Jenny, then we finally saw her face and it was...Amanda Bearse!

And the jet ski accident was so pathetically done. It looked like a spark and not even an explosiom. A very bad choice to kill off a beloved character.

I think she left them in a lurch by giving almost no notice. Yeah, they could've done the is she or isn't she dead thing, but that wouldn't be a soap staple till years later.

She could simply have gotten a modeling contract like Paris or Milan.

A hated the jet ski explosion plotline. And yes, it looked like a minor spark and suddenly Jenny was dead!?! Poor special effects.

Although I would have preferred they send Jenny and Greg off with a happy ending, the show intended to keep the Greg character around. They had long term plans for him and Greg couldn't move on to find love again if there was any doubt about whether Jenny was dead. That's why they had to kill her off the way the did.

I would have preferred they kill her off in a plane crash, thus leaving a chance for her body to have been mis-identified and Jenny come back later.

But 1984 was still the era when if they killed off a character, they generally stayed dead. It was fairly rare for them to bring a dead character back to life in those days. Yes, Stefano on Days had already come back from the dead, Steve Frame on AW was brought back to life, a few others. But it was still the exception rather than the rule at that point.

Within a couple more years, bringing characters back from the dead would be almost routine. Between Stefano's many returns and James Stenback returning from the dead repeatedly, death came to mean nothing on soaps. And that's one of the many things that has lead to the gradual destruction of soaps.

Refresh my memory, was Teresa Blake part of the mean girls clique Kelly Ripa admitted being a founding member of? I think it also consisted of SMG, LaRue and Penny.

By the 2000s, death had certainly become meaningless on soaps. Whenever they killed off a character, my first reaction was always, "When are they bringing him back."

In fact, in June 2009, when singer Michael Jackson died in real life, my first reaction was, "When is he coming back to life." Of course, that says a lot about how much Michael Jackson's life was a soap opera.

I couldn't find the latest GH thread, but the idea of Scott Thompson Baker being popular intrigues me. I also assumed Colton was B-list as a leading man. Makes you wonder why they couldn't have hung onto him, unless it was one of those Genie-style "You go to the show we need you on, and that's that" situations.

Here's your GH thread, r245

Thanks!

Yes, Teresa Blake was part of the SMG/Ripa/Penny/LaRue clique. Susan Lucci, needless to say, was not.

[quote] AMC teased the audience when there was a 'mystery women' following Greg and only shot from the back who looked like she might be Jenny, then we finally saw her face and it was...Amanda Bearse!

No, it was Sheila. I can't remember who played Sheila, but she and Greg were involved for a bit, then she left the show. I can't remember if Greg had any notable love interests after that... I think I stopped watching AMC in '85-'86.

His only love interest after "Sheila" was Robin McCall. I think they were becoming somewhat popular with viewers, but then he abruptly quit and was replaced by Jack Armstrong. Lau had been going through personal issues at the time. His father passed away in '85 and took a sabbatical from the show (Don Scardino played tempGreg during this time). His first episode back was the Kate Martin funeral episode. He wanted a new challenge, so he joined AW as nuJamie. As a shy teen gayling, I was ALL about AMC in the '80s, so all of this useless info has stayed with me throughout the years.

I didn't mind Jack Armstrong as Greg. He was cute, and it wasn't a hard job to fill Lau's shoes, acting-wise. Robin was an interesting character, and she was good with Greg and Tad. She was from the "wrong side of the tracks" like Jenny, but she was tougher, a schemer. Wasn't it her shady brother who married Phoebe???

Hard to believe that cute Deborah Morehart is now crazy plastic surgery victim "Hunter Tylo"!

It was a mistake to recast Greg. He and Jenny were irreplaceable, like Erica. The same goes for Nina although I think a recast Cliff would actually have been OK.

What a breath of fresh air John Callahan was when he first came to Pine Valley as Edmund. He was handsome, funny, charming, slightly mysterious and intelligent. His scenes with Phoebe were fun. But, boy did that character go to shit. He became sanctimonious, crazed, dreary. The pairing with Maria often was light (when he and Eva La Rue began their real life affair and subsequent marriage), but was ponderous and obsessive a lot of the time and simply fell apart. His best chemistry was with the tragically underused Julia Barr.

I always got the impression that he was an arrogant ass in reality.

[quote] His best chemistry was with the tragically underused Julia Barr.

They botched which should have been a pretty simple and effective set-up by not having him genuinely torn between Brooke (who he just married) and Maria when Maria came back from the dead. It was a triangle in which there was chemistry between all the parties. Instead they had Brooke keep Maria being alive a secret and then immediately kicked her out of the equation and instead had Aiden be the third and have Maria act like she was 20 years old running around in a bikini.

He had chemistry with Larue, but it would have been interesting to see him and Brooke married the first time around and Brooke and Erica being sisters-in-law living together at Wildwind. .I understand why they did it for story line purposes, but I felt Brooke marrying Tad was out of character. She knew he loved Dixie, she knew she really did not love him, and she was not at a point in her life where the need to marry the father of her child would have been that strong of a factor to override marrying someone you did not love and who did not love you.

I think they killed off Jenny because they knew Kim Delaney would never return (it was obvious she was going to be successful outside the soaps and not need to return - she just had "it") and she was so beloved by fans of the show that a recast wouldn't be accepted.

They did do a hatchet job on the Edmund character. But Callahan didn't do himself any favors with cheating with a co-star and was rumored to a have a drinking problem.

Callahan masturbated alot in his AMC dressing room. Where did he put the cum?

On a separate Chew thread, there’s a call for ABC to take that time slot and edit classic soap storylines. Think Daytime to Remember but ongoing. I actually love that idea. Or at the very least, I would love a streaming service to do that. Can you imagine being able to watch self contained seasons like “Greg and Jenny” “Adam wants an heir” “Life in Cortlandt Manor with Palmer, Natalie, Ross and Ellen”?

Larue was so fucking boring.

After they extricated Brooke from the Tad/Dixie and Edmund/Maria supercouple stuff, nothing really clicked for her...the parade of Pierces, Jim the child pornographer, the guy who killed Laura. She seemed to be getting her story footing again with Maria back from the dead, but as was mentioned upthread, she was abruptly removed from that and replaced with Aidan, which was strictly a Frons directive. He did not like Barr and was gunning for her from the day he took over.

I kind of liked her with the minister who killed Laura (and he was kind of hot). It could have been interesting of her dealing with the issues that she liked someone who killed someone DWI, but the show had to go for all shock valuer over a story that would work and had him be the actual driver who killed Laura. No one would believe Brooke would have been able to be with the person who actually killed Laura (and then wormed his way into her life without saying who he was). Plus if they would have had him be someone who killed or injured someone else, they would not have had to do the contrived, no one recognized him because of plastic surgery (which also made him taller and older, since he was originally one of Cecily's peers).

John Callahan was a regular on Days of Our Lives from 2008-2010 as the up to no good Dr. Baker, he worked mostly with Arianne Zuker (Nicole) and Kristian Alfonso (Hope). I think he also had some scenes with Jessica Tuck, Megan Gordon from OLTL, who was playing a character named Madeline on DAYS and she was killed off by falling down a flight of stairs!

Other AMC alumni from the 90s, Sydney Penny, Roscoe Born and Robin Mattson, who played the whacked out Lee Michaels on DAYS, were on DAYS at the same time he was.

I really wish Eileen Davidson had played Gloria, I think she would have done amazing work on AMC.

Eileen opposite David Canary would have been interesting to see.

Isn't there some kind of personal history between Eileen and Cady McClain?

Cady was/is crazy as a fruitcake. She’s nuts!

r265=Kari Gibson

Is there any footage of Kari Gibson as Dixie on youtube? I've yet to see any. Her Dixie looked like Elly May Clampett from The Beverly Hillbillies.

Eileen did amazing work under James Reilly 's writing on DAYS in the 90s, playing 5 different characters, including a man!

Going back to AMC, prior to Reilly 's campy ridiculous DAYS in the mid 90s, AMC was known as being the most comedic soap with the most eccentric characters, than mid 90s DAYS hit and all the comedy seemed to be gone from AMC, while those eccentric Fun AMC type characters were now on DAYS like buck toothed hillbilly Susan Banks, Vivian Alamain and her servant Ivan, and the telekenetic black town psychic Celeste Perrault, who sported a wonderful new hair weave every other episode.

A lot of the AMC audience from the 80s started watching DAYS because it was more light hearted and fun and comedic and campy, the way how AMC, which had became so dark and depressing in the mid 90s, used to be written with Reilly's famous supernatural twists thrown in.

AMC never fully recovered and ironically Reilly's first soap job was as a script writer on AMC in the early 80s, he told Agnes Nixon that he loved writing for Dorothy Lyman's Opal Gardner, so Nixon would give him Opal heavy episodes to write

[quote]Her Dixie looked like Elly May Clampett from The Beverly Hillbillies.

Her Dixie made Elly Mae like a sophisticated lady from the city. She seemed like she had been an extra on Hee Haw.

I thought Eileen was great as Kristin, but thought her Susan was pretty painful to watch.

Lonny Quinn is still really hot and he looks pretty much the same as he did when he was on AMC. Must be a combo of great genetics and healthy lifestyle. Hard to believe, but he and Gibson joined AMC exactly 30 years ago this summer, during the writers' strike. I was 20 at the time, but it seems like yesterday. Now I'm ancient and look every bit my 50 years.

I still vividly remember a fantasy sequence with Kari Gibson’s Dixie where she won a beauty pageant or something...? It was so over the top. Her version of Dixie was basically Bette Midler’s country Sadie in Big Business. I’m convinced the gay writers of AMC saw that movie that summer and were like - let’s bring Sadie from Jupiter Hollow to Pine Valley as...Dixie Cooney!!!!

R271 that sounds EXACTLY like something the very gay James Reilly would of wrote but he wasn't writing for AMC AT that time. I remember when he had tons of campy fantasy sequences on DAYS in the 90s, I remember a "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" spoof fantasy sequence that Vivian had regarding her enemy, Kate Roberts, it was hilarious!

Again AMC was so damn series by the mid 90s, even Erica Kane had become a more serious less "camp" characters

Did all the gay writers leave AMC? And did DAYS suddenly hire nothing but gay writers in the 90s?

The show started becoming darker or more plot-driven in the late 80s. There was massive audience defection in 85/86, and I remember Agnes commenting on that, saying that they've decided to do more drive-through (translation: melodramatic) stories to get viewers back. The comedy aspect definitely went by the wayside. I think it worked for a while, because it was basically still about the characters the audience cared for and still felt like PV. The tone of the show didn't change that much and was still very recognizable. By the mid-90s it was a different story. SMG and the introduction of Kendall were highly successful, but I think the concept of Erica having been raped took some of the fun out of the character.

Dixie's first day -- searching for that pageant sequence.

I vaguely remember Kari Gibson having fucked up teeth onscreen but they look perfect in that photo.

Eileen would have been a good Liza, after Marcy Walker found Jeebus and didn't want to come back. Beth Chamberlin would have been good too.

Not fucking Jamie Luner! She didn't look old enough to be a contemporary of Angie, Jessie, Tad.

Nice to see James Rebhorn. Also, it looks like Cindy, Stuart, Adam and Brooke were still present during the writers strike, it's just that the AIDS storyline slowed down.

Judi Evans would have been an interesting Liza, too. And Mary Beth Evans. But not Andrea Evans.

R278 with her campiness and penchant for comedy Andrea Evans would of been perfect for a role on DAYS, James Reilly was such a fan of her performance as Tina on OLTL that he cast her as Rebecca, a similar comedic Tina type character on Passions, the soap Reilly left being DAYS headwriter to create

Reilly LOVED writing comedy on his soaps

{quote] Andrea Evans would of been perfect

Would HAVE been perfect. There is no such thing as "would of."

[quote] Hard to believe that cute Deborah Morehart is now crazy plastic surgery victim "Hunter Tylo"!

She was so green on All My Children but gorgeous, you can see the potential. She became indispensable, even great as Taylor on B&B for so many years in the 90s. I liked her a lot as Marina Toscano when she was on Days Of Our Lives too.

Tylo wrote a sweet tribute to Mary Fickett on her FB or twitter when she died just before AMC went off the air. She credited Fickett and other pros for guiding her along.

Wow that clip--I forgot about hot gay daddy Dabney, Erica's foil at Tempo. Who was that actor?

There used to be a youtube video of Hunter and Michael Tylo's wedding reception. It was probably a couple of years after that clip, right around the time she left the show. A large part of the cast was there including Lucci and Barr and most of the younger actors. It was interesting to see them interact as themselves in a social setting.

It’s still there R284 —someone needs to post it again on this post . Look on You Tube under “soap party 1987”

R283, the actor was J. Kenneth Campbell. He did a lot of stage work and I think he also had a contract role on AW.

Ah -- here is the wedding reception. This is right around the time I started watching the show.

The actor who played Dabney was hot.

Who was the muscle guy in the tank top in that same clip at R281?

R287- you will never convince me that Robin Christopher and Lauren Holly didn’t blow a few lines in the bathroom during this party. They seem REALLY excited to be there and it is 1987 in NYC after all. It’s been oft mentioned that AMC was a coke den in the 80s. I also loved seeing Susan Lucci and Julia Barr and their husbands chat away. Even though Helmut and Susan are hard core Republicans. Lots to unpack here!!! And gosh does Ruth Warrick look fun.

I noticed that Stephanie Winters (Julie #1) was there too. So I saw Julia Barr, Susan Lucci, Ruth Warrick, Stephanie Winters, Lauren Holly, Robin Christopher, Kathleen Noone, Bob Gentry, Mark LaMura, Susan Pratt, James Mitchell, Steven Caffrey, Jean LeClerc, Kate Collins, and future EP Jean Dedario Burke. So weird seeing Holly and Christopher so tight. I don't ever recall them sharing scenes.

Phoebe’s pussy stunk.

Was that Liz (Emily Ann Sago) Vassey wearing the stupid hat?

That wasn't Liz Vassey. That was Carmen Thomas. Liz Vassey wouldn't join the show until 2-3 years later.

Or a year later...

That party is from 1987. Liz Vassey joined in 1989. I think I spotted Barbara Treutelaar (Didi O'Neill) there too. Any of his former GL castmates there?

R290 Holly and Robin shared a dressing room together with Rosa Nevin (Cicely) during their time at AMC, I remember reading during an interview with LH years later .

I thought AMC was a coke den primarily in the early/mid 80s. I remember Peter Bergman saying it got so bad that EP Jackie Babbin has to call an emergency meeting of the cast, or something to that effect, instructing them to cut it out. Babbin was EP from 82-86.

Jackie Babbin was a lez.

^You could've knocked me over with a feather with that news.

AMC seemed to have its fair share of gay/bi actors in the 80s as well as actors who pinged off the charts. Amanda Bearse, Dack Rambo, James Mitchell, Louis Edmonds, Elizabeth Lawrence, Ronald Drake, Darnell Williams, MEK, Robert Gentry, Steven Caffrey, Dorothy Lyman, Jean LeClerc, Larkin Malloy, Trent Bushey, Larry Lau, Kim Delaney, Robert LuPone, Alan Dysart. Am I forgetting anyone?

Lorraine Broderick, who was the headwriter on AMC in the late 80s and it's last headwriter in 2011 is the breakdown writer on Days of Our Lives and just won an Emmy as part of the DAYS writing team under headwriter Ron Carlivati, former headwriter of OLTL and GH

It's interesting how Ken Corday hired both the final headwriters of the ABC versions of AMC and OLTL for DAYS

Fun fact: Lorraine Broderick's daughter Annie was a child actress who played little Laura when Laura was killed by a hit and run driver. Lorraine and Julia Barr are bffs.

Robin Christopher deserved a movie career. Such a beautiful and talented actress.

^Who?

R303 yes! She should have become another Julianne Moore type..what happened ? even Lauren Holly ended up with a major movie career for a while and prime time roles but not Robin? And she has aged gracefully too, still very beautiful.

Meanwhile Lauren Holly looks like a swamp witch now. I guess Jim Carrey will do that to you.

What was Stephen Caffrey's deal? Gay? Bi? He never married.

Of course, he looks like a gray whale now, but in the '80s, he was adorable.

Oh, yes, he was quite cute, r307. I had one of my first tv crushes on him. I hope, for nostalgia’s sake, he’s at least bi.

An odd website with a strange assortment of Stephen Caffrey pictures. Some quite cute.

Lee Godart (Kent Bogard) was fired by Jackie Babbin when he left his dressing room door ajar and she caught him doing blow.

Caffrey claimed to have a relationship with Tia Carerre. LOL.

AMC was a cokefest galore for years.

The coke situation culminated during that location shoot on a yacht to celebrate Jenny and Tony's engagement as well as to showcase the climax of the Lars Bogard Nazi story. Evidently, one young actress who was never named got so high that she fell overboard. I think that's when Jackie Babbin sat the cast down for a talking to, per Peter Bergman. That had to have been 1983/84. Yet you also hear how congenial the cast was and how it was the best/friendliest set to work on, with regular communal lunches including the cast, extras, crew, etc.

What was the set of OLTL like in comparison?

The OLTL cast set was cliquey and ego-driven. Apparently, Bob Woods once advised an extra to head over to the AMC set to work instead, because they're much more friendly.

Does anyone remember the weird relationship between Dixie and Brian Bodine? Did they ultimately marry, albeit briefly?

Brian (version 2) was annoying to me. Matt Borlenghi played him like a cross between Brando and Dean, with a pronounced New York accent despite the character being from Kentucky. He was cute enough, but bugged me. Perhaps it’s just Kelly Ripa I didn’t like and it colored my view of that Brian.

Conversely, the third Brian was milquetoast and personality-free despite being cute. Even the first, short-lived teen Brian actor (when Hayley still had on the black wig) had more of a presence.

The first Brian, Gregory Gordon, was good looking but really queeny. Sort of a poor man's Tony O'Dell. He didn't last very long. The third one, Brian Green, was really cute and gay IRL. I thought Matt Borlenghi was so hot, and he was pretty popular.

I think the third one was a rushed casting because Matt left in the middle of the story arc. I am guessing he would have at some point gotten back with Hayley had the Matt stayed. They still seemed to be the star-crossed lovers who wanted to get back together.

Matt returned for a story arc in 1996, but they made the character a real douche in order to prop Hayley and Mateo.

Yes, r317. THAT is who he looked like. Tony O’Dell. I couldn’t quite figure who he reminded me of. Thanks!

R316- I’ve mentioned this on a prior AMC thread but I remember so well the scene when Brian and Dixie finally succumbed to their flirtation and they used Bruce Springsteen’s Human Touch. They actually had pretty good chemistry considering they were so tethered to other love interests (Michael Knight and Kelly Ripa).

I think Brian and Dixie worked, because it was an organic coupling, rather than her very contrived romance with Craig Lawson. They then tried to pair NuNuBrian with Gloria, but there was just no chemistry there.

[quote]Matt returned for a story arc in 1996, but they made the character a real douche in order to prop Hayley and Mateo.

He was largely written like a completely different character. Nothing like who he was when he was on the show. They really should have broken up Hayley and Mateo at some point. They completely watered down Hayley as some loving wife who just wanted to be Mrs. Mateo Santos when her character should have been stirring up trouble as Adam Chandler's daughter.

I don't remember Gloria and NuBrian at all. She had a lot of aborted pairings. Adam was the only one that really played out and that had run its course. It was easy to see him being initially smitten by Gloria for awhile - but not a years long involvement/obsession like Brooke or Liza and some degree Erica. He needed more of a challenge and equal.

AMC from the '70s through the early '90s was pretty successful with its young group. You had Chuck/Phil/Tara/Erica/Jeff in the 70s, then Greg/Jenny/Liza/Jesse/Angie, then Tad/Hillary/Bob/Dottie/Andrew, then Charlie/Julie/Cecily/Nico, then Hayley/Brian/Terrence/An Li. The next teen group should've worked, since they were all tied to the main families, but it was too much too fast and was not very successful-Scott/Laura/Bobby/Anita/Kevin/Kelsey.

I loved Kelsey, though, was sad they got rid of her.

Also wasn't Brian Trask's brother? Did Trask and Lainie wind up together? I liked that couple but they weren't as popular as Cliff/Nina, Greg/Jenny or even Nico/Cecily

Kim Delaney was the actress who held up production on the yacht. She did NOT fall overboard but was violently ill.

Lainie ended up with David Rampal, Jeremy’s son, living in Paris, r325.

Stephen Caffrey was major-league cute in Longtime Companion, especially when he lip synced to "Dreamgirls."

Dixie and Brian did get married, in early 1993 I believe. Adam did not like Dixie hooking up with Brian -- it didn't help that Hayley attempted suicide over him -- and battled her for custody of Adam Jr. Around this time, the Tad and Ted storyline happened, then the Brooke/Tad/Dixie triangle. Finally, Dixie and Tad remarried in 1994, making it Dixie's fifth wedding in as many years (two in 1989!).

After Charlie treated her badly (basically sleeping with her and then ignoring her), Lanie ended up getting back with David and exited together (they might have even married right before they left). I think Cad-Charlie left around the same time - going to be Mr. Enchantment and getting over Erica. Strangely he aged about 20 years the next year and came back as Lawford.

I think Trask had already left by joining the marines or something like that. Brian was his brother, but am not sure their times even over-lapped.

Kelsey was great, but they did not seem to know what to do with her after the baby story was resolved. They "redeemed" her and they she sort of never had another story with the exception of the well down Kevin story, but that did not last long. I liked Daniel Cosgrove, but he was still pretty green-wooden when he was Scott the first time around.

The saga of Kelsey Martin's baby with Bobby Warner was never mined as much as it could have been. That child was both a Martin and a Cortlandt, so a custody battle between the two families would've involved most of the cast and been a huge story, but for some reason, the writers let it die.

On that note, I recall that many years later, when Bobby Warner came back to town (with a different actor), his own step-grandmother, Opal - to whom he'd been close - didn't even recognize him.

Atrocious continuity. That's when I knew AMC was about to circle the drain, and it did.

Off the top of my head, AMC is the only soap I can think of that did characters not appearing along with their relatives. There's Brian Bodine arriving after Trask and Katie Kennicott more than a decade after Mary and Dan. It would be like today's General Hospital all of a sudden exploring Jessie Brewer's family tree.

I remember when Julia came back it was about three episodes after Hayley and Mateo left. I understand she was probably there partially to replace him, but since the exit was so close to her arrival, you think they could have at least arranged it so they could have shared a few scenes together. They botched her return as well. I barely remember anything of it, except she met a horrible end.

Not quite as egregious as Opal not knowing Bobby, Erica spent many scenes with him in Vegas (in perhaps her worst story line ever) and never learned his last name or knew who he was for weeks. That really was when it was circling the drain -- Babe was eating the show, the baby switch, the unabortion was coming, Tad would sadistically bury someone and torture them to death and just seem miffed about it etc.

AMC may have been the show to lose sight of its roots the most over time. I mean...a fucking SKYLINE in Pine Valley. And way too many characters brought in without connections to main families.

Thanks to the poster who answered my question about who played Dabney. J. Kenneth Campbell! Totally remember that now. He has a ton of credits on IMDb. Curiously, Another World is there, and Search for Tomorrow, but no AMC!

How do we know the Helmut Hubers are "hardcore" Republicans?

AMC, to my memory, had a really poor production model, the sets looked dingy, small and cheap... and yet in its prime it was near the top of the ratings.

Some of the sets in the early 90s underwent upgrades coinciding with a change in studio space. Cortlandt Manor expanded, but was still relentlessly brown. “Erica’s” pale blue and salmon marble redo of the Chandler mansion meant it got bigger, but washed out when filmed. It also lasted forever before becoming the double-arched parlor set that had a succession of foyers and configurations until the show’s last gasp on Hulu. There were parts of Wildwind and The Valley Inn that we’re interesting. Events like the tornado(s) forced redos, like the awful green and brown change of the Martin’s house which had previously been the oldest remaining set.

Some of the sets in the 2000s were handsome, but they were all dimly lit. Brooke’s new house was subdued and tasteful especially compared to the awful guest shack at Phoebe’s where she lived throughout the late 80s and 90s amongst the diagonally hung gray and dusty blue shiplap. The later 2000s gave us lots of faux brick and views of the dreaded Pine Valley skyline.

I don't remember AMC looking that different than its fellow ABC soaps. I always viewed them by networks, CBS soaps always looked extra glossy and Hollywood glamorous, NBC always seemed overly bright and colorful almost cartoon like, and the ABC soaps looked the most natural .

I remember hating Linden House, Erica’s pad in the early-mid 1980s.

Linden is the one with the thin metal bar for a banister, right?

Yes, it varied from lavender to grey to rose over the years, r340. It had the odd fireplace in the middle of the room. It got a dramatic makeover in the late 1990s, but retained a version of the weird fireplace, this time upholstered in purple damask.

R335- look it up, dummy

Matt Borleghni was supposed to be Valentin on GH when the character was first conceived, but was fired shortly before airing, and no one ever really explained why.

R343 Matt Borleghni was yet ANOTHER former AMC actor who turned up on Days of Our Lives, he played the corrupt mayor of Salem main the early 2010's

Borlenghi runs a food service business with his mom nowadays.

Apparently, as of 2018, Matt Borlenghi lives near Atlanta and his daughter was almost abducted by a woman offering toothpaste. Not kidding. His wife’s name is listed as Heather on Wikipedia and this appears to be former Brian Bodine.

Matt Borlenghi was set to come onboard as Valentine at GH in fall 2009. Then James Franco expressed his interest in doing a short stint on GH. So, Valentine was shelved while they created the mad artist character of Franco determined to get revenge on Jason Morgan. Bob Guza was supposedly was going to bring in Valentine sometime after the Franco storyline ended, but obviously never did.

Why did Sarah Michelle Gellar hate Susan Lucci so much? At an AMC reunion, Peter Bergman made a point of saying how even though Lucci had the star power to divide the cast and rule the show, she never did that and always conducted herself as one of an ensemble. So, what if the lowdown with SMG's hatred of her?

SMG has an awful reputation. Major diva. My theory based on everything I read was that she came in as a hungry ambitious young New York actress (born and raised) and stirred a lot of shit. It was reported that at one point, a director had given Sarah notes to “punch up” a scene but no one informed Lucci. She then felt like Sarah was trying to upstage her in the scene. I’m sure Susan isn’t blameless- young version of her comes in, plays on her aging All About Eve insecurities. But the fact that Susan was a star for 41 years and had such a stellar reputation says it all.

Also wasn't SMG part of the 'mean girls' AMC clique led by Haley Ripa? I could see them pulling all kinds of shenanigans backstage.

OMG indeed.

The only young cunt on a Agnes Nixon show is ME!

MEEEE!

Who didn't Karen Gorney mess around with? Paul Gleason, Nick Benedict and Henry Kaplan come to mind. Richie Hatch was just a good friend.

I saw KG in a cabaret act she called The Barefoot Steptoe in the 90's and it was....odd.

But WHY did Sarah hate Susan?

Remember when they brought Gorney back in 1996 for the Kelsey pregnancy storyline? They really aged her, in order to make her believable as Chris Lawford's mother. IRL, she's only 10 years older than him.

Nick Benedict last played the evil molesting Curtis Reed on Days of Our Lives in the 90s, his character was killed off in a whodunit murder mystery

He disappeared from soaps after

Here's an article from May 1994... just put yourself in Lucci's shoes and imagine reading this line in particular... [quote]But what is most striking about the petite, brunette Sarah Michelle Gellar, who plays complicated bad-girl Kendall Hart on "All My Children," is that she is heir apparent to Susan Lucci's throne on the soap.

She must have thought she was turning into Margo Channing in All About Eve. Also, consider the fact that Erica having an adult daughter now shifted Lucci into 'older woman' status. It's the age old star anxiety. If she gave Sarah any shit, it was probably from insecurity that she could be replaced as the show star. And let's face it, Sarah had the chops to do it.

Nick Benedict was my first soap crush as a young gayling. I loved his chest hair and thought he was so masculine.

SMG was only 17 or 18 in that article at r357, but reading it, she has so much insight into the character she is playing and into who she is as a person and performer. In short, she has a genius quality. It must have been incredibly threatening to Lucci to see this brilliant girl playing out the same character type and arguably, with even greater ability. The culmination of Kendall wasn't her leaving the show, but SMG's role in Cruel Intentions: it can be said that she finally got the chance to immortalise Kendall on film, something Lucci had never been given the chance to do with Erica.

R359= SMG or her mother or FPJ...because noone else has ever thought any of those things about her outside of those three, ever!

Nick Benedict is of the homosex persuasion.

Asshole Serial NUTjob needs to stay the F outta here!

I wanted to BE Kate Collins when I was a gayling. She was goals!

Kate’s a cunt.

Me too!

Kate was just so wonderful. She was such a nuanced actress, thanks to her theatrical training, and it was awkward watching her go up against such a one-note non-actress like Lucci. One of the biggest travesties in daytime is that she was never even nominated for an Emmy, especially for the rape storyline.

I don't necessarily think Lucci is a master thespian, but I think she held her own in her scenes with Natalie. I think Collins was over-all a good actress, but she could also go overboard on chewing the scenery. I do agree she should have been nominated for the rape storyline.

Wasn't there some speculation that SMG's mother purposely fueled the feud a bit. Also, that while there was tension, it was not as bad as was portrayed in the media? They did not like each other but were professional on the set. Whatever the real story was, they both did a nice job in Kendall's exit scene, still holding each other a bit at arm's length, but having a warm moment and wishing each other well.

I thought SMG was great her first year, but a bit shrill her second year - whether that was due to writing (her later storylines were a little lame - Corvina, the tell-all with Dell), tension on the set, or she was just bored. I heard she just went through the motions a little towards the end of Buffy as well. She did seem to lose something as she got older. She never really had anything click after the age 30 (or perhaps 25).

I recall reading an article with SMG where she was clearly conscious of the tension with Susan Lucci and doing what she could to lessen those tensions. She reported that the director had instructed her to interrupt Erica's line and talk over her. "Stepping on a line," to use acting parlance when you interrupt another actor's line, is a major no-no among actors; can cause major resentments.

However, Lucci hadn't been present to hear the director's instructions. So, SMG ignored the instruction in the dress rehearsal, causing the director to come out, chastise her and repeat the instruction to talk over Erica. With Lucci there to hear the instruction, SMG then performed the scene as the director wanted.

When they recast Kendall with Minshew a few years later, I bet they deliberately cast the most awful actress they could find, so as there would be no chance of her upstaging Lucci. Minshew made Lucci look like Dame Judi.

I don't know - by that point they were casting largely by looks only, and while she was not a good actress, Minshew was beautiful. Frons probably had a thing for her.

My ex was an actor who worked as an extra on AMC and OLTL throughout the 2000s. He said the general rule at ABC was to cast females with looks AND talent, but males only needed to have looks, with the hope that they would learn to act on screen. I think Minshew was largely the exception to that rule, since she had looks but never rose above mediocre.

[quote]males only needed to have looks, with the hope that they would learn to act on screen.

I resemble that remark

Oh, me too!

Count me in that club too!

R371 She was okay at doing the vampy thing, and perhaps some very light kind of comedy. But expressing any kind of actual emotion was truly beyond her range. Worst crier ever on TV!

Those Zendall fans were a special type of crazy. When Cady returned for the umpteenth time (the return with the Madden story), she requested that she work with Thorsten Kaye. The Zendall fans went nuts at the very thought of their couple being broken up by Dixie, and I believe Cady got some nasty mail over that. That fan base reminds me of the maniacal Lane fan base at Y&R. The couple if awful and serves no real purpose, yet their fans go crazy when they're not portrayed as a happy couple.

Minshew looked like a Flemish oil painting with her striking eyes and swan-like neck. As r375 points out, she was capable as a flirt and being light, but dreadful in anything remotely dramatic. Her crying scenes ranged from making a “buh-bluh-buhhh-bluh” sound in her throat to strident screeching.

I was always glad Spike was deaf so he couldn’t hear his mother buh-bluhing over him.

Thorsten Kaye bugged the crap out of me and he only made Kendall’s scenes worse. His gravely-voiced, Shrek-like pronouncements made every scene like Shakespeare performed at a Florida dinner theater to me. He was only good in scenes with Myrtle.

At least, Eden Riegel could act but was rather unattractive. I’d rather homely people who can act.

R377 I have to say the only time, I liked Thorsten Kaye, was on OLTL with Marty, he looks and can act the part of an Irish poet. I didn't buy him as a doctor on Port Charles, or a successful Casino owner on AMC, and he is woefully miscast as Ridge on B&B.

I think Kaye is a pretty good actor. Honestly, the only female on AMC that I thought he had romantic chemistry with was Sabine Singh. He and Minshew were awful together, and he and Eva LaRue, who I think he was originally brought on as a love interest for, had anti-chemistry.

I thought he actually had good chemistry with Lucci, although it might not have translated to romantic chemistry. He dominated and overpowered Kendall -- kind of had some emotionally abusive undertones. Erica was more his equal and he did not treat her like some china doll. Granted, Kaye liked younger characters and Erica was probably too old for him, but I think they had more interesting interactions even if they were platonic.

I barely remember him and Maria - man they botcher her return..

R379 To me LaRue, is a very sexy woman but she rarely has chemistry with her co-stars, even on CSI:Miami. She did with Edmund, but maybe that was real-life bleeding into it. I think Kaye is a good actor as well, I just feel other than OLTL and also Smash, he has been miscast. They keep casting him as a professional or executive, but that just doesn't work for him. I can buy him as a tortured artist, or a bartender like on Smash, but a doctor, casino mogul, or fashion designer just doesn't seem right.

I thought LaRue had good chemistry with Barr and Lucci, but they probably were not going to go there....

I did not think Kaye was bad as Zach, but they wanted to have their cake and eat it to by making him an amoral casino owner, but this great family guy who everyone looked up to and treated like some hero. He was kind of a controlling ass, but was rarely called out on it.

[quote]but they wanted to have their cake and eat it to by making him an amoral casino owner, but this great family guy who everyone looked up to and treated like some hero.

You mean sorta like Sonny Corenthos on GH?

R382 Yeah, they tried to make him sort of like Sonny, the mob godfather & loving family man on GH.

Damn R383, you beat me to it.

i think Feud: Sarah and Susan would make a great follow up to Feud: Bette and Joan.

Actually, I am surprised that no-one has ever made a biopic or series about Irna Phillps or Agnes Nixon. They do not get the feminist credit they deserve, in creating shows and building empires in the male dominated entertainment world.

In SMG’s last year on AMC, she shared little to zero scenes with Lucci. That was telling. That’s why their last scene together was so meta and true to life. It felt so layered and fraught given the rumors of their own feud. I still have it on VHS like the raging homosexual I am. Susan looked gorgeous in that scene- I still remember. But it was Erica forgiving her and sending her on her way- more than a little wary. Their hug was epic. To be a fly on the wall in the studio that day!

Here it is

Part 2 -- in an era where they tended to make gray characters exit as a crazy psychotic - they took the high road here. Nice use of Mona..

Thanks for that R389, R390, I wasn't really watching AMC at that point. Both of them have that tendancy toward breathy, head-shaking delivery, but it was relatively constrained in this scene.

[quote] Yeah, they tried to make him sort of like Sonny, the mob godfather

EVERY daytime show has tried that.

Frons used the GH template of two sorta anti-heroes (Sonny and Jason) as the male leads, and tried to leverage it on OLTL (McBain and Todd) and AMC (Zack and Ryan). I'd say AMC was the the least successful with that template.

R389- do you have/can you find the clip of Erica reading Kendall’s goodbye letter to her, which prompted this last in person visit in the first place? I remember it was really poignant with a good use of flashbacks.

R393, Frons did that back in the 80s when he was head of NBC Daytime with DAYS of Our Lives, Bo and Roman, and I'm guessing Another World too.

Interestingly Deidre Hall STILL has nothing but nice things to say about Frons, when she returned to DAYS in 2011 and they asked her about the cancellation of AMC AND OLTL and Frons comnents, she said something like, "Maybe he was misquoted, he was always very good to me and he made sure that Marlena become a popular and important character and kept me front and center all those years and I consider him a friend"

R394 -- the preceding episode with Erica reading the letter.

So I was at a Memorial Day party and there were a few dozen guys there. One was a big butch muscle bear who had the obligatory tank top on, full beard, being all growly and talking to others with one word responses.

The host had a whole 80s thing going on and was playing different snippets of different videos.

This opening came on and EVERYONE in the room got silent. I turned to look at Butch Bear thinking he was going to say something snarky.

Gurl.....he had a TEAR running down his face. Which made a few others of us cry, too.

MARY!

MARY!

Oops. The opening is this one

r387, because a show about people writing soap operas at their desk all day is OH so interesting. Idiot.

R399 Think of a Mad Men type show set in the 1950's, 60's, or 70's about the creator, cast and crew of a soap opera, you don't think that would be interesting?

r400, no, because soap opera writers live in their heads, they don't live in the outside world. There is zero dramatic content to be had with people who sit at desks writing dramatic content.

I've always thought a soap opera would be an interesting setting for a season of American Horror Story.

R401 have you ever read anything about Irna Phillips or Agnes Nixon, there is some great feminist drama to be had with them fighting the male dominated networks, and advertising agencies, to create their vision. Or their interactions with the "stars" on their shows. You could do a whole storyline, just about Irna Phillips fighting CBS and Proctor and Gamble, when they demanded The Guiding Light start airing in color, she fought tooth and nail, but in the end when she knew she had been beat, she wrote the first color episode to take place in Ceders Hospital, so that it was almost useless that it was in color. Or, Agnes Nixon, being inspired to craft the first medical awareness storyline about Bert Bauer's pap-smear because Agnes' friend died from cervical cancer. Or, the behind the scenes controversy around the character of Carla Gray on OLTL, and the threats from racists and nervous network executives. Or, her fights with ABC over AMC having characters that were against Vietnam or Erica having the first legal abortion in daytime. If you don't think an entertaining drama series could be built around these women, you have no imagination.

There have been attempts to cover Phillips' life and contributions to the genre, both in documentary form and in a dramatization.

That's all I can say on that, but people HAVE tried.

As for Agnes: although I didn't think the book did a good job of covering AMC or her later years, her early story is very fascinating. I could totally see that being made into a limited series or movie.

When are we going to get a film about Jean Passanante's life? She is a liberal feminist, and a wonderful writer.

I want a movie about Tricia Pursley.

r404 Yeah, unfortunately, Agnes's bio didn't really shed much light on the battles she had to fight for AMC.

Its been reproved that she had dementia and that was evident in the book, especially in the second half when she's talking about writing for soaps. Lots of mistakes in that section. Lots of details that were left untold.

R405 uh NO she's not.

R406, would the film be based on her memoir, titled, 'Lickety Splits' ?

Part of the problem with Phillips' life is that the truth of it is very hazy.

She may or may not have had an abortion (well before it was legal) and her adoption of two kids apparently had tones of Mommie Dearest to it all.

She was also, to put it politely, an ubercunt to almost everyone she worked for or with, and so people are not brimming with joy to revisit that time or their memories of her.

Irna Phillips is mentioned a lot in Ken Corday's Days of Our Lives book/autobiography

Along with his parents, Ted and Betty Corday, she helped develop and create DAYS as well

Agnes Nixon is mentioned a bit too as a very good friend of his parents and mentor to his father Ted when they worked on As The World Turns together in NYC

R410, time is also not on the side of people wanting firsthand accounts in the Irna biography. There's only so many people still living.

Dumbass paycho Serial asshole nutcase is at it again. He’s truly psychotic and needs hospitalization.

Were there ever any two more boring people in Pine Valley than Dr. Stephen Hamill and district attorney Galen Henderson?

R414 Those two were sure duds. I remember they removed them from the opening credits very quickly after they left. They last aired on a Thursday and the updated credits without them debuted the following Monday.

I just want to point out that the ratings for AMC plummeted after Sarah Michelle Gellar left and they never regained. It was a strong number 2 out of about a dozen soaps for about 5 years up to that point.

R416 that's because Days of Our Lives was at it's James Reilly camp mid 90s peak by1995, the same year Geller left AMC, Days replaced it as the #2 soap in the ratings until 2000.

No, r417, the ratings for AMC dropped because Gellar left, not because AMC viewers tuned into Days instead. Soap viewers never betray their network of choice. ABC viewers watch ABC soaps only and so forth.

R418 OK than where were those DAYS viewers in the early 90s when ratings were bad

Studies have shown, time and time again, that especially with younger people, they will LEAVE a network to watch a soap on a competing network. It happened with the General Hospital phenomenon of the late 70s/early 80s, Another World was moved out of the 3 o clock slot because so many fans had flocked over to GH and Guiding Light suffered from it as well. There were TONS of articles written about it as well

Days was always that odd NBC soap that would creep up and steal viewers from ABC and CBS soaps, even Ken Corday had talked about this, which is why when DAYS ratings went through the roof in the mid 90s, NONE of the other NBC soapis, most notably Another World saw ratings increases because DAYS was purging views from AMC and to a lesser extent Y&R and of course NEW soap viewed started watching

Wasn't Days the only soap that increased ratings at that time? Ratings across the board had never really recovered from the OJ trial and then all of a sudden Days is surging. with its over the top possession story. I think AMC's drop in ratings was partially due to losing some viewers directly to Days, but I think they lost more because they tried to be more like Days with wacky story lines (voodoo in Jamaica -- Coma Mateo - and eventually baby-napping Erica).

I don't think SMG leaving tanked the ratings (it had been solid prior to her coming), but I think within a year after she left the writing really started to suffer. AMC started to make adjustments as soon as Days passed it, and I think some were knee-jerk reactions that did more harm than good. This was also around the time of the appearance of the skyline and the show losing its identity. I wonder where the arrival of Disney fits into the timeline.

Almost all the shows lost audience after 1995 because of OJ.

There was also some kind of change in policy at all three networks about affiliates carrying programs, it may have been an FCC level change, but long story short, after 1994-95 stations were not AS obligated to carry programs as they did before, and all the shows experienced a drop in ratings because several affiliates dropped them. Guiding Light was particularly affected, as a whole bunch dropped the show and many more moved to carry it at another time.

Another thing when DAYS was the only soap to gain viewers in the mid 90s, AND lost viewers at a higher percentage than any other soap

That's hardly a coincidence

AMC had overtaken GH as the top ABC soap in 1990 but by 1995 was in second place on ABC with GH back at first and GH managed that while also losin viewers! They just weren't losing them as rapidly as AMC because of

Days of Our Lives being it's DIRECT timeslot competition

Mostly anyway

I meant AMC lost viewers at a higher percentage than any other soap

Disney acquired ABC in 1995. Things got real bad real quick.

How did Sarah Michelle Gellar avoid the soap opera curse and get a huge gig with Buffy? It's unheard of to see soap actors succeed elsewhere (with rare exceptions like SMG, Anne Heche and Julianne Moore)

A lot of actors who got their start on soaps went on to success in other venues. Meg Ryan, Marissa Tomei, Ted Danson, Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Kathleen Turner, Julia Duffy, Rue McClanahan, Don Knotts, John Stamos, Larry Hagman, Susan Sullivan, Melissa Leo, Donna Mills, Phylicia Rashad, Tom Selleck, JoBeth Williams, Tommy Lee Jones, Blair Underwood, Tom Berenger, Michael B. Jordan, Amanda Seyfried, to name just a few.

She left after two years and she was still very young. Most of the people who have post-soap careers put in their time and move on. There are actually a fair amount of examples, esp i the seventies, Meg Ryan, Christopher Reeves, Demi Moore, Alec Baldwin,Kathleen Turner, Tommy Lee Jones, Laurence Fishburne etc.

I think once one becomes known for their soap role it becomes more difficult.

Which is why I'm pretty impressed Judith Light pulled off the daytime-nighttime transition. Granted, it was a smarts and luck combo. Several guest appearances after OLTL and ABC not throwing in the towel on Who's the Boss?

I think Gellar's post-Buffy career should be considered. She's not what anyone would consider an in-demand actress.

Kim Delaney wound up with a pretty signifcant primetime career after it seemed like she disappeared from the planet for about a decade after she left AMC.

[quote]Kim Delaney wound up with a pretty signifcant primetime career after it seemed like she disappeared from the planet for about a decade after she left AMC.

I remember on one of Tad's returns Knight was interviewed and he gave Kim' kudos for perseverance and pounding the pavement for so long and working so hard in between AMC and finally succeeding in prime time. He came back pretty quickly both times.

I also remember him commenting on learning from their mistake of killing off Jenny when Dixie's exits left it more open for her to return (except for death by pancakes - from which still returned). I wonder if when she was struggling, if Kim would have returned as Jenny if the character had not been so truly dead.

Did Knight leave twice to try to make the move to primetime/tv film? I remember his first departure in the mid-'80s when he made the feature Date with an Angel, which was a pretty high profile project for a soap actor. The film flopped, but I can't remember when he returned, was his first return when he met Dixie? Was the second return when he came back as Ted Orsini? It must have been after the second return that he 'let himself go' physically.

Exactly - his first return was when he met Dixie (I think he had moved to CA when his marriage to Hillary imploded). His second exit was when Billy Clyde "killed" him just before he was supposed to remarry Dixie and just when Brooke found out she was pregnant with his child. He then came back thinking he was Ted Orsini and yes -- he was still thin on his first return. He was a little heavier when he returned as Ted -- then lost a bit of the weight before he gradually got heavier with each passing year.

Michael Knight left in 1986, returned in 1988. He left again in 1990 and returned in late 1992.

AMC didn't have that many cast members do the "I'm going to Hollywood!"/"Can I have my job back?" experience. At least, not many I can recall.

^Eva LaRue and Budig come to mind. Also Peter Bergman left in 1986 and then returned in 1987. Did he leave to pursue a Hollywood career? I think he was on Days before he returned to AMC.

Bergman on Days? I know Robert S. Woods (of OLTL) played the guy temporarily raising Shane & Kimberly's kidnapped son.

hmmm, I could've sworn he was on Days very briefly during his hiatus from AMC, but it's not in his imdb profile.

Forgot that Budig left/returned, she was one of the few bright spots of latter day AMC (and Josh Duhamel)

Didn't she return with a new face? A pity -- the first one was lovely.

How many Taras were there? I remember Karen Lynn Gorney, Nancy Frangione, Mary Lynn Blanks, and Stephanie Braxton, but I feel like I'm forgetting one. Would've been interesting to see Dee Hall in the role, as was rumored when AMC moved to LA.

Budig was such a strong actress, especially in comparison with Minshew who she always seemed to be put together with, I really wish they would have allowed Greenlee to expand and grow more and give her more interesting characters (and better actors) to engage with.

They should've get Greenlee's parents and grandparents around and grew them as a new core family. That would've been very interesting. The Greenlee/Smythe family could've been a latter day version of the Tylers.

I wonder if the Smythes would have had a bigger impact had Anna Stuart and Mark Pinter joined right after Another World went off the air. I know Anna made recurring appearances as Donna Love on ATWT for a few years, though.

R438 He was on DAYS. IMDB is about as dependable as Wikipedia.

I would have LOVED for Anna Stuart to become more front burner on AMC. She was so underused there. And Mary Smythe could have been Phoebe/Enid v 2.0, etc.

But Mary is such a wimpy, namby pamby name for a soap character. Anna Banana didn’t fit it. Neither did her gal pal Geraldine Court who played Bob Georgia’s mom Mary.

R435 Mark LaMura left AMC for a little while and landed a few guest spots on LA Law before returning. They wrote him out in early 1989 when Kathleen Noone left to go give Hollywood a try. He wanted to stay then but I guess they didn't have any ideas for Mark then and had him and Ellen leave town together.

I remember thinking when Greenlee was first on she would have been a good recast Kendall. She seemed more like a young Erica than Minshaw. Greenlee was much more interesting before they tied her to Ryan and Kendall.

Since she was not a recast Kendall, I do wish they would have kept her grandparents around and not changed her parentage. Roger was a much more interesting father for her than Jack, and he and Mary brought some nice blue blood dysfunction (and could act). The Courtlandts were pretty much done by then, they could have filled that void.

Speaking of leaving and coming back -- everyone's favorite Cameron left and somehow came back as the leading man.

What on earth *was* Cameron's appeal? Did he appeal that much to casual/frau viewers, or was it a case of we'll make a leading man out of any man?

He was not popular on any of the boards I used to read and no one liked the Ryan-Greenlee pairing. I almost think he simply appealed to Frons and what he thought a leading man should be.

He was ok as a supporting player who was a likable cad - but he could be grating when on full time and you saw him try to deal with angst - such as his abusive history with his father etc.

Cameron Matheson isn't much of an actor, and Ryan was an annoying character. Frons loved him though.

Then they foisted the numerous Lavery siblings on the audience over the years as well.

[quote]Then they foisted the numerous Lavery siblings on the audience over the years as well.

Who thought it would be a good idea to have one of the siblings be a psychopath and then reform him via brain tumor and then have him walk around post-surgery talking like a combo of a mentally challenged child and Frankenstein's monster - saying things like "I am good now - they cut the bad out".

Then to make it even better pair the killer with the bad cut out with Jack's underage, sheltered, autistic daughter and have all of their conversations sound like two mentally challenged people finding live in a 1970's after school special.

R445 I think almost every actor whose been on AMC, OLTL and ESPECIALLY GH has been on DAYS at one time or another

Its like a right or passage

Even Dorothy Lyman (original Opal), in one of her last on screen roles, played a Countess on DAYS in the early 2000s

Kathleen Noone decided to leave in 89 when she realized she would never get a front-burner story again. I remember her exit interview with SOD, and she said that the show was going through a transition and that Ellen was no longer integral to the canvass. She said that Agnes told her that she hoped she would return one day. She and LaMura left in February 89, just a few weeks before FMB took over as EP from Steve Schenkel.

Noone did pretty good in prime time, she landed Knots Landing plus lots of guest starring spots considering her age and a lack of credits besides soap and theater work. She said her Emmy didn't impress anyone in Hollywood. She is a great actress and that came through for her.

She later returned to daytime for Sunset Beach and Passions, where she interesting characters to play. She was a bright spot on those lackluster shows. Passions in particular was an awful show.

Mark LaMura looked like he'd be a passionate lover.

LaMura was Italian and German and there often very sexual. And well-endowed.

Mmm.

R456 Kathleen Noone was also on DAYS briefly in 2001 according to IMDB

In between Sunset Beach and Passions

LaMura used to date Andrea Moar, who played Carrie Tyler for several years. She died in an accidental drowning a few years ago.

What was the story with Aiden Turner?

^Is he the actor that MEK fell hard for who wound up mind-fucking poor Knight?

No, r463, that was James Scott.

What did Scott do exactly to Knight?

Aiden Turner played Aidan (spelled differently) Devane. He was handsome in a boxy-headed, rough English trade, kind of way. I never warmed up to him. I think the forced storyline with his discovery of an amnesiac Maria (calling herself Maureen Gorman), acting as a spoiler in the Edmund/Maria reunion made him unlikable.

Was it he who had anger issues in real life or was that Colin Egglesfield? Both handsome, square-skulled, dark-haired men who were wooden act. I recall one or the other beat up a girlfriend, but I can’t recall which or, even, if it was both.

Both men were good eye candy. The sort one doesn’t really want to speak.

R465, the rumor is that James Scott (another large-craniumed looker who could have used acting lessons) was aware that Michael E. Knight had a crush on him, flirted shamelessly with him, and encouraged him to believe there was a possibility of a relationship. Why he would do that escapes me. I never understood that part of it. The story goes that MEK was humiliated and that coupled with Thorsten’s dislike of playing the father to a grown, giant man caused for Scott’s character, Ethan to be killed in the Mardi Gras Ball explosion caused by Janet Green during one of Kate Collins’ returns to the show.

I'm guessing Scott's motivation was because he could. That's usually how people who do things like that operate.

MEK was an experienced man in his mid-40s. James Scott was 20 years younger, as hot as fuck and new in the country. That's how all hot guys operate, and lusting after James Scott's dick was always going to end in tears for MEK.

Can we change the subject, please?

Is Scott gay or bi?

Kola Boof claimed that she gave James Scott a blowjob in his dressing room at Days.

Dierdre Hall claimed that JS gave her a blowjob in her dressing room at Days

Scott is supposedly straight,

How did those old queens like Edmund and Mitchell deal with the endless parade of hunks throughout the years.

Let's just say, R474, you wouldn't want to be the guy who had to clean the walls in their dressing rooms.

There were scenes during which you could tell Palmer was checking out Tad, Craig, Will, Cliff, etc. while waiting to say his lines. He would get this hard stare and the corners of his mouth would twitch ever so slightly. Then, he’d snap out of it and engage in whatever dialogue he’d have.

Louis Edmunds was less subtle. There came a point in the late 80s, early 90s when he didn’t even pretend to be paying attention to the scene and would just be looking around, looking at the guys, the scenery, anything he could see. Around about then, Langley was usually said to be on an archeological dig (odd because the character was a conman, not actually a professor) or at a coin convention. And when he was around, he’d never get more than one or two lines. I think he was slowing down/succumbing to whatever cancer he had. At a point, they made Langley a host at Kelly’s and he’d just stand behind the bar, silently watching.

While jerking his pud to a young Maurice Benard...

Most certainly, r477.

R477, so was my twelve year old self...

I used to JO to a young Maurice Benard too. Loved his beefy body.

I'm so ashamed, but I still liked Maurice during the Vanessa Marcil years.

Good lord, never bring Kola the liar into this. She lies about everything. Ugh!!!!!!!

Someone who worked on the show told me Edmonds would show up at the studio on days he wasn’t working, just to check out the boys coming in to audition for Tad. A lot of them were sent in by modeling agencies like Wilhelmina.

1982 cast photo. Probably at its zenith this and the next two years.

R484- Amanda Bearse looks super butch in that photo. That’s when she was shacking up with Sandra Bernhard.

Damn, what a cast! Really great ensemble cast back in the day.

For all the attention Susan garnered, I do think AMC was very much an ensemble show.

Sure, Susan was the nominal star and her name got the show press, and nonsoap viewers called AMC the Erica Kane Show, but those of us who were fans of the show know that there was so much more to AMC than just Erica. I would say that during the show's heydey, she never even had the strongest stories. When all is said and done, AMC was a show about family and community filled with some colorful characters. That's how I choose to remember it, and not the dreck Frons foisted on the show from 2003 till the end. I know, MARY!

Erica was the mascot of the show. She was the face. She was no more the star than the mayor of a town is the most valuable citizen. Nevertheless, as a face and a mascot, she served it well.

Susan brings that up in most interviews -- that it was such a great cast. When I first started watching the show, she and Brooke were the leads, and maybe on about 3 times a week. I would say the a-list people were on three times a week and the b-list people two days a week - using a large cast.

By around 2000 whoever was the pet would be on 6 days a week for weeks at a time. First Hayley and Mateo - then Greenlee when she as at least more bearable - they Greenlee-Kendall-Ryan -- Babe etc.

Even Lucci would agree that she was part of an ensemble. It's what allowed her character to evolve, arguably (if you discount her wearing cocktail dresses well into her 60s and all that).

I wish Kate Collins had never left. Natalie was such a wonderful combination of Erica and Brooke... I always looked forward to watching her.

Obviously meant 5 times a week,,, (although it felt like 6).

The b-list people really suffered, because instead of being on two times a week it was about once every other week and no momentum every built on the stories. That is why I think a lot of the new people never took off at the end - they were never really allowed to develop or if they were given air time they were over-exposed before people cared about them. New people were either on too much or not enough,

r493, every show became guilty of that.

I’m with you, r492.

Some fun facts:

-Tom Poston's daughter Francesca was the original Donna.

-David Canary's real-life brother John Canary played Dr. Allen Voight, the doctor who sexually harassed Angie in the mid-80s.

-Natalie Ross (Enid) and Lisa Wilkinson (Nancy) were very good friends IRL, and even did a radio soap together. In the string of 1995 reunion episodes, Nancy accidentally bumps into Enid as she's exiting the Martin house.

-Erika Slezak was in the running for the role of Mary Kennicott, which eventually went to Susan Blanchard

-Candice Earley and Robin Strasser became good friends while they did AMC together. Robin introduced Candi to Clint Ritchie at an ABC party.

-Sasha von Scherler, who played Brooke's mother in the mid-80s, was IRL the wife of Paul Avila Mayer, co-creator of Ryan's Hope.

Good stuff, r496. Thank you!

r496:

R498- oh my god, I just watched that whole thing. That is amazing! First of all- what a sign of the times. The discussion around morality on soaps - how an unmarried woman who goes to bed with a man will always pay a consequence - and discussing that like it’s a good thing (!!!) is so indicative of the double standard. Robin saying she has no plans to ever leave soaps to pursue film or prime time stardom... well she sure changed her mind on that one. This was so fun to watch!!

Please buy my new product, Vaginal Steam Surprise!

It keeps your snatch as fresh as morning dew on a daisy!

Don't worry, old Dee Dee Halls over at DAYS, I'll send you one at wholesale price!

Dee Dee’s snatch is beyond repair.

Despite the hideous steel guitar I didn't mind this one so much.

But it isn't the tearjerking fabulousness at R398.

The falling pictures theme was genius, but I wished they would've kept a more contemporary version of the classic 1970-1989 theme. I don't understand why networks try to fix the stuff that isn't broken.

The early 90s opening coincided with the show going to number 2 in the ratings, and it was certainly more cheerful and upbeat than the dour nursery rhyme lullaby opening as I called it, with the hand opening the book.

It would have been interesting if Robin Mattson had brought Heather Webber to AMC in the 90s instead of playing Janet, who would have been left to languish behind bars, that way we could have gotten a Natalie/Trevor/Heather triangle.

I have a great visceral reaction and memory to that early 90s theme and opening. It is forever associated with a really great period of that show, a period that rivaled it’s early 80s glory. The 70s/80s theme with the “bible” is hard core childhood for me. I am home for lunch eating peanut butter sandwiches and then straight back to grade school.

Kate Collins leaving AMC and Andrea Evans/Fiona Hutchison leaving OLTL were absolutely horrendous losses. The industry never valued these unique and wonderful actresses.

I have the same reaction, r506. That early 90s theme by Billy Barber (which was resurrected in the early 2000s and stayed with the show with slight variations until the end) is AMC to me. The violin and flute original theme reminds me of being a little kid as my mom watched. The “falling pictures” version of the Billy Barber theme especially puts me in a nostalgic mood, recalling high school and coming home at lunch to see if Nat was going to finally get out of the well.

I hated the theme in between this falling pictures version and its resurrection around 2001. They used two versions of that other theme—one disco-ish, the other mawkish.

Here are all the themes, including the weird PP vocal one.

The Y&R style opening that AMC adopted with the white background and faces was absolutely horrendous and probably a last ditch attempt to dethrone Y&R from the top spot. It had the opposite effect.

You’re right, r507, and we fans are still talking about them decades later. I wonder if any of the old TPTB stumble across these or similar website threads (those who aren’t too senile) and have a second of regret. Probably not.

AMC's 1997 Emmy montage, using the song "Will you love me still?" by Chakha Khan... unfortunately, the public's love affair with Pine Valley was waning by this time.

The 1998 Emmy montage... notice how dark the footage looks... almost barely visible. The show was definitely going through a crisis period, creatively and production wise.

One of the most botched, most misbegotten moves in AMC history was ever bringing on Eric Kane. It was fucked from beginning to end. First they rolled him out as Barney the Clown. Jesus Christ- what can even be said about that? Then... the actor they cast looked significantly younger than Frau Heflin. It was super weird. He was a silver fox but he looked like her younger brother, not ex-husband. They then had him flirt with Natalie for a hot second which would’ve FINALLY been super compelling (can you imagine the showdown and storylines that would happen if Natalie fell for Erica’s daddy dearest???) and then he just left. He was basically an extra toward the end. I wish I knew the back story. Was the actor a jerk? A rapist? Halitosis?? Did Susan hate him? Why did they bother in the first place?

Agreed R513. I just don't think they knew what to do with him. Casting director fail, for sure.

LOL at this Emmy footage with Finola interviewing the Fusion girls about their wardrobe! "Terri, how did you come?" "That's a loaded question, Fin. I don't think I'll be able to answer because Grandma might be watching."

I think once they brought Eric back they just didn't know what to with him. Plus they had much more compelling silver foxes in James Mitchell and David Canary. Albert Stratton who played Eric was a good actor, but miscast. Margaret DePriest brought him on. Agnes got rid of him soon after she retook the reins in 1990. They really fucked around with Erica's history purely for shock value. First Eric's appearance, Kendall coming on the scene, and worst of all that unabortion story. With the latter, what the hell was McTavish thinking? It was insulting and wrong on so many levels. How did that ever get greenlit?

Does anyone remember the early 90s Bianca? She was such a Devil child. I was convinced she was going to grow up into an evil character, but I suppose them making her a lesbian was their way of saying something 'went wrong'.

This is awful to say but the actress who played anorexic Bianca had a face only a mother could love ... on payday. Homely, homely child.

I remember Soap Opera Weekly reviewing all the current soap theme songs back in the early 90s. They gave AMC's them an ok review but said it was a little like elevator music. They mentioned that they show needed the updated music because the original was starting to sound Cro-Magnon (or something to that effect).

R517 I think you mean Gina Gallagher's Bianca. She was an insufferable little snot.

R518 that was Nathalie Paulding. She was a homely child and looked sickly, which fit well with Bianca being anorexic. She still acts today and is fairly attractive as an adult though (and obviously had a nose job). Her mother ruffled some feathers when she said her daughter was the reason Lucci finally won an Emmy. I'm not sure if Bianca was seen again until a few years later when they cast Eden Riegel as a somewhat SORASed Bianca.

When these actresses - Judith Barcroft, Karen Gorney, Susan Blanchard were on the show they were all as popular as Susan Lucci. Erica was a fun brat and Susan was terrific in the role, but the audience really didn't start to root for her until she had the affair with Nick Davis. Susan waited all those other ladies out and became the show. Not saying it was good or bad, it was just the truth. Susan was never going to be bothered by Julia Barr or lesser ladies like that.

Lucci was always a lesser in every department but PR. She knew how to work it, to take two and two and make it ten.

Lucci and her husband were very savvy about promotion. She played up all the press attention for her many Emmy noms and losses and even got on SNL.

She knew she had some power when negotiating her contracts and had it put in them for several years where she would star in ABC TV movies. Those did good with ratings for the most part. And then she did Dallas, did lots of talk show appearances and in non-soap press, and selling stuff on the shopping networks. It got her known outside of daytime. That's why she's still getting work in her 70s post AMC.

Holy cow, I could name everybody in that 1994 opening. That said, why is Janet's picture with Tom's group?

Whoever Janet Green's plastic surgeon was did an amazing job. Robin Mattson never looked better than she did on AMC, even when she was on SB.

After a point, r523, the groupings had little rhyme nor reason. When new contract players were added, a photo was added into the pre-made CGI template. If there was already an empty animation loaded into a group that made sense, they’d add the character there, but sometimes there wasn’t. That’s how we ended up with Derek Frye falling next to Mona Kane in 1992 and Craig Lawson taking Travis’ empty spot right before the final picture of Erica. It was the one great flaw of the “falling pictures” open. After a coup,e of years, it became a jumble of unrelated characters, but, as originally planned, the groups made sense.

I always liked John Callahan’s red shirt in the opening. I wonder if he ever puked on it whilst drinking heavily in his dressing room.

And to that end, I’m sure one underpaid graphic designer had to airbrush out the white powder from Michael Nader’s nose.

Why do you think Michael had to shave the beard? Cookie duster, indeed. More like dust catcher.

[quote]Susan was never going to be bothered by Julia Barr or lesser ladies like that.

I have only seen a few clips of Tara and then on her return as Lawford's mother, but Barr seemed to be a much more compelling actor than the Tara's and a more interesting character.

Watching that 1997 clip at R511 , it really was a big turning point. The good story lines shown were all ending or had ended by the time the clip was made, and anything that was new at the time was not great. 1997 started with some good stories, but the show was much weaker as the year ended.

The Eric things was weird. When Erica was tracking him as a clown, there were a lot of suggestions that he was dangerous and perhaps a murderous criminal. Instead after a brief flirtation with Natalie, he was basically a busy body who tried to manipulate Erica to reunite with Travis -- they had a falling out [which I missed - it must have been very quick] and he sold his Enchantment stock to one of Erica's enemies (Natalie or Adam) and left town never to be seen again and barely mentioned until all of a sudden years later we heard he died sending Erica into one of her worst stories as a Las Vegas showgirl.

Erica as showgirl has some competition from her being Sally, the diner waitress. I can’t remember why Erica went on the run and pretended to be a small town diner waitress but I remember it was a blatant rip off of when Valene Ewing had a psychotic break after the twins were kidnapped and became Verna Ellers on Knots Landing. That was far superior as far as those things go.

Curiously for the first third of the 80s, they kept Erica isolated from the rest of the show. They had her living in her Manhattan showplace living a glamorous life and she barely interacted with many of the other characters. That actually made sense for the character.

[quote] I can’t remember why Erica went on the run and pretended to be a small town diner waitres

Travis had faked his kidnapping although she thought it was real, and his doing this caused Bianca to be really kidnapped. She felt she needed to get away from him. It was a really contrived way to break up the couple (they had a fairly happy marriage). It did kind of bug me later, it was usually implied it was Erica's fault the marriage ended when Travis really got the ball rolling with a really reckless, criminal act. I thought they were an ok couple the first year or so, but he really could be a self-righteous twerp and got worse during his run.

When Erica was wanted for murder, she hid at a boarding house run by Mia Farrow's mother (the actress' name escapes me atm), anyway the boarding house was in Llanview, although Erica didn't run into anyone from OLTL.

R530 Too bad they didn't have Erica do a similar scene to this one. I would've been hilarious.

*It* would've been hilarious.

I would have loved 1988 Erica running into Viki (assuming this wasn't while the Old West time travel was going on). Did Susan and Erika play any part in the AMC-OLTL baby swap storyline?

Here's an AMC episode from 1991 where Adam Chandler threatens to go to the Intruder and "our mutual friend Dorian Lord" with some salacious tidbit and Erica Kane calls her "a filth monger". Go to 5:43 of the clip:

There was a strange quality shift in the summer of 1992. I’ve been watching 1991-1992 episodes on YouTube. After the resolution of the Natalie/Janet saga, murder of Will, Craig/Gloria/Dixie, Brian/Hayley/An Li, etc. storylines, there’s a very obvious dip into what feels like aimless storytelling.

The personification of it is the introduction of icky Peter Lawford’s icky son, Christopher, as Charlie Brent and his mouthful of curving horse teeth. He’s so unctuous and unappealing and his flirtatious interaction with 18 year old Hayley seems like a creepy redux of Will Cortlandt.

They’re pushing Brian and Dixie, Jack and Angelique, Edmund and Brooke, Gloria and Stuart Chandler, Erica as Dimitri’s mistress, Galen and Stephen, Terrence and An Li and have the forced introduction of Taylor Roxbury Cannon and her snobby mother into the Tom and Livia subplot.

Trevor and Natalie are married and immediately boring, but there’s the beginning of the Carter Jones storyline which signals the unholy transformation of Kate Collins into bug-eyed Melody Anderson.

It all feels very rushed and awkward. I don’t recall it having been so uncomfortable, but watching it after 26 years, it seems strange to me after such a great beginning to the year.

They should have had Janet commit suicide in prison and then had Robin Mattson playing Heather Webber from GH come onto AMC, seducing Trevor, who would then dump Natalie for her, as Janet's revenge from beyond the grave, then Nat could go back to her roots and make sure Dimitri never gets Erica to the altar!

r538, you're definitely onto something. I noticed it too. I think it mostly has to do with Agnes, Wisner Washam, and Lorraine Broderick departing in early '92 and having that awful McTavish take over the reins. Something was very off about her writing, but I don't think it was as noticeable as it was in her subsequent tenures, since Agnes was still somewhat involved and she continued with the same characters/storylines that Agnes/Wisner/Lorraine had put into place before she took over.

Not for nothing do soap fans call her Megan McTrash and Megan McTravesty.

The first 1:15 of R534's clip is my morning routine.

I think Erica and Brooke were a great pair as rivals. The complemented each other so well, Erica all breathy and over the top and Brooke so down to earth and dry. I wish they had more scenes together.

I agree, r543. Their scenes together were gold. You could always tell that beneath the bitching and barbs, there was a grudging respect between the two characters.

When the writing was good, Brooke and Erica had a nice complex relationship. They were never friends, but over time, as much as they drove each other crazy, I think they enjoyed sparring with each other and had some grudging respect. It was not completely out of left field when they would occasionally offer each other support. On the other hand, while Natalie/Erica and Maria/Erica scenes could be fun, it was more of a straight out dislike to hate.

Erica and Greenlee had an interesting dynamic at first as well, but then got rather one note once Erica and Kendall resolved their differences and Greenlee became Jack's daughter.

R529 I'm here to school you on what a big deal Tara and Phil were. They were in love and then Phil found out he was not Ruth's son, but her nephew - his mother Amy had an affair with Nick Davis that resulted in her pregnancy with Phillip. She gave the baby to Ruth and her husband Ted to raise. FF to Erica finding out, telling Phillip - he went nuts, broke up with Tara and Tara got together with Chuck Tyler to whom she almost married until Chuck got sick at the altar and Nick spoke up to oppose the nuptials. Tara and Phil drifted back to each other, got engaged and then Phil gets drafted to VietNam. They have ONE night to wed before he ships out and there's a blizzard - no one to marry them!! They MARRY THEMSELVES - or recite marital vows holding candles in a church and Tara gets preggers that night. Wow I'm exhausted.

Yeah, Brooke was such a more interesting character. LOL.

Serial asshole. Invading this thread. GO away asshole!

What/who is a Spicen? I’m relatively new to DL and have seen this a few times. Can someone illuminate me?

Yeah, 1992 wasn't a great year, but they turned it around and it was still pretty great for the rest of the 90s. Well, things did go awry around 1998.

Seriously, R548, it's not worth mentioning. You just hope it goes away before it gets the thread shut down.

R548 There are a few soap queens who fight on Twitter and also bring their nonsense here. They are literally fighting with each other only. Spicen is one and "Serial" is the other, I think.

They think somehow that there are people here who give a rat's ass about their dispute.

Alas, there are none.

I never liked the Hayley character and focusing on her as the female star of AMC as the 90s went on was a BIG mistake

Kelly Ripa simply wasn't much of an actress

I never liked Hayley either., especially during that period. She was always whiny and unreasonable. Her attitude was off-putting. I also found her to be hard and couldn’t understand why all these men wanted her. She wasn’t tough and strong, she was just hard and abrasive. Even her attempts at humor seemed strident and cutting. Part of it was the writing, but most of the blame goes to Kelly Ripa whose acting left something to be desired.

Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard.

Kelly Ripa as an Emmy nomination.

Kate Collins does not.

What a world.

Kunt Collins never deserved an Emmy nomination. That is why she doesn’t have one.

R556 is Susan Lucci

I remember when Kelly Ripa gradually lost weight and slowly became legitimately gorgeous. I’ll never forget overhearing 2 straight dudes saying “how hot” Hayley is on All My Children in one of my college classes, had to be circa 1997.

What was Ripa nominated for? Hayley managing to suck off Alec's pendulous dong balls deep?

Hayley was a character created strictly to fulfill "frau fantasies ", the chubby poor girl whose father is revealed to be one of the richest men in the world and who has a legitimately hot boyfriend, Brian Bodine,

The fraus LOVE that shit!

I remember almost being banned from An AMC memories Facebook page because I commented that I was on Arlene 's side and how awesome it was that she got to be fucked by Alec, when Alex was fucking her during his engagement to her daughter, Hayley

The fraus were horrified because they LOVED Hayley and Arlene was a terrible mother who "needed God", plus they didn't like the fact that I cursed

I think a lot of gay men identified with and wanted to be Arlene. Her sex scenes with Grant were very erotic.

Grant was super hot. And Olivia Berkland was a really good actress. I actually thought both actressses who played Arlene were great- albeit night and day. Phyllis Lyons was a great tragic drunk. Olivia was more of a minx. Why they didn’t make Arlene a long term contract role is beyond me.

Olivia Berkland was a real find and they really dropped the ball with not keeping her around.

I wonder how Ripa felt about the woman playing her mother having more sex appeal than her. Berkland was only 7 years older than Ripa.

Her last name was actually Birkelund, wasn’t it?

R654 Yes, you're right about the spelling.

Do you think Kate and Jean ever, ya know, did it? I know he's gay blah blah blah, but they seemed really close IRL and had amazing romantic chemistry.

R568 No.

Despite what Will & Grace portrays, gay men generally do not want to poke the cooters of straight ladies.

They were friends and good actors, so they made it work.

Was Nat and Jeremy before or after Erica/Jeremy?

The second Arlene was fantastic. I can kind of see how she might not have been a viable full time character, but I wish she would have popped up more.

Ripa went from looking good to looking skeletal. I have been watching some youtube cllips from 91 to 92. I can kind of see why she hit it off with younger viewers, because she did come across more as a real teen and she and Brian acted two teenagers when together. She also worked with with Canary (although who didn't). She was overused (although it was probably worse a few years later when She and Mateo were on constantly). I do remember one writer saying, it is hard to imagine AMC without the chipmunk cheeked, alcoholic teen virgin widow of a rapist, but it would be nice to try. It was a bit ridiculous how quickly she became a raging alcoholic, esp. since she was wary of drink because of Arlene. I think it was basically one sip of champagne.

Erica and Jeremy were dating and Natalie was brought on as a spoiler trying to seduce Jeremy back. It ended up failing, but after Erica and Jeremy broke up Natalie softened and then was raped which attracted Jeremy who had a damsel in distress complex. That is when they got together for real, but after all the build-up and history had a short marriage even by soap standards.

FMB and Maggie DePriest broke up Jeremy and Natalie, but I'm not sure why. They were extremely popular.

A few random thoughts from the 91 clips. Erica would have been a difficult ex to co-parent with, but Travis was borderline psycho with his anger and wanting to punish her. He never saw his fault in anything. I generally liked Barbara, but when she was with Travis she simply agreed with everything he said and never pointed out his hypocrisy. They were kind of smug and self-rightous as they judged Erica and/or Jack (they did the same when they hooked up after the first Erica and Travis marriage).

Charlie was not a good actor. He was good looking, and I liked how Ruth got more to do when he was dating Erica, but when he tried to do drama, it was painful and his scenes going up against Adam were laughable. I like how they used Nick at the end, but it is hard to believe Charlie would not have known he was involved with Erica, even before they were involved. I would think that would have been discussed at the Martin dinner table over the years. They also acted like he and Erica had little contact whereas he had returned as a family friend for a good month or more when Bianca was born and had scenes with Jack who they pretended had never met.

As abrasive and obnoxious as Hayley could be - Uncle Porkchop might have been worse. I was surprised at how unlikable he could seem the second time around. This is blasphemy, but as good as Collins could be, her early Janet could be a bit painful to watch.

I only saw her in a few scenes, but the Katie Kennicott character might have been one of the worse ingenues I have seen. Not only did it seem like a strange idea to bring back someone from the family (I suppose they were trying to make Joey and Katie be the next Jeff and Mary with Emily Anne being kind of the Erica as the wife Joey does not love), but the character was a drip, and the actress really brought out that dripiness.

Jack and Brooke had good friendship chemistry, but really work romantically. They would have these long scenes cooing about each other and the baby, and then Jack would have a two minute scene with Erica, and it was clear she would get him more hot and bothered (which is maybe what they were going for - planning on playing as a rebound relationship destined to implode and never planning for it to be long-term).

My question re Jeremy was that I didn't know if Lucci saw Nat/Jeremy and was jealous of the storyline. But thank you R569 for reminding me of the order.

[quote] This is blasphemy, but as good as Collins could be, her early Janet could be a bit painful to watch.

It was very OTT at first. Once she found the character's essence it took off.

Collins was really quite good. Certainly much better than Lucci.

[quote]My question re Jeremy was that I didn't know if Lucci saw Nat/Jeremy and was jealous of the storyline. But thank you [R569] for reminding me of the order.

It is possible, but Erica had not been in love with Jeremy for awhile by then and never had any wistful glances towards, I am thinking that would not have been an issue. Lucci herself has said the Erica-Jeremy pairing was never her favorite, because she felt Erica acted out of character by trying to be too nice. I don't think she was invested in any Erica-Jeremy legacy.

The Looch certainly had her share of homosexualist co stars

R571, I’m in complete accordance that Trevor was insufferable. I’m watching the same time period on YouTube and I’ve got to say that while I found Trevor annoying in the 90s, now I can’t stomach him. James Kiberd’s 1940s-inspired shtick doesn’t hold up well. Plus, he looks like a Lon Chaney character in too much eye makeup and badly contoured cheek makeup to give an illusion of bone structure. He’s abrasive, certainly, but more often than not, written as utterly without charm, violent and angry.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve read about how badly Kiberd treated Collins that tips the scales, but, even without that knowledge, I wouldn’t be able to stomach him. Collins deserved an Emmy, not just for the bravura turn as the sisters, but for convincingly acting attracted to him. I find myself rooting for Natalie and Dimitri despite knowing, of course, how it turns out. Dimitri was no prize either, but compared to Trevor, he’s a veritable Prince Charming.

Agnes Nixon is responsible for the Natalie and Trevor pairing, which made Kate Collins so miserable. I don't know what the hell Agnes had against Natalie and Jeremy, who were hugely popular together. At least we got some solace when Natalie went off with Dimitri... it's funny, Erica used to torment Brooke about taking all her castoffs, but Dimitri was in Natalie's bed first.

Kate Collins and Michael Nader had zero chemistry, especially since you knew off the bat that they hired Nader for Lucci and weren't going to "waste" him on Collins. I remember cringing whenever he called her "Natalia."

I always wondered why Dimitri, who had been clearly described over and over again as Russian (hence the cringe-inducing rasping of “Natalia” and references to the Tsar), was suddenly made Hungarian nobility under McTavish.

Nader had chemistry on soaps with actresses with the last name Collins

First Joan on Dynasty and then Kate on AMC.

[quote]. it's funny, Erica used to torment Brooke about taking all her castoffs, but Dimitri was in Natalie's bed first.'

And Jeremy was with Natalie first. I liked them but they did have some cringe worthy "flashbacks" to their teenage years, where they had them dressed up as 1950's Happy Days's clones.. Jeremy looked about 40 wearing a letter jacket.

I always thought it was a little odd that the Marrick family had this big estate in Pennsylvania. Did they ever explain why? It sounds like it had been there for awhile (woudln't a young Erica as a social climber try to meet the young count). Even not factoring in Erica, his relationship was so obviously meant to be a temporary roadblock to Trevor that you knew it would not last long. Plus, it was a little creepy. I liked a lot of the story, but never really cared for Angelique. Loved Helga.

Dimitri was sort of a lunatic at times. His introduction with Natalie made him come off as more breathy and romantic while remaining quietly insane, but, the crazy really came out with Erica.

On a side note, how uneven was Angelique? Sometimes she was the trembling, needy wife and other times she was a face-slapping, no nonsense cat. All the while, however, she was portrayed by Season Hubley, with the same stone-faced, crooked mouth expression and monotone delivery. They tried desperately to glam her up with a shorter, darker hairdo, clinging sequined dresses, and big baubles but all that did was make her look more like a boy in a clinging sequin dress.

Imagine, Season Hubley was married to Kurt Russell.

The Janet Green character haunted me. We all knew a Janet in our lives, she is the stereotype of the spinster cat lady every young woman is terrified of becoming. She is every social reject. She is us.

Gazing at Sam Page confirmed for me that I was gay.

R584 Susan Banks on DAYS was very similar to Janet Green

The black wig, glasses, pudginess before losing weight, falling in love with her look a likes lover etc

James Reilly was taking notes

And if that photo doesn't do it, R585 ...

The re-watchers will have to give us their impressions of nu-Natalie, John Wesley Shipp's Cape Fear storyline and Brian/Dixie.

I will preface this by saying I’ve known John Wesley as a casual aquaintance and I’ve told him this to his face. His performance is at once bizarre, nerdy, over-the-top, but still effectively sinister. The issue is that no one cared about Galen/Maggie, and no one cared if Carter killed her. Also, Carter made Stephen’s performances look that much worse. As odd as Carter was and as strange a performance as it was, he looked like Olivier compared the the growling Canadian unevenness of Stephen “I’m sore-ry” Hammill.

Furthermore, Trevor’s over-interest in protecting Galen was unmotivated. By this point, Kate knew she was leaving. Her usual fierce focus in her few scenes was gone. She seemed distracted and disinterested and, frankly, tension was evident between her and Kiberd.

The whole device of Carter becoming obsessed with Trevor and, thereby Natalie, was to facilitate the transition from Kate to Melody Anderson—one of the most disappointing recasts in the show’s history. The idea of keeping Natalie’s face bandaged after the fire, and letting viewers get used to the idea that it wasn’t Kate under there was clever enough, but still couldn’t make the transition work. Anderson didn’t have the depth, and Natalie would die within short order.

As for Brian and Dixie, in rewatching, I have to say they work. Had Matt Borlenghi stayed in the role, it could have been a successful pairing.

I think it’s interesting that a few of us are rewatching this time period independently after so many years. An interesting coincidence.

By the way, I started these “Down in Pine Valley” threads. I appreciate everyone who has participated. When we reach 600 posts, I’ll start a new thread so we may continue the discussion.

Over the years, a couple of Loving fans have lamented that ABC didn't sandwich the show between AMC and OLTL. Let's explore that from a different angle. How would years of Y&R and AMC in head-to-head ratings combat have done?

Kate Collins is such a class act. I have several soap magazine 'Where are they now?' editions from the past 25 years, and Kate is always being asked what she thinks of Melody Anderson and Robin Mattson as her replacements, not only was Kate entirely complimentary but she would offer detailed insights into what new things Melody and Robin brought to the roles that she felt that she didn't, never mind the fact that Kate Collins was the best thing that ever happened to All My Children and she didn't even know it. But the fact that she was not only supportive of her replacements but championed them openly without having known or even worked with them says it all.

I enjoyed when “Ghost Natalie” Kate Collins visited Robin Mattson’s Janet to forgive her and urge her to marry Trevor in this episode. Overlooking, of course, how annoying Trevor was.

Incidentally, how did Kiberd & Mattson get along? I'm guessing her time on Santa Barbara helped her understand how to play opposite an amped-up leading man.

I know people loved the Dillons, but Janet finally married Trevor was in some ways the beginning of the end for Robin's Janet. They really did not know what to do with her besides fold laundry and bake cookies and be a happy housewife. They finally had her go crazy in a plot-ridden story line to write them out of the show by killing someone with a giant candy cane.

The Christmas Angel started to annoy me after awhile. Still it was better than that creepy Santa. I remember one year the miracle he facilitated was to have daughter that Dixie gave up for adoption end up in Pine Valley. In order to do that, he had the child's parents die in a car accident on Christmas Eve. It really brought the holiday cheer.

Yes, the Santa of Death was bizarre. I could handle the Christmas angel giving FakeNatalie her sight back, but, after a couple of years, the angel should have retired.

Why did they side with Kiberd over Collins?

If memory serves, he received more fan male. Five or so years later, all ABC/Disney would have to say is "he's a guy."

Fan *mail.* What can I say, I get passionate about how misogynistic ABC Daytime became in that era.

The Daughters of Fine Lineage are waiting to dine at The Chateau ...

New thread.