Those marvelous Midwestern Towns, 2018 edition #1

From the Doctors.....

Am I imagining it or is the guy at around 45:00 Hector Elizondo?

oops, forgot link

Who was the ultimate pass around gay slut behind the P&G scenes in the 80s and 90s. DISCUSS

I'm quite sure I have no idea what you're talking about R3.

Doug Marland is rumored to have a stable, but they were all ‘straight’. It was clearly the guy who played Perry Hutchins on AW. He was always photographaed at those PG parties.

I recognize a lot of future ABC stars on those Dr.s' clips. When that hospital closed down ABC scooped up a lot of their talent.

Doug Marland let me suck his toes.

R7 is so boring.

R7 is already blocked, for reasons which are well known to him.

And R7 has it quite wrong. It would have been the other way around.

That asshole Serial nutcase has invaded this thread. Go away psycho.

Thank you for creating this thread OP.

I never watched Search for Tomorrow until it was on NBC. Did I miss much?

I blocked R7 but totally forget why. I’m sure I had a good reason. Like he was a stupid cunt.

Who was the most beautiful guy on the P&G soaps? For me it’s a toss-up between Leonard Staab (GL) and some Australian guy who played Daniel on AW in the early 80s.

I don't recall an Aussie guy on AW in the early 80s

Staab was (is) beautiful and he could act.

R13 is referring to Peter Lochran. His character Daniel dated Kathleen McKinnon and Sally Frame.

Sloan's Prince Ali on Capitol!

Thank you, R15. Yes, that’s who I meant. He was mesmerizingly beautiful. I gather he was from a wealthy family and quit acting to join his father’s business.

I remember Peter Lochran! He was adorable. What happened to him, I wonder.

OMG he was in this before coming to the states. 70s hair and all.

I loved The Young Doctors campy theme song. Short but sweet.

Good God, Kale Browne looks so old in this spoof of The Post. But he is funny in it.

I can't see the video in NBC videos like r21. I can't ever see SNL links from DL.

^ I can hear the audio. The screen is black.

Wow, Kale does look very old in that clip.

Kale fucked Jill Phelps? Oye!!!!

Apparently the fat hogs at Soap Opera Network never look at their website to authenticate new members. Just cancelled my attempt at joining there after being unauthenticated for weeks, maybe months.

I thought I was alone in that R27. I'd love to have someplace to talk about AW besides The First Church of Harding Lemay here.

[quote]Am I imagining it or is the guy at around 45:00 Hector Elizondo?

Yes, Elizondo has been married to Carolee Campbell, who plays the nurse seen around 6:00, since 1969.

Liz Hubbard SLAYS me.

Lucinda tells Holden at 7:31 in the stables:

"Holden! Monica Lawrence is mounted and she's ready to ride."

Liz is always fab.

Liz always fumbled over her lines. She was annoying that way.

Obviously Kale Brown is more suited for ORD, and not me, BNSD!

No one could toss of a double entendre like La Hubbard! She gives me life!

Holden standing in front of Lucinda (at his hottest ever), tells her he's quitting being her stable boy as he has new job making $500 a week (In 1986, this was BIG money).

Lucinda: "Doing [italic] WHAT [/italic]?"

Liz Hubbard sucks balls. Nominated for Emmys as Lucinda, but never a winner because she sucks!!!!

Could someone help me find an actor's name so I can get some pictures. I didn't watch the show he was but would channel surf during the commercials. If I catalog shopped for a boyfriend it would look just like him. I think He's on the one with that Sammi girl. I think his name might have been Justin or Jason or something like that. From the little tidbits I would get I think he might have been the brother of the guy who was dating Sammi. Anyway every time I would flip around he would be on.

Anyway. Light brown hair and a huge chin dimple. Very tall...very built.....soft chest hair. I used to know who he was but that was a few years ago. I looked up complete casts thinking I would get a bell ring if I saw his name but alas no.

R33 Oh, my dearest BNSD....honestly, we could both do better.

Like his "brother" David Forsyth.

R37 That would be Days of our Lives, which is not one of the shows we cover here.

BUT I think you are possibly talking about James Scott, who played EJ. Not sure who else it might be.

Does anyone remember a guy with a soap message board who had this weird rule where you couldn't discuss LA based soaps because he didn't consider them soap operas? Maybe it was a board on MediaDomain or something or maybe I dreamed the entire thing. Anyone remember this?

Joe Breen of the aids?

I never experienced that board but heard a lot of people complain about it.

meow meow

danfling is the nut job who wouldn't dare mention L.A. soaps. He is from the south and believes in those genteel manners. I used to deliberately defy his rules and get banned all the time.

What about me?

Who else had the aids? Bernau?

Was Liz Hubbard a lesbian. I know she was married and had a kid decades ago but we never saw or heard anything about a man when she played Lucinda

I mean kids and past marriages mean nothing (never forget the first time I heard that from Joan Rivers: "Oh, grow up! It. Means. Nothing!"

But the way Lucinda used to want to devour Craig or want to, I'd have to vote straight.

Liz is a lez. For sure.

Lucinda was crazy hot for Craig. So taboo since that was Sierra's love interest.

Lucinda/Craig/Sierra was my favorite soap triangle ever! It worked because although he was in love with Sierra, Craig was every bit as passionate about Lucinda-- maybe more.

Lucinda/Craig/Sierra was the bomb.

Yes, we knew he'd end up with Sierra but the journey watching that happen was incredible.

Sierra marrying Tonio after her life in Oakdale fell apart, Lucinda transferring Tonio to Oakdale, Sierra slowly forgiving both her mother and Craig, Sierra calling out Craig's name in the throes of passion with Tonio; Tonio's affair with Barbara; Craig and Sierra making love; Craig finding out his surgical procedure was reversed (but not before he fathered Bryant).

It was so well structured.

Meanwhile, today we have Chelsea stealing from herself on Y&R and there's no real reason why.

More Craig and Lucinda pushing each others' buttons.

MAN, did they know how to hurt each other!

Craig: Are you enjoying yourself?

Lucinda: Not enormously, no.

Tonio had the best fistfights. The one with Josh/Rod in the hallway outside his room at the Lakeview was my favorite soap fight of all time. And then when he kicked Andy Dixon's ass at his office while gleefully telling Andy he was a "pathetic, hopeless alcoholic"-- man, it doesn't get any better than that.

I hated Tonio. Never saw the appeal of the character and thought the actor was ugly.

I did NOT know that the villain in this scene was HB LEWIS!

Speaking of Antonio, WHET Peter Boynton? He seems to have no credits past GL.

I just saw HB in an episode of The Twilight Zone with Jack Albertson.

I think he does a lot of theater work, R57.

Here is what Peter Boynton is up to. He looks good, too!

I forgot that Peter Boynton was married for six years to Susan Marie Snyder. According to Wikipedia, she retired from acting and legally changed her name to Suzenne Marie Seradwyn

Did she have a stalker? Only reason I can think of to come up with that stupid new name.

Little Miss Seradwyn

She gave up that good cock? For shame.

I'm sick of these threads.

Peyer had that UGLY mole on his face. Yuck.

Dr. Reid, you have way too many clothes on. Please scowl at everyone in silence....and in only boxers.....

What ever happened to Miss Van Hansis?

Hansis mostly teaches these days, and does independent projects. Seems to move back and forth between NYC and LA. Still with Tyler Hanes.

Ham Hansis teaches?

I don't get him. He seemed to YELL in every scene. Very dramatic.

Those who can’t act or get acting jobs usually turn to teaching. Van isn’t a good actor.

Reardon family tree trivia, Guiding Light. I know Bea was the matriarch, then her kids included Nola, Maureen, Tony, Jim and at least a few I either forgot about or they never showed onscreen. Am I right so far? Who were Bridget and Matt's parents, and would they have been first cousins to each other or "once removed" or something? This isn't terribly important but I always got a bit confused about the various connections there.

Bridget and Matt's parents were Sean and I forget the mother's name Reardon.

I think Elaine Bromka played Bridget's mom briefly (before we ever met Sean) and this was prior to Elaine being cast as Stella, the woman who threw Marlena in a pit on DAYS.

The seven Reardon kids were Maureen, James (Jimmy), Tony, Nola, Chelsea, Sean and, I think, Pat (Patricia); Pat was the only one never seen, I believe.

I don't know the birth order. Nola was said to be the youngest but Chelsea looked the youngest.

I can't believe they didn't have the Reardons on GL for Maureen's funeral. The scenes were written extremely well and beautifully acted and there was a line about how the Reardons had their own reception at the boarding house after the funeral, but c'mon. In 1993, there was still a budget for guests coming back for a few shows.

I remember Julianne Moore came back to ATWT in late '88 for Christmas; she may not have been officially done, but I think she was pretty much done when she came back for those guest spots.

So Bridget and Matt were siblings? I don't think I knew that, thanks for the details. Chelsea I should have remembered, I liked the actress before she went to the ABC soap(s) she was on.

Kassie DePaiva is one of the nicest people in soaps; glad she's working on DAYS again.

Yes, Bridget and Matt were siblings.

There were four Reardon siblings from the Flint, MI branch of the tree where Sean and his wife were: Bridget, Matt, Ryan and Megan. I believe Ryan and Megan were supposed to be introduced at some point but that may have slipped by the wayside after Megan McTavish's departure.

Nola may have been the youngest of the ones onscreen in the 80s, but Chelsea was definitely the youngest overall.

They brought Julie and Caleb back for one of Holden's fake deaths (IIRC) and they had no contact info for Susan at that point since she had left the biz. So they went through Boynton to find her.

If memory serves, one of the unseen Reardons was named Lana.

Yes, Lana was completely unseen but was a sister of Nola, Maureen, Tony et al.

I don't recall ever hearing Lana, but I did recall hearing Pat(ricia).

They could have hired Ellen Dolan to play Lana or Patricia after Ellen left ATWT that time and had that last Reardon sister fall for Ed.

But that would have been too pat.

Of all the combos of Eds and Maureens, I think I liked Parker and Simon.

Van Fleet and Dolan had a showdown in the Bauer cabin, ironically, after Maureen found out about Claire and Ed sleeping together; those scenes were okay, but they were not good enough for my daughter! And not good enough for me!

Ellen Dolan’s pussy stunk to high heaven!

33 years ago.

I didn't realize GL had a cover this close to its end date.

That was the magazine's fault in all of this stuff, in addition to the spoilers. They promoted only Bell shows, GH and DAYS and - surprise surprise - those are the last soaps standing.

R83, I heard Digest did test market covers with solo shots like this to see how they'd sell. That wasn't a nationwide cover I believe with Zimmer on it.

In fairness, GL and ATWT were such crap in their last years (except for the ends when, of course, they get really good again, especially GL).

Years of the Santoses, San Cristobel, Clone Reva, Cassie, killing off Phillip....the people in charge of the show clearly didn't care; why should the fans or the press.

Bert Bauer had a stinky pussy.

For along time, Digest did a different cover for subscribers than they delivered to the stands, so the subscribers' copies sometimes featured ATWT and GL.

Though I know it's not one of the towns covered here I found him.

I HATED Sabrina Hughes. She should have been a slutty, bitchy heiress, like Barbara in the 1985-86 era. Maybe have the whole town against her except Bob, Kim and Nancy, and have her eventually soften.

Instead she was Frannie with ugly glasses.

I like to think that Sabrina returned to Oakdale as an Alexis Carrington style bitch who ended up taking over Walsh Enterprises.

The story of FINDING Sabrina was exciting but boy, it came to a dead stop once she was back in Oakdale.

So much would be fixed in our world if only Lucinda Walsh was president and Donna Love was vice president.

Or vice versa.

Cecile could be ambassador to Tanquir, of course.

And Sierra could be ambassador to Montega.

So true, R92!

Excuse me? Who do I have to scold like an insolent child to get a drink around here?

Me, bitch.

Pete Lemay knew the ins and outs of society to mock it. The many wealthy characters on Another World were more of a caricature. Who really knew people like Iris or Theresa Lamont? Lemay gave these characters little heart. His redemption of the classic bitch goddess Rachel Davis Matthews Clark Frame Cory was a masterpiece. The ethereal Victoria Wyndham took the part and made Robin Strasser's take on Rachel seem lowbrow. Ms. Wynham made one care about Rachel's yearning to be a good person in spite of her resentment towards the Matthews family who shunned her. Mac purchasing the mansion they moved into - a sentimental journey that the child Rachel had dreamed of living in that house and now becoming Mistress of it was a deft touch.

Yawn.

I hear yawning.

Oh...of course. Cecile's here.

We know you're tired. VERY tired.

All those mattresses on which you so effortlessly glide, dear. Must rob you of your beauty rest.

Ginger from Guiding Light wins an Oscar!

I wonder if Mark Dusay is calling.

R96 , I couldn't disagree more. Robin Strasser's Rachel was one of the all-time great characters. She MADE the Alice/Steve/Rachel triangle the gold standard. Her scenes with Connie Ford were classic.

Just curious who ATWT fans think received the most undeserved screen time: Lily, Carly,Gwen or Katie?

R90, you're correct; the story of finding Sabrina was great. "Ride a cocked horse to Banbury Cross..."

It had potential when she returned; no fault of Moore's but the sleeping with Seth was a little predictable; it DID however drive Emma and John apart, leading to John's sudden marriage to Lucinda which was great.

Will never forget Lucinda introducing John to her staff, which included his ex-housekeeper/cook the indomitable Rosa!

I've only seen Strasser as Rachel on tape - never live; she was great; both the writing AND the actress changed when Lemay and Wyndham took over. It's apples and oranges. BOTH women were great.

I thought it was insane to kill off Steve in '83; write him off if you think he's not good (I thought he was great).

When AW went off the air only Rachel and Amanda were characters from the 70s who were still on (was Amanda still on at the end?)

I wish Doug Marland had lived and left Oakdale and moved over to Bay City; he would have resurrected the Matthews clan and played up past favorites along with a family of new have nots just like he did by rejuvenating the Hughes clan and adding the Snyders.

[quote]Just curious who ATWT fans think received the most undeserved screen time: Lily, Carly,Gwen or Katie?

For me, Carly. She made me stop watching, so I never got to see how much screentime Gwen or Katie did not deserve.

"Just curious who ATWT fans think received the most undeserved screen time: Lily, Carly,Gwen or Katie?"

Oh, Katie. My God, it was just ridiculous.

My problem was NOT with Teri Conn. She proved herself a very good actress towards the end of the show when Brad died. But it was too little, too late. Katie should have been such a great character, as someone who was part of the Montgomery family, but... she just wasn't. She was shallow, thoughtless, and crude-- and not in a "good" way (Julie Wendel, early Meg Snyder). Very hard to empathize with her.

They should never have replaced Julie with Carly.

it was never Carly, Lily, Gwen or Katie -- it was that we were beaten over the head with them.

I heard a story even Doug came to realize that the national holiday of Lily's birthday was a bit much.

Diva Von Dish in Digest wrote something like Christmas comes and goes in a day, Thanksgiving is here and gone, but no holiday is given the attention Lily's birthday does. Diva went on to write a line of Margo's, that I'm assuming was made up, but it made a point: "Momma, it's me, Margo! I'm in Greece alone, thousands of miles from my loved ones, pregnant with a baby not fathered by my husband...but tell me: HOW IS LILY? Are people still lying to her. Is she okay? How is she feeling? When will people stop lying to her? When will Lily feel secure?

That said, this exchange between Hubbard and Lisa Brown over Lily's upcoming birthday is hilarious.

Lucinda: Iva, Lily's 17th birthday is coming up.

Iva: I'm aware of that.

Lucinda: (Realizing a mother would never forget the day her kid was born) Of course you are.

Lucinda always flubbed her lines. It was bad.

Hubbard’s delivery was often tiresome, often going like this-

“Ambrose, darling Ambrose I WON’t be going to Iva’s party I WON’T be going to her party because, darling, I really can’t face it I REALLY can’t face it, I just can’t.”

Uggh. Hubbard was a good actress but developed very bad soap habits. Her Emmy reels were a mess. I know because I sadly couldn’t rank her very highly as a Blue Ribbon Panel member because they were even worse out of context. They were a chore to watch.

Hubbard was anything but "tiresome" to most ATWT fans. If anything, they begged for MORE Lucinda.

Hubbard was a bore. I couldn’t stand watching that cunt.

I liked Lucinda even more than I liked Andy Dixon.

Only mediocre people think ham fisted acting is good.

[quote] I sadly couldn’t rank her very highly as a Blue Ribbon Panel member

*ears twitch*

Oh, darling. Do sit down and stay a spell!

Hahahaha, R114. I’ve recounted quite a few of my Blue Ribbon panel experiences here. One which stands out was that I was dying to place Ellen Dolan first the year Margo was raped and I just couldn’t because in most of her Emmy reel she was almost catatonic. And Susan Lucci actually deserved her Emmy when she finally won it. She had the best reel that year.

R113, that's for sure.

R115, I won an office pool that year Dolan was nominated.

I knew Dano was going to win for Felicia's alcoholism storyline. Fanny was miserable, she wore a lot of big hats. She was telling people off. It was so soap.

I will say the most graphic line ever on soaps was from Dr. Audrey Samuels: "Margo, you have to keep in mind that the odds of you having the HIV virus are diminished because Elroy Nevins ejaculated on your thigh."

I know you cannot reveal who you are, R109/R115, but I'm going to assume that you did work on one of the NY based shows.

AMC wrote a stand alone show focusing on Lucci's strengths;

they should have done that years ago to get this over with; tho some feel the ratings for the daytime Emmys were never the same once she won in 1999.

Dolan was a world class bitch. I would have never voted for her. Ever.

ATWT tried to get rid of Patsy Bruder in 1975. They did it quietly but then a surge of calls asking why her name was removed from the credit crawl brought her back at an unheard of day salary of $500 a show. She was higher paid than Helen Wagner at that point.

"I will say the most graphic line ever on soaps was from Dr. Audrey Samuels: 'Margo, you have to keep in mind that the odds of you having the HIV virus are diminished because Elroy Nevins ejaculated on your thigh.'"

ATWT always seemed more, uh, earthy than any other soap when it came to sex and bodily functions. Yet another reason that its reputation as "Grandma's soap" has always mystified me.

I really think they killed off Paul and Dan Stewart so Ellen's age in relation to theirs wouldn't be so absurd. They left Dan's daughter Betsy who was Ellen's granddaughter bu they held off SORASSING her until Meg Ryan.

Actually, Meg Ryan was only two years older than Suzanne Davidson, who played Betsy from 1972-80. The Sorasing happened earlier. Davidson started in the role when she was about 10 when Betsy should have been 2 or 3.

Phillip's chest.

Le sigh.

Who do you think did the best job playing twins? David Canary, Martha Byrne and Julianne Moore did great jobs of playing characters that were nothing alike, but Adrienne Frantz and Victoria Wyndham were just horrible. Mixed feelings on Anne Heche.

Not exactly twins but I thought Beth Chamberlin was good when she was both Beth and Lorelei on GL. DC was outstanding as both Adam and Stuart, I only watched AMC every once in a while but whenever either of his characters were on I felt a familiarity with them.

[quote]Adrienne Frantz and Victoria Wyndham were just horrible. Mixed feelings on Anne Heche.

Loved Anne Heche and Victoria Wyndham. Justine's existence in Bay City made not one iota of sense, but it was a hoot seeing VW play a villain.

Best twins were played by Anne Heche. She created two completely different characters. I could tell just by posture and body language whether she was playing Marley or Vicky. Fantastic performance!

Contrast that with Jensen Buchanan who relied on clothing to make the distinction between the two characters. And sometimes even the clothing wasn't enough for me to distinguish them -- several times, I'd watch scenes thinking I was seeing Vicky only to learn later in the episode it had been Marley.

Gowns by Lily Rubin for South, Southwest.

Bev McK looked gorgeous in that ep.

Yes, she looked lovely.

I loved her no matter what, though costuming and hair weren't always as kind to her, especially in her later AW years.

We celebrate 10 years since McKunty voice croaked off! Buh bye bitch! Oh daddy! Rest in hell, McKunty!!!!!

[quote]I loved her no matter what, though costuming and hair weren't always as kind to her, especially in her later AW years.

She wore a lot of caftans, as I recall. No wonder she gets so much love from the gays! (For me, she's the best soaps have ever seen.)

Days leading up to the point Lily was recast with Noelle Beck, MB gave an "I really want to change" speech that I found distasteful. To her credit (regardless of what was happening backstage) Byrne was a consummate professional and was great up until the final scene. Her final scenes with Hubbard were especially touching.

R135 Do you know if those scenes are on YouTube? I never saw them.

[quote] For me, she's the best soaps have ever seen.

Amen, sister.

I'm sure they're on youtube, right before Lily leaves town and her and Hubbard are in the limo at night, Lily looks great and Hubbard looks a little distraught. It just this cute scene that's very reminiscent of all the 80's scenes they did together.

This is the greatest twins performance on soaps -

R139

It looks like two pigs fightin' under a blanket.

Harding Lemay will be 96 next Friday, bitches! Pay homage!

Do you think I could program my doorbell to play this theme? I wonder.

Mac's last Christmas.

*sob*

Doug Watson dropped dead. Rachel, I’m having a heart attack........

R129, I guess you never saw Ellen Wheeler when she created the roles of Marley/Vicky. She was brilliant, particularly when Vicky would impersonate Marley and pitch her voice even higher than Marley’s normal tone of voice. And her Vicky was damaged, sad and isolated. Heche’s Vicky was much more of a conventional party girl leading lady. And I thought her Marley was on the dull side. Buchanan was hopeless playjng both girls.

Wheeler and Heche were both brilliant.

Jensen was way out of her league.

wasn't Mac's last Christmas in 1988? as he died in 89?

I've learned a lot from this thread.

AW really did have the best opening (with the circles)

and Phillip really did have the best chest

R146, yet NBC and AW chose Jensen to replace Heche even though WHEELER also screentested (again) for the part and didn't get it.

They were hoping to get ABC fans to follow Jensen over to watch her play a part she wasn't qualified to play, rather than rehiring Wheeler and hoping to lure back lapsed AW fans.

So stupid. AND THEN later when 'Marley' needs plastic surgery the show rehires Wheeler to play her; so she looks like someone she never looked like before but whom she WAS before.

Confusing.

No wonder the show was canceled.

r148 As I recall, part of the reason AW and NBC didn't rehire Ellen Wheeler in 1991 when Anne Heche left was that Wheeler was so closely associated with Tom Eplin. Wheeler and Eplin had been so successfully paired in 1985-86 and also married in real life.

The show was pairing both Marley and Vickey with other people in 1991, deliberately moving them away from Jake. They didn't want the audience having that old association with Jake messing up these new romantic pairings.

Best chest in all of soaps was James Wlcek.

Philip still wins for pendulous girthy dong.

Wlcek’s hair always looked like a bad dye job.

You're looking at his *hair*?!?!

R147 you're right. oopsie

MARY!

Fuck those staid and dull P&G shows. Only the old flyover biddies watched these midwestern stories. Let's talk about where the real energy, youth, vitality, and excitement were: Llanview, Pine Valley, Port Charles, and Corinth.

OP, try to post nicer pics than that. Gross. Why post something so disturbing with your thread?

R155 Exactly!! Only old ladies watched a Procter & Gamble show. And queens like Serial ASSHOLE go on and on and on and on and on about old lady soaps.

Me and my friends wouldn't be caught dead watching those old lady soaps even our grandmothers were no longer watching. The buzz was ABC. ABC was where all the exciting and innovative storytelling was taking place and had the most interesting and diverse set of characters. Luke & Laura, Rick/Lesley/Monica, Jeff Webber, Noah Drake, Erica Kane, Palmer, Cliff/Nina, Opal, Greg & Jenny, Jesse & Angie, Karen Wolek, Ivan Kipling, Marco Dane, Tina, the Buchanans. The P&G soaps were lethargic and old, just like their viewers. The only peer I know who watched a P&G soap was a friend who fell in love with soap writing and followed Marland over from GH to GL.

My grammy watched those old biddy soaps ATWT and GL. I watched GH. Everyone in my high school watched GH.

The P&G soaps seemed so anachronistic compared to the contemporary ABC shows. And P&G's attempt to youthify those shows was sad and desperate. Even when ATWT and GL has some form of renaissance in the '80s, the demos were still awful. Hell, Ryan's Hope was beating those shows in the coveted demos when it was canceled.

R149, that's fine, but then hire Jensen to play somebody totally new. She was STUNNING in those winter remote scenes. I get it.

But she wasn't Vicky. She wasn't Marley.

Wheeler was. Heche was.

AW ruined its own history by dumping the Matthews clan. If you see those Rachel/Alice scenes from 1989 when Alice came back for the anniversary and later when Alice consoled Rachel at Mac's funeral there was lots of potential to return Alice and introduce some new men they could have been in conflict over.

I've written this before but when GL ended we had Ed, Holly, Phillip, Beth, many long time characters. ATWT wasn't bad either. At least Bryggman was back as John.

I'm not opposed to new characters; everyone's a newcomer at some point. But AW really gutted its history over the years and IMHO the show paid for that by going off the air first while the other P&G shows had another ten years in them, granted they were on CBS.

R71, Larkin Malloy was a good actor who turned to teaching. Died four days after his 62nd birthday in September 2016, complications of heart attack.

R155 R158 R160 How very nice for all of you precious little angels.

THIS thread is for the P&G soaps. but there is a truly lovely space for you to discuss those other shows to your heart's content. Enjoy.

There's one big difference between P&G soaps and ABC soaps. P&G actors and actresses could act. ABC hired hair models.

R156 So mean!

You get sentenced to a year of hearing the disco theme on a loop....

r164 that's bullshit. All the NY soaps, no matter the sponsor or network, generally used theater-trained actors. Practically all the major players on AMC in the 70s were highly skilled theater actors. As the 80s and 90s wore on, ALL the shows hired hair models. The P&G soaps were no better acted than the ABC shows. ATWT gave the ilusion of being beautifully acted because it still many of their pre-80s vets on contract thru the end, though at reduced capacity. However, their younger actors were no better or worse than what you found on the ABC shows.

I agree that AW should have brought back some old characters for the finale. Would have made the final episodes so much better.

However, in fairness, they only had about 6 weeks between the time the cancellation was announced and taping the final episode.

R167, true, but some of them never should have been let go in the first place.

They brought back the most popular Russ Matthews (SAM GROOM) to play some lame minister. Alice and Pat should have been there too.

They should have been celebrating the 35th anniversary of Brava magazine, just like they celebrated the 25th anniversary of Brava in 1989 (even though Cecile only came up withe the idea for the magazine in 1981). That would have been a good reason to bring back lots of people. Nice way to send off the show.

Of course, that would have take time and planning. Something they did not have with just 6 weeks notice of cancellation.

And of course, Cory Publishing didn't really play much part in the show by that point. They were much more interested in the hospital and police station thanks to those fancy sets JFP created.

They could have at least have brought in a super hot young guy on his way to Bay City and in the next to last scene we find out his name is Cory Ewing.

My grandmother always thought that Holly Lindsay was a lesbian.

They wouldn't have done anything like that unless they thought the show would be picked up elsewhere.

Try picking ME up!

I dare ya!

I did and had to undergo a hernia operation for my troubles. Thank God for AFTRA medical coverage.

we love you jarsh please get up

Ron Raines was neither Alan nor Spaulding.

Discuss.

r176 is comin', Bud.

r177 The missed story opportunity was who replaced Alan while he was in prison and was the real Alan still locked away in prison or luxuriating on a tropical isle. Adding to the story drama possibilities was why the Spaulding family did not recognize that the Alan who got out of prison in 1994 was not the real Alan.

He was so deadly dull as Alan, except for when he was with Cynthia Watros and Joan Collins....the only two that ever perked him up.

Ron Raines is a good actor, but Bernau had that certain something that made him very interesting to watch. The most awful writing that Raines had did him no favors.

Bernau had the greatest sneer in tv history.

Fucking AIDS -- Bernau (and Joel Crothers) had at least 20 years left as a leading man.

R183 we lost the beautiful David Oliver (Another World) as well. He would only be 56 years old now.

Bernau and Beverlee were magical together. Love/hate relationship....that was exquisite.

Bernau and McKinsey's last scene together was so freakin' powerful. They recapped their whole lives together including Alan not support Alex when she ran off with Eric and how Alex was still keeping Alan's secret that Josh -- not Kyle -- was Marah's dad.

Alan has NOTHING in this scene, money-wise; just the tuxedo on his back. He should be powerless, but when he walks out you know he's going to come back a winner and reclaim his power.

go to 47:20. I wish today's soap writers and producers would.

R171, I agree.

For some reason, AW stopped caring about their own history a long time ago.

They paid for that by being the first BIG soap to go off the air.

People who work in soaps either get it or they don't.

Bell, Nixon, Marland, Long all did.

While Passions was awful, I give Reilly credit for making Days entertaining in the 90s.

The others are mostly pretenders, people who just happened to get jobs in soaps.

They're going to take them off the air.

Oh, I'm also a big Valentini/Carlivati fan. They saved GH from being axed.

By virtue of being the first long-runner (20+ years) cancelled, wouldn't Love of Life be the first big one to go?

What's the highest Love of Life ever charted? ATWT, GL, AW were all #1 or near it at one time or another, weren't they?

LOL only reached #2 in the early/mid-50s, never quite able to break SFT's #1 dominance. By the late-50s, it fell toward the middle of the pack, where it stayed for much of the 60s and early 70s. By the mid-70s, it stayed in the bottom tier.

It ended in last place in 1980 with an average of 3.5 million viewers, more than first-place Y&R (3.2) has today.

Search, Love of Life, and Guiding Light dominated the ratings for much of the '50s until ATWT, Secret Storm, and Edge came along. Search and GL remained vital, but Love of Life lost some of its former glory. Such a shame these shows are all but forgotten now.

[quote] By virtue of being the first long-runner (20+ years) cancelled, wouldn't Love of Life be the first big one to go?

I'd say Love of Life, The Doctors, Edge of Night and then Search were the four in the first tier of long running shows to go, and almost all for the same reason - a struggle to compete with the ABC shows and struggles meeting the evolving tastes in soap.

Edge did evolve and change but its time slot killed it. I still think of all of the old shows, the basic framework could be resurrected even today. Unlikely, because P&G is dumber than a box of rocks about its properties, but it could be done.

Thanks r186.

What a delicious scene between Bev and Bernau. And what a fitting final scene between the two of them.

I wonder who wrote that scene. The writers strike was already underway at that point. I wonder if the official writers got that script in before having to go on strike or if a scab wrote it.

Was that Bernau's final episode on the show? I know he was gone sometime in summer 1988, before dying a year later.

Below is the tribute the show did after his death.

R188, I fully concede that a soap that is 'big' to one viewer may not be to another. If you loved Love of Life then you loved it and you must hate that now it is gone.

I don't think I ever saw Love of Life as a kid. I remember the opening to Love is a Many Splendored Thing.

But AW was # 1 in the 70s, created one of the first supercouples Steve & Alice and two of soaps' biggest villains: Iris and, while he had a much shorter run, Sven.

I guess Search was the first top-rated soap to be axed (twice, actually).

I miss the 'family feel' the shows used to have. Now, ...thank God for YouTube

Was Bernau out publicly? I remember my mom watched GL at the time he reigned as Alan, and I'm sure she had no idea he was gay. Why did he leave the show? Was he already diagnosed at the time.

I guess I could ask the same questions about hot David O'Brien from "The Doctors".

He was never out, but also kind of never in.

R194 I can't remember if that was his last episode or not, but it wasn't much later than that when he left. You could tell he'd lost a lot of weight there, for sure. Still, dear lord, what amazing work from him and McKinsey.

It is a shame the show never did an In Memoriam for McKinsey. They also sat idly on the sidelines when cast members petitioned the Daytime Emmys for a Lifetime Achievement Award. Fuck the Emmys.

SFT was still a relatively healthy show when CBS canned it. The ratings were still decent, but CBS wanted Conboy's Capitol and there was no room for SFT. I think if SFT had expanded to an hour when ATWT did, as had originally been planned, it would've lasted a lot longer. When NBC acquired it, it placed it in the 12:30 time slot. However, the whole NBC lineup was in huge trouble at the time, so much so that even GH would've withered and died had it been moved to NBC. Of course, Capitol's never achieved the ratings that SFT had had on CBS.

On Texas writers were told to write a 'couple on the run' b/c of the success of Luke and Laura.

When informed of a duo on the lam, a Texas character said on air: "You mean like Luke and Laura?"

If Search went to an hour in 1975, would it have stayed at 12:30 eastern? I'm trying to figure out the schedule. Price is Right from 10-11. Love of Life at 11. Y&R at 11:30. Half-hour for local news. Search at 12:30, ATWT at 1:30. TGL at 2:30. Gambit, Match Game and Tattletales to end the lineup.

Didn't most of the shows do the couple with the runs thing?

oops, "with the runs"="on the run"

r200 Here's a link to what the daytime TV schedule looked like in 1975. Click through at the bottom to see what the other years looked like.

I know Edge of Night did it in 1983.

Humm, that link to the 1975 daytime schedule didn't come through properly. Let's try again.

Well, sorry. Wikipedia link not working properly. Don't know how to make it work.

Google "1975 Daytime TV schedule" and you'll get links to the Wikipedia pages with a grid showing the schedule.

R200 here -- I should have clarified that I was trying to guess what the schedule would look like. I actually used that Wikipedia link to make sure of a couple things (like that Gambit was still on).

Does anyone remember this TV movie? Apparently Mary Stuart of Search for Tomorrow wrote it.

P&G was hoping the Henderson Flood would bring renewed interest to SFT but it didn’t work.

SFT was doomed to fail on NBC. The whole NBC daytime lineup was in disarray in 83, and it had no strong lead-in. Plus it was going up against a surging Y&R and a still relatively healthy RH. And let's face it. Most of its CBS audience probably watched out of habit or as a bridge from Y&R to ATWT, and there was no strong incentive to follow it to its new network and time slot.

r206

^ Click where it says this: "1975–76 United States network television schedule (weekday)" It does eventually take you there.

We get it, R212.

We need to google it, the link will not work.

Do you ever wonder if Mary Stuart got the seven year itch playing Jo? She'd have had five opportunities to feel that way.

She may have R214; I think Lucci handled it best. She got in her contract outs to do a Movie of the Week every so often; she'd go out, do it and then come back to play in Pine Valley.

I think she, Deidre Hall, Melody and Eileen Fulton have had the best careers. You get the job and play out it as long as you can.

Zimmer, Strasser, Slezak, Wyndham, and Charleson, too.

Zimmer could have really been a star. She was overrated on GL after a while and phoned it in for most of the last 10 years but when she was good, she was very, very good, and had she left GL in 1987....or never been on the show at all...she may have been a big star.

I think most of the folks listed, outside of Strasser and Hall who had other roles, either worked and raised kids and never wanted to do more than what they'd done (MTS, Slezak, Wyndham), or they kind of knew that they were doing the one thing they'd get to do (Charleson, Fulton).

Zimmer's big mouth would have never let be a star in Hollyweird. The ladies on Models Inc. hated her.

Zimmer developed too many soap acting tics to make it in prime time or films.

I wish I had a fuck buddy named Bud so I could always say

I'M COMIN' BUD!

Is it just me or is Zimmer a lousy actress? I mean, like truly atrocious. Sure, she's larger than life and has charisma to spare, but I think that may have been misinterpreted as "great acting". She is awful.

R220 I love you for that statement. I think she sucks big time and ruins any show for me that she is on. She is the female Maurice Benard.

I think a lot of really bad actors have been awarded because of their on-screen presence. I know this is probably heresy, but I'd lump Judith Light into that category. She's a fine actress now, but she was very green during her OLTL days, which probably worked for the character she was playing. Others in this category would be the aforementioned Benard, as well as Tony Geary, Eden Rigel, Braeden, and Michael E. Knight to name just a few.

Judith Light brought a raw power to Karen Wolek. All she’s done over the years is refine her power. She’s tremendous.

At 13, I was smitten with a couple of the Another World actors. How I fantasized about the actors who played Philip Lyons and Willis Frame. Also William Gray Espy and the one who Pat Randolph killed...Greg or Ned ? Beautiful men but not pretty boys. Lots of j/o sessions with those guys (only in my mind sadly)...

When I was 15, I couldn't take my eyes off James Horan on AW. He was walking sex IMO, and at that point, all uncertainty over being gay flew out the window. Grant Aleksander was another P&G stud that confirmed my gayness. He drove me wild with teenage lust.

[quote]he one who Pat Randolph killed...Greg or Ned ?

Ned Schmidtke played Greg Barnard.

I would've let the gorgeous David Oliver (Perry on AW) do anything and everything to me.

r227 Everything, Rose?

P&G might have come late to the hunk-accumulation race, but they had some heavy-hitters.

A video from last year's "Bauer Barbeque."

Robert Newman is a bit stockier but still sexy. JvD is almost unrecognizable.

Whoops, here's the link....

The NYC show Perfect Crime, which has apparently been running off Broadway for 30 years, has some soap actors rotating into their cast.

Robert Newman just left the show and Grant and his Pendulousness will be starting soon.

Really, R232? I haven’t been this excited since seeing Ryan Idol onstage!

[quote]Grant and [bold]his Pendulousness[/bold] will be starting soon.

If only.

Is Grant really that big? Has anyone ever confirmed his length, or is it just wishful thinking? Yes he was stunning in his prime, but I never got a big dick vibe. Vincent Irrizary OTOH has BDF written all over him.

Who is the second woman to speak in that Bauer BBQ? I don't recognize her.

I think it’s Michelle Ray Smith who played Ava Peralta, Olivia’s daughter.

[quote]Is Grant really that big? Has anyone ever confirmed his length, or is it just wishful thinking?

Tales of the pendulous started when a DL poster saw it revealed at a urinal. I can't recall specifics, but length and girth of the flaccid member were above average.

Yes, someone saw it at a urinal and said it was much bigger soft than most cocks are hard.

There's also an episode of GL where Grant got hard in shorts and it was super obvious....as well as an ep of Capitol where he was in a Speedo and was showing outline.

Who cares about Irrizary? What a waste of a dick. And of the sperm and egg it took to make that dick.

Yes, Grant got an erection in a scene in August 1983. Phillip was wearing shorts and sitting on a sofa while watching Mindy doing yoga. It was exceptionally hard to miss in those tight shorts since it was so TALL. It was only visible for a second or two before Grant covered it up by moving his legs and then resting his face against his knee.

A shot from that scene was included in the GL opening for a while (although you can't see the erection, unfortunately). You can catch the shot and see Grant hugging his leg to cover it up in the video below at 24 seconds.

Looking back, I am surprised that made it to air. Perhaps the directors were busy looking at the overall scene didn't notice what was going on in Grant's pants. It was only visible for a second or two. Or maybe they did notice and didn't want to embarrass Grant by explaining why they had to redo the scene.

And I can't imagine Grant, who had only been on the show 8 months by that point, embarrassing himself by saying they needed to reshoot the scene since he got an erection on air.

I never got Irizarry’s appeal.

Why did they change the theme music so often? Especially post-Marland ATWT.

R241 That whole scene with Mindy and Phillip is somewhere on YouTube. Or it was, anyway.

r244 I've hunted extensively for it, but never could find it. It you can, please post the link.

I will try to look. I need to see when they all came on....it was a few months into Phillip and Mindy coming onto the canvas.

Grant debuted in Dec 1982.

Michael O'Leary took over as Rick in May 1983 (although the SORASED Rick had also came on in Dec 1982 when Phil MacGregor played the part).

Judi and Krista both debuted as Beth and Mindy in June 1983.

Vince Irrizarry first appeared in Nov 1983.

[quote]Zimmer could have really been a star.

I put Zimmer in the category of actors who despised that they had to work in soaps. There are several others. Zimmer stayed too long at the table, then aged herself out of having a career outside of soaps. IMO, there are three types of soap actors:

1) New actors, looking for a job, trying to get something on their resume. They stay a couple of years then go away.

2) Take #1 then give them popularity and a fanbase and a steady salary and magazine covers and the next thing they know they've been on the show one year too long and then start to resent the show because they can't do anything outside of the show. Then they feel trapped and actors who feel trapped start lashing out and not being nice. I.E. Zimmer

3) Actors who just want a steady gig and an easy schedule and who connect with fans and who build their fanbases which translates to more money, more outside money from fan clubs appearances, etc., and other acting gigs. These are usually actresses who want to be home to help raise their families or older actors who aren't getting hired for primetime and film or the actors who are just popular and who stick it out year after year because the pay is good and the benefits are great.

Zimmer and Tony Geary is another one who just despised their soap work. Someone like George Reinholt would have probably been kept on the show until it went off the air, if he wasn't insane. Could you imagine AW with Mac, Rachel, and the original Steve and Alice? The stories basically write themselves. I know they had fake Alices and fake Steves, but I'm talking about the original recipe Steve and Alice.

There is a 4th category. Actors who stay forever, but don't really care about their fanbases. They are just doing a job and collecting a paycheck. As part of a group of fans, I went to a Soap Opera Digest Awards and some of the folks from ATWT stopped by and said hi (Michael Park, Martha Byrne), others couldn't really be bothered to even acknowledge the fans as they walked by (Kathryn Hays).

R249 Watch it, toots!

Don't get me wrong. I don't begrudge Hays in the least.

It could be that Hays was just very shy. Park and Byrne both strike me as people who are very much performers. And I don't say that in a negative way. They may feel more comfortable interacting.

I met Kathy Hays in 1991, and she was perfectly friendly and chatty.

248, my Aunt Beverly (who played Pat Randolph on Another World) falls into number 3 on your list. She loved the soap because it provided her with financial stability to raise kids in a nice house in the suburbs. If she hadn't been fired, she would have stayed til the show went off the air.

1991 were her Let Me Wear My Tablecloth and Curtains years on ATWT!

Yay! We have Beverly Penberthy's Gay Nephew back on the DL boards! Welcome back, hon.

And the show would have been better for it, R54. I saw some old clips with your aunt just las week, she was so good.

She really should have stayed to the very end. One of the very bad mistakes P&G made on AW.

What category would you place Larry Bryggman in? He was never shy about his disdain for soaps, quite vocal about it, in fact, but they allowed him to collect a steady paycheck while doing theater.

I would put Bryggman in #3. I remember reading an article where Bryggman is very candid about soaps and a lot his gripes were the same gripes that Harding Lemay had about soaps before he took over Another World.

I've watched soaps all my life, but "came of age" during save the world soap plots, I loved me some Bo and Hope and Kim and Shane and the action/adventure stuff. I think those of us in my age range 45-50ish never really truly grasped the major tonal shift of soap operas post Luke and Laura. I always knew it was there, but I never truly understood it until I started watching The Doctors on Retro TV. Being able to watch that show from 1967 on has been a major eye-opener about the entire genre.

For better or worse, Gloria Monty turned soap opera upside down. Those top of tent pole PG soaps were deemed old fashioned (whether they were or not) and just started to unravel. And I think actors like Larry Bryggman who had been on the other side and saw what was coming and what would eventually happen, just got pissed off and the show became nothing more than an ATM for him.

From what I've read, Bryggman hated soaps way before Gloria Monty turned the tide, and they were just an easy means from day #1 to pay the rent and put food on the table while he did theater. I remember reading an interview with him in which he talks about a lunch meeting he had with some P&G big shot in the early '70s. Even then, he was complaining about the mediocre writing and lack of character motivation. The P&G guy essentially told him to shut up about he writing and that their mission is to sell soap to housewives, and nothing more. He always sneered at the genre that kept him employed for 35 years, but he always seemed to have nice things to say about his cast mates. I know he and Henderson Forsythe were good friends, and he had great respect for Don McLaughlin.

I'm always reminded of something Robert S. Woods said to Nathan Fillion: that long-term work on a soap was equivalent to "golden handcuffs."

A little off the P&G topic but Julia Barr (Brooke, AMC) said that she had opportunities in prime time in the late '70s and early '80s but that she preferred to be a working soap actor in NYC because it afforded the opportunity to have a normal work schedule that would allow her to be home every evening with her husband and daughter. I never got the sense from her that she looked down on resented the genre, say, like Bryggman. I do think a lot of talented actors who otherwise could've done well in prime time or film if they had the drive, have "slummed" in soaps in order to have a stable family life.

"What category would you place Larry Bryggman in? He was never shy about his disdain for soaps..."

"He always sneered at the genre that kept him employed for 35 years..."

See, I think he had a lot more respect for the audience than many others who worked on soaps. He didn't accept the idea that just because it was on during the day and had a majority female viewership that it "didn't matter" if the writing, directing, and acting were good. He wanted to be a part of creating something that was realistic, character-driven, and worthwhile. I just don't understand fans who act like he was putting THEM down when in fact he was criticizing TPTB who just didn't give a shit about giving the the fans good entertainment.

That video posted above with Jerry ver Dorn talking about Peter Simon trashing the writing is pretty hysterical, especially given that Simon's wife Courtney Sherman-Simon has been a mainstay in soap writing for decades.

Bryggman was very definitely #3. He did soaps so he could do theater.

And what R264 said.

R263, Barr did leave AMC for about a year to see what was out there but smartly decided to go back.

[quote]That video posted above with Jerry ver Dorn talking about Peter Simon trashing the writing is pretty hysterical, especially given that Simon's wife Courtney Sherman-Simon has been a mainstay in soap writing for decades.

Peter and Courtney Simon's daughter, Kate Hall, has been a writer on soaps for over a decade. She was on the writing staff at AMC and later Y&R. She's writing for GH these days. I periodically see her name in the credits.

Larry Bryggman may have trashed the soaps, but it didn't stop him from giving some great performances on ATWT. Watch his scenes holding his dying baby (with Barbara), or his wonderful performances during the medical malpractice storyline to see what I mean.

I liked Larry.

"Larry Bryggman may have trashed the soaps, but it didn't stop him from giving some great performances on ATWT. Watch his scenes holding his dying baby (with Barbara), or his wonderful performances during the medical malpractice storyline to see what I mean."

His scenes with Kathryn Hays when John and Kim were fighting over their alkie teen son, Andy, were pure GOLD. (Don't even get me started on the fact that Kathryn was never even nominated for an Emmy! Such a travesty.) I also love watching John fight with Bob about anything-- hospital issues, Duke, whatever.

And needless to say, Bryggman + Hubbard = Perfection. The show made a HUGE mistake in keeping them apart for decades.

So is it true that Grant's dong was so pendulous that it touched the toilet water? Or is that an urban legend?

Bryggman had a face for radio. I rather watch a square-jawed shirtless stud trying trying to act than homely Larry fighting with Dr. Blob.

R273 = the Drew Dixon Troll

Yes, I am proud that I have the balls to say, yes, Scott was ugly and that Cameron Mathison would've been much better suited to play Andy. Sexy Cam as "Drew Dixon" could've kept the character a vital part of the canvass until its final telecast. Cam looked like he stepped off the cover of a romance novel, and that's what the character, and the show, needed.

You're a taste-impaired ninny, r275. Cameron Mathison always looked like he had a head cold. A mouth-breather. IQ of 86. Or you're MADD. In either case, ABC is where you belonged.

Well hello, Drew Dixon. Drool!

mmmmmm...Drool Dixon.

Glad to see people remembering Larry Bryggman's public disdain for the genre. The last time I brought it up I was called a lying troll.

Bryggman liked his fellow cast members, but hated the writing, even the sainted Marland's stuff. But a paycheck's a paycheck.

DrOOl Dixon

Drool Dixon would've been such a great soap name. And it flows perfectly naturally from blah ugly DeFritos Andy to sexy mouthwatering Cam's Drew, nicknamed by all the horny chicks in Oakdale as Drool.

But Kim wouldn't have been able to have an affair with Cam Mathison's character.

Drool would've been fucking every cunt into oblivion. Can you imagine anything with a vagina being remotely interested in Scott's Andy?

[quote]Can you imagine anything with a vagina being remotely interested in Scott's Andy?

As a matter of fact, I can.

Cunt? For Andy?

Due to extreme homeliness and lack of any discernible muscle tone, abs, and general sex appeal, the role of Drool Dixon is now being played by Cameron Mathison.

Mouth breather. And he looks like Holden Snyder.

I gotta fire that r287 as a writer.

Wouldn't have been amazing if they had canned Byrne and replaced her with that little spitfire Rebecca Budig? Now THAT is what Lucinda's daughter should have been...not the whiny average looking Byrne. Then they could've made Drew and Lily into a supercouple (Drewl!) and recapture the magic the Cam and Becky had on AMC. Sigh, what could have been!

Or you could have just watched AMC, twatilina.

Since Rebecca Budig is now playing Lily maybe Bobbie Eakes should play a recast Lucinda

Martha "gingivitis" Byrne

r292, actually Bobbie Eakes would've made a great Margo. What a wonderful WORLD it would have been had these ugly P&G actors been replaced with pretty people. Alexa Havins as Alison Stewart would've made that character pop! Add all these Ford bros from OLTL as Luke, Jake, and Casey, respectively, and the demos would've climbed.

R241, Grant always added something authentic to the scene.

at 1:58 in this scene, I swear he silently mouths 'effing bitch' about India upon learning that India asked BETH to be at their civil service ceremony. Was it 'effing' or 'fucking' - who knows, either way I'm surprised it got past sensors.

It's brilliant as Beth was blind at the time and she couldn't see what he was saying.

I file him under the 'never a false moment' type of actor.

The Phillip/India dynamic could never last; he never truly loved her. But it was fascinating to watch. Can't find it online, but at one point when he's being blackmailed into the marriage he's got her hands around her neck and says don't ever say Beth's name and with her last gasp of air India says BETH!

He stops himself from going through with killing her but when he realizes he almost did it was powerful.

You don't see moments like that on TV anymore. Back in 1984, there was no Internet and the mags weren't able to give spoilers due to the production schedules. Nor had that evolved to where they were giving play by plays on what would go down on the shows before it happened.

r294 IS Mickey Against Daytime Drama.

aka MADD Cow

r294 Brad Bell seems to like your ideas. He cast AMC's Zach Slater as Ridge Forrester and GH's Jasper Jacks as Thorne Forrester.

Whoever keeps pimping the Cam Mathison as Andy Dixon idea?

Please find the grease fire with your name on it.....

Poor Bryggman and DeFreitas were both so homely. Uggo.

You're so right, r300. Just imagine if Cam was playing Drew/Andy, and a really handsome older gentleman like Perry King had played John.

the acting has to count for something; tho I heard a story if Bryggman didn't like an actor he was in a scene with he'd just look at them like he didn't understand what they were saying to make it appear interesting.

Is Liz Hubbard considered a esteemed theater actor, in the same league with Bryggman and Kathleen Widdows? Bryggman and Widdows were always fantastic (very nuanced), while Hubbard just seemed like your typical OTT, though very charismatic, soap actor. Kind of like in the same league as a Strasser or Jane Elliot.

Fair questions R303.

Widdoes is very talented, but Emma and Lucinda are two totally different characters.

There's a really nice scene in which Iva tells Emma that Josh raped her and Iva believes Lily's a child of not only rape but incest.

Widdoes was great in the scene (as was Lisa Brown) as she gently told her that both Josh/Rod AND Iva were adopted.

Hubbard might have played it different; she's not Widdoes but Widdoes isn't Hubbard.

here's the scene of Iva and Emma, go to 38:38; they get rid of Lily and then have a heart to heart about Josh, etc.

and here's where Lucinda finds out Iva was raped; she's just as compassionate in her own way.

she even comforts Iva towards the end, putting her arms around her.

They came a long way since Harry's Tavern and Lucinda walked in on Iva nursing a stinger.

The end of that scene always slays me. I was a sobbing mess all that summer.

MARY!

R303, no, Hubbard was not an esteemed theater actor like Bryggman and Widdoes. I think her only Broadway credit was the huge flop thriller Children, Children starring Gwen Verdon.

Hubbard always flubbed her lines. She was awful.

Hubbard was in Ordinary People.

She won an Emmy for playing Edith Wilson in First Ladies Diaries.

I don't understand why Hubbard is always slagged here. She was one of the reasons I watched. She is very much in the moment. Yes, she is a bit broad in some scenes. But Lucinda was not a reticent type of character. Especially not in the early years.

Hubbard was the best thing about The Doctors for much of its run.

(This clip has her plus her hot square jawed love interest......and the beautiful young Peter Burrell, as well, at 1:19:00.)

I wonder if the Andy Dixon hater is the Lucinda Hater. They were two of my three big reasons for (eventually) giving up Another World, the other being the writing.

I don’t know why the Drew Dixon troll has such a hard on against Scott Defreitas. No, he wasn’t the sexiest guy around but he wasn’t ugly either. Plus he was a good actor and had some great story lines.

Now you want to talk homely, look at Michael O’Leary on GL. Now Rick Bauer could have greatly benefitted from another actor. Can you imagine a Rick that was equal to Phillip in looks and acting ability. That would have been amazing.

R314 I'm a soap traditionalist but I will agree with you there. Rick was kinda attractive in his early days but he aged terribly. I always assumed the reason Michael O'Leary stayed was that he was real life BFFs w/Grant and because writers always made Rick the dumpy second runner up to Phillip (which, is kinda realistic in many ways to real life).

I would never slag on Elizabeth Hubbard, she did phenomenal SOAP work. Loved her on The Doctors and on ATWT, but there are some performers where you can see why they never broke out of soaps. I don't know what happened between The Doctors and ATWT, but she clearly forgot how to be subtle.

[quote]I don’t know why the Drew Dixon troll has such a hard on against Scott Defreitas. No, he wasn’t the sexiest guy around but he wasn’t ugly either. Plus he was a good actor and had some great story lines.

He probably watched ATWT enough to be familiar with the names of both characters and actors, but was really an ABC soap fan. Or "he" is MADD.

He is not important enough to be a full-fledged troll. He is the Drew Dixon Douche.

[quote]I don't know what happened between The Doctors and ATWT, but she clearly forgot how to be subtle.

She's already played subtle (Althea), she wanted to try something different with Lucinda. She was just as committed and consistent with Lucinda's larger-than-life bravura as she was with Althea's cool sophistication.

Agree R319. I think she played Lucinda broad because she felt that was the character.

I don' t know Althea's past, but Lucinda Walsh (nee Mary Ellen Walters) had a horrible childhood and she had a lot of walls up as a result.

I watch her stuff all the time; she and Kathy Hays should have tied for the Emmy in 1987 for their work on the show in 1986.

Two very different women, two mothers doing everything they could to protect their daughters.

Soap have lost that type of dynamic.

Speaking of Michael O'Leary/Rick Bauer, he turns 60 today.

Justin Deas turns 70 in a few days.

I remember when Jeanne Cooper, Joe Mascolo, Helen Wagner and Frances Reid were all alive and kicking, making appearances on their shows till practically the very end.

Now, they're all gone and others are getting older and older. AW gone almost 20 years. GL almost 10. (And creatively they died much earlier.)

I wish they were all available on DVD or streaming.

Still can't believe Beverlee's last GL appearance was 25 years ago. Does not seem possible.

Why are a lot of the recent posts on this tread tagged as from a "troll"? I can still see their comments even though they are in very light font and the comments are very inoffensive and on topic.

They likely got in trouble for one of their posts and got a temporary red card. It's one of the frequent soap posters, I believe.

[quote] It's one of the frequent soap posters, I believe.

Really? In a soap thread?

Soap thread favorite John Wesley Shipp just posted this on his FB page.

A big, strappin' man.

OMG, JWS was one of my first soap crushes. One look at that iconic photo of him in a speedo sitting poolside, and I no longer questioned my identity.

It is devastating that this OP has been red-tagged. Please reconsider.

r330 There's no walking back the Red Tag. It's like a god's edict; not even Muriel Herself can reverse it.

So, we all know that Edge Of Night and Dark Shadows were virtual video gay bars. But who is actually known to be gay on ATWT? Not the wishful thinking guys (Michael Park,etc), but actually gay actors and actresses over the shows 50 years.

The red-tagged poster is the "Eileen Fulton clogs toilets" asshole or one of the Spicen v. Scholar assholes. He should get no pity.

Actually, R333, I believe it is one of the Donnas.

My apologies! I assumed wrong.

R334 I believe it is one of the Donnas too.

[quote]So, we all know that Edge Of Night and Dark Shadows were virtual video gay bars. But who is actually known to be gay on ATWT? Not the wishful thinking guys (Michael Park,etc), but actually gay actors and actresses over the shows 50 years.

R332 That discussion is happening on the thread linked below.

R332 Park isn't exactly wishful thinking. I would also say he falls into the bi or "dramatically flexible" category.

But he really likes to cruise arcades. Whether he's showing off, the sucker or the suckee, who knows.

Follow the Search, bitches!

That Lee Sentell made me hard back in the day.

My dream storyline for Cam on ATWT would've been for Drew to replace alcohol with another addiction: sex. Drew becomes insatiable and fucks everyone and everything in sight (male and female) and keeps his own hole open for business 24x7. When his best friend, "model" Paul, tries to stage an intervention, the two of them wind up fucking each other's brains out. Hank Elliot returns to town, bitter over his fading youth/looks and the death of the back of Charles's head. He now sets up a male escort business, "OakMale", in the back room of Fashions and recruits Drew as the face (and body and hole) of OakMale. All the closeted men in town wind up procuring the services of OakMale and Drew...Tom Hughes, Seth Snyder, Jack Snyder, Earl Mitchell. Scott whatshisface could never have pulled that off. Oh what could've been.

I can get with that storyline, but surely there's an equally hot, but more intelligent-looking actor than Mouthbreather Mathison.

So, r342, who do you think would've made the perfect Drew Dixon? I always had a thing for James Wlcek, but he already played Linc on the show.

[quote]So, [R342], who do you think would've made the perfect Drew Dixon?

Scotty D., natch.

Wlcek looked kind of dumb, too. Andy wasn't one of the dumb kids. He was just an addict.

[quote]So, [R342], who do you think would've made the perfect Drew Dixon?

I've been trying to give this serious thought, because as you know, I think Scott DeFreitas was perfect, needing no replacement, and I have come up with someone. Matt Crane had a brother who was a model in the early '90s for J Crew, whose first name I don't remember. He'd've been an acceptable "Drew Dixon." He was even better looking than Matt.

He looked something like this, but I don't think this is him.

Who was Drew Dixon, I don't remember that character. The only Dixons I remember are John, Andy, and Duke. Did John have a baby with Carly?

Look what you started, Drew Dixon Douche.

What was Lisa Brown like. She seemed to be a pain in the ass

Lisa Brown was so homely!

She was perfect as Iva. I didn't see "homely," at least not in a bad way. Maybe "homey."

She was certainly unconventional looking.

Iva dropped good eaves.

P&G didn't hire many conventionally attractive people in the 70s and into the very early 80s.

Uh, excuse me?

Aleksander wasn’t hired until late 1982.

Ok so Dec 1982 isn't the early 80's?

Notice that I wrote "very early 80s". I had Grant in mind when I wrote that, since I knew he wasn't around in 80 or 81.

What year did John Wesley Shipp join GL?

1980, R359.

Lisa Brown reminded me of Judy Garland-- both looks and speaking voice.

For someone who sparkled as Nola on GL, she certainly was a downer on ATWT. But because she was tied to the character of Lily, she was practically guaranteed screentime.

Did John Wesley Shipp admire Doug Marland’s toes?

"For someone who sparkled as Nola on GL, she certainly was a downer on ATWT. "

She really was the most tragic soap character ever, IMO. And I loved it then and I love it now.

Brown was homely. She never would've been cast on an ABC show. Can you imagine her interacting with the likes of divine divas like Lucci or Andrea Evans?

"Can you imagine her interacting with the likes of divine divas like Lucci or Andrea Evans?"

No, thank God.

Lisa Brown was a mess! She was homely and hooked up with the even homelier Tom Nielsen and had kids. Yikes!!!! I couldn’t stand Nola or Iva. Wretched characters. Horrid actress. Ugh.

Lisa had a lot of buzz while playing Nola on GL. She starred in Forty Second Street during that time and she must have thought she was safe. Then came Pam Long and Gail Kobe who detested her. They marginalized Nola and Quint as much as they could. They made her real life hubby - the bumbling but lovable Floyd - a nutjob who was (of course) obsessed with Beth. God I hated those 2 bitches! They sucked. Giving us Reva was the cherry on top of the cake. Classy GL went out the window.

Gail Kobe and Pam Long revitalized GL. They took it from being an old lady soap to beating General Hospital in the ratings.

I don't think Pam Long detested Nola and Quint as much as she didn't know how to write for them. Both were very specific Marland creations and Pam Long didn't understand what really made them tick.

Quint was a gothic character that Marland excelled at writing. Pam Long didn't know how to do gothic.

As for Nola, Marland swayed the audience to root for the bad girl through her movie fantasies. Long tried to continue Nola's movie fantasies but they never really worked either.

Consequently, Nola and Quint just became another conventional couple that lost what made them special.

Likewise, Marland created a good guy Prince Charming character in Kelly Nelson. Pam Long didn't know how to do a Prince Charming storyline for Kelly and the character suffered to the point he became yawn inducing and JWS bolted. I don't think they even gave Kelly a send off scene; he just disappeared (maybe he went to the attic to look for Bobby Martin).

Good points, R370. I think Quint had a really limited shelf life as a character, anyway.

I really wish Nola had stayed on so we’d eventually see her being tortured by her daughter Stacey aka Kelly Louise like she tortured her mother Bea.

"Quint was a gothic character that Marland excelled at writing."

Seriously? I think trying to write "gothic" was Marland's biggest mistake. On ATWT, Duncan was a buffoon, moving his castle from Scotland to Oakdale was a joke, the ghost story was ridiculous, and a very good character (Shannon) was wasted on this nonsense.

Marland excelled when he stuck to realism: A farm family struggling to make ends meet, a gay man coming out to his friends, displaced Central Americans starting over in the U.S., weddings and divorces, teen substance abuse, etc.

I agree, R372, I thought Nola and her fantasies were great ... but I thought the whole Quinton story was ridiculous.

Marland did a much better job writing gothic for Quinton on GL than he ever did for Duncan on ATWT.

Quinton was a mysterious character with many secrets. But Marland incorporated Quinton into Nola's movie fantasies fairly quickly, which helped the audience warm to Quinton. If I recall, one of Nola's first movie fantasies involving Quinton was a Wuthering Heights one with Quinton playing Heathcliff. That helped win the audience over.

I agree with r371 that Quinton had a limited shelf life. Hard to sustain a gothic character when you're tying him down with a wife and kids.

Duncan just sort of came out of nowhere and was not tied to the realism that marked Marland's Oakdale, as r372 noted. While Michael Swan was sexy as hell, Duncan never belonged in Oakdale.

Also, Quinton was came on in 1981-82, when most of the soaps were jumping on the sci-fi and fantasy adventure bandwagon that GH started with Luke and Laura and the Ice Princess adventure storyline. Quinton's gothic adventure storyline was one of the most successful attempts to copycat that style of storyline.

By the time Marland introduced Duncan in 1986, the sci-fi and fantasy craze on soaps had passed.

Nola's Wuthing Heights fantasy

Nola's Jane Eyre fantasy

Nola's Casablanca fantasy

I'm wondering how the Donnas are.

Michael Tylo. Barf.

Maureen Bauer! Dullest character to ever appear on a soap. JFP was on the money with that decision.

R380 thought he was posting in the Unpopular Opinions thread.

Remember that it was a focus group that said they would not miss the Maureen Bauer character if she was killed off. So even alot of the audience, myself included, did not miss Maureen. She was so fricking boring. Kudos to Ellen Parker though for going out with a bang and an Emmy (which did nothing for her career). But I never once missed Maureen after she was killed off.

Ed was only interesting when he had interesting female characters to play off of. I'm convinced that saddling him with that dull homely frau Maureen was the show's way of slowly trying to dismantle the Bauers. Anyway, the Bauers were boring and needed to go. San Cristobel breathed new life into the show, but the old biddies who watched couldn't tolerate any change.

You're a troll or an idiot to undermine the importance of Maureen to GL. When Charita Bauer died, Mo picked up effortlessly the matriarch quotient. I loved Ellen Dolan as Mo and couldn't stand Ellen Parker at first - I thought she was dumpy and dull but she grew on me. She sparked and even Michael Zaslow admitted Parker had what Charita Bauer had.

[quote]San Cristobel blew chunks into the show.

Fixed.

Mo was way too young to be GL’s matriarch. On an old lady P&G soap, Matriarch’s were 80 year old fraus.

The Bauers were dinosaurs by the '80s. Gail Kobe and Pam Long did the right thing by firing Don Stewart and Marsha Clark and marginalizing Ed and that dumpy wife of his. Hell, Kobe and Long probably deliberately waited a year after Charita Bauer's death to do Burt's funeral, just to infuriate and chase away the old biddy viewers. Good for them. Reva and San Cristobel were my favorite parts of the show.

Is r387 the Drew Dixon Douche?

I think if they had gotten someone more glamorous to play Maureen, the character would've lasted a lot longer. I always wanted to see what Shannon Tweed could've done with Maureen. She was SO good on Days, I bet she would've sparkled on GL as Maureen.

No one cared about Maureen until she died. Then all of a sudden you care? That is not a long lasting soap character.

[quote] Gail Kobe and Pam Long revitalized GL. They took it from being an old lady soap to beating General Hospital in the ratings.

For a week.

"Drew" Dixon, Shannon Tweed as Maureen Bauer... I'm trying to understand what drives this troll. Ugh, I'll just block.

It was ORD that got red-tagged. Why, I have absolutely no idea, "she" is a sweetheart.

I adore both of you, BNSD. I hope ORD will come sneaking back to us, revealing "herself" stealthily, yet surely.

I hope so, too, R394. I hope Aunt Liz and FFBoa are still here, too.

Asshole Serial nutjob with no friends got this blocked. Moron. Get a life. Get friends. You have life beyond being online. Go away!

Okay, BNSD, I'm guessing r396 isn't ORD In Exile.

Fair guess, R397.

ORD in Exile is our own Datalounge P&G storyline.

Shannon Tweed as Maureen would've been so hot and sexy. No way any focus group would've approved her leaving.

Except she wouldn't have been Maureen. To anyone except Drew Dixon.

Of course, with Shannon Tweed on board, the show would've needed a suitably attractive and hunky Ed to replace that average looking Peter Simon. Josh Taylor would've made a great Ed, and he and Shannon could've recreated the magic they'd made at Days. The sexual heat that Shannon and Josh would've had would've made the Bauers sexy and rejuvenated that boring ass family.

Anyone who loved San Cristobal on GL has zero taste, in my opinion.

Rita revitalized the Bauer family, along with Hope’s marriage to Alan. Mart Hulswit may have been chunky but his Ed was more of a leading man than milquetoast, wimpy Peter Simon, who didn’t seem like a good rival for Roger or Alan.

When the three of them left the family suffered.

Bert Bauer looked like 104 dude.

Josh Taylor - hilariously bad - replaced Michael Tylo as Quint for a brief bit on GL in the 90's. Talk about someone who could never act to save his life.

We witnessed the slow, steady decline of GL over a 15 year period of time. Every year, it's eventual demise became more and more of a reality and many of us knew it as we watched.

Here's a question to discuss -- when was the last time that GL was salvageable? When was the last time things could have been turned around and the show revitalized? In other words, when was the last time the show could have, realistically, been saved? Not pie in the sky fantasy of someone swooping in a year before cancellation to fix everything, but an honest, realistic assessment of when it still had a chance for survival.

Aunt Liz here, I usually only post under that name on AW threads. But since BNSD asked about me, I figured I'd use that name even though I'm going to answer a GL question.

In my opinion, the last time GL was salvagable was in 2002 when Millie Taggert was HW and Paul Rauch was still EP. In 2002, Taggert dumped San Cristobullshit and killed off Prince Richard (yeah!!!!!). She got things focused on Springfield but also mimiized the Santos family. There was a good set of teens -- Bill, Michelle and Ben. The Spaulding family was back in center of things.. Joan Collins came in as Alexandra. Harley and Gus's romance was exciting. Josh and Reva remarried and Cassie opened the hotel.

That all ended in early 2003. Millie Taggert's contract ended and she chose not to renew. MADD fired Paul Rauch and hired John Conboy, who brought in Ellen Weston to HW. Neither Conboy or Weston seemed to understand what the show needed to keep in on track. This is the pair that gave us the Marrianne Carruthers storyline, and brought back Bradley Cole, this time playing Jeffrey O'Neil, a character who they shoved down our throats at the expense of all the other characters.

Aunt Liz. Are you a lez? Asking for a friend.

Aunt Lez craved Susan Keith's Cecile. There was lust in that old dyke's eyes.

LIZ MATTHEWS, is that you?!

Did Connie and Irene engage in the lez-lez?

Connie Ford was a cock hound.

R407 gave my answer.

GL was middle to low rated for the last 20+ years of its life. It was lucky that is lasted as long as it did.

GL was on the rebound ratings wise immediately after Pam Long left. It ranked 5th in the 1991-92 season, but then dropped after they lost Bev. Kimberly Simms and Sherry Springfield in rapid succession. That played a bigger factor in the ratings drop than Maureen’s death. And then CBS lost a bunch of affiliates shortly before the OJ trial to Fox, which hit ATWT and GL particularly hard-GL started airing at off hours all over the country shortly afterwards.

Darlings, I am back. I've been freed from a jail in Tanquir.

What have I missed?

All is right with the world once more.

Drew Dixon!

GL went downhill when they fired Rose Alaio as Helena Manzini.

We also watched ATWT die a slow death. Yes, Marland's death in 1993 was really the beginning of the end. But there were some periods after that where it was looking up.

So, here's another question to discuss. When was the last time that ATWT was salvagable. When was it still in good enough shape that it could possibly have been saved from its inevitable demise.

[quote]When was the last time that ATWT was salvagable.

Lisa v. Johnny Boy in the matter of the death of Eduardo Grimaldi

[quote]When was it still in good enough shape that it could possibly have been saved from its inevitable demise.

About one minute after someone decided to make Luke gay. The writing never lived up to the potential.

Rememer when Fulton kept plugging up the studio toilet?

After Emma’s sticky buns were criticized by Caleb’s twat of a girlfriend.

[quote]When was the last time that ATWT was salvagable.

When Carly drowned in the Snyder Farm Pond and no one noticed. Not a word was heard about her ever again, not even on the SFK Eavesdropping Porch.

Just re-read the thread and lots of love to BNSD and others who mentioned me in my absence.

Welcome back, ORD.

GL's last gasp of good, I think, was around the time they won a slew of Emmys in 2006-2007. There were some solid stories happening there.

One thing GL did from around 1993-94 on was really put all their eggs in one basket re: couples. I think at some point this because an attempt to copy Sonny/Carly at GH. Focus on a few.

It was all Matt and Vanessa all the time for a long time, then all Phillip and Harley, etc. At the end they'd put all their eggs in the Jonathan and Tammy basket and....well, I hated Tammy but even I'll admit when she died, the show just kind of sputtered to a stop.

GL also had a lot of missed opportunities where writers either didn't know history or chose to invent new contradictory history. Or their timing was terrible, probably a sign of stories hung up at the network level. I loved the idea of Josh being a minister, but the point of that was to have Reva, the former slut of Springfield, become a minister's wife and have her come to grips with how that changed her or made her feel. The same could have been done for the cancer storyline, where Reva has a mastectomy and hey, for a woman who so closely identified with her body, where does she go from there? Fascinating possibilities, all missed. The ministry thing was a dud because Josh had been with nuCassie for all of a week. The cancer story became a dumb thing where Reva hid it from Josh.....which she'd never do.

Who da F is ORD? A no one.

She is neither Spicen nor Scholar, R428. Which is a good thing.

I thought Reva should be written as an overweight, over-the-hill sexpot who turned to booze to numb the pain -- and ran riot through Springfield, telling truths and divulging secrets nobody else would dare to. Zimmer could have played the hell out of that, for obvious reasons.

R428,

ORD (Original Recipe Donna) refers to Anna Stuart as AW’s Donna Love BNSD (Brand New Sexy Donna) refers to Stuart’s (temporary replacement) Phelice Sampler

R431 No one fucking cares!

ORD, glad you're back from Tanquir.

Have you ever found your third child? They carted you off to a mental hospital clutching three dolls, crying,, "My babies." So, where's that third child?

Welcome back/hiya to both ORD and Aunt Liz.

BNSD! I hope all is well in your neck of the woods. Are you in the middle of finals hell?

And hiya, Aunt Liz! I never knew what happened to Baby #3. I think it only wanted to sign a two year contract instead of three and thus....poof. Either that or it was that other OTHER Donna. The evil Donna. Donna Swajeski, of course.....

[quote]The evil Donna. Donna Swajeski

I wonder what ever happened to her.

We should talk about stories that were proposed, rumored or alluded to on screen, but never happen either because of network/production company cold feet, a writer change, a writer's strike, or some kind of actor issue. I'll start.

Gay Michael Randolph.

[quote]We should talk about stories that were proposed, rumored or alluded to on screen,

Vampires in Bay City, under Jill Farren Phelps.

R438, weren't Shane and Lila vampires? Or at least space robots?

In Marland’s original outline for Nola/Kelly/Morgan, Kelly ended up with Nola.

What was the storyline before he died going to be that featured Jeanne Cooper? Wasn’t she supposed to be the matriarch of a new family? And wasn’t Jane Elliot involved too?

Oh please I don't believe Jeanne Cooper for a minute. She was full of shit.

[quote]weren't Shane and Lila vampires? Or at least space robots?

Tomas -- Maggie Cory's Latino boyfriend -- met a woman who claimed to be a vampire. The original story was that he'd be bitten and turn himself.

R440 That has never really been disclosed. I think it was still in the planning stages.

Part of me thinks Jeanne and Jane would have been fab, but part of me thinks there were already so many mature women on the show.

We were never supposed to see Justine.

In Marland's original projection Holden wasn't for Lily at all but for Emily.

Aunt Liz’s pussy smelled.

Lujack was never supposed to be anything but a day player.

Pam Long was writing an entirely different concept for Brandon, someone who would out Phillip Phillip. But when Lujack became so popular so quickly, the network upended the long term projects and told Long make him Alex's son.

Jeanne Cooper was a lying, ass kissing bitch.

There I said it and it's true.

nobody could "out Phillip" Phillip.

Nobody.

Jeanne stuck her foot in her mouth one year at the Emmys about the fight 'between' Eric and Peter; they were under a gag order not to talk about it.

As a result, I think Bill Bell backburnered Kay and then Rex was killed off.

I could see her wanting to jump ship, but was Doug really going to 'steal' her away from Y&R? Would CBS have gone for that?

Liz and Jeanne and Jane and Kathy Hays and Eileen all in the same scene would have been surreal.

AW was strongly hinting that Scott LaSalle was going to be Donna's third baby.

I've always assumed they killed that storyline because of the switch from ORD to BNSD. Philece Sampler was just 5 years old than Hank Cheyne; would have been hard to believe them as mother and son.

And once they dropped that storyline, they really never did much of anything with the Scott LaSalle character again.

Jamie Frame, when played by Larry Lau, was supposed to end up with Lisa Grady rather than Vicky Hudson. But then Joanna Going opted not to renew her contract.

Wasn’t Wilma Jeanne an old drunk?

During his return Lemay had written a storyline where Jason Frame was heading up a baby market racket out of Frame farm. Then the writers strike happened and fucked everything up and he was replaced by Swajeski.

AW hired Lau and then Kim Delaney lookalike Joanna Going in order to entice viewers who had loved Greg and Jenny to watch AW. That ploy really didn't work. I think that was during the John Whitesell/Margaret DePriest run. Or was that Swajeski? Whoever it was, the plan reeked of desperation.

Posted here before, in some thread somewhere, but relevant to the "stories that changed" subthread here: Marland's ATWT projections from when he assumed the reins.

(Part one of four posts)

Go away Serial asshole.

Even though many people think Pete Lemay was the HW before the 1988 Writers Strike, that is not correct. He may have unofficially contributed a story Bible which was used during the writers strike, but he did not officially take over as HW until after the strike.

Lemay quit after two months, reportedly irritated by constant network interference with his story plans. He's said in interviews that in 1988, he wasn't as desperate for money as he had been in the 1970s and consequently was less willing to deal with network interference (plus there was much more network interference in the 1980s since AW's ratings were so much lower in the 1980s than in the 1970s). So Lemay decided the headaches weren't worth it and quit.

However, he did leave a detailed three-year story Bible which Donna Swajeski used extensively during her tenure as HW.

Swajeski was the uncredited HW during the Writer's Strike in 1988. Swajeski had been an NBC exec at the time of the strike and took over the writing duties. She did an excellent job during the 5 months of the strike (AW came out of the strike in much, much better shape than most of the other soaps). Reportedly, Swajeski wanted to continue as HW after the strike, but Lemay didn't want a co-headwriter. So, when Lemay started rebelling against network interference, the network was willing to let him go since Swajeski had a excellent track record.

The link below gives a complete list of every HW on AW.

But to quickly summarize the sequence of HWs in the late 1980s/early 1990s:

Margaret DePriest, March 1986 - January 1988

Sheri Anderson, February 1988 - April 1988

Writers Strike, April 1988 - September 1988 (Donna Swajeski was the scab HW)

Harding Lemay, September 12, 1988 - November 10, 1988

Donna Swajeski, November 1988 - November 1992

Peggy Sloane, November 1992 - November 1994

[quote]Kim Delaney lookalike Joanna Going

Joanna Going was so much better looking, it never occurred to me for a moment that they could have been considered "lookalikes" until I read the five words above, with which I do not agree any more in this decade than I did in that decade. Joanna Going is, and always was, one of the world's most beautiful people. Kim Delaney is, and always has been, no more than a few degrees hotter than what we now refer to as "meh."

I thought Kim Delaney had a distinctive look and Joanna Going, had a very pretty but very bland look.

I think the idea was to get a generic brunette to remind everyone of Greg and Jenny. AW was desperate at that point.

I had not watched a soap opera in decades when I started to watch AW in the summer of 1988.

Thanks for the info R458. And looking at the page you linked to, it's easy to see why the show was in such trouble in the years after Lemay left. From the time he left until the writers strike, there were at least nine different people credited as head writer, the longest tenure of which was about two years. Then, after Swajeski and Sloane, it was another train wreck for the last five years of the show, with another nine people serving as head writer in that period. It's amazing the show lasted as long as it did. Sheesh!

What would y'all have thought of Cam's Drew Dixon hooking up with a de-SORAS-ed Lucinda, played by Cat Hickland? Now THAT would've been hot and created father/son conflict between Drew and John. I love Cat Hickland. She would've played Lucinda as sexy, not tic-laden and old-looking like Hubbard. My dream was for FMB to populate/recast as many characters as possible with the beautiful actors from ABC. Alas. But y'all have to admit, Cam and Cat would've been super-hot and brought in the demos that ATWT so desperately needed.

R464 = MADD

I never believed sensible nurse Lyla as someone who was apparently something of a Mama Rose on the child beauty pageant circuit.

But you did believe that a hottie like Casey would fall for that old fishwife?

I loved Philece as Renee, but she was too young to play Donna.

I think DAYS writer Maggie DePriest had gone to AW and that's how she got the job.

Just a bad recast.

"I never believed sensible nurse Lyla as someone who was apparently something of a Mama Rose on the child beauty pageant circuit."

They destroyed the whole Montgomery family. Don't get me started on FauxCraig... And even Margo was having an affair with a teenager!

You people who take these shows so seriously are a bit frightening. I realize that many of your are damaged gay men who identified with and latched on to these "loving, accepting" characters/communities after your own families and communities rejected you for being different, but please get a grip. These were fictional characters on a dumb soap.

That's rich, r470, coming from the Drew Dixon Douche.

LOL, R471. BUSTED, R470! Hahahahahaha.

What I thought was weird at both GL and ATWT is that they kept doing weird retcons and instant characters (like Ava being Olivia and Jeffrey's daughter, and Gabriel being Craig's son).

Meanwhile, there were so many young characters to age. At GL, there was a perfect young antihero in Peter Reardon, who would have been connected to half the canvas. There were all of the Marler kids. ATWT did slightly better with Aaron, Luke, Casey and Adam, but they also had Andy and Denise's daughter, John and Iva's son, etc.

Then again, ATWT seemed to be all into killing the younger characters (like Bryant, who should never have been killed off), so who knows if it would have made any difference.

They ruined Lyla.

And I think any new writer to the show who really knew the history or a veteran writer who tried to object to Lyla's new direction would have been axed.

So sad.

When Doug died it all went away outside of Lisa suing Johnny Dixon and some of the Hogan stuff.

[quote]When Doug died it all went away outside of Lisa suing Johnny Dixon

Fixed.

R470 Drew Dixon Douche types Mickey Against Daytime Drama.

I think this thread needs a little Susan Piper/Carrie Carruthers.

the casting on GL was amazing.

People can say what they want about the Soap Opera Awards always but one year Betty Rea won the Editor's Award; Doug and Bill won it too.

I meant to write 'always favoring DAYS'

Susan Piper made my clit hard.

That bitch Gail Kobe fired lezzy Geraldine Court. The show had been lezz-tastic with Mo Garrett, Geri, Marsha, Ellen Dolan, Cindy Pickett and her dyke haircut, and that old dyke-frau who played Lucille Wexler.

R478 Yes indeed. Casting on GL was flawless during Betty's reign, especially from the beginning of the Marland years to circa 1993.

This is one of my favorite soap articles ever. Victoria Wyndham just gives it everything.

R483, I can HEAR Lady Wyndham saying everything in that interview.

I am verklempt! I love that interview and had never seen it before. She pulled no punches....and was completely 100 percent on the mark, all the way.

This was one of the interviews I do remember......from later on.

Mary! me all you want, but I still miss VW terribly..

Margaret Reed (Shannon) was on tonight’s episode of The Americans in a small role. She looks OK.

One thing that VW said that I really thought about was PG soaps and "stars". Across the board, PG shows didn't really have a Lucci or Slezak, or even a Dee Hall. They truly were ensembles, then I thought well they gave Jensen a helicopter, but that was just a convenient way for her to get to work. But then I thought about Zimmer. Zimmer had a lot of power, but did she have Slezak, Lucci power? Could she veto stories? Could any actor on PG soaps?

After Courtney died at the hands of the Sin Stalker on AW, Matt and Morgan were supposed to become lovers. If you watch the episodes following her death you can see some hints of what was going to happen between the two men. Shit happened again behind-the-scenes and the storyline was scrapped.

My mistake...the killer was not the Sin Stalker, it was Fax Newman...

R487, I came her to post the same thing. She looked pretty much the same, just a little older and "fluffier." Looks pretty good for 61.

According to IMDb, her characters name is "Belinda Oliver" and she's slated for 3 episodes.

Maggie said in a tribute article to Doug five years after he died that he'd patterned Shannon O'Hara (Erin Casey) after Holly Golightly

Loved Shannon; she was a breath of fresh air in Oakdale and her showdowns with Babs were awesome.

ATWT NY's Eve 1985

the end of one great year, kicking off into an even greater on, perhaps the show's finest ever 1986.

P&G did have Linda Dano who starred on her own talk show, had a range of merchandise for the shopping networks, and even had romance novels published under her characters name. I never read those, but I did read her home and beauty books where she actually does have some sage advice about aging, looks and appearance. Linda as a Blanchard model:

Wyndham was such a cunt. As if she’d ever leave AW. Hrmph.

[QUOTE]Matt and Morgan were supposed to become lovers.

You take me away.

Matt Cory and Morgan Winthrop?

OMG, that would have been....explosive.

r494, how I love to see all the ladies in their glittering finery! Those were the glory years indeed!

But instead Matt ended up with you, R498. The lucky bastard.

I really did enjoy Matt and Donna as a couple.

I did too, R500.

Matthew was quite a gentleman. And so good with his hands.

And Donna, was it you who convinced him to cut off that ridiculous ponytail? He looked so much better without it!

The glaring issue with Philece as Donna was that she did look too close in age to Anne Heche to be believably playing her mother. But her addition added to the youthful feel of the show of early '88. There was that colorful new opening number which debuted a month earlier, plus a even newer sub-set of teens added in addition to the number of older teens already on the show.

The episode of Jan '88 has rare location footage of Sam out in the Winter streets of NYC.

One of those "newer" teens was played by old lady Gabrielle Carteirs.

Look at Ada in R504 - those rolled up sleeves! She was such an awesome dyke!

Were Connie and Irene a couple IRL?

No doubt that Connie & Irene bumped pussys.

R503 BNSD/Philece just needed to have some fabulous full length mirrors around. That might have made all the difference.

A nice royal mirror to check one's fabulousness in is a MUST.

I was just at a film screening in Portland and in the lobby, an artist was selling work based on 80s horror movies. Among the various displays was a drawing of Russell Todd as he appeared in the second Friday the 13th.

The pre-show featured a clip from that TV-movie where La Lucci played the devil and ran a resort.

Sadly, there was no Rachel art for sale.

Gabrielle C. is the SAG AFTRA president; she recently introduced a panel at the union in honor of Y&R's 45th; she noted that she'd been on Another World.

How fabulous, BNSD.

Portland is on my list for further adventures.

And I would SO visit a gallery that had an exhibit of Lady Eyes-A-Buggin's work.

BNSD is irritating.

BNSD is not irritating me.

Is R512 acting up?

Yes, R512 is indeed.

NO ONE comes for a Donna. Not unless they come through me.

And I WILL cut a bitch.

r512 is just channeling her inner Cecile.

The Donnas have been here for years. They are a welcome and vital part of this community. They have each contributed a tremendous amount to these AW and P&G threads. If you find them annoying, move to another thread.

David Oliver was so beautiful. I rubbed one out fantasizing about him more times than I can recall.

Perry, Donna, Peter, Marley/Vicky, the McKinnons....all these people replaced such marvelous characters from the 70s.

AW should never have lost the Matthews clan. I can only think that if Doug Marland had left Oakdale and P&G hired him to write AW, he would have brought them back.

Didn’t Lemay bring back Liz and Russ, and introduce Olivia Matthews? I’ve read that he also planned to bring back Pat, but Donna Swajeski didn’t pick up that story projection. More’s the pity.

Rauch tried to lure back Beverly Penberthy after Corinne Jacker was axed, but she turned him down. And of course the return of Jackie Courtney circa 1983 was not successful. I don't think any of the writers after Lemay were truly invested in the Matthews family.

Didn’t Beverley Penberthy’s nephew tell us here that she would not only have come back but she’d be happy to stay for as long as the show ran?

I go back to Marland's tenure at ATWT.

He may not have married Bob and Kim, but for some reason I suspect he was consulting on that. I could be wrong.

When he did get there he strengthened the Hughes family, even writing in Steve building a new entrance way so characters could make dramatic and semi-dramatic entrances. They had Chris and Nancy, Bob and Kim, Tom and Margo, and Frannie and also Andy. Perhaps the greatest multi-generational family ever on soaps.

I think it was Scott DeFrietas who said soaps are about families. The clans on AW were so fragmented.

Mistake to kill off Sally and not give Alice something to do. Hell, even Jacquie (sp?) Courtney's return for Mac's funeral showed she and Rachel still had some mileage in them. All they were missing was the same man to fight over.

I either read either here or somewhere else that Rauch tried to get Bev back, but she refused. Why in the world did they jettison Pat's romance with Philip Lyons? I know the show was going through a major transition at the time, but she and Robert Gentry had nice chemistry together.

The Hugheses were dull. Even GL recognized what a pill the Bauers were and phased them out in favor of the exciting Lewises.

As I recall, Bev P was written out in early 1982 because new HW Corine Jacker said she could not write for the Pat character (meaning that she didn't want to try to concoct stories for Pat). Paul Rauch supported that decision, despite protest letters being written in.

A year later, when Jacker was gone, Rauch invited Bev back as Pat, but she declined. Apparently, she was very hurt that Rauch hadn't stood up for the character to begin with.

[quote] When he did get there he strengthened the Hughes family, even writing in Steve building a new entrance way so characters could make dramatic and semi-dramatic entrances. They had Chris and Nancy, Bob and Kim, Tom and Margo, and Frannie and also Andy. Perhaps the greatest multi-generational family ever on soaps. I think it was Scott DeFreitas who said soaps are about families.

About "multi-generational families that work," specifically. I think the interview may have taken place before Andy had to testify against John.

My understanding is that Lemay wanted to bring Pat back in 1988 and get her involved in John and Sharlene’s story.

Lemay's Bible in 1988 clearly involved reestablishing the Matthews family.

He brought in Olivia as Russ's daughter and also established Josie as his daughter. Russ made periodic appearances during this time. Olivia was pregnant with Dennis's child when she left town -- making a connection between the Matthews and Cory families.

So, there were lots of Matthews possibilities they could have explored. They could have also brought back Sally's son Kevin. Or could easily have brought in Pat's kids Michael and Marrianne or some of their children.

It IS weird that AW let go of its core family so completely. Did that happen on any of the other long-running shows? I haven't watched Days of Our Lives in at least 25 years but I would be willing to bet there are still some Hortons on there.

GH is all but done with Quartermaines, and YR got rid of the Prentiss and Brooks families.

GL also changed from the initial Rutledges to the Bauers but that was even before TV so a little different.

By the time the Matthews were written out as a family unit, they really hadn't been the core family for years. They were there, but they were all B characters, especially after Courtney was fired the first time. The Corys became the central family and the A characters. The same sort of thing happened with the Bauers, but GL was much more successful at introducing new characters to take their place.

when ATWT ended we still had the Hugheses and Stewarts (Susan, Emily), Snyders and Lucinda; even Johnny Dixon came back at the end. (Martha Byrne and Scott Bryce would have been gifts).

GL had Ed and Holly going off on a world trip, Phillip and Beth living in the Spaulding manse as the 'old couple' and Rick and Mindy about to marry. Vanessa and Billy re-wed. Lillian stopped by Maureen's grave. We were being given on historical treat after the next.

I was ok with killing Alan because once Alan was responsible for Tammy's death there was no turning back.

India, Hope, and Alan-Michael could have made appearances at Alan's memorial, but we got so much else.

The only two bits of AW history at the end I can recall is Sam Groom (ex-Russ) back as the minister who wed Cass and Lila, and Rachel caressing a photo of Ada.

I heard there was a plan to ask Beverlee back to knock on Rachel's door in the last scene. THAT would have been great.

But I do think AW losing all its history from the 70s led to an early demise; being on NBC didn't help.

We are celebrating 10 years since old Bev kicked off! Join the celebration!!!!!!

[quote]It IS weird that AW let go of its core family so completely. Did that happen on any of the other long-running shows? I haven't watched Days of Our Lives in at least 25 years but I would be willing to bet there are still some Hortons on there.

I remember Ryan's Hope shifted the focus off the Ryan's and onto the Kirkland family in the early 80s, and rumor was that many of the cast started referring to the show as Kirkland's Hope.

What would y'all have thought of Dennis Cole as nuEd alongside Shannon Tweed as nuMaureen? They would've made the Bauers hot and sexy again.

Why were so many of the P&G actors so homely? I mean, there were a few standouts like Grant Aleksander and Jon Hensley, but for the most part they were ugly. I want to see pretty people on my screen, not ordinary looking people I can see any day at he market.

[quote] I heard there was a plan to ask Beverlee back to knock on Rachel's door in the last scene. THAT would have been great.

Beverlee alluded to that in what I believe was her final interview - it appeared in SOD or Weekly somewhere in the early 2000s. It was one of those "Where are they Now" recaps.

She said she'd been asked to go back to AW at the end, and had also been asked back to GL by Paul Rauch and Claire Labine, and said no to both.

Bev was a CUNT! Celebrating 10 years since the old witch died!

Everyone talks about ATWT not giving Lisa a proper send-off, but at least we SAW her. Not including Emma AT ALL was a crime. By the end, she had become as much of a moral pillar as Bob (Kim had been ruined with the tabloid TV bullshit that the REAL Kim would have never touched with a ten-foot pole). An Emma death would have been perfect-- all her children around her bed, hearing her last words of wisdom to each one of them, and promising her they wouldn't sell off the farm. I was really hurt that she was not included, and I'm sure Kathleen Widdoes was, too.

[quote]An Emma death would have been perfect-- all her children around her bed, hearing her last words of wisdom to each one of them, and promising her they wouldn't sell off the farm.

Nor soundproof the porch.

[quote] They had Chris and Nancy, Bob and Kim, Tom and Margo, and Frannie and also Andy. Perhaps the greatest multi-generational family ever on soaps.

MARY!

R541 And a factually correct MARY!

Poor Eileen plugged up the studio toilet and was never ever heard from again.

But not MARY! Matthews.

I would have ended the WORLDs with the marriage of Luke Snyder and Steven Frame.

I’m with Scott DeFreitas and not that moron Lynn Leahy of Soap Opera Digest. The soaps were about families, not romance. Too much emphasis on supercouples ruined them.

When you have a face and body made for radio like Scott DeFreitas and no one in their right mind would make you a romantic lead or make you part of a supercouple, of course you're going to say that these shows are about family. Most people watch soaps for the hot guys and the crazy storylines, not to see Kim and Nancy argue about how Bob likes his eggs prepared.

[quote]When all you have isn't necessarily the face and body made for an ABC soap, like Scott DeFreitas, and no one at ABC would make you a romantic lead or part of a supercouple, you celebrate the fact that the P&G shows are about family. Lower-IQ people (like my sister IRL and the DDD) watch ABC soaps for the hot guys and the crazy storylines, not to see Kim and Nancy argue about how Bob likes his eggs prepared (as if!) Those with taste and intelligence, on the other hand, realize how good something like ATWT turns, and watch it instead of lame Pabulum like All My Cunts, Seven Personalities to Live, or General Worldfreeze.

Fixed for Drew Dixon Dimwit.

I've always been more of a fan of the P&G soaps than the ABC ones, but while I think the action-adventure twists on GH did a lot of long term harm to the genre, I don't feel a need to shit on the Nixon soaps.

80s era AMC was particularly lovely at creating unique characters that were also about family. Nixon's view of family was a little more twisted, but still compelling.

I think the larger idea is that the NYC soaps - once the home of solid writing and well trained actors - became more like the West Coast soaps, and never gained any ground because of them. When, where and how - and who was responsible - is up for debate. But we needn't shit on one East Coast soap to elevate another....

I always found it strange how some people treated soaps like opposing sports teams. If you watched a different soap, you were somehow against other soaps. As writers started shifting from one show to the next, the shows really became somewhat similar. Shows like Days got shit on for doing things that weren't soapy, but it was a still about the Horton family and Mac Carey still said the opening every day. I don't think it's fair to trash other shows to somehow make yours look better. They all had the same basic problem. Anything that is on 5 days a week, 53 weeks a year is always going to be a the top of its game. When you remember the good times, you're remembering the moments. Not the days of recap. Not the repetitive conversations. Not the near misses.

Soaps were always about selling soap and funding primetime. ABC went action adventure because it was what the audience responded to and saved that network's bacon. It was not ABC's fault when other shows copied that formula. Just like it wasn't Days' fault that other shows went the supernatural route.

Yes, r549. "Eterna" was lovely: "Clint, last week, while I was in the past..."

And I could never make it through an episode of AMC.

R550 Exactly.

R551 I don't recall mentioning OLTL in my post.

R549:

[quote]I don't feel a need to shit on the Nixon soaps.

Wasn't OLTL a "Nixon soap"?

TBH, in the past, I have almost never posted about ABC soaps. Other than OLTL, I have hardly watched them. But the DDD started this war with me some weeks ago, and I will respond to his excrescences.

R553 I'm not the DDD, dear.

And yes, OLTL was a Nixon soap. I just thought R551 was misinterpreting what I meant, since they implied I was calling OLTL lovely. My comments about characters and family was aimed more at AMC.

Whoops. I eamt R549/R552.

ORD, I did not mean to imply that I think you are the DDD. Forgive me if I allowed you to imagine that even for a second.

It's fine, R556. I think I must have been oxygen deprived during that exchange! So confused.

I wonder if aliens visited back then.

Oops, wrong thread, sorry.

That would have been Port Charles, R558. Or maybe Llanview.

Those kinds of stories are what irked me so. Watching aliens land or people trying to freeze the world. Oy, vey.

Where are you all?

What would y'all have thought of Shelley Taylor Morgan as NuMaureen?

I honestly thought during the Lynn Latham years that Y&R's Traci would have been recast with a 25 year old blond skinny bitch.

John Wesley Shipp is shooting a new series not too far from my current area of residence.

I am sorely tempted to find out where he's filming, go to the site and at a quiet moment, yell out: "Morgan! How I hate that NAAAAME!"

Well, technically, Genoa city IS in the Midwest.

R566 The Bell shows are a matter of style, I think, not of location...so yes, they have their own thread(s).

A very interesting story with a wee soap connection - a former Edge of Night actress who became an employee of ABC News.

He could have taken me away.

who dat?

Some gay model-actor who posted "There are as many imaginary worlds as people on earth," which made me think of guess which show. Plus he has that circle pattern going in his eyes.

I had trouble sleeping last night, so I started surfing the net. I came across a photo of Ellen Parker, and fell asleep immediately. I may have even lapsed into a coma for a very short period of time. Viewing her pic is the visual equivalent of popping an ambien.

Reading r572 was the reading equivalent of popping an ambien. Without the fun side effects, of course.

R572 = Drew Dixon Douche?

R572, you have broken my fart.

Darlings, I had a weird night of dreams the other night. It was after posting here, I think.

In one dream La Wyndham made an appearance. In another I was shopping for a new home and Stephen Schetzer and Alice Barrett were my real estate agents. Very odd.

Ugh, Alice Barrett. Like Ellen Parker, another phenomenally sleep-inducing "actress." Yawn!

Alice Barrett and Ellen Parker are meeting JFP for lunch this week to reminisce.

Furs by Christie Brothers, darlings.

Did India ever get to speak Andorran on GL?

The best thing P&G ever did was ABC-ify these little biddy shows and marginalize the Bauers. I loved the dreaming death and all that Barbados stuff. 1,000,000x more entertaining that watching Ed talk to Bert about his problems with Rita and reminiscing about dead, old Papa Bauer.

Die, Drew Dixon Douche. Drown in the pool at the OYC.

R581 GL, ATWT, Search were all old lady shows. Gramma soaps. They needed a good kick in the cunt. You are correct.

I have to admit Charita Bauer's constant line flubs were entertaining. Awful, awful actress, but entertainingly so. The rest of the Bores, oops, I mean Bauers, gladly fell into oblivion. Now if ATWT had only phased out the dull Hughes family, it would've been much better.

Kim Hughes was soooooo boring!

Why did you even watch, DDD? Surely OLTL was on.

Totally, totally agree, r585. Her toots routine got old quickly.

Listen toots aka R585 and R587, I’m going to call in that old bulldyke Connie Ford and have her give you both a good old swift kick in the cunt.

I just had a brilliant idea: Cam Mathison is a dual role as Drew Dixon and his evil twin Dirk Dickson. Dirk would take over Drew's identity and pretend to be Drew. The brothers have nothing in common...except a 10-inch dick and a voracious sexual appetite for both genders. Dirk begins fucking everyone in Oakdale. His true mission is to take over Walsh Enterprises from Lucinda, now played by Christine Jones, and seduces his way into the company by becoming Ambrose's boytoy. So many possibilities.

One must ignore DDD, just like we ignored nuConnor, the third Mindy, and that wretch who played my daughter Victoria for all of thirty seconds.

Lucinda played by someone else. What a moron.

Christine Jones would've been amazing as Lucinda. Imagine a tic-free actress who follows the script in the role. If only.

Hubbard was annoying. She flubbed her lines all the time.

Hubbard's Lucinda MADE As the World Turns.

And Lisa Brown.

At the center of two of the best soap scenes ever played. Lily finds out Iva is her mother

And the tour de force - Nola's downfall.

Three parts to this but the third is the best.

DDD would probably substitute Susan Lucci for Lisa Brown and Kelly Ripa for Martha Byrne. And try to tell us that that is the way ABC would have done it.

And Kelly stripping down....feets and everything.

Anyone but Hubbard as Lucinda is absolutely unthinkable (Mary!). And Lisa Brown is the Goddess of Suffering.

I think Lisa Rinna would've made a terrific Iva. She would've owned those scenes and made Iva come alive. Plus she had sex appeal in spades, something mousy Lisa Brown never had. Throw in Robin Strasser as a more evil, "mustache-twirling" Lucinda, and there are your improved demos.