Down in Pine Valley, Part III

Sue can't make it. She's busy with other things.

Janet has plans for Sue.

Eileen Letchworth sends her regards.

Margo Flax was before my time, but, I recall her groundbreaking facelift. Does anyone here remember her storylines?

I had no idea Kate's dad was part of the moon landings! That makes the moniker 'Janet from another planet' all the more hilarious!

Margo's daughter Claudette Montgomery murdered Eddie Dorrance. That was one of their best whodunnits.

Oh, yeah. He was a big deal, r5. Michael Collins. Does anyone recall Kate as a special correspondent on Good Morning America?

r7, I remember Kate did a fantastic job replacing the regular host of Good Morning America on Christmas Day in the late 80s but it made me so sad too because she was clearly not going to be spending the day with her family.

Yes, she filled in for Joan Lunden, I believe. The network must've thought very highly of her. It's shame they didn't think more highly of her when they chose Kiberd over her a few years later.

r9, daytime show runners always value the men over the women because most of the daytime audiences are straight women: it boggles the mind they must have thought Kiberd was some kind of everyman sex symbol. He was physically repulsive.

I can’t figure it either. Did Kiberd appeal to the female viewers? I can’t imagine why since Trevor, at his core, was a throwback misogynist.

r11, the show runners were misogynists, period. Even the character of Erica Kane wasn't written to be a feminist, she was a materialist, male obsessed, women hating narcissist whose lack of intelligence and vices were hailed as virtues for her supposed 'girlish, childlike charm'. Lucci claims she is the greatest role ever written for a woman in the history of the world (seriously), but she is really the patriarchy's idea of a woman, so her being the centre of the show is actually something which reinforced patriarchal sensibilities.

When Kate left the show, they should have had Natalie and Jeremy run off together with Timmy, that way Trevor and Janet could have been brought together as a romantic pairing in a way thats seemed more believable.

I think ABC liked Kiberd from the time he was on Loving. He got a lot of acclaim for his performance on that show. He was better looking when he was on Loving as well.

And as previously said, ABC tended to favor and cater to male stars more than female stars. Funny that Kiberd ended up leaving on not-so-great terms that they had to quickly write him out of the show. Unfortunately, that led to Robin Mattson getting released soon after.

Did Kiberd leave on bad terms, r14? What was that about?

Scroll to 2:50. There's definitely a romantic vibe there.

R15 Kiberd wasn't happy with the Dillon's decreased role on the show and they wanted him to take a pay cut. He refused the best offer they gave him. Kiberd got a part in a play he really wanted to do, so he quit. TPTB were not happy at all and had to write out Trevor pretty quickly. They didn't bother to get him to return when they wrote out Janet and Amanda some months later.

Natalie and Jeremy became instantly boring after they got married. They brought on David and Marrisa, and Jeremy was all wrapped up with them, leaving Kate to play the thankless role of jealous,insecure wife. Jeremy was always super boring. I never could figure out how Jean LeClerc lasted so long.

They briefly flirted with putting Natalie and Ross back together--Kate and Robert Gentry had sizzling chemistry--but it was just to gross to think about after the rape. It was pretty smart of them to have Natalie inherit Mr. Mason's fortune. Natalie was always more fun as a rich and elegant lady, not as a frau baking cookies.

Collins was such a cunt. ABC couldn’t stand her and was happy when she left. Good fucken riddance was their attitude.

Imagine if Robert Newman had played Trevor? I would have been all over a Trevor and Natalie pairing like a bad rash, but Susan Lucci would probably have demanded he become her love interest. Looking at this pic of Newman and Kate Collins together, you just wonder what might have been!!!K

r19, fuck off Spicen you troll.

She's a doll.

Serial asshole nutcase. Seek help you no life loser.

I've never heard anyone say anything bad about Collins other than Kiberd. It also doesn't make sense if they hated her that brought her back for several short stints over the years as both Natalie and Janet. It would've been easier to have gotten Robin Mattson to play Janet since she was still actively acting and was also popular in the role.

You’re absolutely right, r24.

Kate Collins was beloved to both the company and to the audience. Anybody saying otherwise is a troll.

r16, I think Kate and Jean had the same type of relationship that Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift did. Many of Kate's fans are gay men who simply adore her, and she gravitates to us. It's like a profound spiritual connection and a kind of love in itself that has nothing to do with sexual attraction, but the soul. It just proves labels like gay and straight are bullshit, because soul connections are true love.

Robin Mattson was said to have been hurt when they asked Collins, rather than she, to reprise the role. Rumor was that McTavish hated Lorraine Broderick's redemption/normalizing the character with Mattson and preferred Collins' more campy take, and demanded Collins be the one to come back. McT created the campy Janet and has taken credit for the Natalie in the well storyline.

r28, I believe Robin Mattson was on GH at the time as Heather Webber, so she couldn't have come back as Janet. And they had Skye from AMC in Heather's storyline so ABC probably didnt want to confuse audiences anymore than they had to.

Come sit by me, r27. You’re a “doll.”

R28, I’ve heard that, too about Mattson being hurt.

How much truth is there to McTavish’s claim that she created the “Natalie in the well” plot and original Janet? It’s always been my understanding that Agnes helmed that. McTavish didn’t seem to take over until mid 1992 when it became The Marick Show all about Edmund and Dimitri with Brooke and Erica in their orbit—basically when all the fun of 1991 and early ‘92 turned into a bastardized hybrid of King Lear and Wuthering Heights.

I definitely recall an interview with Mattson at the time in which she said she felt a little hurt that she never got the call to reprise the role.

Collins kept begging to come back for short stints for the health insurance. Nothing more. She couldn’t get any acting work because she got fat.

r30, I take anything McTavish says with a grain of salt, but it is possible that she spearheaded that storyline (just as Wisner and Lorraine might've speaheaded other storylines as co-HWs with McT), while Agnes, credited as HW, was less hands on with things. I know Agnes was very much involved with the Ceara incest story that played out around this time, but might've less involved in the other storylines. Have no idea what the dynamic was between the four of them.

r32, fuck off Spicen. You are such a cruel and heartless queen, I fucking despise you.

Is Matson still on GH as Heather Webber?

I remember when she was Lee Michaels on DAYS in the early 2010's , she was Hope's prison cellmate and she tortured her. It was fun!

R36 She was last on in 2016.

Serial nutcase has NO friends. The internet is his only friend. Even his own family disowned him. No wonder. He is still in love with Spicen, who is such a wonderful person, loved by many.

Rewinding a few years, what do we think about Jane Elliot as Cynthia? I know James Mitchell questioned why Palmer would have been taken in so easily by her, but from what I've seen, Cynthia is a pretty compelling character. It's a shame she had a short-lived run in Pine Valley ('84-'86, I believe).

James Mitchell hated the whole Cynthia storyline, that’s true. I liked Cynthia and her son. Her pink makeover of Cortlandt Manor was nicely symbolic of their run on the show—rosy on the outside and dark on the inside (Mary!). I thought it was a fun plot. Unlike Mitchell himself, Palmer did often lose his senses when a woman was involved. Palmer was strangely libidinous. His choices in women were often bizarre—Donna, Natalie, wheezing Vanessa, that one night with “Jane Cox.” Even Opal was a weird choice though it worked. I wasn’t happy when Palmer and Opal didn’t reconcile.

I was always happy when Palmer got a story with the exception of them”Palmer’s Nazi Paintings” fiasco.

Cynthia was a great character, and Jane Elliot was tons of fun to watch. She and Steven Caffrey had great mother/son chemistry. I think after the Zack Grayson murder mystery came to an end, they didn't know what to do with her. I remember her sharing a few scenes with Canary (obviously chemistry testing), but that never went anywhere. It's almost as though they brought on a bunch of new characters in 84 (Cynthia, Andrew, Linda, Zach) just for the Zack Grayson arc and had no use for them once the arc was over. She has said that AMC had the absolute best working environment among all the shows she ever worked on. Great camaraderie among cast and crew (including communal lunches) and no egos.

There wouldn't really have been a reason to bring Cynthia back in 1993 (plus, Jane was taking on her producing role at Loving), but I kinda wish they had.

I couldn't stand the second Opal, she was a shit actress and so one note. The first one was an absolute monster and so compelling because of it.

The, not “them” above. I didn’t suddenly go hillbilly.

Dorothy Lyman on playing Opal:

[quote]When I was hired last winter, 'they' kept calling me in every week, telling me to change my act or I'd be fired", says Lyman, referring to the powers that be. "I guess I just felt I could always work in the theater if I was written off. There was no point in being scared. The most important thing an actor needs is to have courage to get up every day in front of people. To put on clothes and pretend to be somebody you're not takes a lot of guts.

[quote]I think what makes Opal so popular is the fact that people can relate to her. A lot of women will come up to me and say, 'I'm Opal.' Then they'll take out a picture of their daughter and, 'This is my daughter, she's Jenny. We call each other Opal and Jenny.' And I look at this poor middle-aged woman with bleached hair and wonder, 'What must she think?' To me, Opal is the epitome of bad taste and bad manners. I can't understand why anyone would want to be like her, but I love the fact that they do. That they see to her good parts.

Jane Elliott went to DAYS as Angelica Devereaux, from.1987-1989,the same time Genie Francis was on DAYS as Diana Colville, before she made her way to AMC, receiving an Emmy nomination for her portrayal and then she was back as Tracy Quartermaine on Loving/GH . Correct?

[quote] I wasn’t happy when Palmer and Opal didn’t reconcile.

I don't know why they didn't reconcile them once it was apparent Palmer was too frail to have another big story line. It is not like either of them had another love interest and were largely talk-tos at that point and it was clear they still had feelings for each other.

I could see Palmer wanting Natalie, but could never picture him and Donna. I suppose she was still young and vulnerable at that point (she was already very soccer mom by the time I was watching as Donna Sago) and he reminded him of Nina somehow. He did have a somewhat unhealthy obsession with Nina.

I always felt for Candice Earley toward the end of her run. She was a competent actress. I never really warmed up to her forced singing scenes as the town chanteuse and official singer at Pine Valley weddings and funerals (a position that Livia Frye took up later), but I believed her as the “hooker with a heart of gold).

Donna fell victim to the curse of Pine Valley marriage. After the mishigas with Emily Ann, Donna’s only purpose was to be “wife of Chuck” and “friend of Natalie.” At least she and Chuck got a “We’re leaving Pine Valley” lunch before they disappeared, and Donna came back a few times, but it seemed a rather abrupt end of a former front burner and onetime wife of Palmer Cortlandt.

Her IMDb page doesn’t really list anything of note post AMC, but oddly enough I’ve seen her name as a voice actor on the onscreen credits of the Seth Green [Adult Swim] stop-animation show Robot Chicken of all things. It’s not listed anywhere else, but, it flashes by on the credits.

Donna had one final story after years of being on the back burner and that was when they brought back both Chuck and Billy Clyde. She had to be psyched when she found out they were not only giving her a teenage daughter but a former love interest AND a former antagonist? A good day to be Candice!

i think after the Zack Grayson murder trial finished up (she was pretty integral to that), they had Donna married off to Benny and really had nothing to do but be Natalie's talk-to. That "demotion" couldn't have been easy to take for Candi, especially after years of being a front-burner lead character. I remember one of the rags asking her about it, and she said the down time gave her the chance to explore outside opportunities and credited Kate Collins for being very gracious in their scenes together. Even with the Benny/Nina/Cliff triangle, she was barely a part of that. She was almost a nonentity in her own storyline! There was talk of pairing her with Walt Willey, but that never went anywhere. Not until they aged Emily Ann and brought back Chuck and Billy Clyde did she get a major storyline again. Evidently it was her choice to leave in 1992.

R45, yes, Jane and Genie joined DOOL in roughly the same period. Jane left first, though. From 1989-93, Jane was back on GH. I can't remember exactly when she became a producer on Loving, but Tracy came back for a brief spell on GH and then on The City in 1996.

R47, I remember the R.J. actor from OLTL saying he deliberately sang badly during a scene to avoid having to become Llanview's go-to singer.

At the end of the other thread someone mentioned John Wesley Shipp and the role of Carter.

I thought it was the one daytime role he didn't quite land, but I also think he'd played the daytime maniac a few times by then and Doug Cummings was fresh in people's minds, so he was trying not to play Doug II. And didn't always succeed.

R34 Don't give that THING any attention. Just FF and block. Ignore it.

I wonder if Agnes was a victim of her father or a family member. Incest was part of AMC and Loving too.

R51- he also had to play opposite Melody Anderson who was a vacant vessel of sheer awfulness. Worst recast in AMC, nay, daytime history.

What ever happened to Steve Caffrey? He was kinda hot. He gave off a kinky vibe.

That made me laugh aloud, r54. There was some online group in the early 2000s who referred to her as TweetyNat because she was yellow and bug-eyed like Tweety Bird.

And just to get Melody out of our eyes, here’s Steven Caffrey looking, as r55 says, kinky.

I liked it when they put Andrew and Dottie together, even though it was short-lived. Did they leave town together? I don't remember. I always liked Dottie.

I thought it was odd that they were on this Soap Opera Digest cover together, but were gone from the show not long after it hit the stands.

Here’s an interesting article from 1992 which points out something I didn’t know—Melody Anderson was friends with James Kiberd’s assistant and it was through this association that Anderson was brought to the attention of the AMC casting directors prior to being cast as Natalie.

^^So we can blame Kiberd for THAT, too??

Perhaps. I’d like to anyway. I wonder if he ever stumbles into these threads after googling himself. I picture him looking like an end-of-life Brando sitting in a tangle of yellowed sheets.

Then again, maybe Agnes' family was the opposite of what we saw on screen. She had a great, salt of the earth dad and an austere mom?

Has anyone read Agnes’ book? I bought it for my mother who said it was interesting, but disjointed and in error about some facts in the limited bit about the shows. Given Agnes’ condition at the end, I suppose some discrepancies are understandable.

I did, R63. It told her early years well, but her years at AMC/OLTL took up less than a quarter of the book, and she got several things wrong.

I think the early part was written years ago, and her son had her trying to write the latter parts in the last year.

She died literally two days after completing the book.

I think the incest storyline on Loving was more Marland's idea than Nixon's. Doug would repeat it a few years later on ATWT with the Angel Lange story. Of course, Palmer and Nina gave off an incest vibe when they were introduced, and that was all Agnes.

The book is garbage, so is Lucci's. Nothing juicy, just a bunch of facts, names and dates thrown together. If you want a really juicy soap biography, get Kim Zimmer's memoir.

Has anyone read Kathy Glass's memoir, "Right on Q"?

I’ve read Lucci’s, and found it trite and self-congratulatory. That’s not surprising. The well-worn tales of the great romance with Helmut feel a bit forced by now.

I’ve always wanted to get Louis Edmonds’ book. I’ll bet he was a trip.

My favorite Louis tale as told by Walt Willey, paraphrased, goes something like this:

WW: Oh, are you English? LE: No, dear boy, just affected.

I wonder of Louis and Mitch Ryan discussed old times on the Dark Shadows set when he came on to play Alex Hunter in 1986. They were the key antagonist and protagonist on DS pre-Barnabas. Interestingly, Clarice Blackburn, Mrs. Johnson on DS, was a scriptwriter on AMC for much of the 80s.

Louis' book is $5 on Amazon.

Has anyone read the Ruth Warrick memoir?

Ruth is absolutely fascinated. I love the anecdote she tells here: she was a straight A student but her stern parents never talked with her about sex... so one day when she was in her late teens, she passed out in the school choir and everyone thought she was pregnant (LOL). She was sent to a shrink, who told her she needed to have sex with her boyfriend.

That was marvelous, r73, thanks! Now I want to get her book. And, thanks, r71 for the Amazon recommendation.

I was always fascinated by the parade of Phoebe’s wigs as a young gayling. They were so stiff and taupe-colored. Even as a kid, I knew they were wigs and I asked my mom why she wore them. My dad overheard and gleefully piped up, “the old bitch is as bald as a cue ball.” I always think of that when I see Ruth Warrick—even in Citizen Kane.

Here’s a big MARY! moment from my childhood. One year, we were making paper Christmas ornaments for the little ‘kids” tree that was put up in the family room for our amusement so that the big tree in the living room could be free of tacky, crafty crap. I made “angels’” fashioned after the Pine Valley ladies. Phoebe, Myrtle, Ruth, Natalie, Donna, Daisy, etc. That puts the Mary! in Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

I remember reading that early on, Palmer would grab Nina’s scarf after she left the room and breathe it in deep. But the writers saw long term potential in Palmer (and James Mitchell) and quickly put the kibosh on the incest overtones. I wonder why they would introduce the Cortlands in the first place if they had plans to make Palmer a pedo. It’s weird to consider.

You and I would have been friends, r74.

I know this is blasphemy, but was anyone else creeped out by Stuart Chandler and his vaguely defined mental “slowness”? He went from being “Bad Adam” terrorizing Adam’s new bride Erica (when he was locked away in the west wing of the Chandler mansion because he had murder in his heart for Pete Cooney) to being the beloved simpleton-sage of Pine Valley.

Yes, he was sweet with his aw-shucks routine, but I found him creepy when he was in a romantic pairing. Even more unsettling were Marian’s vocal claims of his incredible sexual prowess. I also found it odd that he was allowed to raise Scott.

What exactly was his disability meant to be aside from general slowness? He was decidedly impaired.

I don't know if I found Stuart as creepy so much, but I found him annoying and while I appreciated what they tried to do with the Cindy story line, I thought Cindy and Stuart were doubly annoying with how sickly sweet they were (Cindy alone could have been bearable, single mother struggling with a mixture of determination and realistic cynicism).

Even if he really was that good in the bedroom, I cannot see how Marion at some point would not have snapped and needed to get away from his Hallmark card outlook and cliched speeches. Instead she went from fun character to shrewish, judgmental character to match Stuart.

I liked Adam, and thought Canary could be a good actor, but not because of his portrayal of Stuart. His Stuart did not really come off as a real person, and seemed to be how a high school student would play someone special with a lot of ticks.

r78, wasn't Stuart supposed to be retarded or highly autistic?

Was Kiberd ever nominated?

R79 - yes, at least initially he was a little mentally handicapped. They ignored that more and more as he became more admired for his great heart and simple wisdom, but Canary still played his cadence and mannerisms as if had a low IQ.

A huge criticism of the Cindy story was, whilst it was brave to show someone with AIDS, it shied away from portraying the physical wasting of an AIDS victim and critics famously laughed at her death scene, where she was made up to the nines in a frilly dress on her deathbed, with great lighting.

Yes - I think Cindy was sick for about a week before she faded away in what could have been a scene from a 1940's tearjerker with her beautiful death. She never really looked like she had more than a bad cold. I think Parker had the acting chops where she could have played out the story in a more realistic, gritty fashion instead of the fairy tale romance she had with Stuart.

There was a hilarious scene showing how terrible Phoebe was, when she followed Maria Santos into the ladies room and told her that she foresaw Edmund ending up with Brooke. Maria joked that Phoebe must have the fortune teller abilities of a gypsy, Phoebe then scoffed and replied: "I am far from being a GYPSY, my dear. In fact, my ancestors came over here on the Mayflower, which means that my niece Brooke's ancestors did, as well." Read into that comment what you will, but I think it spelled out where some white people feel they are in the pecking order.

I used to love how Ruth Warrick would always stare into the teleprompter to get her lines. It was a ritual of hers which I found so comforting, and never took me out of the illusion, funnily enough:

I like the graceful pivot/glance at her lines. She always prided herself on being a lady...on the streets, at least.

I recall reading how she loved teasing whatever hot new male actor she had scenes with. I’ll bet she and Louis had a lot of fun comparing notes off camera.

Ruth was great, but how about some love for feisty ole Myrtle?

Mrytle was pretty frail at the end, but she never lost her ability to act. She could still get the emotion and do more than flatly read lines which happened to some of the other actors once they got into their late 70's or 80's. Someone mentioned this earlier, but Zach was really only tolerable in his scenes with Mrytle.

I felt that James Mitchell was pretty good till the end as well.

R85 did you make that GIF?

And if so: How?

I loved Myrtle! She was Sharp until the end. You’re right, r88.

I always enjoyed how she’d get fired up in defense of her boarders. The TPTB were smart to keep moving her forward into the role of protector of the town as the older actors died off. She was excellent as a surrogate mother to Erica, and also played the grandmotherly advisor role brilliantly.

I agree with you about James Mitchell, r89. He still had the mischievous sparkle in his eye even when it was clear his body was weaker as his appearances dwindled.

I recall a scene toward the end in which Palmer and Myrtle ended up on a blind date with each other that was a real treat.

Why was Christina Karras Martin such a flop? Strasser has said the character never gained the sympathy of the audience because the Martins disliked her, and that was the kiss of death for the character. But there had to have been more to it. I was just a kid at the time, but I enjoyed her on the show. Is it possible that viewers just couldn't accept Robin in a more traditional heroine role?

One of my favourite Myrtle scenes here, where she stands arm in arm with Erica outside a courtroom and they run into Greenlee, who Erica proceeds to tear into mercilessly. Myrtle smiles with glee, looking at Greenlee like she was filth. ENJOY:

[quote] Why was Christina Karras Martin such a flop?

Well, Robin IS rather one note....

The Mrytle and Palmer scene.

It was a silly story line and a sign that AMC was going off the rails, but Eileen was great when Mrytle was being romanced by Santa Claus.

[quote] Is it possible that viewers just couldn't accept Robin in a more traditional heroine role?

I read an interview of Robin's once that since Erica was already on the canvas, she could not really play Chrstina how she would have liked to play her (or something like that).

R95 watching that scene made me wonder. Since soap audiences tend to skew older, I think a soap focused on older people, maybe in an upscale retirement community, would be great. Maybe it could even pull a Golden Girls, and become popular with young people, too. Sadly, most of the great older soap stars have already passed.

r96, nobody seems to mention that Lucci was cast as Erica based on her resemblance to Robin and instructed by Agnes to copy Robin's performance on Another World. No wonder Robin was so miserable on AMC, seeing this young upstart steal her own creation and make a tremendous success.

So much has been said about Kiberd and Collins hating each other, but what about Sydney Penny and Keith Hamilton Cobb? They apparently loathed each other with the heat of a thousand sons and made the Kiberd/Collins conflict look like a little quarrel between good friends. Why did Penny and Cobb loathe each other?

I remember as a kid, I thought it was so crazy that Trevor could get Natalie or Janet, he always reminded me of one of the ugly guys from Dick Tracy.

whatever happened to David Rampal? (trent bushey)

He was sex on wheels! I saw him shirtless rollerblading in new york. he could've been a 2xist model

WHY did Sarah Michelle Gellar hate Susan Lucci so much?

Devon munched her way through the Daughters of Fine Lineage.

Trent Bushey married a woman from Cambodia and has two children with her.

He has a facebook profile but looks like he rarely uses it. He posted a recent pic back in 2010. He looked older, but still pretty good looking.

Trent Bushey had a nice body and was handsome but had the personality of a block of wood. When you are playing someone with a chip on your shoulder, you need some charisma otherwise you just come off as whiny.

I was never a huge fan of Julia and Noah. Keith Hamilton Cobb did have more of a presence than Bushey, but was not exactly a master thespian, and they did not really seem to know what to do with them once they were together. Their mob-related exit story was pretty bad and did not fit the show, or perhaps was a sign the show was losing its identity.

Young Lucci definitely looked like young Strasser. I wish there were more clips of Strasser;s Rachel, she sounds like she was hell on wheels.

[quote] Nobody seems to mention that Lucci was cast as Erica based on her resemblance to Robin and instructed by Agnes to copy Robin's performance on Another World

This makes sense, I guess....since the character of Rachel was a remake of Erica.

That may sound strange timeline-wise, but Agnes created AMC first, circa 1964-65, then went to AW. AMC had been rejected by P&G or the networks (can't remember which at that time) and I believe at some point Agnes also lost the bible to AMC.

In any case, she borrowed her template for Erica (well before Lucci was cast) and created Rachel while at AW.

After she launched OLTL in 1968 and it worked at ABC, they asked for another show, Agnes showed them AMC and they bought it, and the rest is history.

I have to give the show credit for not stunt casting when it was time to introduce Richard Fields. Susan got to carry that storyline.

Not that she didn't still chew the scenery in some of the scenes during the Richard Field's story line, but that seems to be when Susan learned less could be more in some of her dramatic scenes. Her court room testimony describing her rape with the bruises and bite marks was pretty understated, but effective. She really seemed vulnerable. That story had some great soapy moments, like Kendall crashing the press conference by wheeling in Richard Fields.

Keith Hamilton Cobb and Sydney Penny didn't get along. Like with Kate Collins and James Kiberd, the show wanted them together no matter if they liked each other or not. I think it was a combination of them not wanting to work together anymore and both thought they'd find successes outside the soaps. They both eventually returned to the soaps.

Several years later when they asked Penny to return, she said she would only if Cobb wasn't asked to return as well. They killed Noah off screen. Of course Penny's return didn't really work (just like her on-screen sister Eva LaRue's didn't) and they killed Julia off. They wanted to get rid of her earlier than they did, but she became pregnant and they were afraid of a potential lawsuit and waited until after she came back from her maternity leave to fire her.

They were desperate to make Penny work the second time around. They had her dating Jack and then Jamie. She and Justin Bruening had chemistry, but there was something icky about the pairing. Jamie was like 1 year old when she joined the show back in 1993.

So many couples/supercouples don't get along. Sometimes that dislike shows up as chemistry on screen.

Regarding Sidney Penny and Keith Hamilton Cobb , here’s an old, closed DL thread from 2011 when Cobb came out of the closet in which their mutual dislike is discussed.

It always seemed to me that so many of the non-Erica romantic pairings they gave Jack just didn’t work—Brooke, Angelique (sort of), snooze-fest Laurel. I think they chemistry tested him with Natalie briefly, and even Gloria. I’m sure there were others. Who am I forgetting? I think he had a brief thing with Carmen (wasn’t she in prison with Erica?) and even Crystal.

Walt Willey had good chemistry with Lucci, and that was about it. He came across as quite boring with everyone else. While certainly more interesting than Larkin Malloy, Jack often read as asexual to me. Am I in the minority? His best chemistry came through with men, usually in combative scenes.

They also chemistry tested him with Lauren Holly and Candice Earley. He and Holly actually had some hot chemistry, but that point I think she was getting ready to leave the show. Candi Earley had friendship chemistry with everyone, and that was about the extent of her chemistry with Walt. He and Susan Pratt also had chemistry.

I forgot about that, r114. You’re right. Everyone had good chemistry with Candice, but rarely strong romantic chemistry. I’d forgotten about the Lauren Holly stuff. Thanks!

Susan Pratt should have stuck around longer. She was excellent.

Listen to this audio of Robin Strasser as Rachel on Another World. Susan Lucci completely copied her:

Candi Earley’s pussy stunk.

I’d be curious to see how the rest of you would rank the actors on the show.

For instance my top five best actors, in no particular order:

Julia Barr

Kate Collins

David Canary

Eileen Herlie

James Mitchell

5 Worst actors, in no particular order:

Alicia Minshew

Andrew Jackson

Marc Consuelos

James Scott (though hot)

Colin Egglesfield and Cameron Mathison tie (though Colin was hot)

Kate Collins was a nasty old cunt. Couldn’t stand the bitch.

I remember being a young gayling and there being a scene when Keith H Cobb was inexplicably in briefs. And it was hot as FUCK. His body was sick. What a beautiful man. Not exactly a master thespian but I pulled one plenty to him back in his mid90s hey day.

Why are people so eager to rank, rank, rank? Oy, vey.

Just trying to keep the conversation going, r121. The ranking element was only a conceit to fuel discussion. Oy vey, indeed.

Well then my apologies R118/R122.

Too many DL posters are a bit OCD about it but that doesn't seem to have been your intent.

I agree Jack also had decent chemistry with Barbara. I thought his chemistry with Laurel was ok, it was the character of Laurel herself that was the problem. It was a bit odd that he had such good chemistry with Lucci, but only had friendship chemistry with anyone else considering how long he was on the show (although he was unpaired for much of that).

I don't remember those Julia pairings at all. I think I was largely checked out by then.

I would add Kathleen Noone to the top actors. This is probably an unpopular opinion, although while I like Adam and think he is a good actor, I am not sure he is top five. Rewatching some of his clips, I think he might have been a little overrated. I remember being shocked how bad on of his crying scenes was one of the times Stuart died. I think it might have been when Stuart ended in AZ with amnesia with Ester. There were some bad stories the last ten years. The second Arlene, while not around long, was very good. I am not sure Mary Ficket woul be top five, but was very good in a non-flashy part.

One of the worst I remember is during the Alex/Anna Devane story. They had some sort of young man cast as a relative of hers, that was introduced as being kept in a cage [or something like that]. The boards called him dog boy. Dixie 1 was pretty cringe-worthy, but I think part of that was how she was written. Ryan's brother when he was acting mentally handicapped after brain surgery was almost so bad it was entertaining.

In a just world Arlene would have become a lead, more of a working class shit stirrer, as Opal was originally designed.

[quote]In a just world Arlene would have become a lead, more of a working class shit stirrer, as Opal was originally designed.

She would have been great like that. At one point I thought Krystal was going to be in the mode of Original Recipe Opal. I think Eakes could have pulled it off, and it would have been much more interesting than the salt of the earth mother bear she evolved into. Then once Babe was gone, she ended up being the perpetual victim of Adam or David.

I have a hard time judging Mary Fickett and Ray MacDonnell as actors. For people like them (and Frances Reid, etc.), the criteria is chemistry as grandma and grandpa.

No problem, r123. I’m the OP of these PV threads, and I’ve been really enjoying the responses from everyone. It’s been nice to reminisce, and it’s been a much needed break, for me anyway, from the news and the threads about admittedly hot, but totally unknown to me Instagram guys. Every so often, I try to stimulate further conversation. That was a clumsy way to do it.

R124, I’m in accord about Kathleen Noone. She was so good with everyone from Myrtle to Ross.

I had totally forgotten about Dog Boy! Gabriel? Woof.

I don't think Minshew is a bad actress. She's not EXCELLENT by any means, but she had tons of charisma and I'm not surprised she became so popular.

I liked her but even I was sick of seeing Kendall, Ryan, Greenlee and Zach every fucking day towards the end.

[quote]I don't think Minshew is a bad actress. She's not EXCELLENT by any means, but she had tons of charisma and I'm not surprised she became so popular.

She definitely had charisma. No question about that. Her acting ability was limited. And that's clearly why she was cast. Charisma to help the audience love her, but limited talent so Susan Lucci wouldn't feel threatened by her.

One of my favorite "underrated" characters was Simone. Terri Ivens was sexy, and could play comedy and drama quite well. Simone was always an "also ran" to Greenlee and Kendall.

She had great, fun chemistry with MEK, but that was short lived and they put Tad with that trashy hooker Krystal.

I loved Simone with Tad. She was one of the few bright spots of the Fusion group. She was woefully underused and her death via the putrid Satin Slayer was insulting.

I’ve actually forgotten who the Satin Slayer was revealed to be. My friends and I joked that it was a bizarro world Aunt Jemima after the whole poison pancake thing, so that stuck in my head in place of the actual reveal.

[quote]I’ve actually forgotten who the Satin Slayer

Was it the Cambias father? I have no idea either. That was around the time of the unabortion and Tad burying Duke Lavery in a box torturing him to death, and combine that with Babe, I finally gave up on the show and stopped recording?

R120, was that when Noah was an underwear model? Or was it just a love scene?

I remember that Disney took over just before Noah and Julia's wedding. All of a sudden Julia was a huge Cinderella fan and she had a Cinderella-themed wedding!

Gwynn Gillis sends her regards.

I'm surprised they didn't have Noah and Julia honeymoon at Disney World.

R136, I'd be more interested if her son said hello.

Who is GG's son?

James Scott became a REALLY string actor on DAYS, curious to see how bad an actor he was as Ethan on ABC

I never watched him on AMC because like many young people in the late 90s, I had watched from about 1988-1996 and loved AMC religiously but got sucked into the over the top camp fantasy world of Days of Our Lives by 1996, so I stopped watching AMC REGULARLY and followed DAYS

R138, whoops, I thought she was Chris Pine's mom.

AMC's writing in the 80s had an intelligence to it, and a satirical feel. It was Dickensian... characters like Opal were throwbacks to Fagin from Oliver Twist and Phoebe was a Mrs Haversham type. I think it was the tongue in cheek quality of AMC which made it such a phenomenon, on some level it felt like it was making fun of the deathly serious CBS soap opera staples like ATWT. Once the mid 90s rolled around, the show lost all traces of that hilarity and became just as earnest and maudlin as the shows it was once lampooning (with gag worthy focus on super couples).

James Scott has an enormous endowment. It's legendary. No wonder MEK was so in lust with the guy. Beautiful face, perfect body, and that dick was cherry on the cake. Too bad it never got anywhere near MEK's cherry.

That Cinderella wedding with Noah trussed up like Prince Charming dancing with Julia in front of that enormous cardboard moon was ludicrously over the top, and not in a good way.

R141, you’re right about the writing, even well into the early 90s with scenes inspired by Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Rebecca, Great Expectations, Shakespeare and Poe. There was, in fact, a satirical quality, and there was always humor. AMC always had humor until the mid 1990s, and especially toward the end when everything was so dour.

R133, yes. I went back and looked it up. It was Alexander Cambias, Sr.

Out of curiosity, since I’ve seen it mentioned before, are there actual pictures of James Scott’s rumored enormously large member anywhere?

Christina Bennet Lind, who played Bianca at the end of the broadcast run, has had More primetime success than Eden Riegel. I see her all the time, including tonight's episode of AMC's DIETLAND.

(She has a twin sister who is a lot of stuff, too.)

^in a lot of stuff.

I liked Christina Bennett Lind as Bianca from what I seen of her (which wasn't a lot).

She was fine as Bianca. Loved Eden, but Christina was a good replacement. Kind of like Carrie Ganzel as Skye. Robin Christopher is one of favorite AMC actresses, but I was able to accept and enjoy Carrie in the role. I was surprised she didn't go on to bigger things, or at least another big soap role.

I liked Carrie Genzel as Skye too. She got really good towards the send of her stint. She was great when she was paired with Lucci and Mattson also.

There were rumors that she was going to replace Heather Tom as Victoria on Y&R. I think she wouldn't been good in that role. She certainly better than Amelia Heinle.

While I think of Christopher as Skye, Carrie was not bad. Enough time had passed that it was not so jarring, and the younger casting actually worked for the time, because it made more sense with the jealousy of Hayley angle. With Robin the rivalry would not have seemed as well matched. I was surprised when they let her go

I did not seem much of Lind, but she seemed like a decent recast. Eden was great her first run on the show, but she seemed to lose something on each of her returns. I am not sure if it was due to her story lines or not working full time, or she is simply one of those people who is natural as a kid and young adult, but lose it as they get older. I actually think SMG had some of that. Her best work was in her teens and early twenties.

R134- it wasn’t a love scene or a modeling scene. That’s what was so weird about it. He was literally just talking to Julia in his briefs. It was a tender scene, I remember that, but it wasn’t a love scene at all. Well, I guess it was a love scene for me in the sense that I loved the way his ass looked.

Cobb's fine ass and BBC is probably what got him cast in the first place.

When he was cast, the producers, writers, and casting director were all women. I doubt he used the casting couch to get the role.

Simone was clearly underused. She was the best thing about Fusion. I remember when Tad was seeing her, Liza, and Krystal (at a time when Knight was not exactly swoon-worthy), there was an interview by a writer or producer saying you would be surprised who he picked, when it was obvious that it would be Krystal It should have been Simone - they were a lot more fun and had a lot more chemistry. He and Krystal were practically anti-chemistry (although Knight was largely sleepwalking through his role by then).

I felt a little bad for the Tad and Liza fans at the time. There was a segment who felt they should have gotten together for real for years, and when they finally do get together, Liza is number 3 in a mini-harem. I never was an advocate for them being a couple, but it did seem a bit insulting the the character of Liza to agree to be in a non-monogamous relationship given their history.

Cobb was shirtless and in quite a bit of love scenes on the show. He had several with the Taylor recast. It's a shame they made Taylor so one-note with the recast as the first one had a lot development during her run and the character could've been a mainstay on the show. It was like a total character change. Her snooty mom Vivenne was a lot of fun too.

Yeah I liked Ingrid Rogers a lot. I think they needed to use her as the antagonist in the Julia/Noah relationship, but Rogers had no chemistry with Cobb. So they replaced her with that really bad actress and then made her psycho. That was all Lorraine Broderick's doing.

I couldn’t abide Ingrid Rogers’s off brand Downtown Julie Brown vibe and rabbit teeth. I preferred her replacement for sure.

The two Taylors were so vastly different that they might as well have been different characters. Still, Rogers’ Taylor was written inconsistently to begin with. Her introduction as snotty and snobby step-daddy’s-girl with the forced subplot of helping An Li fake a pregnancy had nothing to do with the character’s later desire to be a cop fighting for racial equality. Nonetheless, that change could be chalked up to character development and growth.

Psycho Taylor obsessed with Noah should have been a completely different character. There was nothing good about that whole voodoo-meets-Romeo and Juliet story anyway.

I’d take either Taylor, however, over Hayley and her ear-piercing whines any day.

Rabbit Lady

Gangsta Bitch Taylor

Watching that clip at r159, what was up with that gaudy leopard that Original Kendall is ogling so smugly (over her bizarrely dark eyebags) in the newly moderne Wildwind parlor?

I remember mumble-mouth Corvina and Dimitri’s vampirish bastard, Anton, but I was just starting grad school at the time and wasn’t watching every day. I only vaguely recall Erica shrieking about that tacky leopard, but I don’t remember why.

Can anyone fill me in?

I hated Anton and especially Corvina. Erica needed to slap her viciously. She wasn't even fun in a campy way, like Helga was.

I don't remember much about that leopard other than it got broken during a struggle between Erica and Cuntvina.

I forgot, did JFP ever get her hands on AMC? She seemed to produce every other show in daytime starting in the late '80s.

R163 No, apparently, AMC was spared.

I believe it was something Erica bought for Mona on one of her trips to Budapest. As soap coincidence would have it, it had once belonged to Corvina. Kendall convinced Corvina to forge a letter inside the leopard that was meant to show Dimitri was not really a Marick, but Corvina was (switched at birth?). It did not make a lot of sense, and think the story was ended quickly. I don't remember much of it myself, except Jack finding it was really ugly when Erica found it when cleaning recently deceased Mona's closet.

This is one time when Erica was probably justified with her slap.

Don't patronaze me, you self-servling schloo. You're cald or crewel!

You are a peeg, a filthy peeg. No betta than a whhoar!

Corvina used pronounce Kendall as "Ken Doll." I always got a hoot out of that.

I thought she was going to hock a loogie when she called Erica a "whhhoar."

Remember when Devon began munching her way through Pine Valley?

1995ish was really the beginning of the end for AMC.

It was, r170. The show even started to look different, and not just in the natural progression of updating with the times. The sets were beginning to lose any of the character they had, the wardrobe was flashier. Erica’s makeup became extremely pale. That was another sign of things to come.

Erica was beginning to get into kabuki territory with the refusal to age or mature the character. Where once they’d dress Susan in business attire, albeit fashionable and taylored, she began to begin the descent into wearing cocktail dresses everywhere, always. Sue still does, I suppose.

II don’t blame the show entirely. By 1996, the genre was beginning to see cracks in its theretofore unmovable foundation. Daytime dramas were feeling the pressure to remain relevant and keep an audience.

Frankly, I’m surprised AMC managed to stay for as long as it did.

1996-1997 is where the quality of the show really started to slip. I quit watching regularly in 1998, I think. I tuned in occasionally, depending on what was going up (I did keep up with storylines and casting online, and it something sounded promising, I would tune in).

So many atrocious characters/storylines in those years too. Tanner Jordan, That Kit Fisher Person, Braden, Camille, Allie Doyle (she wasn't as quite as bad as the others, though), The first Raquel, Max and so on. And of course Ryan, who would take up far too much screen time for years to come.

depending on what was going up = depending on what was going on

I just found that one of the writers during 1996-1997 was the first actress to play PV’s only resident psychologist, Dr. Anna Tolan. Her name is Courtney Simon, credited as Courtney Sherman. Another actress played Dr. Tolan in the 2000s. I think her name is Lois Robins.

Courtney Simon has written for about 12 soaps and acted in several of them. It’s not new news.

Courtney Simon has written for nearly every soap under the sun. Her husband, Peter Simon, was Ed Bauer on Guiding Light for many years, and I believe their daughter was writing for, or currently writes for, one of the remaining four soaps.

Yes, Courtney Simon is married to Peter Simon. they have a daughter named Kate Hall who has written for AMC and Y&R. She's currently at GH.

I'm amazed no soap has snapped up Ginger Smith. The AMC Hulu reboot was the best soap of this decade. And she managed to turn out a good show despite having lots of roadblocks.

I agree r178. It's too bad Prospect Park was shaky and Hulu was still kind of new. Now that Hulu is winning Emmys, it's too bad they can't bring back AMC. I was really hoping to see the Miranda story to play out, and several of the other stories, too. Definitely the best AMC since the (good) 90s.

Corvina calling Erica a filthy pig was the best.

Watch the Erica/Corvina clip with the closed captioning on for a laugh. It has Dimitri calling Corvina a "pickle demon" among other mistakes.

I think AMC began its slow steady decline after the 25th anniversary celebration in 1995. 1996 with the Michael Delaney story and Tad/Liza and Arlene/Hayley/Alex was still pretty good. But then FMB was fired and Francesca James took over. Her version of the show seemed so lethargic.

So nobody liked the 80s Angie and Jesse, Jenny and Greg, Tad and Liza era?

The male is every couple mentioned @r183 was gay IRL or rumored to be gay.

[quote]I think AMC began its slow steady decline after the 25th anniversary celebration in 1995. 1996 with the Michael Delaney story and Tad/Liza and Arlene/Hayley/Alex was still pretty good. But then FMB was fired and Francesca James took over. Her version of the show seemed so lethargic.

I agree it seemed at a high pint at the anniversary, but in retrospect, that is around the time it started declining. I would add Erica's drug addiction and the Tad/Dixie/Liza stories in the last group of stories that worked, but after that the sole decline accelerated.

[quote]So nobody liked the 80s Angie and Jesse, Jenny and Greg, Tad and Liza era?

I was not watching yet, but I think a lot of people consider that the best period. There has been a lot of mention of the colorful characters and humor and these were the kids of that era.

I wonder how the stories from the 70's have aged, they have kind of been lost being pre-VCR, plus I am not sure the soaps had the big campus followings yet.

I was not watching yet, but I think a lot of people consider that the best period. T

sole decline = slow decline

There were still good things through the end of the 90s...the Kevin/Kelsey story for instance. I'm pretty sure those episodes won AMC Best Soap and Best Writing in 1998.

But yeah, there was a lot of BAD.

OMG. I remember that heinous Jamaica storyline. I think that was 1996. Followed by the horrible Erica kidnapping Maria's baby and then that plane crash with Jim Thomasen (?)blowing up the plane. It was all downhill at that point.

Even some of the very early 2000 stuff was good. Agnes returned as HW (with Addie Walsh and Passanante) and the show started feeling like its old self. Lots of comedy and social satire with Palmer/Vanessa, plus the Bianca coming out story, the beginning of Leo/Greenlee. All good stuff. There were misfires (Brooke and the guy who killed her daughter) but all in all very watchable. I've said it before, but the final nail in the coffin is spelled FUSION. I don't know what they were thinking. Frons!!

I remember at one only watching for Sarah Michelle Gellar and Robin Mattson, those two stories were the only entertaining ones.

Granted, I was younger but I never "got" Lucci or Erica, so I always enjoyed SMG's Kendall sticking it to her.

I really liked the Bianca and Lena storyline. I think because Lena was Polish and was involved in corporate espionage, it gave the story a bit of an international flair.

It's like Frons and McTavish came on with the sole objective of shitting all over Agnes's legacy. It sickens me to think what they did to Agnes's baby. Yes, I know, MARY! but I don't care. AMC was "my" show and Pine Valley in the 80s was my escape from a horrible life as a bullied teen gayling.

I really hope there is a HELL, and when Frons gets there the Devil says, "Oh, I've been waiting for you, I loved All My Children and One Life To Live(Original name Between Heaven and Hell). So this is going to be FUN, for me at least!"

R192:

SAME.

McTavish had been at AMC twice before Frons came along, so she had been shitting on the show all on her own, even when Agnes had more control.

I hated Noah and Julia too.

I don't know why Agnes is hailed as a genius, the best years of AMC were written by Wisner Washam.

R183, pretty sure that it's been stated more than once on this thread that the early '80s, also known as the 'Angie/Jessie, Greg/Jenny, Tad/Liza years' were the golden age of AMC and they were a huge part of it. Greg and Jenny are one of the all time iconic soap couples.

Yet McTavish has the retirement that you old fat fraus can only dream about!

Were the mid-late 80’s on AMC as good as the early 80’s were supposed to be? I think my mom watched AMC in the early-mid 80s but left around 1984-1987 or so & switched over to Y&R until 1998. She said the storylines started getting absurd around then but in the early 80s it was better then any other soap she watched even Y &R in the late mid 80s-early 90s. when exactly did AMC go south in the 80s?

AMC went downhill quality wise around 1984/85 (when Jenny, Liza and Nina left and after the Zach Grayson story wrapped up). It got better in 1987, during the Palmer/Natalie/Ross storyline, then dipped again when Maggie DePriest briefly replaced Agnes and Wisner Washam in 1989.

Sorry Maggie replaced Lorraine Broderick not Wisner and Agnes.

R201 why did Maggie DePriest do so poorly with AMC? Her times at AW weren't a disaster, and she was making Sunset Beach better when it got canceled. Though her time as an associate head writer on OLTL in 1990-91 also marked a downturn in quality.

She’s a terrible head writer, r203. At AW, she was responsible for killing off both Sally and Frankie Frame, amongst other mistakes. She loved a serial killer story, probably because the 1st one she did at Days was a success.

While she was writing AMC, she broke up Angie and Cliff and brought Taylor Miller back briefly to write off Cliff. She also wrote out Ross Chandler.

OK, got it I didn't watch AW but I knew she seemed to last longer there than others, and got a second chance, so I thought she was actually good on it.

Thanks for answering my question R201, my mom must have stopped watching AMC in 84 or 85 then I guess because I was really young then & don’t remember watching it. Sorry for intruding on this thread but I never saw AMC & now I’m sorry I didn’t because it’s gone. I just started watching some old episodes posted on You Tube but it’s hard to piece together all the storylines & I’m not sure what year to start with. I was a Y & R fan as a kid well into my teenage years.

Here's a good recap (and some clips) of AMC from 1980-82.

Thanks R207 !

There is also a tumblr site that posts all of the old Soap OperaDigest recaps from the shows.

The posts start in Jan 2015 from the premiere issue (Nov 1975). For AMC, if you're looking for early 80s, they start getting posted in 2016. For instance, in April 2016, the recaps are for the summer of 1982. So the first April 2016 entry includes: Liza and Enid conspiring to split up Greg and Jenny, Liza telling Jenny her father is a rapist, Jenny making the run to NYC, Erica torn between Brandon Kingsley and Kent Bogard, Silver's arrival, the start of the Jesse-Angie relationship, and the obstacles from their different backgrounds, and Steve Jacobi comes to town, which will spell trouble for Cliff and Nina!

Forgot the link!

Thanks R209 !

Myra Murdoch’s pussy smelled! Liz Lawrence was a lez!

R203 Maggie DePriest also wrote some brilliant stuff as headwriter on DAYS in the mid 80s

She created the wacky Caliope Jones played by Arleen Sorkin on DAYS

One of the great comedic characters in soap history

Contrary to popular belief, Robert Gentry was not fired. Essentially what happened was that Felicia Behr called him into her office and told him, we love you and we'd love you to stay, but you'll never have a leading/front-burner storyline again. At that point he chose to leave. Bergman, on the other hand, was fired outright. I sort of understood where Behr was coming from. She inherited a good show, but one with too many storylines. She said her #1 goal coming in was to cut down on the number of stories being told. With that in mind, characters needed to be sacrificed.

No offense to DePriest, but I think Arleen deserves most of the credit for Calliope taking off. It also didn't hurt that it was 1984 and Cyndi Lauper was popular. According to Arleen in the 30th anniversary book, Shelley Curtis saw a Lauper concert and wanted a character like her on the show. Cyndi herself caught the episode where Calliope wore the light-up wedding dress, mentioning it was something she'd wear.

R214, I didn’t know that. I’d always thought it was Bergman’s decision to leave, too. So, thanks for the information. Bergman and Gentry were both being wasted. There was really nowhere to go with Gentry after the rape. Making Natalie and Ross friends after that was too creepy.

On another note, a I’ve gone back and started watching early 1991. Michael Brainard was terrible as was the girl playing Katie. Liz Vasey was definitely convincing as paranoid Emily. I’d forgotten there was a different Terrence Frye at first.

And, gosh James Patrick Stuart was handsome and charming as Will Cortlandt. While I enjoyed the whole Who Killed Will storyline, it was a loss to get rid of the actor. They should have kept Charles Van Eman around a little while and had him go nuts so Janet could have killed Charlie instead. That wouhave spared us Christopher Lawford, too.

Didn't Greta Lind play Katie?

Gentry seemed to be such an integral part of the AMC canvas in the mid-80s (as both Palmer AND Adam's son) that getting rid of him seemed an odd choice. Also, the show didn't really have a strong male lead in his 30s-40s, outside of Gentry, who could carry his own storyline (read: not be dating Erica or Brooke) at that time.

It also looked like they were going to have Ross and Brooke get involved, which could have been interesting. There could have been some powerful scenes involving any combination of Barr-Gentry-Canary, and maybe Noone and Collins and Mitchell mixed in occasionally (although Ellen might have been gone by then).

Sue Hooch still gets the guys giving her the once over. I don't know why she saddles herself with such a grandpa when she is so vibrant and youthful.

R218, boy, I don't know. I generally don't approve of rapists and their victims becoming couples.

“To my husband Helmet Huber...who has been there every step of the way...” 😢😢😢❤️❤️❤️

r221 LMFAO

"An ethnic type"

[quote][R218], boy, I don't know. I generally don't approve of rapists and their victims becoming couples.

I don't either - I did not want Ross and Natalie together, but just that she might be used in the story if Ross and Brooke got together. Still, I suppose there would still be an issue with Brooke being a rape victim being with a convicted rapist.

R219 For one thing, standing next to him, makes her look even more youthful.

Word on the street was that Brooke English had huge saucer nipples, which was why the guys liked her. (Technically, the term should be "saucer aureoles", but saucer nipples sounds better.)

Sue's cunt is drier than the Mohave, bitches.

Sue looks like his daughter

R224, whoops, I accidentally confused Brooke and Natalie. I agree it would be interesting to see all the characters in that pool interacting together against a Brooke-Ross romance.

Besides Sarah Michelle Geller, which costars did La Lucci have trouble with

Sue is a withered olf

H

A

G

R230 Supposedly she didn't like Charles Van Eman (Charlie). But he wasn't very popular on set in general either rumor had it, which is probably why he didn't last all that long.

Who's up for a rousing game of The Feud?

That Helen Gallagher was a nasty old cunt! I’m dead and she isn’t?

Nancy, you were pretty smokin' hot in that episode. I'm bummed they didn't keep you longer on AMC.

Thanks, r235! That was fun.

The R233 clip led me to this. What a strange mix of people. This must have been fairly early in Collin's Dynasty run, because I cannot imagine she would have not had the clout to say "no" later in her run. Lucci looks very 80'd but great.

Sue's painted upper lip is always the star.

To be on a fly on the wall during Joan and Susan’s backstage chatter. How did that go? I’m guessing Joan treated Susan like a second class citizen with her being on daytime.

Joan and Susan would later share Michael Nader (on screen). I wonder how each would describe the experience.

Michael Nader smells like coke, stale balls and drool.

R241 That sounds like it could also be a description for the 'Scoundrel Musk' perfume that both Sue and Joanie were the 80s spokespersons for:

Joan was dumped in 1986 for a newer model Sue (using the same tagline). Perhaps that contributed to the bad blood between them?

I am loving my Hooch activewear. I feel so sleek and sexy.

I'm surprised that Susan Lucci didn't venture out into TV movies more often the 80s/90s. Susan would have made an interesting choice to play Nancy Reagan in a Reagan mini series, with her high-handedness and excellent upright posture. She looked much more like Nancy than Judy Davis did.

Erica was fun in the beginning of AMC - but when she was the only one who stuck around and didn't go to Hollywood, the show became HER. She really didn't have the chops to be top dog, even by default. Better as a foil or featured player. Her best sl IMO was sleeping with Nick Davis and trying to hide it from Mona. They had chemistry.

Erica was never a character I tuned in for. I never got her appeal.

I’d never noticed that resemblance, r245 until you pointed it out. A bit of an ethnic Nancy, but, still nice and brittle.

R245 she did a made for TV horror movie, with Wes Craven, yes THAT Wes Craven, as the director in the mid 80s

She played Satan I think!

It was called Invitation to Hell

r245, Lucci was devastated to lose the Bridges of Madison County role to Meryl Streep, who looked nothing like the Italian housewife described. More info here:

R249, I remember watching Invitation to Hell as a kid and being freaked out Erica Kane was the devil. I haven’t seen it since it aired. I wonder if it’s available for viewing anywhere.

Found it.

R252 see I was the devil first Dee Dee Halls!

ABC was great at the daytime cross-promotion in those days. Soap stars on Family Feud, the TV-movies, Love Boat. No one can say they didn't know how to milk a cash cow.

La Looch even got to do Fantasy Island and for once was taller than an adult (Herve Villechaise).

Lucci did a number of TV movies for ABC. It was supposedly in her contract for much of the 80s and 90s to do one TV movie a year (usually as the star).

I remember reading about Susan’s devastation about not even getting a reading for Bridges. That’s some grade A delusion to think she would ever get cast in a big screen adaption helmed by Clint Eastwood after 25 years in daytime. And Meryl KILLED that part. I can only imagine how bad Looch would’ve been as Francesca. The accent, the weight gain, the anguish at the end... it would’ve been a shit show in her hands. She can’t hit the high notes.

Meryl was miscast. You could tell that was a northern European woman doing a terrible Italian accent.

I’ve been watching a lot of 1980s AMC since this thread began. Love the strong female characters but the men on this show were so fey their flames could be seen from space

Who were the worst offenders, R259? Who were relatively okay at playing it straight?

I know we were supposed to root for her, but I never had any sympathy for Erica. I loved when Kendall fucked with her and was always rooting for Kendall.

Why is a bright fresh-faced college girl always posing with her grandfather?

She still has that stunned/smirking Erica expression.

I get the feeling that even though they’ve been married over 50 years, Helmet and Susan still fuck like rabbits. And she definitely kept Maxine’s naughty French Maid outfit for when Helmet needs it taken up a notch. She has been dickmatized by this man for half a century.

Helmet can't even get it up. Sue needs a hot college guy to satisfy her.

r256, please spare us.

I don't get why r266 is being pissy with r256.

Lucci did negotiate to get to do ABC TV movies. They were often highly rated.

She did some for other networks too..like MAFIA PRINCESS for NBC. The camp classic EBBIE was also on NBC I think. I watch that every few years around Christmas. It must be seen to be believed.

Two weeks from tonight

Daddy's little princess

cost him everything

Finally! The type of man Sue deserves!

R267 I wonder how Deidre Hall felt when LaLooch was doing T.V. movies, on HER network (NBC)?

She was invading her territory and you just know they ran ads for her TV movies during Days of Our Lives

Dee pitched a lesbian TV movie to NBC starring her and Sue.

Erica has arrived, cunts!

What year was AMC at its peak ? I’d say 1983–Opal running around and fighting with Langley, Liza/Tad/Marian, Jenny/Greg and Jesse/Angie, Erica on the run, Palmer and Daisy getting back together....you watch it now and it truly is a great show. There is a sense of community in Pine Valley that is so strong.

That was a good year, r275. I was ten and I’d come home from school and ask my mom about Daisy and Palmer and Bonkers the Cat.

For me, the 1990-1992 era was the best. Peak Natalie storylines, Adam at his nasty best, Janet; Opal and Palmer versus Will; Erica desperately trying to remain coquettish, Dixie losing Tad, Brooke hiding Jamie’s paternity, the introduction of Dimitri and Helga. I enjoyed all of it.

Those were both two good eras - I would extend the 1990 period until about 1995.

I think it was actually number 1 in the ratings in the late 70's. That was before my time, but am guessing that around the time was the introduction of the Courtlands, with their gothic beginning, maybe Erica and Tom and the disco and the pill (which seems almost quaint now), Phoebe/Charles/Mona/Langley etc.

I have said this before, but I wish more from the 70's had survived. Sounds like there were some good stories that are pretty much gone.

[quote] Erica and Tom and the disco and the pill (which seems almost quaint now)

This was in 1979, almost one full year before the play Educating Rita opened and had the exact same scene in it. Way ahead of its time.

I thought Tom was going to burst a blood vessel. I know Lucci does not get a lot of love on this thread, but I thought she did a good job shifting from being defiant to having a bit of fear creeping in when she realized she might not be able to control the situation to pleading at the end.

Interesting choice of story line to choose to facilitate a pregnant actresses maternity leave, esp. one who is a petite 5'2' and probably started showing fairly early. It was in character for Erica to do that though, esp. at that time.

Tom always looked like he was going to burst a blood vessel. He showed all emotions by seeming to attempt to push his skull,out of his head.

Has anyone ever met Lucci in person? I know we all joke, but she looks amazing in pics. I'm wondering if that translates in person.

I loved Erica and Tom. I was upset when they broke them up. I also love how, in real life, when Susan talked about Richard Shoberg, she always got a little misty. She really seemed to have some real hots for him.

25th Anniversary Primetime Special!

Richard Shoberg wasn't a great actor, but he was definitely the hottest love interest Looch ever had.

Lucci was such a limited actress. It mystifies me that she became the biggest star in soaps. It's not like she had some Vivien Leigh type chops is it?

I always thought Tom looked good in this pic and they certainly are an attractive couple. Sadly there seems to be no still of him running in the speedo during their honeymoon.

I don't think Lucci was the greatest thespian, but she did excel at certain things and had a presence and "it" factor. It also helped she had comedic timing at a time when the show had quite a bit of humor.

Sue needs to eat a damn sandwich.

What's Richard Schoberg's story? He was devastatingly hot during the Erica/Tom love affairs, and a handsome man in the years after. Is a gay/straight/unclear?

Shoberg is married to a woman named Varaporn, who runs/ran a Thai restaurant in NYC. I think he has two sons as well.

Lucci was just an awful actress, there's no kind way to put it. It's amazing how she managed to become the biggest soap opera star based on being this Brat Bitch Princess... god knows her range is miniscule.

You have to take Lucci for what she was - a personality. She was perfect for soaps, but I don't think anyone will ever say she was a great actress.

If you want Tom in his bikini go to the anniversary clip. They show the whole run. I loved that anniversary clip. I fell in love with Cliff and Nina all over again. I forgot how PC tried to fool Nina into thinking she was going blind. I don't know if she could play any other character but Taylor Miller as Nina was about as perfect as you could get in casting. I wish there were more clips of faux Silver online.

I want James Kiberd in a bikini

Kate Collins would have been a good Nina recast if they hadn't brought her on as Natalie. I adored Kate's chemistry with James Mitchell.

Kate Collins would have been a great recast for Mr. Bonkers.

Kate Collins would have made a fantastic recast for Alfred VanDerPool. I would totally be into some Alfred-Amanda Cousins love scenes.

Palmer, Daisy and that DILFy Ross.....

That clip at r294 is marvelous! Marvelous!

Palmer: What a lovely gown, Natalie! (ripping off the marabou trim because he can’t borrow it)

OMG! It's here! The video you've all been waiting for

Just once, I want to see Susan “off,” just being herself. She can’t really be that perfect person ALL the time.

WTF is going on with her neck?

R299 The Looch doesn't eat!

She would have more credibility if her body didn't look so sickly. Her face looks good, but that's about it.

Here LaLooch shares her diet plan and how she looks so good at 71 for Harper's Bazaar. I think Dierdre Hall did something similar but it was for Parade Magazien or the Bakersfield Pennysaver...

Here's the link

R299 beat me to it, but Suze's beauty tips always bear repeating...

All I want to know is why did she stop hawking Youthful Essence?

Her body doesn't look sickly to me. She's slender, but you don't see any bones poking out anything.

If I had to pick out something about her not looking right, it would be her eyes. They are somewhat unnaturally shaped. Otherwise, she looks great for her age. She has taken care of herself, was lucky to have good genetics, lots of money not buy the best, healthiest food, and a good plastic surgeon.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Her neck is scary

She’s been fighting that stringy neck since the late 80s/early 90s when Erica began wearing chokers, turtlenecks, scarves , ruffled gowns and high-necked negligees.

She is not "fighting" a thing. She just needs to gain weight. I don't know how someone can take pains to create a youthful face, when beneath it, it's like a skeleton.

please, enough about Skeletor Lucci.

We have this!

Years ago and I had it on VHS - Susie was the target of Dick Clark and Ed McMahon's Bloopers and Practical Jokes and boy did you ever see Susan as a bitch. The joke was that she was supposed to appear on air for an Australian interview and when she arrived 'late' - she saw the monitor that they went ahead with the interview with an actress wearing a wig to look like her. She went off, then calmed down when she intervened and replaced the other woman to continue the interview. Poor Helmut got the brunt of her displeasure but Sus stayed calm for the producers.

I like the way Taylor Miller aged. A new appropriate haircut, she put on about 15 pounds, no plastic, showing her wrinkles. She looks good.

Agreed. Taylor is rocking that mature beauty look.

Taylor is looking good but my god she was something when she was younger. I hated what they did to the character with those horrible fake Ninas.

I totally see Lucci's shortcomings, but God help me, I love her.

But Kate is still my favorite. :-)

Her best role

Hoochi's chest and neck are disturbing. No one can convince me that is "healthy"

Slee had her prune commercials.

I’m so sad that YouTube doesn’t have the scene when Liza tells Jenny her father was a rapist. I think it happened at prom. I remember Oprah talking about it when she had soap Stars on and I thought as a young gayling- I want to see THAT!!!!

I’ve looked for that, too, r322. So much from the time before everyone had a VCR is unavailable.

I literally just watched that scene a few weeks ago, R322. It may have been a flashback they showed when Jesse was telling the story of Jenny and their friendship just a year or two before AMC was cancelled.

God Liza was such a cunt. LOL I loved her. I especially loved when she used to brow beat Amanda.

R324- can you post it by chance?

Not the rapist part but it's still our Liza

Wow. Tommy Michaels (Tim) grew up to be quite the hottie. From the AMC/OLTL reunion in Glendale, CA.

Yeah he looks really good.

Is that Lauren Roman?

R329 Yes, that's her. She pretty religious these days and speaks out against abortion. Don't know how conservative she is beyond that though.

Cast photo of all of the AMC stars that attended the reunion.

Tommy Michaels is wee

Michael Brainaird = hot daddy

Most of the girls look hot

Why did this thread die? Did we exhaust Slee, Sue and Kate Collins? It appears musing about 40+ years of a particular daytime drama does have it’s natural end point. But it was fun reminiscing about Erica, Brooke, Adam, Palmer, Natalie, Cliff, Nina, Jesse, Angie, Greg, Jenny, Tad, Liza, Dixie, Mateo, Hayley, Kendall, Jackson, Dimitri, Cecily, Nico, Brian, Ellen, Cindy, Phoebe, Ruth, Joe, Langley, Murtyle, Mona...

To everything, turn, turn, turn...

And Original Silver Kane, R333. Don't forget Silver/Connie.

I created these threads, r333, so, thanks for bumping it.

Here are some stray observations.

I have been watching old episodes on YouTube and have remembered why I never liked Hayley in any of her various incarnations. I couldn’t stand punk Hayley, confused Hayley, drunk Hayley, sober/somber Hayley. She was always whiny, and then flat out boring with CoMateo. I believe the problem was actually Kelly Ripa who is wholly unappealing.

I have a greater appreciation for Gloria Marsh and I’m finding Teresa Blake a much better actress than I remembered except for her twitching eyeballs. She handled some big storylines with grace and depth such as the rape and later the loss of her child with Adam.

I’ve found early Dimitri to read as very gay. Michael Nader was positively queening out in scenes with Natalie (she has that effect on us all) in his descriptions of picking the right lingerie for a ball gown and other trivial discussions they had in stalling the inexcusable reunion with that bloated gas bag, Trevor. His early scenes with Edmund come off as bitchy quarrels between a gay guy and his straight friend.

Killing off Will Cortlandt was a mistake. James Patrick Stuart is adorable especially with his later floppy hair and short beard. He was sexy when scheming. With Palmer aging, Will could have been a good nasty character. Raping Gloria ruined the Will character (though his desire for her was unconvincing).

Robert Gentry as Ross looks like he stepped off a porn set. He’s always pissed off about something, too. Probably because he wanted Jeremy or Mark and not Natalie or Ellen.

As a kid, I hated Brooke. Now I find her very likable. Yes, a bit sanctimonious, but funny and mature—probably the most mature person in Pine Valley.

Erica should only have ever played light comedy.

I still adore Kate Collins above all others and can’t watch the scenes with Melody Anderson.

What...what was ever appealing about James Kiberd? Oy.

R335, are you me?

I agree with all you said. When I was a teen watching, my friends and I thought Brooke was a bore. I think when I was in college and Laura was killed by the drunk driver, I began to see Brooke in a different light.

I loved the Will/Skye pairing...but then Robin Christopher left and Will got sucked into the Hayley orbit. I have never been a big Kelly Ripa fan.

I could watch old Kate Collins scenes every day. She was truly a special performer. The fact that she made it believable that Natalie could love a disgusting pig like Trevor should have garnered her a ton of Emmys!

Two other actressss I liked a lot in the later years are Esta Terblanche (Gillian) and Terri Ivens (Simone). They were both quirky and beautiful, and they both got short shrift by TPTB.

Perhaps we are one, r336. I agree about Gillian and Simone, the latter especially having been underused and then dumped unceremoniously during the Satin Slayer thing. She was good with Tad and made him fun again until he was absorbed by the insidious Krystal.

At least Gillian got a decent send off with the Commedia Dell’Arte/Cirque du Soleil heaven scenes. I enjoyed those, especially seeing Kate Collins in her “My Fair Lady” garb and Jean Le Clerc frenching his way through his lines. Even Cindy looked great, but I could have done without Travis. I never liked him as played by Larkin Malloy. Wasn’t he a lunatic in real life?

I also recall Cady McClain being a bit nutty. Dixie was another sanctimonious character all things considered, but without the dignity and wit of Brooke.

Ugh, fucking Krystle and Babe. The Careys and then those damn Laverys...how I hated them.

r335 Thanks for your comments. Very astute. I agree with almost everything you said.

Apparently Kelly Ripa was very popular with teen girls. She got lots of fan mail. Thus all the storylines that revolved around Hayley.

I was always ambivalent about Hayley. Didn't especially like the character, but didn't actively dislike her either.

Ripa's had really good chemistry with James Kiberd which may account for why they kept him around so long.

When I was rewatching, Ripa was a worse actress than I remembered. She was also lucky she worked a lot with David Canary, who had chemistry with just about everyone and had chemistry with her love interests like Brian and Matteo.

Cady always seemed off to me too. The frequent drastic (sometimes horrible) hairstyles changes and how she kept going back and forth between AMC and ATWT. Turns out she didn't have a pleasant childhood, her parents lived off her work as a child actress and was molested by her father.

Cady is koo koo.

I didn’t know that, r340. Poor girl.

From what I recall, Larkin had some sort of breakdown while on vacation after his time on Loving. I did think it was nice that Travis was part of the Pine Valley residents in heaven group.

R343 There was video footage of his breakdown in Italy and it was aired on one of those entertainment shows back when it happened, it was either A Current Affair or Hard Copy. It seems like he was drunk or high and hanging halfway out of the window of his hotel room a few stories up and had a sword and was waving it around. He was lucky he didn't fall or cut himself. He was arrested and sent back to the US.

Was I right that it was after Larkin's time on Loving? It's a shame that he's dead; it would be interesting to get his POV as someone who spent roughly half his career in the P&G camp and another half in Agnes Nixon's soaps.

R345 Not sure. I know it was after he was on AMC. If I remember correctly he was fired from Loving because of his addiction issues.

It was sad he died suddenly and relatively young. He had beaten his addictions in his later years.

Larkin was on one of those reunion specials near the end of the show [it might have been one of the Erica and her men]. His face was really puffy as if he was taking some sort of steroid medication [his body was nowhere near the heaviness of his face]. When he and Pratt came back for the intervention episode that won Lucci the emmy he and Pratt still clicked really well with Lucci and Wiley. Sometimes when someone comes back for a short stint it does not work, but Wiley/Larkin/Pratt/ and Lucci still interacted really well which was critical for that episode.

I watched some old episodes on youtube lately. Trevor is more annoying the second time around. I don't see the charm at all. I can see why teen girls liked Hayley. She and Brian did come off as a real teen couple. I thought in the later years Ripa was not a bad actress, but she and Mateo got tiresome. I think her later years was when the show started to focus on the same few people five days a week. You would literally go weeks before having an episode without her.

Dixie had some great early story lines with the Adam-Brooke-baby mess, the gaslighting while married to Adam while falling in love with Tad, but she could be annoying esp. as she got older. They also needed to ignore the more die-hard Dixie and Tad fans and end them for good after the second wedding.

Gillian got a fair amount of use, but they probably watered her down too much her later years. Once she was reformed by the love of Ryan she went from being a trouble-maker to a classic heroine. She actually had some scenes with Tad that showed they had good chemistry as well.

Simone really was wasted. She was interesting, complex had good chemistry with Tad (they spent way too long trying to make chemistry-free Tad and Krystal be a power couple). I remember when she had an affair with Roger (both he and Mary Smythe should have been kept for a much needed amoral blue blood).

Even if Will Stuart wanted to leave the show, they should not have killed him off so they could late recast, because with Palmer aging the character strengthened the Courtlant family.

I didn't care much for Daniel Hugh Kelly as Travis. I was glad they brought Larkin back later on.

Wasn’t Larkin of the homosex persuasion and bestie of gay icon Marcia McCabe, former Mrs Goutman?

[quote]I didn't care much for Daniel Hugh Kelly as Travis. I was glad they brought Larkin back later on.

It did not help that his stint was largely just to argue custody with Erica. I suppose he was cast because he actually looked like he could have been Jack's brother, but I don't remember much about him, but his main job seemed to be self-righteous and crabby.

Erica was certainly flawed, but Travis was pretty nasty following both of their break-ups and held himself up to be this paragon of virtue where he really was largely responsible for the first break-up due to a dumb, arrogant criminal act that put Bianca in danger, and he knew Erica was in love with his brother when he went full scale emotional manipulation using Bianca to tweak Erica's long-standing abandonment issues. He then was more focused on punishing Erica than what was best for their child.

He was always a little arrogant but at the beginning he was basically a good guy. By the end he really could have morphed into a new version of Palmer. Manipulative, strong feelings for his ex-wife that are largely hate but suggest he is not over her, and he could have ended up being controlling to his kids once they were aged to young adults.

It seems like almost every episode of the last 25 years or so of AMC is online, but I've not able to find that Bianca therapy session episode that helped Lucci finally win the Emmy. Anyone have a link to it?

I’ve looked for that, too, r351, and never found it. The most episodes in their entirety on YouTube are from ‘85-‘99. There are also a great many from the Ryan/Greenlee/Kendall years, but they’re hard to watch. There’s a bunch of clips from earlier than ‘85, but few whole episodes.

R348 and r350, I’m with you about Daniel Hugh Kelly as Travis though I’d enjoyed him as one of the Frank Ryans (or is the plural Franks Ryan? Like brothers in law?) on Ryan’s Hope.

Travis, in general, was too pompous for my liking whether it was Malloy or Kelly, and like many PV men, he had a weird sadistic streak bordering on flat-out lunatic. Of course, Adam was the king of the slick madmen.

What did anyone else think about Temporary Dimitri, Anthony Addabbo? He was certainly nice looking and a serviceable replacement after Michael Nader’s coke-selling bust and resulting suspension. I seem to recall something weird about his personal life, but don’t remember what. I know he died mysteriously.

Perhaps I’m thinking of Original Pierce, James Fitzpatrick, who was fired after aggressively groping a fan. Pity, he was hot.

Saw Anthony Addabbo in person in NYC. Extremely handsome. I also had the hots for James Fitzpatrick. He seemed to have something impressive in his pants.

Did Walt Willey's pendulous dong ever graze the Hoochi?

Let me be the first on this thread to mourn the loss of Chris Lawford aka Charlie Brent. He was so likable in that role. Even though he didn’t have soap star good looks, you got the sense he was having a blast working every day. He was also a generous co-star and made his leading ladies shine. He was meant to be a second string player, obviously not a David Canary or Michael E Knight. But added value to the cast.

Is Mona Kane dead yet?

Met a friend of a friend this weekend, from Chicago. He was talking about theater there, and this wonderful adaptation of ALL MY SONS he saw a few months back, starring "the lady who played Natalie and Janet on ALL MY CHILDREN. You can imagine my reaction: "Do you mean the legendary Kate Collins????"

I am kicking myself that I didn't know about this. I would have gone to Chicago to see her. Google "all my sons Chicago reviews" and you will see the tons of raves Kate received for the role (directed by her husband, who runs the Court Theatre) and a few clips. She definitely doesn't look like the 80s AMC Natalie anymore, but I still could not love her more.

I think I'll get on the venue's mailing list so I don't miss another chance!

Oh man, I would love to have seen that production. Now I want Robert Gentry and Kathleen Noone in Death of a Salesman.

Deborah Goodrich as "Mame"!

Tasia Valenza IS Evita!

Marcy Walker is ... not seeing any of these productions.

La Looch is Norma Desmond!

Kate Collins got fat.

It's great Kate still gets to act.

Even some of the older surviving cast members like Rosemary Prinz, Natalie Ross and Gillian Spencer have done some stage work in recent years.

BREAKING NEWS!!

Sue ate an entire almond today.

Doing some rinky dink small theater is hardly earth shattering. Collins is lucky her hubby owns the company or else she would never have been cast.

That nutcase Ellen Holly is off the rails in a new interview.

R366 I think Collins' husbands theater is one of the bigger ones in the Chicago area. She can say she's made it broadway also, she was doing a long-running part in the play 'Doubles' when she first landed her Natalie role.

R367 She did some off a little koo koo in that interview at times. She's far from the only person that got lowballed on a Soap (or elsewhere in entertainment for that matter). How did she know for sure what the other actors were making? She wasn't a naïve ingénue new to the business, she should've had a lawyer or one of her actor friends who worked in Television to look over her contract before signing it. And I doubt this some grand scheme cooked up by Nixon, just because she was black.

I watched Kate Martins funeral on You Tube, and it’s so strange seeing Nancy Frangione play Tara, after seeing her as a bitch as Cecile on AW. She seems so mousy.

Love that Charlie Brent’s first appearance as a teen was at the funeral when he compliments Erica, foreshadowing their affair in a few years.

Bow to me, you cunts!

Did Kate Martin have a smelly pussy? She looks like it reeked!

Tad and Kate had a great relationship. Michael E Knight really had charisma and talent when he first joined the show; he was holding his own with the veteran actors and he was compelling. Why didn’t he do better when he left the show in 1986? I thought that movie he shot was supposed to make him a star. Instead it flopped and he returned to AMC.

Kate had a lovely pussy, that had a faint scent of vanilla and lavender. It was heaven to catch a brief whiff.

MEK's movie Date with an Angel was pretty bad. It was mostly panned by critics. He did return soon after only to leave again in 1990 and return again in 1992. He said the entertainment business was slow because of the recession and that's why he returned to AMC.

There's no guarantee you'll get work even if you're talented and good looking. It takes some actors many years before they hit it big. It took Kim Delaney a decade before she landed on a hit show (NYPD Blue). She stuck it out and it worked for her. Others are rarely if ever seen again after leaving the soaps to try movies and primetime.

MEK likes the cock.

Please tell us how you know.

Women's intuition.

I swear, I can only see like every 3rd post on this thread.

What is MEK's story? Was Catherine Hickland a beard? Is he bisexual?

No 'Glamarama'? No fuckin' show. Period. Having said THAT - for many decades the outgoing message on my answering machine was Erica Kane declaring to her friends that she would, "Hold my head up HIGH in the supermarket". Uh....you get the idea~~~ And, indeed....my head was very, very HIGH. College, ya' know.

Sue wants to be 5'8"

What does that damn chair even do? All it ever looks like she's doing is pumping her legs.

Looch really has aged well. Isn’t she now about the same age as Fra Heflin was when she passed? And Looch looks a million times better than the granny that Fra became.

Hooch made the DList

Sept 23 marks the seven year anniversary of AMC's final show on ABC.

R385- I have a funny memory of the last day ABC aired the final AMC. I was a diehard fan back in the day. Hadn’t watched the last 10 years or so. But when I was a fan, I was a FAN. I read there was a viewing party hosted by a soap mag (Digest I think) at a bar on the UWS. I ducked out of work and went to check it out. It was a super sad assembling of a group that looked like a forced office outing. I opted to sit at the bar and watch the show that way while in the other room, diehards sat and sobbed. The View tribute show that day turned out to be better than the actual final episode. Hence the problem.

I miss OLTL more

AMC finale was one of the worst finales ever. so a disappointing finale. Not a way to send off a 41 year old show.

I know, I know, they thought they were moving to online episodes and wanted to end of a cliffhanger. Thus they left so many things hanging to entice the audience to follow it online.

But OLTL also thought they were going online immediately after and they still managed to have a much more satisfying end to its ABC run.

OLTL's penultimate episode was actually better than the last episode. The fraternity row ending was an apt metaphor, the voiceover speech by Slezak was very well-written and spoke to the true fans.

R384 She's in the next issue of Harper's Bizarre too. Showing of her body again.

Looks like she had her breast implants taken out or had a smaller set put it.

BONES

r390's pic gives me lady wood

This was a time when AMC was killing it. And it got me thinking how Julia Barr had such a great run on that show. She was such a quality actress who upped eceryone’s game. She could take any material and elevate it (within reason). AMC in the 90’s was incredible.

The "Who Killed Will?" was a great storyline, but the show suffered a bit by losing James Patrick Stuart. He was a great young actor.

He was cute back then, but I actually think he's hotter now at 50.

I loved Dottie, but man, was this storyline a stinker!! They should have brought back Tasia Valenza at some point.

Megan McTavish was the best writer AMC ever had.

Jackie Babbin was a big ole lez who pushed the Devon being a lez story.