More of those Magnificent Midwestern Towns, 2018 edition, Part 3

We had a paper towel dispenser like yours, Emma, when I was growing up.

Picking up from where we left off.

Between the 72 and 73 seasons ATWT lost almost (I'm assuming) a million viewers. What was going on in story during that time? Unless it was just people tuning into NBC in droves.

Thank you for creating the new thread, OP!

Yes, indeed. We who gossip, and were gossiped about, in the SFK thank you.

^ Oh, and the Hubbard Squash, especially the year Liz Hubbard got to cut it open.

Irna returned to ATWT in 1972, and she had several unpopular storylines going, like Liz Stewart falling up a staircase and dying. She also wrote off Dan and Paul at that time. And the fraus in the audience were pissed that Kim and Bob had an affair and she became pregnant (with Sabrina) and decided to keep the baby as a single parent, while Bob and Jen had Frannie.

Meanwhile, Beverlee McKinsey came to AW in 1972 and DAYS was cooking with Doug-Julie-Addie and Bill-Laura-Mickey.

The discussion towards the end of Part II was touching on how GL and ATWT ended - I remembered this blog post which I thought brought up a lot of questions -

and some of those questions were brought up in the last thread so we still don't have answers.

I know someone that worked behind the scenes and they were pretty blunt when I asked them about a possible reboot. The shows are good and dead, they said. Fans and actors saw them as actual shows, and P&G saw them as bumpers for their commercials. Several groups have approached P&G to see about rights and have been turned down without so much as a meeting.

I love that. How did she "fall up" a staircase? I wish that scene was on YouTube. It was pretty cutting edge to have Dr. Bob have two different women (sisters) pregnant at the same time. That hasn't been done that often.

[quote] It was pretty cutting edge to have Dr. Bob have two different women (sisters) pregnant at the same time.

And didn't they call them twins?

From the article at r8:

[quote]Anyone who’s read this blog before knows that I have a lot of love for the Proctor & Gamble soaps.

Not enough love to spell "Procter" correctly, however.

LOL r11.

Continuing the discussion about soaps expanding to an hour in the 1970s. Harding Lemay may have been pushing for it, but none of the other HWs were.

As I recall, ABC approached Agnes Nixon quickly about expanding AMC to 60 minutes and she refused. They kept after her for almost 3 years until she finally consented. So, AMC became the first ABC soap to go to an hour, in Nov 1977.

Meanwhile, Bill Bell hated the idea of doing a 60 minute show, feeling 30 minutes was the perfect length of a daily soap opera. Bell was HW of both Days and Y&R in 1975. When NBC expanded Days to 60 minutes, Bell quit. He stayed on as a story consultant for two years, but passed the HW duties over the Pat Falken Smith. Losing Bell as HW after 10 years was a huge blow to Days, one that would hurt the show tremendously by the late 70s when the entire NBC lineup was floundering.

CBS pressured Bell to expand Y&R to 60 minutes as well and he refused. Finally, five years later, CBS told Bell that Y&R was going to expand to an hour with or without him. They hoped he would stay as HW, but if not, then they would find someone else to HW the show. So, Bell relented and stayed as HW and Y&R expanded to an hour in Feb 1980, the last soap to expand to the hour format.

I really do not know how they could write 5 one hour shows every week, 52 weeks a year. I understand the HW had a staff of writers but still, they were responsible for everything that was on screen. Lemay even said that he rewrote most of what his writers came up with...I'm a writer and can write at most 30 pages of dialogue in two hours...and it is exhausting. 30 pages is about three scenes so a one hour show must have been draining. I think I understand better why so many soaps were so badly written and repetitive.

I grew up in Cincy and knew some of the movers and shakers for P&G in the late 60's/early 70's. Met Mr. Rauch once at Cincinnati Music Hall. He was handsome but seemed to look through people. My mother worked at P&G and knew of him and told me years later P&G wanted Rauch to 'damage' CBS daytime programming with a promise of moving to NBC to produce Another World. Hearing years later that Rauch had wanted to cancel all of CBS's in house soaps when he was Director of Daytime made me think of that. He had a particular hatred for Love Is A Many Splendored Thing because he had a total hatred of John Conboy. They had come up together and competition is competition. I wondered if that was what Mary Alice Dwyer Dobbin (MADD) was doing to CBS after she'd been at ABC.

[quote]I wondered if that was what Mary Alice Dwyer Dobbin (MADD) was doing to CBS after she'd been at ABC.

Destruction of everything we loved was her obvious and only goal.

When Dr. Bob was fooling around with slutty Susan Stewart, he actually had a bedroom scene! It might be the only time we saw a nearly-nude Dr. Bob. I'd give anything to find that scene today!

I can't imagine anyone fucking Bob.

Bob was a DILF.

Bob was never a D I wanted to F. Just too fuggo.

Now Johnny D, that was another case entirely.

And then there was me!

Dr Bob had that big huge sausage. Why else would I marry him?

I might have bounced on Cal Stricklyn's lap

I always wanted to get with Scotty D.

So did I!

Give me the Canadian Chris Hughes with the Bostonian Adam Munson.

Jake’s pendulous dong got me hard.

That nose alone made me want Kirk Anderson inside of me. It's no surprise that many a snatch in Oakdale quivered at the sight of him.

This tweet made me think of John Wesley Shipp getting blown in his Flash costume.

It was a very pleasant thought.

A great Marland show bringing back tons of old favorites and using them wisely...and still advancing current stories. Marland was simply great at this.

Marland loved it when JWS sucked his toes. Marland was a perv!

R31 must be Spicen.

Bill Shanks was so hot, although looking at R30 it appears he was also quite short.

Really, R33? You'd reject someone that hot because of his height?

Hell no, I wouldn't reject him R34. He and Michael David Morrision (Caleb) were to me the hottest guys in ATWT. I just didn't realize he was so short. Craig looks like he is almost a foot taller than Casey in the still in R30.

It's not even a consideration for me, r35, to the point it would never occur to me to mention it.

Serial fuktard is mentally ill. #NoFriends

You're right, R32. Must be.

He lacks a fundamental basic understanding of sexuality.....

True story about NUKE and Helen Wagner. No one at the show told Helen what their story was about and she got wind of it from her Sunday newspaper when the 'kissing ban' got press coverage. She was outraged. She told the producers she didn't want any 'calls' when L&N were on as well. She was firm in her religious beliefs and confided that story would cancel the show. In the end I guess she was right.

[quote]She told the producers she didn't want any 'calls' when L&N were on as well.

"Calls" to be in a scene?

She didn't want to be an an EP with them.

Helen was an old homophobic bitch. She wanted to be the only Nancy on the show!

That's total bullshit about Helen. She volunteered for LGBT organizations.

Don't encourage those idiots by responding, r43.

Probably the same posters who go on about toilets

Helen’s pussy stunk. Nasty old bitch!

I know Doug Marland wrote the Bennett Hadley story for ATWT in 1979. What were his other storylines during that period. It seemed from watching clips on You Tube like they were starting a mystery involving Penny but that was dropped.

And I’m curious about Kim’s mourning for Dan. I watched the funeral episode and Kim acts like she’s dazed, she doesn’t cry for him. And within a year she was chasing Nick Andropolous around Greece.

I think Marland also wrote the Sheila Winston story, which also went nowhere. The other big story I remember going on around then was Annie Stewart and the married man. I don't think he was responsible for Joyce's return, but that may have been him.

Doug's 1979 ATWT stint was only for 13 weeks or 26 weeks, if I remember. They had a permanent writer lined up and Doug was tasked to create "pedaling water" stories.

He went right to GL after that, if I remember right.

Why didn't Marland stay with ATWT? Didn't he have a choice between GL and ATWT? What was so compelling about GL?

John Wesley Shipp sucked his toes.

R50 See above. They already had the Dobsons signed to a contract, and he was filling in for them until they arrived.

They must have offered him GL since they were leaving.

For those of you who like your Tony Reardon without a shirt on.

OMG, R53, funny that you found THAT episode.

I remember pausing that Tony scene many times on our VCR back in the day. Ahem.

Somewhere on YT the episode where a Speedo clad Kelly sits at Bert's breakfast table exists.

Her expression is hysterical.

Tony Reardon made me hard.

What is bloomington,indiana like?

It's more like Springfield than it is Bay City.

R58 I'm english so i don't know if that's a good thing!

Essays should be written on the relationship between Alan and Phillip. It's one of the best relationships ever depicted on soaps. So dysfunctional and messy, but at the core it was truly about love. I know... Mary!

Alan and Phillip as originally written and acted had a bit of a incestuous tone to it. Alan would have done ANYTHING (ahem) for Phillip.

Shades of Iris and Daddy on AW. And, less so, Bev as Alexandra with her darling Brandon (Lujack).

One's eyes CAN be a-buggin when one is on the telephone.

Alan was not Philip's birth father, was he?

No. Jackie and Justin Marler were his birth parents. Which made Ross his uncle by blood.

I am not sure why the Marlers surrendered Phillip to Alan and Elizabeth, but they did. Perhaps someone who watched in the 70s can fill that in (I only started around 1980 or so).

r64 Thank you, your original recipe-ness.

I only watched GL for a couple of years, 1989-92. When my best friend, with whom I used to watch GL, died, I just couldn't tune in anymore. I did watch faithfully the following year for the Death of Maureen Bauer, though. So cathartic.

Irrelevant, but (perhaps) interesting: I am the Linda Ronstadt troll, my friend.

R65 Hey, there! I remember our chats on the Linda/Joni thread as well.

Am I right that you are also the Scott DeFreitas Fan? (I may be crossing memories and wires here.)

That's me, r66. I am equally fond of Scotty D, Linda R, and (of course) Anna S.

^ And Liz H, too. She may have been the best of them all, let's face it.

I am still brought to tears.

Yay!

And agreed, love Liz.

ORD, in my ideal future soap world, Luke and Steven would have grown up to fall in love with each other. I was semi-thrilled when Vicky and Jake moved to Oakdale ("semi-" because who could have been thrilled about anything then?). Did Kirkland and Steven ever show up in Oakdale? I don't remember. I hadn't watched either show regularly in a long time when AW went RIP.

ORD, I wish you and BNSD and I could get together and watch old tapes. Of course, I threw all mine out in 2009 during a Great Big Move, but maybe one of you has stayed in place all these years. We could invite others, of course (well, not DDD).

And there's youtube now, of course.

R72 I would SO be there with bells on!

Somewhere in the attic I have old BETA and VHS tapes of Another World starting with Mitch Blake arrival in Bay City. I've been wanting to transfer everything on DVD but it seems to be such a big task...and I'm thinking what's the point ? Every single one of those episodes must already be on YOUTUBE...yet I can't bring myself to throw them away.

r76 You've got a good stash there if you've got AW episodes dating to fall 1979. Most of those episodes are NOT on You Tube.

And even if they are on YouTube, that does not mean the quality is terribly good.

Transferring them to DVD is a task. But you can hire companies to do it for you,

You all are so kind to me here, so I will tell you my aunt, Beverly Penberthy, caught up with Susan Sullivan last week in the city. They had a wonderful time together. They reminisced about former co-stars. My Aunt Bev is very touched that she is still remembered.

Remembered and loved, R76.

Bev's nephew at r76. Thanks for checking in with us. Pat was a favorite character. She should have never been let go in 1982.

Would love to hear more of Aunt Bev's memories of AW in the 1970s. Would especially like to know how the cast felt about George Reinholt's firing followed a few months later by Jacqueline Courtney's firing.

Aunt Bev is in this episode.

Darlings, I REALLY want this theme as my ringtone.

Robin Strasser/ George Reinholt / Jacquie Courtney was THE triangle of the early soap era. Must-see TV!

How nice to see my first Bay City love Susan Keith's Cecile. From sweet French naive girl to sharp mean bitch and all thanks to Iris. Bay City would never be the same again...

R78: According to my Aunt Bev, George Reinhold became extremely popular. He and Jackie Courtney (who played her sister) were huge in the early 70s. George believed his own hype and took his fame seriously. He made a lot of money too. He complained constantly about a head writer that changed his character. He acted out on set. My aunt said he was talented, but very problematic. He was becoming very unprofessional. He got fired. Then they fired Jackie Courtney because there was a storyline she didn't want to do. My aunt had no problems with Jackie Courtney. She was a child star with a pretty nasty stage mother. Jackie didn't care about stardom or acting. It was strictly paycheck for her. She blamed her childhood acting for her lost youth. Aunt Bev always felt Jackie Courtney was a sad person. When they were both fired, the focus became a tiered show. Mac, Iris, Rachel were top tier. The second tier were the co-stars: Pat, Alice, Russ, John, Willis, Angie, Gil, Ada, etc. Third tier: the child actors, Clarrise, Jim, the maids and butlers. It remained that way until around 1980 when NBC forced them to hire younger actors and actresses. More to come...

The 'they fired Jackie Courtney because there was a storyline she didn't want to do' is pretty much b.s. LeMay hated Courtney's acting tics and resented her for NOT being a stage actress. If the truth was that the show wanted to pair Alice with Willis - that would have been stupid. Courtney was their most beloved female star and her popularity continued on OLTL. I remember her as a teenager at the beginning of AW and she was always good. She had a horsey laugh as Alice that probably rubbed LeMay the wrong way too! I do think honestly that the 'real' reason for firing Virginia Dwyer, Reinholt ad Courtney was MONEY. Those three had to be at the top and with newer stars Wyndham, Watson and Bev McKinsey they would not to be compensated accordingly. So who knows the real truth? NBC took a gamble and in the end it did not pay off.

Eh, I doubt it was money. The soaps weren't making anyone rich but they were profitable enough that budget cuts were rare. Lemay spells out the specifics on all three, especially Dwyer.

The budget for AW's hour show was huge. That's also when they started picking up everyone in limos to get them to the studio on time. The network was making TONS of money on the show but the top talent had to be compensated. Probably making $100,000 a year in the mid 70's was really something.

The thing about the timing of their firing(s) was that the show had just expanded to an hour and so it wasn't exactly convenient or planned.

WE HAD THE KIND OF LOVE YOU'LL NEVER KNOW!!

You may think it's about money, but what Ms. Penberthy's nephew says gels with everything that has ever been discussed about that time by people connected to the show and the fans. Fame went to George's head. Virginia didn't want to play the scenes as written. Jacquie didn't want to play Alice and Willis.

The money thing makes no sense. This was the period of daytime, when daytime was making money hand over fist. This was the period when the profits from daytime were paying for primetime shows. A show isn't going to fire their top couple without some serious reasons behind it.

There are many sides to all these stories and most of the players are dead now, so it really doesn't matter. If George would have behaved himself, Lemay would have continued to write for him. George fired himself. Jacquie was just an idiot to play Alice and Willis. And Virginia was an idiot for wanting to keep Mary stuck in a box.

[quote]Eh, I doubt it was money. The soaps weren't making anyone rich but they were profitable enough that budget cuts were rare.

Yes, AW and DOOL profits in the 70s were in effect paying for NBC's prime-time lineup, according to one NBC exec.

[quote] most of the players are dead now

Oh, honey. That never stopped any of us from a spirited rhetorical discussion!

On ATWT Colleen Zenk (interviewed at link) mentions a scene where she opens the door and a whole "new Barbara" is standing there with a newly changed attitude towards life. It sounds like at the time she didn't take the direction very well, though I thought she was amazingly good in those early bad girl scenes. She also mentions the new direction of the character creating lots of tension for her on set.

I love reading that interview again. But I have to wonder if she wasnt being disingenuous when she talked about two things: first, the cast members turning on her when Barbara became a bitch had more to do with the older actors disapproving of her relationship with Pinter and the clique of Hendrickson, Holmes, and Bailey-Smith excluding her than any reaction to her character, and second, talking about trying to get girls for Hendrickson...I mean, the man killed himself, can we stop pretending he was straight now?

Barbara becoming a bitch was the best thing that ever happened to Zenk. After years of playing the Perils of Pauline, she got some meaty material, and not one, but two rivals (Margo and Shannon), which meant lots of screen time. Then when she finally went to the back burner, another head writer (Hogan Sheffer) resurrected her bitchery and she was back in front again.

Zenk was lucky...she got to work against some top-flight actors (Herrera, Hendrickson, Bryggmann, Dawson, etc.)

Who were Marland's other pets, other than CZP?

Who were Marland's pets, other than CZP? The Snyders, of course. That was his big creation. Usually I hate when a new family comes on and devours the town, but I must admit Marland did it right. He first connected Holden to Queen Lily, the center of the universe. Then he introduced the Snyders slowly, one by one. Heck, we never got to meet Caleb and Ellie until years later. But at the same time, he didn't diminish the cornerstone Hughes family at all.

Marland got rid of a lot of people when he took over, most notably Steve Andropolous, who had been the center of the show for a couple years. Once Meg Ryan left, Frank Runyeon just had no chemistry with the aptly named Lindsay Frost.

She's def. alluding to Hillary BS in that interview.

That interview in We Love Soaps was pretty fucking amazing, to be honest.

And I remembered this quote from the last part. She's being interviewed after her sister died, her cancer diagnosis and after she and Mark had split up. I remembered this when I heard the news about her son.

[quote] A lot of what’s happened to me the last few years doesn’t make sense. And I don’t understand why I have been on the receiving end of a lot of great difficulty. I have always thought of myself as a good person. I have always thought of myself as a person who gives, and is not a taker. I have been given my share to deal with. They always say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Well when I finally come out on the other side of this I’m going to be the strongest fucking woman you’ve ever known. I’m not on the other side yet. I’m still deeply wounded....deeply wounded.

[quote]A lot of what’s happened to me the last few years doesn’t make sense. And I don’t understand why I have been on the receiving end of a lot of great difficulty. I have always thought of myself as a good person. I have always thought of myself as a person who gives, and is not a taker.

Ummm.... well... not exactly.

I just can’t with Zenk. The cheater in real life who plays the victim. Ugh!

Who is Gretchen?

Ah, I get it, she was Mark's GF before Colleen.

I'd say Mark and Colleen were a mutual thing. She paid enough for that with the shit Mark did to her - losing three other family members is just cruel.

And also.....

[quote] I think sometimes fans think they know more about you than they really do. They make presumptions about certain things in your life that are not true. You just have to overlook them. Just say, “Well, they don’t know. If they knew, they wouldn’t be saying this.” It’s hard when there’s only a certain amount of information about certain things that get out there and it might put you in a bad light because all the information is not known.

For what it's worth, I had a friend who worked in the soap press and she had nothing but good things to say about Colleen.

I've always thought, for no real reason, that Colleen would be someone I'd get along with.

This is what I get. She seems to be incredibly well regarded by most of her cast mates. Isn't H BS not so beloved by some of hers?

I thought HBS was the Cunt of the Show at every show in which she appeared.

Iva was such a sad-sack character. FMB wanted to give her a slutty split personality named "Diva". And if FMB had gotten her way and gotten her studly "Drew Dixon", can you imagine Diva and Drew fucking throughout Oakdale. ATWT would've owned the demos.

CZ was most certainly not beloved by the cast. Most definitely not. Ask her why she had to have her dressing room away from everyone else??? Diva to the nth degree. Karma sure got her!

Aha! So the DDD actually *is* FMB.

So the reason Colleen was hated is because she left her husband for Mark Pinter? Those busybodies on the set should have minded their own business. Was she as awful as Robin Strasser or Melody Thomas Scott? Now THEY are cunts.

Maybe she should have waited to divorce her husband before getting together with Mark.

It sounds to me like gay male writers loved Barbara and CZP. First Marland and then Hogan and the others in the cast hated her for it. Why would anyone in show business give two fucks about some affair that co-stars were having. That shit happens all the time on sets.

P&G really had some overrated actresses in its stable: Hubbard, McInzey, Wyndham, Mary Stuart, to name a few.

Overrated? That's a stretch.

Hubbard could be a little much, but hardly overrated.

Neither McKinsey nor Wyndham received Emmys for their work. Which is a total shame.

Mary Stuart's entire beef was that she never got the respect she deserved.

Overrated is someone like Kim Zimmer or Susan Lucci.

R112 types Spicen.

Ask Colleen about her 1980 feud with Jackie Schultz. Jackie was the favored one and Colleen was on the bottom. Eventually they made up - but the writer took great pains to avoid scenes that involved both women. When Annie married Brad, Barbara was supposed to be at the wedding but because Dee was also there Barbara was put in peril to avoid it. It was 1982 before they shared a scene, once the feud abated.

Go away Serial Psycho no friends. Your family needs to commit you, again. Asshole.

Didn’t CZ cheat on her first husband with Hugo? Slut.

[quote]Overrated? That's a stretch.

What's a stretch is that the poster you're referring to is worth your time. It's a troll, ignore it.

I've heard more pleasant sounds coming from my alley at 1am than McInzy's voice. There's a reason she never won an emmy: lousy actress.

McKunty and that voice! Yikes. My dog used to growl at the tv screen when she was on!

McInzy was atrocious on Texas. Superior actresses like Carla Borelli, Lisby Larson, Barbara Rucker, and Dana Kimmel wiped the floor with her. I remember her being particularly awful in a scene with Caryn Richman, and I remember that Caryn could teach Bev a thing or two about acting.

ANYWAY

Why weren’t Kathy Hays and Marie Masters nominated for Emmys? Their work in 1989/90 in particular was stellar. Certainly more deserving of a Best Actress award than, say, Kim Zimmer.

R114 Exactly. You can always tell by the typing.

Blocking that pile of feces now.

Are you serious, r122? Kathy Hays was a one-trick pony with her "toots" shtick, and Masters was so boring and glum. Zimmer is an amazing with such vitality and energy who deserved her emmys. She gave her heart to that role.

If I have sex with Joshua Lewis, can I yell out "I'm comin', Bud?"

Suddenly I'm very tired and need to take a nap. zzzzz

"Why weren’t Kathy Hays and Marie Masters nominated for Emmys? Their work in 1989/90 in particular was stellar."

Just watched those eps again and they were both amazing. Two naturals, yet with totally different styles.

It could be that as wonderful as Kathy was, she was wearing a tablecloth and/or country kitchen curtains in many a scene.

Christ, the pee and gee shows had the homeliest, most uncharismatic actors. Am I the only one who would've killed to have seen what a glamorous actress like Andrea Evans could've done with Frannie on ATWT, for example? She would've showed those ugly actors how to get business done! YASS!

Kathy Hays was mostly one note. Not surprising in the leadt that she was never nominated for an Emmy.

Connie Ford was a hint in the Soap Opera Digest puzzle this week.

[quote]Am I the only one who would've killed to have seen what a glamorous actress like Andrea Evans could've done with Frannie on ATWT, for example?

Yes, you are, DDD. The only question that remains is whether you're FMB or Mickey Against Daytime Drama IRL. Or, as I suppose is possible, yet another white trash ABC fan.

Happy 35th Anniversary today to Nola Reardon Chamberlain and Quinton Chamberlain!

[quote] Am I the only one who would've killed to have seen what a glamorous actress like Andrea Evans could've done with Frannie on ATWT, for example?

We already saw what happened when a lot of low rent ABC stars infested ATWT. That's how we got Julie Pinson, the poor man's Lisa Rinna, showing us all two and a half of her facial expressions for slightly more than scale.

That's what tanked the show.

R134 Julie Pinson ate the show for the last year. Her father (on the show) got a 3 day funeral while poor Nancy Hughes, the character who spoke the show's last line, got an offscreen funeral with barely a mention on the show.

Who was her father (on the show), r135?

[quote] while poor Nancy Hughes, the character who spoke the show's first line

fixed

What's your fix, r137?

He changed "last" to "first," r138.

Crack cocaine, Rose @r138.

Ohhhh... thank you, R139.

McFlimsy was possibly one of the worst actresses ever on daytime. She was so stilted on GL and hopelessly mannered on AW. Why Rauch and Lemay elevated her to A status, while firing the wonderful Jackie Courtney and reducing the the Bev (Penberthy) to B player, is anyone's guess.

I'm going to channel Vivien and pretend I am at the Cory estates when I'm helping at a picnic later today.

It will dull the dullness of the bougie masses. Ugh.

Was Wallingford a pocket gay?

Gawd, Ed and Maureen as played by Peter Simon and Ellen Parker were lethally dull. No wonder JFP decided to axe her. I think if they had sexier actors in the roles, the pairing would've been much more successful. I would love to have seen what Shannon Tweed or Jamie Lyn Bauer could've done with Maureen, with Dennis Cole as Ed.

I recently re-watched Felicia's descent into alcoholism on Youtube. It remains the best alcoholism story on soaps that I've ever seen. Dano truly earned that Emmy. The climax was ugly & raw and she did something that many have failed= she never went over the top in playing a drunk. Does anyone know who the HW was during that story?

Hysterical GL parody written by Marsha Clark. Some of the vignettes are LOL funny.

Shelley Morgan-Taylor would have made a great Hope Spaudling.

Michael Zaslow was hilarious in that rape scene, R147!

This is an extremely clever use of ATWT’s final theme for a Dutch soap. The “whoosh” sound is even in perfectly synchronization with the image:

Peggy Sloane wrote Felicia’s alcoholism storyline.

Did Lisa McColl’s pussy stink? Well did it?

19 years ago today- June 25, 1999- Another World aired its last episode on NBC....

AW was dead long before its final airing. I did not miss it. Having a gorilla come back for the finale was ridiculous. Stupid way to end the show. And I’ve never missed bug eyes Wyndham.

[quote]I recently re-watched Felicia's descent into alcoholism on Youtube. It remains the best alcoholism story on soaps that I've ever seen.

And foreshadowed, to some degree, by Felicia getting drunk (while seething about Julia writing her own book) and falling into the pool at Mac and Rachel's (and Sandy and Blaine's) wedding almost a decade earlier. Felicia used alcohol as a bit of a crutch even before it became a problem.

On a similar note, Cass's bi-polar diagnosis totally makes sense in the same way if you go back and watch Cass's history of impulsive decisions and intense fury.

Peggy Sloane was my favorite AW writer and I don't care who knows it!

R155

It chaps my ass how the soap press fawns over stuttering cue card reading Benard's bi-polar story yet never mention Cass's superior story & SS's much better acting. Not to mention it was the first bi-polar story on soaps.

r154 gets it so right until his last sentence, having written which he is banned from Tops, Cory, and all events taking place at 10 Underhill Terrace.

Save for maybe 1983/1984 and then 1988 when Lemay briefly returned, AW went through a continuous identity crisis from 1981 until its demise. Was it a P&G soap? Was it an ABC soap? Was it Days? Was it Passions? It's rather sad to think how quickly the show fell in 1978/1978 and never truly recovered.

*1978/1979

[quote] 19 years ago today- June 25, 1999- Another World aired its last episode on NBC....

We should really plan an event for next year - "Memories at Underhill Terrace" for the 20th anniversary. Invite La Wyndham!

My eyes are bugging out at just the thought of an anniversary celebration.

Donna Love was such a cunt. Her pussy smelled, too.

Her pussy smelled divine. Liz, yours on the other hand...

In addition to the 20th anniversary of the final episode, 2019 will also be the 55th anniversary of the debut of Another World.

I'm going to watch Five Easy Pieces.

For a lesbian, Ada sure did get a lot of dick.

Who’s going to organize the reunion next year? I nominate that bitch ORD. Get working on it. Now.

Can we do a Bay City crawl, starting at Ada's house on Bowman Street, then working our way to the Cory Complex, then to Tops, then on to Iris's penthouse, and finally to Underhill Terrace,

One more time.

Those fucking bug eyes of Rachel. And she always had nasty hair. That woman had 2 kids in real life??? How! Who would fuck her? Yikes.

r171 More people than would fuck you, Spicen.

Carole Shelley was wonderful as Iris. She had this regal air about her that the daughter of Mackenzie Cory was supposed to have. McInzy always came off like ostentatious southern trailer trash who came into a bit of money.

Please block and ignore S and S.

Please. Let's not let this thread go the way of the Summer Newman thread....

What would Felicia be doing in 2018, I wonder? Still writing romance novels or is she mentoring budding YA author Charlie Frame Winthrop?

Not everyone who tells Spicen to fuck off is Serial, r174. You have no reason to tell people to block and ignore me.

r172

Gurl, I don't know where you made the assumption I was saying you were Serial. I'm just saying it's best not to mention their names and to not engage them at all.

Bye bye r176

Zzzzzzzap!

[quote] What would Felicia be doing in 2018, I wonder? Still writing romance novels or is she mentoring budding YA author Charlie Frame Winthrop?

She'd still have an estate in Bay City but she'd probably have a pied-à-terre somewhere fabulous.

I had a rough day. Who's up for leering at Cass and Sam?

Thanks, R180. You're doing the Lord's work.

r180

i love around 4:00 RKK looks like he is really going for it and Sandra Ferguson is NOT into it and she tries to get away

Anne Howard (Nicole) told me that Sandy actually had a thing for RKK but he was never interested. He was much more interested in one of the very young interns (female) and they hooked up for a while.

Anne Heche really looks exquisite in R180’s link.

Does anyone know when RKK became too big for his Speedo, so to speak?

This scenes remains absolutely riveting after all these years

I look fabulous at R180. As always.

I can't see Sharlene now without thinking of whoever it was here said, after a long week, that they were going to let down their hair, shake it out and go all Sharly.

Do any of my fellow long time viewers remember if Rachel had a specific scene with all the Vicky/Jamie stuff where she said "I see myself in this?"

I missed some of this (VCR could only record so much in those days) so I am curious.

Anyone know what happened to Tom Eplin? What's he doing now? His last listing on IMDB is from 2007.

Isn't Eplin really really fat and selling cars in New Jersey?

Here's the really really fat part of the story.

R190

That is not Tom in that pic.

Sure looks like him. Get glasses. He has.

R192

Even if Tom ballooned to that size the features of the man in that pic bear no resemblance to Tom.

It's definitely him. It's the way he used to look only older and really really fat. Sorry if it bothers you but I'm sure it hurts him more than it does you.

That can’t be the same Tom. Completely different coloring.

R-185

That was a brilliant set of scenes. From the acting to the dialogue to how it was shot. to extended scenes w/o cutting away It kills me how far today's soaps have sunk.

Heche played it perfectly. Marley was always the shy reserved sister but in those scenes she played her as weary from the weight of it all yet her normal acquiencing (sp?) character had found her inner strength. She had been broken but she was taking no guff from him anymore. Tom was very good as well. The camera was right on his face. We saw his face shift from denial to admitting it to shame.

R189

Last I heard Eplin owned a car dealership in the Bay area.

Here is Eplin in 2010.

I think we've done this "Tom Eplin? No, Tom Eplin..." thing before, and came to the conclusion that there are two Tom Eplins, and that the fat guy is not the actor who played Jake.

Here is the obituary for his mother. Note the daughter Cheri in the obituary is the Cheri of the link above.

Was Henderson in the Midwest?

The fat guy above is not THE Tom Eplin

He is *a* Tom Eplin.

Yes, R201, in the county of Wessonality.

Funny, r203!

Here is Tom in 2011...evidently his sister had some sort of column in Danville.

Don't know that Cheri is all that close to her brother - no photos of him on her FB.

Well, either that or his appearance has changed.

When I was a questioning gayling, one look at Tom Eplin shirtless and I knew I was gay. I knew what I wanted. There was no turning back.

Does anyone have some dirt on NBC-era Search? The most shocking thing I'd ever heard was that Sherry Mathis was a bit reserved. That tidbit came courtesy of Marcia McCabe hijacking poor Louan Gideon's obituary.

I know that Mary Stuart absolutely hated the show being overrun by McClearys and was very concerned that they were going to replace her as town matriarch with Kate McCleary, played by Maeve McGuire. Mary also was not crazy about Jackie Schultz playing her daughter. Mary was also vocally against them killing off her granddaughter Sarah Whiting, but no one was paying attention.

Mary got two big feature stories during the NBC years and the ratings ticked up during both stories. She was about to get a 3rd, but PG pulled the plug on the show.

Mary Mary Mary!

The very McCleary-centric opening. The music was just awful and reeked of desperation to attract younger viewers.

They didn't even gave Mary the dignity of either the opening or final shot on the credits. Just tons of McClearys. Mary must have blown a gasket.

The Who Sot Jake story was so well done. It was so well crafted with amazing performances.

The one thing that I could never buy is that Vicky would later fall in love with & marry Jake.. No way in hell would she ever be copacetic with him raping her sister. To me that spit on the brilliant Who Shot Jake story & its fall out.

Mary was probably happier Jackie Schultz (10 years TOO young) played Patti rather than bring back Leigh Lassen or Natalie Israel.

I had a hard time accepting that Jake would rape Marley, r214.

From Harding Lemay's book "Eight Years in Another World Around 1973-1974

---After months of seemingly futile discussions, P & G gave in. AW would be the first soap opera to depict a continuing character as a homosexual...We agreed that an open-faced, exuberant young man with the stance and demeanor of an athlete was exactly what was required. (We) explained to Lionel Johnston that he would play a homosexual and advised him to talk it over with his wife and family before signing a contract (to play Michael Randolph, Pat & John's son) since they might be embarrassed by the nature of the character he would play. The actor, too, ran the risk of being taunted (or worse) on the street by the fans...I took my time in establishing the new Michael as a well-rounded, likable youth with a conventional interest in sports. Lionel Johnston's ingenious countenance and sturdy stature were assets which allowed me to delay the revelation of Michael 's secret until the audience liked him....I was outlining with care the scenes in which Michael told his sister he was in love with his roommate when...P&G reversed its approval of my story. I protested angrily but I had no choice to give up the story. I agreed halfheartedly to substitute the overfamiliar story of college romance, pregnancy and abortion....

Such a missed opportunity to make a difference in how people viewed gays in 1974...

....

It's difficult to believe that in 1974, P&G of all companies would've allowed an open and proud gay character. I doubt they would've given him a bf or anything resembling a sex life. If anything, his homosexuality/coming out would've just been a plot device to stir conflict between John and Pat.

Lionel Johnston and Ariane Munker debuted as the college-age Michael and Marianne Randolph in 1975, not 1974. They showed up shortly after the show expanded to 60 minutes in January 1975. By summer 1975, the show was beginning the Marianne dating Chris Pearson (Stephen Yates) storyline that would see her get pregnant and secretly have an abortion, the storyline Lemay subbed for Michael being gay.

My point in mentioning these dates is that with gay storyline was abandonned less than 6 months after the SORASing of the characters. P&G got cold feet fairly quickly.

And I agree with r219, P&G was far too conservative a company to seriously consider a gay storyline in 1975. I suspect they were appeasing Lemay by seemingly approving the gay storyline, but likely always intended to squash it.

And yes, Lemay says in his book that the gay storyline and the subbed abortion storyline were plot devises to separate Pat and John Randolph.

Wait...Stephen Yates played two different characters on AW?

It happens

Yes, nefarious Chris Pearson in 1975 and returned in 1983-85 as good guy Jamie Frame.

In between there, he played Ben McFarren, a character with many shades of gray, on GL for five years.

Ariane Munker was apparently quite a cunt and was fired. I remember never taking to her replacement, Adrienne Wallace (?) because she had brown hair and I thought Marianne should always be a blonde. Wallace did play a good bitch, though, in that love triangle with her mother and Greg Barnard.

[quote]Stephen Yates played two different characters on AW?

Who knew?

Lionel Johnston may have debuted in 1975 but it does not mean that Lemay had not been working on the character in 1974...he writes that he often thought about specific characters but had to wait many months before finding the right actor or actress to play the part. And long-term story lines were concocted many months before hitting the screen.

I never knew a blonde Marianne Randolph, only a brunette. She was such a bitch to her dear mother Pat...A couple of years later Marianne came back to town as a blonde, an awful actress who was paired with an even more awful actor, I think his character's name was Rick and he played a doctor. Bland Bland Bland ! At that point Lemay had left and the show was quickly becoming a snooze fest...

Yeah I think I remember the character of Rick. Was he not part of the Halliway family ? There were tons of coffee drinking scenes in the hospital cafeteria and Dr. Rick was always slurping his coffee..

." I have to tell you something Marianne...SLLLLLURRRPPPP....it is important that you listen to what I am about to tell you....SLLLLLURRRRRPPPP....I saw the way you looked at Jamie Frame last night....SLLLLUURRRRPPPP....and it is just disgusting........SLLLLLUUUURRRPPPP ....

It drove me mad !

I think I remember when Stephen Yates was introduced as Jamie Frame. Wasn't he wearing the sexiest, 2 size too small, bulge revealing pair of shorts during Mac and Rachel's wedding ? WOW what an entrance. There's a video somewhere on YOUTUBE

There is and he was.

Two of the actors who played Jamie Frame were gay: Richard Bekins, first adult Jamie and Russell Todd, most handsome Jamie...what about Yates, blandest Jamie and Laurence Lau, worst actor Jamie ?

R227, when Marianne was a little girl (played by a child with the fabulous name Tiberia Mitori) she was a blonde. Ariane Munker was blonde. And the last actress to play her, Beth Collins, was a blonde.

Instead of ending AW with the gorilla story line, I would have ended with Michael Randolph coming back to Bay City to reopen his grand-father's house and introducing his partner/husband to the denizens of Bay City with their twins in tow, Patsy and Johnny Randolph. But of course a gorilla was more palatable to P&G than gays in the old Matthews house. In 1964 some of the first characters and stories took place in that house. They should have honored that history by ending the show exactly there...Some many possibilities to give us long-time fans closure...

The guy who played Rick couldn’t act at all but he was pretty. And he was the real life son of TV star Bob Cummings.

I hardly remember that Rick character...did not make a very strong impression...I don't know who was casting the show at that time but they had so many bland and bad actors in Bay City. And the show dropped in the ratings !

Rick Holloway was indeed played by Tony Cummings, the real life son of actor Bob Cummings. Very green as an actor, but had potential. If he'd stuck around, I'm sure he would have improved. But the show wrote off all the Holloway characters almost as quickly as they introduced them.

[quote]Stephen Yates played two different characters on AW?

How unusual!

Presenting ... Stephen Yates' bulge!

His ass looks pretty damn great, too.

How the hell did AW convince Connie Ford to get all glammed up & wear a feminine gown?

Alllll the cunts she could kick right after filming.

This is how I would have ended Another World.

Final act...

Rachel is in the Cory kitchen and she sees a t-towell on the sing and picks it up. She smiles then starts to remember her Mother and then Mac, and all the things that happened over the years. She exits the kitchen and we follow her as she walks through the Cory mansion set stopping to look at photos along the way of people who had come and gone, with various flashbacks (with no audio) cut in. As Rachel remembers and does her final walk the 1975 theme of Another World is the song playing in the background.

She gets to the foyer, stops, then wipes a tear from her eye and puts the t-towel down and plans to head up to bed to Carl when the doorbell rings. She opens the door and it is Beverlee McKinsey's Iris on the other side. And she says something like... "Hello Ray... chel," Take Rachel as she gives one of those "not today Satan" looks. Then you do a classic freeze frame on those two women. Then the freeze frame fades to that photo of Doug Watson toasting and then final fade to black. The End.

r242, your idea sounds a hell of a lot better than the finale we got. Wasn't Bev in ill health in 1999? Also, by that point, Carmen Duncan owned the role and it would've been insulting to her had they gotten Bev back,

(R242) Of course you got part of your wish with the ending that we got (final scene). I just thought that the final weeks could have brought back so many more favorite characters. And, for me, if Rachel and Mac were a big part of AW, they were not the only part of AW. The Matthews and the Randolphs could have been better remembered. I'm sure Pat or Alice could have decided to move back to Bay City... As for la McKinsey coming back it would have been great indeed. Instead they decided to leave our beloved Iris rot in jail...

...she plans to head up to bed to Carl...sad really that Carl ended up in Mac's house with Mac's love in the very last episode...my opinion only of course but as much as I loved the actor playing the part, that should have NEVER happened...that entire Carl/Rachel story is a good example of the many ways soaps used to "jump the shark" on a regular basis with viewers blindly accepting incoherences...

(R238) That's a cute little ass indeed...we saw more of it than the actor's face...Excellent direction in my opinion

I always liked Rachel as either strong, and determined or mad and a little bitchy... I always hated Rachel as giddy or even worst as some sort of English estate Grande Dame reciting Yeats...so NOT Rachel...

Is our Tony Cummings (Rick) really Bob Cummings' son ? The Tony Cummings I found on Google looks nothing like Dr Rick....

Tony Cummings as Rick Halloway circa 1981

At least ATWT reunited John and Lucinda, but it was not what I'd call a satisfying reunion. Did we even see them conversing, rather than just showing up at Margo's doorstep and shouting, "We're back together!"? It made me sad.

Didn't Lisa only get like one scene in the finale?

R245 Carl was truthfully my favorite AW character, but I do agree with you, not on the premise of the Carl/Rachel romance itself, but on the idea of Carl quote literally sleeping in Mac's bed. I don't think a man as proud as Carl would have agreed to that. They should have had the two of them move out of the Cory Manse and start with a clean slate.

Poor Carl didn't even get to bring his foo dogs along with him! The whole house was a Mac shrine.

[quote]They should have had the two of them move out of the Cory Manse and start with a clean slate.

And a new sofa.

I was the biggest Mac & Rachel fan but I was OK with Rachel & Carl.

If DW had still been alive then no fucking way. However, DW had died, Mac had died & Rachel didn't immediately get with Carl. If you can't believe in a character's redemption then you shouldn't be watching a soap IMO. It also helped tremendously that Keating was phenomenal & he and VW had chemistry.

R254, did you actually pay attention? Carl was a monster, not much different from Reginald Love. Wyndham herself called soaps “morality tales.” Putting Carl and Rachel together was a gross violation of that. I think the writers could have come up with someone romantically suitable for Rachel that final period of time. It was just lazy writing and contempt for the audience.

They got Sam Groom back. Would it have killed them to have him play Russ instead of a minister. I get that they would need to devote a couple of minutes to let viewers know the character's back story, but frankly would that have been so trying for the writers? Would've given the show a full-circle/sense of closure. Oh well, it would've been nice.

(R255) + (R256)...Bravo !!! or should I say Brava !!!

When Susan Keith was playing Cecile, she and Irene Dailey shared a lot of scenes. Not sure if it was Irene or the director, but it was played almost as if Liz had a crush on Cecile. In some scenes, it seemed as Liz wanted to dive right into Cecile's muff and never come up for air.

And Rachel was once a vindictive icy Queen of the Cunts guttersnipe, yet she became the show's heroine and moral center. Do you take issue with that, too R255?

r255, that was Lemay and Rauch evolving the character. The transformation was slow and believable, and it obviously worked because VW's Rachel and Mac went on to become one of the most ionic couples ever in soaps, even surpassing the much beloved Alice/Steve.

To be honest, sending baby clothes to a woman who just miscarried is a far cry from multiple murders, kidnapping, and running a syndicate.

Vicky had no chemistry with Reinholt. It was Strasser who made that magic. Once Lemay decided to center the show around VW's newly reformed Rachel, there was really no need to keep Reinholt and Courtney around. They wouldn't have worked as "B" actors the way Harney did.

R254 cut to the chase: "If you can't believe in a character's redemption then you shouldn't be watching a soap IMO."

I was not watching AW when Rachel was a "bad' girl but I do not think that you could ever compare what she did with what murderous psychopath Carl did...Rachel was always looking for love and her place in the sun...Carl on the other hand was a sadistic maniac...so no need to talk about plausible "redemption" when he's concerned. They just "jumped the shark"

Susan Keith and Irene Dailey ? Whatever rocks your boat (R258)...I was more into Robert Gentry's Philip rimming Willis' s Frame bubble butt...

Did Philip Lyons' and Willis Frame's time on the show overlap? Is Gentry gay IRL?

Don"t know for sure if Gentry is gay but I have never seen him linked to another woman...

R242 There was quite a push to get McKinsey back for the AW finale - either for a short story or for the final scene, if AW would be shopped elsewhere - but she had retired and was having myriad health issues by then.

Gentry is definitejy gay. He was, in fact, very ill from HIV but got pulled from the brink by the AIDS cocktail. A friend of mine still keeps in touch with him. He’s a teacher somewhere out west. He was a teen hustler when very young and got his first soap job (on GL) via one of his clients, a top executive at CBS.

Gentry had great sexual/romantic chemistry with his AMC female co-stars: Kate Collins, Kathleen Noone, Jane Elliot, hell even Ellen Wheeler as Cindy's sister Karen. Never would've guessed he was gay, unlike, say, Louis Edmonds, whose flames could be seen from space.

Gasp!

I always thought Gentry was gay...but I really do not see him as a "teen hustler", that is just silly...

[quote]but I really do not see him as a "teen hustler", that is just silly...

Yeah, like no struggling actor or actress has ever turned tricks to pay the bills.

Life was very different in the 1960s. Gay men (and teens) did what they had to do to survive.

“Just silly,” R272? How silly are YOU? My friend told me Gentry came from an abusive household and moved to NYC. He worked a few bars and managed to score a few regular clients. One of them happened to be a closeted, married CBS executive. How difficult is it for you to imagine that might have been a situation for a few young, good looking men at that time?

Closeted CBS exec? Bill Bell?

David Soul and Edd Byrnes admitted they hustled to get ahead in Hollywood, so it's not much of a stretch to think some soap actor did it.

Daniel Pilon, who played Alan Spaulding (was he No. 2?) on GL and Max Dubujak on "Ryan's Hope" has died.

Wow, Pilon is the fouth former soap actor to pass in the last few days. Georgeann Johnson (Somerset), Deanna Lund (GH), and Jeanna Michaels (GH, Dallas) also died.

He was good as Max Dubujak on Ryan’s Hope but all wrong for Alan Spaulding on GL.

Robert Gentry age 30, circa 1970

[quote]Closeted CBS exec? Bill Bell?

Bill Bell was never a CBS exec.

The 'Hoff' was rumored to have gotten the role of Snapper in the same vein. He certainly fit Conboy's ideal.

Robert Gentry as a teen hustler ? Some of you guys are just fantasizing right ?...fine with me...

Pilon was fine as Alan, honestly - he had the same look as Bernau.

He didn't have the Gothic nuances Bernau did, but he was a far sight better Alan than the booming musical theater Alan we got with Ron "I'm a Bigger Ham Than Zimmer" Raines.

Beautiful picture of Gentry. I thought he was sexiest when he was on AW, playing the gigolo. I did not like him as much with a mustache when he was on AMC. I was a teen back then and to me he represented the epitome of masculine beauty, he had a uniqueness about his look much more so than prettier soap actors who were much more bland in their appeal. And I always thought he was a very intelligent guy, that to me was also very sexy...As for the Teen Hustler allegations...who knows...maybe...maybe not...I find it hard to believe that if he admitted to it to a "close friend", that same "close friend" would be spreading the word around. And if yes, it may have gotten him an audition but certainly not a job...

Pilon looked way too European for Alan-there’s a reason he didn’t last very long.

Gentry was a good actor and obviously a favorite of Rauch. He cast him as Philip on AW, and later brought him back to GL as Ed in 1996 after a 30-year absence. DId Rauch also cast him on OLTL as Giles?

Too bad AW did not pursue a long-term story for Pat and Philip. I thought they looked very good together.

According to Bev's nephew, she really enjoyed working with Bob Gentry, and they were very interesting together, but for whatever reason, the writers put the kibosh on their romance.

Bev also had chemistry with David Ackroyd who played Dave Gilchrist. Then one day, out of the blue Dave went to Rachel and told her he was madly in love with her and couldn't stay in town! What a stupid way to write out a character and yes we know the alcoholic LeMay had his preference for Wyndham, but how stupid and unbelievable. Rachel and Dave barely shared scenes and now this!

I know that Bev and Gentry remained friends afterwards. I think they worked together on a play or something after she left the show...Pat ended up with Brian Bancroft...another gay actor...Paul Stevens a good enough supporting actor but not what you would call oozing with sexual karma...and he seemed too old for Bev...great when paired with Iris' craziness but too bland for our beautiful Pat.

P&G really undervalued Bev Penberthy. She was such a wonderful actress and a warm, lovely presence, and they seemed to increase her prominence during the 90-minute experiment.

They paired her with Kevin Cook, Reena's husband who came from Texas to get back her man...My recollections are very vague but again I do not remember a lot of chemistry between Pat and the Dr...The best part of that story was the introduction of Carla Borelli's Reena...now that girl had "spunk"

They kept pairing Pat with these bland, boring men ... John Randolph, Brian Bancroft, Kevin Cook. Real pairings with a Robert Gentry or David Gilchrist type would have done wonders for her character.

Some of Bev's best acting was done when she learned of John's death. I had the chance to see those scenes on YOUTUBE last year. I was so moved and touched that I sent her a message about it. Wouldn't you know it...she answered back, thanking me and was as lovely and gracious as I had imagined she would be.

I think Lemay mentions in his book the difficulty of finding suitable leading men for the show. They had so many good leading ladies (Rachel, Iris, Pat, Lenore, Angie (and Alice depending on who you ask) but many of the men they found not up to the challenge....

I liked Mike Ryan as John. He and Bev worked well together. The problem was that Lemay SORAS-ed Michael and Maryanne way too prematurely, which made John and Pat seemed that much older than they actually were.

Robert Newman just celebrated his 60th and....uh.....

Well, he's playing the Divine/Harvey role in Hairspray.

Pat was fun when they had her drunk phase. She would go around and tell everyone in her family what she really thought of them. It was hilarious. The whole clan went to dinner and didn't invite Pat, she shows up and reams them out one by one. I think Mary ended up slapping her, but then they let her leave - knowing she had been driving(!).

Not my Pat! I would have knocked that bitch Mary down to the ground!

The Mary character was before my time. The drunk Pat I knew was tormented by Cecile and comforted by Philip...Remember when Aunt Liz found Philip in Pat's apartment at 9 o'clock in the morning...She was in shock...Ah Irene Dailey...soaps use to have great character actors...now soap actors all look the same...not that I am watching any of what remains...

Susan Keith’s ‘Cile was so mean to Pat. That’s probably why I preferred Nancy Francione’s version.

r285 You and I are on the same page. My first exposure to Robert Gentry was as Phillip Lyons on AW. I thought he was the epitome of male beauty. Stunning. Whenever he was on screen, I would stare at him, transfixed. I was too young to understand what all that meant, but he was so intriguing and handsome.

Like you, I hated him with the mustache on AMC. It was all wrong for him. As a result, I never particularly liked his character.I kept thinking, "You would be so much more beautiful if you're loose the mustache" (by that point, I did understand what all that meant),

My introduction to Gentry was as a gigolo on AW, so it's not a stretch for me to think of him as a teen hustler. People do what they have to do to get ahead in the business. If he was a hustler, he's certainly not the only actor who was one.

What's more surprising is the pearl clutchers on this thread who are so adamantly denying the possibility. Why are they so invested in a certain pristine image of Gentry that they can't believe it might be true.

My memory is so foggy.

I stumbled across this AW episode & was fascinated by the Jake/Marley scenes. What broke up their marriage & who was the mysterious caller asking for Marley? Marley lied & said no one named Marley lived there. Eplin had great chemistry with Heche. An entirely different chemistry when she played Marley & when she played Vicky. God! He was sex on a stick & Heche was perfection.

Poor Robert Newman cannot do drag.

My friend stressed to me that Gentry wasn’t a street hustler. He ran away to NY, stayed in an apartment with the older brother of a friend back home and via a gay neighbor started to do escort work out of select “cocktail bars” and “private parties.” He said one of those parties would have people like Tennessee Williams, Tom Tryon and Gore Vidal in attendance. The men would meander in and out of a certain darkened room where two young men would be having sex. At one party he and his young partner would be required to just wrestle or...get this...hit each other with large plastic bags with human feces in them. That I REALLY don’t get. But, hey, it was the 1960s. Gentry was versatile according to my friend.

[quote] Poor Robert Newman cannot do drag.

He's way too masculine - I don't mean that good or bad for anyone masc or femme but when his veiny, muscly bicep is clearly seen in a photo, it's a hard sell for this role and this production.

I remember thinking how mostly awful AW was at the time under Margaret DePriest and then Donna Swajeski, but rewatching some of that material on YT, it's still miles ahead of anything on air right now. Crisp dialogue, smart direction, sharp characterizations. Was it worthy of Lemay? No, but it was still a quality show. That can't be said about any of the four remaining soaps.

Danny Markel, Christmas Eve, 1990:

how much of Donna Swajeskis tenure is the result of Lemay’s outlines and projections? I’d assume a lot of that had to be modified or scrapped after Doug Watson died.

Considering that I do think she’s underrated. She kept the Frame and Cory families front and center, and The Who Shot Jake story-along with the Donna/Jake/Marley triangle-was excellent, primarily because of the electric performances of Eplin, Stuart and Heche. Her worst sin in my opinion was sidelining Iris, who had run out of storyline by 1991 or so.

One of daytime's most beloved stars, the blue Cory sofa @ 6:10.

Danny Markel was hot! And I see RPG was dressed like Doctor Who.

[quote]Danny Markel was hot!

I wish I could find the episode where he's taking a shower. It was in a motel, and I think it was one of his first episodes.

R310

I wonder how old Donna S. is now. I'd gladly take you over the writers we have now. Hell, if the Notorious RBG can still be kicking ass at her age the surely Donna S. can still work a computer.

R76, please tell your aunt the show was never ever the same without her. I attribute the beginning of the end of the show to Pat being written out; I enjoyed her return to the show in 1989 (WHY didn't they keep her!?) and her brief visit to ATWT around this time as Adelade (sp?) Fitzgibbon.

If you google image her, r314 you'll see a pic of Mary Alice Dwyer-Dobbin, Donna Swajeski, David Kreizman, Ellen Wheller and Richard Mensing at The 57th Annual Writers Guild Awards on February 19, 2005 at The Pierre Hotel in New York City.. She does indeed look as if she could wield a keyboard today. Standing so close to Mickey Against Daytime Drama, however, may have done her in.

It is copyright protected. The pic refused to show up here when I pasted its link.

Here's another pic of Donna Swajeski. No date given.

As I recall, Donna Swajeski was in her late 20s, early 30s in the late 1980s. She was an NBC exec who became the scab headwriter for AW during the 1988 writers strike.

So, she likely is in her late 50s, early 60s now. She was HW on GL with David Kreizman during its final years. Then was a script writer for B&B for a while. Finally, she and Kreizman were HW at AMC for its final year.

Sorry kids, I doubt very much that any magic ever emerged from Swajeski's pen.

She took Lemay's projects and didn't fuck them up, and that is the ONLY thing she deserves credit for. If she had done anything of merit on her own, we would have seen it at other shows, but it never came to be.

[quote]Danny Markel, Christmas Eve, 1990:

Plus DL faves Dack Rambo and Russell Todd!

[quote]Danny Markel

When they got rid of him as Sam, I stopped watching AW for a while. ATWT and GL were so good then; AW was clearly the third of the three. However, not even Danny could get me interested in ATWT when he joined as David Allen (who I don't think we knew was a Son of James yet).

I agree with r319 for the most part.

Donna Swajeski had Lemay's Bible to work with. She may have tweaked it. And obviously had to adjust to it after Douglass Watson's death. But she likely stuck pretty close to it. I think the most telling thing is that Lemay wrote a three year Bible and she departed soon after that Bible was up.

That said, AW came out of the 1988 writers strike in better shape than any of the other soaps. Swajeski was the scab HW during that time, so she clearly did something right.

One of the best things that happened during the strike was the show brought Sharlene back to Bay City, accompanied by her daughter Josie, who wold turn out to be Russ's daughter. I'd like to think Swajeski was responsible for that. But I have my doubts.

Lemay was all set to take over as HW in April 1988 when the strike started. So, he didn't officially start until September 1988. I strongly suspect that he had already submitted a partial story projection before the strike started. That projection very likely would have included reinvigorating the Frame family by bringing Sharlene back along with a never before known daughter that would have ties to the Matthews family.

It's ironic that Lemay wanted to make the Matthews family relevant again, since he was the one who marginalized them in the 1970s.

This is probably a stupid question so forgive me.

LeMay submitted/plotted out a 3 year Bible but then refused to be a Scab..

How could the show legally use his work during his time away. Wouldn't a writer have some sort of intellectual property rights?

Swajeski had the type of legal loophole you could never know!

[quote]It's ironic that Lemay wanted to make the Matthews family relevant again, since he was the one who marginalized them in the 1970s.

Huh?

Lemay may have killed off Mary Matthews, but the rest of the Matthews clan was fully represented througout his tenure at HW in the 1970s. It wasn't until after he left that the family was marginaized and characters started being written off. Russ under L Virginia Browne in 1981, Pat under Corine Jacker in 1982, Alice under Jacker in 1982.

Calm down, dear. I just meant they were no longer A players. He reduced Liz to town busybody. Alice became a B character after Courtney was fired and Harney assumed the character. Pat also became a B character. They were present, but no longer ignited much in the way of story. Rachel/Mac/Iris became the focal point of the show. In that sense, yes, the Matthews family was marginalized.

R324, once a writer submits a projection to the show, it becomes property of the show and he was paid for it. A show contracts with a new headwriter, even while the current headwriter is still working. The only time that doesn't happen is when someone dies or abruptly quits, then the breakdown team just stretches existing story until a new HW is named.

For the record, The Red Swan was not in Pete's projection. Neither was Paulina.

[quote]LeMay submitted/plotted out a 3 year Bible but then refused to be a Scab..

[quote]How could the show legally use his work during his time away. Wouldn't a writer have some sort of intellectual property rights?

He didn't submit the 3-year Bible until after he officially became HW in September 1988. But before someone takes over as HW, they typically submit a 6 to 12 month story projection of what they want to do with the show. Sometimes that story projection is detailed, sometimes its just a brief outline. But they submit it for the network to consider before hiring.

I'm suggesting that story projection had already been submitted before the strike began in April 1988 and that's what Swajeski may have been using while she worked as the scab HW. The network would have paid Lemay for that story projection since, if the strike hadn't happened, he would have started as HW in April 1988.

Once the network paid for it, that story projection was their's to use as they wanted. Same thing with the 3-year Bible. They paid for it, it's their to use as they want.

But I could be wrong. The story projection is pure speculation on my part. The 3-year Bible that Swajeski used is well known.

R328 & R329

Thanks for the answers.

Was his name listed in the credits during the time he was a Scab?

Harding Lemay said in an interview that JFP was the best producer he ever worked with. Whatever the fuck that means!

I liked the JFP version of OLTL better than any other version, at least 'til Mimi burned it down. (No one was ever more appropriately named.)

JFP's OLTL owned the demos. She brings in the demos at all her shows. That's why, despite questionable stories and lackluster overall household ratings, she's been able to survive all these years. She got the AW and GL demos up when she was with P&G.

Fuck those P&G crones. I'd like to see Bug Eyes do this!

R334 = DDD

Imagine Sue as a recast "Iva, " now calling herself "Diva"? Huge improvement over that gloomy, sullen, homely Lisa Brown. Just as Cam Mathison would've been such an improvement over the gloomy, sullen, homely Scott DeF as Drew/Andy. Can you imagine the possibilities of a hot couple like Drew and Diva fucking their way through Oakdale? Likewise you stupid bitches should've given Susan Batten a chance. She was so much better than that gloomy, sullen, homely Allison Pilaf Whatsherface. Oh the possibilities!

r336 I knew it: DDD.

[quote] Likewise you stupid bitches should've given Susan Batten a chance. She was so much better than that gloomy, sullen, homely Allison Pilaf Whatsherface.

Not DDD. A DDD Parody.

ABC had the actors with youth, glamour and vitality. P&G had, well, to put it as kindly as possible, average looking low-energy people. You'd never find a Doug Watson, Larry Bryggman, or Peter Simon on the glamorous ABC soaps.

[quote]glamorous ABC soaps

tee-hee

R339

I thought Watson was very handsome. He and Bryggman were wonderful actors. It's just not true that AW, ATWT,GL didn't have handsome men That's just bullshit. We can all name hot AF men from those shows.

[quote]Was his name listed in the credits during the time he was a Scab?

r330 Harding Lemay was NOT the scab writer during the 1988 writers strike. It was Donna Swajeski who was the scab headwriter.

And no, typically there are not writers listed in the credits during a writers strike. There are AW episodes that aired between April and early September 1988 on YouTube, so you can check to verify.

Lemay DEFINITELY was behind Sharlene's return and Josie's creation. As guessed above.....he created them in outline before the strike.

I wonder if Lemay had plans to reintroduce Pat to the story...It seems to me that Sharlene (a character he created) coming back to town with Russ' daughter would also be his decision.

Does anyone know if Lemay's original scripts are available somewhere ?

I believe his papers including some AW scripts are at the University of Colorado. Or the Unversity of Iowa. Some university west of the Mississippi.

That info is somewhere on the AW Homepage, not sure exactly where, if you want to hunt it down.

Thanks (R346)... I would love to read his scripts, especially since I only started watching the last two years of his tenure. I would have thought that with all the scripts that were used for each taping we would find them more easily...Did actors really throw them away ?

r324, r330 I'm not sure you understand what a "scab writer" is. Here is the Urban dictionary definition:

[quote]A worker, often temporary, who crosses a strikers' picket line, going to work in place of the strikers.

I have a question about Iris' parents...was Sylvie Kasloff the designer her biological mother ? I faintly remember that storyline. What happened to that character ? I don't remember Iris ever talking about her again...if not Mac who was her biological father ?

Iris's paternity was retconned when she returned in 1988.

In one of the very first episodes that Carmen Duncan had as Iris, she made a comment that Sylvie confessed before she died that Mac was her father.

Thanks (R350) I had given up on AW at that time so I did not see those scenes. I came back when I heard that Lemay was back as HW...I still do not fully understand why Sylvie would "pretend" to be Iris' mother and how Mac would not know the truth...

"ABC had the actors with youth, glamour and vitality. P&G had, well, to put it as kindly as possible, average looking low-energy people."

First of all, you sound like Cheeto. And yes, Julianne Moore, Parker Posey, and Marissa Tomei are just DEVOID of glamour, aren't they? No wonder their careers went nowhere.

r351 Sylvie was the biological mother of Iris. There was no "pretending" about it.

The part that was retconned was who her father was. In the late 1970s when it was first revealed that Iris was adopted, Sylvie had been unsure of who the father was. That was changed in 1988 to make Mac the father. I don't recall whether Mac and Sylvie had a one-night stand or an on-going affair, but it was made expressly clear that Mac was the biological father of Iris.

Clearly Lemay recognized he made a mistake in not having Mac as her biological father and corrected it when he returned in 1988.

It was a huge mistake and it was right that he fixed it, but you have to admit those scene when Bev's Iris found out that her mother was a... was a.... was.... a.... a... J-J-J.... DRESSMAKER! Were pretty funny and played beautifully. Just with the right amount of horror on Iris' face.

They should have done more with Iris’ jealousy of Amanda. It started after she was born when Mac said she was his first born.

She could have done everything she could to destroy Amanda and that would have been fun to watch.

Destroy a baby ? Not sure Iris was that psychologically disturbed...She did a pretty good job meddling in Mac and Rachel's "problems" and encouraging Janice to pursue Mac

I was referring to the 80s, Rose/r356. Of course they would’ve needed a better actress to play Amanda

Am I the only one who adored Judith McConnell as Miranda Bishop? I thought she was fabulous, and carried the villainous torch nicely from Iris. The problem was that they saddled her with such boring characters and charisma-free actors to comprise her family, the Holloways, I wished she had stayed a major player on the show because there were endless possibilities for her.

Hiya, Iris!

I agree r358. Adored Judith McConnell as Miranda. Also loved Bradley Bliss at Kit. As for the rest of the Halloways, I could have done without them.

I thought Miranda was a worthy successor to Iris in the role of rich bitch. But could be motherly when they had her in scenes with Kit. She also had nice chemistry when paired with Phillip Lyons.

If they'd introduced the Halloways slowly, I think the family might have worked. But they just invaded Bay City in short order. Kit arrived in Nov 1979, followed by Miranda in March 1980. Then Amy and Taylor arrived in April 1980 and finally Rick came in May 1980.

While I was not upset the other Halloways were written off equally as quickly, I was very disappointed they didn't keep Miranda around. But they she was gone by early January 1981, less than 10 months after she arrived.

Yeah, they never did anything with a rivalry between Amanda and Iris. In fact, I barely recall Amanda and Iris even having any scenes together in the 1980s.

But they certainly played up Iris hatred of Paulina.

Something else that was not in Lemay's Bible that Swajeski added -- making Kevin Anderson into Jake McKinnon's half-brother.

I loved how Carmen Duncan, Sandy Ferguson, and Cali Timmons all looked alike. The show really fucked up by replacing Cali with Judi Evans. Cali WAS Paulina.

Sandy Ferguson was also fabulous casting as Rachel’s daughter and Ada’s granddaughter-such a great family resemblance between all of them. I did wish that we had at least a year of Amanda as a troublesome 14/15 year old, though, sort of like Victoria on Y&R and Ryan on RH. Instead we saw an 8 or 9 year old Amanda in one month and then 17 or 18 year old Amanda a few months later.

Of course Cali Timmins was an ideal AW actress. I believed that she could be Mac Cory daughter or Iris' sister. Judy's Paulina was too trailer park for me...no matter how much they tried to give her polish...Judy had her fans of course but Cali was unique...

[quote]I wonder if Lemay had plans to reintroduce Pat to the story.

Pat's return was supposedly an element of Lemay's story bible. Swajeski chose not to follow that particular thread.

[quote]Adored Judith McConnell as Miranda. Also loved Bradley Bliss at Kit. As for the rest of the Halloways, I could have done without them.

I thought McConnell was ... serviceable. But Bliss was just as useless as the rest of the family, in my opinion. Although she did more damage to the show, as she also turned Ray Liotta's Joey into a bore.

Does anyone know if there is a video on Youtube where Iris learns her mother is a dressmaker or where she learns Mac is not her father?

There's a lot of AW on Youtube but it's hard to search because it's listed as "AW episode 8/30/18" instead of Iris learns the truth about Silvie.

Does anyone know where the episode where Vicky (pretending to be Marley) trashes the bathroom in the courthouse after learning from Cass about Marley's raoe? I think it's late December 1990 but I've never come across it on YouTube.

R368

A clip of that is included in this video. Lord how I miss this story & show.

R366, harsh words...but true.

f you aren't subscribed to these Youtube channels you should. Especially the first one. They are always putting up P&G episodes

munecojim

veggieburgermeister

bandstandmike

Does anyone know if there is a video on Youtube where Liz goes down on Ada, telling her that her cunt juice tastes like month-old chicken pot pie and savoring every last drop?

There's a lot of AW on Youtube but it's hard to search because it's listed as "AW episode 8/30/18" instead of Liz dives into Ada's muff.

Someone here is really into Ada's lady parts...As soon as there is a discussion on AW you can be sure that he's going to bring up the same jokes over and over again...Probably the same person who loves the expression " kick in the cunt"...well to each his or her fantasy I guess.

R368

You're off by a month. Marley's trial was in January 1991

r367 There's not a lot of 1978 AW episodes on YouTube. But here's some info that could potentially help you find what you are looking for.

Mac accidentally blurted out that Iris was adopted while at the hospital just after Rachel gave birth to Amanda. AW Home Page says Amanda's birth was on Aug 11, 1978.

Iris would have confronted Sylvie Kosloff about being her mother shortly after Sylvie arrived in Bay City. AW Home Page says Sylvie's first episode was on Oct. 13, 1978.

Rachel saves Mac in St. Croix and then plunges into the pool with Janice.

Iris learns that Janice was poisoning Mac (Carole Shelley subbing for Bev McKinsey)

Willis learns of Janice's death and her misdeeds.

Plus a couple of scenes of Carla Borelli's Reena Cook.

Note, given the shaken nature of the camera in some places, this seems to have been taped with a video camera pointed at a TV.

Connie and Jeanne Cooper duke it out in hot mess prison melodrama "House of Women".

R377 that is the find of the year. Had no idea!

Connie reminds me SO much of Sue Flannery here.

Dear God in Heaven, R377, ain't that a kick in the cunt!

Did anyone else find McInzy's voice like nails against chalkboard? It was worse on GL than on AW. And just how homely was Scott DeF? If they had allowed the beloved FMB to recast with someone suitably hunky, the character would've been on through cancellation. It would've been great if FMB could've lured high-profile glamorous ABC stars like Susan Lucci, Andrea Evans...someone who knew how to toss their big hair! Those ladies would've showed those dowdy ATWT actresses how it's done! The actress who played Iva was the soap equivalent of Sominex.

I always thought that Lisa Brown looked unclean and smelly...not the prettiest of girls was she ?

I loved la McKenzie's voice... like bubbles in a champagne glass...

I know I'm probably in the minority here but I was not a huge fan of Constance Ford...Was it my imagination but was she relying heavily on cue cards, always looking in the distance before speaking ?

Lisa Brown perfectly embodied Nola and Iva. She wasn’t supposed to be glamorous; the characters weren’t (although Nola wanted to be). The problem with Iva was she became sanctimonious and judgmental after the reveal of Lily’s parentage. She had no right acting morally superior to people like Kirk or Lucinda when she was an ex porn actress who had a baby at 13. And she had no sense of humor. She plodded through Oakdale with that sad sack look on her face.

R380 [italic]IS [/italic] FMB.

Connie Ford playing to the autograph hounds OUTSIDE the stage door.

My point exactly (R386)...

Strange that they never brought back the character of Nancy...Rachel hardly ever spoke of her

Especially since Nancy was part of the same teen group as Vicky/Jake/Marley and didn’t like Marley,r388. Didn’t Carl try to kill her too?

Not Marley, Vicky. They dated the same guy or something.

FMB wisely wanted to minimize screen time for some of the musty moldy older vets, most notably Don Hastings, Eileen Futon and Kathy Hays, and have them just appear at Christmas, weddings, funerals, etc. P&G said no. Another in a line of stupid decisions on P&G's part. If FMB had been allowed to youthify/ABC-ize ATWT, it might still be on the air.

(R391) No canceled soap would still be on the air dear...it's 2018...daytime drama is dying a slow and painful death...

I don't see why we can't have a canceled soap streaming pay service.

Because it has a limited audience R393. AW reruns on soap net got something like a O.1 Household Rating. I love soaps. I love classic soaps and if there was a channel like that it would be on in my house 24/7, but I am nothing more than part of a very small niche audience.

r394, not sure about the household numbers, but it literally got a 0.0 rating in the 18-49 demos.

Fine, but I also think that P&G could try to sell everything it has digitized to Amazon, Hulu, or even YouTube so that the content could be available for streaming/purchase. Even if it all sold for a pittance, currently those soaps are making NO money for P&G, so it'd still be a gain for them.

I don't disagree. I would think their might be some issue with transferring all that old school video to digital, but PG had that site a few years back were most of the shows were available. So I'm assuming most of the tape transfer has already been done.

I vaguely remember maybe streaming AW on AOL's video centered website. I think I tried once or twice, and it didn't work too well. Streaming video before youtube was a crapshoot with lots of proprietary formats like Real and Windows Media.

I was always told that the music rights were the road block to making old soaps available. They coast $$$$$

The entire Dark Shadows series is available on DVD and elsewhere. A couple of years ago I started watching from episode one...5 years later I'm at episode 650 and I have still more than half of the series to watch. I know that Another World's first episodes are lost forever or very hard to get but why can't P&G make the series available on DVD. DS has many fan groups that are very active...but how can we keep AW alive if it's not available for viewing...And don't mention YOUTUBE...it's madness to try to watch in chronological order and quality is very unequal...P&G is just lazy in my opinion...

(R399) Why would music be an issue ? It's not as if they played David Bowie or The Beatles on soaps...They has their own music 99.9 % of the time...

Actually, back when soaps still had budgets, they played songs by nationally known recording artists all the time. Off the top of my head, there's a Winger (the most 1990 music choice possible!) song playing over and over and over through the entire Jake's shooting sequence. I also recall a lot of Carly Simon playing at Sharlene's farm in the pre-Sharly days.

I remember that god-awful Crystal Gayle theme song...that's about it...

This 1988 episode actually has Michael Jackson's 'Bad" playing at 6:30 in the background as Ada works in the coffee shop.

I'm sure they could digitally remove the music...

[quote]I remember that god-awful Crystal Gayle theme song

Prepare to be pilloried.

But will you be taken away afterwards?

R404 reminds me that they were forever playing Bob Marley in Ada's 'Mexican' restaurant, Paradise.

They also played that Peter Cetera song "Glory of Love" a few times in 1986. When Maggie DePriest came on board as HW, along with John Whitesell I think as EP, I remember them adding a lot of pop songs as background, probably in an attempt to grab younger viewers from ABC and to make it more compatible with Days.

They played What’s Love Got to Do With It on AW when Cecile dumped Cass in Majorca.

There were a ton of pop songs played on ATWT in the late 1980s/early 1990s, whether it was in the club beneath the Mona Lisa or just Paul and Andy hanging out at home. And then there were the couple themes: "Suddenly" by Billy Ocean for Craig/Sierra, "I Can't Make You Love Me" by Bonnie Raitt for Holden/Lily, etc.

[quote]They played What’s Love Got to Do With It on AW when Cecile dumped Cass in Majorca.

And "If You Say My Eyes Are Beautiful" by Whitney Houston and Jermaine Jackson was used repeatedly for Cass & Kathleen.

"And 'If You Say My Eyes Are Beautiful' by Whitney Houston and Jermaine Jackson was used repeatedly for Cass & Kathleen."

That was Tom & Margo's song on ATWT, too.

You guys have awesome memories...I never noticed that music or at the very least it did not make an impact on me...I think I remember hearing "Cecilia" by Simon & Garfunkel after Cecile had made a mess in the life of someone...cannot remember who...but to her credit she poo- pooed on most of Bay City's denizens' lives...

Starting with Crystal Gayle's song it appears that they played lots of Frau music in Bay City...

Would Iris have listened to Crystal Gayle ? I think not...Judy Evans' Paulina for sure but NOT Cali Timmins' Paulina...

Yes, but all of Lemay's trashy Frames would have.

I'm blanking on Bo & Hope's song but it was a huge git and played for years.

Whitney and Jermaine got around on the soaps. I remember they appeared on ATWT singing "Nobody Loves Me Like You Do". At the time, Jermaine was the big draw and the viewers were like "Whitney Who"? NLMLYD appeared on both Jermaine and Whitney's individual albums and became Ateve and Betsy's theme song.

If the soaps weren't playing popular music, they were having musical guests. I still adore this clip, particularly the awkward reactions.

Was Roberta Flack ever on AW ?

Let's not forget the classic Enough is Enough on GL

It was 1981-82 that soaps started using popular music with some degree of regularity. Prior to that, there was the occasional popular song used (Herb Alpert's "Rise" played while Luke raped Laura in 1979 on GH; Rita in the hall of mirrors while "Enough is Enough" played on GL), but it was definitely the exception.

Back when SoapNet ran Ryan's Hope reruns, they never got any further than 1982 episodes. Reason for that was 1982 was when the RH's budget was increased and they started using popular music regularly. SoapNet didn't want to pay for the music rights.

Also, when SoapNet did air classic AMC, OLTL and GH episodes where a popular song had aired, they usually subbed in some generic song instead. Most of the time it wasn't all that noticeable. However, a few key scenes were so tied to the music that played in the background, it was jarring to hear something generic instead. For example, when Luke and Laura returned to GH in 1993, their very first scene had them dancing together to "Will You Still Love me Tomorrow" (Brian Ferry version) in the diner. When SoapNet aired that years later, they had something generic playing.

In 1981 and 1982, the background music was often recorded on the same audio portion of the master tape that the dialog was on, so the music it couldn't be eliminated (or subbed) without getting rid of the dialog. A little later, they started putting the background music on a separate audio portion of the master tape, which allowed it to be easily substituted later.

I believe P&G somehow got around some of those music rights issues on its AOL soap channel back in the late 2000s because they were streaming the shows directly to the internet. Don't recall the details of how that worked; maybe someone else here does. Music rights may have been a factor in P&G taking down that AOL soap channel.

Think of how much more watchable DOOL would have been without this dreck.

On AW, back when Felicia opened Tops in 1986/87, Anita Baker's "Sweet Love" played in the background for virtually every scene set there.

TOPS, at the Love Tower. Someone on Another World was compensating.

Robert Flack was on AW in 1984 singing her song "Making Love." (Yes, the same song used as the theme song in the Harry Hamlin-Michael Ontkean gay love story of the same name). She performed it in the nightclub that Leo Mars (Joe Morton) owned.

There's an AW compilation video from the mid-to-late 1980s (made by NBC or P&G) that's been posted on YouTube. It uses Making Love in a portion of the video. Apparently they didn't get permission to use the song, so Roberta's people complained and YouTube blanked out the audio for that portion of the video.

(R426) You are surely an expert on everything AW...I remember vaguely the character of Leo (and his brother the doctor) Those were the years when you watched the show out of loyalty certainly not because it was good...in fact I think it was just awful at that time...

Time to play another game of what if ... this time, the scenario is Another World staying at 3 p.m. from 1980-99. It would still face General Hospital and Guiding Light, while Texas (and Santa Barbara?) airs in the 2 p.m. slot. Does it make a difference?

r428. ABSOLUTELY

Of all the mistakes NBC and P&G made when launching Texas (and believe me, there were MANY), the single biggest one was airing Texas at 3 p.m. opposite GL and GH.

The 3 p.m. time slot belonged to AW. That's where people had always known t find it. (Yes, AW started at 2:30 p.m. during that ill-advised expansion to 90 minutes, but it it still aired during the 3 p.m. time slot).

So, moving AW to 2 p.m. was a slap in the face to its loyal viewers. Thanks for watching us all these years, we're going to screw up your viewing patterns by moving your soap up an hour.

And who debuts a brand new soap in opposite GH which was having a huge resurgence? I don't care if Beverlee McKinsey was the star, it was arrogant and foolhardy to debut it at 3 p.m.

Why not sandwhich the new soap in at 2 p.m. between the well-established Days and AW. That act alone would have bought Texas at least another year on the air.

Also, Texas should have debuted as a 30 minute show, not a 60 minute one.

r427 Seeing the Making Love movie helped break my denial and let me come out. So, the song Making Love has a very special place in my heart. When that song aired on AW, I certainly made note of it.

Yes, for many years in the 80s, I watched AW out of loyalty. There was a lot of bad stuff in there. 1982 under Corinne Jacker and 1987 under Margaret DePriest were the two absolute worst years, while 1985 felt so aimless.

But there were also a lot of good things that happened in there too. We got Cass in 1982, Felicia and the Love Family in 1983. Jake and Vickey in 1985. I also loved Quinn Harding, Lilly Mason and the sincere attempt to establish black characters.

NBC Daytime collapsed in 78/79. Viewers tuned out in droves. Days, AW, and Doctors were in a free-fall. There's no way Texas would have succeeded in any time slot on NBC. Days was the only NBC soap to ever make a healthy recovery. Except for some fits and spurts here and there, AW pretty much limped along commercially through cancellation. Search and Generations failed on NBC. Passions and Santa Barbara were marginal successes at best, and that's being very kind.

Also, NBC and P & G introduced many of the Texas characters and storylines on AW in June and July 1980. A person looking to watch a new soap when Texas debuted in August 1980 was already lost because they could not follow what was going on because they were already watching storylines that began a few months before on AW. Making Iris a heroine, rather than a villain, did not help either.

McKunty headlining Texas was a sure disaster for that show. No one wanted to watch her and that god awful voice.

Making Iris a romantic heroine in Texas of all places was really stupid.

Texas was originally supposed to be a stand-alone historical soap about the Antebellem south, but NBC wanted a daytime version of Dallas, so it was retooled.Rauch came up with the idea of making it a spin off of AW and bringing Iris and Dennis into the show.

R72 and ORD, I would love to do the VHS tape watch thing with you two, as well. Maybe we could all do a "Watching Now" thread event some evening.

I've been away and busy in the studio with a creative project, but now I'm back in writing mode for the summer. Hence, I'm watching the Hall of Mirrors sequence from GL because I've found a way to do a homage to it in the next season. Spending my evening catching up with this thread; the P&G threads have been, for me, a master class in learning about serial drama and how to do it.

For all of PG's faults, the one thing that seems consistent with them is that once you were in their stable, they took care of you. If you were an actor who could deliver on one show, once your story was done on that show, PG would find a place for the actor on another one of their shows. The same thing with producers, writers, and directors. We could do all of the actors and writers and EPs who were passed around all the PG shows.

Whatever happened to David E. ? Back in the day he always posted in the P&G threads.

R391, Barbara and Chris thrust the cast of Port Charles onto ATWT in the mid to late 2000s; it was a disaster.

Had Another World stayed at 3 p.m., how would Guiding Light be impacted? I've noticed in the ratings lists that for years, ATWT and OLTL were pretty competitive with one another.

(R437) Are you a writer ?

Almost Paradise played while Beth and Lujack rode the horse on the beach.

Go to 3:30 in this video.

Music montage of Kurt & Mindy having fun together to the tune of Walking On Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves. Aired in June 1985.

r441 If AW had stayed at 3 p.m., I think GL would have held onto its ratings fairly well. But I imagine AW would have benefited from staying in its traditional timeslot and would have had better ratings than it did at 2 p.m.

Yes, the ratings for all NBC soaps were lower than they had been in the early and mid 1970s, but I think AW would still have done better at 3 than at 2. And Texas would have benefited from being between Days and AW.

Are you old fraus speculating on something that happened over 35 years ago??? Really! Get a life. AW is long dead, as are all them other old lady soaps. Jesus.

[quote]NBC wanted a daytime version of Dallas, so it was retooled.Rauch came up with the idea of making it a spin off of AW and bringing Iris and Dennis into the show.

Dallas, which rocketed to the top on the strength of a charismatic villain, was their template -- so it made no sense to take one of daytime's greatest villian(esse)s and completely neuter her for the new show. Everything about Texas was ill-conceived, but remolding Iris into a romantic heroine was perhaps the biggest misstep.

Fire up the grill, time for the Bauer BBQ, circa 1988.

I really miss GL.

Sometimes and of a fashion, R442.

I never really thought of James Goodwin that way, but he looked good in that tight t-shirt.

Looked good ten years ago too.

R448

Yep. The Bauer BBQ was one of the High Holy Days in my house.

(R466)...I also belong to a Silent Movies Fan Group...I guess you would say that there is no point in discussing a 1923 Buster Keaton movie...after all it's not as if we could change anything about it...so why should we have any discussions about anything that took place before...let's say...2005...what do ya think ?

[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.]

[quote]The Bauer BBQ was one of the High Holy Days in my house.

Like Thanksgiving (and the night before) with the Hugheses and Christmas with the Corys.

Nancy Hughes always served her special lemonade on the Fourth of July; good times!

I'm so old, I remember when Leslie was the star of GL. Now that was a heroine and she got both of the Bauer Bros to fuck her. Ed would beat her up, and Mike used that as his way to date her. Even though the show was only 30 minutes on those days, the story seemed richer and tighter and the scenes were more meaningful. Ed would come home drunk and my Grandma would stop ironing and say that poor Leslie is in for it tonight. I didn't understand back then what she meant.

r456, no offense, but that sounds really boring. The story probably moved at a snail's pace, and I can imagine tons of coma-inducing scenes of boring old Burt talking to anyone who will listen about her sons' problems. My favorite era of GL was when Reva was cloned, Danny and the mob, and the San Cristobel stories. Those were exciting times, and I wouldn't miss an episode.

Actually, Spencer Grammer was the daughter who was on ATWT. I liked her on Greek, how was she as Lucy?

She was just OK as Lucy. Bland, nothing special.

Today, in r457, we determine that DDD is probably Mickey Against Daytime Drama rather than Felicia Mini Bear.

Don't be so hard on FMB. She was head of ABC daytime when OLTL took pity on a dying Zaslow and brought him over to OLTL. It was a sad situation, to be sure, but he was better off there than on GL. I think viewers wanted to remember Roger as a dynamic, virile character, and not as a wizened old man.

It was MADD who did that to him. Don't forget.

"Actually, Spencer Grammer was the daughter who was on ATWT."

Thank you for the correction; I can't believe I confused the two.

The anniversary of Hendrikson's suicide was yesterday.

Martha tweeted about it.

I recently re-watched the death of Jennifer on YT.

It was truly emotional knowing how soon Hendrikson killed himself following that story.

Wasn’t the rumor that Hendrickson had been diagnosed with an AIDS-related illness and committed suiciide because he didn’t want his friends and relatives to go through the trauma of his dying.

I thought he was depressed because his brother and father had just died as well

R466

Yes he suffered the loss of 2 family members in rapid succession & then supposedly the taxing death of Jennifer was like the straw that broke the camel's back.

He had had a history of depression .

I thought Hal was sexy in the 80s/early90s, in a sad sort of way. Like he needed someone to cuddle him and make him a good dinner.

Hendrickson was a brilliant actor. I saw him at the Soap Opera Awards one year and I said to him -- and I pray to God he took this the right way -- there are plenty of soap stars here but not many real actors like you.

Yeah, I think he took that the right way.

I don't know that playing Jennifer's death pushed him over the edge.

He was a great example of playing this recurring cop and organically Margo turned to him when she mistakenly thought Tom had cheated on her with Simply Barracuda.

The role grew, he was so likable and we liked him even more after Denise Darcy broke his heart.

Then he became Barbara's hero.

What a loss.

here's a great episode in which Denise comes clean on Tad Channing; all the acting's great including Hendrickson

remember when soaps used to have great character actors like Dan McCloskey? Love how he hugs Hal towards end of show.

When Babara wanted to see Simply Barbara to Lucinda when she thought she was going to jail for the rest of her life, Lucinda tried to talk her out of it.

"Darling, Simply Barbara without Barbara simply wouldn't be Simply Barbara."

When Barbara wanted to sell...

[quote]Then he became Barbara's hero.

I saw Beaches on the 4th of July with the guy "Wind beneath My Wings" reminds me of, and all of our friends, with whom I would picnic almost every 4th. Almost everyone is dead now but me. Oh...four of us watched Guiding Light, too.

r474 The 4th of July, 1988, that is.

"When Babara wanted to see Simply Barbara to Lucinda when she thought she was going to jail for the rest of her life, Lucinda tried to talk her out of it."

Barbara was irrationally angry at Lucinda when she got out of prison. First, Lucinda tried to talk her out of selling SB to her. Then Barbara didn't even read the damn contract when she did sell. Then Barbara got mad because she'd have to wait a *whole year* to get it back after she got sprung. Big deal; get some much-needed therapy while you wait. But no...

R476, I liked the that development.

It showed that Lucinda and Babs' 'friendship' which was formed after Barbara turned bitchy wasn't very solid.

Thus, Barbara Ryan Originals was born, ideal as it coincided with Barbara returning to heroine /victim and leaving her truly bitchy ways behind.

in this episode, Lucinda nails Barbara, telling her she knows about her affair with Tonio

it's pretty intense; Lucinda grills Babs on being attracted to danger. and then the scene gets so weird and twisted with how Lucinda leaves things with Barbara.

"it's not clever to be so clever."

Lucinda to Babs

Am I the only one who said "Benjamin Who" when James Kiberd and Randolph Mantooth subbed for him? They were marvelous. Benjamin was a serviceable actor, let's just leave it at that. The ABC stars brought a certain energy and vitality to the P&G soaps that the P&G usual suspects could never muster.

What are you even doing here, R480?

Trolling.

Poor Ben H was gay and koo koo. After he offed himself, they hung his wig on the coatrack in the police station set. That was hysterical.

I'd have killed to see what beautiful people like Shannon Tweed could've done with these dowdy old biddy P&G soaps, esp ATWT. She would've made a great Frannie Hughes or original Meg Snyder. Jennifer Ashe was so sullen and morose. Daytime is supposed to be about escapism and action adventure and sweeping romance with beautiful people in exotic plots. I don't want to look at someone I could see every day in the next cube over.

R484, by your logic Sunset Beach would have been number 1.

It wasn't.

^It was certainly more watchable for me, someone who fits the prized demo, than As the World Snores.

And that's cool, R486.

You're entitled to your opinion and I think Sunset Beach actually got much better towards the end.

But I'd put Jennifer Ashe's "Meg" up against Sunset Beach's "Meg" any day. The latter was the Midwestern snooze fest for me.

Again, you're entitled to your opinion, but ATWT ran for 54 years and was top-rated for many, many years; it had great head writers like Irna Phillips, Bill Bell, the Dobsons, Doug Marland and Hogan Sheffer.

The sun set on Sunset Beach after less than three years.

again, you're entitled to your opinion and to set your DVR to whatever you'd like.

But more people watched ATWT than Sunset Beach.

I made Nancy Hughes’ potato salad recipe yesterday for the 4th of July.

I saw Phillip's dong at the Bauer Bar-B-Q yesterday. I accidentally walked in on him while he was taking a dump. It touched the toilet water.

We Love Soaps is reporting that Harding Lemay passed. He was 96.

That crusty old alcoholic lived way past his expiration date.

On May 26. Didn't someone post then that this had happened?

We're coming to the end of the thread.

Be sure & link the new thread.

We have 105 posts to go, r494.

R494 = DDD.

I hope Dead Harding Lemay gets his own thread and doesn't take over this one.

RIP Harding Lemay. Not only was he the best writer to ever write soap opera, he took it as a personal challenge to elevate the genre. And he did. AW from 72-79 was some of the best that television, daytime or primetime, has ever offered. One of the things that always bothered me is how Doug Marland is pushed as one of the greats, but no one ever mentions that Marland learned everything he knew from Lemay. We got Marland, because of Pete Lemay.

Well put, R498.

Here's the link to the thread created a month ago to discuss Harding Lemay's death.

As usual, queen Newcomb is behind the times. We knew that Lemay passed weeks ago.

It hadn't been announced in any newspaper though, back when that rumor was floating around.

NY Times obit is rather skimpy.

Does anyone watch Dietland? The amazing Tamara Tunie is in it & she gave a Bravura performance this week.

She plays a woman high up in the beauty biz & she was unceremoniously fired.. She's someone the fat lead character aspired to be. After being fired she told the admiring girl that it was all smoke & mirrors as she literally & figuratively shed the trappings of her beauty. She shed her wig, & washed off her makeup. Then she took off her clothes revealing a full body Spanx. She then removed those gel falsies from her bra & peeled off the Spanx

Then she removed her bra & revealed a double mastectomy, I had no idea Tunie had had both her breasts removed. It was a truly searing performance.

Wonder why she wouldn't have chosen to have reconstructive surgery? If I was a woman I'd for sure opt for it because a double mastectomy is so disfiguring.

R503 It's a death notice, not a full obit.

I read it twice and wondered if Victoria Wyndham had written it.

Lemay was a crap writer. I tried watching an episode of his on YT. It came off like a bus and truck version of a Tennessee Williams play. Just awful and laughably bad in some spots, made even worse by how self-serious and pretentious the writing was. Some queen was going on about how literate the script was because the characters used $10 words like "abdicate."

Jessica from ATWT had her tits cut off? I missed that storyline. How did Duncan react?

Tamara Tunie is a goddess!

She was the best part of SVU for a while. Did she quit or was she fired? The cast seemed bloated when she was a regular, so am assuming she was canned due to budget cuts.

Is Tamara Tunie an actual double mastectomy survivor?

I’ve seen Tunie be good in other things but don’t like her in Dietland at all. She’s miscast. She lacked the comic chops to make the character work those first five episodes.

R511

Huh? I never thought her character was supposed to be funny.

nice Q&A with Tunie on Dietland, SVU, Blue Bloods and even Jessica Griffin

R513

I loved all her comments about ATWT. I really appreciate it when an actor hits the big time yet speaks proudly of their time on a soap.

Lemay was a drunk who peed in a potted plant at the 1973 Anniversary party.

That is his legacy.

I don't know why Lemay has to be elevated by diminishing Marland. They both had strengths and weaknesses; they both wrote hundreds of hours of great soaps. Let's appreciate them both.

Is the "Lemay pissed in a potted plant" troll Spicen or DDD?

R512, her character was obviously meant to be comical in the first few episodes, in the same vein as the Margulies character. The show is horrible and both Tunie and Margulies are very badly miscast.

[quote]I don't know why Lemay has to be elevated by diminishing Marland.

Because Lemay's career was diminished while Marland's was elevated.

In hindsight, P&G should have let Lemay go to GL in 1979 and let Marland go to AW as headwriters since P&G had the habit of changing writers and producers on their shows. I think Lemay needed a break from AW when he left, and I think Marland would have done fine taking over AW.

[quote] Because Lemay's career was diminished while Marland's was elevated.

Where? By whom?

Lemay had zero respect for the genre. He tried to reinvent the wheel. His really only popular storyline was Mac/Iris/Rachel. None of his B stories were memorable, and, let's face it, he coasted on the amazing success of the Steve/Alice/Rachel triangle for years after that ended. For my money, Bill Bell was the best storyteller. His dialogue writers were atrocious, but that man could tell a story! Agnes was great too, but her strengths lie in shaking up the genre with humor and unique characters. But she shook things up while honoring the genre. Marland was so overrated IMO. His style of storytelling seemed to be endless exposition under the guise of attempting to have a very cohesive canvass of characters and overlapping storylines.

In one of the write ups about LeMay's death it said he wrote every script during his AW tenure.

WOW! Excuse my ignorance but did soaps not have HWs, breakdown writers & scriptwriters back then? I can not imagine the enormity of do it all.

Was this just true on AW or did other soaps function that way as well?

When did the writing split off into HW, BD writers & scriptwriters?

R523, yeah, I got that; here's the exact wording: "he is said to have single- handedly written almost every episode of Another World from 1971-79 as head writer."

I think the key words are 'as head writer'

He certainly oversaw each daily episode as head writer; his book details that he had to re-write some writers' scripts.

I don't think he any more or less didn't head write each episode than Bill Bell did at Y&R or B&B (its first five years or so).

In the old days, the headwriter was paid a fee to produce, the long story, the weekly breakdowns, and 5 scripts a week. They could take that fee and keep it all for themselves or they could hire "sub writers" (who worked and reported to the HW only) to write a few scripts a week. Most writers had subwriters because it was a lot of work to produce that much material. The subwriters were like subcontractors or freelancers.

It wasn't until some point in the early 80s and it may have been a WGA thing, that the "subwriters" became actual employees of the production were no longer free agents working just for the HW.

Lemay had subwriters, but in his book he said that he was never satisfied with their work so he rewrote a lot of material.

Also, in the old days, the HW was also the breakdown writer and in many cases the main script editor. Back then, the HW had more control of the story, which is why some people say that the stories back then seem to be more cohesive. Mainly because, back then, the HW had more involvement in all aspects of the story. You can also look at the credit crawl from old soaps and see that there were usually never more than 2 or 3 writers listed. Now, the writing staff is about 15 people.

Now all the writers work for the production, which is why when headwriters are replaced, the breakdown and script writers remain in place.

R523, also if you look at really old credits only a few writers are listed.

Here's another write up of Lemay passing.

Outside of Wyndham or maybe Susan Sullivan, I don't know who there is to reach out to for comment.

R525, you nailed it; do you work in the biz?

It's also important to note that pre=Gloria Monty and before the soaps went to an hour the structure was simpler. It was typically a teaser and 4 acts and each act was one scene or two at the most with an A/B structure and very little action, so it was a little bit easier to hammer those scripts out. And in the days before VCRs, you had to include a certain amount of recap which is where your Nancy Hughes and Aunt Liz types would come in.

456

Was Strasser on AW during LeMay's tenure?

Steve & Alice had wonderful chemistry.. I was just a little little kid but my older sister loved them. I guess they were soap's first super couple

[quote] I guess they were soap's first super couple

No, that would be Penny and Jeff.

Lemay worked with all three Rachels.

When Lemay came on Margie Impert was playing the role, but she wasn't playing the role the way that it should be played. So they begged Strasser to return until they could find a suitable replacement. Meanwhiile, over at The Guiding Light, our goddess Victoria Wyndham was finishing up her role as Charlotte.

According to VW, she was approached but turned it down because the Charlotte role was too similar to the Rachel role, but Rauch and Lemay kept after her and she finally accepted.

R532

This is why I love these P&G threads. Not only do I get the remember my beloved soaps but I also learn stuff before my time. I was a faithful viewer of AW, GL & ATWT but I had no idea VW was ever on GL or that anyone played Rachel besides RS & VW.

I'm surprised RS hasn't tweeted anything about LeMay's death. She tweets constantly about everything else.

It should also be pointed out that, at least for a number of years, the HW got a certain fee for creating new characters. And so it was no surprise that some characters the HW inherited were written out to make way for new ones.

[quote]Steve & Alice had wonderful chemistry.. I was just a little little kid but my older sister loved them. I guess they were soap's first super couple

They didn't make the cover of Time Magazine, so they weren't that "super".

Connie Ford used to get Lemay’s scripts and say who the fuck wrote this shit. Whoever wrote is deserves a kick in the cunt.

I believe that is a soap myth R534. Unless some writer, with a fabulous agent, managed to get it into her contract that she was to be paid for the creation of new characters in addition to her regular salary. It's pretty clear in most contracts that any and all material created for the show becomes property of the show. Doug Marland didn't own Lucinda Walsh, P&G did.

It’s NOT a myth, R537, it’s a fact. I had friends who worked as staff writers and they’ve told me this was a practice for a number of years, probably discontinued in the mid 1990s.

Doug Marland didn’t create Lucinda (or Lily or Shannon or Sierra); Tom King and Millie Taggart created the Walsh family. Shannon and Sierra were created by Susie Bedsow I believe

amazing then how Doug took Lucinda and Lily and Shannon and made them his own.

today, writers come on and can everyone new or recent and go on to create new and recent people who then get written out by the next regime.

Yeah, I should have specified that it wasn’t just HWs who were paid a special fee for creating new contract characters. Staff writers also got it. I’m guessing this was only a P&G practice. Geraldine Court told me that when she was on GL the actors would bitch about it.

Darlings, I was summering for a bit but heard about Harding Lemay.

His passing truly is the end of an era. The last of that generation of writers, for sure.

I do love me some early Doctors. Especially that twunky Dr Mike.

Did Harding pass away on a lawn chair on Iris's patio?

Yes, r544. And around the world, this is what we sang:

Does "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" play automatically after "Bye, Bye Blackbird" on everyone's device? The line "I'll worship the trousers that cling to him," as sung by Samuel Barnett, makes me cry.

A nice late period Lemay episode. All the greats.

And now, a side of ham!

What is the correlation between Bye Bye Blackbird & LeMay?

not sure why he chose the song, but he wrote that Theresa Lamont, when she died, went out on Iris' patio and sang it and then passed away; he writes about it in his memoir; available on Kindle.

Great read.

HOW did GL let Kathleen Cullen (Amanda) walk back out the door after her brief return in 1987; goes to 52:37

LeMay wrote scene in AW when Therese Lamond (Nancy Marchand) recounted her days as a Broadway showgirl and croaked on Iris’ patio whilst singing “Bye Bye Blackbird.”

R552

Thank you. I had no idea Nancy Marchand was ever on AW. That was before my time.

You’re welcome, R551/R553. I think she was only on for a few months at most. Her character’s last name was actually Lamonte, I think.

This has got to be the most quintessentially mid '80s episode of Another World as Felicia takes Rachel to renown stylist John Sahag for a "makeover". My God, the perms and the shoulder pads!

Despite the bad omens of Rachel coming out of Felicia's makeover with a tighter-than-hell Estelle Getty perm we can see from the later episode it's actually a rather more flattering and light shoulder length style, with some ringlets and layering.

Couldn't find any Theresa Lamonte online, but here's a poor quality classic episode; Robert Delaney takes a fire poker to Iris' portrait.

Ugh! That fucken Iris. Could never stand the actress or her voice. Cringeworthy.

Agree about Kathleen Cullen coming back for that 87 Christmas ep. Vanessa was leaving in January and she was sorely missed. Having Amanda back in the mix at Spaulding would have been great. Can't even imagine making Amanda a 'madam' in LA = such horrible writing and typical of that period.

Correction: Amanda was the Malibu Madam.

And Matt Reardon had been one of the rentboys in her stable.

R557 Nic Coster was Robert Delaney, wasn't he?

MARY!

Nic Coster was a sexy daddy. He’s originally from England, I think. He looked damn good in the opening scene in All The President’s Men, too.

I loved his deep voice. He made my no no quiver when I was a younger gayling.

What kind of asshole says "no no"? WTF is a "no no," even?

R563

William Gray Espy's voice was so erotic to me. Lordy! I wonder where he is now?

I always did love the sexy growly voices.

They're quite inspiring during a lovemaking session.

New thread is ready to go when this one is done

I had no idea the reveal that Ova was Lily's mother happened the day before Chris and Nancy's anniversary!

Ova! Of course I meant Iva, but considering, a great slip.

And Susan returns in the same episode!

I didn't know that either, R568!

I swear, I must have started watching within a few weeks of that episode.

Could hardly hear a fucking word Espy said.

Espy is of the homosex persuasion. Bug eyes didn’t like his lifestyle.

I realize that Espy and Ronn Moss not being able to emote much was the point; you never knew what Ridge was going to do or if he'd choose Taylor or Brooke and people kept coming back for more.

He could dump Brooke in one episode and marry Taylor in the next and while it was shocking, fans accepted it.

Scott Clifton's a super nice guy, but he doesn't have that enigmatic appeal Moss and Espy had in their days. Liam's a lovable goofball you want to have a beer with and shoot some pool.

Plus, it doesn't help that Ridge (thorsten) and Dollar Bill try to manipulate Liam; in the old days, nobody could tell Ridge what to do.

Today's story telling on B&B simply doesn't work.

29 years ago today, Josh and Reva's wedding in Cross Creek started.

Why was Reva’s mother Sarah such a nasty old battleax?

R575

The Cross Creek wedding is my favorite soap wedding of all time. Hands down.

Does OLTL have a thread? Today is the anniversary & I wanted to reminisce.

Which characters on ATWT, GL and AW were on for a relatively short period before getting written out, but should have been brought back because of their impact on the story?

Here are my picks:

ATWT-Karen Dixon-John and James’ ex, was Dusty’s surrogate mom, left town because Lucinda was moving in on John.

GL-Rita Bauer. I know she was on the show for 6 years, but that’s not so long for a show with over 50 years of history, and considering her connections to Ed, Roger and Alan, it was a miss for the show not to bring her back with a child.

AW-Cecile. They should have offered Nancy Frangione anything she wanted to come back. She had great chemistry with Donna, Cass, Felicia and Rachel.

Vicky crossed eyes had a smelly snatch!

Hope Bauer Spaulding on GL-hands down. Preferably played by Robin Mattson.

Had Mattson returned to GL after Santa Barbara she would have played the part as a hybrid of Heather Webber and Gina Capwell (or whatever her last name was); she dry heaves a big breath before each line.

I can't stand her. I preferred Mary O'Brien as Heather on GH and Linda Gibboney as Gina.

My snatch smelled.

Speaking of -- why is there no Santa Barbara thread? There's an old one about Marcy Walker's crazy ways floating around, but if there's an SB thread I can't find it.

Agree about Mattson. She does her best work as a villain; I find it hard to buy her as a heroine. Who else could have played a recast Hope?

Why don't you be the one to start it, r584?

Below is the link to the current OLTL thread.

The only Santa Barbara thread that I know of is the Marcy Walker one. Over the years, people have started Santa Barbara threads and then they go nowhere.

Here, darling. A Santa Barbara thread. Don't say I never did anything for you.

Donna had a smelly old snatch!

A book by the widow of GL actor Tom O'Rourke - who played Justin Marler.

If I understand correctly, she writes that he died and then......paranormally confessed to his cheating in the afterlife.

Oooookay then......

I'm shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED that the O'Rourke book is SELF PUBLISHED!

O’Rourke was a pussy hound. He fucked the 2nd Jackie Marler on GL. And he fucked the gal who played Eve Stapleton.

Well duh.

One of my favorite soap couples, obviously non-romantic, was Ada and Jake. Nobody got him the way she did.

Agreed, R594.

The same blogger I posted at R593 included several other AW characters in his posts. Nice musings.

Mac

Rachel

And Iris....

Yes, Jill, we know. "Hip."

Another part (the rest are on YT)

Remember new thread!