Those Magnificent Midwestern Towns, Part 5

Oh my! Victoria Hudson wouldn't be able to get away with that costume these days.

This episode has Faux Donna. I cannot tolerate Faux Donna.

Philece Sampler was a MUCH hetter Donna than the old hag Anna Stuart!

Oh, poor r2.

Were any of the men in Miss OP’s clip straight?

When Another World was good

I never liked her,I preferred Rachel

R2 = Philece Sampler

hetter = better or hotter? (neither of which is true, of course)

If only everyone who was still alive in 1988 were still alive today. Not just Mac Cory, but IRL, too.

I miss Aunt Lez.

R8

What are you saying? Countless AW actors from 1988 are still alive.

Jacquie Courtney said that Irene Daily used to fart all day long. She didn’t like standing near her.

It was poorly worded, r10. I meant in my own real life.

My beloved Linda Dano is filming a Hallmark movie with Days Allison Sweeney.

I've never watched one second of the Hallmark channel but you best believe I'll be watching for La Dano.

Thirty-five years ago today, Reva Shayne Lewis debuted.

I first watched Reva Shayne Lewis sometime in the spring or summer of 1989. I remember being in a panic when my VCR broke on the 4th of July that year, then discovering that two of my friends also taped it.

Diva Von Dish in Soap Digest pooh-poohed Felicia Gallant being this big fashion maven, noting there is , in fashion, what's known as too much of a good thing. She noted that Felicia wore dresses that look like living room drapes, hats three sizes too big for her head, and furs that look like the death of entire species!

Freakin' hilarious.

She also noted to Miss Ellie on Dallas that it was not appropriate to wear to every single family occasion a 'housecoat.'

[quote]Diva Von Dish in Soap Digest

Wasn't that sow from SOW?

Never mind on Diva Von Dish. I had her confused with Marlena (?), a SOW columnist.

MeMe Torchin would have your boa feathered for thinking that Diva Von Dish was fron her beloved SOW, the magazine that killed soaps. SOW had Marlena DeLacroix.

Thanks, r19. I googled SOW and Marlena and all that came up was Doc.

Did someone start a new OLTL thread? The last one closed on Wednesday & no one linked to a new one.

YOU start one, r21.

Hmmm....I guess SOMEONE didn't see that I already started a new thread.

Ahem.

I guess this one was first by a few hours so let's use this one *sigh*.

I'm sor.........well, you know. Darling, I don't do windows, coach air travel or apologies.

Or pizza, ORD. But you can ask Jake for a bite of his pickle.

ORD, do you know enough about Llanview to help r21 out? He's been begging EVERYWHERE. I would help, but, oh, you know, those ABC soaps...NOKD.

Belated, but Reva's first scenes are in the first six minutes.

ORD - please go away.

r27 Who is Reva dancing to Proud Mary with (starts @ 2:32)?

r28 No, you go away, Serial Scholar, and take your strumpet Spicen with you.

I will never go away. I am beloved by everyone! Everyone loves me. Serial Scholar is hated by everyone.

Everyone hates Spicen.

Serial Scholar’s own family had him committed and want nothing to do with him.

R29, that's Brand New Sexy Philip, played by John Bolger.

And, of course, Kim's main partner in those scenes is Chris Bernau, Original Recipe Alan. Would anyone dare to think of Ron Raines as Brand New Sexy Alan?

Was there an in-between Alan?

Bernau had the aids.

There was, R36. Daniel Pilon. I suppose he could be BNSA.

Thanks, all. Apparently, I started watching GL mere moments before Chris Bernau left. I barely remember Daniel Pilon. Alexandra was the Spaulding-in-Charge those days, I suppose. I had pretty much given up on the show by the time Ron Raines took over the role.

R29 I love that for Philip! I loved John, so sexy, but he sure wasn't Phillip.

R35 Daniel Pilon was Suddenly French Canadian Alan.

Ron Raines was Sentient Block of Wood Alan!

R16 Wow, I haven't heard the name Diva von Dish in years!

I think the whole "Marlena" bit was the writer's attempt to have a nom de plume like Diva. It seems to me I heard years ago that either Michael Logan or Alan Carter wrote Diva but I can't remember for sure.

Does anyone here follow the Classic Soap Opera Digest Tumblr? They're up to November 1990.

R43

Is that the one that Twitter's @kyleo runs? I follow him & he tweets all the classic SODs.

He's a great person to follow because he's witty AF and has an encyclopedic memory of all things soap.

Stumbled upon this. It’s a blonde Dutch comedienne who put on a Japanese persona called Ushi to interview celebrities. Here she interviews Greg Vaughan and one of her first questions is “Is it good to be pretty?”

Kyleo is a great soap scholar, unlike that asshole who labeled himself serial scholar but is in reality a dumb fuck.

This site looks like it was built in the 1990s (!) but this is an interesting list that has a few of the Midwestern Towns' actors on it.

I'd also add Peter Burnell, who was the first Dr. Mike on The Doctors.

Trouble's back, indeed.....

R21 Here's your damn OLTL thread already!

R8, are you the poster who mentions that "all your blonds" were still alive in the 80s? I once had a DL conversation about Knots Landing where a lovely poster made that poignant statement and I think of him/her often.

Even I cringe when Philece appears as Donna.

I could literally fall asleep just looking at this picture.

Her third eye did mesmerize me, though.

Did you know she’s close friends with Meryl Streep?

With the reboot craze, The Edge of Night would be the perfect PG show to reboot, as a primetime series.

Maureen was coma-inducing. Killing off that zzzzz character was the best move JFP ever made.

Yes, r50. That was me. All My Blonds were still alive in the '80s, and watching Guiding Light. I didn't start watching GL myself until 1989, though. I watched both "World" shows. ATWT is probably my favorite of the shows, at least until Lisa sued Johnny Boy Dixon and Andrew had to testify against his own father, but AW is the show that seems most "mine."

I am also the SDFT (Scott DeFreitas Troll) and the Linda Ronstadt troll, as well as Fangirl (not Fangurl) #3.

I'm assuming the Maureen is Boring poster would also be the same one who thinks changing ATWT's Andy to "Drew" was the necessary answer.

r56 A.K.A. the Drew Dixon Douche

Yes, I think the DDD was a Maureen-hater. He also thought bringing Mickey Against Daytime Drama to P&G and Felicia Mini-Brain to Oakdale made sense.

Perhaps his real name is Susan Batten.

Maureen was killed off GL because focus groups said that she was boting and they wouldn’t miss her. The focus groups were right.

In another thread, I suggested replacing boring Parker with sexy Shannon Tweed. She would've rocked as Maureen. All they needed was a more sexual, more charismatic actress like Tweed in the part, and the character could have been salvaged. And then they could've gotten rid of that mopey boring Peter Simon and replaced him with someone with leading man looks. I had Dennis Cole in mind. Could you imagine Cole and Tweed as Ed and Maureen? Would've been so fucking hot! We finally could've gotten some sexy Bauers.

r60 = DDD

What would you P&G midwestern dullards have thought of recasting mopey, sullen Lisa Brown with someone with some life and vitality like Susan Lucci and changing her name to Godiva or Diva Snyder, and getting her that boring farm and maybe getting her involved in an international spy storyline? That would really have shaken up that colorless, dull as dishwater show.

That would have been absolute shit, r62. Do you think it is even remotely possible that we somehow failed to notice and reject—yes, [italic]reject[/italic]—the "life and vitality" of Susan Lucci over there on the low IQ channel?

I'm reading Eddie D's synopses of December 1988. Be still my heart, Sharlene and John are becoming a couple. "DECEMBER 20, 1988 (EP. #6219) At the Snowflake Ball, Vicky agrees to marry Jamie. Iris makes the engagement announcement and Lisa hears it. Lisa runs out of the room crying. Sharlene and John dance on the porch of the Frame farm. Sharlene responds to John's kiss. Sam tells Amanda that the days he spent without her and Alli were the worst of his life. Sam kisses Amanda passionately. Lisa says goodbye to Jamie. Steve from Kenny's party shows up and bothers Josie, who runs out. Matt runs after her but doesn't catch up. Sam and Amanda make up and dance together. Vicky invites Jamie, Sam, and Amanda to her place for a celebration. Evan points out to Iris that her plan was foiled because Sam and Amanda are together as are Donna and Michael. Josie comes home upset and Sharlene pulls away from John to comfort her daughter. Josie realizes she lost Rachel's necklace. Rick and Julie Ann have a discussion about their racial differences. Rick says he'll call Julie Ann but she doubts him. Rachel and Amanda make up. Mitch secretly arranges for Noah to come to Bay City. Mac tells Rachel he isn't mad at her for what she did for Sam. Vicky cries as she realizes she's getting what she wants, Jamie and the baby. Matt takes Lisa home and tells her she was the best thing that Jamie ever had. Lisa cries in Matt's arms. Sharlene gets a call from someone who found Rachel's necklace. Sharlene fantasizes about John in bed. Iris is with a cleaning person at the ball and cries because Dennis didn't come home. Mac finds her and tells her he will always love her."

The ABC shows appealed to more educated urban audiences. AMC at its height was a very intelligently written show that took chances with characters and storytelling that most shows wouldn't have touched. Ryan's Hope as well. And like it or not, GH revolutionized the soap industry and probably kept soaps going longer than they might otherwise has. The P&G shows seemed to be targeted at flyover fraus with a high school education.

Yes, that Ice Princess really was the shit, r65.

^Back at ya!

[quote]Dreaming Death, Lumina, Mr. Big, etc.

Which kind of explains where the PG shows went wrong. PG invented the genre and were the trailblazers and then they lost their way and started copying everyone else.

My favorite thing about PG in the 80s is that someone thought that the way to save the shows and make them younger and fresher was to give them all new theme music and remove the "the" from EON and GL.

I think with great certainty we can all agree that the hour killed the soap opera. That's what PG should have done instead remove the "the", cut them all back to half hour. The characters were crisper. The focus was sharper. They were tight and under budget.

Who do we blame for the hour -- Rauch or Lemay?

[quote] I think with great certainty we can all agree that the hour killed the soap opera. That's what PG should have done instead remove the "the", cut them all back to half hour. The characters were crisper. The focus was sharper. They were tight and under budget.

There was a time where the hour made sense. The budgets supported it, and it was great for many shows to tell bigger, broader stories through the late 70s and 80s.

But when the first sign of shrinkage came in the early 90s, there should have been a good look at scaling back to a half hour. Certainly, GL and ATWT should have tried :30 before they ended.

How 90 minutes was ever considered a good idea, however, is beyond me.

R61 Between DDD and the whole Twitter feud queens, unfortunately I have half this thread blocked.

But it's lovely to see you all on the sane side of the street!

Rauch inflicted the hour - and later 90 minutes - on the soap world. The 90 mins and TEX-ASS got him canned from NBC.

Lemay was just a hack drunk writer who fantasized about rich people accepting him into society. What he put his wife Dorothy through.....he should have written about THAT.

Tell us, r72, what he put Dorothy through.

R73 he made her a porn star. Check out her IMDB info. The horrors!

I must admit, I always thought that it was preposterous that Iris would ever be engaged to Russ Matthews.

I mean, the idea that NYC society snob Iris Cory Carrington would even consider marriage to a hick doctor from a small MidWestern town? It just doesn't make sense. The Matthews family were merely upper middle class. And they were from nowheresville Bay City. Why would an NYC society girl marry so far beneath her standing?

Ditto her marriage to Robert Delaney. Although Robert was from a wealthy family, he was from nowheresville Somerset. This was still marrying beneath her social class, although not quite as much as marrying Russ, if she had gone through with that.

The only marriage that seemed worthy of Iris's social standing was her marriage to Brian Bancroft.

ORD - like Serial Nutcase psycho - please go away. Thank you.

....and no society maven would have a tacky Sears above ground pool at her hacienda. Seeing pale white chub Mike Hammett and ghost like Bobby whatever his name with the freckles who played Jamie sauntering around that pool was ghastly indeed.

AW was the first soap to expand to 60 minutes, back in January 1975. At the time, it was viewed as a risky experiment, but it ended up bringing in viewers curious to see if it would work. I was a kid at that point. I had watched AW since 1970, but it had sort of fallen off my radar by 1974 with other activities. But when I read that AW was going to expand to an hour, I wanted to see if they could pull it off. So I started watching again over Christmas 1974 and the storylines were so great, I just kept tuning in and loved having a full hour of this great show.

When the hour-long AW maintained strong ratings, Days expanded to an hour in April 1975 and ATWT followed suit in Dec 1975. The most important factor, all three shows were in great shape creatively. And all three were at the top of the ratings at that point too.

AW expanding to 90 minutes in March 1979 was a noble experiment, but in hindsight a misguided one. AW was not in great shape creatively by that point (Harding Lemay was suffering from burnout at that point since he was not only HWing the show, he was writing 3-4 scripts per week). Likewise, it was also in the middle of the ratings by that point (#8 for the 1978-79 season) since Lemay's storylines were not his best.

The 90 minute shows just felt so bloated. So many characters in each episode, so hard to keep up with everything going on. But at least we found out that 90 minutes was too much, so no other show tried it.

Meanwhile, the ABC soaps were exploding with creativity, daring and boldness. The ABC soaps captured the zeitgeist of the late 70s in a way that soaps never had before. A lot of NBC viewers defected to ABC during this period.

I've often wondered if the 90 minute experiment would have been successful if it had been All My Children that had expanded to 90 minutes in March 1979 instead of AW. For the 1978-79 season, AMC was the #1 show.

r76 ORD, you stay right where you are, dear.

[quote]Seeing pale white chub Mike Hammett and ghost like Bobby whatever his name with the freckles who played Jamie sauntering around that pool was ghastly indeed.

Even more ridiculous was when they tried to have Mike Hammett (Dennis) and Bobby Doran (Jamie), who were both about 16 in real life in 1977, living in their own bachelor pad apartment. And both still looked like they were about 14!

Even worse, the pair had only one record in their bachelor pad. But the show played this same non-descript instrumental rock song over and over and over for months. Whenever they had a scene in the bachelor pad, the show had them playing that song on the stereo. Likely the show got that song for free since they had no music budget for pop songs at that point.

No hip teenagers living in a bachelor pad would have just one album. They'd have had a huge record collection in the 1977-78. That was as preposterous as Iris's above ground pool from Sears.

R80 and especially when they are both from multi millionaire families.

R79 Don't you worry. I'm staying right here.

"That's Ming, Courtney: M-I-N-G. So be careful with that."

r82 For you, doll.

ORD is never welcome here. He’s a psycho. Just like Serial Psycho who has no friends. Go away Psycho.

No, asswipe Spicen, you are who is never welcome here. Or probably anywhere else you go.

R83 Oh, you are so sweet. But enough about me! Let's talk about you.

What do YOU think of me?

"I wouldn't put any extra burden on this welcome wagon, Cecile."

I know I keep returning to these scenes but wow, they were great. Proof that when the characters are richly drawn, the plot and dialogue just flows from it so naturally.

Connie Ford ate out Irene Daily. AW had so many lesbos on the show.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Spicen and will ALWAYS side with Spicen over that sick fuck Serial Asshole Nutjob.

r89 You ARE ARE ARE Spicen.

You stay right here ORD ... Ive had to block a$$hole R76

Connie was with Nancy Wickwire (Aunt Liz #3). Wickwire left AW to star in the never aired Mary Worth serial. She ended up on Days as the 1st Phyllis Anderson and then died of cancer some months later. Great actress, less dithery than Audra Lindley (the best Aunt Liz ever) and more snobbish than busy body Irene Dailey.

Did Geraldine Court ever hook up with lesbian co-stars when she was on AW or GL?

I was skimming thru the truly gorgeous pics of the Prianka Chopra & Nick Jonas wedding and who should see but Michael Park all gussied up as a guest.

Wonder how he knows them? He looked amazing.

[quote] He looked amazing.

He's like Mark Ruffalo. Sometimes he looks like an unmade bed and other times, he just leaves me weak in the knees with how sexy he can be.

[quote] Connie was with Nancy Wickwire (Aunt Liz #3).

They were a couple, right? It was sort of implied in Lemay's book if one read between the lines.

I can’t imagine a crusty old cunt like Connie Ford having sex. Did she lick clits? Feel up titties?

Was Anne Meacham a lez? She seemed totally ASEXUAL even to my 12 year old self.

Val Dufour had a reputation as a ladies man.

Richard Bekins was a pussy hound onset.

^I heard that he liked older women. I wonder if he and Geri Court ever hooked up.

Miss Geri Court liked young nubile titties. She had the hots for her daughter on GL when Jennifer Cooke took over as Morgan but Robert Newman got to those titties first.

[quote]Miss Geri Court liked young nubile titties. She had the hots for her daughter on GL when Jennifer Cooke took over as Morgan but Robert Newman got to those titties first

However did Robert beat that handsome John Wesley Shipp?

Michael Zaslow died 20 years ago today.

I can't believe it's been that long.

R104 That is a surprise. What a truly awful way to die.

Who wants to see some wizened old man

Just rewatched with tears.

I will always love GL but the powers that be were so vile and ugly toward him, unnecessarily. It's good that it is his OLTL co stars, and not anyone from GL, on stage to deliver the honors.

Nancy Frangione's final scenes in Majorca in 1984. Cecile's farewell scene on the docks with Cass begins at 4:10.

[quote]Richard Bekins was a pussy hound onset.

Oh, fucking please.

I didn't realize Bekins had done Love Valour Compassion. (That's what I get for searching "Richard Bekins gay?")

AND that one of his costars was William Bumiller - who played the hot guy who found Reva after Annie threw her out of a plane on GL.

Also featured Mitchell Anderson, who has been in that After Forever thing with Kevin Spirtas and Colleen Zenk on Amazon.

[quote]I didn't realize Bekins had done Love Valour Compassion.

I wish I'd seen that production.

Did no one have the balls to tell Connie Ford to dial it down a notch? She yelled all of her lines. Hell, forget about playing to the cheap seats...she was playing to the autograph hounds standing outside the stage door.

As it happens, today I watched an episode where Connie was subdued. Bay City has learned about Russ Matthews' wife Tracy dying in a limo explosion. It came fairly soon after Ada was once again widowed.

What did people here think of Peg Murray's three-week stint of subbing for Connie Ford as Ada in early 1983.

R114

I don't remember anyone except Connie in the role. Why was Connie MIA? Was she ill?

Yes, Connie was out sick for those three weeks.

She was having the hair on her balls lasered off.

Another World Home Page has a long list of temporary recasts.

Peg Murray subbing as Ada. Her first scene starts at 28:30, a scene with Jamie.

Also a scene with Rachel, starting at 41:30.

Another episode with Peg Murray as Ada.

This episode also has Maeve McGuire as Elena, Jack Betts as Louis St. George and Terry Davis as Stacy Winthrop.

Maeve McGuire is a goddess.

Jesus, this show was so dull and lethargic. Endless conversations over coffee. So cliche, Richard Bekins underplays his role to the point that his performance is like watching paint dry. What a boring little show? How did it manage to last another 15 years so. Days was so fresh and exciting, with tons of action adventure and charismatic super couples around this time. Now I understand why AW could never carry the Days audience. The shows were like night and day.

Yes, r122 *is* the Drew Dixon Douche.

R120, that's not Ada.

It can't be.

She doesn't have a dishrag over her shoulder!

Maeve is a goddess; it was insane of AW to kill Steve Frame a second time; they could have had Alice come back and they go off together.

For me, the show was never the same after Pat Randolph left. I'd heard it was b/c of her 'age' (WTF?) Aunt Liz was on for years after Beverly P. left and Maeve had to be older than Beverly.

The 25th anniversary shows were gold; that's when many of them came back. I would have loved if Doug Marland had, of course, lived and come to Bay City circa 1993-94; he'd have rejuvenated the Matthews clan, I have no doubt

[quote] I would have loved if Doug Marland had, of course, lived and come to Bay City circa 1993-94; he'd have rejuvenated the Matthews clan, I have no doubt

Wouldn't that have been heaven? Why would he have left Oakdale, though?

r125 AW let Beverly Penberthy go in early 1982 because the new HW at that point, Corine Jacker, said she couldn't writer for the Pat character. She said she had no story ideas for her.

The character of Pat would have been about 40 in 1982, as was Penberthy. I sincerely doubt it was about Pat's age. It was about the HW not being creative enough to come up with a storyline for the character. During the 50s, 60s and 70s, all the soaps had major storylines revolving around 40something characters.

Immediately before Corine Jacker took the HW reigns, AW seemed head for a alcoholism storyline for Pat, plus they seemed to be paring her with Phillip Lyons. So, the previous HW was clearly prepared to give Pat a storyline. Jacker just chose to jettison it. And her.

Penberrhy was saddled with the gay Bobby Gentry. Shame.

Pat should have been the matriarch. It was strange when Alice came back to 84 and none of her siblings were around. Only Aunt Liz, Julia and Sally living in the Matthews house.

[quote]It was strange when Alice came back to 84 and none of her siblings were around. Only Aunt Liz, Julia and Sally living in the Matthews house.

That was a significant factor is why Alice's return ultimately failed. She wasn't surrounded by family. Hell, her daughter Sally was the show's rising star at that point thanks to Sally's pairing with Catlin. Yet, somehow, Alice never had that many scenes with Sally, or her grandson Kevin.

I was just a tyke during the Steve & Alice hey day but they were my older sister's favorites.

Sally was Alice's child? Was the father Steve?

I thought Alice couldn't have children aka "We had a love you could never know"

Sally was adopted. r131

Penberthy looked so much older than 40.

I think some ABC and Days stars could've rejuvenated AW, rather than those ugly depressing, low-key NYC theater actors they insisted on hiring. Imagine Shannon Tweed as Alice, or Andrea Evans with full tits on display as Sally. Arlene Dahl would've been amazing as Aunt Liz, and when Days canned Susan and Doug Hayes, they should've joined AW at new Rachel and Mac, replacing bug eyes and that stodgy musty Doug Watson. I sincerely believed these casting changes with more conventionally attractive Hollywood types could've saved this show.

DDD doing what he does, just to be annoying. He knows as well as we do that he makes no sense whatsoever.

Cynthia Watros at AW would have been something. She was great during her brief run as Vicky. It might have been a great thing for her and the show. Getting her out from under Zimmer's thumb, for sure.

Watros was too good for daytime.

Watros was a fucking drunk! Dui.

Hi Kim!

Hello, Kiddo!

R140 Hiya Kim!

not THAT Kim,

Doug -- and he was my favorite head writer -- needed a break from ATWT. He'd gone through so many great stories but things got repetitive: Bob and Kim, John, and Lisa all had grown children pop up they didn't know they had or had forgotten about.

Once Holden and Lily had been played out to an extent we had a series of characters -- Rosanna, Hutch, Tess -- they weren't measuring up. What could of Doug's run from 85 to 90?

Bill Bell was a writer who could put Nikki, Paul, the Abbotts through years of story and then boom! He'd come up with a way to make it fresh for all those characters again and again.

Doug would have had amazing years at AW; sadly, when that show went off the air the only veteran highlights were Rachel, a picture of Ada, and Sam Groom (ex-Russ; RIP, btw) as a minister.

AW was the first BIG soap to go because it had gutted its own history.

If ATWT in 1990 had Susan vs Kim, there's no reason why over in Bay City that Rachel and Alice shouldn't have been going at it.

Anyone know what Sheffer's up to now?

There's no reason AW couldn't have gotten Harding Lemay back in the early 1990s, after Donna Swajeski departed as HW. Yes, they'd have to kiss some ass, but they could have done it. If they couldn't have gotten him back as HW, they could have at least gotten Lemay to write a new Bible to use after his previous one ran out.

Lemay was a miserable old drunk. F him.

Watros would have made a great longer-term Vicky. Hell, they could even have done that dopey "Marley has to have plastic surgery" story and made it work better, because Watros and Wheeler were closer in height.

R145

IDGAF if he drank. He was an extremely talented writer.

I was trying to get through a 1979 ep of AW but it was brutal. The scenes were like 10 minutes each. All the characters did was talk endlessly and the dialogue and littered with pretentious $10 words. There was zero action, and the acting was so theatrical and over the top. Was there no director to tell the likes of McInsey, Connie, Irene Daley and Dougie Watson to dial it down a notch? The performances would be laughed at today. My god they were awful.

r148 = DDD or Spicen?

I love you, R77.

R149 Whoever it is, I have it blocked.

Fuk you Spicen!

Am I the only one who would've killed to hear the following voice over? "The part of Maureen Reardon Bauer is now being played by Shannon Tweed."

David Canary was manically awful as Steve Frame. I preferred him as Far Wind, the nutty terrorist on The Doctors. I think his nickname on that show was 'Down Wind'. The horrendous resolution of Steve admitting he'd loved Rachel all along, and then HE dies was the ultimate fuck you to the Courtney/Reinholt fanbase. Who was writing that shit ? Lemay? They could have brought Reinholt back as the true Steven Frame - made it obvious Canary's was an impostor.

David Canary was a very good actor, as his multiple Best Actor Emmys prove. However, he was wrong for the part of Steve Frame. He didn't possess the macho bravado yet vulnerable yearning for love that George Reinhold imbued the character with, which is what made Steve so popular with viewers.

Biggest problem was that Canary as Frame was introduced under HW L. Virginia Brown, but shortly after he arrived on screen, Corine Jacker took over as HW and she simply was not up for the task of revising the Steve-Rachel-Alice triangle.

While I liked Linda Borgeson a lot as Alice, she wasn't strong enough in the acting department to go toe-to-toe with Victoria Wyndham. On similar lines, Canary had more chemistry with Wyndham than he did with Borgeson. Consequently, Alice was the weak link in the triangle where she was supposed to be the one the audience was rooting for. Plus, Jacker wasn't adept enough as a HW to recognize Borgeson's strengths and tailor the scripts to those strengths. Thus, the triangle fell apart quickly and Borgeson was quietly written out.

After Jacker's contract ended, new HWs Robert Soderberg and Dorothy Ann Purser recognized the severe damage done by revisiting that triangle with poor casting choices and cut their losses. So, they quickly killed Steve Frame off.

A future HW could have brought Reinholt back as Steve Frame and said that Canary's Steve was an impostor all along. That would have been easy enough to do, especially during the year (1984-85) they had Jacqueline Courtney back as Alice. But Reinholt had apparently burned his bridges in daytime by that point, so no show would cast him after OLTL.

[quote] Doug -- and he was my favorite head writer -- needed a break from ATWT. He'd gone through so many great stories but things got repetitive: Bob and Kim, John, and Lisa all had grown children pop up they didn't know they had or had forgotten about.

Marland was actually aware enough to realize this and before he died he and Caso had plotted big changes for the show, like the return of Lily.

John Wesley Shipp had to partake in Doug’s toes to get cast on GL. Ewwwwwwww.

It was very difficult to produce your best performances when acting with the googley-eyed Wyndham.

Hold the fuck up!!!!!!!!

They had Steve say he loved Rachel all along????? WTH?

I'm glad I missed that because that's blasphemy.

R159 it got worse than that, Rachel was left blind and Mac masqueraded as her doctor(?) and they fell back in love...only months after Steve and Rachel had declared their love. Steve summed up his love for Alice as a 'fantasy' while Rachel was Earth Mother solid.

The lack of extended family around contributed to the failure of the revised 1981-82 Steve-Alice-Rachel triangle.

Alice's brother Russ was off the show when Steve returned and Pat was written off soon after the return. Plus Hugh Marlowe died in real life about that time, so they killed off Jim Matthews. Thus, Aunt Liz was the only family Alice had in town offering support, aside from Sally, who was busy being an airhead teenager in love with Leigh Hobson (Christopher Knight of Brady Bunch fame).

Likewise, all of Steve Frame's siblings were off the show by that point. Willis didn't even come back to visit his returned to life brother. Neither did Emma. Instead, they gave Steve an Australian daughter, Diana, but never did much with her character.

That was the beginning of the years where AW would get a new HW or EP every 9-12 months. The only bright spots between Lemay's departure and the end of the show were parts of the early 80s, when Cass, Donna, et all came on board, and the Lemay/Swajeski years.

I had a dream last night where I was walking down the hall and going to bed, and closing theme music started playing.

And suddenly a voice said, "Fashions by Lily Rubin Salons."

ORD, who needs to go away, #irritating Remind us again WHY you are here? You’re annoying as fuck!

I have a similar problem, ORD. Every so often I'll think of my life as a continuing story that everyone must be sure to tune into.

Every so often, I like to look up the ratings page on Wikipedia. Something I didn't realize: in 1981-82, NBC soaps made up FIVE of the bottom six. And four of those bottom six were P&G shows.

I spotted Maeve Kinkead on an uptown 6 train yesterday. The train was crowded so I couldn’t get over to her to say how much I miss GL. She looks good!

Here is the ranking of all P&G soaps from worst to best. This is the definitive list and there will no further discussion about this list.

14: From These Roots

13: Young Doctor Malone

12: The Catlins

11: Lovers and Friends/For Richer For Poorer

10: The First Hundred Years

9: The Brighter Day

8: Texas

7: Somerset

6: Search for Tomorrow

5: Our Private World

4: Guiding Light

3: As The World Turns

2: The Edge of Night

1: Another World

r167, did you tell her to dye her hair?

R168 Well, bless your heart.

[quote] I spotted Maeve Kinkead on an uptown 6 train yesterday. The train was crowded so I couldn’t get over to her to say how much I miss GL. She looks good!

Oh, how wonderful!

A train! What is a train?

Has BNSD been seen around these parts lately?

Does Maeve miss Paul Rauch?

I have not seen BNSD. I hope Spicen hasn't scared her off.

The asshole Serial Nutjob Psycho scares and tries to bully everyone. I know.

Wait, have I missed what SDFT stands for?

I imagine a very blue Mary Stuart saying it's for Search for Damn Fucking Tomorrow. LOL

R177 Oh, Toots, have you got it wrong.

Speaking of my beloved Anna Stuart, has she been seen since she married James Cameron?

He's routinely photographed at various causes & protests but I never see her.

I hope that doesn't mean she's ill.

Anna Stuart isn’t married to James Cameron, dear.

Ugh! I meant James Cromwell. Not enough coffee yet.

In another world (cracking myself up here), Philece Sampler is married to James Cameron.

I confuse Cameron and Cromwell, too.

Philece Sampler was by far THE best Donna.

Trolling used to be such an art ...

The soap troll is particularly bad at it.

Mary Stuart was the furthest thing from TV's lovable Jo. Virginia Dwyer was nicer and that's saying something.

Mary Stuart? Just the name brings me shudders.

Loved that Mary Stuart had her tv daughter Patti exiled from the show for YEARS because even though she was pushing 60 - she wanted no reminder Jo had grandchildren. Stupidest soap move ever.

Mary Stuart was a doll and beloved by all. Charita Bauer, on the other hand...

Turning back to Another World ... does anyone think it was a lost opportunity that the show didn't re-absorb some of Somerset and Texas later down the line. Iris, Vivian and Dennis coming back doesn't count. I'm talking about characters who either originated or spent most of their run on either spinoff. There's also the matter of Rachel's half-sister Pam, who I don't think ever appeared on Another World.

Pammy should have been Justine. But that would have been too easy and too smart a use of history.

R178 Oh yes,. I remember you!

You were also the Linda Ronstadt Troll in our long conversation about her.

(((waves hello)))

Linda Ronstadt Forever!!!

Yep, that's me, ORD. (((Hello to you, too))).

And pay no attention to that douchebag.

I forgot to get my sleeping pill script renewed. In lieu of the pills, I'll be looking at this photo. Nighty night.

R160 Holy shit! I totally forgot about that storyline. Another World changed so much between '81 and '83. I guess it was just a matter of time before Rachel's eyes got a storyline focus all on their own.

[quote]Steve summed up his love for Alice as a 'fantasy' while Rachel was Earth Mother solid.

Alice was the "Another World" that Steve wanted. With Alice, he was no longer that dirty farm boy. He was someone who could be accepted in polite society. Alice was the reward for all those years of dirt under his fingernails.

Rachel, on the other hand, reminded him of Chadwell and his base desires. That's why he was always drawn to her. She knew that no matter how much money he had, he was still the dirty farm boy underneath it all. She could fulfill his sexual appetites better than Alice could, but she couldn't open the doors and make him respectable like Alice could.

The reason why that triangle worked and ran for so long is because it was so layered and echoed the show's theme -- living in, searching for, wanting to be in other worlds.

Rachel thought she had found her "other" world in Russ, but quickly became bored and restless. Then Steve, but that was about money and sex. Ultimately, what Rachel was searching for was her father's love and she found and married a man old enough to be her father.

AW was such a boring show. I could never get into it. Especially that bug eyed Rachel and that grotesque voice on Iris. No wonder it was at the bottom of the ratings for its last 20 years. Boring.

Lemay did overrun the show with theath-uh actors who just didn't fit into Bay City. All that talk of marrying above your social position and 'station in life' was over the heads of those housewives who watched. Lemay was indulged by P&G but he ran out of steam quickly.

R199 Which is why he was shoved out the door in.....uh, eight years.

And he did it beautifully, r199.

[quote]All that talk of marrying above your social position and 'station in life' was over the heads of those housewives who watched.

Odd, then, that ratings were huge during most of his run.

People watched Lemay's AW out of habit. He inherited an extremely successful show, and the NBC lineup was very strong in general. When NBC's prime time and daytime ratings began collapsing in the late 70s, timed with ABC's ascent, viewers abandoned the show in droves.

R156; it was criminal that Goutman didn't bring Byrne back for the last few months of ATWT; the viewers got screwed. This said, I liked Rattray in the role. Her Lily was grown up, less a victim.

I think AW would have soared under Marland; or he could have gone back to GH. I'd have preferred Doug back in PC in the 90s rather than have Labine, Guza. Doug's version of a mobster was Frank Smith.

Claire and Bob gave us Sonny.

You'd think Claire would have gotten the mob out of her system on Ryan's Hope ... Anyway, I second the idea of Marland tackling Another World. There's no doubt in my mind he would have given the Matthews family a proper second wind.

Lady Eyes-a-Buggin' is awfully sweet in this episode.

R205, ITA 100% about the Matthews; when you look at ATWT ending we had Bob, Lisa, Kim, Johnny Dixon, Susan and Tom -there's gotta be around 250 years of TV among them alone.

GL gave us so many fan fave cameos at the end: Ed, Holly, Alex, Fletcher, Nola....we had Billy, Vanessa, Reva, Josh, Phillip, Mindy, Rick, Beth, Alan, Lillian.

But AW? We had Rachel caressing Ada's picture and Sam Groom (ex-Russ) back as a minister, not even as Russ! I think after Rachel the actor with the most seniority might have been Stephen or Anna or Ellen.

I like to think that Doug would have brought back both Alice and Pat and maybe Russ; Pat mentioned Marianne had had a kid or two to explain her absence in 89 from the Cory anniversary party.

I wonder if he would have tried bringing Sally back? We would have had either Pat, Rachel or Alice up on the witness stand on a murder charge but it was a kid or a grandkid who did the deed.

Who has the AW episode where Aunt Lez eats out Ada’s snatch? That eppy made me horny.

I can see mob storylines when the setting is a NYC bar, and one of your major characters (Siobhan) is a NYC cop. It's less relevant when your setting is a suburban hospital.

But then the hospital itself has gone from major character, to supporting character, and as far as I understand it (haven't watched GH in over 15 years), it could now be considered recurring character. GH's identity has been completely lost.

Joe Novak was 1000 times the character of pissant Sonny Corinthos.

AW had a terrible ending, and Goutie didn't learn from it when ATWT ended.

GL had the nicest ending, for sure.

As much as you want to romanticize what Marland would have done at AW, do you honestly think he could have revitalized that show? There was obviously a mandate to make it more Days compatible. He would've been stifled at every turn, and Marland's strong suit was never action adventure type storylines. I doubt he would've brought back the Matthews family. They were long gone by the time he would've theoretically taken over the show (around 94 or 95). Like he did at all his other shows, he probably would've brought in a new working class family. However, the show was so low rated at that point, I don't think he could've lured viewers back.

STFU about Marland and AW!!!! It didn’t happen. He’s dead. AW is dead, thank God. Coulda woulda shoulda. Live in reality you old fraus.

R213

Doll, did you get lost on the "Information Super Highway"?

This thread of for posters who want to reminisce about the P&G soaps.

I feel sure you can find the exit.

The P&G show were the little old lady soaps, with average looking people spending episode after episode recapping whatever little plot there was around a pot of coffee. No one young and on the move was interested in that. The ABC and Bell shows had youth, vitality, action and adventure, beautiful young people, and kept those mind numbingly boring coffee pouring scenes to a minimum.

R214 Block her. She's worse than Annie Dutton after the plastic surgery.

P&G soaps were indeed the old granny soaps. Only old fraus watched them.

I was in my late teens at the height of the ABC soap craze, and I can tell you that no one my age was watching the P&G soaps, except maybe GL for a hot minute during the Kelly/Nola/Morgan storyline. But the ABC shows ruled with my age group, since they were so colorful and full of energy and had characters people my age could identify with. The P&G shows were just so lethargic and had so many old people just sitting around talking about their relationships.

Very interesting. FacebookLive session tomorrow.

Goutman and Colleen Zenk.

Coleen loved Goutman because he put her at the center of the show. She never seemed to understand the damage he was doing to it. Or maybe she knew it was really the network forcing Goutman to make horrible decisions. In either case, not surprised she would be doing this with him.

Get a life, r220.

R220 I think of all the updates under Goutman and Sheffer the character of Barbara was the only one that really ended up working, and I give credit to Zenk, because she somehow kept Barbara grounded and believable.

Lord, I mean Irna knows the rest of the reinventions e.g. Dusty, Meg, Lily didn't really fly.

Darling!

It's Liz Hubbard's 85th birthday this weekend!

Happy 38th Birthday, Matthew Cory!

Hubbard's only 85? Did she fudge her birth date? Bitch looked a rough 50 on the Doctors 45-50 years ago.

Hubbard is 95 if she’s a day.

Who would you have casted as Drew Dixon if the amazing Cameron Mathison wasn't available?

What other actor had as low an IQ, r227? I don't know.

R212, if Doug had gone to AW in late '93 that's only four years since the big 25th reunion AW had in '89 with Pat, Alice, et. al. coming back so the history was there. Plus, Doug had written for AW under Lemay back in the 70s so he'd be familiar with.

Doug drew on story for Lisa from the year after Our Private World went off the air and before she came back to ATWT in the mid 60s, so I'd think he could draw on AW's history.

He revitalized Kim and Susan 10 + years after it had ended the first time.

So yeah, I think Doug would have revitalized the Matthews clan especially since in '94 Liz was still around.

Doug might have added a couple of extra Matthews to the canvas, but he really would have revitalized the Frames, who were the proto-Snyders. I could see him casting Lisa Brown as Molly Ordway.

Molly Ordway was played by some Hispanic actress who when she did soap press was told by NBC/P&G to never bring it up. Instead she would smoke like a fiend and bitch about the show.

Do you fools honestly believe that Marland would've reactivated a little-remembered character like Molly Ordway who hadn't been seen in nearly 20 years? By the early/mid 90s, AW was a different animal than ATWT. It was very low rated and most of its history had been gutted, compared to ATWT which was in good shape when he took over. At AW, he would've had a mandate to make the show more exciting and campy and compatible with Days. It would not have been a good fit.

R232, I think he would have done both. He would have satisfied the net with their dumb DAYS notes and given viewers what they would have wanted and brought the numbers up.

He made GUIDING LIGHT a top four show during GH's freaking heyday!

As for how to incorporate the Matthews, well, Alice had a grandson, Kevin.

Marianne had at least one child.

Remember, Doug revitalized Chris and Nancy, who'd been long put out to pasture, in 1985 on ATWT; Chris wasn't up for a story, but Doug including him in family group scenes was worth its weight in gold. Again, he revitalized the Kim/Susan feud in 1990, long after it had ended in the 70s.

Doug always knew how to mine a show's history; at GH, he tied the show's hottest hottie at the time (maybe even ever?) Jeff Webber to original character Dr. Steve Hardy. (Will never forget Audrey saying to Jeff as Steve was near death from Lassa Fever: "Steve Hardy is your father. Steeveee Haarday is your FATHER! STEEEVVVE HAAARDAY is YOURRR Farther!!!"

He would have added a hottie like Holden Snyder and probably have made Carl Hutchins the James Stenbeck of the show.

He would have raised the stakes and positioned favorites to their best.

He would have had a matriarch -- either Rachel or Donna or Sharlene -- on a witness stand taking responsibility for a murder one of their children had committed.

His biggest hurdle would have been how to set up another go around between Alice and Rachel; I could hear Rachel saying, "Alice has waited years to get back at me for Steve and now she's done it!"

I'm fully confident Doug would have returned AW to a former glory, making it hard for NBC to have canceled it.

Specficially, Molly, though? Maybe not. But that little bitch who wanted Dennis was a precursor to have nots like Bobbie, Nola, Ava, and Meg.

[quote]Specficially, Molly, though?

Please, let's not speak of that Ordway creature.

I have the strangest memory; I was a kid when I started watching AW.

I remember young Dennis' infatuation with Molly; he and Iris take her out to a fancy French restaurant and I'd had enough junior high French to know that fish was spelled 'poisson' so I got it when Molly read the menu and says, 'Dennis! They've got [italic] poison [/italic] here!'

Cue Bev's eye rolling

Molly was Frankie’s sister, which I why I thought he’d bring her back in 1994, especially since Lisa Brown was dropped by ATWT at that time and Lisa Brown would have been age appropriate

Please you're making fools of yourself thinking that Doug would've revived the Ordways and the Frames.

The NO life Serial Nutjob is off the meds. It is so stupid to fantasize what a dead Doug would do to AW. Stupid shit. Get a life Serial Nutjob Asshole. Sicko.

[quote] Cue Bev's eye rolling

The best in the biz!

The Goutman/Colleen Zenk video from today

Doug Marland was problematic in his own ways, but because he has been granted sainthood in the soap community it's hard to have a thorough discussion of his writing. If you don't think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread, his fans will just shout you down and won't engage in a thoughtful debate.

Doug Marland was probably at his best when he was at GH. He was better than many, but he was hardly in the same category as some of the people who are truly the greats of daytime. That being said, only two things could have saved Another World. 1) PG selling the show to NBC, which they wouldn't do. 2) leaving Another World on 3:00 PM EST where there wouldn't have been as strong a push to retain Days lead-in.

Using the word "problematic" is problematic. It makes me dismiss automatically whatever follows it.

Marland fans who are watching The Doctors right now haven't been shy about admitting how unsatisfying his work is with that show.

I did a post many moons ago about the strengths and weaknesses of the writers I liked.

Marland was very good at many things and overall I liked his work, but even at ATWT he had lulls, for sure. Sometimes he was a little too up his own ass. The Crawford murder was a bore.

Colleen blew Goutman? Not a shocker.

R245

You will never find a perfect HW. They are going to have storyline clunkers on occasion.

Perfection doesn't exist.

Yeah, the point, r247, was that no one has sainted Doug Marland and fans acknowledge his clunkers.

You may want to look into rewriting that sentence, r248, but I think I take your point. Yes, "Carolyn Crawford" went on far too long. Yet I prefer that to the way the internet and Mimi Torchin tore the soap opera industry apart. Can you imagine how the internet would have shredded him to pieces over that story? No wonder no one watches soaps anymore. We were killed with "support."

[quote]no one has sainted Doug Marland and fans acknowledge his clunkers.

Bitch, what internet have you been on for the last 20 years?

I just can’t with that asshole Serial Scholar. He’s so fucking stupid!!!!!!!!

r250, [italic]that[/italic] is what he was trying to say? OMG, I adored Marland's ATWT, and I still didn't get what r248 was saying, using "saint" as a verb.

Marland is [italic]always[/italic] sainted. Always.

WTF is up with Colleen? Googling her, she has a 2nd dui arrest in Florida. WTF.

Hi HBS!^

At least I know how to Uber. The drunk Zenk keeps getting behind the wheel of a car.

The Mimi Torchin Killed Soaps Troll lives on.

OMG. These scenes between Beverlee McKinsey and Michelle Forbes are everything.

McFlimsy was beyond awful. That voice was like nails on a chalkboard. Oh what the divine Carmen Duncan or fabulous Carole Shelley could've done with those scenes!

McKinsey was a goddess. Buh bye now.

Where's McInzy's emmy? Bitch was awful.

Much like the P&G soaps, this thread is beyond dull and tedious. Come on over to the multiple threads on the exciting, energetic, youthful ABC soaps.

R260 Agree about McInzy. The voice was grating. And she’s emmyless. lolololololol

Christmas with Victoria Wyndham 2018

There are two of us now, r256 (at least).

You mean bug eyes is still alive???

I could have sworn there was a big to-do about Wyndham's death... she died about three years ago, but news of her death was kept secret for almost six months. Doesn't anyone else remember this? Her husband Charles Kimbrough announced it.

R266 Dingy!

R257

Thanks for the GL clip.

Holly looks like a goddess. I hated that version of Blake. Josh is definitely a DILF.

Can anyone refresh my memory as to why Maureen & Ed were separated & dating other people?

This is why I love this place. Only on DL would there be some dizzy queen who remembers Carole Shelley was Iris for a few episodes in the late 70s, and declare her wonderful in the role. Are you also the Christine Jones was better than Erika Slezak troll from the OLTL thread?

R238, he would have revived the MATTHEWS clan; and, as Sharlene was still on at the time, I can see him fleshing out some Frames.

R257. they stayed pals in real life after Forbes left the show in 90.

Hard to believe that McKinsey left the show just two years later.

Back then a year was forever; now they all blend into one another.

Beverlee could be tough a la Bea Arthur, but she liked the talented people who worked hard.

She was very fond of Vince, Grant, Rick Hearst, Michelle Forbes, to name a few.

R268 They weren't dating other people, but Holly's return upended Ed and Mo a bit. Holly and Ed just kind of fell into an easy old friendship, and Maureen and Ed separated for a while, until they had a big showdown and Maureen called him on putting Holly first. Ed eventually had a scene with Holly where he drew a boundary and told her he loved his wife.

As it turned out, it wasn't Holly Mo had to worry about, it was Lillian. But even when Maureen suspected something off with Ed before discovering his affair with Lil, she again thought it might be Holly. Understandable since Ed had been such a part of the Roger/Holly relationship.

All great info R272; I do think Ed and Holly fucked upon her return because when Ed said the 'thing' with Lillian was an aberration -- Moe shot back, you mean like the thing with Holly was an aberration?

If Moe hadn't died that night she and Ed fought at the cabin, she would have left him; maybe ended up with Fletcher.

If she had to die I wish GL had used the money that opened up to bring back Claire and/or Hope -- not spend it on Buzz.

R273 I couldn't remember and had to look it up. According to Soap Central......

[quote] Deciding to keep her distance from Roger, Holly briefly reunited with Ed after he and Maureen separated because of her infatuation with Fletcher Reade. The rift in the Bauer marriage caused them to lose out on adopting a young boy. Devastated Maureen decided to get a divorce. However, soon after, Holly realized that Ed's heart belonged to Maureen, and she gracefully bowed out of their burgeoning relationship.

I honestly didn't remember that at all about the boy, though I remember some sort of infertility issues rearing their head. And the whole thing with Fletcher also included Roger. It was Mo feeling that Roger and Fletcher saw her as she was, instead of Ed taking her for granted.

R273

Approximately how long was it from that clip until they killed off Maureen? A couple years?

Roger and Holly is one of those complex grey area relationships that soaps really can't do today. It's kind of sad.

I'm suddenly very sleepy. YAWN!

R277, not every woman on GL was going to be sophisticated and stunning like Jackie Spaulding (Cindy Pickett) or Maeve Kinkaid (sp?); sure, Ellen's Moe was matronly, but that made her the successor to Bert Bauer.

I don't say her death was the beginning of the end of the show; but not replacing that void she left properly was the beginning of the end.

Why does Zenk Pinter jeep getting dui’s? Jesus.

^HBS, don't you have anything better to do, toots?

R275 That story, the last big Ed/Mo story before her departure, played out over 1989.

Maureen was killed off in early 1993.

Maureen Bauer was so boring. The only interesting thing about her was killing her off.

Amen, JFP! PS, you we're right to kill off Frankie Frame, another coma-inducing character.

Happy 85th birthday to Elizabeth Hubbard!

Hard to believe these scenes were fifty years ago.

cripes 85; what would have happened if ATWt had stayed on the air?

Would the powers that be have been forced to move everyone to recurring -- Bob, Kim, Lisa, Lucinda.?

I suspect Kathy Hays and Eileen were already recurring. Maybe Don Hastings too.

Not sure about Liz.

FMB had the right idea: sideline the boring vets and just trot them out for the holidays, while concentrating on the sexy younger females with tit implants and younger male studs with abs and pec for days. I would've loved to have seen ATWT turn into a P&G version of OLTL, complete with Andrea Evans as nuFrannie.

Criminal that Lisa didn't get a happy ending.

All it would have taken was a one-way phone call from Grant Coleman telling Lisa he was on his way back to Oakdale; Fulton fould have sold it.

Grant Coleman?!?! Gurl, what you been smoking? Ain't no way Goutman was gonna dredge up a character not seen since Jimmy Carter was prez. Anyway, Fulton was an awful actress, and Lisa was unbearable. Her glorified extra role in the finale was more than enough. Gurl, bye.

Coleman popped up into the late 80s so...I guess he was there two presidents after Carter; I'm not saying bring him on, just give Lisa a happy ending in the show's finale; less juicy Janet and all those other newbies.

Fulton always fumbled her lines. Very annoying.

I wish they would've just written off the Hughes family. Geez were they boring and self-righteous, and damn the actors were homely. Anyhow, they had a nice long run, but it was time the 90s to put them out to pasture and replace them with a new family. My idea was to introduce a new family headed by a single mother named Bambi who's a stripper. She has three kids...one daughter named Dominique, also a stripper, another daughter named Muffin, a librarian at Oakdale Library with a kinky side at night, and a hot son named Brick who's a gay4pay escort and didn't own a shirt. Traci Lords as Bambi would've been great, and they could've gotten some Calvin Klein hair and underwear models to play the kids.

R292, did you used to write for "Rituals"?

r292 Look: the DDD has a Douche parodying him.

According to We Love Soaps today would have been Paul Rauch's 85th birthday - one day younger than Hubbard.

It's also Martha Byrnes' birthday. They sure do cluster, huh?

This one always gets me, at around 53:00.

MARY!

Doesn’t Hubbard have the dementia?

Merry Christmas to you all!

Who's the ancient queen in the checkerboard jacket at r299?

I have been looking for the episodes KZ and JC submitted that won them their Emmys. It was the same year.

Both gave searing performances. Billy was alone & had returned to drinking. His self-worth totally gone.

Reva's reel was her telling Josh he no longer completed her. It was some of the most subtle yet emotional work.

There's a ton of GL on Youtube but you need the episode dates.

This was one of the scenes where I thought, you know, if they had done this longer/more/sooner the new production thing could have survived.

This was all we ever wanted from our characters.

Merry Christmas to Everyone!

Even you, Cecile.....

A little Connie Ford Christmas.....

Kick her in the cunt, Connie!

Goodbye Stu and Jo.

That look on Mary's face at the end, so sad.

I am glad she did some episodes as Meta on GL, and sad that she was too sick to continue.

I don't remember Tim Loughrin from SFT but (a) he was so my type and (b) I swear there was a gay porn star that looked just like him.

Lots of hot guys on that show, actually.

Jo had the smelly snatch.

The last episode of EON was 34 years ago today.

THIRTY FOUR!

I can't believe it that R310.

I remember it well; one of the soap mags did a retrospect on the last episode ("the End of Night") maybe 14 or 15 years ago...THAT seemed like a long time ago.

I remember the finale of EDGE; it aired at 10:30 a.m. in New Hampshire so there was a day delay. I saw the finale of EDGE on Dec. 29, 1984.

The genre had 12 other serials on at the time. And, now, there are four. And outside of a fun run here and there, they're all mostly unwatchable.

Regarding Bev McKinsey. Can someone explain to me why she only took the job on GH in 1994 for the health insurance but then never worked again? What was that all about?

R312

She was on dialysis and too ill .

What R313 said....I knew she had kidney issues but I actually didn't know she was on dialysis.

She eventually got a transplant but I think it only worked for a short number of years before she died.

I'm not sure why she had kidney issues. But I think she may have had issues with proteins in the kidneys. I know someone mentioned it as far back as the end of her GL run, that her face would be swollen.

R314

Yes, her kidney issues started during GL. If you remember she started having an enlarged abdomen area. That wasn't weight gain it was ascites.

That doesn’t answer my question about Beverlee. Why did working for 3 days on GH provide her with health insurance for 13 years until she died?

r316 I believe you only have to work 2 or 3 days each year to maintain your SAG/AFTRA health insurance for the full year.

After she officially retired, her health insurance would have been protected by the retirement.

I don't know about the health insurance rules back then but for the last several years it's not tied to how many days you work.

IIRC You must earn $5000 per year to keep your benefits active.

[quote] What other actor had as low an IQ, [R227]? I don't know.

Certainly not an IQ at the level indicated by the use of the word "casted"

[quote] I don't know about the health insurance rules back then but for the last several years it's not tied to how many days you work. IIRC You must earn $5000 per year to keep your benefits active.

AFTRA had different requirments than SAG and 5000 might have been the required income to qualify back then, but the SAG AFTRA minimum incuome requirements are much higher now, in the 20 to 30 thousand range to qualify.

Performers over 65 who are vested get full health benefits regardless of income

Bev was only about 60 when she did her role on GH. She couldn’t have retired then and gotten full insurance benefits.

R315 I remember her appearance changing a fair amount somewhere after the time she did the scenes with Roger at the country club. They started to change how they dressed her.

Very sad. She always had this sort of veil of sadness about her, and it's sad to think after 20 years of work she suffered in pain for most of the rest of her life.

Whoever listed the GL scenes on the best scene of acting thread, you are the best!

[quote] I have been looking for the episodes KZ and JC submitted that won them their Emmys. It was the same year. Reva's reel was her telling Josh he no longer completed her. It was some of the most subtle yet emotional work.

R301 here you go

Too bad they just had them repeating their cycle at the end.

R323

OMG! I could kiss you for finding that Emmy reel.

It was just as powerful as I remember it. Gorgeous work by both Kim & Robert and a wonderful script. They don't write characters like them anymore. Josh/Reva were messy AF and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

You wouldn't have any clue about how I might find Jordan Clarke's Emmy scenes would you? Even an idea of their episode dates would help. I remember being blown away by those scenes & was so thrilled he won.

R325 I tried looking for the Jordan Clarke reel and can't find it. But thanks for the kiss!

Anyone remember the actress who played Liberty? I saw online that Goldie & Kurt's son proposed to her over Christmas.

Holidays in Aspen sure beats the Snyder Farm.

Wow, I hated that they brought Janet and Liberty into Oakdale, but the actress who portrayed Liberty was good.

I wish someone could find a GL episode from 1987. Unlikely though.

R329

There's tons of GL on Youtube from that era.

R329 which Guiding Light episode are you looking for?

R322

Thx that was me, not that that really ids me

I loved that show and the dynamics I found among the characters served as a substitute for what was and sadly is lacking in my own life

I have to agree with whoever said Eileen Fulton was a terrible actress who fluffed her lines constantly. But somehow she pulled it altogether during the John Dixon Malpractice storyline (the best storyline she ever had since her "young bitch" days). She richly deserved her Emmy nomination for that s/l. Of course, when that ended, she went back to being awful.

I don't think Eileen was nominated for Johnny Dixon's malpractice story; just in 1987 for her work in 1986, which was a great year for her.

When John was engaged to Lisa, Lucinda locked her (Lucinda) and John in her fur vault until he explained why he'd proposed; Liz did a Lisa Impersonation to drive her point home: "'Oh, Johnny Dixon! You killed my precious Eduardo and we were riding horses in Central Park!' THAT is what you're going to have to listen to John - day in, day out, if you marry that woman!"

Eileen plugged up the shitter. Tru dat.

R331 there's a number of them from the week or two **right** when Pam Long came back in late summer/fall 87 that I'd love to see again. There was a few intense episodes with Reva/Alan where she told him a story about eating garbage. It was very Pam.

I just remember the show had been a mess for a long while, and then, boom, in like two weeks it was all refocused.

They haven't ever been on YT to my knowledge. It skips to late fall 87.

R323

Thanks for the link. That person seems to be uploading long ago Emmy reels.

Kim Zimmer's very first Emmy reels were outstanding. The first reel with the tender combo of joy & melancholy between Sarah and Hawk as they prepare for the Cross Creek wedding. Then the second reel with its knock your socks off confrontation of the man who sexually abused her at 12.

God how I miss good soap like that. Great writing & acting that really moved you.

R337 I think that would have been for her second or third win, since the Cross Creek wedding was the year before she left.

Her first win was in '85, and while most people think it's because of the fountain scene, it was something else from that time frame that won it for her.

The actress who played Liberty was just on that TBS show with the girl from Arrested Development. I'm too lazy to look it up.

Why does Colleen Zenk keep getting dui’s?

[quote] Why does Colleen Zenk keep getting dui’s?

Speaking of Colleen I had no idea that her son committed suicide last April. This was the child she had during the 1990s that the show wrote into the storyline (Barbara child being Jennifer).

Very sad as Colleen daughter (who is married to Carson Daly) opened up about her brother suicide on "World Mental Health Day: to bring more attention to mental health

read below

Colleen has had a tremendous amount of loss in just the last few years, and just this week her best friend, an internationally known dancer she'd been friends with for many years, died of cancer. I can't even imagine what she's going through.

[quote] Colleen has had a tremendous amount of loss in just the last few years

Her husband cheats on her, she gets oral cancer, she gets divorced, her show is cancelled, her son commits suicide and now her best friend dies.

[quote]Her husband cheats on her, she gets oral cancer, she gets divorced, her show is cancelled, her son commits suicide and now her best friend dies.

Shame.

Don’t forget that Colleen cheated with Mark when she was married to someone else. Karma.........

R345 thank you.

All of Colleen’s dramas doesn’t excuse her getting 2 dui’s. Take an uber for christs sake.

R337, Jeanne Cooper was favored to win for her dual roles of Kay and Marge on Y&R in the 1990 Emmy race.

I was watching the clips and the scene with Cooper was very technical; lots of green screen stuff but back then you could tell, like, really tell.

Then I see Zimmer's Kim confronting the guy who felt her up, taking away her innocence; 'you played B-12...and I was 12!"

I thought oh, Zimmer has GOT this. and she won and said she'd be back and it took much longer than it should have; GL combated GH bringing back Luke and Laura in 1993 by hiring Marcy Walker as Tangerine Hill. No. Just....no.

They could have gone to Zimmer at that point and asked her back and she would have come.

She was born to play Reva Shayne Lewis.

B-12 on the juke box, btw;

R348

Zimmer's reels that year was everything you want a reel to be. It showcased so much.

The pre-wedding reel was full of heart, bits of humor & brimming with hope. The the second reel was a gut punch with her confronting her molester.

MARY! r350.

[quote] GL combated GH bringing back Luke and Laura in 1993 by hiring Marcy Walker as Tangerine Hill. No. Just....no.

Years later in an interview Marcy Walker said she was used by her then-good friend Jill Farren Phelps to save her job (they had previously worked together on Santa Barbara) - with Luke and Laura coming back on GH - Proctor and Gamble (and CBS) wanted to know what Phelps was going to do to compete - if she didn't anything to offer they would find someone who could.

That is when Jill Farren Phelps convinced Marcy Walker to move cross country and join Guiding Light, making all sorts of promises. This saving her job in the short term

She told TV Guide afterwards

TV Guide - After that whole Guiding Light mess, how could you possibly work for Jill Farren Phelps if she took over AMC? Do you feel...?

[She interrupts.] A sense of fear.

I was going to say, do you feel what happened at GL could happen here? Over there you were new; at AMC you're firmly established. You are one of the ones who drives this show. It's hard to imagine that it could happen again. Now, feel free to be very careful how you respond to this: Your no-character, no-storyline situation at GL could have changed in a heartbeat if JFP had wanted it to change. She could have very easily ordered that you be moved to the front burner. The whole thing seemed very personal. It was never going to be [front burner], and I knew that soon after I got there. I was a ticket. A tactic of negotiation. I was a game piece.

TV Guide - How so? So JFP could get A Martinez?

No, [so JFP could get] a new contract. "I'll bring this gun in and it'll change everything around."

TV Guide - I see. In other words, bringing in a superstar like you would help fix what was wrong with the show at the time.

But you know what? I'm not foolish to believe that there's only one person who does that -- everybody does it [in this business]. So I don't want to blame her for that, but I think that it was unfortunate that it was never remedied. When I heard that she might be coming here... I still have the greatest respect for her because I think she is one of the best, if not the best line producers I've ever worked with. In terms of a line producer capacity, she's brilliant.

TV Guide - Yeah, but you can damn well bet that if she came to this show, it wouldn't be as a line producer. She'd be the big cheese. The exec producer, baby!

I don't know even to this day what exactly the description of an executive producer is, but I know when I feel like somebody does it well.

TV Guide - Back to my earlier question, isn't the GL situation less likely to happen at AMC because of what you've established? You're really entrenched here -- not just for the last two years but historically.

Some people's tactic is that they can't work with what's on the canvas. So I can only hope that if things do change here and somebody [new] does come in, maybe, like you said, I have rooted myself so much that they can put me down a different path and I'll still be who I am. Maybe I won't be mutilated to the point where I would become a nothing. Liza is too strong to become a nothing. And it certainly would be very obvious if that started to happen. During these two years at AMC, I've been given the chance to do what I've wanted to do all along, to work. I don't have to be tap dancing out in front all by myself. I just want to do good work with talented people. But if that changed because of any shift that happened here [she chooses her words carefully]... I would just be traumatized. It would be the thing that would make me extremely sad and angry. It would be the thing that would drive me from this medium.

R352

What is a "line producer"?

I think a line producer has no say in story or direction of a show. They just produce what is written and carry out the headwriter and EP’s vision. They are the ones on the floor everyday dealing with the issues that come up while they are taping.

On certain shows in the early 80s, line producer was code for coke dealer.

Line producer is more a segment producer. Most EP's are not in the nuts and bolts of actual production, but the line producer is the leader on the technical side, both on the floor and in post-filming production.

[quote] It would be the thing that would make me extremely sad and angry. It would be the thing that would drive me from this medium.

I guess we know why Marcy left. AND had to find God!

Brian Frons drove Marcy away I think. The moment he took over ABC, her airtime was drastically reduced and she was finally let go. I thought they'd been buddies from her SB days.

R356

All the actors say that's what FV does at GH. He's on the floor & in the booth until 10pm every day. That along with doing the typical EP duties.

GH could benefit from less FV.

Thanks to the Youtuber who has been posting long forgotten Emmy reels. I've immersed myself in them. I haven't seen most since they originally aired.

#1 I'm blanking on the actress' name but the reel from the actress who played Maureen is stellar. She attacked those scenes like a motherfucking beast.

#2 The first Emmy win from Maura West is amazing. Two reels totaling 30 minutes. Nobody gets airtime like that & it was so needed. Gorgeous dialogue & acting. I love that she picked those 2 episodes. #1 is basically her pleading & promising intermixed with frustration. Reel #2 she sees she misread things & he wasn't returning home. She went from shock/embarrassment to Fuck You! I'm picking myself up & don't let the door hit you on your way out, asshole. So many beats in these 2 episodes

#3 I was shocked to see Dano's reels. I definitely wanted her to win that year but these are not the reels I thought she submitted. I thought she submitted the episode where Jenna confronts a drunk Felicia at the cabin and they brawl. I also thought she submitted the episode where a drunk Felicia tries to get Jenna from the cabin to the hospital after she goes into early labor. Those 2 episode blew my socks off more than these clips.

#4 I was also rooting for Ana Holbrook to win but it seems like these clips are missing big chunks from those 2 episodes.

Now THIS is fucking acting, Get that through your cunts!

Maura West deserved to win Best Soap Ruiner every year she spent at As the World Turns around Carly Tenney.

Kick ‘em in the cunt, you dyke, Connie!

Maura was great.

From Irna Phillips' Wikipedia entry:

Irna Phillips died on December 23, 1973, aged 72, from undisclosed causes. Harding Lemay wrote her obituary and he and his wife paid to have the words placed in the New York Times. Agnes Nixon learned of Phillips' death when she called her mentor to wish her well on Christmas Day. According to Nixon, Phillips had not wanted anyone to know that she had passed on.

I wonder who paid to have Lemay's obit in the NYT? They have never done a news one, but there's a paid death notice.

[quote]I wonder who paid to have Lemay's obit in the NYT?

His son Steven?

You're usually so nice to me, r364.

In time, I'll find a way to let "scungehole" go.

[quote] Thanks to the Youtuber who has been posting long forgotten Emmy reels.

That would be me, and you are very welcome

R360 just to answer some of your questions

[quote] I thought she submitted the episode where Jenna confronts a drunk Felicia at the cabin and they brawl. I also thought she submitted the episode where a drunk Felicia tries to get Jenna from the cabin to the hospital after she goes into early labor. Those 2 episode blew my socks off more than these clips.

She was unable to submit those episodes because they aired after the cut-off date for 1993 eligibility. She might have submitted them for 1994 (she won in 1993) - 1994, but she did submit the intervention episode - but still lost to Hillary B. Smith (One Life To Live)

[quote] I was also rooting for Ana Holbrook to win but it seems like these clips are missing big chunks from those 2 episodes

I could only find partial footage of the two episodes she submitted, so it was better than nothing.

R366 I don't think they were on speaking terms.

R367 I beg your pardon. I don't know what came over me.

I blame the Dreaming Death and the Infinity symbol.

I'm going to beat you bitches over the head with my leg!

I re-watched Felicia's alcohol story about 6 months ago & it is as fabulous as I remember. The gradual descent due to the grief/loss following Lucas' death made perfect sense.

We saw how her alcoholism spread out and affected her family & friends. How they eventually moved from supportive to angry to cutting ties with her. AW also didn't shy away from the ugliness of addiction. If Felicia had been herself she'd has took a bullet for her daughters or for Cass but in the ugliness of the disease she'd literally walk over them for her booze.

Compare that to the bullshit story of Alexis' alcoholism on GH. That was eye-rollingly laughable.

R373 Felicia alcohol story-line lasted about a year, which is why it was eligible for two Emmy cycles

Linda Dano was such a ham. I'm partial to the more low-key actresses who rarely got the recognition and awards.

R373, I've often heard it commented that for several stretches, Felicia and her coterie was the closest thing AW had to a tentpole family. Do you think that dynamic aided the alcoholism story? And on a side note, Nancy Lee Grahn herself is the child of an alcoholic. You have to wonder what was going through her head while doing the Alexis storyline.

Best P&G alcoholic bar none was Ed Bauer. They played that on and off for years.

R360, you must have read my mind about the first Maura West win. Best reel ever. Every emotion under the sun. Michael Park is wonderful, too, but Maura just hits it out of the park.

[quote] Michael Park is wonderful, too, but Maura just hits it out of the park.

Both actors submitted the same reel - Maura won, but Michael lost

I wish Maura had gone outside the park to find "it" and had never come back.

R372 LOL!

I just don't understand the Maura hate when we have Terri Conn and Julie Pinson right there for the picking!

And while we're at it, Marie Wilson......

We hated Maura and her fake baby voice/Janet Leigh shtick so much, r382, we weren't watching anymore when the rest got there. I did notice Terri Conn, though, and was annoyed by her, too. The others, I can't picture. I don't even know who they played. By the time Luke came out, I hadn't watched ATWT in a number of years.

Why did the P&G tend to cast such homely, unfuckable actors? Lisa Brown, Martha Byrne, HBS, Ellen Dolan, Larry Bryggman, Peter Simon, Ellen Parker, Larry Haines, Vicky Wyndham, Richard Bekins...the list goes on and on.

Go fuck yourself, DDD. Here's your dildo, you dildo.

Sorry, but soaps are and have always been low-IQ entertainment. If you watch them for the storylines or become attached to characters, then that says a lot about you. I watch soaps for eye candy.

R383

Is that the royal "we" because Maura has a large number of fans, especially from her Carly Tenney days.

And I don't know where you're getting a baby voice. She didn't speak in a baby voice on ATWT or GH.

I feel bad for Maura. She's so beautiful and has been paired over the years with some gorgeous men. And then she has to go home at the end of the day and look at that homely creature she married. Girl doesn't have it easy.

I can't believe P&G execs would say oh, okay to Jill hiring Marcy thinking that would save the GL.

Between Marcy, Marj, Justin, GL was turning into Santa Light...yes, Pam Long and Gail Kobe brought several Texas onto GL, but their stories worked.

Therein lies the difference.

There's a world of difference between casting Beverlee McKinsey on as Alan Spaulding's sister Alexandra, who was bent on destroying her brother, allying herself with his enemies Ross Marler and briefly Mike Bauer to make that happen.

Add in Alex's feud with India, the brilliant Mary Kay Adams, and her finding her long lost son Lujack, and you have story.

Tangie had no direction; what little direction she had kept changing.

This was a crucial time for GL and Jill being there for so long did big harm to the show.

Texas = Texas actors (Texans?)

I think they also wanted a big marquis name after Zimmer left. It's like they secured Marcy just for the sake of securing her, without mapping out any story for her.

that's why I loved the Megan era of GL; was it perfect? No. But she got away from all that dumb stuff Jill was doing.

I could have lived without Amish Reva and Ghost Reva, but the reunion on the Spaulding jet between Josh and Reva was fantastic.

McTavish was awful. Her only truly successful HW stint was her first go-around at AMC, and that was mostly due to Nixon still overseeing things. Everything else she touched went to shit real fast.

R389 exactly.

The first Pam Long era in particular was a lot of change, and a lot of the old GL shifted away at that time. But Alex, India, the four Musketeers, and more were great stories.

Tangie came on and I think her sole direction was a script direction of "Fall for Josh and replace Kim Zimmer." Robert Newman had just returned, but they'd lost Beth Ehlers - the only one, in my eyes, that had that same kind of phenomenal chemistry with him as Zimmer did - and he needed a partner.

I never minded Walker per se, but she had no connections, and when they did eventually reveal one to Roger and Blake, it seemed tepid and made up. Which it was.

No one ever mentions me here, but I'm so fucking fabulous I survived almost every writing and producing regime!

You were my favorite, Maeve.

Don't forget me!

Almost forgot, but today marks the 36th anniversary of Felicia Gallant on Another World.

Casting Marcy Walker was all about the GET. A way to counter program against Luke and Laura's return to GH.

Figuring out a character for Marcy to play was of secondary importance. Perhaps if the show had been in better shape when Marcy arrived in fall 1993, they could have had the time to figure out what to do with Tangie Hill. As it was, the show's quality was eroding quickly and the writers were trying to keep the show above water. I don't think I've ever seen a show take such a fast nosedive as I did GL in 1994.

It started with losing Bev and Kimberley Simms in '92, continued when Ellen Parker and Beth Ehlers left in '93, and just pancaked when Buzz, Lucy and Tangie started to eat the show.

Yes, losing McFlimsy with her nails on chalkboard voice and coma-inducing Parker were huge losses. Team JFP all the way with those two losers.

Ellen Parker - the poor ugly thing. Even the focus groups who watched her wanted her gone. She was so boring.

Often overlooked is that JFP casting Marcy Walker to be Robert Newman's love interest wasn't a shot in the dark. The pair had already starred together on Santa Barbara in 1986 and had decent chemistry. Newman played Kirk Cranston who was married to Eden Capwell (Marcy's character).

Their chemistry was nothing like the magic of Walker's pairing with A Martinez as super couple Eden and Cruz. But it was decent chemistry. Kirk was always intended as a foil for the Eden-Cruz romance however.

Joseph Bottoms is better remembered for playing Kirk Cranston since he played the role longer and was brought back several times in later years to menace Eden. Robert Newman assumed the role for about two months in 1986 during the character's first run, before they sent Kirk to prison.

GL did just fine after Zimmer, Aleksander, Newman, OLeary left around 90/91. The ratings went UP. Folks like Zas,Garrett, Kinkead, Simon and Bev got great storylines. Melina K. stepped out as a young heroine.

R404 Yes - it was very much the last golden age for the show. It was the height of fantastic for about 18 months.

And then.....

Of course, Vanessa was so regal - just like Original Recipe Donna, of course.

And Anna Banana played them both!

Found this as I looked for a good Vanessa photo.

Vanessa is now a published poet!

I always heard that Anna Banana and Geri Court bumped pussies along the way. Anna Banana experimented. Didn’t Anne Heche say that Anna Babana taught her about dildos?

O M F G

I had no idea R407

[quote] O M F G - I had no idea

Maeve Kinkead son is a writer and he is cute!

Maeve's parents both wrote for The New Yorker . She comes from heady stuff. She, Jerry ver Dorn and William Roerick were all English graduates so I can imagine them being around someone crass like Zimmer made them see red.

It would certainly add an interesting subtext, the idea of character and actress being looked down on. Incidentally, did Maeve and Lisa Brown think much of each other?

I don't think Maeve looked down on Zimmer. There's a clip somewhere of Zimmer winning the Emmy one year. When they panned to Maeve, she was smiling and looked sincerely happy for her.

R405, and then it all went to hell... I'd turn into GL in late 1993 and 1994 and didn't get it at all.

Nothing good came out of that era and the show was unwatchable until Zimmer returned in 95 and Grant in 96.

go to 4:49, it's where Alexandra officially meets Vanessa and then right after Reva.

The contrast is great; it's what soaps used to have; you knew who liked who. I can't stand all these insta-friends characters become after being enemies for years.

I can't believe I'm reading about Maeve becoming a poet on DL as I still browse regularly SOD and CBS SID.

So often I'll read an article on an ex daytimer who really has little to say, but Maeve's a published author. I'd read an article about that.

R406

Holy Shit! That poem some fan wrote about Vanessa Chamberlain is the living embodiment of dialing a phone with a pencil!!!

Henry Chamberlain was queer.

[quote] I can't believe I'm reading about Maeve becoming a poet on DL as I still browse regularly SOD and CBS SID.

When she accepted her Daytime Emmy in 1992, part of her acceptance speech was done in the form of a poem

here is her Daytime Emmy Reel (sorry for the shitty quality for her acceptance speech) with her win at the top

The Amazon review of Maeve's book is by a friend of hers. He/She said Maeve's brother killed himself by shooting himself in the head 2 years ago. The book is a result of that.

There sure have been quite a few siblings, children of soap stars who killed themselves. Not to mention several soap stars even killed themselves.

You just know that M breaks out Maeve's acceptance speech and Emmy reel when she's down and needs a hearty laugh.

Didn’t Maeve survive the titty cancer?

Piggybacking on R420's post, I like to imagine there are at least a couple lasting friendships or at least coping relationships among soap stars. Yes, it's a job, but think about people who've were on a show for decades at a time. For some reason, I feel like this is more common among the NYC actors.

R423

I can attest that Linda D. and Steven S. have remained extremely close since AW ended.

Is Cass a Republican, too, r424?

Linda Dani is the guest on this week's Dishin' with Digest podcast. FYI

^Nobody, and I mean literally NOBODY, gives a flying fuck!

Who cares about plastic surgery laced Dano? She must be pushing 80 by now. Is she going to yammer on about her beloved Frank? lol

Dano is all charisma and little talent. She was the luckiest bitch in daytime. Milked that ridiculous Felicia character for years and years and then got a sweet-ass deal from ABC thanks to being a FOJ that was a huge bust. And then there was that awful cable talk show she hosted.

Here is the scene from Guiding Light that won Maeve Kinkead the Emmy back in 1992

Really bad soap opera acting at r430. Seriously cringeworthy.

Well Maeve is no Meryl.

did someone JUST publish that YouTube video this morning?

[quote] did someone JUST publish that YouTube video this morning?

Yeah me, the one that is doing the Emmy Reels from past soap years

Thanks, r434. I just watched Maura's and Martha's reels. I loved those ladies.

And now I finally know where I know the actor who plays the sheriff on Stranger Things!

Here's the Linda Dano podcast with Stephanie Sloane......who if that old Jossip thread had it right, was really hot to bone Tom Eplin many years ago.....

Say, do you want to see Alex Spaulding tenderly saying goodbye to Corny Collins? And also letting out a screech you have to hear to believe?

Maeve was up against Darlene Conley, Maureen Garrett, Lynn Herring, and Linda Dano that year.

Lynn either nails it for me or she doesn't; I've seen her given really nice speeches at the nurses' ball, but that 'ooh! ooohhh! Ohhhh Scotty!" thing she doesn't doesn't always fly.

Dano, nice, NICE lady, but she represents to me a post Lemay era of AW that never really took off. She was good in the alcohol storyline.

Conley, another sweetheart, but she had to have just the right reel to win.

Big Garrett fan. I'd have given her the Emmy more than once. She was great in the post-Maureen Bauer death stuff.

What else was on Maeve's reel? She'd been nominated a few times in the past; this was her turn.

Whose brilliant idea was it to marginalize the Bauers starting around 1983? Pam Long? Gail Kobe? They still had a presence, but no longer felt like a core, cohesive family unit.

R437 I love Bev, but boy, all that was pretty dreadful. They tried valiantly to breathe life into that whole Simon is a Spaulding thing, but he only ever had chemistry with India.

That was also the time in GL history where the writers changed about every 4-6 months and so the stories kept changing.

[quote] Big Garrett fan. I'd have given her the Emmy more than once. She was great in the post-Maureen Bauer death stuff.

I had to refresh my memory and was pleased she was nominated in 91, 92 and 94. No wins, though.

R440, it's awful telling that Simon was on and off the canvas in a year.

Holly (Maureen Garrett) catches Ross and her daughter Blake in bed together

R437, why do you call Simon "Corny Collins"?

I am a big Bev fan but I give you that was on helluva screech

GETTT OUTTTT OHHHH BRAAANNNDON!

FYI

The actor who played Simon married the actress who played Josie (Rebecca Staub)

She went on to star in Port Charles. She's been the live in partner of GH's WdV for over 10 years

R436

The Jossip thread also said he gave her Herpes.

The actor who played Simon played Corny Collins in the original (non-musical) Hairspray.

Posted this in the GH and YR threads too, sorry to cross post if you read them all.

Emme Rylan who played Lizzie on GH is raising money for her sister who's fighting cancer.....fyi

I loathed Simon.

That was such a horrible era of GL. Sampson Girl, Infinity, etc.

Also the Paul Valere murder mystery happened during that era, if I'm not correct. I think that was all Sheri Anderson as HW.

Ellen Parker (Maureen - Guiding Light) and Robert Newman (Josh Guiding Light) on a podcast about Guiding Light

Did Ellen talk about how she was so boring that a focus group said that they wouldn’t miss Maureen? That lead to JFP killing her off.

Can some summarize the podcast? Just the sound of Ellen's voice puts me to sleep.

Were they asked about Grant Aleksander's thick, flaccid dong, that would hang down and swing from his left thigh to his right?

If Jerry verDorn gets any fatter...........my lord.

GL's Liz Keifer in a video that's a few months old, about voting for climate issues.

It may have been someone at GL organizing those videos, because Yvonna Kopacz (ex-Mel) also did one.

This was a great opening from Another World

Bridget Reardon was underappreciated. She was a breath of fresh air, for sure.

Bridget looked like a dyke. Is Melissa what’s her name of the lesbian persuasion?

I don't think so. She was supposed to be a slightly more blue collar version of cousin Nola.

Her scenes with Ellen Parker were coma inducing. Both actresses were homely and boring. Now Shannon Tweed as Maureen and Yasmeen Bleeth as Bridget would've made for some sexy and exciting scenes.

Thanks R458. I hated almost everything about the JFP years, but that into wasn't one of them. And I loved the Carl vs. Grant feud.

JFP made the right choices in killing off Maureen and Frankie. They tested poorly with focus groups. I wish that Frankie’s death had been a little more violent. Its ancient history now though.

David Canary's daughter wrote a gorgeous article about him in the current Daily News.

He had dementia due to CTE (like the pro-football players). He developed it due to being a high school & college player.

He was scouted for the NFL but chose to go to NYC and enter acting.

The description of his last 7 years sounded awful.

r465 Thanks for alerting us to the op-ed by Canary's daughter.

In the future, please remember to provide the link to stories. Here's the link to the one you mentioned.

Was David Canary ever a Magnificent Midwestern Town denizen?

Yes, R467, he was the (oft-maligned) 1980s recast of Steve Frame.

Ahhh...thank you, r468. I did not begin to watch soaps until 1988. Steve Frame was but a memory, mostly in Sharlene and Jason's minds.

Depending on what mind Sharlene was in.

If she unpinned her hair and started shaking her head........gurl!

This was pre-Sharly, r470.

Canary was BRILLIANT as 'Far Wind' the terrorist/cult leader who took over Hope Memorial on The Doctors. Those eps will probably be happening soon on RETRO TV.

Felicia and Sharlene fight on Another World

OMG, the dialogue and acting at r473 are atrocious. Who wrote that pile of shit?

Dano looks like Cass in drag there.

This was that dreadful story where Felicia was after John and.....Sharlene was fucking Michael? Whaaaat? This is when I just couldn't watch any more. Phelps had really killed the vibe.

R475 yet it enabled Anna Holbrook to win an Emmy

After Phelps left her replacement (Charlotte Savitz) and new head-writer Margaret DePriest killed the Felicia/John/Sharlene/Michael quadrangle - killing off Michael, sending Sharlene out of town (firing Anna Holbrook for "lack of storyline!") dropping John to recurring (the actor decided to leave rather than accept recurring) and throwing Felicia in a new romance with a mobster who was a dead-ringer for Lucas.

Not surprisingly ratings that previously went up, plummeted.

I could never accept Felicia going after John, or John responding.

Linda Dano always looked like a drag queen.

Anna Holbrook ate Linda Dano alive in that clip.

That's because Holbrook is an actress and Dano is a personality.

How stupid is dumbass Serial Scholar? He’s so friggin dumb, especially when it comes to soaps.

Donna was unrecognizable at the end, too, and that's a fate too sad to contemplate. I usually just ignore its existence.

Philece Sampler was Donna to me. Not that other actress who pretended to be Donna.

OMG!

Darling, we love both Donnas here.

Bug eyed Rachel was really a homely woman.

Ignore Spicen. Literally.

Shit up mental Serial nutcase. You are so dumb. Why you ever called yourself a scholar is laughable. You should read our twitter group about you. lololololol We laugh at your stupidity. Asshole.

If you're talking to me, r488, I'm not Serial, Scholar, or even Cereal.

"Beautiful Rachel"

What would Claire Labine have done with either ATWT or AW, if she had been hired in 1996 to head write one of those shows after she left GH?

Introduce mafiosi, r491.

Well, she wouldn't have done anything Stern & Black did. It's hard to remember where everyone was at that point. Lily was just coming back from Malta with Damian. The Mac has Alzheimers story had begun. All the Snyders were off the canvas, except for replacement Caleb and Julie. Frannie was gone. Paul, Andy, Lien, and Duke had all played out. The teens were Nikki, Dani, and Jeremy. Mike, Carly, and the real Rosanna were in heavy rotation. There were lots of pieces still in place.

R439, Kobe addressed this in Schemering's GL 50th anniversary book, which is a fantastic love letter to the show.

I think the biggest blow was Charita dying and that the show had no control over.

The actors playing Hope, Mike and Hillary....different story. All three seemed to be a big loss for different reasons.

Hope's the one I would have kept the most; Alan's love for her provided a balance to all this dastardly deeds. Hillary was a nurse and a lot of action took place at Cedars; reason alone enough to keep her. Ross was a lawyer too so Mike was most expandable and I found the actor's portrayal of the character kind of pompous.

R445, It's Staab and she played Jessie

There was one era that Kathy Hays refers to as 'when we (the characters) all hated each other'

Anytime Frannie was mentioned and Kim adds in Sabrina it was an ad lib.

Don Stewart had a big ego. He kept his marriage and child secret for years to promote his sex symbol image...yet he had something. Same with Mart Hulswit. They were wonderful with Charita and when that ended so did the Bauers. Michael O'Leary's Rick Bauer was a goofball and second banana to Grant Aleksander - that should never have happened. Aleksander resembled Hulswit more than Tom O'Rourke.

good points, R497; I think Grant was born to play Phillip Spaulding, tho.

people talk about the Bauers being phased out, but there was still Ed and Maureen and Rick and then Michelle was conceived so they weren't totally gone.

I loved the Marland era and if anyone had told me I'd come to love the Kobe/Long era in a different way I'd say they were nuts. it's not like today; take the last 7 regimes at Y&R: Latham, Arena Bell, Griffith, Pratt, Jelly, Sussman, Young....none of them were successful, really.

And now we have Griffith again; his last stint at DAYS not a success.

I liked Michael O'Leary as Rick. He was really cute when he was younger and had an endearing goofy quality about him. He was actually more my type than the guy you anointed as a demigod, Grant Aleksander.

[quote]take the last 7 regimes at Y&R: Latham, Arena Bell, Griffith, Pratt, Jelly, Sussman, Young....none of them were successful, really.

If they had left LML in place, I would not have stopped watching. She was the first person to make the show interesting. The scriptwriting was generally excellent. People were allowed to talk like people instead of characters in a Bill Bell soap opera. And I loved the storytelling. I could have stuck with the Bardwell-Abbotts and Jewish Brad forever and all time. The only thing I hated was killing John Abbott. It made no fucking sense at all.

I saw Cowbell in an ION TV rerun the other night. The good old days memories came flooding back. And all the show has gotten since firing LML is incrementally worse with each regime. I understand someone decided Jack was no longer an Abbott.

R500 The story was that Jack thought he was not, but after a long search for his father, he learned that Ashley made it all up, to get back at him for changing the Jabot bylaws so that only a blood Abbott could be CEO.

I know.....

r501 is just making that up for attention. She's an attention whore.

r491 I would like to think that Claire Labine could have done great things with AW if she had taken over as HW in 1996. However, she still had a year left on her contract with ABC when she left GH in early 1996. That's why she ended up as HW of OLTL for a year in 1997-98 -- to finish out her contract.

I had super high hopes for GL when Claire took over as HW in GL in 2001. However, her tenure was lackluster at best. Her stories ranged from average to WTF (Reva in a shipping container with a bunch of illegal immigrants?!?!?) The P&G brass wasn't really supporting her either -- remember she was fired and then rehired when they couldn't find anyone better.

By 1996, NBC wanted to make AW more compatible with Days, which was going super gothic at that point and soaring in the ratings. If not that, then NBC wanted rid of AW. If Claire had been hired, they would likely have sabotaged her in various ways. So, I suspect Claire's time at AW would have been as mundane as her time at GL. Sad but true.

As sacrilegious as it may be to say so, I think Claire and Pam Long were very similar - if they had a good EP they turned out great work.

Claire worked great with her original co-creator and with Wendy Riche.

Pam worked great at GL with Gail Kobe and then with Robert Calhoun.

But Claire struggled at GL with Paul Rauch, who was just her polar opposite in storytelling styles. She didn't fare much better at OLTL. And Pam didn't do well with Paul or with whoever was running OLTL at the time she wrote it.

Not to say either of them weren't talented, but sometimes it takes the right partner to gently guide the good stuff and pitch the bad.

I think that's true, R504, but I also believe Pam and Claire's later work was plagued by increasing levels of network interference. They couldn't follow their own vision, in collaboration with their EPs -- they had to implement idiotic directives from network suits.

R505 I agree to some level.

Though some of the terrible things about Claire's GL was her doing - that weird Mae character, for example.

R506 remember Perdita??

I think Claire Labine was overrated. Her best work, early RH, was co-written by Paul Avila Meyer. I tend to think Meyer was the stronger writer. Her solo work on that show in its final years was dreadful, but I don't know how much of that was network interference.

Claire created the cigarette girl on GL. Oye. My vapors.

Was DougLASS Watson was a huge queen?

R507 No....do I want to be reminded?

I remember some horrid character named Catalina.

Ellen Parker was coma-inducing. Those focus groups were on the money. In fact, all the Bauers were boring and I worship at the altar of whichever regime marginalized them into glorified extras.

I've seen Liz Hubbard as Lucinda and Althea, but I must say, I'd never seen her on OLTL.

r513 Darling, thank you.

Liz has the oldtimers disease now so I’ll give her a pass. But she wasn’t all that.

Liz was dearly overrated. I love Anna Banana Stuart's comment (paraphrased) about Liz in her we love soaps interview: "Elizabeth Hubbard built her whole acting style around using cue cards."

Anna Banana dabbled in the lez/lez stuff with Geri.

Perdita was that stupid British spy who had been a lover of Mark Dobbie's character whose name I can't recall. She called Reva 'bucolic' which I loved. You could tell Zimmer wasn't having any of her.

The best thing to come from Claire Labine's tenure as HW was Ricky Paull Goldin's Gus.

Am I the only one who adored the Santos family and all the juicy San Cristobel material? The Bauers and Spauldings bored me to tears. The Santoses were sexy and dangerous, which is just what Springfield needed at the time.

I agree with r504. A good writer-producer partnership is essential. When they are in sync, the show can soar, but when they don't mesh, a show can stink.

Michael Malone's OLTL was highly praised in the early 90s thanks in large part to Linda Gotlieb being EP and being willing to fight the network to tell the stories they wanted to tell. However, Malone's 2003--2004 stint as HW at OLTL was lackluster (remember the Santi family taking over the show for a few months). Frank Valetini was EP by that point and he woudln't stand up to the network like Gotlieb would.

As for the Pam Long tenure as HW of OLTL, JFP was the EP during that period. JFP has never worked particularly well with other woman (there are few women in the Friends of Jill society). Interestingly, Pam's tenure as HW of Santa Barbara in 1992 was under Paul Rauch, who also often had problems working with women as equals.

As for Claire Labine as HW of OLTL for a year in 1997-98, her inital EP was Maxine Levinson, followed by JFP.

R521

By 2003 the days of standing up to the networks had passed.

The networks had a vice grip on Daytime especially ABC.

JFP adored working with McTavish. I remember her saying when she brought her to OLTL that Megan knows how to reel in the demos.

520 you are the ONLY one. Horrible, horrible. Joie Lenz terrible as slut Michelle.

Stop talking to the Drew Dixon Douche, r524. He adores, craves, is addicted to white trash.

The DDD would probably want to cast Madonna as Bert Bauer.

Shannon Tweed as Maureen Bauer

Dennis Cole as Ed Bauer

Were Anthony Herrera and Ben Hendrickson of the homosexual persuasion?

Herrera no. Hendrickson yes.

Please tell me about the HBS/CZP feud. It must've been juicy. Was that the most infamous P&G actors feud? I've heard that Judi Evans hated Grant Aleksander, which is why they paired her with Irizarry. I've also heard that Mary Stuart didn't like Maeve McGuire very much, as she thought the show was positioning McGuire into the central matriarch role. Supposedly no one liked Donald May. Who else?

Was CZ an alcoholic back then? As of now, she has 2 DUI’s.

R530

All soaps have had their feuds.

HBS and CZP were partly a case of life imitating art. Margo and Barbara were at odds because Margo and Tom were on the rocks and Barbara was newly in "bitch" mode and going after Tom.

CZP had just gotten married and had a baby, but she and Mark Pinter fell in love and got together, and apparently HBS, who's a Republican and good Christian lady, really started to taunt Colleen about that. At some point, they came to blows on set.

ATWT was not a super homey set. Both HBS and CZP were generally well liked, although Helen Wagner just did NOT like Colleen for some reason. Colleen and Mark were close friends with Marland so they had his support. The worst of the feud passed when HBS took a break for maternity leave, but those two are NOT even remotely friends now.

Ellen Dolan and Colleen got along way better. HBS, on the other hand, stirred up shit at OLTL. I tend to be Team Colleen as a result - because I know what kind of fuckery she did at OLTL with her homie Cat Hickland, who is a mental case all by herself.

Definitely team HBS here. Prolly 95% of the cast hated CZ, especially was she was cheating on her husband in plain sight. No wonder dear Helen Wagner wasn’t having any of it.

Terri Conn cheating on her husband with Austin Peck also caused problems especially with Michael Park. Park was best friends with Conn's husband so he was very angry at Terri & Austin. This was a problem because their storylines were so intertwined.

Same thing happened on GL when a married Frank Grillo took up with Wendy Moniz. It was particularly because he walked out on his wife mere months after having their kid.

Even though these relationships started less than pretty they have lasted especially Grillo/Moniz. They've been together 20+ years.

HBS and CZP may have hated each other in real life, but it was wonderful for the show, because their scenes were much-see TV.

I want the real dilly about what HBS was up to behind the scenes of OLTL!

Courtney Sherman and Peter Simon dumping their spouses in the mid 70's on SFT was the blueprint for other cheating soap couples.

"and apparently HBS, who's a Republican and good Christian lady"

Link, please. Never before heard she's either of these things. Are you confusing her with the very Catholic and very pro-life Margaret Colin?

R539 No. HBS is married to a very Republican New Englander. She may be somewhat socially moderate and isn't like Margaret Colin, but she does have a bit of that New England propriety kind of Christian lady about her. Or did, anyway, at that time. I think just like what someone said upthread about re: Michael Park and Terri Conn, there were personal feelings that came up when the marriages broke apart and Mark/CZ got together. I think people on set had gotten to know CZ's husband.

R537 Others know more BTS stuff than me, but HBS and Hickland were shitstirrers and gossips, and pitted people on set against one another (something HBS also did at ATWT). And I know there's some really weird shit out there about Hickland. HBS befriended her and later Crystal Chappell, another actress who's been a shit stirrer behind the scenes.

ALL very fah-fah-fah-Bunny Bixler types here.

[quote] HBS is married to a very Republican New Englander. She may be somewhat socially moderate and isn't like Margaret Colin, but she does have a bit of that New England propriety kind of Christian lady about her.

HBS is from Boston, Massachusetts. That is hardly a Republican stomping ground.

I'm ancient enough to remember HBS as Kit on The Doctors during that show's later years. She was so plain Jane, I was amazed that she would go on to be a daytime star.

R542

[quote] is married to a very Republican New Englander.

one emphasizes

[quote] is married

not

[quote] is

[quote] I'm ancient enough to remember HBS as Kit on The Doctors during that show's later years

The Doctors WAS NOT a P&G show, but rather Colgate-Palmolive

Someone seems to be confusing WASPs with "Christians." Episcopalians are not fundies, you know. Many "party" heavily and tend not to give a shit about other people's extramarital affairs. Hell, they don't even give a shit about their OWN extramarital affairs.

Helen Wagner seemed like a cold, distant, passive aggressive bitch, which she infused in Nancy. Nancy was never really a warm, maternal presence. If she didn't like CZP, then I'm team CZP all the way.

HSB character Margo had a miscarriage on the show because Eileen Fulton contract said she could never be a grandmother on-screen. She was still convinced at age 60 she could play the sexy vixen steaming up the sheets in daytime. If Lucinda could take on a bevy of male lovers at that age, why not Lisa?

That’s not true, r549. Fulton said she had that in her contract in the 70s but it wasn’t included in her contracts in the. 89s, after she returned to the role

R549 True. I remember that story and that people really thought Eileen was the reason for it.

It did seem so sad when Margo lost that baby inside of McKechnie castle. Back when Tom was played by Gregg Marx (((sigh))).

Thanks again to the poster who's been uploading the Emmy reels to Youtube.

Gina Tognoni is a fucking Goddess!!

I totally forgot the storyline of Dinah having the traumatic brain injury.

Does anyone remember what caused that?

[quote] when Margo lost that baby inside of McKechnie castle.

Which was also the same night this happened (on screen)

Was Colleen drunk back then?

[quote] Thanks again to the poster who's been uploading the Emmy reels to Youtube.

That is me, and you are welcome/

[quote] Fulton said she had that in her contract in the 70s but it wasn’t included in her contracts in the. 89s, after she returned to the role

Sure

Is Richard Bekins gay?

It is believed to be so, r556.

Eileen on The Clause.

Eileen used to plug up the toilet at the studio. What did she do in there? lol

I love Liz and never noticed cue card reading on ATWT.

But the OLTL clip I posted at R513.....well, I can see what Anna meant.

I ate Anna Stuart’s cunt.

Liz's cue card reading on The Doctors was notorious. Anna Stuart elaborated that Liz used to do this thing where she'd toss her hair to the side to try and make it not apparent that she was reading the cards. She perfected it. At least she didn't stumble through her lines like James Pritchett and Carolee Campbell. They were good actors, but damn if they ever got out a line on that show without screwing it up.

"Oh look, Morticia Addams...." LOL

Why on earth were they reading cue cards instead of memorizing their lines? Back then they taped 1 episode a day. Now they tape 3 episodes a day & they aren't always in order.

Were they just lazy?

When you mention Morticia Addams in a soap thread, all I can think of is the divine Carolyn Jones on Capitol.

When cue cards and soaps are mentioned together, I think of Mommie Dearest.

"Just give me a drink and raise the goddamned cue cards!"

Shut up, Serial moron asshole.

R565

My God! Constance Towers has hardly changed from that pic.

I desperately miss her a Helena Cassadine.

Not to take this into a GH space (since there is already a GH thread) but I will say this: as much as I liked her, I thought after the third or fourth time they killed her off it was ludicrous for her to come back.

Every show has been guilty of that. They brought James back a few too many times on ATWT. Making him have a son with Lucinda was just dumb (especially when said son was written out not long after his introduction).

R569 You must've missed the one ATWT episode where it was revealed that David was NOT the son of Lucinda and James. I did too.....there was work going on in my apt. building that day so the power was shut off and my VCR was flashing "00:00" when I got home. It was discussed the next week or so (that he wasn't their son), but no one ever said how that was proved or how they found out. Then it was never mentioned again. Talk about a dropped storyline!

They drop storylines?

R570 I did miss that. It was dumb no matter what. So much effort for zilch.

David Allen Stenbeck/Reid Hamilton WAS James' son. He just wasn't Lucinda's son.

When the character was played by Danny Markel, it worked. Because Markel was that good. Killing him off and then resurrecting him as Keith Coularis destroyed any willingness the audience had to go along with the dumb revised history. And pairing him with Molly, another dumb retroactive history insert, didn't help things at all.

In real life, is CZ more like originalsweetBarbara, or bitchBarbara?

CZ couldn't even come to close to me in the B Department.

Oh this bitch.

Mary Stuart must've gotten her depends in a twist when the McClearys took over the show. I can just imagine how much she loathed Maeve McGuire.

If you go to this documentary about directing ATWT - you will see very clearly Liz Hubbard IS NOT using cue cards during the filming of her scenes

Go 17 minutes into video

Liz used cue cards on The Doctors. Most of the actors did. Some were better than others at disguising it. I love Carolee Campbell on that show, but my god, her head was constantly looking at the cards. I don't think cue cards were used on ATWT by the time Goutman arrived.

Liz always fumbled over her lines. It was annoying.

R574, I can tell you from personal experience she is more sweet.

She was certainly smart enough to embrace the direction Doug Marland gave Barbara; under Doug, Babs got tired of being a victim, became a bitch, and then, through the love of a good man, Hal Munson, redeemed.

Liz wasn't as bad as Eileen Fulton. Did Eileen ever get through a line without screwing it up?

on the subject of Liz's ad libs, I'm sure they drove the actors NUTS.

I noticed them at the time, but upon seeing shows again on youtube they were fairly frequent.

I am pretty sure Renee Props, solid as Ellie, threw one back at her at the end of this scene that starts at 38:56.

Check it out; Hubbard seems amused at the end.

Damn, I miss this show, especially Doug's ATWT.

Liz Hubbards ad-libs got some of the under-five's in trouble. Occasionally Liz would throw out a zinger, but the under-five player couldn't respond, because if they did (and go over their five lines) the show would be forced to pay that under-five the standard fee for a day player. Which is alot more than an under-five.

So these under-five's would wind up just staring at Liz, while she threw out all these UN-scripted ab-libs, and being unable to respond.

Good god, Anne Sward was awful. It's like she was channeling Connie Ford.

R583

Aw how I loved me some Jennifer Ashe. I wonder if ATWT reached out to her and she turned them down thus forcing the terrible Marie Wilson version on us.

Marie Wilson was never Meg to me.

[quote] Marie Wilson was never Meg to me.

They should of cast her as Ellie (and resurrect that character) instead of Meg

Ashe wasn't considered sexy, and in fact was baby dykey, so I doubt anyone was interested in her coming back.

Oh, please, R588... Ashe had PLENTY of sex appeal. It's not her fault they suddenly chopped her hair into one of those awful early-Nineties cuts, dressed her in hideous sweaters and mom jeans, and married her character off to a sex offender with zero future on the show. Team Ashe forever.

I had forgotten how unbelievably sexy Melanie Smith was as Emily. And Burke Moses as Sean Baxter! Any shirtless scenes?

I watched Tom and Margo’s 1983 wedding on You Tube. Colin and Deas had good chemistry but what a stupid idea for a wedding.

You’ll see Helen and Don in a cameo, along with Elaine Princi as Bob’s wife and fake Lisa.

I just watched that Ellie and Lucinda scene. On the one hand, the ad lib works for both realism and as a lead-in to the phone call. On the other hand, you could easily cut it (and the phone call) and give the scene more of a button. Which do we prefer, Midwestern Towns lovers?

For when this thread expires in a few posts

Oh, I just watched two old episodes of ATWT, right after Margo pulled the plug on Casey, in June, 1990. Julie's flock of followers was the most interesting part of the second episode. She was a total dick magnet: Caleb, Andy, Tonio, Linc.

When did Holden fuck Aaron into her?

^ In r594, the episodes I watched were dated 6-19-90 and 6-20-90. ^

Here's the 6-20-90 episode:

Alexandra Spaulding (Marj Dusay) Crushes Annie Dutton Like A Bug

My favorite part of these threads is learning just how evil Mary Stuart was. She sounds worse than DL's Julie character.

Mary was evil?

Well, ain't that a kick in the cunt!

ONCE AGAIN: HERE is the link to the next thread - Part 6