From Eternity to Eterna Part II

When Slee won the Emmy the year EVERYBODY thought Jessica Tuck would - Slee didn't even mention Tuck in her acceptance speech. Very telling.

Jessica should have won but she didn’t submit any of her dying material. Megan was a great character and I loved her acting. Opposite Andrew, Viki, Max,Marco, Jake...her sendoff was one of the best in soap history!!!! Why didn’t Slezak thank her in her speech? Was there BTS drama?

Why in later years did Natalie dominate this show? They tried so hard to make her a thing but the character was all over the place. Liked her best as a schemer not the damsel in distress. And for me none of her pairings worked...closest was Jared and her dynamic with Al.

So here is Erika Slezak Emmy reel - the submission she submitted to BEAT Jessica Tuck in 1992

Slee didn't like all the attention Tuck got while on the show. The fans and soap press took to her immediately and Megan. became a big character with lots of airtime. One article that appeared in USA Today noted that she nearly eclipsed Slee.

When Tuck announced she was leaving the show, Slee was happy about that. Then she had to hear the predictions that Tuck would make it big in Hollywood, which irritated her. It didn't happen for Tuck, but she did get a good amount of work over the years.

R3 I never understood the Natalie obsession either. Melissa Archer was horrible. I always laughed during her crying scenes. The Natalie reveal was awful. MA's acting choices in it was just ... odd. Her smiling and crazy eyes just threw the whole thing off.

True ABC Daytime fans acknowledge only ONE Natalie.

Sleestack's smug grin and insincere gratitude every time she won makes my blood boil.

They put the Life in the Live:

That shot of Andrea Evans at r9... leaves you in no doubt that this is the number 1 star of OLTL and always will be.

[quote Why in later years did Natalie dominate this show?

She was cheap and bland ergo easy to write for.

Get out of here crazy nutcase Serial Psycho! Be gone.

Slezak and Jessica Tuck were very fond of each other, and speak very highly of each other even years later. Some of you loons need to get better baiting material.

I can never find any clips of the 1992 Lead Actress win. I think Thom Christopher also won that year.

[quote] Slezak and Jessica Tuck were very fond of each other, and speak very highly of each other even years later. Some of you loons need to get better baiting material.

That sow and her fat son were a pain in my ass!

Andy T says hello

Even with the 80s theme, this opening looks like shit.

R17 I don't know how they got the OLTL opening so wrong, because the AMC one was actually nice.

It was the best they could do with the $400 they had, I'm sure.

You know what I wish would either be a very long article, or a good thread here?

The inside scoop on what happened with the online reboots. Did they just not realize how much time, effort and money it was going to take to produce them? It seems like such a serious fail on a big scale.

R19 Bullshit, I could have done better using iMovie. And, like I said they managed to give AMC an appropriate one. I mean I hated the song, the only vocal soap theme I've ever liked was Paebo Bryson's OLTL theme, but visually it was All My Children, the OLTL one didn't look nor sound like OLTL .

R10 No one younger or older on OLTL had more fabulous bags than the ones La Evans had. I'm not talking about Gucci ones but the ones under her eyes! Has the bitch ever tried witch hazel on those bags? It is a buck solution to those unsightly things.

I liked that opening. I thought it was fun.

I haven't watched OLYL in about 25 years, does Victoria still have MPD? ...what have I missed? maybe I'll get back into it...

The execution of both reboot openings was off, although I get the concept behind each of them and the "identity" they were going for. That is much more than I can say about that generic opening they both had on ABC in the last decade.

We couldn't come up with a more creative title for a second thread?

No the Eterna obsessives( I'm one of them) couldn't shake off that story line. We still haven't talked about how Roger was a downlow queen either......

I was reading on another board that ABC actually hired Rauch hoping OLTL wouldn't turn into the OTT plot-driven show like GH had become at the time, and that it would become more like Rauch's AW. But I guess Rauch without Harding Lemay was determined to go into the big splashy OTT plot type of show.

R28 is another one with the Harding Lemay OCD! He wasn't the Shakespeare of soaps BUT Henry Slesar was. He had a CV that made other soap writers look like total failures.

Days emulated GH in the 80s when Pat Falken Smith left GH and went to Days. OLTL took over the GH craziness with the Western time travel story line in 1988. That was quite comic booky and over the top for OLTL. add to the fact that MS Brenda Dickson was supposed to be in that story line! How fabulously campy that would have been

R14

Over the last few days a new person on Youtube called FYI has been posting long missing full Emmy reels.

Someone linked one I've been looking for forever in the P&G thread.

Someone asked why the Prospect Park projects failed.

Two reasons:

1) They didn't understand the costs and time associated with producing a daily soap opera

2) They made audience assumptions that didn't pan out.

I know some people don't want to hear this, but a daily soap, demographically, trends older. And older folks weren't ready at the time to go online and watch their stories.

Now that streaming is a solid thing and the MeeMaws and PawPaws are watching Netflix and Hulu because it now comes on their TV, it might be interesting to see if a daily soap could survive. But I think you would have start off by doing it with an existing soap, like Y&R, which trends the oldest of all soaps, and then maybe spinning it off. But rebooting AMC, OLTL, ATWT or GL is not going to work, too much time has passed.

I'm in my 40s and I remember being in college and 90s Days of our Lives was a huge deal. People would actually schedule classes around Days. I was a closeted fraternity guy and each day at 1 we all watched it while eating lunch. But I don't think that kind of appointment TV happens anymore, especially not with soaps. I just think most young people are engaged elsewhere.

Days' demos skewed young with the JER era. The Marlena/Devil story line, Kristian becoming evil and Andre'(who did so as Tony)Di Mera's plot to kill himself and blame it on John Black were pure campy fun An older woman who watched Days religiously told me that she quit Days when that crazy stuff started happening. It was for the young kids she said.

People credit Days with changing the soap formula with supernatural stories but OLTL was taking Viki back in time and to heaven years before.

Those Emmy reel clips precisely highlight why ES won the back to back Emmys.

R30 that'e me! (who also pointed you to Kim Zimmer reel)

What's hysterical is that watching all those reels, Lucci is still the weakest actress bar none.

R35 here! (the youtuber doing the emmy reels on FYI)

Just finished Susan Haskell (Marty - OLTL) Emmy Reel from 2009

I was bored this holiday week, so I'm doing this to occupy myself!

Could HoboRidge have any less of a reaction?

I remember my first job in the 90s during the summer as a 16 year old and my coworkers all WATCHED the ABC soaps and I do too but DAYS was my favorite, due to it's entertaining JER style campiness and supernatural plots, but All my ABC soap watchers inly co-workers KNEW about the plots on DAYS and had even watched it themselves when "All My Children got boring", I think it was very telling of DAYS popularity at that time that fans of ABC soaps watched it too and were familiar with it, believe me none of these people knew jack shit about Guiding Light but they all knew about Marlena being possessed and the bird cage in Paris..

I remember people getting up in arms about the stories on Days in the 90s and I would always remind people about Eterna, The Old West, Rudyard Kipling on OLTL and all that crazy shit that went down on GH. Unless you count Erica and the Grizzly Bear, AMC was the only ABC soap that didn't do wild sci-fi storylines.

I remember my Grammy have a hard time with the rewrite of Victor. She wouldn't believe that nice Victor Lord was sleeping with Irene Manning. But then Eterna was too much for her and she switched to Another World.

I always remember seeing Erika Slezak scowling when Cynthia Watros won her richly deserved Lead Actress Emmy in 1998. Slezak wasn't nominated that year and I think she was jealous that there were new faces and talents competing in a category she had locked down for years. Pathetic and bitter.

R33 No deary that was Dark Shadows that did that first. What OLTL did was more science fiction based(time travel and Eterna) NOT supernatural. Days was more Night Gallery and One Life was more Twilight Zone.

R40 GH did it long before One Life ever did. The Ice Princess was something out of a Bond film like Moonraker. Days became a baby GH in the 80s. So Days has broken the soap mundane formula (like GH had) years before. I also think that the demonic plot with Marlena was bizarre because of the Satanic possession. The Good vs Evil battle on Days also played out in a different way in the 90s. It was far more camp and tongue firmly planted in cheek than OLTL. I did like OLTL during that time as well. I thought that the Eterna storyline was a great departure for the show. I thought that Roge and Megan were great in that entire story.

I always saw Jensen Buchanan’s Sarah as the future OLTL heroine of the show even usurping Victoria!

I personally think Guiding Light topped all of the bonkers soap plot lines when it did Reva's clone. That shit was laugh out loud bad.

R42 DAYS did some sci fi in the 80s too, remember the campy and koiky Calliope Jones played by Arleen Sorkin, her character was based off of Cyndi Lauper and she had the CRAZIEST wardrobe for a soap character ever. She wore mini chandeliers on her head as a hat and was responsible for daytime's first canine wedding, when she threw a big lavish wedding in Salem for her dogs. Her husband was nerdy scientist Eugene Bradford, Bradford invented a time machiine, ripping off Back to The Future, and they time traveled a few times. Eugene was written off the show in 1989 not by moving or going to jail or being killed off but by disappearing into his time machine!

R45 Inherent in my post was that 80s Days as like a baby GH. The Stefano resurrections and the spy storylines out of Moonraker. However 90s Days was more supernatural.

I liked Calliope and Eugen. They were comic relief more than anything else. They made a cute couple. Of course, Eugene went on to fame as Q on star Trek.

Since Marlena's possession got ratings, we had Reva the Clone, Reva the Island Princess and Reva went through paintings. NONE of it was good.

R31 I agree with your assessment.

I don't think the 70+ crowd will buy into an online show in big numbers. I do think the 50ish crowd might, if the focus was on characters from the 80s/90s.

Netflicks should just buy the rights to the complete library of ABC soaps, Proctor and Gamble soaps and just provide the entire library for streaming. Content is what sells, and these old shows are just collecting dust in some vault, I don't think it would be that much to buy the rights for streaming old episodes.

I've said on other sites, with Disney/ABC moving heavily into streaming over the next few years, and now that they practically own Hulu following the Fox merger, I could see them dusting off their soap catalog to either create a niche service(since they appear to be creating multiple niche streaming services) or to fill the holes that are expected to be on hulu, since experts believe that NBC and the "new" Fox will probably remove their shows sooner or later. One reason I think this is a possibility is that for several years they have been telling GH fans that it was too expensive to show older episodes, on holidays etc... but this year they are showing some classic ones and they released a streaming collection of older Jason & Sam episodes, and followed it up with a collection of Sonny & Carly episodes. To me it looks like they are testing the waters. Imagine a world where you could watch OLTL, AMC, Classic GH, Ryan's Hope, Loving, The City, and Port Charles, everyday, it would be heaven. If it worked it wouldn't be hard to imagine that they would also be able to add the P&G library as well, since I doubt they would cost much to license, since making any money off of them is better than making none. I wish Retro TV was available in my market, because they air classic episodes of The Doctors, everyday and I would love to see a soap I never had an opportunity to experience first hand.

How the hell would Netflix streams thousands of soap episodes over decades and expect people to keep up?

[quote] How the hell would Netflix streams thousands of soap episodes over decades and expect people to keep up?

They could release a year's worth of episodes every year, not all 13,000 episodes at once.

R52 Plus, I don't understand why people couldn't keep up you just click on the show and it automatically goes to the next episode.

r53 there's too many episodes of the soaps for it to be viable.

R54 there can never be to much content, if fact right now there is not enough content

R55 Exactly, have you seen some of the crap they are putting on these services, they are dying for content.

Remember soaps were taped on those big ole cassettes with the large video tape. I guess there would be labor involved with converting those shows to a digital format. When you're talking about libraries of 13,000 episodes that is a lot of labor. I would assume that is why ABC says it's too expensive to show more classic episodes. They have to be converted to digital, then they would have to be edited for time (old soaps used to run between 42 and 44 minutes -- now soaps run 36-38 minutes), then I guess they would have to be converted to a wide screen format. Then there is all the popular music.

I think Retro TV has those old tape machines and just play The Doctors as is. They even leave the popular music in. I assume they do that because Retro has such low coverage that no one is paying attention and they just go for it and plead ignorance later.

R57 They made a big deal when they started The Doctors on Retro that they were remastered so I think they are digitized. I did watch them when I was on vacation, and the picture was very clear. Also, very few retro shows on Hulu, etc... are converted to widescreen.

P&G digitized many of there old soaps years ago when they had them available on AOL, and I'm guessing it was a lot more expensive then. Not to mention, if they digitized them they could free up alot of storage space, because (I'm not 100% on this) but I remember reading that when Agnes Nixon sold OLTL and AMC outright to ABC, part of the agreement was that they would maintain a copy of each show. Music is an issue, but really I don't remember popular music being used often, not like in primetime. It was mostly for special episodes or storylines like Becky Lee's country music career, and should be easy to remove.

I agree with the poster up thread 2013 was too early to try to launch streaming soaps. I’ve been thinking for a couple of years now what a shame it was. Things might have been different today.

[quote]Also, very few retro shows on Hulu, etc... are converted to widescreen.

R58, I meant that for the network rebroadcasts. Sorry for the confusion. Recently, Days showed clips from Susan Seaforth Hayes first episode from 1968 and it was converted to widescreen. Retro, Hulu, Amazon, and Netfllix show classic shows as they originally aired. The networks feel the need to stretch them to fill the screen for some reason (which I hate).

R60 Ok, but I have a question, I never had Soapnet, but I know they aired a lot of old episodes, does anyone know if they were presented as they originally aired? Because, I kind of doubt they were still using the old original cassettes post 2000.

Ah, the days when you had to actually work to win an Emmy. Erika’s reel for her 1986 win was an hour and 2 minutes. Susan Haskell’s 2009 reel was about 6 minutes. Ridiculous.

Which soaps have their entire run intact? Days, Y&R, The Doctors, Ryan's Hope and Dark Shadows. Any soap created after 1980. I miss SoapNet! I know it was ABC heavy but it served a purpose. Wasn't there a lame talk show hosted by Lisa Rinna?

Lisa Rinna had a show with Ty Treadway on SoapNet. They were the Regis and Kathie Lee of SoapNet. Whatever happened to hunky Ty?

r3 Natalie was a reason to not watch the show.

[quote] Which soaps have their entire run intact?

Loving, Generations, Santa Barbara, Passions, Sunset Beach, Port Charles

R64 Ty Treadway was on DAYS around 2010/2011 around the same time that tons of ABC Daytime alumni were on DAYS including Roscoe Bourne, who played a Mitch Lawrence type bad guy on DAYS, who was part of a whodunit when they killed him off, Sydney Penny, Julia from AMC was on DAYS too as was John Callahan, Edmund from AMC as the evil Dr. Baker from 2009-2010, and Matt Borlenghi, Brian from AMC, was the may of Salem for awhile and Robin Mattson played convict Lee Michael s on DAYS at that time as was Jessica Tuck, who played Madeline Peterson Woods, Chad Dimera's biological mom, she was a regular on DAYS from 2009-2011, she was killed off by falling down a flight of stairs

Reading the Oral History of One Life To Live (It's a book, not available on the web) - and I suspect Erika Slezak is a Republican!

Brian Kerwin has praise for Erika in the book, but says they are on different side of the political spectrum. Also adding Erika is a regular church goer, while he isn't.

Miss Slee is definitely republican. So is LaLooch.

[quote] Netflicks should just buy the rights to the complete library of ABC soaps, Proctor and Gamble soaps and just provide the entire library for streaming. Content is what sells, and these old shows are just collecting dust in some vault, I don't think it would be that much to buy the rights for streaming old episodes.

You would be wrong.

Those actors, directors, writers etc. would get some kind of royalties. That alone probably kills the deal.

And that's before any music rights are factored in.

Erika Slezak was sinister to me in that she presented herself in a way that was too good to be true. The perfect home and family, saying she has no problems and her life is perfect, and always with the shit eating grin. Maybe she could sell that in the 80s but now, you wonder who the real woman is. I'm not surprised people find her unlikable, she has a smug air. And anyone who calls their pets Kate and Sophie, I honestly have no time for.

R69 Slee is Republican. Search her married name (Erika S. Davies) on any of the Connecticut voter info websites and it shows she's a registered Republican. Not going to post a link because it has her home address and phone number on it.

But is she a financial Repug

Or a cultural conservative?

Nice lady, but she is very republican and very conservative. I won't go into details, because I know a lot of you like her and can't separate politics from the people.

Isn’t Slee’s son of the homo variety? How does she feel about the gays? She seems to like Tuc Watkins.

Just because she's republican it doesn't mean that she doesn't like gay people. How she votes is how she votes. I'm sure there might be one or two of you on here with supportive family members, but they still vote republican. I know nothing about her son or who he sleeps with.

[quote] Those actors, directors, writers etc. would get some kind of royalties. That alone probably kills the deal.

Explain how SoapNet was able to re-run old episodes of Ryan's Hope

[quote] Those actors, directors, writers etc. would get some kind of royalties. That alone probably kills the deal.

Ilene Kristen said none of the actors on Ryan's Hope were getting a dime off of repeats of that show when it re-ran on SoapNet

In addition P&G uploaded the entire library of the Soap "Texas" on AOL, some station is re-running the entire library of The Doctors and episodes of Another World were re-run on Soap Net

NONE of the producers, writers or actors received a single dime off those re-runs or downloads.

Actors, writers, producers etc. on soaps are probably getting pennies, if anything, in residuals. Remember, this is disposable daytime. No one was thinking about repeat airings of these shows, except in foreign markets, and these kinds of items weren't negotiated into contracts. This is why soaps were able to use so much popular music back in the day, because for the most part they were one and dones in the US and in foreign markets the popular music was replaced.

My partner still gets residual checks from as little as .03 per check to $2. Those big residual checks are reserved for the above the line people and the main cast on the call sheet and even they get smaller with each passing year.

The only people who ever got rich from soaps are the networks and productions companies and a handful of writers, producers and actors who made a career in daytime (and of course those who invested well).

Jane Elliott, who did some soap hopping, instead of staying one place went on the record about how Dee Hall had to float her some cash when she was between gigs. She talked about how her friends who stayed on one soap have these great houses and comfortable lives. I'm assuming it all worked out for her, but I think her story is the norm and not the exception.

[quote] Explain how SoapNet was able to re-run old episodes of Ryan's Hope

Soap Net, an ABC owned cable network, was running reruns of mostly ABC shows. It did also run AW as I remember, but that was all late 90s, before a lot of the music rights and union contracts changed the rules.

[quote] Soap Net, an ABC owned cable network, was running reruns of mostly ABC shows. It did also run AW as I remember, but that was all late 90s, before a lot of the music rights and union contracts changed the rules.

And Proctor and Gamble and ABC have a TON of content that pre-dates that, which they could sell to Netflix.

Proctor and Gamble (before that ABC) started selling VHS and later DVD of some of their classic episodes from various soaps.

So there is a way they can recycle content. Let's face it, any of the soap material after the year 2000 was shit. The glory days were from the late 1970s to late 90s. Everything after that was downhill, so that content can be sold to downloading platforms, with no worry of having to pay residuals or licensing fees.

[quote]Proctor and Gamble

[quote]Proctor and Gamble

Didn't ProctEr and Gamble record over all its old tape, up to a certain point?

R83 They kept their tapes from the late 1970s on to the end.

Did you work either at PGP or DMBB, r84?

R50

My carrier doesn't carry RetroTV either but someone uploads The Doctors to Youtube.

Search for the Nick Bellini channel

[quote] And Proctor and Gamble and ABC have a TON of content that pre-dates that, which they could sell to Netflix.

You misunderstood what I said.

SoapNet's original broadcasts, in the late 90s, were before various media companies started to re-examine contracts for music rights, and various unions started to look at rebroadcast rights in a way they had not before.

I was NOT, in any way, talking about when the shows were made. It wouldn't matter if it was a P&G soap from 79, 89 or 99. They would, in 2019, have to pay for rights in a way that SoapNet was NOT doing at the time it operated.

R87 Soapnet launched in 2000 and ran until Dec 31, 2013 and P&G aol soap channel was from 2006-2008.

I read the current rate sheet for SAG-AFTRA concerning dramatic serials the interesting thing is that when it comes to new media, there doesn't appear to be any agreement as it just says to contact your local SAG-AFTRA office.

As R88 said I'm not sure these soap actors want to band together to demand payment for re-runs, when that payment might only be a dollar a year. And that is being generous.

Slee would get shit for OLTL re broadcasts

The actors and creative team does get residuals for rebroadcasts. Although they are very small.

I have a friend who wrote for OLTL in the early 90s (no, I'm not saying who). When SoapNet aried the OLTL marathon just before OLTL ended its run in Jan 2012, a episode my friend wrote is one of those that aired. I asked him later how much he got for that rebroadcast. He said $16. Then he said, "Oh, if it was SoapNet, probably just $8."

R91 No one cares who your friend is. Seriously.

r92 Particularly we SVA queens.

I, R91 find that interesting, thank you for posting it and I never imagined what cheap bastards ABC and Soapnet were an ABC probably still is.

Unless someone has an ownership stake in a TV show, residuals are no source of sustainable income. The more the product gets repeated, the smaller the residual is. until it goes down to nothing.

Daytime soaps on streaming platforms is a very, very interesting discussion to have, particularly since streaming services have changed the way television is consumed (entire seasons all at once, primarily) and part of the defining quality of daytime serials is volume; they are on every day.

But content is content. And CHEAP content is valuable. Residuals for these programs are incredibly low, digital transference is a negligible, one time cost. Honestly, the biggest expense are music rights (ex: The ABC General Hospital episode where Brenda/Sonny see each other in the church in 2003 featured a rendition of "Amazing Grace." When the episode later aired on SOAPnet, "Amazing Grace" had been replaced with a generic instrumental). But even those are solvable problems.

I wouldn't be surprised, as Disney/ABC moves more into streaming if they started to tap their back catalog more. Vintage soaps would appeal to nostalgia addicts/women of a certain age (and the idea that older people don't stream is, as an earlier poster mentioned, out of date because they can get it on their TV). A safe way would be to put arcs up that, more or less, have defined endings. So, the Loving Murders story or one of the "Chapters" of Port Charles once it went telenovela style. That's about three months worth of shows, which is equivalent to about 4-6 seasons worth of a regular show and thus not an overwhelming volume for a streaming service. If they perform well, they might be open to putting up more and packaging it certain ways (ex: entire years - like "All My Children: 1993" or even "All My Children: May 1993").

The key to streaming services is to always offer something NEW, and the library of soaps allows them to pump out new content for years. It's really just about finding the balance to make it not overwhelming, assuming interest is there.

The only old soap I want to see is OLTL during the Marco and a years. I loved them.

R96 I don't disagree with your premise, but the likely audience for that would be in the thousands or tens of thousands, and I think they need about 500K to make anything worth doing, as we learned with the web soaps.

It's the idea of the long tail - a way that a place makes money by selling a little of everything they have, instead of only large amounts of a few things. I wish they'd wise up to the wisdom of that concept.

It won't work. Modern audiences don't give a damn about the soap brands, they're not like the comic books... they only appeal to old women.

I wish they would re-run the episodes in which Cord and Tina went to South American and Cord wore the smallest briefs, showing off his very large endowment.

I could use some Cordero D

Cordero had an uncut pinga.

Do you remember John Russell, played by Jon Martin. A hunk and a half. I wonder if any of the actresses at OLTL got to sample the goods.

[quote] I don't disagree with your premise, but the likely audience for that would be in the thousands or tens of thousands

Streaming platform stretches worldwide in its reach, not restricted to just USA

I remember reading somewhere that Another World repeats were pulling a 0.0 rating on soap net. I am a fan of old soaps and can watch classic soap repeats 24/7, but I am (we are) a small niche group and demographically we just get older. The tradition of daily daytime soap opera and passing it down from one generation to the next is more or less dead. I would love nothing more than to see some of these old shows again( especially Days and Y&R from the beginning), but I just don't think the audience is there for it be profitable for a streaming service to pick this stuff up. I would love to be proven wrong.

Repeats of "Edge of Night" aired on the USA Network for four years (1985 to 1989) , ratings seemed quite healthy for a repeat soap

I always got the feeling that Elaine Princi’s pussy lips swelled up when she was working with Mark Brettschneider. They had chemistry!

[quote]I always got the feeling that Elaine Princi’s pussy lips swelled up when she was working with Mark Brettschneider.

Why? Because yours did?

Wasn't that Robin Strasser, r107?

Elaine Princi originated the role of Kate Roberts on Days of our Lives

R98 With the fracturing of streaming into smaller and smaller niches, tens of thousands might not be too small. Plus, I think rather than a separate service it would make the most sense for ABC/Disney to add them to hulu.

R97

The actress who played a became a psychiatrist.

Robin Strasser was on Michael Fairman's soap podcast last month and Greg Rikkart, Leo on DAYS, was the co host

At the the end of the interview Robin blurted out, "I can come to DAYS Greg and I could play your Mom".

Poor unemployed thing

You would think with Ron Carlivati headwriting DAYS and Kassie DePaiva, a regular as Eve , they would find SOMETHING for her on that show...

Robin was great as Hecuba on Passions. I would love to see her on Days. What if Kate has a long lost sister?

[quote] You would think with Ron Carlivati headwriting DAYS and Kassie DePaiva, a regular as Eve , they would find SOMETHING for her on that show...

Maybe they should fire Lauren Koslow and hire Robin Strasser to play Kate - After all Elaine Princi (who replaced Robin on OLTL as Dorian) did originate the role of Kate. So they are all in the same age range.

R112 The actor who originated the role of Tony Lord fell on such hard times, he took an ad out in the paper to sell himself as a male walker

Robin Strasser for NuMaggie.

There was a former OLTL actor who ran an ad in the Washington Blade as an escort. I asked him who he played, but it wasn't a character I'd heard of. This would have been in the early '90s.

R118 - who?

As for Robin Strasser playing Leo's mother - that might just happen! Soap Digest's 2019 preview mentions Leo's mother is coming to town.

I thought Leo's mother was going to be played by Judith Chapman.

No one wants to work with the bitch Strassman. She’s difficult, to say the least.

So this is random, but bear with me.

Back in the 80s, Shelly Burch was introduced in the role of Delilah on OLTL. Back around that time, there were always commercials on for various albums that were compilations of hit songs. (Think K-Tel, or my favorite, "Freedom Rock". The commercial with the two hippies.) These would usually play late night, during Carson or Letterman, but they might have them on during the soaps too.

Anyway, there was one such album that featured the song More Than a Feeling, by Boston. Maybe released in the mid or late 80s. There were various talking heads in that commercial talking about the great hits on the album, etc. And one of those talking heads looked just like Shelly. She actually sang the lyric to More Than a Feeling that goes "I see my Marianne walking away."

All these years later and I've asked friends, I've googled, I've checked You Tube... nothing. So I come to the OLTL fans of DL... does this sound at all familiar? Or if anyone knows Shelly, ask her! It's been driving me crazy for 30 years now.

r122 Time-Life had lots of Greatest Hits album commercials that featured people talking. They'd be on for an hour, usually, late at night on weekends. I don't know whether it matters to your search, but "More than a Feeling" was from 1976.

Here's one of those commercials, starring Darryl Crawford.

Thanks R123, it wasn't an infomercial, just a regular commercial maybe 60 or 90 seconds long, mixed in with spots for Toyota or Palmolive, or whatever.

I tried searching for compilation albums that included More Than a Feeling, thinking I could track down the album name to find the commercial, but it's getting me nowhere.

r124 The song "More than a Feeling" is on [italic]Sounds of the Seventies: The Late '70s[/italic].

The one with "More than a Feeling" has a copyright date of 1993.

Elaine Princi did NOT originate the role of Kate Roberts.

She played Kate Winograd. Who is a different character.

The escort was, I believe, George Reinholdt, who had been famous on AW as Steve Frame and played some Lord relation on OLTL when he came over from AW with Jackie "I Have Three Facial Expressions" Courtney.

Did he live in DC, r128?

I don't know, R129, but I remember hearing he'd put an ad in as an escort somewhere.

r130, whoever it was, his character on OLTL was not one I'd heard of.

Grayson Hall did voice overs for Boston and ELO - and she played Shelly Burch's mother on One Life. She was clearly battling cancer when she was on OLTL in 82.

Didn't Grayson Hall have the smokers cancer? She smoked like a chimney until her dying day.

So much about OLTL, AMC and other soaps. My mother loved The Edge of Night. I've read about the program, really wish I had been old enough to watch. I understand that the program's final four or five years were not quite what Edge fans enjoyed, but all programs have highs and lows.

Here's a link to a fan-created site for Edge... there's a fan page somewhere on facebook too.

R134 Just for you.

Lois Kibbee liked the snatch.

George Reinholt played Tony Lord, the illegitimate son of Victor Lord.

Reinholt had played the ultra popular Steve Frame on Another World, part of that's show first super-couple Steve and Alice. However, AW fired Reinholt in spring 1975 after he kept having temper tantrums on the set and disrupting taping.

OLTL quickly signed him, hoping to cash in on his popularity, creating the role of Tony Lord for him. Then when AW fired Jacqueline Courtney in late summer 1975, OLTL also signed her, hoping they could recreate the magic of Steve and Alice.

Unfortunately, the magic wasn't really there for the second pairing of Reinholt and Courtney (it really is a combination of the chemistry between the actors as well as the chemistry between the characters they are portraying).

Reinholt's continued doing his diva antics on OLTL and the show did not renew his contract in 1977. They recast the role twice before killing off the Tony Lord character in 1983.

I would have recognized the name "Lord." The escort told me the name of his character. It wasn't someone I'd heard of. Thanks, r137.

R137 I somewhat disagree. Reinholt and Courtney were popular as Pat and Tony and gave OLTL popularity/ratings increases the show had never seen before. True GR blew it. He wanted to do movies and other than one small independent film he did nada. But initially it worked. After George left, Jacquie remained popular for most of her run as Pat, petering out in the early 80's when Judith Light eclipsed her.

Here's the Wikipedia write up on the Tony Lord character.

LOL Jacquie was NOT his off screen gf.

Man, soapy, soapiness for Tony Lord and that Dorian! What a scheming bitch! I wish I had been able to watch OLTL during his first appearance. And poor Viki Joe, losing Kevin because of a crazed woman. That show must have been on fire!

r141 LOL! Even after his death, people are still trying to say Reinholt was straight.

I often forgot Viki had two deceased siblings, Tony and Meredith. Although I do recall them being mentioned a few times here and there.

R144 As someone who watched since a small child in the mid-late 80's, I can remember Meredith being mentioned several times, but I can't recall Tony being mentioned much at all.

R96 R98 R105 etc... The little watched and almost forgotten teen soap Swans Crossing from 1992, was made available for streaming on hulu, Shout Factory and tubi, though I think it is no longer on hulu, I can't believe that that show attracted huge numbers of viewers on any platform. Yet, somehow they managed to work out the rights and residuals issues for that show.

I was the star of OLTL in the late 70’s.

It's breakfast, bitches.

And I've got a health serving of HAM!

HAM!

Slee, plus Kim Zimmer, chewing the scenery.

Echo was such a snake but it was great giving Viki an adversary she could get down and dirty with! When she stepped her and called her a “pig” it was amazing!!!! Ron C was trolling Zimmer so hard about her weight!

OMG Slee is one bad actor. The only convincing acting she did in that clip was devour that rib.

R148 Ron just did this story AGAIN on Days with timid sweet Abby (Viki) and crazy, sex crazed, wild Gaby (Niki), and her protector personality, the cold glasses wearing emotionless Dr. Laura (Jean Randolph)

The mention of ribs made me remember one of my favorite Dorian scenes. Dorian was dating a blue collar character, I think his name was Harry. I think this was the 80s. Anyway, he took her to some restaurant and ordered ribs for them or got her to order them, very drippy with sauce ribs and Dorian, covered her expensive outfit with like a zillion napkins and tried to eat the ribs to show him she was just an average person but RS did it so funny that I got a real kick out of it and really liked her with this love interest.

George Reinholdt lived in Philadelphia. I saw him one morning at Philadelphia's 30th Street Station dressed from cap to boots in black leather.

r148 how the fuck did that monstrosity win six Emmys?!! It boggles the mind. In comparison to her, Zimmer always seems real and authentic.

Slezak haters get lost! Yes she was theatrical but she elevated soaps and the material. If you don’t love Victoria Lord Buchanan you don’t belong on this thread!!!

R154 Zimmer's character is supposed seem like the real and authentic one in that scene since Slezak was portraying her character's crazy OTT alter ego.

R155 She was campier than Days at their height! ES couldn't hep herself. Even campmeisters like Joe Mascolo and Thaao Penghlis were comparatively restrained when compared to ES.

Miss it don't you?

Is the guy with the sunglasses Roscoe Born from Ryan's Hope?

Roscoe Born as Mitch Lawrence on OLTL r159

Ah, okay. Thanks R160. I couldn't remember the timeline as to whether he was on RH or OLTL then.

He was hot, in any case.

[quote] Elaine Princi did NOT originate the role of Kate Roberts. She played Kate Winograd. Who is a different character.

Wiinograd was the character's maiden name when she first appeared on the show

R162 No.

R163 yes

Yes she was KATE, Lauren Koslow even talked about it in a recent podcast interview, that she's the third Kate and that the writers were clever, JER at the time, by taping into the show's history and recasting the role and bringing bher back 20 years later

Deborah Adair played her when she came back from 92-95 and then Koslow from 96-present

Elaine Princi was better than Empress Strasser at playing Dorian.......

R166 Elaine Princi had two roles on DAYS, the original Kate Winograd in the 70s and Linda Anderson in the 80s

Linda pimped out Kimberly Brady!

And then she showed up on OLTL as Dorian in the late 80s/early 90s

Yes I know. I was a bigger Days fan than OLTL fan.Princi plays a fabulous cunt. Sorry to be bitchy but thanks for your contribution.

Elaine Princi briefly subbed for Brenda Dixon as Jill Foster in 1978 when Dixon was out sick with the flu.

R168 you're welcome

One question, isn't Kimberly, Eve's mother on DAYS?, Eve is played by Kassie DePaiva, Blair Cramer from OLTL, how is that possible, Kimberly is like 10 years older than her at most

Oh soaps...

Eve is Kim’s stepdaughter.

Cassie is 57 and Charlotte Ross (OG Eve) is 50 and Charles Shaughnessy is 63 and Patsy Pease is 62

To be fair, both actresses are too old to be playing the biological daughter of Charles Shaughnessy. Last time I saw Charlotte on Arrow she was looking a little "pulled" and botoxed. Cassie looks pretty good.

R169 You mean Ms Brenda Dickson deary. The one and only......

This comment is from the Elaine Princi thread (dated 7/21/2011)

Hi. I actually work with Ms. Princi's nephew Adam. He's a very sweet guy. He says that his aunt is a great lady and is super talented. I've told him about how his aunt has become an icon of sorts around here. He told her, and she was so thrilled to have an online following. She sends a big thank-you out to all her fans who remember her. She doesn't act much these days, rather teaches acting. Any comments you want to tell me to tell Adam for him to forward on to Elaine?

Am I the only Claire Malis fan? I found her frightening as Dorian, as opposed to Strasser rather comical take.

I loved Charlotte Ross as Eve, she was the prototype for 90s Sami in many ways. I wish she'd been able to cone back.

R176

The only Eve for me is Charlotte Ross.

Maybe Slee could get some work with Sun Sweet again. Prunes never go out of style, young and old, we all need 'em!

The concept of soap libraries on streaming platforms is interesting. When ABC and AT&T's platforms launch this year, they are going to be battling for content. ABC should be fine given how much Disney owns. AT&T can draw on Time-Warner content. That said, running a soap might not necessarily be a draw. Netfliz initially had Dark Shadows, I believe (not the entire run). They dropped it and it's now on Hulu. Netflix also has some telenovelas, but they are also probably not big draws. Netflix is known for its high production values in most of it's original content. That juxtaposed with analog videotape from 1978 is not going to appeal to most viewers.

According to the Wikipedia and Sony website, Kate Roberts is NOT Kate Winograd.

That said, my question: Have they ever played Kate with medical knowledge on the show? That would seal the deal. Dorian didn't practice as a doctor for years but always knew enough on what to do if someone in a scene was dying, etc.

Netflix only had something like 200 episodes of Dark Shadows which was incredibly frustrating to me when I tried to re-watch it several years ago. It cut off right at the climax of the 1795 story. Hulu has most of the series available to stream.

BUMP

R176 CR had that lethal combination of beauty,innocence and wickedness. Sami just seemed like a bratty cunt.

[quote] my question: Have they ever played Kate with medical knowledge on the show?

The only thing I could find from Kate's bio from 2009, that after Kate and Stephano were married "Stefano fell ill with diabetes, and Kate took charge and nursed him back to health". So still quite ambiguous. She sure new a lot about various poisons and tampering with medical files.

knew

I was re-watching some of those Emmy reel clips that were linked, and HBS' was really great. I had forgotten how much character exploration this gave Nora at the time. So well-written.

^Hi Hillary!

Hi CZ - any dui’s lately? Or are we still at 2?

[quote] According to the Wikipedia and Sony website, Kate Roberts is NOT Kate Winograd.

Sony is not using her maiden name which is Winograd

Did Gottlieb quit or was she pushed out?

R190 she quit, she worked 18 hour days for 3 years straight and was exhausted.

I think Malone had said in an interview that Gottlieb had become extremely fed up with network intervention. Didn't her exit coincide with Disney buying ABC?

No. Gottlieb left in ‘94 and Cap Cities bought ABC in 96, which was the next big round of meddling.

R189 Corday has input on that as well.

Yes, the "interference" under Gottlieb was minimal compared to what it became under Disney and especially under Frons.

R189 Give it a rest.

It's not the same character.

It's not.

It's not.

[quote]Gottlieb left in ‘94 and Cap Cities bought ABC in 96, which was the next big round of meddling.

Capital Cities bought ABC in 1985. Then in 1996, Disney bought Cap Cities/ABC

Interesting BTS footage and what goes into filming a scene.

Is that Gawd awful idiot Vee from the SON board here? Ugh. He’s a moron.

Jesus, how unprepared was the bitch Strasser in the clip at R198. Both Tuc and David knew their lines but Robin kept fucking up. Be prepared, people. Sheesh.

r200, they were working the scene. They were not taping the whole time.

R201 Oh gee, I didn’t know that.

Oh gawd. Dumb ass Vee is here.

"Vee"? As in Victory In Europe?

I always felt Dorian should have been recast when she came back in 2003. Strasser really gave some powerful performances in the 90s but by the 2000s she had clearly lost her mojo and burned out in the role. It would have been fun to see Vicky Wyndham take on the part.

Horseface Wyndham would have been an awful Dorian.

And it was the material that was god awful after 2003.

Strassman was way too over the top.

Excuse me, Wyndham did NOT have a horse face.

R208 senirita Camargo? There was an Italian and a Jewish Dorian. A Hispanic Dorian would have been fun.

That clip reminded me of just how god awful some of Ron's material was at that point. His writing actually caused me to hate David.

To me, Nancy Peckerton is Dorian. There are no others in my mind. She was SO good!

r211 = major eldergay

I always wonder what would have happened if OLTL stayed on the air when AMC was canceled. I still think ABCD would have been in much better shape now if they had only canceled one soap and left 2 to anchor the afternoon.

OLTL was never going to stay on the air. ABC had planned on canning it a year or two before. The plan was to move to AMC out to LA to save costs, and then axe OLTL. But then AMC's ratings really tanked and ABC couldn't justify keeping it on the air. OLTL's demos, although better than AMC, certainly weren't exactly setting the world on fire to the point where ABC would want to keep it.

r214, OLTL was beating even GH during points with the return of Todd. ABC always made a big mistake underestimating OLTL.

Had it not been for the "name" value, ABC could have easily just canceled AMC and left OLTL alone, at least for another year. That was all politics.

Valentini killed OLTL.

8 years ago this week.

Am in tears....

^MARY! MARY! MARY!

R216

FV did not kill OLTL. Frons did.

As I wrote above, the decision to cancel OLTL was set in stone a couple of years earlier when ABC decided to move AMC to LA. No amount of marginal demo increase was going to change anyone's decision.

[quote] the decision to cancel OLTL was set in stone a couple of years earlier when ABC decided to move AMC to LA.

Then why did the network spend millions of dollars to move OLTL three blocks into AMC old studio (which they shared with "the View")

Was the network spending millions to just window dress

Did our beloved Slee like HBS and her partner in crime Hickland? I've never heard her say a positive word about either of these two.

Not only was the demos better, OLTL was one of only two soaps that increased in total viewers year over year, and was the only one that was known to always come in under budget. It was stupidly crazy to cancel it, especially considering that New York really upped its incentive program just as OLTL was closing down.

AMC's demos near the end of its run were really in the toilet, so slightly better demos for OLTL did not exactly mean success. It was just failing LESS than AMC. They weren't exactly glowing numbers. Getting the show under budget is no great shakes, especially when a talk or cooking show costs about 2% of a soap budget and gets roughly the same viewers and demos. Frankly, I'm shocked that GH is still around but I guess they needed to keep their marquis show.

ABC mind;s AMC was the network jewel in the crown - not OLTL - there would be NO WAY they could cancel AMC without giving OLTL the boot, because AMC was the more prestigious soap with an incredible history

OLTL was ABC bastard stepchild

I know FMB called AMC ABC's crown jewel when it was really successful in the '90s. I don't think anyone saw AMC as the crown jewel in the late 2000's. GH by default was the crown jewel around that time.

r225, that is precisely why I said the decision was about politics and "name" value. ABC did not have to cancel two shows at once.

r224, if getting the budget down is so easy, how come Carruthers couldn't manage to do it in all her years at AMC?

R228 It is also the reason that FV was given GH, and why he continues to have a job.

Frank may have budget down but his production values have always been heinous. And he has proven he is a completely mediocre producer in terms of vision and creativity.

Were Frank and Ron ever friends with each other? I wonder if they still speak.

I think they're friendly. Strasser said that Ron/Frank were the greatest HW/EP collaboration she had ever seen in all her years in soaps.

Ron gave Dorian some great material in the beginning, but that quickly fell off the rails. Then again, that basically happened to all the characters after like 2009.

Ron and Frank were a good team because Ron has an incredibly strong vision and can churn out story, whether you like it or not. Frank is a true technical producer and is top notch at all the non-story elements of an EP. Thus, they balanced each other out. Like it or not, they made OLTL feel vibrant and alive (especially when compared to AMC during the same time period).

It's not so much that OLTL was a bastard stepchild, it's that for most of the time the soap was on the air - and in most of the people that worked at ABC's mind - it lacked the cohesive identity that defined AMC and GH for decades. AMC - for most of its run - had family, heart, warmth and a comedic sensibility hallmarked by some really standout and vibrant characters (Erica, Palmer, Adam, Phoebe, Tad, Brooke, Jesse/Angie). When GH entered the zeitgeist in the early 80s it defined itself as bigger than life, something which evolved into a very "masculine" identity in the 90s thanks to Sonny/Jason (with the blip of Claire Labine's emotionally driven era). This is contrasted with a more "feminine" sensibility for AMC.

OLTL for most of its history bounced from identity to identity: It was hallmark Agnes Nixon in its early years (social consciousness, different classes) but that faded as she left to focus on AMC; it sort of remained ill defined through the 70s, then took on a weird defecto Dallas meets action adventure vibe in the 80s, got a sense of gothic romance and gravitas under Michael Malone, then sort of bounced around for years until Ron came along and gave it a zippy, humorous take that focused on its big players in a more concentrated way. Again, whether you like it or not, he gave the show a sense of identity in its last few years (that I enjoyed because it was clear he loved the show and that was infused within).

Ron was not writing a soap in the last couple years - he was writing a soap parody. There is a huge difference.

It's also intensely comical to me that OLTL had different "identities" with the rotating EPs, yet Frank was never able to have a cohesively creative show with any real vision. There is a reason he went through 3 writing regimes (4 if you count the early 2003 Griffith/Malone months) that all devolved into crap.

I watched since being a literal baby, in the early-mid 80's, and I loved the RC years because the show was fun to watch again. Also, I don't agree that OLTL didn't have an "identity" to me AMC was the simple small town family soap, GH was the adventure soap, and OLTL was the "complex" thinking person's soap.

OLTL a complex thinking man's soap?!?! Oh my!

OLTL was only an intelligent soap in the 70s and then again under Gottlieb/Malone.

I have to think ABC was regretting canceling two at once at some point after its timeslot debacles.

This was on We Love Soaps today.

Who is shown in the OLTL ad? I couldn't figure it out.

That's Pat Kendall, her ex-husband Paul Kendall (right), and her "great love" Tony Harris/Tony Lord (left).

Lil was on a strict diet, and Lee Patterson is a bachelor.

I love how the AMC fans always have to come into our OLTL threads and trash the show. Or they do the subtle veiled jabs.

And bitches, OLTL's ratings were not only marginally better than AMC's- they were better than both GH and AMC.

And the OLTL finale ratings kicked the AMC finale's ass- The crown jewel.

Go to your Pine Valley thread. I find AMC and OLTL fans so different and I thought AMC sucked. And god that show looked CHEAP. (However, I will always respect Laura's death on AMC though- I thought it was brilliantly acted by Julia Barr) Thats it.

AMC was never good again after around 2003. OLTL ( though far from perfect) had plenty of “Life” left during its final decade.

The crazy thing, is that when Prospect Park tried to resurrect the shows, I felt like AMC was more like its former glory years, yet they totally missed the mark on OLTL. For the first time in years AMC had that small town/Peyton Place type vibe that had been their hallmark, however the tone and size of OLTL just seemed off and like it was all over the place.

Granted I didn't really watch the PP AMC, but I thoroughly enjoyed OLTL. It was far from perfect, but it was so refreshing to see an OLTL again that was not based solely on bad camp going from one tongue-in-cheek gag to another.

R247 really, it seemed rudderless and incomplete to me.

I just loved seeing a show where I did not have to watch McBane, Rex, Fords, Tess etc force fed at any cost.

I was always a diehard Lanview fan, but when it comes to the PP reboots even I will admit AMC was far superior.

R249 I missed Rex, because I thought he was fucking HOT, didn't mind not seeing the others. R250 Do you know one reason I think it was better, NO ERICA, to suck up all the energy and Julie Barr was back to fill the central elder female role.

I never understood why John Paul Lavoisier (Rex Balsom) never came out...He had the beard for awhile, but after his acting career was over---why stay in the closet?

AMC died for me back in the Noah/Hoolia zombie transport story, and I had been there since I was a kid and Donna Beck was being roughed up by Tyrone, her original pimp - OLTL was all about Viki/Dorian and the endless parade o,f beefcake FV put on screen its last decade, and I still have a recurring dream of having to choose between Roscoe Born and Scott Evans, having vanquished Mark Philpot with my Ivan Kipling arm.

Poor Lil Hymen. She was a big ole lez and Rauch fired her in that garage after she came out. Shame.

Rex...HOT?

Ew

Speaking of Prospect Park's OLTL does anyone have a link to the scene where Victor put his hand down Tea's panties?

Vic fondled Tea’s clit? Hot!

AMC was a show your grandmother watched and GH was for teenage girls. OLTL was a show for everyone, that's why it is the greatest of the ABC Daytime dramas.

Anyone have a link to the scene where Victor put his hand down Tea's panties?

Hooch was annoying to me, which is the main reason why I never embraced AMC.

I watched soaps in the early 80s (81 or 82 to 85 or 86), and while OLTL had its moments, AMC was the better program in those days.

R244 MARY!

[quote] The crazy thing, is that when Prospect Park tried to resurrect the shows, I felt like AMC was more like its former glory years, yet they totally missed the mark on OLTL. For the first time in years AMC had that small town/Peyton Place type vibe that had been their hallmark, however the tone and size of OLTL just seemed off and like it was all over the place.

Agreed. The OLTL reboot had a mishmash of writers, including Thom Racina, who quite frankly is just terrible. The writer they started with was pushed out soon after they started, because PP wanted more edgy and dark.

The AMC PP version got the young love bit right.

See I felt the opposite. The AMC reboot seemed to be very unfamiliar in terms of newbies and characters.

OLTL, while uneven, was familiar. It wasn't like I was watching a different show from ABC.

Are the PP online episodes of OLTL available anywhere?

Forgot to add what I found really cute about the PP OLTL was the actors were like kids let loose in a candy shop when they could finally say the word "shit" and I think the F word too. It was not our grandmother's OLTL that's for sure. I never watched the PP version of AMC because I had stopped watching AMC at least a decade before it was cancelled.

The part that didn't work for me on the PP version of OLTL was the night club mess.

I hated the night club too. Big mistake on their part, that expensive set all for nothing. If I remember back then no one liked it.

They still owe La Sleestak like 200K for the online version.

I agree completely r251 you didn’t even miss you know who on the AMC reboot. OLTL was unfortunately saddled with all of Ron Carlivati’s hairpin cliffhangers from the end of the ABC run that I feel had a big hand in weighing it down. Thom Racina and Susan Bedsow Horgan just didn’t know what to do with any of it.

Is Racina the guy who had Brad Pitt as his "roommate"?

The way I identified the three shows was like this: AMC was a rural soap set in a small countryside town, GH was set in a city by the sea and had that international feel of being in America but also what lay beyond and finally, OLTL was the real urban soap, giving you a feel of Llanview as an industrial town. AMC had the greenery, PC had the water and OLTL had the city streets.

Oh I meant to add I believe most the PP episodes of both shows are available on YouTube.

Hilary B Smith for the poster up thread maybe had one of the best written Emmy reels in daytime. The character actually questioned herself, her ethics and judgements on other people and then acted upon her guilt and disgust with herself. It was not only a fabulous character arc but a triumphant reflective look at herself.

In one of those old Daytime TV mags they did a Who's Who on One Life and the character description for Victoria Riley Burke stated she had just found out her father was not her real father and this has caused problems for her. This was 1972. Was that just a typo - or was Victor NOT her real father?

I forgot how hot the first Rick Webber was.

r274, agreed....which makes it even more disheartening how "one-note" Nora became, especially in the JFP years. But the Labines did her no favors either.

I see in some previous posts about actors going OTT in the later years. I am not sure why Strasser is singled out with that when all of the actors had to go "big" in order to make some of the heinous material work. Frank and Ron did not churn out a subtle or layered show. Everything amounted to farce, and the performances had to mesh with that.

[quote] Everything amounted to farce, and the performances had to mesh with that.

That didn't come from Frank or Ron - that came from Brian Frons. In the oral history of OLTL (the book) all the actors are unanimous in saying that as the years went on, it became more about "events" - they point to CBS shows regularly cleaning up at the Daytime Emmys in the acting category, as those shows focused more on dialogue, scenes and subtext. While ABC was all about care chases, explosions and fires.

And all the actors say the same thing - it was all Brian Frons idea that was forced on all ABC shows.

r279, you are confusing "events" with the tone of the show, which was all Frank/Ron. While Frons forced actors and story notes, none of the tongue-in-cheek parody BS that OLTL became was because Frons.

R280 - not according to the actors on OLTL - they all are UNANIMOUS in blaming Brian Frons - they say it all came from him. And not Frank & Ron

and they would know, because were there, and NOT you.

Frankly, I don't think Ron is capable of writing anything BUT high camp and OTT farce, even if his life depended on it.

LMAO @r281. Are you a little dense, sweetie?

Find me one quote anywhere that an actor blames Frons for the campiness of the show.

You can blame him for a lot, but NOT the "wink wink" soap parody.

And quite frankly, after seeing what Frank/Ron did at GH without any Frons' involvement, I question a lot of the blame in hindsight.

[quote] Find me one quote anywhere that an actor blames Frons for the campiness of the show.

Just because someone wants to see a 24 year old girl in her underwear all the time, doesn't mean that is what the audience wants to see

-Ilene Kristen - from the Oral History of OLTL

r285, Clearly you are completely missing the point.

R286 you said you wanted one quote, you got it

So all the actors who worked on OLTL are wrong and you are right (who just watched from home)

OK got it.

r287, that quote says nothing about camp and/or tone of the show. You are missing the point.

R288 a girl running around in her underwear is not considered camp

You are arguing about one possible scene when I am talking about the general tone of the show for 5 years. I reiterate that no actor has ever blamed Frons for the camp of the show.

Girls, girls. You're both elderly and in the final stages of dementia.

Hi Sue @r291, your birdseed breakfast is waiting. Now strap on your pilates chair and flitter away.

Oh Slee, is that you at r292? When did anyone ever ask you and Brian to sit for an interview? Hmmm, that would be NEVER. Enjoy your prunes!

Sue, dear, is your ultimate goal that we can actually see your esophagus?

R279 so the ABC soaps all became clones of Days of Our Lives with it's focus on camp and "events" ( car crashes, fired, explosions)

No wonder Ron is doing so well over at DAYS

[quote] You are arguing about one possible scene when I am talking about the general tone of the show for 5 years. I reiterate that no actor has ever blamed Frons for the camp of the show.

Not according to the Oral History of OLTL - go buy a copy off Amazon

The oral history of OLTL. Is that the story of Rauch' and Uncle Frank's casting couch?

r296, give it up. I read the book. Again, no actor blamed Frons for the tone of the show and its camp quality. I cannot help that you are unclear about specific definitions.

[quote] Again, no actor blamed Frons for the tone of the show and its camp quality.

You skipped the chapter devoted to Brian Frons.

Girls, girls...try and keep the focus on ME, the face of ABC Daytime. And in "ME", I mean moi and not that frog-face Michael Easton. Ta!

r299, and you skipped the Webster definition of camp.

Speaking of Easton, remember how everyone blamed his infestation on Frons?

I think we can all safely say now that Valentini was a HUGE part of it. So let us not pretend that Frank and/or Ron were victims.

[quote] and you skipped the Webster definition of camp.

Well it was in the chapter about Brian Frons

R302 From has had a hard on for Easton since he PERSONALLY cast him as Tanner Scofield on Days of Our Lives in 1990 when he was head of NBC Daytime

He even did an interview with one if the soaps mags in the early 90s where he compared Easton to a young Brando(!) and he foolishly claimed that Tanner and Molly would be the new Bo and Hope of DAYS in the 90s

r304, Frons' hard-on cannot be overshadowed by Valentini's hard-on.

What about Uncle Ron's big hard-on for hairy legs?

Contrary to some opinions on this thread, I think it’s possible to have huge love for both AMC and OLTL. I adored both shows in their heydays. I watched both from 1986-2000ish. I do agree that the last few years of OLTL were far superior to AMC which seemed awful in the last decade or so.

R,307 agreed although I started watching Days around 1995 but it was on at noon in my city so during summer it was DAYS on NBC from 12-1 them AMC on ABC , then OLTL and sometimes GH

Sometimes I checked Passions out when OLTL was sucking for periods

Never fucked with the CBS soaps or Loving/The City/ , Port Charles or Another World

I think the OLTL and AMC wars are mostly just in good fun.

I dunno...I think some of these lunatics take it very seriously. Some soap fans are scary.

R310 Yes like the GH fans that have a fit if OLTL or AMC characters are even mentioned. They go crazy. When GH just mentioned the name Erica Kane, earlier this year I thought they were going to march on ABC and blow the place up. They kept going on about how they were GH fans and didn't care about any of the other ABC soaps. They lost it even more when I pointed out that GH has long been established as part of a larger ABC soap universe that includes, OLTL, AMC, Loving, The City, Ryan's Hope, The Young Marrieds, Port Charles and GH. Even crazier was this one woman on the message board I was on, who was adamant that no OLTL or AMC character had any business even being mentioned on GH, yet she was always posting that she wanted Skye to come back. I pointed out to her that Skye was an AMC character, that migrated to OLTL, before she ever showed up on GH. And, she would NOT believe me and insisted it was an entirely different character. She also didn't think that anything from Anna's time on AMC, or Tracy's time on The City, should ever be mentioned on GH.

That would who would not believe the truth no matter how it was proven has got to be a Trump supporter.

Fuck you Serial Asshole nutcase. You are a sick motherfucker.

R312 Are you having a stroke?

Not to open the troll closet but the short time Kathy Glass was on the show was some of OLTL at its best. Not just because of her but the characters that came on with her. Tim, Brad, the original Sam, Lana, and a few others. It took OLTL out Miss Havisham's musty Mahjong parlor and added some desperately needed new blood.

Ah, the ingenue Miss Katherine Glass. So many words to describe her. Quiet. Quixotic. Quintessential. Quirky. The acting equivalent of a Quenching Quaff of Quaalude. When I was 16, I and all of my classmates wrote her fan letters. I started the Kathy Glass "Qlub" at my school.

Fuck Kathy Glass

Kathy Glass made me moist - down there.

She made everyone moist. It may have been you pussy or it may have been your eyes.

LOL R320

This thread was actually interesting for a hot minute. Now it's back to the trolling.

Tika Sumpter has done very well since leaving OLTL.

She's been the lead on The Haves and Have Nots for several years & yesterday it was announced that HBO has picked up her new series.

I started to tune out when they were going overboard with Victoria's personalities. Then Jean Randolph entered and I was ALL IN! You got to see Viki do all the things to people you always wanted her to do. Especially Tina. Jean may have been my favorite character ever on the show. I just totally got her. Especially when she'd get all cringey with the touchy feely Buchanans. Plus Jean showed she could really act. The other personalities you could see her acting. Jean was such a low level, subtle change and she was brilliant as Jean. Just her exasperated looks when no one was watching would always kill me.

The only acting Emmy OLTL failed to win was "Younger Actress" -

And Andrea Evans (!) and Erin Torpey (Jessica) were the only two who score a nomination in that category, and still lost

why was the show so shitty in hiring younger actresses to can actually act?

Torpey was such a natural actress - it was a shame she wasn't recognized, especially with the messes who won in subsequent years.

My only gripe about Malone's DID arc was that he could have played the Niki beats more and developed something there.

That’s a good point Malone never explored Nikki Smith in that dark captivating way he nailed all the others! Jean, Tommy, Princess...so creepy!

Jean brought out, in a stark way, what a doormat Viki really had always been.

I liked that Niki was backburnerd when Jean showed up. The different personalities really made Slee show some range. I know there was retcon involved in Malone’s story but it did make it more believable-that Vicki would splinter because of the sexual abuse. Before that they changed the origin story of Niki several times.

She splintered because (1) she saw her father push her mother down the stairs, (2) she saw her father in bed with her college roommate Irene Manning, and finally (3) she had endured years of sexual abuse at the hands of her father. Of course (3) is more believable, but it's frustrating that they just abandoned (1) and (2) and never discussed them. I vaguely remember a vague story about her splitting when she saw Roger Gordon swallowed up into Eterna...

I think Niki trying to pick up her own brother (Todd) in a bar was kind of dark. Tori was my favorite although I did like Jean. Little Princess broke my heart.

Eugenia Randolph. Of course.

Slee's acting was just so awful yet mesmerisingly camptastic in these double roles. Her Emmys are a joke, but then again daytime acting has universally always been atrocious. I don't know any sane person who doesn't watch only for the shocking plot twists and the shirtless hunks.

I wonder what Slee's kids will do with her Emmys when she's croaked.

How is Slee still alive? Wasn't she 75 in 1978?

Throw me down some TP, Ma!

I'm sick of using my hands!

[quote] I vaguely remember a vague story about her splitting when she saw Roger Gordon swallowed up into Eterna...

I thought that was why she didn't remember Megan or Roger...?

I wish they never killed Meredith. They could have had some great stories between her and Viki.

Joe Lando was the hottest thing on soaps. Ever.

He was the second hottest, r340. This man takes top honors.

You're right....I forgot...and you know what? I'm actually the Robert Tyler/Tucker troll.

Joe Lando today.

I never understood why Grace Phillips' Sarah was not better positioned as a the heroine of the show after Jessica Tuck left. They really screwed that up, because she was a great actress.

I liked Jensen Sarah wish they’d been able to keep her long term.

Jensen had an appeal that would have made her a good long term heroine. But poor Bo kept losing wives.

I liked Jensen's Sarah but always found her bland. Not sure if it was her or the writing. I loved Grace Phillips though.

Grace Sarah didn’t have the chemistry with RSW Bo. She was a great actress and a good recast.

Jensen sucked ass

She seems to have pretty much retired after 2007.

The major problem at the time was that RSW was used to his damsel-in-distress victim blondes. I never saw any big difference between Didi and Sarah. I did like Bo and Cassie, but once again, Cassie needed to be the victim in order for it to work. Grace's Sarah was written a bit more complicated which worked - it was a shame she couldn't have flourished away from Bo.

At the time, I also loved the Megan/Andrew relationship. Everyone knew Jessica Tuck was leaving, but I wasn't even rooting for Jake to come back at the time because I thought the chemistry with Andrew was so good.

Grace Phillips has retired from acting and is now an environmental landscaper in LA

I remember reading an interview with Jessica Tuck saying that she and Grace are still very close and actually live right near each other.

In terms of Jensen Buchanan she wanted to return to Daytime after finding no success in Hollywood. By that time Paul Rauch left and Linda Gottlieb took over. Her agents contacted Linda and she (Linda) responded by saying "send me your tape"

Jensen was insulted and decided to audition for Another World. But then executives at ABC found out, and was furious at Gottlieb for dismissing Jensen like that. They contacted her, but by that time it was too late. She had already signed with Another World.

So they wound having to audition someone else for Sarah, thus Grace Phillips was hired,

Wasn't the story that Jensen actually visited the studio and wanted to meet with Linda but Linda said she had no idea who Jensen was?

That whole story seems odd - wouldn't people like Bob Woods and Jessica Tuck have filled Gottlieb in or at least been pushing for Jensen? I mean it was only a year earlier.

Jensen was a star and when’s a Sarah was given a backbone she shined! grace made Sarah angsty and complex. I liked that too!

I hated the Malone/Gottlieb era. The men became weak and the show was just very beige and safe, if you get my drift. Say what you want about the Rauch era, but the men were strong and much of it was must-see TV. I think the show's best-remembered years were 77-79, with the Karen/Marco/Viki stuff, and then again from 85-89. I know you bitches rave on and on about the Malone/Gottlieb stuff, but for casual viewers who might be nostalgic for the show, I doubt they even remembers the Marty rape stuff or anything else, other than Ryan Phillippe played a gay teenager. They remember Karen on the witness stand and Tina/Viki,

[quote] wouldn't people like Bob Woods and Jessica Tuck have filled Gottlieb in or at least been pushing for Jensen?

Not if they didn't like her

R311 GH was like Days on NBC. Days was a Sony production and the rest of the soaps were either P & G or NBC produced. Days felt different thought Another World became a baby Days at one point. GH also felt different to the other ABC owned soaps and Edge of Night produced by P & G. However GH influenced OLTL and EON in terms of the nutty stories and action/adventure element. That being said GH fans have always felt that GH was a cut above. It was the show like Days that attracted a male non gay demo!

R358 Marty's rape was and is iconic!

It would have been more iconic if Talbet Huddleston was her rapist.

Todd Manning was iconic! A breakout star of soap operas in the 90s!!!

Bo and RSW were dull.

The Buchanans were a direct copy of the Ewings from Dallas. A few shows did that, but IMHO Guiding Light did it better.

Asa was great but both Bo and Clint were kind of generic. They had a certain amount of charm, but so many stories were repeated for all 3 Buchanan men that they got boxed in a corner.

The Buchanans were great and much better than the Lewis men of Springfield.

Loved the Buchanan men! And Renee was a great matriarch! Wish we’d have gotten more exploration of Kevin, Joey, Drew, Cord, CJ...those Buahanan’s got short end of the stick for insta Buchanan’s like Rex, David, and those horrible Buch Twins!!! I even liked Jerry VDorn Clint as he became more and more like Asa!

The Buchanans were one of the best things that happened to OLTL. ESPECIALLY Clint. Plus we wouldn't have Cord or Rafe without the Buchanans. Plus all the teen girls I used to watch OLTL with fucking adored Mimi.

I don't know why they fraued her up so fast. She was kind of cute.

Kinda for a middle aged woman

Are there any pictures of Slee where she looks young? I honestly challenge someone to find one.

I agree about the Gottlieb/Malone era. Incredibly boring upon reviewing on YouTube.

The show LOOKED STUNNING though, nearly on par with Y&R at that time. And the Marty's Rape storyline and Viki's Alters were absolutely outstanding, as were Alex and Carlo.

But 1/2 of the show was generally unwatchable. Malone could not write good B stories or B characters. It was BLAND as fuck.

1985-1987 to me, was OLTL at its absolute best. Viki/Niki reemerging during that time was really, really good. Mitch! Tina! I love that unheralded Peggy O'Shea. Wonderful time.

Roscoe Born. Was there a soap he didn't work on? He would always leave a show in a huff and five minutes later have a new contract with a new show. You'd figure they'd all get tired of him.

But he was meltingly hot, so he probably slipped some dick to some powers that be and voila, he'd be back.

Roscoe as Mitch was the best.

Agree that Malone / Gotlieb era was flawed. Hated Luna as the show’s heroine and her pairing with Max was so out of character for him and completely overrated pairing! Loved marty, Andrew, Nora and Todd! That opening horrendous!

Roscoe had a couple nighttime gigs. He almost made it out of soaps.

I don't really blame him for leaving AMC though. He actually walked out in the middle of an episode taping. His character turned out to have caused a plane crash that killed numerous people and was a kiddy pornographer. Not sure if he actually knew about the latter or not though, that was revealed after his replacement took over the role.

I remember an interview, I think it was with Robin Strasser, where she talked about how much all the actresses on OLTL where madly in love with Roscoe. Cooking him dinners and shit like that.

R366

I enjoyed the Buchanans but I agree with you. The Lewis men were better. Not to mention their storyline have held up much better on Youtube.

R378

I think Born walking off the set was around the time he had his breakdown. He wound up in a psych hospital for a bit.

R379 It was in the book...and here

R378 Did he walk out because he didn't like what they did with his character, or was it something else?

Was Carlo Hesser a homo erotic driven character ? What’s he referring to in the Llanview afternoon book?

[quote] But 1/2 of the show was generally unwatchable. Malone could not write good B stories or B characters. It was BLAND as fuck.

Clint Ritchie was very unhappy with Michael Malone making his character a redneck homophobe. He was even went to his lawyer to initiate talks to terminate his contract. But then he had his accident and was out of the show for about six months. By the time he came back, they had dropped the gay storyline and Clint stayed for about five more years before taking a hike for good.

R383

I always heard he walked because he was having mental health issues. He wound up in a hospital.

I bet Ivan Kipling was hung like a horse

Clint and Bo were so fucking hot when the first came on. Hell even Asa wasn't so bad.

Thom Christopher has a big piece of Sicilian sausage.

Do you guys remember the primetime episode from 1998 (IIRC the last primetime episode of any daytime soap) where Todd lured the suspects of Georgie's murder to that cabin? This led to him faking DID.

I always wished Todd's DID were real and became a thing.

Asa must have pulled some fine cock when he was young.

Wow, Phil was hot at one time!

Was Phil Carey gay???

R393 Is the Pope Catholic?

Seriously? You didn't know Phil Carey was gay?

Porn Star Jerry Butler said Phil tried hard to get into his pants. So did Anthony George and the casting director, who offered to cast him as Brad Vernon if he would be his lover.

So did Dr. Will Vernon. Only he didn't look like this at the time. He tried everything to get into Butler's pants.

Nothing beats the late 80s... Cord/Tina/Max/Gabrielle were like the magic quad which no other soap has been able to duplicate. As someone upthread said, the genius of Paul Rauch's OLTL was that the men and women were equally powerful and compelling...

Every regime had flaws. There were just as many duds and forgettable characters during Rauch's time. Outside of the core group, no one ever mentions half of the Rauch-era cast.

r399 the spirit of the show was more upbeat though... it had a vitality to it that one never sees in soaps.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Rauch years but I also found the Gottlieb/Malone/Griffith years riveting as well. You have to remember the context of those times. The Rauch stuff just wouldn’t have played well in the 90’s. Glitz and excess were passé by then.

I loved the Labines' Dorian/Cramer story. It was really one of their only stories that I was invested in.

I ate out Tina’s snatch.

I ate out Brody's mussy.

An old People mag article about Strasser.

Seems like she and Luckinbill divorced around the time this was published, so not sure why it wasn't mentioned.

Why do Strassmans sons hate her? Neither of them speak to her. Is she a beyatch in real life too?

Did you ever think maybe it's her sons with the problems?

KA loves her.

They came out to support her play.

Wow, Robin clearly has a very bad wig on.....

It looks more like a beret or some kind of hat that RS is wearing than a wig.

JFC. Will Kathy Alderson find a new hairstyle??

that's a toothy bunch

R410 I apologize, you are correct.

Does KA have a partner? She was fucking Chad" Biggest Snake In the Business" Duell at one time. KA is a homewrecking slut who fucked him in her car. What a whore.......

WEHT to the actor who played Cole after he got fired?

Pretty sure he has a mugshot on TMZ R415

I think BB has cleaned up since then.

How did Brandon Buddy resist fucking that sex kitten Alderson?

BB has the deliciously hairy legs.

Grandpa Valentini and his obsession with teens has always been nauseating. I can't wait till he somehow finds a way to turn Oscar's illness into a teen musical on GH.

R418

He didn't They were fucking back then.

I thought BB liked the mansex?

^only in the vivid, diseased imaginations of gay male viewers.

Brody will make your mussy wet

Brody is 5'2". No thank you. Next...

If you can't forgive height with his body, then you need some help.

How did Kris Alderson handle Chad Duell's dick of death? Did she walk bowlegged?

Not that he left permanent damage but her vagina is now an echo chamber.

How do we know Chad Duell has a dick of death?

What was the issue with Strasser and JFPee?

R430 It’s who was the bigger cunt. JFP won.

R430 When JFP was at Guiding Light she offered Strasser the role of Alexander Spaulding when Beverlee McKinsey retired, and she turned down the role.

Ugh! That should be Alexandra. So many Spauldings on GL!

While she won Emmy awards for her work on Santa Barbara and GH, her decision to fire fan favorites from shows she had worked on in the past have caused her credibility to be, arguably, damaged irreparably in the eyes of some soap opera fans.

She is a great producer but I think she has a lot of issues especially against expecting mothers:

Lets take a look

In 1996, She killed off popular AW heroine Frankie Frame played by Alice Barrett in 1996 However, perhaps the harshest and most lasting criticism of Phelps was as a result of her decision to kill off the character of GL heroine Maureen Bauer on Guiding Light in 1993. Sarah Brown and JFP clashed a lot which is why she left. In 2001, Sarah said in a interview that she felt that the work at GH wasn't fulfilling.

In 2002, Genie Francis reported that a female producer had repeatedly humiliated her because of her weight gain, leading some to speculate Phelps was that female producer.

While at One Life to Live in 1999, Phelps disgusted many fans by firing popular actress Laura Koffman who plays Cassie Callison Carpenter since 1991, just days after Koffman had left for what she thought was simply a maternity leave..

In 2005, she also let actress Lesli Kay go off-contract after revealing her pregnancy. Lesli Kay has stated on her official message board that Jill Farren Phelps has said to her, "If you think GH is your place to shine, it never will be" and after days of announcing her pregnancy announced that the fate of Lesli's character was "In god's hands." All of this, like much of JFP's comments was unsolicited.

In November 2005, Phelps released actress Kari Wuhrer from her contract at General Hospital. In January 2006, Wuhrer responded with a lawsuit against ABC.

In December 2006, Phelps fired Stuart Damon right before Christmas. Damon has been with the show for thirty years and was reported to be devastated.

Robin Strasser (Dorian, OLTL) always exposes her when she gets the chance too.

*Phelps has been accused of favoritism *Phelps also has been known for her failure to renew popular actors' contracts, often under extremely unpleasant circumstances *On Another World Phelps released fan favorite Paul Michael Valley from his contract, reportedly because she did not like him as a love interest for actress Jensen Buchanan??????????ARE YOU KIDDING ME *In an interview in 2000, 7 YEARS later after she killed off the beloved Maureen on GL, she apologized stating it was the most regettable mistake she had made in her career????????????

So with all of this,..thats why her acceptance speech was cut off at the 05 emmys when GH won best show..simply because P&G and CBS dont like that Bitch..P&G even sued her a couple of years back

[quote] When JFP was at Guiding Light she offered Strasser the role of Alexander Spaulding when Beverlee McKinsey retired, and she turned down the role.

NOT TRUE - Robin Strasser met with JFP to discuss the role, and JFP said they aren't ready to recast the role at the time Strasser expressed interest. By the time they were ready to recast, Strasser was back at OLTL

[quote] In 1996, She killed off popular AW heroine Frankie Frame played by Alice Barrett in 1996

JFP was long gone from AW at that time, the EP that killed off Frankie was Charlotte Savitz

Strasser admitted on her Hotline years ago that she lied about JFP to the press and Strasser publically apologized to JFP on her hotline. I think it was over Strasser’s claim to the press that JFP interrupted a vacation of Strasser’s and made her come back and tape scenes. Strasser admitted on her hotline that she lied about that.

Clint Ritchie had the biggest cock in soap history.

Slee rode Clint's cock!

R400- You nailed OLTL- It did have a vitality that no other shows had during the Rauch era- Awesome.

I remember in an interview with OLTL's lighting designers in the late 80's, the interviewer asked why OLTL was lit so brightly- they said that this was Rauch's vision- he wanted the show to upbeat and energetic. And truthfully, it was. The entire show was a flight of fancy.

Did anyone speak out in support of Laura Bonarrigo at the time? I remember the fans being vocal but I don't remember too many co-stars saying anything, unless they were afraid of JFP?

The show almost died when Kathy Glass left. All because they wouldn't give her some time off to make a few commercials. She was just tired of carrying the show.

Did Clint Ritchie have a huge cock, as R438 claims? It's the first time I've heard that.

[quote] Did anyone speak out in support of Laura Bonarrigo at the time? I remember the fans being vocal but I don't remember too many co-stars saying anything, unless they were afraid of JFP?

Only Robin Strasser - she said they were getting rid of all the characters she was linked to. Her daughter, her on-screen love interest (Mel)

I loved Dorian and Mel. Dorian was so much less camp when they had her with Mel.

R445 Dorian and Mel were absurdly popular on all the soap boards, so I was shocked when they bumped him off.

I wasn't crazy about most of what the Labines did, but I did love Dorian & Mel and the Cramer story.

[quote] I did love Dorian & Mel and the Cramer story.

Then after they got rid of Mel, they made Dorian the one that ran over Jessica on the road where she the baby!

Robin was heartbroken that they made her character do it. and she was convinced JFP wanted her off the show by making her so unlikable.

JFP decimated a lot of the show and it was never the same.

[quote] they made Dorian the one that ran over Jessica on the road where she the baby!

Sorry it should be

"they made Dorian the one that ran over Jessica on the road where she LOST the baby! "

Whenever Dorian had a love interest that made her character more than one dimensional they were always quick to end it. I loved Dorian and Herb to. But watching Dorian and Mel was just fun and it allowed you to really like Dorian as a fully developed character. Not just a plot device for Viki.

The show had a lot of good dynamics set up around that time - it just needed a stronger writer with more focus. However, JFP came in and totally gutted most of the foundation.

[434] You left out the most infamous firing that JFP was involved in, when she dropped Anna Lee, MBE the legendary Lila Quatermaine on GH, from contract to recurring. Lee had been told she had a job for life by Wendy Riche, and being dropped to recurring basically killed her. For that alone JFP deserves to be remembered as a pure BITCH!

R434 Is that Genie Francis story true?

R434 I thought it was Wendy Riche who was constantly on Genie about her weight.

I never said a word to that fat pig Genie about how huge her ass was.

Who the fuck was Jill Phelps to lecture ANYONE about their weight?

Oh for christs sake regarding Anna Lee. Go on youtube and watch her final scenes. The woman could barely speak. She was old, frail and incommunicative. No wonder she was fired. Leslie Charleson said they used to have to do 20 takes of a scene because Anna couldn’t take direction anymore. The woman got old and could no longer act. It happens.

Regarding Robin Strasser and Guiding Light, r435 is correct, but there's more to it. As I recall, Strasser went to the GL studios in early 1993 to discuss the Alexandra role with JFP. Michael Zaslow had alerted Strasser that GL was considering recasting Alexandra. It wasn't an audition but more of a meet and greet with JFP to talk about the role. No offer was made to her.

As Strasser was leaving the GL studio, she saw a reporter from one of the soap mags in the lobby. She was afraid the reporter would blab about Strasser being at the GL studio and it would get back to TPTB at ABC and thereby burn her bridges at OLTL. So, she decided to head things off and went to OLTL as a courtesy to tell Linda Gotlieb she had the meeting with JFP about possibly playing Alexandra. It's considered good form in the soap biz to let your former soap know you're considering taking a role on another soap.

Not wanting Strasser to sign with the competition, Gotlieb made her an offer on the spot. Obviously, Strasser accepted and was back on screen as Dorian within a few weeks, while Elaine Princi was history.

JFP was pissed that Strasser didn't do a courtesy call to tell her about OLTL's offer and give her a chance to make a counter offer. JFP thought Strasser had just used the meeting with her to gain leverage to get OLTL to hire her again.

R458 Leslie Charleson was also the cast member most upset over Lee's treatment, the fact was that the lady was 90 years old, she had been promised a job for life, her contract should have been renewed, she wouldn't have been around that much longer. If they were having issues with her speaking, they could have written the character as having had a stroke or something.

R459 It does sound like Strasser used the meeting with her to gain leverage to get OLTL to hire her again.

Everyone was upset about the Anna Lee situation - yes there might have been budgetary concerns. But at Days of our Lives and even ATWT they very rarely sacked veterans. Ken Cordy (EP of Days) said that he would have rather reduced a person guarantee than take someone off contract and have them recur. Same with ATWT

Back in the mid-80s Gloria Monty got around veteran actor's contracts by offering them 20 "Guest" appearances over a 52 week period. She did that for both Rachel Ames and Emily McLaughlin.

R434

It was Wendy Riche who berated Genie about her weight. She went so far as belittling her on the studio floor in front of cast & crew

R458

The bigger issue with the Anna Lee situation is she lost her medical insurance. That was horrific for someone in her condition. As R462 pointed out JFP could've given her the bare minimum contract that would've kept her insurance active.

[quote] The bigger issue with the Anna Lee situation is she lost her medical insurance. That was horrific for someone in her condition. As pointed out JFP could've given her the bare minimum contract that would've kept her insurance active.

I agree, that I why I said other shows like "Days" & ATWT kept their veteran actors - choosing to reduce their guarantee, rather than place them on recurring

Even Gloria Monty recognized that, creating a 'special' contract for veterans by giving them the bare minimum so they could keep their health insurance.

There's got to be more to the Anna Lee situation than meets the eye. Despite her rep, it's hard to believe JFP was some soap Cruella De Vil type who canned some poor 100-year-old actress, rather than reduce her to a minimum guarantee so that she could keep her insurance, and then get ABC to sign off on it. Something else was going on there. ABC under Frons kept an ailing Ruth Warrick on contract for years despite making exactly 1 appearance between 2002 and her death in 2005. Same with James MItchell and to a lesser extent Eileen Herlie, who worked pretty much up to a couple of months before her death from pneumonia.

R465 but you have to remember AMC is an Agnes Nixon production. Though she didn't have any ownership, she still held a considerable amount of influence. It is possible she went to bat of AMC veterans

At GH there is no one who could go to bat for Anna Lee.

R465

With JFP's terrible rep why is it so difficult for you to accept she is a cunt.?

Her cunt tastes damn good.

I remember some drama with JFP and one of those actors that played one of those IRA guys on OLTL in the 90s.

Anna Lee didn’t go without health insurance. Don’t even try that shit. Surely she got a pension with insurance from the unions. And Medicare.

I remember always watching Kale Browne and thinking he must have the worst breath. He always seemed to have dry mouth and was constantly licking his lips.

R471 he was a drunk - which is why he was fired from both AW & OLTL because he didn't have JFP protecting his job.

He was ugly as shit on OLTL, I could never imagine that Nora or Lindsey would want him. Now, Laurence Lau, I totally understood them wanting him.

[quote] He was ugly as shit on OLTL

It was the drinking - the minute JFP left OLTL - ABC moved in and fired him

I remember in the old ABC AOL chatrooms, Tim Stickney used to come in and insinuate this stuff about Kale always being late and never knowing his lines.

I loved RJ wish they had developed him more

Another big mistake made under Frank was eliminating the Gannons.

Worst story ever was Joe Riley's twin.

I wanted RJ and Lindsey to get together.

Kale Browne is only a year older than Laurence Lau.

I'll never forgive JFP for killing off Maureen Bauer on GL!

How does brain dead JFP even maintain any relevance? Is the competition that bubbles to the surface so much worse?

Why did Agnes Dickson give up on OLTL to concentrate on AMC? Also, is it true the ATWT writers who introduced Dr. John Dickson named the character as a nod to Agnes?

JFP brought OLTL to no 1 in the demos. She’s great at raising ratings and getting emmys.

I Loved the introduction Of Lindsay Rappaport. That was a JFP decision. Catherine Hickland is what the show needed. A complex vixen! LOVED the Nora/Lindsay feud. Sam was okay when he interacted with Todd.

Agreed. Hickland/Lindsay was one the only palatable introductions of JFP, hence why she lasted the longest.

TSJ is on the new series RoswellNM. He looks fantastic!

How come none of the crazed fans organize any type of yearly OLTL reunions?

The average age of OLTL viewers 10 years ago was 70. These people are now in bed by 4pm. They ain't organizing nothing,

R488

There was an OLTL reunion at last year's GH Fan Club Weekend. There were about 20 former OLTLers there

There was a big OLTL/AMC reunion just recently. And a lot of them reunited at a bar last year. There were a lot of pics in one of these threads.

That fucking Slee could never pull this off. Enjoy your 6 hat racks and your prunes, Slee dearest.

Eat a sandwich, Sue! You bony cunt!

Victoria would never insinuate her way into a Susan Lucci thread. Much too distasteful really.

[quote] I Loved the introduction Of Lindsay Rappaport. That was a JFP decision. Catherine Hickland is what the show needed. A complex vixen!

Which was strange because Hickland was another actress who clashed with JFP in the past. When Guiding Light was recasting the part of Mindy, JFP REFUSED to see Hickland. Vincent Irrizary even lobbied JFP to just give Hickland an audition, but JFP couldn't be swayed

They wound up casting an unknown, who was later sacked after 13 weeks and replaced by Barbara Crampton (JFP original choice)

How come Ron has not tried to bring Seponski back to DOOL?

[quote] How come Ron has not tried to bring Seponski back to DOOL?

She said they only offered scale and wouldn't pay for airfare and hotel for a one-day guest shot.

r497 needs to read more carefully.

Loved Lindsay and Clint when she became the newest Mrs Buchanan that was the Sl I wanted to see...the stepmom from hell!!!

I loved Catherine Hickland on OLTL (and on Loving and The City too) but she was too mature looking (to put it nicely) to be Mindy.

Cat Hickland would have been an adequate Tina recast, i don't know why they brought her onto OLTL as a brand new character.

On the magnificent midwestern towns thread, if you even dare suggest an ABC or Days actor in a role on a P&G show, they go ballistic. Those P&G fans are a bit touched in the head.

If Audrey Landers had been recast as Tina, I would have enjoyed seeing her in a catty, immoral role. She played evil characters fine before, like in Charlie's Angels but she mostly played the dewy parts. Sometimes these actors start out playing a complex and ambiguous character but after a couple of scenes they are everybody's best friend.

Marsha Clark's dyky interpretation of Tina was the worst. WTF was that all about?

Catherine was considered as a Sarah recast after Jensen left which would have been god awful! I liked her as Lindsay couldn’t see her as a Tina!!!

Audrey Landers was considered as a Tina recast but she wouldn’t sign a long term contract so they created the role of Charlotte Hesser for her. She could have made a great Tina!!!

In 1992, Mary Beth Evans had a meeting with ABC Daytime execs after leaving her popular role as Kayla Brady on Days of Our Lives and they offered to create a new character for her on OLTL, that was gonna be Bo's love interest, Mary Beth had already started packing to move to NYC when she was informed that ABC was gonna find a spot for her on GH, where she played Katherine until 1999, instead

Does anyone know what chararacter she was supposed to play in a big contract role on OLTL. It couldn't of been Nora, I can't see her in that part. I know Robert Woods was estactic because he had become good friends with Mary Beth the year he was on DAYS as Paul Stewart from 86-87.

R504 Marsha was just a temporary recast to fill in until they could get Andrea Evans back. Kelli Maroney left rather suddenly apparently, so they had to do a quickie recast. She was an odd choice, about un-Tina like as you could get. Surely they could've found a blonde with some decent acting ability to have worked for a few weeks that could've been a semi believable Tina.

Nancy Frangione also briefly played Tina sometime during the Marsha Clark/Kelli Maroney period. Not sure if she was meant to be interim, but she played the role at least for a few weeks.

I bet Marty Beth Evans could have been a Sarah recast or that character Dr paige miller who was played by three different actresses including Trump loving Kimberlin Brown!

MBE is better as a bitch than sweetness. Liked her on GH as Katherine.

R506 I doubt that story because Mary Beth was firmly rooted in LA with her doctor husband and 3 young children - I don't see her being bi-cosatal leaving her children behind to be cared by nannies

Frangione's wikipedia article says she temporarily filled in for an ill Andrea Evans.

Mary Beth Evans moved to nyc for ATWT so her coming to OLTL doesn’t sound improbable!!!

R510 I have the Soap Opera Weekly issue from 1996 I believe when she Saud she had been contacted to pack her bags because a role was being created for her in OLTL, she also said an "estactic" Robert Woods called her when he found out and offered to let Mary Beth and her family stay with him.in Connecticut, where he lived, until she found her own place

R510

MBE moved to NYC & was bi-coastal to play Sierra. She loved her time there & talks very highly of her time on ATWT.

I loved her version of Sierra and she had fab chemistry with Liz, Hunt, Martha & Peyton.

RSW/Bo had great chemistry with a lot of his co stars same goes for JDP/ Max!

The biggest what if in casting on OLTL was Cali Timmins as Tina. Unfortunately that fell apart at the last minute.

For people who said "well she went on ATWT" that was in 2002 TEN YEARS AFTER this so-called offer to join OLTL in 1992. Obviously her kids were older and her husband was more settled into his job.

But in 1992 she had three kids all under the age of 10. So it is doubtful she would have entertained a NY soap offer. Ten years later, her kids were ten years older so it was more doable.

[quote] I have the Soap Opera Weekly issue from 1996 I believe when she Saud she had been contacted to pack her bags because a role was being created for her in OLTL

She was under contract to General Hospital fro 1993 to 1999 - so again it is doubtful she would go to a NY soap when she was employed on an LA soap in her own backyard

Calli Timmons would have been great! Which of GL Mindy’s were also in the running? Krista T sucked as Tina!

Also heard in later years Sarah Buxton from Sunset Beach and Cynthia Preston GH were also Tina considerations.

I thought Krista T was the best Tina recast.

Krista T was the best Tina recast but still that ain't saying a whole lot. Evans was an irreplaceable powerhouse.

No way Krista T sucked! No one could do what Evans did! Karen Witter at least brought her own spin on it and she was pretty good although the character changed.

Krista T said her entire two years on OLTL she had no story-line and had absolutely nothing to do

R520 I don't know, Evans was great as the young teenage/early twenties Tina, but when she came back, it was like she hadn't grown at all. She was too OTT, juvenile, and campy. She was the same on B&B and Passions.

Where did anyone get this info about MBE coming to OLTL in 1992?

I am almost positive MBE was in talks to come to OLTL as Paige.

I never watched DAYS and I wasn't really watching ATWT when MBE was on, but from what I remember from her time on GH, she wasn't that great. In fact, I had forgotten she was even on GH, until I was reminded in another thread a couple of months ago.

[quote] I am almost positive MBE was in talks to come to OLTL as Paige

Correct this was in 2002 - at the time MBE was only doing guest shots (one to two days a month) on ATWT from 2000 - 2002

Then MBE got an offer for a recurring role on OLTL as Paige. When ATWT caught wind and stepped in to offer her a contract. So she passed on the part on OLTL and the role went to Kimberlin Brown.

Shit, I think I was thinking of Karen Witter instead of Krista T. I'm confused. I was only a once a week viewer back in the early 90s. I do know I prefer AE Tina though even if she hadn't matured over the years.

I loved Karen Witter. Obviously, she was never the best actress, but her Tina was one of my favorite characters at the time.

Why hire Kimberlin Brown and not make her a psycho? Paige was so bland. Would have loved Shelia part two in Llanview!!!

R529 Exactly, I kept waiting for her to turn evil.

Kimberlin Brown is/was a horrible actress. Good lord.

Slee did not think much of Tesreau.

R505 I liked Audrey. she wasn't Tina. Only Andrea was. She had the camp, the sexiness and the eyebags! she looked hot even with those eye bags. Karen was like a cheap knockoff of Andrea and KT was good looking but better elsewhere.

R524 it was from an interview she did in a 1996 issue of Soap Opera Weekly, she said that when she left DAYS she was approached IMMEDIATELY by ABC for a contract role on OLTL as a love interest for Bo (Robert S. Woods) at the last minute ABC decided the character wasn't needed and they kept her in mind for another soap eventually putting her on GH in 1993

Kimberlin Brown was fantastic. One of my favourite soap actresses.

R516

OMG! You just blew my wig off! Cali Timmins would have been the perfect Tina. Why couldn't this have happened.

r536, that was allegedly in 2003 with Malone and Griffith's original plans. But as we know now, Frons threw out a lot of their stories.

YES to Cali Timmins!!!! I always wonder what OLTL would have been if Tina remained a focus on the canvas in the 90s...Would she have a rivalry with Blair? Viki? Todd? Reunite with Cord? Max? and if somehow they'd have kept Gabrielle around I love the idea of these two frenemies running Llanview.

There would be no Blair or Alex if Gabrielle hadn't left.

Cali Timmins went so far as to have reading with Slee. Their chemistry was off the charts. Someone though was unhappy with the edge Cali would have brought to the role. All the Tina ditz would have been gone and Cali came off more as an equal.

[quote] it was from an interview she did in a 1996 issue of Soap Opera Weekly, she said that when she left DAYS she was approached IMMEDIATELY by ABC for a contract role on OLTL as a love interest for Bo (Robert S. Woods)

So you are telling me that a woman with three children under the age of ten, would leave her children in care of nannies and only see them on weekends?

No one believes that.

[quote] it was from an interview she did in a 1996 issue of Soap Opera Weekly, she said that when she left DAYS she was approached IMMEDIATELY by ABC for a contract role on OLTL as a love interest for Bo (Robert S. Woods)

Lucky we can use Mary Beth to dispute you story. Below at her official website she has posted every single magazine interview she has done (including Soap Opera Weekly)

In NONE OF THEM does the show One Life To Live come up in any magazine interview. NOT ONE

Look for yourself. Sorry to expose your lie

r540 is making up stories.

r539, Alex was on the canvas before Gabrielle left.

R542 that's not EVERY Single interview though, she left out a lot, I'll post the 4 page Soap Opera Weekly interview when I find the magazine, it was when she was on GH

[quote] that's not EVERY Single interview though,

Sure = R545 we are not holding our breath.

R536 Cali was hot but not camp at all. Andrea was sexy, innocent, cunty and campy in one package.

The first time Cali auditioned for Tina was 1990 - but the show held off bringing Tina back for the longest time (as they were trying to convince Andrea Evans to come back). Cali couldn't wait any longer as an offer to create a new character on Another World fell into her lap. So she took the AW job in February, while Karen Witter got cast as Tina in June.

But things went sour for Cali as she completely unhappy with her character of Paulina and her storyline. She wound up getting fired and replaced by Judi Evans (who auditioned for the Vicky/Marley role that went to Jensen Buchanan)

The second time the Tina role came up, then producer Susan Bedsow Horgan gave it to Krista Tesreau without even an audition. Krista had previously auditioned for another role that went to someone else (forgot what the part was) but based on that audition, the brass felt she would be good for Tina.

Krista was unhappy and quit after two years saying her Tina had no storyline at all. So if Krista was unhappy, you could bet Cali would be twice as unhappy, given her unhappiness with Another World.

I ALWAYS saw Tina’s ditzy bimbo side was an act so she could keep people guessing. Hiding her vixen viper side.

Blair came on as a more tragic tortured anti heroine not the bitchy she devil turned soccer mom Kassie turned her into. Same as Alex she was an FBI agent before she became crazy sexy psycho.

Gabrielle was seperate from these characters maybe a little like early Blair.

I feel like they wasted Yasmine Bleeth I wish they could have made Lee ann more of a social climber or a villain. She was kind of a hick whore with a heart which wasn’t memorable. Loved her scenes with Asa!

R548

This thread is giving me the vapors. MARY!

Not only do I learn that Cali was up for the recast role of Tina but Judi Evan was almost cast as Vicky/Marley !!!!

As I take to my fainting bench I will ponder what wonderment that all could've been.

WHAT about other MIndy’s like Kimberly Simms or Barbara Crampton as Tina? We’re they considered?

Kimberly Simms as Tina would have ROCKED. Cali Timmins- AWESOME CHOICE.

Sarah Buxton?? That one may have worked as she looked so much like Tina and probably would have evoked 80's Tina the most.

Krista Tesreau was GODAWFUL. There is not storyline that would have made her tolerable. She was unwatchable.

Kimberly Simms sounds like the most 'WHAT IF!!?" to me. Love that choice!

But no one can ever touch Andrea Evans in that role. There were not any characters on daytime like Tina. The whole ditzy, viper, schemer combo-

My favorite scenes were of Tina and Asa. Asa HATED her. And his lines were always so funny-

Andrea Evans once described Tina as a scheming Scarlett O'Hara type, but without the brains.

They even brought Christopher Cousins (Cain) back to play opposite Tina again in 2008 (OLTL 40th Anniversary) - but this time he was paired with Andrea Evans "Tina" and NOT Karen Witter "Tina" that his character was originally paired with,.

LOL I'd forgotten all about Asa and Tina's scenes. They were hysterical. I also loved Dorian and Asa's scenes when they were on each other's side conniving about one thing or the other.

R555! I love you. THEY WERE THE BEST- What is Asa's line in the infamous, Tina returns from the dead at Cord and Kate's wedding? "Tina turns up like the proverbial bad penny!"

Check out the Tina takes over Llanfair episodes on Youtube. (Actually you already know!!! You mentioned Asa and Dorian!)

Phil Carey REALLY was funny, and does not get enough credit. OLTL had as much humor as AMC, even in the 80's.

MEGAN was the best character! Tina was an overgrown child.

Asa was one of the best male characters hands down!

I know their arrival made no sense but I loved all the Buchanans and everyone they brought with them. Fuck you Mimi haters I loved her too.

Asa is SUPREMELY underrated.

Bless you Phil Carey,

One of the most UNDERRATED characters of all time

They cut the Craigs and Woleks to make room for the Buchanans.

Good screw the Craig’s and the Wolek’s! We don’t want to see working middle class. Rich powerful Texas cowboys are always more entertaining! Long live The Buchanan’s!!!!

OLTL had such a goldmine setup with story and characters, but they squandered it. They basically cast aside Viki's kids (viable Lords AND Bukes) and Viki's other extended family (Tina and the kids) as well as most of the Cramers in order to play a last decade of god awful newbies and WTF characters.

I know Frons gets most of the blame, but this exact thing has happened on GH NOW, so Frank was always a huge part of the problem.

Hated the last decade made up of newbies. John mcBain was the worst airtime sucker!!! We lost all the Buchanan boys, Tina, The cramers, max and gabrielle...all new families and new faces sucked!

I loved the eye candy in the last decade, but I really missed the core families. The only newbie who contributed something was Marcy.

Valentini never got nearly enough blame for all the shit when clearly he had more to do with it than we originally thought.

They could've brought back Viki's nephew Dr. Dan Wolek back as a hot fortysomething daddy type, but the Woleks were all but forgotten. So many missed opportunities to move the show forward by using elements from its rich past.

The most hysterical part is that none of those characters ever fit in organically. They all had to be forced on the audience non stop, not to mention the amount of bullshit stories in order to attempt to make some of them in any way relevant (McBane, Rex). They never gave up in trying to make some of them "happen" even after years.

r567, you mean like GH could have brought back Tom Hardy instead of 4 characters for Easton or a Franco or a Drew?

The parallels are hard to ignore with Frank at the helm.

I got the impression that Frons pretty much left OLTL and GH alone, while he micromanaged everything at AMC. That show was mostly a clusterfuck under him and suffered the most of the three.

I had often wondered how things would have evolved if not for that writer's strike. Ron had such a good momentum there for several months.

Biggest waste of space on GH is the Staff. I can't believe that Frankie is still trying to make that square peg fit over there. And she's just awful to boot.

R570

You'd be quite wrong. Frons had his hands all over GH.

WE could have had Dr larry Wolek back and a great Dr Danny Wolek recast. So many core characters should have been apart of the action!!! We never met adult CJ who was a Buchanan and a Lord and the legacy son of a Supercouple BUT instead we got so many males around his age who offered nothing and had zero ties to the canvas- The fords, Brody, Rex...

The great thing Chris Goutman (EP of ATWT) did was research the history of the show, and bring back characters which made great story. So instead of created new characters who had family ties, he brought back characters and used their past history to create even more story.

Mike Kasnoff, Rosanna Cabot, Paul Ryan, Craig Montgomery, Sierra Estaban.

That is one thing the ABC soaps (like AMC & OLTL) never did. They just introduced new characters and pushed them in the face of long-time viewers. Both shows had such incredible rich history, and plethora of past characters they could have re-activated. But instead they just created new characters with no ties to the existing characters on the canvas.

Other actors had noticed that as well, and some had suggested it was the headwriters who refused to revisit old characters, The talk was that when a headwriter creates a new character, and that character takes off. The writer receives royalties on that character for the duration that character runs on the show.

If they re-introduce an old character, that writer gets nothing. And the writer who created the character gets the royalties.

This is what some are saying, so I don't know if it is true or not.

They could have brought back Viki's niece Julie Toland. The actress who played her was older than Slee.

R565 I hated Marcy, the patron saint of the fat fraus audience

R575 that's one thing that DAYS has always done well because Ken Corday, whose parents along with Irma Phillips created the show, was there since day one in 1965 as a college intern, so he's well versed in the history of the show and DAYS has pulled doozies in recent years by bringing back characters who've been off the canvas for 20, 30 plus years.

I think Ron Carlivati is good at honoring the history too, he's done tons of storyline and character shout outs on DAYS, even Liz Chandler, not seen on the show since 1986, was mentioned a few times this week

And of course Diana Colville is back on the show, last played by Genie Francis in 1989 and now played by Judith Chapman

The absence of CJ across the years was really a mystery. Just the right age, great-grandson of Asa, son of Tina, nephew (and step-grandson) of Viki. I also thought it would have been interesting to bring back Mary, the daughter of ex-hooker Katrina Karr, switched a birth by Karen Wolek and given to Jenny Wolek, who later had to give her up. When they were developing Aubrey toward the end, it seemed like maybe she had some connection to Katrina and Karen, but they never resolved the mystery.

r575, you clearly have no idea of ATWT history if you think Goutman "honored it" or "used it well". That is laughable.

Well, the story goes that Judith Light was considering returning in the show's final weeks, but decided against it after she read Ron's plan to have her be Aubrey's biological mother.

[quote] you clearly have no idea of ATWT history if you think Goutman "honored it" or "used it well". That is laughable.

So Mike Kasnoff being brought back and was front burner generating story for Carly, Rosanna, Katie, Jennifer and Molly was .... ?

I think the IDEAS were there with Malone2 and Carlivati, but nothing was ever allowed to come to fruition, especially Malone2. He seemed to have some scope of the necessary missing characters - Dorian, Joey, Kevin, Kelly, Cassie, Andrew, bringing on Sarah with plans to bring back Tina and CJ. Having River in the mix. Aside from the ridiculous Victor Lord being alive, there was a lot of promise in story - Joey coming back as priest, Max staying at the rectory, Nora/Bo/Gabrielle, Troy/Lindsay, Kevin vs Todd.

r581, I am not going to get into an ATWT discussion in this thread, but Goutman was just as bad as the ABC lot of stooges. Any characters brought back were either destroyed or had the personality completely changed to fit plot. And there was a litany of newbies same as the ABC shows.

R583 you started it So it was a mistake to bring back Mike Kasnoff? Yes or NO

Put up of shut up

r583, you have to bring new blood onto a show. Not everyone needs to be a legacy character or child of a legacy character. If that were the case, we never would've gotten the Buchanans, and for that matter the Cortlandts and Chandlers on AMC or the Quartermaines on GH. Sometime you just need a dose of fresh blood to energize a show. I was never an ATWT fan, but I watched sporadically, I think Goutman and his writers did a decent job of balancing children of legacy characters vs characters with no ties. Sure it could be argued that the characters with no ties were poorly conceived (e.g., Janet), but I think ATWT did a better job than most.

r584, I don't consider Mike any real mining of history so it's irrelevant.

I have never seen one ATWT fan defend Goutman. He is seen as a showkiller just as much as Frons in those fans' opinions. And we now know that P&G was actively sabotaging their shows, so it's no surprise.

R586 so the man who came between two LEGACY characters (Carly and Rosanna) who have major ties to the families in Oakdale is irrelevant,

OK got it

MALONE part 2 had some good stuff - Kevin versus Todd should have continued with Viki in the middle. I think higher ups interfered with his second tenure.

I think Goutman cared about the show. He didn't have an easy job. He had a mandate to get the demos up despite a traditionally older and conservative viewership for that show. It must've been a tough balancing act to try and appeal to new viewers while maintaining the older audience. To his credit he kept most of the vets intact. Felicia Behr had the same problem. Everyone says that Marland did so and so, but he was HW in a much different era, when network interference and the ultimate take no prisoners quest for the young demo were not really as much of an issue. If Marland had lived he would've faced the same type of interference eventually.

P&G wanted its soaps GONE. Why is that so hard to believe? Many people believe the same thing about the ABC shows.

Why is there a Mike Kasnoff troll in the OLTL thread? Did Shawn Christian take a break from tanning bed to post here?

Ratings are irrelevant as it is the 18-34 female demo that counts. That is what advertisers want. ATWT did poorly in that demo, while Days of our Lives reigned supreme in that demo. In the late 90s "Days" producer Ken Corday scored a $500 Million licensing fee from NBC because they were number 1 in that demo.

After ATWT ended in 2010, Goutman directed Days of Our Lives from 2011-2012 and the online version of OLTL in 2013

[quote] Why is there a Mike Kasnoff troll in the OLTL thread? Did Shawn Christian take a break from tanning bed to post here?

Shawn Christian used to be One Life To Live after he left ATWT

R593 The whole focus on the 18-34 female demo is so outdated and stupid. They are in school, working, or so saddled with debt that they aren't the ones spending money. If advertisers really want to sell products they should be advertising to baby boomers, who actually have disposable income.

They don't want the baby boomer audience. Yes, they have the money, but they are also very conservative when it comes to trying new products. Research shows that they tend to stick with the same old, same old, so they don't respond to advertising for new products, the way younger people do. Of course, younger people aren't even watching these shows, so trying to appeal to them is pointless.

Women 18 - 34

Cable is aggressively courting this young generation, which constitutes about 92 million people 12 to 34 years old, or about 68 million people in the coveted 18-to-34 demographic, according to Nielsen.

Which is why cable are not doing soaps, because they see it as not attracting that demo.

I thought Shawn Christian was devastatingly good looking with his dark hair and perfect body on OLTL.

He was cute but it was a horrible character!

Here's the Soap Opera Digest issue where Slee addresses the issue of people mistaking her for her father's wife not his daughter.

If 68 million women (18-to-34) were watching soaps, there would be 20 soap operas on TV today.

But instead that demo is watching reality shows (eg Real Housewives franchise) which is said to be the new soaps of this women's generation.

R597 I have always questioned that research, since all the older people I know are always wanting to try any new product they see advertised, My grandmother is almost 90, and she is always seeing ads on tv and wanting to try the new products.