Still marvelous, still Midwestern

^ Aw....Casanova and Fanny ^

Oooh...that old AW thread JUST got Murieled.

R2 My timing is exquisite, then!

Just to update you - the last few discussion points included

ATWT's Rose story, and how it ended

ATWT killing the children of "legacy characters" off in the 2000s

The end of AW and the AW characters on ATWT

and more.

The old AW thread is here, for reference

and the old GL thread.

They were both pretty much all P&G shows but one had a GL-related title (this one) and the other an AW title.

West Wing's Bradley Whitford playing Dr, Jones during the Sonni/Solita storyline on Guiding Light

I miss Gilly Grant!

This makes me hate Goutman even more ...from SOD podcast from Martha B

I really needed something to kind of shake my tree a little bit. I felt like things were a little stagnant for me. When I say that I mean where do I go, like, everything was kind of done. When [EP] Chris Goutman presented it to me it was not supposed to be a biological twin, it was supposed to be just like a look-alike; that was the original idea. And then it was Hogan Sheffer who became the head writer right after that decision was made. He said, 'No, no, no, no. Let’s dive back into the history and make her a relative in some way.' So had he not done that, I think it would have fizzled …

In May 1993, USA Network's 'Up All Night' late night show had a Mother's Day show features mothers in popular music.

When this 1984 video came on, my husband said, "Linda Dano did New Wave videos?!?!!"

For those that saw the scanned image last week....Digest did finally run the Martha B interview text online (from what people are saying the podcast may be somewhat different or have extra stuff....)

I didn't realize Bradley Whitford was on Guiding Light. And during the great Sonni/Solita story!

A beacon in the darkness......

Aunt Liz?

I can hear you eavesdropping, dear.

Yes, r13. I'm eavesdropping. You know I always am.

I've been over on the Frank Grillo thread eavesdropping. Lots of discussion of Frank's GL days as Hart. Some quite juicy gossip over there, but lots of extraneous stuff too. Someone who seems to be an insider is saying Frank and Wendy were greatly disliked on the GL set and caused tremendous problems. Everyone was relieved when the pair finally departed.

Do go over there and have a listen. Most of the GL stuff is in the last half of the thread.

What did people think about Cady McLain's Rosanna Cabot?

I wasn't watching ATWT when Yvonne Perry played the part, but I quite enjoyed Cady's portrayal But then I didn't have anything to compare it.

So, tell me how the two compared.

Three actors portrayed Mike Kasnoff on ATWT -- Shawn Christian, Mark Collier and Jon Prescott.

Which one was best in the role? Discuss.

I'm biased, because Yvonne Perry was on AOL (along with Allyson Rice-Taylor) and interacted with the fans. I thought both YP and ART were dolls. So I preferred her Rosanna over Cady's, who had too much of an edge and who frankly appeared in too many scenes with Hunt Block's Craig, who I loathed.

Shawn Christian was Mike. Mark Collier was OK, but his accent and lack of body hair disqualified him. Jon Prescott was too young for the part.

Did anybody catch Melina Kanakaredes on The Resident? She was killed off but she has aged shockingly bad.

I delete ALL soap threads and block their creators

Shawn Christian was Mike, as someone said above. His first (shirtless) day, he owned the part, working in that garage. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

Now, I actually would prefer to have sex with Mark Collier. Much more my type. However, neither he nor any of the post-Shawn Christian actors really inhabited the role the way SC did.

I was already done with FMB's shitshow by the time she moved Dixie from Pine Valley to Oakdale. There was no Oakdale without Andrew.

Mark Collier was such a doll with fans - every fan event he was stayed well beyond the end time of the event to make sure every single fan had an autograph and picture with him (if they wanted one)

He said these fans drove miles and miles to see the stars of ATWT - so him giving up one day of his time to make sure all those fans got an autograph is no sacrifice for him.

Was he accepting blowjobs as payment for photos and autographs, one wonders, r21. I'd've exchanged dozens. I used to look exclusively at the scenes he was in after the anschluss.

And we are glad you do, r19.

and isn't everyone who played Mike Kasnoff gay(except SC)? Kinda like every adult Jamie from AW is gay

Let's all FF and delete Miss R19. Clearly she has better things to do. Let us free those hours for her.

I thought Yvonne was boring and stiff. Cady was so much better when she arrived (it helps that the writer gave the character an edge she didn't have before), at least until she went into a stupor when paired with Paul.

SC was nice looking but a typical boring soap actor. Jon Prescott was pretty, but forgettable. I thought Mark C. was just okay, until they did that one special Christmas show where he played Desi Arnaz and showed he could be very, very funny. My opinion of his talent went way up after that.

There are rumors that once Mark C's preferences became known that he became chummy with a few married men on set.......

Cady McClain Emmy Reel from 2004

Cady McVain seems exhausting.

Wishful thinking, R27.

R30 Well, it's old gossip. Take it as you will. Same gossip that claimed Michael Park loved to cruise bookstores.

These soap threads have devolved into the same storyline

Every single male soap star is gay and having sex with each other and their "fans"

R32 On the P&G threads, we talk about the actual show far, far more often than the gossip, so I don't know what the hell YOU are reading.

In any case, we can leave the more lurid speculations in the Grillo thread and talk more about the performances and stories here.

[quote] On the P&G threads, we talk about the actual show far, far more often than the gossip

I guess you missed the Frank Grillo/Kurt McKinney & Rick Hearst/ Frank Beatty stories on those P&G threads.

[quote] On the P&G threads, we talk about the actual show far, far more often than the gossip

Who can forget the Douglas Marland and the endless actors who passed by the shows he was writing for - those stories are endless on P&G threads.

Not saying the gossip doesn't appear at all but R32 was going a bit overboard.

[quote]There are rumors that once Mark C's preferences became known that he became chummy with a few married men on set.......

When rumors about Mark C being gay and sometime after that that Michael Park was cruising bathhouses, suddenly Soap Digest or Soap Weekly ran a long story about the great friendship between Collier, Park and Scott Holroyd (he played Paul Ryan in 2001-2003, immediately before Roger Howarth). Went into great detail about what great buddies the three were and how they liked to hang out together when at the studio.

Whenever a story like that runs, it's always suspect. Sure, actors form friendships with their work colleagues. Sometimes they even do things together outside work. That doesn't mean it's worthy of a story about their friendship. So, when that story on the Collier, Park, Holroyd friendship ran, I knew something was up.

As someone who works in media, I can tell you stories like that are PR damage control trying to spin something. Often in the world of soaps, it's someone's heterosexuality they're trying to spin since the audience is primarily women who want/need to believe that their favorite actor is sexually available to them. Or at least to their sexual fantasies.

For example, in 2001 when gay gossip columnist Billy Masters ran a blind item suggesting GH's Jacob Young and Colton Scott (later known as Stephen Martines) were fucking like rabbits. About 6 weeks later, Soap Digest ran a long article about the fantastic friendship the two shared. That's when I knew there was possibly some truth behind the rumors. The blind item was in a gay gossip column, not a mainstream gossip column. If it had been completely false, they could have and likely would have ignored it.

Sometimes when there is smoke, there's fire.

[quote] Not saying the gossip doesn't appear at all

R33 was acting as if these soap threads are a PHd discussion of the merits of daytime drama.

R39 No, not at all. But we really don't spend huge amounts of time on gossip here, esp. compared to the hyper stan threads that litter the boards.

R14 after almost twenty years of marriage Wendy and Frank are divorcing. She got tired of him cheating.

R38 Liz, thank you for that post (and for jogging my memory).

I remembered gossip on the old RATSC boards and the like, specifically about Mark C in the studio with a guy - I thought they said it was one of the Chris Hughes actors. The poster on that old board said that whoever it was was overheard to say "No need to j/o, just go to Mark's dressing room, he'll take care of it in between scenes".

[quote] For example, in 2001 when gay gossip columnist Billy Masters ran a blind item suggesting GH's Jacob Young and Colton Scott (later known as Stephen Martines) were fucking like rabbits.

I remember seeing the scene people gossiped about and damn, they looked like they were going to fuck right THERE.

[quote] But we really don't spend huge amounts of time on gossip here,

You must skip over alot of responses on these soap threads

Recently saw Emma Snyder (Kathleen Widdoes) on the street. We chatted that it would soon be ten years since "World" went off Their Studio 2 in Brooklyn is now a self-storage facility.

Kathleen Widdoes was on ATWT for 25 years

I need some guidance, P&G pals. My s.o. and I are going crazy in quarantine, and I thought it might be fun for us to start watching The Doctors on Retro TV. But from what I've read, they are running it 3 times a day, with 3 different eras in each time slot? Is that true? And if it is, which time, as a huge Elizabeth Hubbard fan, should I watch?

I want to convert hubs to Hubs, LOL.

[qote]I remember seeing the scene people gossiped about and damn, they looked like they were going to fuck right THERE.

I know this isn't a GH thread and apologies for going off topic. But I wanted to address r43's comment. And Colton Scott/Stephen Martines did go on to star on GL, so this is about a P&G actor.

When GH first cast Jacob Young as Lucky in 2001, the show had Lucky and Nikolas arguing a lot as part of the storyline. I remember thinking at the time that those two seemed to be enjoying their arguments a bit too much. Seemed like they were really getting off on it. And yes, sometimes they looked like they were going to fuck right there on the set.

In 2002, I discovered DL and soon was involved with the DL soap thread. Back in those days, we had a lot of insiders posting here. Or at least they posed as insiders, but much of the information they posted turned out to be correct. As for Jacob Young and Stephen Martines, a supposed insider reported that during those arguing scenes the two would often get erections. Supposedly the cameramen had to do closeups to avoid showing the erections on screen. On a few occasions, a director would stop tape and tell them to calm down.

And if you want to know what Jacob Young's erection looked like, take a gander at this photo. I am stunned the show released that photo. Was someone blind? Or did they just not care?

Liz has all the tea! As she well should.

Is Liz still with that Dutch fan? Did they marry? Or did that “special needs” kid of hers put the kibosh on it?

Liz Hubbard?

I had no idea she had a "special needs" child.

Well, he’s not “special needs,” exactly but definitely has some form of ADHD.

Liz is 86, doubt her muffin shop is still open for business.

As the OP of this thread I obv. know it's a P&G thread.....

But WOW. Sad news that John Callahan died. And way too young (66).

I always thought they should have had Reva, instead of the clone or whatever other stupid stories they did, should have had another case of postpartum depression. But maybe it wasn't postpartum after all and she had another mental illness. It was smart to give her cancer, though.

The cancer story had promise, but the way they did it was really dumb.

It should have been something that really made Reva think about who she was. Instead of something she kept secret.

I always liked Morgan Englund. Sigh.

Wish the show had done more with the Dylan character.

Hated Brian Gaskill's brief stint playing Dylan toward the end of the show. Completely wrong for the role. Luckily the show saw it too and dropped him. Was glad they brought Morgan back for a few shows at the end.

Englund was cute, and he had great chemistry w/Zimmer and Jordan Clarke.

But I felt like his character never quite grew into what he could have potentially been. He was a bit too mellow to be the kid of Reva and Billy!

Both Dylan and Rusty Shayne ended up being entirely too goody two shoes. In the case of Rusty the role was just not cast very well.

Rusty looked like a blond Dudley Do-Right.

Not to be too snarky, but Dudley Do-Right was blond.

Haha, OK, I wasn’t sure. He had pointy facial features like Dudley Do-Right. Good looking guy but zero sexuality.

He may have been someone's type but not mine.

Just thought SO much more could have been done with a sexy, smirking kind of Rusty.

Sort of cute here, but as dull as dishwater on screen.

I hated his voice. Too whispery. And he was too skinny. He was the sort of non-threatening men female soap watchers tend to like but arent really guy's guys.

Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly but I thought Mindy and Rusty had good chemistry

Elizabeth Hubbard owns a bakery/ muffin shop!??

R65, I thought they looked like brother and sister. I thought at one point that Rusty would have been revealed to be HB’s son.

The actor who played Rusty was bad as was Sonia Satra as Lucy. Dull and could not act. That really was shocking on GL which was known for its acting.

I see Sonia Satra all the time in my neighborhood on the Upper West Side. She still looks great.

I didn't like Satra per se, she wasn't atrocious, but no one rang for Lucy, y'know? They were trying to make her Harley Part 2, and then made her a Beth Raines-style simp, which was even worse.

In the 90s Guiding Light added the character of Bess Lowell (played by AMC's Elizabeth Lawrence) - Bess being the sister of Ellen Lowell Stewart (Patricia Bruder) of As The World Turns.

Terrell Anthony was certainly cute. But as said, Rusty didn't really do much to light up the screen other than to look pretty.

Anybody know if Terrell Anthony was gay or straight?

I didn't watch GL in the end because the Beverly HIllbillies was not a good look for it. I would rather it had ended sooner than watching it go from glorious sets and wardrobes to now filming inside of barns and people wearing their own Gap gear on camera. As Kim Zimmer put it, it was like raping the show. It was the one thing I ever agreed with her on anything.

R72 I think he was a fundie Jesus freak.

Not answering your question but......

[quote] As Kim Zimmer put it, it was like raping the show.

It was literal violence!

I'm surprised Nia Long hasn't had a better career. Granted, she has done very well for herself but either Siskel or Ebert predicted she was absolutely win an Oscar some day.

Muriel just Murieled the latest Y&R thread, "Are We Still Doing This?" I wonder if someone could start a new thread and provide a link to it in that thread. Current hot topic: the disgustingness of Phyllis, particularly as she sexes up the Crown Prince of Genoa City.

[quote] I think he was a fundie Jesus freak.

He is still - but as an actor he still did bed scenes with his female co-stars, even if the characters were not married.

Holy moly, 40 years ago tomorrow Roger Thorpe met his (first) demise. Plus Kevin Bacon and John Wesley Shipp sharing a scene!

I use to LOVE when soaps went on location. It was so exciting and GL did some great ones like this- so raw and gritty.

Was any of you old queens watching when James Earl Jones/ Billy Dee Williams/Rudy Dee/ Cicely Tyson were on GL? JoBeth Williams? Was JoBeth on at the same time as Kevin Bacon?

The guy who played Rusty once cruised me in the Village. What's the story with Shawn Christian? So good looking in his day. Who was he with?

[quote]What's the story with Shawn Christian? So good looking in his day. Who was he with?

Not Scott DeFreitas.

The new Y&R thread is here

If any of you were interested in the new soap book, Elana Levine's "Her Stories" it is 50 percent off right now. See link.

Morgan Englund certainly aged well

[quote] Morgan Englund certainly aged well

His Guiding Light co-star Joan Collins had a TORRID affair with Morgan's father

George Englund was handsome when he was younger.....Morgan looks like him a bit.

11 years ago GL was cancelled.

Time is just FLYING by......

Atwt wasn't the only show a certain exec foisted the cast of Port Charles upon; when I heard GL was bringing Dylan back I said to an exec at the show, 'Oh, Morgan...good.'

And there was silence; and I thought that's odd; well, they don't know who Morgan is maybe? Someone there has to know, though. They're bringing him back.

And, instead, we get Brian Gaskill. Who'd left a soap before. Models Inc. How bad do you have to be to be on a show whose nickname is Models Stink?

Fans knew the show so much better than the people who ran it.

Wasn’t Gaskill already on AMC before he went to GL?

I don't think it was a terrible idea to try a new Dylan but Gaskill just wasn't it.

R6, I think that's Helga of Sven and Helga on AW in the late 70s as the little old lady in the scene at the beginning.

Helen Stonberg.

She was married to Barnard Hughes "Doc"

It’s Stenborg, not Stonberg.

It’s Stenborg, not Stonberg.

You say potato, I say po-tah-to.

Uhh, no, R96, that’s her correct name. Nothing to do with pronunciation.

Thanks for correction; I think Sven, Helga, and Regina in the Cory manse got the show REALLY high ratings.

You had to suspend belief that Mac and Rachel couldn't see through Sven; he was SO threatening just by standing there.

I put Sven up there with Stefano and Helena Cassadine.

Helen Stenborg daughter is married to Julianne Moore EX-Husband.

Here is Helen Stenborg on Guiding Light as she was part of the Sonni/Solita storyline

Here she is with of all people Bradley Whitford (West Wing) playing a doctor!

First time I saw Helen Stenborg was in an episode of St. Elsewhere - she played the mother of a dying AIDS patient (played by Kyle Secor)

Go 19:30 into video below - such a sad scene

Frank, why is there a log backstage?

Marvelous Midwesterners, I've been busy eavesdropping over on the Frank Grillo thread once again. That thread is still very active and has lots of juicy gossip.

I just wanted to report to you that the thread has evolved past talking exclusively about Frank and Wendy. Now they're talking about GL in general. Lots of comments about Justin Deas, Kim Zimmer, JFP, etc.

So, if the excruciating details about Wendy's backstage antics turned you off of that thread, you might want to return now to take a look. Some very provocative comments/info over there.

R26, Yvonne Perry was no Meryl Streep, but she fit in with ATWT pretty well. I think the show was trying to recreate the success of Lily/Holden with Rosanna/Mike. Cady was a much better actress, and she was excellent when she first came on, hating Carly. But when they became loving sisters, and then when they paired Rosanna with Paul and Craig, things went downhill fast. I believe Cady is one of the few to receive Daytime Emmys for two different roles.

As for Mike Kasnoff, Mark C was my favorite. SC was steamy when he first created the character, but the actor had almost no range and could do little beyond take off his shirt. Jon Prescott was just WAY too young for the role.

EDGE debuted 64 years ago today.

[quote] I believe Cady is one of the few to receive Daytime Emmys for two different roles.

Hello? I ate two different shows!

Susan Flannery has acting Emmys for Days and for B&B.

R104, a fair assessment of Yvonne, who is an extremely nice person.

The triangle with her Rosanna, Mike, and Carly was JUST starting to mesh when Maura left the show.

ATWT in the 90s post Doug Marland was uneven at best, but if you look at it compared to most of today's shows it's like Masterpiece Theater.

Last night I had a terrible dream that Stephen Schnetzer was in the hospital with coronavirus. Comfort me!

How is Linda Dano not THE patron saint of DL?

The things that keep me up at night...

Interesting Search for Tomorrow trivia.

Jennifer Aniston was the guest on Jimmy Kimmel show Thursday night. She revealed that at age 13, she auditioned for the role of TR Kendall on Search. Since her father was playing the role of Martin Tourneur at the time, she figured it might give her an advantage in getting the part. However, she was wrong. Jane Krakowski won the role instead.

[quote] Interesting Search for Tomorrow

26 episodes of Search For Tomorrow has just bee uploaded on YouTube from 1985

You can see Kevin Conroy singing and dancer Leslie Stevens dance to music from "La Cage aux Folles" (The best is yet to come) - at the time Leslie was doing DOUBLE Duty on "Search" - playing Justin during the day and her featured role on Broadways "La Cage aux Folles" 8 times a week,

Playlist at link

Leslie Stevens reminded me a lot of Lisa Brown, who was also on Broadway before GL (she played one of the girls in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas).

Didn't Lisa Brown do Anything Goes WHILE on the soaps?

I recall reading that R114, yes

amazing; we didn't have the internet back in the 70s and 80s; 'just' the mags, but boy did they tell us a lot.

ATWT reunion on YT hosted by former publicist:

R116 How exciting! Can't wait to watch it.

SDFT, you should watch that one.....

r114

If this is the Iva, Lisa Brown then I don't think she did

Lisa did Whorehouse before GL and 42nd Street while on GL.

I missed later era SFT.

Who was the older man at the end of that clip at R112? And who was that sexy fucker with the curly hair that he was hugging?

Six to eight weeks ago, someone posted the link to a streaming service that carried all the old episodes of The Doctors soap opera. Can someone please post that link again.

Now that I'm under coronavirus lockdown and stuck at home, it's a good time to binge watch The Doctors starting from those 1967 episodes.

Thanks in advance.

[quote] who was that sexy fucker with the curly hair that he was hugging?

Robert Curtis Brown - here his now at 60

Liz, it's RetroTV.

But I don't see the link to their subscription service on their site either, hope someone knows it!

Yeah, I had the wrong tap-dancing show. I meant 42nd St. Thanks!

Thanks, r118. I turned it on and I couldn't stop watching it. That show was such a part of my life.

It was so nice to see Scotty D. I wish Maura had jumped out of the pool and given him a speaking part, but I got the feeling he really didn't want to be on camera. I was surprised at how much I liked Maura West. She reads books. She seems nothing like Carly Tenney. Martha Byrne and Don Hastings were fun, too.

I found that series A French Village that Dr. Bob was raving about. Seasons 1, 3, and 4 are available on Amazon Prime if you get a free 30-day trial subscription to MHz choice. And he said it's on hulu, to which I do not belong. I think I can get through 36 episodes in 30 days.

My favorite moments, of course, were the discussions of the SFK, including the eavesdropping porch. And the thing that makes me like Maura West most is that she took Emma's china home when the show ended. That is one classy lady, unlike the hideous character she played.

Thanks, R116! That was fabulous. This cast is truly like a family.

You’re welcome.

He was also publicist on GL-maybe he can bring on Kim Zimmer, Michelle Forbes and Beth Ehlers? Tee hee.

[quote] maybe he can bring on Kim Zimmer, Michelle Forbes and Beth Ehlers? Tee hee.

he'd have better luck bringing together Kim Zimmer & Cynthia Watros - as Watros recently gave a few interviews praising Zimmer.

Interesting mention of John Hensley in that video. And funny that Michael thought of Scott Holroyd before Scott Holmes.

Love that video, thanks R116.

Don Hastings looks great for 86. Its actually a little amazing how many former vets are that age: Don, Eileen Fulton, Elizabeth Hubbard, and Kathryn Hays. Patricia Bruder is 83 and Kathleen Widdoes is 81 and Marie Masters is the youngster at 79.

While they are all still alive its almost like ATWT is still alive. It's going to be very depressing when they start passing away.

AuntLiz, is this the one you mean? Otherwise, someone used to upload all of the episodes onto Dailymotion.com (under Hope Memorial, or something like that). I don't know if they are still there or not.

Yes, that's the site, r132. Thanks!

Just saw that the GL cast will be in a streamcast like the ATWT one - coming this Wednesday at 3 pm EST.

Wait, just realized they did the ATWT at 2 pm EST. Their old time slots. *sobs*

We are in daylight saving time r134. It is EDT.

Well, SMELL Miss R135!

R134

What actors?

R137 Hasn't been announced yet.

I’m guessing it will be Kim Zimmer, Robert Newman, Ron Raines and, I hope, Beth Chamberlain and Grant Aleksander. Maybe Michael O’Leary.

Who here remembers how the whole Marley is Donna's daughter not sister and oh, Vicky is her twin business was revealed?

^^^^

I would love to see that on Youtube.

r141 It would have happened in 1985, shortly after the introduction of Vickey.

Don't know if the episodes are online, but Vickey's first appearance was on April 11, 1985 so it would have happened sometime shortly after that.

They are online - type Another world 1985 at youtube and a playlist will pop up

Forrest Compton from EON died of COVID-19.

Sharon Gabet posted it on FB.

Oh wow. That’s sad. He had a few good innings, at least.

AIDS really hit the EON cast worse than the others, didn’t it?

Sharon Gabet is the same actress who REFUSED to do any scenes with an actor showing signs of AIDS

Yes Gabet was pregnant, but she was also a registered nurse

R48 Right before Lucky returned played by Jacob Young, Nik started to show an interest in Liz and the show clearly stet-up a love triangle between the three, which was totally dropped and Nik's feelings were totally forgotten until years later when both Young and Scott were off the show.

The actor who played Neil Everest from GL (the guy who brought a thought-dead Beth back to SF, is singer Billie Eilish's father.

R146, this was at the beginning of the HIV days. We knew very little about it. Gabet was not being unreasonable. It was later that we learned how it was transmitted. Because the federal government refused to fund AIDS research for years (because the virus was affecting gays), it took too long a time to figure out how the virus worked. Contrast that with the current virus!

I really love Tom Pelphrey who is in the newest season of Ozark but fuck he really can only play one type of character huh?

R148 Wow, had no idea.

Her mom was briefly on ATWT as Taylor (a spoiler in the Lyla/Casey story in the late 80s).

The sheer joy of knowing that two soap day players spawned the pox that is Billie Eilish will certainly carry me through this current national nightmare.

Perhaps Joel (as available) and Bootsie Gumdrop would like to participate in a celebratory Tik-Tok.

R147, I don't think Gabet became a nurse until AFTER she left OLTL in the late 80s.

I had just come of age in the early 80s and throughout the mid 80s (EDGE went off in 84) there were talk shows -- Donahue, Geraldo -- doing entire episodes debating how the virus was transmitted.

I can't blame her.

The show incorporated a flashback of Dennis Parker in either its last or second to last episode.

R150 OMG that's so true of ALL of them.

Even the greats have a certain style they fall into.

There will be a GL reunion this Wednesday like last week's ATWT reunion.

As of now KZ, RN, MG and LK are going to be there.

I dont speak initials. Zimmer, Newman, ?, ?

Zimmer, Newman, Liz Keifer and Maureen Garrett, so far.

R152 both of Billie Elish parents were CONTRACT players on their respective soaps - not day players

I don't know that Maggie Baird was under contract at ATWT.

Neil may have well been on contract, though his stint was what, six months?

[quote] I don't know that Maggie Baird was under contract at ATWT.

She was under contract

How on earth would you know, R160?

How does one view the GL reunion? I did not see the ATWT last week.

[quote] How on earth would you know

Contract players get billed BEFORE day players

Here in this credit crawl (go into video at 43:07) Maggie Baird is billed BEFORE Scott Holmes (Tom) and Melanie Smith (Emily) as ATWT billed its contract players by seniority

Unless you are suggesting that Scott Holmes & Melanie Smith were day players as well?

R161, I'm not R160, but did watch back at that time; Maggie was on 2 to 3 x week, I recall, a constant thorn in Lyla's side -- 'surely a woman of YOUR AGE is sophisticated enough to know that that kiss with Casey meant nothing...'

a character like that would be contract, especially back then when shows had more money.

She was positioned to be a long-term bitch; she was on her way to sink her hooks into Tom (Scott Holmes), but then her time abruptly ended.

R164 see R163

R162

The GL reunion will be LIVE on Youtube like the ATWT one was.

Okay, I am convinced. You bitches did your homework.

I went to IMDB after the post up thread about Billie's dad being on GL. I wanted to see what he looked like because I can't remember him.

He wasn't listed on IMDB. Anyone have a photo from back in the day?

R168 Billie's dad sparring with Sherry Stringfield (Blake) on Guiding Light

LK is Liz Keifer and MG must be Maureen Garrett.

as we covered at R157

I doubt she was on contract. She didn’t play an ongoing character, she was there for a very limited period of time.

Jerry ve Dorn will be a part of the reunion as well.

[quote] I doubt she was on contract. She didn’t play an ongoing character, she was there for a very limited period of time.

It's as if people don't even read the thread...

R172 read R163

Was Maggie Baird ever on contract?

Sometimes day players DID manage to get put in the end crawl mixed in with the principals. I saw it on The Doctors all the time. No way was Maggie Baird on contract.

[quote] I saw it on The Doctors all the time.

The Doctors was NOT a P&G soap -

P&G soaps policy was contract players, then dayplayers.

GL had great day players ( I guess that is how they were characterized) like Wanda, Vera, Ginger and Donna (Ginger played by Allison Janney), Dr Sedgewick among others.

[quote] No way was Maggie Baird on contract.

My God! You are just wrong. Get over it.

[quote] Dr Sedgewick among others.

In real life the actress was wife to GL director John Sedgewick (hence the character name) and later on her daughter JoAnne Sedgewick was a director on GL as well!

FUCK MAGGIE BAIRD AND HER FUCKING HUSBAND AND THEIR STANK DAUGHTER!!!!!!!!

ENOUGH!!!!

You fucks all need a kick in your collective CUNTS!

Love you, Ada! xoxoxoxo

Her daughter stinks and looks like a shaggy bathroom plush rug with eyes.

[quote] ENOUGH!!!! —Ada Hobson

Here Maggie Baird plays Rhonda the manicurist at the "Hair Affair" and does a scene with Ada Hobson

^oof the second Jerry Grove was a dud.

R181

I had no idea. This is one of the reasons I love these threads. I learn something new.

I miss Ada and Clarice; fun clip.

December 1984: Carl Hutchins' introduction to Bay City society. I wish we had learned more about Carl & Donna's marriage, but they always kept it pretty vague.

Joe Morton has some awesomely large hair in that episode!

Love love love Carl Hutchins! He was so deliciously evil. I particularly liked when he kidnapped Rachel.

Love love love Carl Hutchins! He was so deliciously evil. I loved the sexual tension between Rachel and he, especially when he kidnapped her.

Charles Keating was such a ham, but yes, I loved his Carl. He and Vicky Wyndham had major chemistry even as antagonists. But what I liked most about that episode you linked is early Tom Eplin in jeans an t-shirt (and shirtless, too).

[quote] GL had great day players ( I guess that is how they were characterized) like Wanda, Vera, Ginger and Donna (Ginger played by Allison Janney), Dr Sedgewick among others.

Don't forget me!

R192 oh yes. I remember when we were all young and good looking.

I am the biggest Carl Hutchins fangurl, and I think it's interesting how the character progressed over the decades (even before his big mid-90s 'redemption arc') from his intro as a more-or-less straightlaced businessman villain to ponytailed Eastern philosopher villain.

I guess umpteen prison sentences and innumerable not-quite-deaths will change a man.

[quote]I guess umpteen prison sentences and innumerable not-quite-deaths will change a man.

Not to mention even more innumerable writer and producer changes...

Is there some sort of database of all the 80s AW eps out there somewhere? It was the beginning of the videotape age and you just KNOW someone taped it all.

The flames practically shot off Eplin when he made that entrance. Hot bastard.

I suspect the show left the Donna-Carl Hutchins relationship deliberately vague so the writers would have plenty of room if they ever chose to explore it. Similarly, the Carl-Felicia relationship was never fully fleshed out either. Remember when Carl debuted in Dec. 1983, he was trying to rekindle his romance with Felicia.

Although Carl seemed like an average businessman when he debuted, the show quickly tried to make him into a super villain a la Stefano DiMera. That was during one of several periods where NBC was pushing AW to mimic Days more. That's also why Sally and Catlin emerged as the show's big super couple about that same time.

I never watched AW but how did it fall from grace so fast? Seemed like it was one of the top shows one minute then the next it just fell off a cliff to the lower rungs of the ratings forever, never to rebound.

Why didn't the P&G shows cross pollinate more? They could have had, say, a character be presumed dead on one show, show up on another until they returned to the other show.

Or trade villians for awhile.

Seems esp GL and ATWT could have done this easily. I know there are lots of logistical issues with this but it could have been done.

R200, I think it was the expansion to 90 minutes in 1979. It was just too long.

R202 is right. It had periods of strength after that, but it never really recovered from the 90 minute debacle.

"To accommodate Texas, Another World went back to 60 minutes, and was moved from 2:30PM to 2:00PM. Two million viewers defected from AW, partly due to McKinsey's departure, partly due to the time change, and partly due to the influx of new characters who then moved to Texas. Because of the audience erosion, the move to 90-minute installments is generally regarded as a failure."

R204 If all that is true, what a colossal fuck up. AW seemed like such a non-issue from the 80's on. Even when ATWT or GL slipped in the ratings, they were still very much regarded as relevant and essential soaps. AW just seemed to have all the air taken out of it. Was it up against GL and GH? If so, both of them were ratings winners (how GL maintained its ratings against GH is a testament to its popularity).

AW lost the bulk of its original families and no one figured out how to restore them (like ATWT did) AND they didn't bring in compelling new families (like Y&R did). As good as Cass and Felicia and ORDonna were, they weren't surrounded by long-running compelling families and were not tied strongly to the Matthews or the Corys well (except when following Lemay's bible).

AW didn't seem to have any exciting characters or stories the others had in the 80's. Has a show ever fallen so hard so fast?

Eddie Dreuding's comments in his 1996 SOD interview:

[quote]The show has a very bad reputation, I find. Especially in the last years. It was doing great in the '70s, with [former head writer] Harding Lemay, but then he left and they made some awful decisions. I mean, there was one story in the early '80s with Rachel and she was pursuing this Russian expatriate. Remember that? It was strange. And ANOTHER WORLD never really bounced back. They kept making changes and more changes every few years. It would get a reputation of the show being in transition. People hear about the show and they say, "That's the show that can't get its act together." Why should people have confidence in a show that has none in itself? So we're sort of caught in a double bind here. I think that ANOTHER WORLD has to appeal to its long-term fans, make them happy, and once that happens, they'll spread the good word about the show and perhaps attract new viewers, but it's a long process. It can't be solved by a quick fix.

Who played the Russian expatriate?

Another thing that happened to AW is that it had been at 3 PM for a long time, and the choice to make all the changes - first to 90 minutes, then to the spinoff, and losing McKinsey - happened just as General Hospital was on the rise.

So when it went back to 60 minutes, it was in a new time slot. It may have also lost a big chunk of viewers who liked seeing it at 3. Time slot changes do matter, or at least they did then. ATWT was on fire for a stretch but when they pushed it to 2 PM from 1:30 it took a hit.

Of course, the worst thing to happen in AW's last years was the inconsistency. ATWT and GL had some of these issues at the end, but from the early 80s till the end, AW seemed to get a new writer or producer at least once a year, and it killed momentum.

Characters and families would enter the canvas, and exit at the whims of the next writer or producer. Through lines for existing characters weren't always easy to find.

I agree with the writer up thread- AW just did not have a good reputation as a good show for whatever reason. It seemed dated and old, as well. It didn't seem to get the respect GL or ATWT did for their age because they reinvigorated their shows and the new audience sampling shows in the 80's deemed them interesting. GL, in particular, seemed fresh from the late 70's on. As has been pointed out, it held its own against GH during its heyday. It even gained during that time!

I disagree. AW was still good after those changes. We had good storylines: Who Shot Jake, Vicky/Ryan, Cass/Franckie, Felicia learning Lorna was her daughter, Felicia's alcoholism, Iris being the Chief, etc...

Was it at it's zenith? No but it was still damn good soap.

R213 I don't think many are disputing that. It was its reputation that wasn't good. And it could never shake it.

R213 There were periods of good, especially around when Lemay did the late 80s reset, but for whatever reason, the bulk of its viewers left and never returned.

So AW was opposite ATWT and ? in the 80's? I say this because if GL could have kept up and gained viewers against GH then AW could have but there was just a reputation that would not shake. Sorry to harp on that but it just didn't get any benefit of the doubt even after being so dominant and well regarded just before.

There were 2 shows known has having zero identities or visions in the 1980's and some of the 90's-

They were Loving and AW.

R216

In my city AW came on at 1pmC, GH came on at 2pmC and ATWT came on at 3pmC AW was opposite OLTL, GH was opposite Santa Barbara and ATWT had no soap opposite it.

Network affiliates can air soaps anytime they chose - they are under no obligation to air it when the network wants them to air. Most affiliates do but some don't. Some affiliates didn't air some soaps at all.

In most of the country, AW would have initially been on against GH and GL when it was at 3 PM - it went to an hour before either of those other shows did.

When it moved to 2 PM, it was on against OLTL and part or all of ATWT. ATWT was 1:30-2:30 until 1987, so AW's second half was against Search, then against Capitol. When ATWT moved to 2 PM, they were neck in neck.

R219 is correct. Times can be flexible or they don't have to air at all.

My local CBS station did not air ATWT at all for many years. I only got to see it because another CBS affiliate was on our cable system. GL's cancellation is almost certainly because their clearance rates were low at the end. Maybe 60-70 percent of affiliates were carrying it. Many were carrying GL in the morning.

As an aside: Ryan's Hope clearance was somewhere in the 30s or 40s if I remember - once ABC moved it to noon, none of the stations wanted to pull their newscast.

I should say those times were Eastern but the general idea was the same for other zones.

In the late 1970s, the entire NBC lineup was in ratings freefall. Both NBC daytime and primetime. Fred Silverman was brought in as the wunderkind network head, but he couldn't replicate the success he'd had with CBS and ABC earlier in the decade. The joke was the network test pattern got more viewers than the NBC primetime schedule.

As for the soap line up, the entire NBC soap line up was in trouble. Days was suffering because longtime HW Bill Bell left to devote himself to Y&R full time and subsequent HWs couldn't find the right direction for teh show. Meanwhile, Doug Marland who had done great things with The Doctors jumped ship to General Hospital in 1978.

As for AW, Harding Lemay was suffering from burnout from devising long term story for AW and also writing three or four scripts a week for AW. At the same time, he also had created and wrote the Lovers and and Friends soap for NBC in 1977, but it failed to take off. So, by 1978, his AW storylines were starting to suffer. Plus, the network was pushing him to create more sensationalist stories, which is why the evil Sven terrorized the Corys (it was a fantastic story, but it was not the type of story that Lemay typically did).

While all this was going on, the ABC soaps were surging. I've said this before, but ABC soaps captured the zeitgeist of the late 1970s in a way that the NBC soaps didn't. ABC soaps were fun, spellbinding and exciting. It was cool for young people, especially college age people, to watch ABC soaps. It was definitely not cool to watch NBC.

ABC soaps had unusual characters with many shades of gray like Luke Spencer or Marco Dane or Billy Clyde Tuggle, characters that you would never have seen in the Bay City. Allso the ABC soaps moved at a faster pace. ABC shows had multiple scenes within an act, whereas the NBC soaps still usually had just one scene to an act. So, it felt like you were getting a lot more story on ABC, stories that somehow captured the late 1970s zeitgeist.

All that factored into why AW suffered so much in the late 1970s. And then NBC made the disastrous decision to expand to 90 minutes. And we all know how well that went.

Great discussions and insights about AW everyone! It's interesting to lament . . . sad too. I don't know what happened to AW other than so many writing changes.

R217; I agree

Once Loving lost Doug and I suppose Agnes on a regular basis, it was rudderless.

When AW dumped the Matthews clan, it lost so much.

Was I the only person who thought David Canary was great as Steve Frame?

If they felt he wasn't working out send him and Alice away, don't kill him off a second time.

Aunt Liz, you are a plethora of soap information, I always appreciate your responses and insights.

What killed Another World over the years was NBC continual insistence that AW be compatible to Days of our Lives - That is not what Another World was about. P&G soaps are not ABC Soaps

But that is what the network wanted, adventure, intrigue, spies. So each head writer tried to turn the show into an ABC Soap, but in process kept chipping away at the identity of the show and by the end there was nothing left

Thanks for that post at R222, AuntLiz! You just cannot beat the soap historians at DL!

Below is a link to the network daytime schedule for 1979-80. These times are all Eastern, but it lets you know what time the networks intended the soaps to run. To see the daytime line-up for different years, just click on the link for that year at the bottom of the page.

As was said, the affiliates were free to air the shows at different times if they wanted. However, the networks did pressure the affiliates to run the soaps at the times they intended. This was especially true at ABC which really wanted its shows presented as a block and they publicized them as such ("Love in the Afternoon").

CBS also put some pressure on its affiliate to run its shows as a block. However, NBC did not, especially once the daytime ratings started declining in the late 1970s. NBC letting those affiliates air the soaps piecemeal was another major mistake. Soaps need to air as a network block!

Where I lived in between several metro markets, we could receive multiple NBC stations. Once AW expanded to 90 minutes, one of those stations quit carrying AW altogether, opting for kids programming instead. Another station moved the 90 minute AW to the 9 a.m. slot and a third station aired it at 2:30 p.m. as the network intended.

Y&R aired against nothing in TX for most of the 80's which I think gave it an unfair advantage. All the rest were thrown to the wolves and asked to fight it out. The 2pm slot (Central) where GL and GH were in the top 3/4 was particularly bloody.

[quote]What killed Another World over the years was NBC continual insistence that AW be compatible to Days of our Lives

Yes, NBC pressured AW to be more compatible with Days in the 1980s and 1990s. No doubt about that.

The irony is, in the 1970s, the opposite was true. In the 1970s, AW was consistently higher rated that Days and NBC pushed Days to be more compatible with AW.

After nine years as Days HW, Bill Bell left in 1975, but stayed on as a storyline consultant for two more years. But once Bell was gone in 1977, Days was rudderless. NBC kept pushing Days to be more like AW, which was in much better shape at the time.

Days trying to mimic AW in the 1970s didn't work anymore than AW trying to mimic Days in the 1980s.

Someone commented upthread about David Canary playing Steve Frame. I thought he was a good actor. He just wasn't right for Steve Frame. He was so completely different from George Reinholt. I'm still amazed they cast him.

There were many solutions rather than killing off Steve Frame a second time. Having Alice and Steve fall back in love was the most obvious (problem was Canary had so much more chemistry with Victoria Wyndham than he did with Linda Borgeson who was playing Alice at the time).

Another solution would be have someone come to town exposing him as a fraud. Or possibly even have him exposed as an escaped mental patient who had assumed Edward Black/Steve Frame's identity.

A good headwriter could have come up with any number of ideas for what to do with Canary. Problem was AW didn't have many good HWs in the early 1980s.

Many thanks for the kind words everyone. A doddering old lady like myself always appreciates it. Happy to share my knowledge with you.

GL benefited from being opposite GH. GL was getting good buzz for the Four Muskateers story line. Many would sample GL , particularly those in college, when GH was in commercial or boring (and lets face it, it was boring and got pretty stupid for awhile). They liked what they saw on GL so much it hit #1 briefly in 1984.

R233 I am currently rewatching GL on YouTube 1982-1984. It was good! I love all my old friends and family from my favorite stories. AW, GL, so many characters and stories to love and remember. It's great to reminisce with all of you!

R122 here is the link to The Doctors streaming service. There is also an app on Roku for it. I've been watching and it is great. I hope it is a success and inspires P&G(or whomever owns the soaps now) to follow suit with their soaps and ABC with their cancelled soaps.

Regarding the question of Another World expanding to 90 minutes in March 1979, we obviously know now that was a fatal mistake, one the AW never fully recovered from. It finally pushed Harding Lemay over the edge to complete burnout and it pushed the boundaries of what viewers were willing to sit through.

But until it was tried, no one knew whether it could work. Remember, in 1975, no one knew whether 60 minutes of a soap five days a week was workable either. But when AW expanded to 60 minutes in Jan 1975, it was a hug success. Days quickly followed suit in April 1975 and ATWT went to an hour in Dec. 1975. But those three soaps were also at the top of the ratings when they expanded.

Before that, there had been a handful of special hour-long episodes of soaps. AW did a 60 minute episode in May 1974 for its 10th anniversary featuring Steve and Alice's wedding. Days did a 60 minute episode in Nov 1974 for its 9th anniversary. Both were ratings hits. But again, both AW and Days were at the top of the ratings at that time.

There had also been a handful of 90 minute episodes of soaps. When How to Survive a Marriage debuted on NBC in Jan 1974, it did so with a 90 minute episode. When Edge of Night moved from CBS to ABC in Dec 1975, its first ABC episode was 90 minutes long, running from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. That episode had to tie up storylines from the final cliffhanger on CBS and also launch new storylines for ABC viewers while also introducing the characters to ABC viewers. Incidentally, ABC also re-aired that 90 minute Edge episode that same night starting at 11:30 p.m.

My point is, the few attempts at doing 90 minute episodes were not a good indication that 90 minutes could work since both attempts were introductory episodes (the Edge episode introducing the show to ABC viewers). So, NBC expanding AW to 90 minutes on a full time basis in 1979 without even doing a few test run episodes was ill advised. But as I explained above, entire NBC network was in bad shape in 1979 and TPTB were doing many stupid things at the network.

Also consider that AW was not in great shape creatively in 1979. As I explained in my post above, Harding Lemay was getting burned out and the storylines airing at that point were far from his best. And the ratings reflected that as well. AW had fallen from #1 in the 1977-78 season to #8 in 1978-79.

I've often wondered what would have happened if it had been All My Children that had expanded to 90 minutes in 1979. Would it have found success with the 90 minutes? Who knows. But I can say that in 1979, AMC was #1 in the ratings in 1978-79 and was at the beginning of its most creative zenith, one that would last about five years. With that going for it, AMC certainly would have had a better chance of succeeding at 90 minutes.

I called up my mom who was a long time GL watcher about why she switched to GH then switched back to GL. She said GL had always been so good and steady. She said GL had a certain quality no other show had but she couldn't put her finger on what it was. She said, like so many, she was curious about GH when the buzz began. GL, she said, had too many villians at the time, so she switched over to GH. She was riveted by the L&L story. But it didn't last long. She found the rest of the show so so and she said it got really silly quick. She switched back to GL and never looked back. She didn't regret switching over to GH for awhile saying when it was good, it was great. But she always found GL to be much better and said at its peak, GL was far superior.

Just from watching clips of GH from 83-84- I am very surprised it held its popularity- It was boring and lifeless. As was OLTL during that period..

Not surprised at all that GL did so well- It clearly had excellent writing and extremely appealing characters/well cast actors of various ages..

Very impressed at that show doing as well as it did in the 80's during the ABC juggernaut.

(I haven't watched soaps in years and was just a Y&R and OLTL fan from 86-95?)

I do remember sampling GL during Sonni/Solita, and I loved it- but I didn't stick with it.

GH rode for years on the work done by Doug Marland 77-79 and Pat Falken Smith late 79 to 81.

Viewers stayed for the characters.

Just like they're staying now for Y&R when it is absolute crap. Every storyline is happening off screen.

I can't imagine why anybody would have been watching GH in 1983-84 when Santa Barbara was on in the same time slot.

The GL'ers are on!

Well, SB didn't start till July 84; to me, the show started with good intentions but it got all over the place.

First, they blared that song "if Ever You're In My Arms Again..." like 3x a week.

The Ice Castles theme, Victor and Nikki's song on Y&R, has maybe been played 10 times in 40 years.

SB did all that stunt casting -- Robin Mattson, Kristen Meadows, Justin Deas -- the list went on. I didn't get SB until the end when Pam Long took over. ( I know that's an unpopular opinion.)

R236 Concerning running time, don't forget that the ABC soaps AMC, OLTL, and GH all expanded from 30 min to 45 min in the mid/late 1970s before expanding to an hour. Did any of the other soaps experiment with a 45min runtime?

Enjoyed the GL reunion but not as much as the ATWT one.

Liz Keifer hosts a podcast! (rolls eyes). It’s called Let’s All Feel Better. I’d rather listen to Kim Zimmer host a podcast called Let’s All Bitch About Beth.

Enjoyed the GL reunion but not as much as the ATWT one.

Liz Keifer hosts a podcast! (rolls eyes). It’s called Let’s All Feel Better. I’d rather listen to Kim Zimmer host a podcast called Let’s All Bitch About Beth.

R245 Beth Ehlers, correct?

Kim needs to just DISH. Spill that tea. You know she wants to. Her book was tame.

I loved Kim's Designing Women story -- that her role was basically a tryout for another Bloodworth-Thomason show, that Delta filmed all her scenes in one day apart from the rest of the cast, and that Delta was as sweet as could be to Kim.

Didn't listen to the GL reunion. I might at some point. My impression is that that cast is not a family like the ATWT cast is.

Her book was tame, R246.

I never knew her and La Lucci to be pals or even social friends (not that I would, granted), but Zim Zim goes on about how nice Lucci is in her book. Odd, I thought.

Her co-author? the same as La Lucci's!

It made me wonder what else in the book might have been more the co-author than Kim, if in fact there's a connection.

Maureen G looked good.

I couldn't stay, though. After a while it felt weirdly like I was eavesdropping on their personal conversations.

Maureen Garrett is a goddess! I'll never forget that party at the Country Club, when she wore a turban and long gloves and looked impossibly regal. I literally gasped. (I know, Mary...)

Garrett dissed her Nursery Rhyme Stalker storyline with enormous charm.

[quote]Concerning running time, don't forget that the ABC soaps AMC, OLTL, and GH all expanded from 30 min to 45 min in the mid/late 1970s before expanding to an hour. Did any of the other soaps experiment with a 45min runtime?

R243 GH and OLTL both expanded to 45 minutes in July 1976. It was at that time that the two also flipped time slots. Previously, GH had aired at 3 p.m, while OLTL aired at 3:30 p.m. Once they exapnded, OLTL moved to 2:30 p.m. and GH started at 3:15 p.m.

Since 45 minutes proved successful, both shows expanded to a full hour in Jan 1978.

Meanwhile, Agnes Nixon was very reluctant to go to an hour. She fought to keep AMC at 30 minutes, but finally relented and AMC went to 60 minutes in April 1977. AMC never aired at 45 minutes.

AMC had also done a week-long experiment of hour-long episodes in late June/early July 1975 leading up to the debut of Ryan's Hope. AMC had always aired at 1 p.m., but for that week of hour-long episodes, the show started at 12:30 instead. Then the following week, AMC moved into the 12:30 p.m. time slot and Ryan's Hope debuted in the 1 p.m. time slot.

Bill Bell also fought hard to keep Y&R at 30 minutes. He even threatened to quit the show if CBS expanded it. That worked for a few years, but finally the network announced the show would expand to 60 minutes regardless of whether Bell stayed. As we know, he relented and stay with the show. Y&R was the last show to expand to an hour, doing so in Feb. 1980, with Love of Life being cancelled to make room for the expanded Y&R.

Interestingly, the reason Bill Bell quit as HW of Days in 1975 was because that show expanded to 60 minutes. Prior to that, Bell was doing double duty as HW of both Days and Y&R. Bell objected to the hour-long format and didn't feel he could do 90 minutes worth of shows every day. So, he left Days and concentrated on Y&R. Of course, a decade later, he would indeed end up overseeing 90 minutes worth of show each day when B&B debuted.

Incidentally, in the 60s and 70s, it wasn't unusual for someone to HW two shows simultaneously -- Henry Slesar oversaw both Edge of Night and Somerset in the early 1970s. Agnes Nixon did both AW and GL in the mid 1960s. Then Nixon was HW on AMC and OLTL in the early 1970s.

R253 Sorry, I thought AMC also went the 45 min route. 45 min just seems like a strange time length for a tv show, but I guess it makes sense since the early soaps were 15 min. And, wasn't Love of Life 25min for a large part of its run, to accommodate a five minute newscast?

Yes, from fall 1962 until its cancellation, Love of Life was just 25 minutes to accommodate a 5 minute newscast at the end. Not sure why CBS did that but I suspect it had something to do with Love of Life airing at noon, and then later at 11:30 a.m. and people being home for lunch wanting to know the news.

And yes, I agree that 45 minutes was a very odd length for a soap opera. But apparently it worked as the ratings increased with the 45 minute format. I suspect that lapsed GH and OLTL viewers tuned in to see how a 45 minute show would operate and then stuck around because the storylines were really good.

I remember getting out of school at 2 p.m and I could usually make it home by 2:45 so I could see the last half hour of OLTL when it was 45 minutes. but when it switched to an hour -- and aired from 2 to 3 -- I could only watch from 2:45 to 3.

This was around the time Doug was writing GH. The show skyrocketed! Bobbie's fight to better herself, warding off former john Cal Jamison, who was blackmailing her and he happened to be the guy who knew the scoop on Jeff's son, Steven Lars.

Bobbie went to Dan Rooney who lent her $500 (!!!) to pay off Cal. He said he didn't need it paid back and that he wanted Bobbie to think of her and Dan like family.

We hated Bobbie b/c she made Laura's life miserable, but we cared about her, too.

When Gloria Monty accepted the Emmy for Best Drama for GH at the Emmys, she said "and to two of our cast, who have carried so much of the load, Tony and Genie..." the camera was RIGHT on Jackie. Ouch.

I do agree GL held its own against the GH heyday then just as GH was getting boring, GL was on fire and had plenty of younger players who appealed to a younger audience. Had GL not had the unfortunate slump in 1986, I believe the show would have held its audience far longer and by the time 89-92 happened, the show well could have fought for #1. I know it got as high as #3 for a few weeks, I believe. Of course, I can't prove what I said I just truly believe the show had a strong younger audience following Beth/Phillip/Mindy/Rick/Lujack that left in droves in the slump of 86.

What I don't understand is why networks/P&G, in an attempt to save the soaps, never tried cutting them back down to thirty minutes and trimming the cast.

R258 I don't understand why both GL and ATWT didn't both go to 30 minutes in the same block. Well, I know. They wanted out of the soap business and wanted to add a game show and talk show. I'm sure network affiliates would have dropped them more since they likely would not have blocked them together.

R259, my understanding was also that it wasn’t considered cost effective to produce a 30 minute soap by that point.

R259 Yes, it would have made sense for CBS/P&G to have made ATWT and GL into an hour block, as it would have made sense for ABC to have done the same for AMC and OLTL. P&G wanting out of the soap business has never made sense to me, they basically created the genre and it sold their products very well. P&G, has to understand this, since they still advertise heavily on Y&R, B&B, DAYS, and GH. They should have kept the shows going and worked out a deal with CBS for more product placement on the shows. It was one of the stupidest business decisions, I have ever heard of. The only decision that was worse was when Gaylord closed the Opryland theme park, even though it was still making money. At least their next CEO admitted it was a stupid decision and that he wouldn't have done it.

Contrary to many assumptions talk shows are not always cheaper to produce than soaps. Katie Couric's show cost between 30 and 40 million a season, while it is estimated that soaps have gotten their budgets to similar if not smaller numbers. I have believe that The Talk can't be very cheap to produce with all the hosts.

They've scheduled a second ATWT reunion for 4/10. Different cast members.

[quote]They've scheduled a second ATWT reunion for 4/10. Different cast members.

I must be there. Lucinda, Barbara, (original) Paul, John, and Andrew

As of now it's going to be Barbara, Henry, Katie, Margo. I assume more will be annouced.

Katie? Does it HAVE to be Katie?

This may seem silly but GL had a mystical quality/reputation at least with people I knew. Esp during the GH juggernaut. Many saw it as two titans going at it, battling in the 3pm timeslot. The fact both did so well and dominated was a testament to GL's resilience. GL was also seen as fresh since it had a lot of young characters Tim/Morgan/Kelly and that crew which gave way to Beth/Phillip/Rick/Mindy and that crew. GL had just won two Emmys for Best Show almost back to back. GL was seen as a worthy opponent to GH by viewers. It was respected unlike some other shows.

Tim didn’t really hang out much with Morgan/Kelly/Nola/Floyd/Hillary/Katie, though. He was gone by the time of their heyday, anyway.

Spauldingfield, who posts all the character profiles on youtube for GL, is finally doing one for Beth Raines he confirmed on the GL chat. I wonder what took him so long for such an important character to the show?

Those YT character profiles are terrible.

They really are. Crappy video and just badly put together.

Kim Zimmer and her son Jake will be on The Locher Room on YT tomorrow at 5 pm. We should bombard the page with questions about Beth Ehlers and also why Kimmer didn’t want her son to play Luke on ATWT.

They really are. Crappy video and just badly put together.

Kim Zimmer and her son Jake will be on The Locher Room on YT tomorrow at 5 pm. We should bombard the page with questions about Beth Ehlers and also why Kimmer didn’t want her son to play Luke on ATWT.

r271 And whether Jake enjoys sex scenes with Spencer Clark.

R271

I don't believe the unfounded rumor that KZ pulled Jake from playing a gay character. She is extremely proud of his work on Animal Kingdom & they do full out gay scenes.

r273

I thought she thought he was just too young for that storyline

Is that Locher guy gay by any chance?

R275 Yes. He's married. His husband is really cute.

R274 I think it is much more likely that is the reason, Kim Z has never struck me as homophobic.

Of course Zimmer was sipping a cocktail during the GL reunion. Lush much?

I was pleasantly surprised that Maureen Garrett participated. She usually runs the other way from anything fan-oriented and really values her privacy, but the remote tech must have been comforting for her (i.e. she knew she wouldn't be mauled by people she doesn't know).

R278 - finally someone else mentions what I was seeing! Cocktail time, it's 3:00 somewhere in NJ!

The cocktail was a perfect touch. To be able to sit with Kim one on one and get the tea.........................

Julie Andrews Daughter (Emma Walton) on As The World Turns playing Barbara cellmate

R280, I worked in the daytime press and got to do that with Zimmer once. This was after GL ended.

She signed her book to me. We banged out the interview and then proceeded to dine and dish!

It was a highlight of my career and being a lifelong GL fan I was in heaven!

R261 Most of the budget for Couric's talk show went to her massive salary. I knew it would get cancelled because unless it was super-popular out of the gate, there was no way it could be profitable. And I was right.

R283 I would imagine that the salaries for the The Talk, while not as high as Couric's, isn't insignificant across all of them.

I remember reading somewhere that at their highest point soaps would cost 1 million to a million and a half a week to produce five 1-hour shows and the big three (GH, YR, and Days) would pull in about 5/6 million a week in ad revenue. Those same shows now have weekly budgets between $600K - $850K. The budget cuts show up, mostly, in the sets and cast. Those huge sweeping sets are now gone. The extras/atmosphere cast are almost non-existent. Those big events and reveals where the entire casts gets together are so rare now. The actors can't go over their guarantee.

R285 It depends on the soap, the budget cuts at Y&R really shows up in the sets, but I don't notice it on GH, which still manages to have a greater variety of sets. And, both of them have managed to have more extras lately, in the hotel and coffeehouse on Y&R and the Hospital, Metrocourt, and Kelly's on GH.

I was with my Aunt Bev (she played Pat on Another World). She is doing fine. This past Christmas I gifted her 2 albums with photos and press clippings (thanks eBay!). Anyway, the only things she has left from her soap days are three tapes of episodes from the 70’s. Very interesting tapes and the actors are all good. She recently had lunch with Susan Sullivan and they reminisced about the old days. Just thought I would fill you all in...

I was a Daytime Emmy panelist for many years and I never had as much fun as when I was judging Outstanding Game Show Host and during the Jeopardy! tape Kim Zimmer and I called out answers... I mean questions. She was great.

R287 You should get your Aunt Bev to let you upload those tapes onto YouTube!

Why didn’t your Aunt Bev do another contract role on a soap?? She was so beautiful and charismatic. And all of the shows added Alexis Carrington types in 1983/84, it could have been fun to see her as a bitch.

Good to see you back Beverly Penberthy's nephew!! Don't be such a stranger on these Marvelous Midwestern threads!!!

And yes, please get Aunt Bev to upload the videos to YouTube so we can all enjoy them. 1970s episodes of AW are so very rare.

That Zoom video with the people from GL on Wednesday was a nice respite from all the horror going on right now. It was really enjoyable checking in with "old friends", and the host wasn't too intrusive, although one time he brought up that some series was being rebooted and it was totally irrelevant to the conversation.

I noticed that, too, R292. Like, who gives a fuck about a reboot of Designing Women? It will no doubt be as bad as the new Murphy Brown.

R292 R293 Having not watched the reunion yet, I guess the DW reboot was brought up because Kim Zimmer guest starred in one of the best and most well remembered episodes.

Yes, Kim told a story about her DW episode, including the fact that it was partly about getting Dixie Carter's approval to allow Kim to co-star with Hal Holbrook in a potential spin-off series. Also, she said Delta Burke was very nice to her, though Delta and the rest of the cast stayed far apart.

Guiding Light still holds the record as the longest running serial (1937-2009). In 2022 it will be eclipsed by British radio drama the Archers, which started in 1950.

R296 But, GL will still hold the record for hours produced, because The Archers sill only runs around 15 min, but GL expanded to 30 min and then an hour(on tv).

I’m curious if anyone knows who the actress was that Pam Long wanted to play Reva. Zimmer said in the Zoom chat she was not Long’s first choice and that Long wanted to cast a friend of hers. She did not say who that actress was.

[quote] Kim Zimmer and her son Jake will be on The Locher Room on YT tomorrow at 5 pm. We should bombard the page with questions about Beth Ehlers and also why Kimmer didn’t want her son to play Luke on ATWT.

Shit like this is what will spoil it for the rest of us and remind them that soap fans are fucking crazy.

[quote] Yes, Kim told a story about her DW episode, including the fact that it was partly about getting Dixie Carter's approval to allow Kim to co-star with Hal Holbrook in a potential spin-off series. Also, she said Delta Burke was very nice to her, though Delta and the rest of the cast stayed far apart.

Kim never finished the story though. She said it was a test to see if there was a future for her on the spinoff show but never said what eventually happened. I guess she didn't pass the test?

I've always thought it was crazy Kim Z didn't get nominated for a Guest Actress Primetime Emmy, for that episode. I guess it was because of prejudice against daytime performers.

R284 Couric made $10 million her first year, but she had to take a pay cut the second year her talk show was on to $6 million. Sharon Osborne reportedly makes $1 million a year for The Talk. No idea what the rest make.

New Time! New Length! I love VW's hair.

Who was the ruthless new man? How did it ignite an explosive clash between brothers?

Was it Willis?

The thirst for wealth leading Rachel to a ruthless man was referring to Mac.

The clash of brothers was Steve Frame vs. Willis Frame, who had joined the show around the time of the expansion to an hour.

I thought originally that the woman who had played Reena on Texas was the inspiration for Reva.

If interested, please check in on this soap thread asking you what soap character you'd be......just a bit of fun, kittens.

Was it from someone on Texas? Maybe Lisby Larson?

R307 It was the woman that played Reena, Carla Borelli.

Reena Bellman Cook Dekker from Texas was the obvious inspiration for Reva Shayne. That's a given since Pam Long got her start as an actress on Texas. She played Ashley Lindon, whose arch nemesis was Reena Dekker.

The character of Billy Lewis was inspired by the Texas character of Justin Marshall, who was Ashley's husband. Jerry Lanning played Justin and was Pam Long's first choice to play Billy Lewis. However, CBS wouldn't let her cast Jerry Lanning since they'd already brought in too many actors from Texas.

If you want to see Pam Long's first appearance as Ashley Linden on Texas from March 1981, go to 5:15 in the video below. Don't worry, Pam improved a lot as an actress during the year and a half she was on the show.

The video below also has scenes of Iris as well as Vivian, Iris's maid.

I know there's a nice scene out there with Bev's Iris and Pam's Ashley, near the end of Bev's run on Texas.

Is the sound horrible for everyone?

Verbal catfight between Iris and Reena Dekker.

R305, I don't think other than the similar sounding names there was any big connection between Reena and Reva.

Jay Hammer pointed out in Schemering's GL book that Reena came from privilege and wealth; Reva was poor.

Her mother was the Lewis' maid! And she slept her way out the slums and into the mansion. She even snagged the old man. But she learned a thing or two about dignity back there.

We've been Murieled, girls, but here's the new one