ELDERGAYS: Tell me about Felicia Gallant

Looks like she's ready to fight the coronavirus with the ensemble complete with a face mask built into it!

Come by TOPS at the top of the Love Tower for a drink and dinner.

Fanny, I remember her with fondness . . .

To me she will always be Cynthia.

I feel like I used to watch her and a blonde with long hair and a horsey face who worked on early days HGTV, do a network daytime show WAY back in the 90s..?

Felicia single-handedly kept Cory Publishing in the black with her best-selling oeuvre! Mac would have run the place into the ground if it weren't for her.

I found her hairstyles disturbing.

She sent out lesbianic vibes.

I simply adore Felicia Gallant and Linda Dano.

R5

Yes that was the talk show Attitudes. The blonde (name escapes me) is now a big mucky muck behind the scenes at HGTV.

Apparently, GL was one of the best sets in daytime. All reunions have had former cast members, who have worked on many other shows, rave about GL's wonderful, funny, nice cast and crew. Most saying, going out of their way, to say it was the best, most friendly set even apparently going back to the 80s. Maybe that is what GL seemed to project through the TV screens- you could sense those actors were basically decent, nice people devoid of ego. There was a warmth. I particularly like this because GL had the best actual actors in daytime and always did.

Actors will always be complimentary in public, no matter how they really feel. The GL cast was a close-knit group, but it was always very toxic--lots of sleeping around and people hating on each other afterward when it would end badly.

But, I know--what are they supposed to say?

I'm watching the 1994 playbacks of GL on YouTube since I want to see the early days of Matt and Vanessa (starting in July I believe) and what a shrew Vanessa was. It seemed her purpose was to bounce around from person to person and pick fights. Yes she had a lot to be upset about (Billy drinking, the divorce, Peter's adoption), but it's exhausting to watch, and probably was exhausting to play. Arguing with Billy, fighting with Ross, complaining to Ed, etc.

I enjoyed her character a lot more after she took the chill pill and stopped going apeshit on every character she ran across.

The writers it seemed to me, were trying to turn Vanessa into the new Maureen. Vanessa continued to evolve into a mature confidant woman and I loved that she got a great story with Matt and didn't need to be bouncing in and out of other's lives.

Why are we talking about Guiding Light on a thread about an Another World character?

I'm with r8...She always pinged my gaydar.

r15

I think this is the PG soap thread now

Linda and Nancy Glass are just about ready to eat this little person.

Linda and Dee

My favorite scene between two friends.

I would love to see a new talk show with Linda Dano.

That spit curl didn’t move for about 10 years.

For those of you who know and love Linda, Anna and Victoria, this is a must read interview. Their personalities really shine through.

I never watched AW until the mid/late 90s but I have watched some due to the DL but due to the clip at r20 can anyone tell me about the relationships the Cory siblings had? Did Iris like her Rachel siblings Matt and Amanda? How about Paulina and the rest... things like that would be greatly appreciated!

Linda Dano Emmy Reel where she played a drunk

R25

I love that reel but I would have picked the drunk scenes at the cabin with Jenna. She slayed those scenes.

I think R11 and R12 can both be true.

Every set has its assholes, and little toxic moments.

BUT

GL has long been said to have less of that.

Part 1

I don't really remember how Iris got along with her siblings, mostly that she always considered herself Mac's special girl.

Felicia was divine. I didn't see her since her debut, mostly just in the 90s, but there was a warmth and grandness to her that really surprised me. Most soap opera Diva characters are a little unpleasant, but Felicia always seemed like the mother or aunt or school teacher or friend you would want to have, all the while wearing jewellery and living a very glamorous life.

To be clear, she was a romance novelist along the lines of Jackie Collins, but she also ran a restaurant named Tops (which I'm sure now seems hilarious to us DL posters) and a bookstore named Wallingford's. She was best friends with attorney Cass Winthrop, mother to rebellious spirit Lorna and softer adopted daughter Jenna.

I always think of her wearing a silky robe and a feather boa, sitting in front of her typewriter working on the latest novel.

An all-time soap opera icon.

Part 2

Remember Wallingford? I loved him.

Wyndham sounds like such a cuntalina compared to the others in that interview at R23.

Is there any footage of Felicia and Cecile masquerading as nuns (complete with nail polish)? 1984 during the David Thatcher murder investigation.

The miscarriage scene fell out of eligibility for the year of 1993

For Linda Dano 1994 nomination she submitted the "intervention episode" - but lost to Hillary B. Smith for the episode she submitted during the Marty Rape trial.

I never watched Another World, but from the clips I have seen Linda Dano seemed great on there and Felicia was wonderful. So much better than the Linda Dano, I knew, as Gretel Cummings on OLTL, and then AMC, GH, and PC. Reportedly, ABC first approached P&G asking to buy the character of Felicia Gallant, but P&G wouldn't sell the character. That might have been interesting.

[quote] Reportedly, ABC first approached P&G asking to buy the character of Felicia Gallant, but P&G wouldn't sell the character.

When the soap press asked P&G about why they wouldn't sell the character the responded with a 3 word reply

"Why Would We?"

R36 I'd say "Why wouldn't you?" The soap was cancelled, this way P&G could still make money from an asset it owned, that it wasn't using anymore. From a business standpoint it would have been a wise decision.

R37 P&G owned As The World Turns - which aired opposite One Life To Live

P&G was trying to get Another World fans to watch ATWT and by selling the character to OLTL, they would potentially lose AW viewers to OLTL instead of getting them to watch ATWT

R38 Yeah, I forgot P&G was still supporting their other soaps at the time. I wonder why they didn't try to send Felicia to Oakdale like they did some other characters.

[quote] I wonder why they didn't try to send Felicia to Oakdale like they did some other characters.

ABC had actually approached Linda Dano a year BEFORE AW cancellation but she got cold feet and didn't want to leave the safe cocoon of AW. When the show got cancelled ABC wasted no time in approaching her again with a $5 million dollar - 5 year contract within days.

Obviously P&G & ATWT couldn't match that offer, so no formal negotiations ever took place.

$5 million? I didn't realize they paid her that much. No wonder, they sent her around to all their soaps, they had to to get their money's worth.

R41 exactly the network wanted to use Linda Dano as a device to get viewers to follow her to other shows - that is why they paid her so much.

R42 So funny to think about the networks and production companies still investing so much in their soaps, when a decade later they were trying to kill them all off.

[quote] So funny to think about the networks and production companies still investing so much in their soaps

They were trying to save the industry as by the late 90s the ratings were falling week by week - they were trying anything, and figured this marketing ploy might boost their ratings.

[quote] They were trying to save the industry as by the late 90s the ratings were falling week by week - they were trying anything, and figured this marketing ploy might boost their ratings.

Should be said all of these marketing moves were made under the leadership of then ABC Daytime President Angela Shaprio. She was the one who came up with the Linda Dano visiting all the Daytime Soaps, hiring of fan favorites Finola Hughes, Thorston Kaye & Robin Christopher (putting them on other shows) and instituting Super Soap weekend. Angela Shapiro really had a lot of great ideas and keep morale high among all of ABC Daytime and to boost the demos

Then she left and was replaced by Brian Frons and we all know what happened next.

No way did ABC pay Linda Dano a million dollars a year to come to OLTL.

R12 No, it goes further than that. Several of them directly compared GL to other shows and how GL was so much better behind the scenes. They didn't have to be so effusive in praise. You could tell they meant it. Was there drama with some actors? We know there was. That doesn't take away what actually went down.

R46 it was not a million dollars to do only OLTL - she was doing OLTL PLUS General Hospital, All My Children AND Port Charles

Plus they used her as "Linda Dano" lifestyle expert to guest on Good Morning America and The View

So the thought was the more they exposed Linda Dano on ABC Daytime, the more people would tune in and follow her to other shows.

So her salary was coming out of all those shows, not just ONE show.

R46 it was not a million dollars to do only OLTL - she was doing OLTL PLUS General Hospital, All My Children AND Port Charles

Plus they used her as "Linda Dano" lifestyle expert to guest on Good Morning America and The View

So the thought was the more they exposed Linda Dano on ABC Daytime, the more people would tune in and follow her to other shows.

So her salary was coming out of all those shows, not just ONE show.

[quote] No way did ABC pay Linda Dano a million dollars a year to come to OLTL.

Linda Dano contract was NOT with OLTL - it was with ABC Daytime - and they could use her services on any ABC Daytime show they wanted to.

See, I didn't watch soaps until the early 90's when I was home sick in 3rd grade but Linda Dano never appealed to me. I didn't watch AW but her appearance wasn't attractive and she seemed exhausting.

It didn't work ABC dumped Linda after a few years and her character was totally forgotten.

R51

Your gay card is officially revoked.

Interesting dish on Dano's post-AW stints! I always wondered what happened behind the scenes...cool nothing wanted to buy the character. Would she have been the first character, had that deal gone through, to cross over to all of the existing American soaps?

Kim Rhodes, aka Cindy on AW, apparently also popped up on ... ATWT was is? ... joining other veteran AW characters like Vicky and Jake. I only found one clip online of Cindy returning on that other show. For those of you who remember, how many appearances did she make? Just one? Several? I loved Cindy. Kim did great work.

Felicia Gallant was a niche character that didn’t translate beyond Bay City.

I would've enjoyed Linda even more if she had been in on the joke. But she always took herself so seriously even when selling cushions on QVC.

The last time she was in the news was when she lost it over Kathy Griffin hosting the Daytime Emmys.

Thank you for remembering Attitudes!! My middle aged brain couldn’t recall.

Linda had a great sense of style, but she became very schoolmarmish in her Digest style column.

She went after Kim Zimmer a few times and it was clear she was calling Kim poor white trash in a veiled, polite way.

R5 r10 The blonde was Nancy Glass.

I remember my mother watching that show. Seems like a lifetime ago

Linda pinged for me, too, before I even knew what pinging meant. Maybe it's her square jawline and broad shoulders?

[quote] The last time she was in the news was when she lost it over Kathy Griffin hosting the Daytime Emmys.

She is back in the news with a new Hallmark Movie

This is Linda's first episode of Another World. Her scenes start around the 20-minute mark, but lots of this ep should prove interesting to everyone on this thread. Highlights include fat Blaine, thin Aunt Liz, Steve Canary as Steve, Jennifer Runyeon as Sally working for Cass, and a EON reunion for Terri Davis and Maeve McGuire!

Oops, link

Excuse me, but what about ME?

The audience loves ME!

WE had the kind of love you'll never know!

They should've canned Vicky W in he 1980s and replaced her with Denise Alexander. But they wasted Denise!

I can’t see Felicia Gallant in Llanview or Port Charles. I could see her in Pine Valley, but not 2000-era Pine Valley-she needed to interact with camp characters like Daisy and Dorothy Lyman’s Opal.

Linda was on GL briefly. Her character was kinda cool but they killed her off way too quick.

R66 She was?

Yeah, her character was in the Gus/Harley story. Harley befriended her in jail and I think was trying to get her out. I wish she'd have come to Springfield but alas, it was short term.

A press release

Oh, that explains it. I hated Harley and hated Harley and Gus. I FF all of their scenes.

I liked Harley for a long time, but yeah, together they were a black hole.

I think their "couple" name was Gush but I always called them Gash or Gnarly.....because they were annoying.

I liked her some in the beginning but, to me, Beth Ehlers was not that attractive and had a horrible voice. Whiny and screechy. I never found her character that appealing for most of her run. Then when they wrote her all the time (talk about the Reva show- it was the Harley show for a long time) like she was this archetype heroine I never bought it. She would have been so much better as a villianess.

Linda never pinged for me. Her attire & hairstyle were on point for the time. She was crazy in love with her husband & always spoke of him. I loved that she never said , "Frank did such & such". She always said, "My Franck did such & such".

She always radiated warmth & approachability.

Linda never sucked MY cock!

[quote]She went after Kim Zimmer a few times and it was clear she was calling Kim poor white trash in a veiled, polite way.

Linda would occasionally make catty remarks about the looks and surgeries of other actresses. In 2005 she did voiceover commentary for the Daytime Emmys and when Hunter Tylo unveiled her enormous new boobs on the red carpet, Linda did not hesitate to say she basically thought it looked atrocious and "was not a classy enough look for daytime". Linda, of course, had several surgical interventions herself, though the results were always tasteful and fabulous.

OMG,is Tylo STILL having shit done? Sad...

R75

Linda was always upfront about having a facelift. She even had her plastic surgeon with her on The View after her surgery.

Linda knocking Hunter's atrocious plastic surgery makes perfect sense. Hunter went from a beautiful woman to a disaster.

[quote]Harley befriended her in jail and I think was trying to get her out. I wish she'd have come to Springfield but alas, it was short term.

This video is the beginning of Linda's six-week GL storyline. She makes her first appearance at the18:00 minute mark after being introduced for a couple of seconds in the previous episode. I will say Linda does look MUCH happier acting in another P&G show than she did on ABC.

I've been watching some of those 2005 episodes of GL, and even though it's only a couple of years before the disastrous Peapack episodes and the show is not what it was, it still has fairly decent production values and is at least hanging together.

Did ATWT eventually end up in Peapack/Gladstone?

R80 I think they filmed a fair number of scenes in non NYC locations - some of the last year had them filming in various locales - but I don't think they ever went that far away, and it wasn't as obvious or far reaching as GL had been.

Can someone refresh my memory about Reva's sister Cassie?

Was Hawk her father? Why did Sarah give her up?

We never knew about Cassie before, but when Sarah died, she told Reva she had a child with another man while Hawk was away (he'd abandoned the family for a few years).

Reva was looking for said sister for a while. At one point the show appeared to be suggesting Annie would be that sister. Whether that was a red herring, or a change in writers, not sure.

It was mentioned in another tread recently that the sister was originally a vehicle to give Zimmer a dual role to play. But when she couldn't be passed off as a 20-year-old, with her burnt-end skin tone from over tanning and her quickly deteriorating figure and waistline, they hired an actor for the part (Laura Wright) and then did the dual role via the clone not long after.

That was the main goal, otherwise they would have just recast the sister that Reva already had.

R84 covers part of it....

I think it also changed in development several times, even after they decided Kim wasn't playing the sister. They had a few writer changes and it took a really long time to reveal who it was, so I suspect they changed course at least a few times.

If Kim does another interview any time soon, would love to ask her about the Cassie story, and also if she ever asked for Roxie to come back.

In the early 90's Attitudes did a segment on fax machines and Linda couldn't believe the technology! "What is our world coming to?" she said, lol. She was particularly thrown by the idea you could send an order ahead to a restaurant.

The Locher Room zoom chats are a treat in many ways, but you would think some of these professional actors would know how to light themselves better. And I wish Locher would do a better job controlling the group...Rather than ask "do you all remember your first day on the set", ask the question directly to a specific person. "Michael, tell us about your first day on the set". THis way there is less talking over each other.

Let's remember Alan is doing this for free. I think he may be trying to stir up something for himself and/or the actors, but he's doing this for free as are all of them.

So let's not get TOO nitpicky, darlings.

Ha I was thinking the same thing as R88 but I get R89's point. I'd add this to the nitpicking: it would be nice if people had their tech straightened out ahead of time so half the chat wasn't spent with people dealing with sound or other issues. The one with Kurt, Maeve, etc. was particularly bad in that way. Not sure about the others. And re lighting, Maeve looked like she was still in the cave where Matt/Vanessa had their meet up all those years ago.

I'm pretty sure Allan has been posting on these P&G threads for years.

He has ran the chats better the more he has had them. Specific questions or having the people go in a particular order would be helpful. We all appreciate he is doing this. And he is getting some great guests!

I didn't realize until looking at Dano's wikipedia, that she appeared on ATWT(1981-2) between her first run on OLTL and Another World. Her character was named Cynthia Haines.

Alan, we all love you! Any criticism should be taken as constructive and not critical! Thank you for your time and effort.

Love you Allan.

Please try and find Eileen!

If these opportunities to see the actors remotely continue, it could lead to a lot of great and funny never-before-heard details. Otherwise at yearly events it's always the same core group of actors and a lot of stuff gets rehashed. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the Kim Zimmer and Larry Gates both peed themselves at one of Josh and Reva's weddings story. Since it's a few people at a time in these for an extended period, we're actually getting to hear fun and interesting stuff from all.

It's the little everyday nuggets that they remember about certain scenes and connecting them to behind the scenes info that I like most about these chats.

It was just announced that they are doing a Loving virtual reunion.

Yes Alan! My criticisms should be thought of as constructive! Thanks!

[quote] Her character was named Cynthia Haines.

She was the "other woman" that came between David and Ellen Stewart

Whatever happened to Victoria Wyndham and Eileen Fulton? Anyone have any recent pictures of them?

Also, whatever happened to Ellen Stewart on ATWT? As far as I can tell, the character was on from 1956-1995 (with Patricia Bruder playing her from 1960-1995) and then they just dumped her without explanation. That's really shitty!

Alan was trying to find Marie Masters.

[quote] and then they just dumped her without explanation.

Budget cuts led to Patricia Bruder being downgraded to recurring. Without David Stewart, there was no reason for Ellen to be around.

Marie Masters (Susan Stewart) was recurring as well, but she fared better because her profession was a doctor, so they use the character more. In addition to her being Emily;s soundboard. But Ellen there was nowhere to go with the character, without David,

Thanks R102 - Bummer, as she could have still been a sounding board for Emily and eventually Allison, but its shitty as hell to just dump someone that long without a proper goodbye!

Wyndham is online with a website of her artwork.

I wish they would have Martha Byrne and Noelle Beck in the same session. THAT would be fun.

[quote] Bummer, as she could have still been a sounding board for Emily and eventually Allison

But they had Marie Masters for that, it killed two birds with one stone(three with her being a doctor, so they use the character that way)

But with Ellen just being a housewife, there was nowhere to go

The problem with Ellen/Pat Bruder is she was aged prematurely.

She was the exact thing Eileen Fulton was fighting against......with that "grandma" clause.

But Pat was also one of the old school actresses. She was not good in a more modern presentation. Like Virginia Dwyer on AW - she was fine with the old kitchen sink, play to the proscenium sort of radio-style soap acting, but other approaches did not serve her well.

TPTB had Susan Stewart and Emily move into Ellen Stewart house, and Ellen was nowhere to be seen!

Kathleen Widdoes (Emma) was also dropped to recurring the same time as Pat Bruder - however towards the late 90s and 2000 to 2010 her screen time picked considerably (unlike Pat Bruder) despite being recurring, . One of the reasons is the soap was trying to cut costs as much as possible - Where previous regimes decimated the Snyder Farm, all of a sudden the Snyder Farm began to be seen 5 days a week, as they had more and more scenes on that set

It actually became the oldest set in ATWT history as they got rid of Hughes living room and even the Stewart house was gone. Of course that just meant Kathleen Widdoes got 3 to 4 appearances a month, being the sounding board to Lily, Holden, Jack and Meg.

Linda Dano said on her facebook page that she'll only participate if Alan promises that there will be no foul language and that she gets 15 minutes to highlight her new home furnishing designs that are available for purchase on her website. Also no questions about Alicia Coppola.

VW is on Instagram. She is retired, living her best life in the Connecticut country with her art, dogs and horses.

The last interview she gave (in 2007) it was clear she was very over AW and wanted never to speak of it again.

Emme Rylan's story of how she was an extra on GL when Hayden Panettiere played Lizzie and how in awe she was of Beth Chamberlain (who is really a great actress). Then she stars with Hayden in a movie then is recast as Lizzie. Would love to see Hayden do one of these. I think Alan could get many stars to do this. It would be great to see original/recasts on the same show. Sherry Stringfield would do a GL one. Maybe Sherry/Liz at some point?

From one of the reunions this past week: Maeve talked about being dressed as a nun for the Vanessa character at some point. When did she play a nun? The only time I can think of is when she faked her death and wore a nun's costume to get on the plane to Lucerne undetected. But was there another story perhaps earlier?

R110, do you mean V Wyndham was over AW? What interview was that?

I hope she's not bitter about the show....or burned out on fans.

Would Alan do an interview with me, Scoche Marin, the new Katherine Chancellor on THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS?

Who is Scoche Martin? I must admit I don't get the joke.

Y&R is recasting Mrs. C with a theater actress named Scoche Marin.

Oh no not this again.

This will be an exciting transition in Y&R’s history. Tony Morina is remaking the show a la when the show went to an hour. Scoche as nuMrs. C will be the new leading lady face of Y&R. Scoche has made few TV appearances, but she was a prominent background player on ATWT at the Mona Lisa in the 1980s.

This will be an exciting transition in Y&R’s history. Tony Morina is remaking the show a la when the show went to an hour. Scoche as nuMrs. C will be the new leading lady face of Y&R. Scoche has made few TV appearances, but she was a prominent background player on ATWT at the Mona Lisa in the 1980s.

This Scoche Marin bitch is a theater actress? I can't find anything about her online. Anyone have a link? It's one thing to create an ongoing narrative joke with someone like a Susan Anton that you can google, but this bitch has no profile!

I thought Ellen came back twice after they dumped her- once on the 40th anniversary show, and once in 1998, for Nancy’s 80th birthday, when she asked Nancy “who are all these people?”

Linda's former co-host Nancy Glass owns a media company that is in the top 100 of companies that produce television for cable.

Scoche has a very low online profile. She is well known to those in the SW California theater community.

Oh fuck all the way off with that Scoche bullshit , or I’ll kick you right in the cunt ya pansy.

Diva von Dish in Soap Digest that while Felicia presented herself as a fashion maven, she just didn't see it.

Her critique went something like: Dear Felicia, ln Fashion, there is something known as 'too much of a good thing.' You wear hats three sizes too big for your head, furs that look like the death of entire species, and dresses that look like living room drapes...

Freakin' hilarious and true, too.

Linda Dano has been friends with Scoche Marin (nu Mrs. C, Y&R) for decades.

Eileen explained in interviews it was NOT Patsy Bruder being aged up which prompted the grandmother clause, it was Barbara Berjer’s character Claire Cassen who was rapidly made.a grandmother and was promptly run over by a truck.

Folks, there is no such person as Scoche Marin.

Some incredibly sad queen thinks it's hysterically funny to suggest that (a) such an actress exists and (b) that they are taking over the role of Katherine Chancellor on Y&R.

This is the same poster, btw, that claimed Eileen Fulton clogged the CBS toilets. I think the poor dear had a case of the Dreaming Death and never recovered.

[quote] do you mean V Wyndham was over AW? What interview was that?

Yes.

Get comfy, it's long.

I loved Cass! It’s was refreshing that a daytime soap had a main character that was smart and dryly funny and kind of hot in a Jewish way.

I am very real, indeed. I am re-creating the role of Katherine Chancellor.

Claire Cassen and Alice Horton were the most ridiculous great grandmothers. Think about Judge Lowell - Claire's father - he was phased out around 1976. I think he was a great great grandfather. Claire was his daughter, Ellen his granddaughter, Dan has great grandson, Betsy his great, great granddaughter.

[quote] I didn't realize until looking at Dano's wikipedia, that she appeared on ATWT(1981-2) between her first run on OLTL and Another World. Her character was named Cynthia Haines.

Ahem!

[quote] I thought Ellen came back twice after they dumped her- once on the 40th anniversary show, and once in 1998, for Nancy’s 80th birthday, when she asked Nancy “who are all these people?”

That was Penny, Bob's sister and Ellen's best friend, who got that line, wasn't it?

R111

I highly doubt they would get Hayden P. for one of these things. That girl is spiraling toward a bad end. There's been a a thread about it on DL. She has a very dark sexually abusive childhood that has parlayed into an out of control adulthood. Example: sex parties for bid wigs.

She no longer has custody of her daughter.

Cass & Fanny.

Cass was smoking hot: suave, funny, sexy, devoted to those he cared about, smart.

Cass was like the William Powell of daytime tv. I can't think of any comparable characters in any other soap; he helped make AW unique and brilliant.

[quote]R20 My favorite scene between two friends.

That woman in beige is wearing some of the biggest earrings I’ve ever seen.

They’re like teacup saucers.

In the late 80s I’d see this porn star on late night NYC cable TV panels who looked like Linda Dano... but with with big, bad teeth. Tall, with the same coloring, body type, and haircut. She was also reasonably articulate, which made me think they were perhaps the same person (!)

No one seems to know who I mean.

[quote] That woman in beige is wearing some of the biggest earrings I’ve ever seen.

R139, you must mean Rachel. You're not a fan of AW, are you?

R139 It was the 80's, darling.

R129 thank you for that link. I never knew Victoria sold stories to the producers to help them give the actors material they could actually succeed with. I hope she's happier now wherever she is.

R135 Do we actually know Hayden P really had a dark, abusive childhood? There has only been speculation that I don't know where it came from.

Hayden P mother played the role of "Edy" on ABC Soap "Loving"

That bitch who played Edy sure looked like a tramp who’d have several “uncles” who’d sexually abuse Hayden.

Let's not delve too deeply into the topic of HP's childhood here, please. It would be terribly sad if she was exploited, but let's maybe think about musing on that in another non-soap thread, please.

And now, the continuing story of Another World. Who remembers when Felicia brought Liberace on the show in 1985/86? Here's to you, Ms. Gallant and Ms. Liberace.

R147

You don't have to create a Hayden thread.Just do a thread search.

R148

Liberace was a huge AW fan. There's a video of him on the Tonight Show talking about how much he loved the show & being a guest on it.

R149 I have no interest in continuing that line of discussion, but that's a good suggestion for anyone who might want to......

Even as Another World spent most of the 80s and 90s near the bottom of the US daytime ratings, it remained very popular in Canada. Never understood why.

Tammy Wynette was a HUGE Another World fan for the character Felicia Gallant - wonder why the show never lured her into doing a guest spot on AW.

Stephen Schnetzer was such a fucking hottie, I remember seeing him on the show when my mom watched it when I was in Jr. High, and High school.

He stays busy auditioning still especially for voice-overs and commercials and although I am 15 years younger, we sometimes audition for the same projects. He is warm and friendly to everyone and seems like the great guy you'd hoped he'd be. I just wish I had his AFTRA pension.....

R152, it was popular in Australia, too. That’s why they chose to have it turned out Steve Frame had been living in Australia with his nurse wife Pamela and her daughter Diana.

R154 did you ever tell him what a fan you were of the show?

R153 Especially since the clips I've seen of her recurring role on Capitol, wasn't bad.

Scoche Marin (nu Kay Chancellor, Y&R) has been by Linda’s side for many years. They love making public appearances together.

What is it with Linda and the one fucking strand of hair on the forehead? And is she really only 76?

And did anyone see her as Mame at Bucks County Playhouse? Anna Stuart played Vera. It was the same season as the Joyce DeWitt GYPSY (she replaced the announced Bonnie Franklin.

There used to be rehearsal footage online but I can't find it now.

Wasn't this bitch the big bad in the original Ghostbusters?

I was really confused when one of you made a comment about not asking Linda about Alicia Coppola - I thought they loved each other? When Linda was hosting a soap opera related talk show on soapnet and did an Another World reunion she brought back Alicia, not Robin Christopher. It seemed like they were very close.....

I enjoy spending time my marvelous best friend, Scoche Marin. She will be making a divine turn in the re-created role of Katherine Shepherd Reynolds Chancellor Thurston Sterling Murphy on The Young and the Restless.

R161

The person who posted that was trolling. Linda and Alicia are extremely close.

I follow Alicia on IG, she seems awesome and she's spoken highly of Linda many times.

Alan's doing an AW on April 30th!!!!!!!!

Former soap publicist Alan Locher has planned another virtual reunion, this time with cast members from ANOTHER WORLD. Linda Dano (ex-Felicia), Stephen Schnetzer (ex-Cass), Amy Carlson (ex-Josie) and Joe Barbara (ex-Joe) are scheduled to participate. You can watch the reunion live on Thursday, April 30 at 2p.m. ET.

R166 where is a link for that? My husband will want to see that.

Here you go R166 et al.

Return to Bay City!

Is Jensen Buchanan out of the slammer yet? I'd like to hear from her.

R169

I'd rather hear from Anne Heche & Anna Stuart.

[quote]I'd rather hear from Anne Heche & Anna Stuart.

Anna Stuart participated in a "Where Are They Now" special spotlighting a handful of "The Doctors" cast members (also including Kim Zimmer and Liz Hubbard, if you're so inclined:

Anna looks FUCKING FABULOUS

And so does Liz Hubbard - at 86!

THANK YOU, R171. I really wanted to see this.

Joe Barbara killed the show. Period. He was dull and overbearing, but other characters were forced to react to him like he was suave and charming. Gross. I guess must have been some positive audience feedback to him, though, because he held a record for most days in a row appearing on screen. I don't know why they used him so much. Hated him.

Joe Barbara at AW = Bradley Cole at GL

Some exec or writer's idea of hot

and

probably really cheap =

played incessantly

In 1994 the writer ripped off the plot from the Stephen King movie/novel "Misery"

They had Felicia kidnapped and held hostage by a deranged fan (played by Tony winner Reed Birney) and forced to write a sequel to one of her novels

end of that storyline below beginning when Felicia manages to break out

If Victoria Wyndham ever left the show, Another World would be

Another World

Starring

Linda Dano

As

Felicia Gallant

as she was the next person after Wyndham with the most seniority.

Boy, that Doctors reunion did not have enough Liz Hubbard.

And Kimmer looked like she had had a stroke on one side.

Kim, sorry to say, looks like ass.

OMG - Couldn't be more excited about the reunion!!

(R177) okay. would never happen. I loved Felicia, but, she would never had spearheaded the show. If Wyndham left, the show would have continued, but not for long. Rachel was a core character, an integral part of the show's history and families. Felicia was a support character, a friend.

I wonder how Wyndham felt about Dano scooping up Lead Actress Emmy nominations in the nineties while she was always left in the dust.

Wyndham didn't submit herself for Emmy consideration after 1980 or so.

I may just be making a surprise guest appearance. Until then, a throwback to older days with my dear friend Linda.

Wyndham looks like a chunky Beth Howland

Bop-ooh-dee-bop!

Oh, my goodness, the Top Billing troll is slipping.

r177 If Victoria Wyndham had left AW anytime after 1993 (after Connie Ford died), the person with the most seniority would have been Stephen Schnetzer as Cass Winthrop, NOT Linda Dano as Felicia Gallant.

Schnetzer joined the show in July 1982.

Dano joined the show six months later in January 1983.

Yes, Aunt Liz, but Schnetzer left the show for six months or so in '87. Here's the seniority list from the AWHP site:

How did they write Aunt Liz out?

R188 they didn't. She just disappeared

[quote] Schnetzer joined the show in July 1982. Dano joined the show six months later in January 1983.

R187 has it right - P&G policy is that when someone rejoins a program, all their previous seniority is not taken into consideration. They start from square one to build their seniority and get billed last, and only going up in billing when people ahead of them leave

Perfect example is Helen Wagner from As The World Turns - when she rejoined ATWT, she was billed last (this DESPITE being an original cast member)! - she only got up higher in the billing when people ahead of her left the show

Seniority, doesn't only affect billing - dressing rooms as well. When Beth Ehlers returned to Guiding Light, she was a bit miffed that she got a lousy dressing room. It was explained to her people with seniority get the better rooms. Beth said "Hello, I was here for six year" - they replied "You are new" Beth Shot back "No, I'm back"

These threads are so obviously not started by a younger gay. They are a queened out elderly gay who wants to dish on his favorite topic.

R191 Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Did you have something else for us? If not, we're busy.

Was the "Eldergays" in the title of the thread your first clue, R191?

Linda Dano, really? All this for her?

ATWT credits went in alphabetical order except for Don Hastings first and Eileen Fulton listed last.

R195 in the 90s at least.

R195 that happened n 1995

You are wrong, r195. And we've gone through that before.

We go now to live footage of the fight between alphabetical credits and senority credits........

There's nothing quite like P&G queens.

One person on one of these threads once said they preferred OLTL to ATWT at one point and that poster was hounded mercilessly.

R200 As they should be!

I have a non-P&G question, but as she was the creator of GL, ATWT, and AW, here goes. What is the deal with Irna Phillips and Days of Our Lives? Some sources list her, and William Bell, as co-creators of DAYS with the Cordays. Others say she was just the story editor. Even IMDB has her listed for a few episodes. As it is the last show, she had anything to do with that is left on tv, I'm interested, as she practically created the genre.

Phillips co-created the show with Ted & Betty Corday along with Bell

I only know her because she was on Another World I think, I can't read this whole thread. I knew the actor who played Sandy Cory originally, Chris Rich, so I watched the show. Only time I ever watched a soap.

[quote] I knew the actor who played Sandy Cory originally, Chris Rich,

So tell us what he is like, and did you meet his ex-wife Nancy Frangione?

Cecile

How interesting about the seniority. I learn something new every day.

I had forgotten that Stephen Schnetzer left the show for those 6 months. Thank you for the correction.

1987 was such a BAD year for the show. The absolute low point of the 1980s (although 85-86 was pretty bad too). 1987 was when they were trying to do these Days of Our Lives type plots such as Rex impersonating Cass who was imprisoned for months and David O'Brien as the Sin Stalker.

I've obviously blocked out much of that period from my mind and consequently forgot about Schnetzer leaving the show for those six months. Sorry.

On a related note, we've pondered several times on why Denise Alexander as Mary McKinnon never really took off. I would blame that on how bad the show was in 1987. Nothing was working on the show in 1987. Including Denise. And Philece Sampler as Brand New Sexy Donna.

I've said this before but it made no sense to me that AW lost so much of its identity in the 1980s after having such a banner decade in the 1970s.

Why bring Alice back when there's no real Matthews clan there to support here. There was Aunt Liz and a new Sally.

You look at ATWT that brought Susan back in 1986 and Kim says, Susan doesn't bother me. she can't hurt me anymore. Bam! Four years later, she's screwing Bob and Kim is devastated.

Why not tie Alice into some new feud with Rachel?

The actor who played Reginal Love was on AW in the 1970s as Vic Hastings. There was just too much change in Bay City. Alexander once said that AW had Vicky and Linda in her age range (ish); they didn't need a third. Denise never should have left GH.

Mary McKinnon didn't work for a slew of reasons. None of the actors they paired her with had an ounce of appeal. Her backstory made no sense...Marissa never thought about looking into her past before? And one by one, they wrote out her daughters...before she recovered her memory.

And eventually Sharlene took over her place as the salt-of-the-earth voice of reason.

Victoria Wyndham managed to snag top billing on the show early into her tenure. She only joined the show in July 1972. But by 1974, she was in one of the tops slots.

Below is a Sept 1974 episode. Go to the end credits. She's listed third behind Jacqueline Courtney and George Reinholt. Both Courtney and Reinholt would be gone less than a year later and Wyndham would mover to the top.

Also note in those same credits that Douglass Watson is third from the end. That's because he only joined the cast a month earlier.

r209 Nice analysis! Very good points. Thanks.

The character of Marissa LaSalle had so much potential. When Denise first joined, I was excited about the possibilities. Same with the character of Scott LaSalle.

The last half of 1986 show much promise. That was especially enticing since 1985-first half of 1986 has been so dreadful. The Love family was prominent. Mitch Blake was back. Reginald Love was looking to become a complex villain (the over the top mustache twirling characterization hadn't begun yet). Yes, much to look forward to. But then we went crashing into 1987 and everything went to hell. ,

[quote]And eventually Sharlene took over her place as the salt-of-the-earth voice of reason.

Very astute observation. I'd never considered that before, but you're absolutely right.

GL and ATWT had terrible years between 1985-87 for much the same reason - CBS was pushing for a youth movement and wanted to copy GH and/or DAYS, and neither show held on to writers for very long in those periods.

ATWT escaped only because Bob Calhoun and Marland were a strong duo, but even it went through a few stretches in there where cost cutting and or intense pressure led to changes - some characters were axed and plans changed (Doug had to quickly write out James and put his plans for Emily aside until 1987, when Emily returned in the form of Melanie Smith).

*I meant CBS and NBC

Denise Alexander actually enjoyed her two years on Another World - she only left because she wanted to be back in California. But she did pop back for a one-day appearance at her daughter Kathleen's birthday party

[quote] Why not tie Alice into some new feud with Rachel?

Well the only way they could go is have Alice battle Rachel for Mac - but the Jacqui Courtney was not a fan of that, calling her character former involvement with Mac "incestuous"

GL had a terrible year in 86. Terrible. It look almost all of 87 to start to get it back. Pam had a lot of work to do to get the show back on solid ground and it took her a good year to really have the show humming along. Its famed 89-93 stretch followed.

Jackee On her time on AW:

Linda Dano (Felicia) was my closest friend on there. She made them put me in her dressing room, and we shared a dressing room when she didn’t have to. She said, ‘No, I want to share a dressing room with her. I like her.’ We had a great time. She was just so loving. That’s really my best time.

The GOP voter is a beaten down. Too scared to leave the abusers. They see the GOP as their protector who just beats them when they do something stupid.

But we all know once the victim decides to make a move, she's going to burn that bitch like Farrah Facett in that movie.

R219, doll, you're in the wrong thread!

R220 I hate when I do that! Sorry.

Here is a strange question. Do actors who worked all those years like Eileen Fulton, Don Hastings, Victoria Wyndham, etc... get a pension from Proctor and Gamble?

No, R222.

No, the actors don't get a pension from P&G. Particularly since Televest, or Telenext, or TeleWhatTheFuck, whatever the fuck it was calling itself, has essentially ceased to be.

Depending on whether they were part of the actors' union, there may be some level of pension/savings/401K or they may qualify for an insurance plan (for which they'd still have to pay premiums).

Thanks for answers. I was just curious. I think Victoria Wyndham is set. She's mentioned a country house, and apartments in NYC and LA. But I do wonder about others. I hope they invested well and have solid 401Ks.

To be on the show, which was shot on tape, they'd have had to be members of AFTRA (now SAG-AFTRA, though their pension plans haven't merged). While they don't get residuals for anything before 1974, and very very little for anything after that, every week they worked on AW their employer was required to make a pension contribution to the union, and once you get to a certain age or a certain number of credits if you've worked enough you can buy health insurance through the union each year too (without having to continue to work).

Thanks R226. I know more of the people backstage/writers than I do of the actors, so I only had a faint idea of how it worked for them.

OP, I have no idea who that person is.

But in your pic she looks like Gozer the Gozerian.

Didn’t Eileen Fulton end up in financial trouble or am I confusing her with someone else.

I want to know why Richard Culliton was let go from AW in 1984. If you watch the episode with Alice’s return from that year you can see a lot of potential-there were still several characters from the Lemay era on the show , and the episode has a balance of humor, history and suspense /romance-it almost feels Marlandesque. Unfortunately it didn’t last...

Whatever happened to Matt Crane? He was so hot and looked like he had great feet

I found some footage of him in some other series or web series or something from the mid-2000s, and he seemed to have aged quite a bit. Thinning hair and putting on weight and all the usual stuff. The actress who played Amanda, Sandra Ferguson I think it was, got some plastic surgery and ended up doing some kind of self-help or corporate videos that also popped up online. She briefly appeared on Days of Our Lives, I think playing a therapist for John or Marlena or something, but I haven't heard much about that character arc. Apparently it was rather brief. I'd be interested in seeing some clips but haven't come across any.

Judi Evans, who played Paulina, has of course been on Days of Our Lives for quite a while now playing both Adrienne Kiriakis and her look-alike Bonnie Lockhart. Adrienne was killed off last year so hopefully Bonnie will continue to make some appearances. I loved Judi as Paulina.

WHET Tom Eplin??

I love cheap looking heartthrobs so of course I loved him.

R230 - link to matt?

Dec 19, 1983 episode of GL, Phillip and Beth escape from Bradley while a newly arrived in town Reva informs Billy that they are still married.

[quote] Didn’t Eileen Fulton end up in financial trouble or am I confusing her with someone else.

She did in the late 60s. She was making money from some sort of Sears at Home collection she gave her name too and had a boyfriend/ accountant who stole everything from her. I'm probably getting the details all wrong, but it was along those lines. (I dont have access to her books right now.)

R234 I was not born when this aired but I was told by someone on another forum to start watching GL from the start of the 4 muskateers on and what a great, moving, intense, well written and acted story. This episode was a great one. That Thanksgiving scene was one of the most intense episodes. Of course it had the great James Rebhorn, too!

Watching old AW on YouTube and Matthew Crane is sex on a stick - but he always downplayed his looks. He could've made a mint doing personal appearances at shopping malls every week, but he turned them all down. As he doesn't like the focus being on his looks. He comes from an artistic family, and only stayed on the show for so long to bank money so he retire early and focus on his main passion - sculpting

So right now that what he does full-time and has invested wisely so he doesn't have to work again. But watching him, he would've been perfect on a show like 90210 during the 90s.

R232

I follow Tom Casiello on Twitter. Several months ago someone asked him about Elpin. He said Tom is happily retired & living in the desert.

Matt Crane gave up acting and for more than a decade plus he has made his living as a sculptor. He, Robin & the kids live in New England.

R231

Sandy Ferguson did a short stint on GH where IIRC she replaced Kristina Wagner

Sandy Ferguson is best friends with Halle Berry - In fact when Ferguson was on Another World, he helped Halle get started in the acting business! To this day they are still best friends.

Halle will occasionally mention Sandy's help when she asked how she got started in the business.

Alan Locher is having the Boudreau family from GL on May 13th. I’m sorry but I never gave a fuck about the Boudreau family.

Alan Locher could never have a Cooper family reunion is because Justin Deas wouldn't do it, and Beth Ehlers is still bitter about her final year on GL

[quote]Matt Crane gave up acting and for more than a decade plus he has made his living as a sculptor

Okay, so this is explains why he and VW are still so close. There was a thread on one of the other soap sites that said that VW really only stays in touch with Bekins, Ferguson and Crane and Ray Liotta.

Linda Dano is beautiful and a very lovely person. I didn’t watch “Another World”, but I liked her talk show “Attitudes” on Lifetime. I was enchanted with her charm; she was and still is breathtaking.

Liberace was an ardent fan of Another World and he loved Linda Dano. They met at Tiffany’s. Liberace was in awe. He said something akin to “I can’t believe it’s Felicia Gallant!” Linda said “I can’t believe it’s Liberace!” They became friends and Liberace took her to celebrity events. He adored her and said she was “the Joan Collins of daytime television.”

Eplin appears on these threads every once in a while because some fat dude with a similar name shows up in Google search, but that is not him.

I wonder what he'd make of Wheeler - her hard right turn, now working for Glenn Beck.

Did Wheeler take a hard right turn or is this just a job? There are a ton of people who work for far right people, who aren't politically far right.

r242

I'm guessing it will have the least amount of viewers... I can barely remember that family

Wheeler is a Morman -- it's no surprise that she's conservative.

R246 Her working for Beck makes sense as both are Morman. Also, if she runs his business into the ground like she did GL, you should be glad she is working for him.

I continue to maintain that I would rather that GL had ended earlier than see it in Peapack with shoots on park benches. The wardrobe, makeup, and sets are part of the fantasy. I've only seen a few scenes from that era and they are painful to watch.

I still maintain if they'd had the right balance it could have worked.

But they needed to have the Spaulding mansion be in studio, not in an old mansion with ugly wallpaper in Peapack.

And the thing that really killed the sampling time when they did this? Was the writer's strike. By the time Phillip was back and story was humming, the writing was already on the wall.

I have been watching some old episodes of "the City" the off-shoot of the cancelled Loving - they did what Wheeler tried to do on Guiding Light - with WAY more success. As "The City" used handheld camera and not that many sets. They had one main set as a "Loft" - you had to go with the premise that all the lofts looked alike. but each were dressed slightly different to make it seem that was the characters individual "loft"

So the "The City" did the exact same thing Wheeler did with Guiding Light. Wheeler would have been much more successful if she had all the characters suddenly move into a loft and maybe have Cooper restaurant on the main floor, next to a medical clinic and a law office. That would have been far better than any of the Peapack stuff she filmed.

When shows had a budget, location shoots used to be extravagant and cool. The prolonged stuff in Peapack was just crazy--a 'church' that was somebody's office with a pew in it. The production value was shit.

[quote] The prolonged stuff in Peapack was just crazy--a 'church' that was somebody's office with a pew in it.

That wasn't Peapack. Several offices in the NY studio were turned into permanent sets. Wheeler's office became a church. Part of the makeup room became a salon; a storage area became the convenience store.

All part of trying to get away from huge sets that needed to be struck and stored, because that was killing them costwise in NYC. Set storage at one point was like 10 percent of their weekly budget.

They moved to Peapack because studio space in NYC was too expensive. But, did they look at Georgia or North Carolina, two states with all kind of incentives for productions. Did they also look at the GH model where they film by set to keep costs down? I applaud them for thinking outside the box, but they explore all options?

R256 I agree with the premise in general. I don't think P&G or CBS was down with that far of a distance, so NJ may have been the compromise available.

I have often wondered why a show never popped up where it was made in Chicago, or something along those lines.

AMC moved to LA but I never understood why.

Why do we film everything in two of the most expensive cities in America? I understand why the industry core exists in those cities, but technology allows for filming nearly anywhere.

For these reasons other core filming locations have started to emerge, like a lot of stuff being filmed in Vancouver now.

Yes AMC moving west and then getting cancelled anyways like a year or two later was nuts. I remember Thorsten Kaye (Zach) was one of the folks who opted out of moving, but then ended up B&B where he has to do the commute to LA anyways. At least as far as I know--he may have ended up relocating his family at some point, but that seemed to be a deal breaker when he was on AMC.

A lot of actors are in the soap business because of convenience. You get to keep banker's hours and be home with your kids instead of traveling around or on endless shoots. As soon as you add commuting by bus or plane to different locations, it's a game changer and adds time. At least the shuttle to Peapack was about an hour, so not too bad. If they had decided on something farther away, the show might have had a better production value, but definitely not the same cast.

Off topic briefly. ABC only cancelled AMC because they could not in good conscience cancel OLTL and leave the lower rated AMC on the air. They wouldn't have spent all that money to move it, if they were planning to cancel it. But OLTL was the #1 show on the network, which messed up their plans.

Back to PG, I guess I don't understand set storage. I thought soaps had like 5 permanent sets that always stayed up and one multipurpose set that could be redressed to me anything. When did this change?

R260 Maybe that was the case in the late 70s but GL had a lot of sets. They also moved at some point from the studio they were in to the CBS Broadcast Center, which had less space. (ATWT had been kicked out of the same space years earlier, and they went to Brooklyn, where AW had been filmed.)

As contract characters grew so did sets.

[quote]ABC only cancelled AMC because they could not in good conscience cancel OLTL

ABC does not have a conscience.

I have no soaps to watch again. Y&R is showing their old shit now, which I always loathed. I tried yesterday, but could not get past ten minutes.

I only started watching it again last year, because of Mark Grossman (Adam), and it has actually been terrible lately. I hope if it returns, it will be a better program. I actually feel a sense of relief over not having to watch it rather than sadness over not being able to do so.

I heard the reason for the move to LA was to both save money on the cast reduction and because it was being shot in HD and the facilities for that were better in LA.

Frons was over soaps by 2011 - that's why AMC and OLTL got the axe. He talked about how he wanted to transition ABC from a soap network to a lifestyle/talk network.

can anyone here help? I used to get SOD in the store weekly but decided to do a subscription to save money but IF i get it in the mail, I get it Tuesday or Wednesday of the NEXT week or lately not at all. I was thinking of seeing if I could switch my subscription to a digital subscription to see if that would be better... Anyone here still get SOD digitally? If so when do you get it? Thanks!

R266 I also answered this on the Y&R thread but am listing it here too. I don't know that many, if any of us have an SOD subscription, the store is almost always the quickest way to get it and sometimes they put it out as early as Thursday night (it usually gets racked between Friday afternoon and Sunday night for the next week).

Zinio (??) can do a digital subscription, I think. It also sells digital copies of each issue.

BUT

If you have a local library card, check to see if they allow you to read magazines online with a thing called RB Digital. I have been reading Digest that way for a few weeks now, had no idea before the virus that this was possible. A new issue is loaded onto the platform every Friday night. (And it's FREE)

r267

Thank you very much, my grocery store has it early thursday morning(and it used to be on Wed back in the day) l will check into the library stuff!

R260

Soaps don't keep all their sets up. For example, on GH the only permanent set is the nurses's hub. Everything else must be put up & dressed & tore down every time they're used.

I read a very interesting article about 24 hours in the life of the crew on GH. This wasn't in a soap mag but in a technical mag. I read it about a year to a year & a half ago. It blew my mind all the work it entails behind the scenes. The crew & director work 24 hours straight & then another crew & director step in for 24 hours on a new episode. I wish I could remember what trade magazine this article was in.

R263

Honey, you have zero taste if you're missing the shit show that is the current YR. These classic episodes are glorious.

In this behind the scenes at All My Children - the set turnover on a soap is explained as the crew works overnight to take down and put up the sets

Go 16:30 into video

I always hated Y&R, r270. There was never anything "glorious" about it to me. Its being Victorcentric was my main issue.

I've read that the British soaps have a large studio and keep the majority of their sets up at all times. I wonder why the American ones don't do the same. I would imagine it would keep the costs way down. The only thing I can think of is the unions wouldn't like it.

^^^

They would have to have much larger studio space to be able to house all the sets. Studio space is at a premium in LA.

Not anymore it doesn’t, R274. It seems likely that several series will never go back into production.

She was great at Zuul in Ghostbusters.

R263 I too watch for Adam but the fact that Victor always wins chaps my ass. And lately Nick--NICK--is the chosen son. There was one scene recently where Victor referred to him as 'my brilliant son Nicholas' for a press piece and I couldn't finish my lunch that day. So like you, a break is welcome and I can watch other things that don't piss me off.

With UK soaps like EastEnders and Corrie they were able to build realistic sets with outdoor areas.

Also, both are or have working class elements, so they can look like old shops or a middle class house (with a little more space for blocking).

Whereas almost every US soap went glam in the 80s and then people expected beautiful sets. The original shows were far closer to what the UK shows still are.

For all the remaining soaps except for DAYS (which has enough new episodes to last 6 months), I wonder how many have aired their last episode. While the actors may get the clearance at some point to go back to work, how dismal will the come-back ratings look? And will the new normal still include soaps, which were hanging on by a thread anyways, but now folks have moved onto Netflix or other hobbies that have nothing to do with tv?

Unlike pretty much every other tv medium, there's no hope of these guys going to an at-home format, so there's nothing to keep the audience hooked and connected. I still don't get why these shows didn't stagger their new episodes and insert classic shows sooner so they could survive at least into May and maybe even into June.

I don't see the remaining shows surviving this. It is a shame that GH will surpass GL as the longest running soap.

Before the pandemic shut everything down, the suits in charge of soaps were massacring them on their own. People like Agnes Nixon and Bill Bell understood that it's family and compelling characters that keep people tuned in, and yet, the idiots in charge of these things today believe that people are after lifestyle brandy-type shit (comment above about Brian Frons).

There's no respect for the medium, especially from the people who run it, and there's not enough interest to get new blood pumped into it, so the hacks who fail on one show are recycled around to do their hatchet job on the next one.

I’m finding it ironic-and comforting-that as the death knell for the remaining four daytime soaps is apparent that this Locher guy is providing us with a hell of a lot of nostalgia for the shows from years ago,

Alan Locher was one of the good guys. There were lots of P&G people who didn't give a shit, and a lot more who did but either didn't know what to do or were kept from doing what would have worked by CBS or P&G. But he did care.

R279 How hilarious will it be if DAYS stumbles ass backwards into being the last soap on the air?

Yes I'm impressed by his ability to bring all these people together. I'm sure they're happy to talk to their peers, some of whom they worked with for years (decades), but there also seems to be a camaraderie between him and the actors. Very unusual for a soap journalist, since many of them were slimy scum and the actors didn't want to deal with them even when they were on the shows and they were supposed to help market their character and storyline.

When Passions was on the air, it filmed in two side-by-side studios at CBS Radford Studios in Studio City. They were literally side-by-side and just had an alley way between the two buildings. I believe it was Studio 4 and 5 at CBS Radford

One of the studios housed the permanent sets like the Crane living room, Tabitha's house, the Bennet house, etc. Those sets stayed up all the time and were used regularly.

The other studio is where they erected temporary sets that were only needed for a day or a week or until a storyline was over.

I still think the four soaps will survive this and that Days will, of the four, be the first to go. Keep in mind that for Days and GH, both shows haven't been exploited on Peacock (since it hasn't launched fully yet) and Disney Plus. Both those shows do extremely well on NBC.com/ABC.com respectively, and with content needed to fill up those two services, it's constant (and relatively low cost) material. Same could be said for Y&R/B&B with CBS All Access. Plus, B&B is incredibly popular internationally.

What I would expect is that - once production opens back up - is that GH, Y&R and B&B will go to a DAYS like production model and get as ahead as possible, not only for further outbreaks but because it makes business sense. DAYS saves tons of money by being so far ahead (they can go dark longer).

I'm thoroughly enjoying these Locker Room Zoom interviews. Kudos to Alan for arranging them and putting them together. I've watched the Phillip-Beth-Rick-Lillian one and the Vanessa-Matt-Dinah-Little Billy one. Great to see them all again. And great to hear their stories and memories.

What would make these Zoom interviews go better, as someone said in the previous thread, is if Alan would take more charge of the conversation, like a good interviewer does. Pose more questions and call on people to answer each question. And above all, make sure the participants don't talk over each other.

While I agree about the constructive criticism for the soap reunions, I think one of the reasons that so many people are making the time is because it's just an hour. In order to control things more, you have to prepare, maybe even do a pre-session to get the technology and pacing right, and fewer people would do it at that point.

[quote] I think one of the reasons that so many people are making the time is because it's just an hour. In order to control things more, you have to prepare, maybe even do a pre-session to get the technology and pacing right, and fewer people would do it at that point.

What? Like most of us, they're sitting at home watching Netflix! If anything, they have more free time since they can't work at home!

R287 GH won't ever be on Disney+, it is on Hulu and has been for years. Disney has now taken control of Hulu and it will be the home of all there non-family style programming, including ABC. I think Hulu is what has helped to keep GH on the air, while they don't reveal viewing figures it has been reported that viewing figures for it on the service are quite good.

R287 - fair point. Regardless, GH has a future on a Disney owned streaming because it's cheap and consistent.

R287 You also forget to take into consideration how much money B&B and Y&R makes overseas, which helps to subsidize their continued production.

The four remaining shows are crap. BB has always been crap. I don't know if it is worth having them on air if the quality is where it's at.

Remember Alan isn't a journalist, though - he's PR/marketing. So may be why he isn't leading the charge.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a Nuke reunion yet

[quote]I'm surprised there hasn't been a Nuke reunion yet

But there was, on April 17.

R296 So there was! I missed it entirely. I didn't see Van or Jake in that.

[quote]Remember Alan isn't a journalist, though - he's PR/marketing. So may be why he isn't leading the charge.

That's a good point. He's coming from a PR perspective. But at the same time, there are a lot of subtle things he can do to take charge of the conversation while also conveying information to viewers.

One problems with these interviews is (and this is a minor quibble, but an important one), if viewers don't know the background material, Alan and the participants don't fill you in on it either. So, to deal with that, you say, "Gina Tognoni, you've been on OLTL and Y&R as well as GL. How does GL compare to the other two?"

OR you say, "Maeve, you joined the show back in 1980. Do you remember your first day?" Then you move over to Kurt McKinney and say, "Kurt, you joined the show in July 1994. What was your first day like? What were your first scenes?"

Little things like that conveys he's done his research and is in charge, while also filling in the viewers.

Who owns the P&G soaps now? Is TeleNext Media still around? Did they revert back to P&G Productions which is now P&G Entertainment?

"GL and ATWT had terrible years between 1985-87 for much the same reason"

ATWT, "terrible" between '85 and '87? Bob and Kim's wedding; psycho Douglas Cummings; Lily's maternity secret; the Lucinda/Craig/Sierra triangle; the James/Emily/Paul triangle; Tonio's womanizing; John's snooping; Meg's scheming; Tad Channing's meltdown; Lisa opening the Mona Lisa; Steve's personal and professional destruction; Barbara and Shannon feuding; the Tom/Margo/Hal/Barbara quad; Chris and Nancy's 50th anniversary; and of course, "Who's Hotter: Holden or Dusty?"

I mean....... "Terrible"?

Didn’t the Who Killed Carolyn Crawford? storyline play out during that time period? Because that was the most boring, painfully dragged out storyline ever. If I had to hear about Ruxton Towers one more time.

GL had a horrendous 1986 and first half of 87. Then it had another artistic peak 88-93.

I’d like to know how much they paid Jacqueline Courtney to come back in ‘84. Was it comparable to what they were offering Beverlee McKinsey? Rachel & Alice were so closely identified but when Alice came back between 84-85, there were not too many scenes between the two. I just always wanted to know what these soap “stars” made. Vicky Wyndham must have invested real well to have only made a Law & Order Episode since dropping acting in ‘99.

R300 I wrote that post and oops, you caught a typo! Sorry for the confusion.

I meant to say this, which should make more sense:

GL and ***AW*** had terrible years between 1985-87 for much the same reason - P&G/CBS/NBC were pushing for a youth movement and wanted to copy GH and/or DAYS, and neither GL nor AW held on to writers for very long in those periods.

ATWT escaped only because Bob Calhoun and Marland were a strong duo, but even it went through a few stretches in there where cost cutting and or intense pressure led to changes - some characters were axed and plans changed (Doug had to quickly write out James and put his plans for Emily aside until 1987, when Emily returned in the form of Melanie Smith).

[QUOTE]Didn’t the Who Killed Carolyn Crawford? storyline play out during that time period? Because that was the most boring, painfully dragged out storyline ever. If I had to hear about Ruxton Towers one more time.

I think "Who Killed Carolyn Crawford?" started in 1990. I didn't start watching WT fulltime until sometime in 1989, and I remember when Rex Smith was new in Oakdale. Also, and though it is not perfect when it comes to daytime, IMDB lists his first episode as November 1990.

Also, I think Ruxton Hills was an Oakdale location, but I don't remember Ruxton Towers. I may be confusing this, however, with Ruxton Hills, a real-life schmancy suburb of Baltimore.

The Carolyn Crawford story ran from 1990-92 and was Marland’s worst storyline, hands down.

Ruxton Hills is the Oakdale neighborhood where Steve was building a house for Betsy; it was left abandoned when Steve left town in 1986. In 1987, that abandoned house in Ruxton Hills was used as James Stenbeck’s safehouse, and where he was presumed dead when it was set on fire. Barbara was charged with his murder and briefly went to prison.

Who killed Carolyn Crawford. I don't remember.

[quote] Who killed Carolyn Crawford.

It wasn't Darryl. It was someone on their employ to help Carolyn or something. No one anyone cared about. We were supposed to be terrified for Frannie that Darryl was a killer (like we were terrified for Lisa that Bennett Hadley was a killer). But the story went on too long and Rex Smith and Mary Ellen Stuart weren't that interesting.

It was months before I realized Darryl Crawford was played by this poster boy from the early 1980s.

Thanks for the clarification, R304.

The Liz Hubbard/Martha session on The Locher Room is tomorrow at 2 ET.

They should mirror the run of ATWT and 5 minutes before the end, bring Noelle Beck on.......

The Crawford storyline was one of Doug's rare misses.

The only other blip, really, during Doug's run was after Martha, Hillary BS and Julianne all left within a few months of each other. There was a real lull in story for a while. Kinda went in circles. Shannon and the two Harrington brothers.......zzzzzzz. Beau and Pam.....just a lot of stuff that either got thrown at the canvas quickly or didn't really get a groove.

Good morning my dears. Do not forget that I will be dropping in to The Locher Room chat today to say hello to my lovely friend Linda. I will also be promoting my new leading role as the new Katherine Chancellor on The Young and the Restless.

I didn't like Lily's storyline where she wanted to divorce Lucinda.

The story where Lesley Ann from The Guiding Light became Bob's stalker

OH! And how could I forget? The writers' strike also hit around the same time in 1988 when those leading ladies left ATWT. So yeah, they had a few big stories to carry through but definitely took a hit.

I will honestly pay the person posting about Scoche Marin to interview them. I'm fascinated by this whole Scoche Marin thing - and I desperately want to interview this person under the condition of anonymity for them.

Since we are keeping this to P&G shows, what are your top 5 and bottom 5 ATWT, GL and AW stories?

R318

I'll have to think on that but I know for certain 2 of my top AW stories are the Rachel/Steve/Alice triangle and the Who Shot Jake story.

My favorite AW stories:

- Matthew & Josie's Romeo & Juliet story, which culminates in the further literary appropriation of Maupassant's The Necklace.

- Sharly's story

- Donna and Jake's affair, which leads to so much paying for Donna. Somehow this leads to Vicky arriving at the Cory boardroom on a motorcycle, but I forget exactly how that comes to pass. We also have Jake asking Donna if she wants to eat his pickle.

Vicky - Jamie - Lisa triangle

Least favorite AW stories:

- Justine (though I loved the fact that it gave Lady Eyes-a-Buggin something to do). I hated Grant and Spencer Harrison in general.

- that shit with Lila and the science-fictionalization of the show at the end

- Bobby Reno

- Dean and Jenna (hated her)

- Carl and Rachel (made no sense)

The AW reunion is on now and they're having major technical issues ... Anna Holbrook was on but couldn't hear anyone and just gave up and logged off.

R317 You do realize there is no such person as Scoche Marin and it's all a delusion, right?

Top 5 stories:

ATWT: The story that leads to finding Sabrina

Lily learning Iva is her mother

Margo & the Casey euthanasia story

Kim/Bob/Susan

Hank Elliot

GL: Sonni/Solita/Reva/Josh/Will

Nola anything 1980-1985

Annie Dutton after she went crazy

Otalia

Jonathan

AW: Iris vs Rachel anything (VW and BM)

Anne Heche as Vicky, esp. fighting for Steven

Felicia alcoholism

Cecile hijinks

Moi

R322 - I do realize it's fake which is why I'm so fascinated by it. The Schoche Marin this is just so unfunny that it's profoundly bizarre. I'm dying to know the psyche of the person doing this. Specifically WHY are they doing this? Do they find it funny? Do they think it's funny. It's honestly just so weird I must learn more about the person behind it.

Bottom 5 least favorite:

ATWT: Juicy Janet ' Jack and Carly (liked at first but done to death)

Ruining Craig

Suddenly Southern Connor

Suddenly Mobstery Dusty

GL: Infinity/Samson Girl stories

How every black character secretly wanted to be a jazz musician

Grady Foley nonsense

Jeffrey O'Neill

Killing Maureen (great story itself, but left a gap)

AW: Justine

Rachel and Carl - can understand why VW loved working with Keating, should have been more of a Roger/Holly type thing

David Hallyday, the 200 year old man

Iris is the Chief (didn't make a lot of sense)

Red Dove, or whatever the fuck that was all about

R324 OK, just wanted to make sure! I get your curiosity on that.

The same person had an obsession for years to come to any of the P&G threads and go on and on about Eileen Fulton's bathroom functions and how she clogged the toilets at the studio. It's perhaps a very.....specific sense of humor this person has.

Anna Holbrook says David Forsyth had a stroke and was on a feeding tube for a year. Better now. Linda Dano says John Aprea had a stroke as well.

AW faves:

Rachel/Mac/Iris

Rachel/Mac/Janice

Who Shot Jake?

Cass/Kathleen

Alice/Steve/Rachel

AW least faves:

Rachel/Mitch post-St. Croix

Everything written by Corinne Jacker

Poisoned Amphora Dust

The totally botched return of Jacquie Courtney

Fave GL Stories

Four Muskateers/ Bradley/Beth Sonni/Solita Mindy/Roger/Alex affair Beth return from the dead (89) Annie/Reva Brent.Marian- I know that is 6 but I couldn't choose.

Elder Gay here you remembers the Bill/Missy/Danny Fargo story on AW and Audra Lindley's take on Aunt Liz. She was better than Irene Dailey. Take that Lemay.

Also when they had Pat Randolph become an alcoholic. Beverly Penberthy must have loved that sl. Pat would go around and tell off her family, embarrassing them all. She crashed a party at Tall Boys and let loose on Mary, Alice and Steve etc. Of course all it took was a good talking to from Mary Matthews to cure Pat. Lol.

AW Faves (the stories I actually saw):

Who Shot Jake?

Sharly.

Iris Returns

Alma Rudder

Everything with Cecile, Felicia, Cass, and Wallingford

AW Misses:

Carl & Rachel

Donna & John Hudson (so wrong)

Putting Jake and Victoria together and having Marly want Jake back after the what happened during Who Shot Jake. (even wronger)

Donna and Michael lose custody of Little Mikey. We could have used that character down the road.

The McKinnon family. I liked Jake and I liked Kathleen, but the rest could have kicked rocks.

GL Faves:

The Blackout

Blake and Ross

Alexandra/Roger/Mindy/Nick (such a great, well layered story)

Gilly and Alan Michael (I wanted these two to fuck so badly)

Annie goes for Reva.

ATWT Faves:

The Rose storyline.

Lily and Simon

Lily when she chose Damian over Holden

The storyline where Margo was lusting after Eddie Silva

Everything with Craig as played by Hunt Block

Since GL and ATWT weren't "my shows" I only listed the stories that I would tune in for. I loved Sheffer's ATWT and GL from 92 through about 94 was just some of the best soap opera ever produced.

I left off my fifth AW least-fave:

Felicia's affair with John Hudson -- it gave Linda Dano and Anna Holbrook great material to play but it was totally out of character for Felicia and John.

The AW storyline I found least believable was that Jake would rape Marley. I don't count it as a "worst" because there were so many worse ones, but I was never able to believe Jake would do that.

Things got awkward when Alan asked about Victoria Wyndham. Nobody wanted to touch that hot potato.

R334 Noooo! I have to see that for myself

I wouldn't characterize it as awkward, it was just clear that nobody was in contact with her. Linda said her last contact with VW was at Charles Keating's memorial.

Also: Tom Eplin could be a challenge to work with and Nancy Frangione had a "temperament" at times.

Who said that about Tom and Nancy, R336?

Eplin was such a hot daddy until he porked up after he left ATWT.

Joe Barbara said it about Tom (and everyone seemed to agree). It jibes with what I've always heard -- not that Eplin was "difficult" but that ad libbing and non-rehearsed bits (a la Liz Hubbard) made it a challenge to do scenes with him. Barbara said it improved his craft.

Stephen Schnetzer said working with Nancy Frangione was often fun, but that she also had a "temperament" sometimes.

At 23:15, you can see that Mimi Torchin is typing in the right-hand column. (If I had watched it live, would I have said something?)

So cute when Linda said that her husband, Frank, was jealous of her working with Charles Keating; then she and Stephen ribbed each other.

There was some great stuff pre-Marland on ATWT. James vs. John (the first round) with Margaret Colin and John pretending he was blind was great fun. And Margaret Colin and Justin Deas together as Tom and Margo were great, as were Steve-Betsy-Craig.

And post-Marland, there was the whole lead-up to the church fire and Kim in a coma seeing Jennifer (and Jennifer seeing Barbara!) And Rose was fun for a while, as was Phantom of the Opera Barbara (post-boathouse fire).

But Marland had the most hits. Douglas Cummings, the Frannie Intro, drunk Andy, Bob and Susan, Casey and Margo, Shannon's return from the dead, and the day he made me scream like a Mary! "Hello, Barbara."

Oh god, I hated the Margo/Eddie Silva storyline.

The Eddie Silva character should have been Jeremy Wheeler. Jeremy Wheeler disappearing forever without mention was just wrong. It's not like the actor married a pornstar!!

I was there! Supporting my dear friend Linda, as always.

Blocked that troll going on about Mrs Chancellor. Bye nut.

[quote] Felicia's affair with John Hudson -- it gave Linda Dano and Anna Holbrook great material to play but it was totally out of character for Felicia and John.

Felicia and Sharlene fighting each SLAPPING the other THREE TIMES!!!

Latest GL reunion with Crystal Chappell, Jessica Leccia, Michelle Ray Smith, Frank Dicopoulos and E.J. Bonilla

Linda Dano (Felicia Gallant), Stephen Schnetzer (Cass Winthrop), Amy Carlson (Josie Watts Sinclair) and Joe Barbara (Joseph Carlino)

[quote] Jeremy Wheeler disappearing forever without mention was just wrong.

First of all the actor who played the part wanted to leave to attend College full-time - In terms of using Jeremy instead of Eddie Silva, they needed the Eddie character to create friction in the Hughes marriage.

They were setting up a Margo/Tom/Emily triangle, by having Margo always constantly spending more time dealing with Eddie's problems than with Tom, pushing Tom towards Emily by having them have an affair.

backstory - Margo shot Eddie's mom during a robbery, and she felt guilt ridden over making Eddie an orphan, which is why she was like a helicopter mom to Eddie.

Jeremy wouldn't create the same type of friction in the Hughes marriage, as Tom thought of Jeremy as a third son.

R347 Wow two titans duking it out.

I want EJ Bonilla.

R352 He's aged out of a weird phase he was in on the show and has become way more handsome.

I, too, MARY!'ed when James revealed himself to Barbara.

My teenaged gay self kept saying "No! They Didn't!" at the screen.

Which I did again when Hank said he was gay. GASP!!!!

I found the reunion really underwhelming. The Host didn't have any real questions prepared and just lobbed some sort of generic "how have you been" softballs. That stuff is okay for 10 or 15 minutes, but that was pretty much all we got. At the end he said it would be fun to "do that again!" and nobody said a word. I think they were all fed up with the technical problems. I know I was. I realized that is not the host's doing, but at the very least if there had been some interesting questions being asked and new information being learned or shared they might have felt like they got more out of it then a half-assed chat.

Holbrook seems like a dear, and Stephen is very chatty. Joe is still the same, ditto with Amy. Dano looked good, considering her terrible connection.

They sent good wishes to Judi, but I was surprised Joe wasn't still in touch with her.

Jeremy could have filled the role of causing friction in the Hughes marriage easily enough. But even if someone decided he couldn't, he still should have been mentioned at some point somewhere along the line.

I was shocked to learn that David Forsyth had had a stroke.

The AW reunion was frustrating. Lots of Anna saying over and over "I can't hear anything." And Linda has to be the wealthiest of all these actors and she can't afford a decent internet connection ?!

I love that Alan hosts these, but he really needs to work out the kinks. The smaller groups seems to work better with less technical issues. Alan would be better off hosting smaller groups and testing everyone's connections BEFOREHAND.

And enough questions about kids and lockdown pastimes. We don't care about their knitting updates, their frustrations with homeschooling, and what their kids are up to...we want soap memories, favorites storylines, recollections of fellow actors.

Alan's doing an OLTL one but I don't know know if there is an active OLTL thread

the AMC/OLTL thread is here

Hoping Kassie talks about her GL time and Hillary about her ATWT time.

I thought Alan was just P&G. Why is he doing ABC soaps?

This from R358 is spot on: "And enough questions about kids and lockdown pastimes. We don't care about their knitting updates, their frustrations with homeschooling, and what their kids are up to...we want soap memories, favorites storylines, recollections of fellow actors."

Plus yes, test beforehand. I zoom 100 times a day now and can just log on, but when work-at-home started in March, you better believe I was testing my internet and my zoom connection ahead of time so that I didn't waste anyone's time in a meeting.

Oh, my fucking Gawd/Irna Phillips. You cunts are relentlessly critical.

No one is getting paid for ANY of this.

The actors are doing this for THEMSELVES. They are also stuck inside and want to see their old friends and talk about taking out the garbage. If we're lucky, we get a little bit of this and that about their time on the show.

Do you demand good light and boom operators? Refuse to watch without opening credits?

[quote]Refuse to watch without opening credits?

Well, you know how we loved our opening credits.

I won't have a chance to watch the AW reunion until this weekend.

If Linda was having tech issues I bet she was ZOOMing from her home outside the city. It is out in the sticks. If she had do it from her NYC home I imagine the tech issues wouldn't have been as much of a problem.

[quote]If Linda was having tech issues I bet she was ZOOMing from her home outside the city.

Indeed she was.

Allan isn't being helped by these people with dial-up AOL internet connections or people totally clueless about basic technology.

I have enjoyed the reunions I've watched. And I appreciate Alan arranging them. Kudos to him for that.

But the criticism that he needs to do some homework and prepare some questions is valid. He's advertising these to fans who come to hear inside info about shows and the actors. Granted these are free for the fans to watch, but still you expect a level of professionalism about it.

Doesn't take long to prepare a few questions in advance. Just do a few minutes of research about the actors and their characters. The shows will be so much better if he does that.

Likewise, a quick test run of the connections in advance will also go a long way to avoid technical problems and again look more professional.

Or if he doesn't have time to do research, he should take viewer questions live and pose them to the actors - very easy to do.

Soap Opera Digest - which I guess will not survive much longer - is really dumb not to have "owned" this and hosted it on their own website.

The Liz Hubbard / Martha one is the best yet.

Liz is so fucking sharp.

[quote] I thought Alan was just P&G. Why is he doing ABC soaps?

I guess because he running out of recent P&G soaps. It would be much harder for him to organize a reunion for EON or Search For Tomorrow, since many of their big stars are sadly no longer with us. I wouldn't be surprised if after OLTL and AMC, he didn't do Passions, Sunset Beach, and Santa Barbara, next. He is obviously getting good traction with these reunions, so he is smart to branch out beyond his P&G comfort zone.

I think he's reaching out to whoever will say yes. Kassie and Hillary have connections to P&G shows so it's not a surprise they would say yes.

I agree, R371, by far the best one. But didn’t she confuse Van Hansis with Jesse Lee Soffe?

I don't mean to sound mean, but this is so typical of soap fans. This Alan guy is doing this nice thing and people are nitpicking minor things. I'm sorry the internet connections and questions aren't up to your high standards, but what else do you got? It's either this or nothing. Be a little grateful.

The Liz Hubbard interview offered a few surprises. Liz is 86 and doesn't hold back. Was great to see her looking so strong and healthy.

She said Doug Marland didn't want to write for her and they did battle. His only interest was young love. Never heard an actor offer anything but praise and admiration of Marland. Martha certainly benefitted from his focus on young love. She always sings his praises.

She spoke positively about Larry Bryggman and Scott Bryce. Admitted Finn Carter was very inexperienced when they worked together...didn't sound like Finn was her favorite scene partner.

Oddly she mentioned Jesse Lee Soffer a couple times by name, when she couldn't remember other actors' names. She must watch Chicago P.D.

R376 I haven't watched, yet. Does she mention if she had any problem with Marland from before he came to ATWT. She was on The Doctors when he had his first head-writing job on there.

Everyone appreciates the effort and it's just some constructive criticism. Free or not it's not a good use of my time to log on and watch people go 'I can't hear anything' or have them drop in and out for a majority of the session. It's not like it just affects the one person or those having trouble--EVERYBODY has to stop and help test the sound or get the question flow going again.

Wow Liz is going to set the message boards on fire with her downplaying Marland's writing!

Odd that she said that, though.

He did focus on young love, but the vets on ATWT never - ever - had it better than when he was writing.

R380 I really have to wonder if he problems with him goes back to The Doctors. She left her role on there in 1977, which was the same year Marland left. I can't figure out which went first.

Anna Stuart (Donna AW) hosts an infomercial for hot rollers for women's hair

Totally shocked by Liz's comments on Marland! He didn't write for Lucinda? Really? Good Lord, he only put her in one of the most popular romances to ever appear on Daytime. He literally wrote the entire John/Lucinda marriage... and all the Snyder drama... and tons of good corporate stuff for Lucinda, too.

I worship Liz, but jeez...

Costumer designer for ATWT said Liz Hubbard could be a pain in the neck, as every morning Liz would be waiting by the door of the costume department wanting to know what she was wearing, because needed to see how her costume would work with the scene she was going to do.

Then the prop department would get calls from Liz, because she was the prop queen. She wanted to have glasses, a briefcase, newspaper and if she didn't have those things on set, word would go down to the prop department "Liz is calling about her newspaper"

R377, she mentioned pitching an All About Eve storyline to Marland when he was writing The Doctors but he wouldn’t do it. Maybe she was sore at him from then on. She said she’d pitch stories all the time, for herself and others. I’m sure the producers and writers LOVED that.

Oh for fuck sake. Some of you have deified Doug Marland and he would probably hate it. The man was not without his flaws. Like every other soap writer who ever wrote soaps, Doug Marland made mistakes, wrote some stinkers, had his favorites, short-changed some characters, overplayed other characters. Not every choice was magic. In the grand scheme of things, Doug Marland was one of the better soap writers, but for goodness sake take off the blinders. He bled when you pricked him, just like everyone else.

Nonetheless, r386, Marland's Lucinda was my favorite soap character of all time.

She did have nice things to say about him too.

I still think she was probably coming from a bit of a place of ego, though. He certainly wasn't perfect, but no one ever treated vets as well as Marland did, so no, I can't agree with her there.

[quote]Marland's Lucinda was my favorite soap character of all time

But how much of that was what Liz Hubbard brought to the character? The best soap characters have always been collaborations between what's on the page, good directing and what the actor brings to the role. And what is also true is a good soap actor can rise above bad writing, enhance a character that is underwritten, or keep a character that is over-written or written incorrectly grounded. Actresses like Liz Hubbard and Kim Zimmer and several others could take anything and play the fuck out of it.

I liked the writing better than on any of the other soaps I watched during that time (1988-93), r389—all 3 P&Gs, OLTL, Y&R.

R386, everyone knows that Marland wrote a few clunkers and had his blind spots, but he wrote a LOT for Lucinda and it was damn good stuff. Most actors would kill for the stories Hubbard had at ATWT.

R384, that was what made her so great, her attention to detail. She fleshed out Lucinda with all of those props, costume, etc. Too bad others weren't that particular. It would've improved their performances, I'm sure.

[quote]he wrote a LOT for Lucinda and it was damn good stuff.

I'm not saying that he didn't. Hubbard on the other hand is saying that she had to fight for those stories. And at this point in the game, why would she lie or make it up? Both things can be true.

Douglas Marland was a good writer, but there have been other great soap writers who don't get the praise he does. Harding Lemay, for instance. Or, Henry Slesar, has another writer ever spent sixteen years as the head-writer of a soap that they didn't create?

The great part of the Hubbard interview is how she talks about all of that. That she did collaborate, that she used props, etc.

I love the gossip that Doug Marland used to suck John Wesley ship and John Hensley's toes.

R396

Who wouldn't want to?

[R377] she referenced that he writing preferences [youth] were the same on The Doctors. Said he lived near here in CT and spoke to visiting his home.

Liz discussed her love of props in the interview. She also spoke about -- and took credit for -- the infamous bathtub scene w/ Larry Bryggman. Said it almost got her fired. She had a come-to-Jesus moment w/ the brass after that one. Shows just how out of touch the execs were -- that scene is one of ATWT's most famous scenes to this day...

Martha looks so great these days. She was looking kind of blowsy during the mid-2000s.

Martha's glasses fit her face perfectly. Very nice.

R213 mentioned Melanie Smith, was her Emily well liked? Kelley Menighan (pre-Hensley) was Emily when I started watching, though I found it intetesting how much different they looked, especially since Melanie sort of favored Marie Masters. Similarly, Ashley Williams' Danielle Andropolous looked nothing like Kristanna Loken's version of Dani. Dani's personality changed too from modelesque under Kristanna to awkward under Ashley.

I was at dougs place many times. Gorgeous estate in New Canaan. Windsor House. Had a photo of Gloria Monty, whom he hated, over his guest toilet.

He was a marvel. Most head writers farm out most of the work but he was doing all the heavy lifting.

I was at dougs place many times. Gorgeous estate in New Canaan. Windsor House. Had a photo of Gloria Monty, whom he hated, over his guest toilet.

He was a marvel. Most head writers farm out most of the work but he was doing all the heavy lifting.

R404

Why did Doug hate Monty?

Liz was outstanding as Lucinda. She used to ad-lib, didn't she? I'm still able to remember some of the things she said, like when she accused Lily of having a thing for foreign men like Damian, Simon. Hogan Sheffer & his writing team were pretty good then so they could've wrote that line, I'm not sure. Lily had quite a few comebacks to her too, like when she told Lucinda how she was one to talk about her, for when she was growing up, she had so many "uncles/stepfathers" coming in & out that their home looked like the Oakdale Civic Center.

Doug hated working under Gloria. As I recall, she tried to force him to turn Luke and Laura into lovers despite Luke having raped her and Doug would not do it and quit.

Doug has a heavy smoker, which likely played a role in him not making it through a surgery that shouldn’t have killed him.

LeMay was a mixed bag. His resentment of Courtney was just insane. Believing only 'theater' actors could recite his dialogue was pretentiousness at its peak. Yet the story he claims to have been horrified to write for all its cliches - SVEN, Helga, Regina and Rachel's kidnapping had me glued.

R406, one of my favorite Lucinda lines happened when Lily showed up at Lucinda's with some problem and Lucinda yelled at a servant, "Matthew, go and bring the car around!" Lily said, "That's not Matthew," and Lucinda replied, very frustrated, "Oh, darling, they're ALL Matthew!"

Another great one was when Carly was making excuses for one of her kids after he started a fire, and she said to Lucinda, "I mean, when you were a kid, didn't you ever burn your homework because you were embarrassed of how bad it was? I know I did," and Lucinda said, "I'm sure the bonfires were STUPENDOUS."

R402, I’m pretty sure long term viewers far preferred Melanie Smith’s Emily to Kelley Menighan’s. Smith had a lovely, cool and sexy premise. Her physical resemblance to Marie Masters (Dr. Susan) was fantastic. I never got used to Menighan. She was so jarringly different to Smith. Her acting was fine but I never gave a shit about Emily from then on.

I liked Ashley Wiliams’ Dani because she was more believable as Betsy’s daughter than that Nordic teen model who played her.

I meant “presence,” not “premise,” heh heh.

When I worked on the show, Melanie was a total sweetheart.

[quote] When I worked on the show, Melanie was a total sweetheart.

Melanie says Greg Beecroft was the WORST actor she ever worked with - do you have any insight as to why that was the case?

Melanie Smith was everything in that role. She still looks good in her late 50s and still works from time to time. I have nothing against Kelly and she sort of became Emily, but she was never as good as Melanie. It's sort of the way Judi Evans was okay as Paulina, but she could never measure up to Cali Timmons.

And, as we all know, Marie whatserface was NEVER Meg Snyder. Only Jennifer Ashe was.

I always said if they wanted to cast Marie Wilson as one of the Synder daughters, she should've been cast as Ellie.

It's kind of the way that Todd Manning wasn't really Paul and Cass Wintrop's little brother was never really Dusty. ATWT made some odd casting choices. But I loved Hunt Block as Craig, who everyone else seemed to revile, so who am I to talk.

Melanie Smith brought a sultriness to Emily that KMH never quite had. But I never was convinced that Melanie's Emily would fall for Andy Kavovit's Paul. She coulda had any man in Oakdale and she got involved with that kid ?!

She didn't really "fall for" Paul, though, R418. They had sex one time, and Emily made it pretty clear to Paul that she did not want it to turn into a serious relationship. Unfortunately, James found out about their one-night stand and then all hell broke loose.

I’ve always felt that, too, R416, and even expressed it on one of these threads years ago. I would totally have accepted Wilson as Ellie. That would have been good casting.

Long-time viewer who was glad when Melanie left. I didn't think she brought much to the role and sometimes seemed constipated. Kelly was too high strung for a long time, but either she calmed down a little or I got used to her. I thought her acting during that long (more than a year) mental breakdown was fantastic.

Melanie was sex on a stick in that role.

Just watched the latest Locher Room with Liz and Martha. THANK YOU ALAN, first of all. Delightful. Liz got off to a VERY meandering start in the beginning, and was just going on and on and on from one thought to the next. She reminded me of my one aunt who could never answer a simple question without going off on a lengthy tangent.

I liked both Melanie Smith and Kelly Menighan, but they were different.

But I also liked both Sherry Stringfield and Liz Keifer, and I know I am in a minority on that front. AND Carl T Evans and Rick Hearst.

In all three cases, I felt like the second actor took the baton nicely from actor #1, and was able to take the character(s) in slightly new directions without being a case of "that's nothing like [character name]."

Marie Wilson is the poster child for someone who did NOT do that.

I don't know if I want to know that Greg Beecroft was an asshole.

There was a time I would have (metaphorically speaking) drank his bathwater. Fuck, he was hot.

R409 Those are both hilarious. Maura West was also outstanding as Carly, I'm glad she returned after leaving to raise her firstborn son with her pre-Andy Dixon husband. She stood out in a flock of confusing hires around that time, Susan Batten as Connor recast, Aisha Henderson as Zoe, Mike's Kasnoff siblings, Diego, Pilar (Roselyn Sanchez is lovely yet she still has limited acting abilities).

R424 Yeah, you are in the minority with Sherry and Liz. I think the red hot story with Ross/Blake lost all steam with Liz. She was not sexy like Sherry. She tried but ugh. GL was on fire and all the cast changes (Sherry, Bev, Kimberley Simms) was like a balloon popping.

I agree with you about AM. Rick Hearst was a huge upgrade even though I loved CTE as AM. What a hottie!

I thought Liz K was more believable with Ross than Sherry. Sherry's Blake would have been a year of wrapping Ross around her finger and then trashed for the next man. It maybe wasn't more exciting, but it WAS more a story between two adults.

Liz's scenes with Maureen Garrett and Holly saying she never loved Blake were amazing.

I do agree losing all the actors at once really slammed on the breaks. ATWT had the same hiccup when Julianne Moore, Martha and Hillary Bailey Smith all left within a few months of each other. But they recovered......GL sadly went weirdly off the tracks.

GL didn't recover because the recasts were terrible. Liz would have worked more down the road but not right after Sherry.

I do want to add- I don't want to trash Liz. I know she has her fans. There were many times I enjoyed her as Blake. There were times I saw more of Sherry's Blake even years later. I think it was some of her acting ticks that bothered me. I maintain she was a jarring pick to start right after Sherry. Had we gotten a better Blake recast right after Sherry, that person left and Liz was cast, I probably would have enjoyed her more in the role.

R410 Nordic teen lmao Ashley was more of an actress than Kristanna however it just confuses me when thru recast with actors who look nothing like the original, and when they do personalities shifts (sometimes to suit the recast actor's strengths) it becomes even more confusing, almost like they're playing a completely different role. Kristanna wasn't on long enough I suppose for it to matter too much unlike Melanie who Kelley not only didn't resemble, the character seemed somewhat different from the clips I've seen of Melanie. Heather Rattray's Lily, who Liz referred to jokingly as "that other girl" iirc seemed sort of cold and not as expressive as Martha's from what little I've seen of Heather's version. Two recasts that completely threw me off were the second Nikki & Molly. The new Nikki resembled original Molly while Molly # 2 Christina Chambers had similar features to Jordana Brewster.

I couldn't get into ATWT because of Lucinda. I found her really annoying. I probably would appreciate her more now.

Heather Rattray, like Heather Tom, suffered terribly from Pinched Sphincter Syndrome.

I agree with r427. Ross/Blake was hot with Sherry in the role. When Liz came, Blake turned into a soccer mom overnight.

Melanie and Sherry were my first Emily and Blake so of course I think they were better than than recasts... similar to Judi's Beth... Beth C was ok but not my real Beth... if that makes any sense

Heather Rattray does have her fans on the internet. I have no idea why. She wasn’t Lily.

Marland could be excessive/undisciplined by the early 90s.

[quote]Heather Rattray does have her fans on the internet. I have no idea why. She wasn’t Lily.

She was my imprint Lily. I started watching the day Lily and Derek's cottage burned to the ground. After I forget how many weeks of no Lily, Heather Rattray was who emerged from the plastic surgery convent. I liked her fine. I'm sure it would have been different if Martha had been my first Lily.

R435 I think for Beth, the writing was key. Beth C was pretty in her first run as Beth but not drop dead gorgeous like would become later on. Someone said the writers would not have gotten away with writing Beth the way they did from 97-07 if Judi were playing her. I agree.

I'm always open to recasts. Kimberely Simms was way better than Krista Tesreau even though I loved her as Mindy too. Rick Hearst was a better AM but I loved Carl T Evans.

How did they explain Lily getting her old face back?

They didn’t, R439. Tee hee. Like they never explained how Holden could eventually recover memories after he’d had a brain operation which carved out the bit which retained them.

I don’t know what was a more jarring recast in terms of looks-Kelly as Emily or Barbara Kearns as Nina on AMC. Nina was NOT a redhead! What was Jacqui Babbin drinking that week she cast her?

R428 were Ellen Dolan & Glynnis O'Connor the only Margo's after Hillary? And weren't there two different actresses cast as Frannie Sabrina after Julianne quit? Mary Ellen Stewart & Claire Beckman I believe.

When Rattray wAs cast as Lily, Marland was trying to do the same thing with Lily that he did with Barbara-make her self absorbed, bitchy and calculating as a reaction to the pain she endured.

Lily bought M&A, anonymously revealed the secret to Hal of Barbara knowing all along about Adam’s paternity, etc. This went on for the first few months and the fans hated it. She was softened up and more vulnerable by the time Holden returned in the summer of 1990.

I liked Heather Rattray but she would have made a better Frankie recast-I didn’t like Mary Ellen Stuart, she made the Carolyn Crawford story even worse because she wasn’t good.

It should be said the show FIRED Heather Rattray once Martha Byrne became available to return to the show. Byrne and Marland were in communication during Rattray last 3 months on the show, mapping out Byrne return

Good thing to, because Marland died shortly after it was announced Byrne would return, so the show relied on the long-term story outline that Marland drew up for the Lily character (with input from Byrne)

I remember Stuart had big eyes and looked rather fetching in that blue denim jacket they seemed to put her in during her first few months of the show. But she wasn’t Frannie. And even worse you couldn’t imagine her as Sabrina.

One of the best recasts the show ever did was replacing the insipid Kim Onash with the very lovely Jennifer Ferrin as Jennifer.

[quote] One of the best recasts the show ever did

For me it was Mark Collier replacing Shawn Christian as Mike Kasnoff

[quote] One of the best recasts the show ever did

Oh and Cady McClain replacing Yvonne Perry as Roseanna

Ann Hamilton was the best Mindy,hands down. I believed she was raised in Tulsa. Krista and Kimberly were too city bred.

R447 Ann Hamilton fit Mindy about as well as Diana Scarwid fit Christina Crawford.

"...the very lovely Jennifer Ferrin as Jennifer."

What a darn good actress she was, R444. When Mike dumped Jennifer for Katie-- after swearing a million times he was over Katie, and "trust me, trust me, everyone knows I'm Mr. Decent-and-Dependable"-- Jennifer's breakdown, while heavily pregnant, just seemed so real, the pain so raw. I know... "Mary." But damn, she made me 100% Team Jen, and I was thrilled when Dusty rode to the rescue. (Yes, I actually liked Grayson in the role. The writing for him, not so much.)

I also thought Kimberley Simms was a better Mindy than Krista Tesreau.

I think the one who preferred Ann Hamilton also preferred Rhonda Lewin’s Vicky to Anne Heche’s.

Well, Barbara Crampton as Mindy wasn't much better than Ann Hamilton. Both were poorly cast.

Krista and Kimberly were both excellent in the role, despite having very different interpretations of the character. Mindy as a lovable ditz vs Mindy as a sex kitten.

Can't really imagine Krista's Mindy having an affair with Roger. But for Kimberly's Mindy, it seemed natural for the Roger affair to happen.

Catherine Hickland desperately wanted the part of Mindy - but Jill Farren Phelps wouldn't see her, as JFP felt Cat was all wrong for the part

Ironic that JFP would later hire Cat on OLTL as Lindsay

[quote] Catherine Hickland

Cunt!

[quote] Liz was outstanding as Lucinda. She used to ad-lib, didn't she?

I would guess the ad-libbing comes from her time on The Doctors. You can tell, from watching the repeats of The Doctors, that they must have performed the show basically live or live to tape. Therefore, I'm sure they had to be sharp and ad-lib rather than stopping tape. It is also noticeable on the show, that the actors appear to do it quite regularly.

r451

exactly... KT would not have been a good fit with the Roger story line but I did like her as TIna (she was my 1st Tina on OLTL)

Barbara Crampton was older than Robert Newman(Josh) who played her uncle. She was also in a bad fling with Vinnie while playing Mindy.

Ann Hamilton was a better bet to play Beth. Say that 3 times fast.

Vincent Irrizary used to have affairs with all his co-stars. Kristi Farrell, Kimberly Simms, Ann Hamilton, Barbara Crampton and Signy Coleman, who he married and had a child with. Probably a few others we never heard about.

Judi Evans is one of the few co-stars he didn't have a fling with, but that was likely because she was already involved with John Whitesell, a GL director.

Susan Batten was the notoriously bad ATWT recast.

But I liked her, mostly, as Luna on OLTL (especially when they weren't so over the top with her). I often thought she would have been great as a Roxie recast on GL. She looked like Kristi F and had a bit of that same kind of energy.

Sharon Gabet is on FB and her account is so charming. She chats a lot with fans.

I didn't hate Cassie like some viewers but I never understood why GL didn't bring back the Roxie character as opposed to recreating a new sister in Cassie.

Any ideas why they did that?

Wasn't Cassie originally supposed to be a dual role for Zimmer? I'm not sure why they scrapped the dual role concept.

Yes, we discussed in detail in the last thread, the original idea behind what eventually became Cassie was to give Kim a dual role.

[quote] Sharon Gabet is on FB and her account is so charming. She chats a lot with fans.

She REFUSED to do any scenes with people who had AIDS

Since I was a kid at the time, from what I've read it was early in the crisis and there was a lot of misinformation and fear. She was pregnant and concerned. I don't think it's hard to relate to that.

R464 Sharon Gabet was pregnant in 1984

In 1983, the CDC ruled out the possibility of transmitting AIDS through casual contact

So there is NO excuse

1984 was still early. There was big bruhaha over Rock Hudson kissing Linda Evans in 1985. So YES, there was an excuse.

R466 again In 1983, the CDC ruled out the possibility of transmitting AIDS through casual contact

In terms of Linda Evans, she said he was NOT worried because she had educated herself and knew AIDS does not get passed through kissing.

I hear what you are saying, but I don't give two flips what the CDC said. The CDC and human nature aren't always on the same page. People were scared.

One myth out there is that All My Children and Another World was the first soap that dealt with AIDS - NOT TRUE

It was actually Loving in 1984 - then show creators Agnes Nixon & Douglas Marland had one of their characters (Noreen Donovan a nurse) working in the AIDS unit at the hospital. That caused conflict with Noreen and her husband Mike, as Noreen had to keep telling him AIDS cannot be transmitted via casual contact.

1984, the same year Sharon Gabet REFUSED to do scenes with actors who had AIDS.

R460 R461 After ABC cancelled The City, created by James Harmon Brown & Barbara Esensten, GL hired them as hw's & they planned to give Reva another sister instead of Roxie, with either Kim Zimmer in a dual role or Annie Dutton. There were rumblings back then (even mentioned on this board) that Kim wasn't slim/youthful enough to convincingly pass herself off as Reva's younger sister. That's probably when the Annie angle was approached however maybe they felt that was too much making them related. Laura Wright, a favorite of theirs from The City & Loving as Ally, was then brought on. She also had an offer to join AMC as Liza Colby's younger half-sister (which was shelved, then revised years later with Amelia Heinle, who was Steffy on Loving) but decided to with GL (James & Barbara being there helped a great deal). Cassie was catapulted to practically younger leading status under them, where Dinah & Hart (who were extremely popular) were sacrificed for Cassie & Hart.

[quote] they planned to give Reva another sister instead of Roxie, with either Kim Zimmer in a dual role or Annie Dutton. There were rumblings back then (even mentioned on this board) that Kim wasn't slim/youthful enough to convincingly pass herself off as Reva's younger sister.

That is an urban myth that has been NEVER been proven but only discussed as fact ad nauseam on this board exclusively

R471 Barbara/James really did want Kim in a dual role, which was why they created the clone. The rumblings about her as Cassie may or may not be factual however they did write the clone story for that purpose, added in with the science fiction part

Liza had a half-sister on AMC? Must have been when the very badly cast Jamie Lumer was playing her.

R473 it was Amelia Henlie who is a TWO-time Emmy winner

Always HATED Laura Wright aka Big Bird. Screeching harpie.

Miss R469 must type REFUSED! in every post.

REFUSED.

She REFUSED!

Hiss!

Hisssssssssssssssssssssssssss!

We've been Murieled, girls. But almost 500 posts! Well done.

We're off to Henderson next -

R473 No it was around 2002/2003 with Marcy Walker still playing her. Mia Saunders, her half sister on her father's side played by Amelia Heinle or two time emmy winner according to R474 lol. There's a PG connection too, the actress who played Angel Snyder was a recast Liza Colby in the 80's when Marcy originally left. Another note, Jamie Luner almost played opposite Amelia Heinle. She auditioned for Phyllis recast on Y&R (Laura Leighton did as well) yet Jill chose her friend Gina Tognoni, which takes this back to PG lol full circle.