And Miss Dickson flat-out admitted that. (Wasn't it a behind-the-scenes special on Entertainment TV, or something?) She basically said, "I don't know what the big deal was. We could've easily come in the following Saturday and shot my scenes." Yeah, right, bring the director, the entire light and sound crew, all the camera guys, all the stage hands, hair and makeup, everyone else to the studio on a Saturday to shoot her scenes because she pitched a tantrum Friday afternoon. It would've cost SONY and Bell Dramatic Serial Co thousands & thousands of dollars to do that. But she didn't care; she didn't think it was a problem at all.
And y'all remember what pandemonium it was that summer. One day you'd hear the voiceover, "The role of Jill Abbott is being played today by Deborah Adair." The next day, Miss Dickson would return, giving one of the most bizarre performances of her career. Then Jill might have a day off, and then the next day, "The role of Jill Abbott is being played today by Deborah Adair." Then Miss Dickson would return the following day, weirder than ever. Until finally, that fateful day -- "The role of Jill Abbott is NOW being played by Jess Walton." I remember us laughing about it at my house for the two or three weeks that it was occurring, until finally the sobering realization hit -- they've actually kicked her ass out the door for good.
Obviously, the constant rescheduling, the hiring of replacements, the auditioning of a permanent actress to play the role --- ALL of that was costing them time & money.
Peter Bergman talked about his little tiff with Victor recently on some broadcast (was it that SOAPY podcast Greg Rikaart does?) What I gathered from it is that Bergman was a bit of a perfectionist, learning his lines verbatim, coming to work prepared to give a practiced, polished, rehearsed performance. Braeden, in contrast, was pretty much just winging it, getting the gist of the scene but "massaging" his dialogue pretty drastically, not sticking to the scripts very rigidly, and just "making the scene work" by saying & doing things he felt Victor would do under the circumstances -- which obviously worked-out fine to the TV audience but was probably fairly grueling for his costars.
And any of y'all who've ever acted before can see it from both Bergman & Braeden's point-of-view. If you're an actor who wants to stick to the script -- and you know your lines and everyone else's lines when you show up for rehearsal -- the worst thing you can encounter is an "improv" actor who barely even looked at his script the night before. And if you're a seat-of-the-pants improv-type actor, the most irritating thing you can encounter is a "script perfectionist" who pauses the rehearsal and announces, "YOU didn't give me the right cue! And you were supposed to CROSS BEHIND THE DESK on your THIRD line, NOT on your FIFTH line!" We've all been there & done that. And it can lead to a lot of tension. If it's a stage play, you quickly learn that you don't wanna deal with that particular actor in another show ever, but if it's a continuing television situation, you've just gotta work it out, which Jack and Victor evidently did eventually because they seem to respect each other now, although they probably both still have the same rehearsal/performance traits now that they had in the 1990s.
By
Broderick ·
