Ryan's Hope Discussion Thread

[Sean]

There definitely wasn't any heart to Smith's conception of the show. No one ever seemed happy and everyone was at everyone else's throats.

I also hated the way she broke up Jack and Leigh after Labine set them up so beautifully together. Labine and Mayer had them face some obstacles before they were fired, but I loathed how Smith had Jack suddenly cheat on Leigh on an impulse (and then Leigh stayed on for another year and a half simply waiting to see if Jack would reunite with her).

I can understand that, though I enjoyed the 1980-81 episodes (not to the same degree as what came before, but... ). There's not much out there from 1982, though it's essentially a continuation of what came before. 1983 was a banner year for the show -- the focus was squarely on the Ryans and Coleridges and the Charlotte Greer storyline was a classic.

1984 and 1985 were both pretty horrendous and don't have much in the way of compelling storylines (though I did find the Dakota storyline intriguing, and that began in October 1985). Things really did pick up once Ilene Kristen's Delia returned in the fall of 1986. The Maggie/Roger/Delia triangle was pretty golden, though the Operation Overlord storyline with Max, Carrell Myers' Siobhan (very bland), and Walt Willey's Joe was going on concurrently and was not very good (though that may be because of the actors involved).

Once Labine returned in February 1987, the show solidified the quality it had started to pick up during the last days of Taggart and King. Granted, it was not necessarily the Ryan's Hope of old, as there was an entire new generation of characters at point - but it was consistently well-written and well-acted with attention returning to the Ryans and Coleridges. And I loved how so many people came back during the last month and a half the show was on-air.

Ruth Jaroslow played Norma from 1977 through 1979. Sally Ann Golden played her for one episode in 1980.

I'm not sure how long it was around based on the tapes I have, but Mrs. Lem does make an appearance in the 1984 St. Patrick's Day episode. I'm not sure if she was still being played by the original actress, Mary Mon Toy.

[DRW50]

Thanks for all the information.

I still wonder sometimes why Clem vanished without a trace and then they didn't have any other black characters until the last few years of the show.

So did Faith and Jill make up in 1982 and then they were close until Faith left the show?

Who were your (or anyone reading this) favorite actors for each recast role?

For me, although I haven't seen some of the later actors...

Mary - Kate Mulgrew

Delia - tie between Ilene and Randall

Siobhan - Sarah Felder

Pat - tie between Malcolm Groome and John Blazo

Nancy - Nana Visitor

Faith - I'm tempted to say "None" but I guess Catherine Hicks

Frank - Daniel Hugh Kelly

Joe - Richard Muenz

[Sean]

Yeah, there was definitely a surprising paucity of black characters until the late 1980s. Minor recurring characters like Miriam George and Nell Carter's Ethel Green (and later "Flash," a worker at Greenberg's Deli) aside, the show didn't have a major black character until the introduction of Tracey Ross as Diana Douglas, a DA with whom Frank was involved while Jill was with Dakota Smith. Diana's father was against her involvement with a white man; once Frank reunited with Jill, Diana stuck around for a few months before being written out. The show also introduced Irving Allen Lee as Dr. Evan Cooper around the same time; he ran the Riverside Clinic with Pat and became involved with Chris Hannold (Lydia Hannibal). Neither one was especially prominent, though; after departing in 1988, they both returned for the final episode but didn't have any lines, which tells you a lot about how important they were to the show.

I did love Tichina Arnold as Zena, though. She was great on her own but also played well off Michael Levin.

Faith and Jill made up after Faith almost died during the Meritkara storyline. They remained close until the end of 1983. Jill moved back into the Coleridge house and brought Frank and John Reid with her, as well as her newly discovered mother Bess and half-sister Maggie. Understandably, Faith felt a bit suffocated, especially considering that it had been a kind of silent agreement among the Coleridge siblings that Faith had control over the majority of the brownstone, Roger's downstairs apartment aside. Faith ended up leaving without saying goodbye to either Jill or Pat (her last scenes were with Roger and Bob, who took her to the airport). Over the years, there were a lot of references to Faith that made it clear that she had reconciled with Jill; Pat also mentioned having spoken to her shortly before he married Melinda Weaver. When Faith returned during the last two weeks of the show, she got along fine with Roger and Jill.

Mary: Definitely Kate Mulgrew. No one else came close, though Mary Carney was my favorite of the fauxMarys. Kathleen Tolan = worst recast the show ever had, easily.

Delia: Ilene Kristen. I loved Randall (she was my first Delia) and everything she did with the character, but Ilene remains my favorite. She did some stellar dramatic work during her first stint and was great portraying the more comic Delia of the show's final years.

Siobhan: Sarah Felder. After she left, the character really became watered down. Marg Helgenberger and Barbara Blackburn were both really good but didn't quite achieve the same heights as Felder. Ann Gillespie was mediocre. Carrell Myers was bland and forgettable.

Pat: Malcolm Groome, whose Pat was one of my favorite characters. John Blazo and Robert Finoccoli were too wooden. Haven't seen enough of Patrick James Clarke to judge him.

Nancy: Nana Visitor, though that's not saying much. I found every actress in this role forgettable and the Nancy/Pat relationship dull.

Faith: Catherine Hicks, who was the only Faith I truly loved. I didn't have much of a problem with Karen Morris-Gowdy, who was admittedly icier than Hicks. Faith Catlin was painful and Nancy Barrett wasn't around long enough to make an impression.

Frank: Daniel Hugh-Kelly, but this was a hard one to pick. Geoff Pierson and John Sanderford were virtually just as good, IMO. Sanderford had great chemistry with Nancy Addison. Andrew Robinson was fine but started out very wooden, though even in the beginning he wasn't nearly as bad as Michael Hawkins.

Joe: Richard Muenz. I thought Roscoe Born was fine but I've only seen the first year of his run, when his character became too despicable for me to ever really care about. Michael Hennessy was a nonentity in the part, and Walt Willey just wasn't Joe.

[DRW50]

I don't know why I forgot about Nell Carter, as I loved her performance -- I guess it was because she wasn't around long. I especially loved her scenes with Sarah Felder, there was this very unique, strong energy emanating from those characters which made the show stand out and which I missed when Siobhan just became a mob wife.

I remember that Tracey said years later she didn't enjoy her time at the show, although I think she blamed that on being a new cast member on a show that had been on for years and already had established relationships between actors.

[DRW50]

Ryan's Bar Online has the 12/78 SOD interviews with Bernard Barrow and Sarah Felder, but I didn't see this interview with Karen Ann Morris (later Karen Morris Gowdy).

KAREN ANN MORRIS

The Ill-Fated "Faith" of Ryan's Hope

By Geri Jefferson

Four hundred thousand acres of ranch near Cheyenne, Wyoming was home for many years to Karen Ann Morris, the recent addition to the cast of Ryan's Hope.

Karen happily tended to her father's Hereford cows as well as to her own horses. She is a master equestrienne whose love for horses has allowed her to transcend the grit and cement of New York City to find horseback riding facilities in nearby Connecticut.

But let's not stray too far ahead of ourselves. Let's go back to Karen on her parents' farm and see what prompted her to leave such spacious tranquility.

After winning a local and state Junior Miss competition, Karen managed to pull off the final coup - the much sought after title of America's Junior Miss. The year was nineteen-hundred-seventy-four and it soon proved to be a year chock full with goodies. Karen found herself embarking on a whirlwind tour of interviews and talk shows while managing to find time for commercial work. When Karen's reign was ended, she went to New York University to complete her education.

Two years prior to Ryan's Hope, Karen had been doing commercials and modelling and found she had no great love for either occupation; especially modelling - "I really didn't like modelling. I was so dillusioned. I came with the thought that it was glamorous work, always wearing fun clothes...But my talents weren't in modelling. I knew I wouldn't make a successful model and it was boring work."

Karen felt very strongly that, as a model, one was viewed only as a physical commodity and that was not Karen's idea of a life long occupation!

When asked how she was adapting to the grueling schedule of a daytime series (this is her first acting position), Karen answered by saying it was not grueling at all - "I love it. I have learned so much from it. I had taken drama classes, but you learn so much more from working...When I go to work, I don't even feel like I'm going to work. It's going to see friends."

Speaking of friends, the name of Faith Coleridge Desmond came up. Karen's perception of Faith appears quite accurate. "Faith is a salt of the earth character. Everyone likes Faith. Faith likes everyone. She likes her husband; has a lot of respect for him. But she lets very few people really know her. That's where Faith and I are alike. She knows a lot of people and she's still very closed except to her two best friends and her family."

Yes, Karen is extremely close to her family which includes two sisters; one older and one thirteen-years-old.

Back to Faith and Tom: Would Karen ever allow herself to become embroiled in a similar situation? (Faith married Tom in order for him to become an American citizen.)

"I've tried to think about that and I don't think so. I don't think I could put my own life and my own happiness on the line for someone else when it came down to it. I think that in the long run, what Faith is doing to Tom is hurting him more - and she's hurting herself."

Karen has many strong feelings about a union of two people and looks forward, someday, to having a husband and children. She believes that having children is a marvelous extension of a marital relationship. She also finds the thought of abortion personally abhorrent.

"I don't think there is any reason for abortion. I really don't. And I believe you're taking a life. Faith feels that way too."

Karen feels that for people who are unable to have children biologically, the advent of the test tube child is a wonderful thing. For the moment, though, Karen feels the procedure is being abused.

"It's like a big game for these scientists. Life shouldn't be taken that way. It should be taken very seriously."

Karen, it seems, is an individual who has given serious thought to all she feels seriously about. And to the rest - whatever that may be - there is a wait-and-see attitude.

Sitting in Karen's home, listening to her speak and watching her blue eyes sparkle, it's quite easy for the mind's eye to conjure up a view of Karen riding on a horse at the edge of a beach, with the sun and a smile glistening on her face. One is easily reminded of soft sea breezes, fresh, clean air and Karen Ann Morris, all at the same time.

[SFK]

Kate will be playing Cleopatra up in Hartford later this year.

[David V]

Helen Gallagher won a Daytime Emmy in 1988, not long before the show was cancelled. If you thought today's soap ratings were bad, look at Ryan's Hope in its last year- they were atrocious even by more recent standards. I suspect people had realised long ago that cancellation was only a matter of when and not if.

Edited August 6, 2010 by David V

[OldSchoolSoapFan]

That had a lot to do with RH being moved into the dreaded 12 pm timeslot in October 1984, so Agnes Nixon's "Loving" could be the lead-in for AMC instead. RH lost a truckload of affiliates as a result, meaning lower ratings.

[DRW50]

Photos from 3/77 Soap Opera Digest, from a cast party.

[DRW50]

From 1/77 Daytime TV Stars:

[DRW50]

[DRW50]

...spent most of his twenties thinking that he was ready to give up everything for the happiness that he thought movie-stardom would bring. Although he never did become a "well-known" in his twenties, he had enough of a taste of bits and pieces of stardom - playing leads in such movies as Questions and The Fakers and hosting his own TV talk show in Hollywood - to know that if and when big movie or nighttime TV success did come, it would not have been worth the enormous price that John was paying. "To want to succeed is fine, but if success is going to mean that you're not going to enjoy life after you've achieved it, then is it success? What I saw during analysis is that, more than anything else, I needed a wife that loves me, and children. What I didn't need was the adulation. I saw enough of that - I mean, I was always being cast as someone's handsome boyfriend. It didn't do it for me - maybe for others.

"I know how stars live - no privacy, the autograph hounds, always going on location and leaving their families, if they ever manage to achieve enough stability to have them. If someone says to me that I'm going to have to go to India for six months to star in a movie - well, that means that I won't be able to see my kids grow up for those six months. Being in that movie won't give me the same satisfaction as hearing Missy say, 'Gee, Daddy, I loved Magic Mountain.' (That was the amusement park I took Sandy and the girls to when we were in Los Angeles.) That's why I'm so glad now to be on a show like Ryan's Hope. I'm on an average of three times a week and the rest of the time I can be with my family. In the year that we've been living in New York, I've turned down five theater parts so I can be home in the evenings."

John's real name is Jack Monkarsh, and he was born in Niagra Falls, New York. But he spent most of his life in or near Hollywood, where his family had moved. He started under contract to Twentieth Century-Fox, and played in such Fox movies as The Hunters and The Story of Ruth. It was an excellent beginning for John. Then the bottom dropped out. TV, in the late sixties, was forcing the studios to end the Big Star system, and Fox dropped all of its contract players. Then John appeared in some independent movies and sang in revues and in nightclubs - but the cancellation of the Fox contract was quite a blow to John and greatly upset him.

He had already begun to analyze why he had become such a victim of his ambitions. "Thinking back on it, I'm glad, in a way, that things became tough for me then. Because just suppose my career had been going well and I was making it in the movies and the money was rolling in. I don't think, in that case, my analysis would have worked. A career success would have been a kind of false proof that living for just one goal, as I had been, was not neurotic and would ultimately lead to happiness. I mean, why rush to an analyst if you're doing well? I might have just continued to strive for the wrong things."

John wed Sandy Cohen eight years ago, when he was in his very early thirties - during this down-period in his career. It was a first marriage for both of them. As John says, "Thank God I wanted! I had dated a number of beautiful girls who were all wrong for me."

At the time they met, John was packaging variety shows and handling actors for an outfit. One day Sandy walked into the office looking for representation. "I think we both knew immediately," says John. Sandy had only just begun her acting career when she and John wed, and right after Missy came along she chose to give up acting to begin a family. "That was her decision," says John. "I never asked her to do it." Now that the girls are a little older, John and Sandy have both decided that it would be good for Sandy to resume her acting career. "That's really why Sandy's mother is living with us - to take some of the household burden off Sandy so that she can act again. She's a terrific performer."

John, as Seneca Beaulac, is Ryan's Hope's late-thirty-ish handsome leading man, and he is much appreciated. And John thinks very highly of the show: his part on it, its overall quality, and the daily challenges. "In this show-business world of unreality and pretense, I've got to find as much reality in life as possible. The soap gives me the continuity I need. I like getting up early, going to the studio regularly. I really hate this business of constantly going up for roles that actors do in Hollywood, unless you have a nighttime series. Now I did reasonably well in Hollywood before coming on Ryan's Hope. For a couple of seasons I played Andy Rivers, Mary Tyler Moore's boyfriend. It was a good part, but like a lot of others that I've played. Creatively, I'm doing stuff on Ryan's Hope that was never asked of me on nighttime television. I do light comic scenes. When Nel died, I had to break down on camera in tears. That wasn't easy for me, but it was a tremendous challenge because I hadn't done that a lot. Ryan's Hope has been a growing experience in every way. Clair Labine and Paul Mayer are trying out all kinds of new, exciting things. They're building a romance between Jill - that's Nancy Addison - and me. We went out to the East Hamptons to shoot a whole day of still photographs which will be shown at the beginning of episodes during the height of our love story. And for five episodes they're going to play a song that I recorded just for the show, Jillian's Theme. Then one day we took the remote camera and went out to Jones Beach on Long Island to show me sprinkling Nel's ashes. We're doing more and more interesting things.

John says that he enjoys the working situation in New York more than Hollywood, although he does find it a bother to rent his Hollywood home to strangers every year that he remains in New York. He and Sandy seldom go to theater parties, preferring to stay at home with their girls.

John sums up his progress in life: "In my twenties I was searching for my own identity and I wasn't prepared to understand the joys of family life. Now, at my age, being married is great. My values have solidified, and I'm making a living doing something that I enjoy. To me that' sit. O.K., if I become a star, that's fine. But if it doesn't happen, that's O.K. too. In Hollywood I kept waiting for the damn merry-go-round to start, hoping that I'd catch the brass ring. It's that waiting-game gamble that so many actors take. Well, I'm on that merry-go-round - I've got the real goods. I don't have to wait any more. My life is in good shape. Nobody's life is perfect, no marriage is perfect, but the good so far outweighs the bad that I can mostly experience love. That's a terrific feeling."

[DRW50]

7/77 SOD, on the makeup at RH and AMC. I cut out most of the AMC part.

From the 9/77 SOD:

Edited August 23, 2010 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

July 77 SOD interview with Hannibal Penny (Dr. Clem Moultrie)

Dr. Clem Moultrie The Silent Physician on Ryan's Hope

by Geri Jefferson

He was born in Chatanooga, Tennesse on May 14th - a Taurus with determination. He spent many years performing in films, a miriad of Shakespearean plays and the like.

He is Hannibal Penney, Jr. - the tall, slender, handsome neurosurgeon on Ryan's Hope, who although rarely seen, has a promise from the RH creators of better things to come.

Hannibal has a warm and easy going manner that made our interview a pleasurable experience. I was sharing time and space with a charming Penney-ian concoction who definitely was not the ever supportive, ever silent Dr. Clem Moultrie.

Any subject broached that had the slightest hint at being personal in nature - had to be weaved into the conversation. For some reason, still unknown, Hannibal is very protective, very secretive if you will, of his personal life. What little I did learn from this married man of eight years is at your disposal.

GJ: You don't have children - is that because you don't want children or do they inhibit you...?

HP: Well, I had a very nice, very gifted childhood and I would like the sacrifice my parents made for me to go beyond my saying "thank you" and "I love you." They came out of the depression, and they did very well in supporting themselves and me. Now certainly I would like to be able to offer my child or children at least more than that which was given me - and I was given a great deal. And at the time that I can do that - the buck stops here and I am the captain of my ship.

GJ: Do you consider yourself possessive...do you like to own things?

HP: Things or people? I don't want to own anything, but I do like a sense of security about my relationships.

GJ: Are you possessive about your wife? Is she possessive of you?

HP: I would say yes.

GJ: Are you considered a one woman man?

HP: Basically, yes.

GJ: Basically?

HP: Basically.

[Never let it be said that I ventured onto waters tactfully left unventured. I turned out conversation to other matters.]

GJ: When you're acting do you ever feel you are play-acting or is it serious?

HP: It's business all the way. 100% pure business - I kid you not.

GJ: You're in this for the enjoyment and the money or the enjoyment or both?

HP: Well obviously I'm not in it just for the money because money is just a symbol of power isn't it?

GJ: Are you fascinated by power?

HP: I think every man is fascinated by power. Henry Kissinger said that power is the best aphrodisiac...yes, I'm fascinated with the constructive uses of power.

[Like many of today's avant-garde, Hannibal is convinced that politics is the root of all things.]

GJ: Are you political?

HP: All action boils down to some political motive - even if it is unrecognizable...yes, I am an artist and all art is political.

GJ: Let's talk about everyday politics, let's talk about President Carter - how do you feel about him?

HP: He's a good man. I'm glad to see a man in office who is not afraid of the people, who has good intentions and that's about all one could hope for, isn't it? The problems that we are facing are not really racism, religion, politics - but economics?

[because Hannibal is the only Black member of the cast, the next series of questions had to be inevitable.]

GJ: Were you hired because they needed a Black man?

HP: It's a sad situation that the device of color and the device of religion is used to separate or segregate people...Yes, I was hired because they needed a Black neurosurgeon.

GJ: But they don't give you anything to say or do. You're probably one of the few doctors I've seen who always echoes every other doctor's diagnosis.

HP: Well, I don't think that is true. I think, in all fairness to the writers, unless you have a storyline, the focus is not on you. It doesn't bother me that I play a back-up role at this time as long as I am aware that the integrity of the people, the producers and the writers whom I am working with and for, is going to eventually give me an opportunity to work fully - to give me a storyline like everyone else.

GJ: Do you think there should be a Black soap opera on television?

HP: I've had that question proposed to me before. ABC, in my opinion, will be the one to take the first step forward.

[We took the conversation off into another direction and sort of entered into a potpourri of questions and answers]

GJ: What do you do in your spare time?

HP: Well, I play volleyball, tennis, fly a remote control airplane and I'm a ham operator. [At the conclusion of our interview, he also mentioned an interest in hypnosis.]

GJ: Is there any particular role you would like to play?

HP: Yes, I'd like to do Hamlet. I'd like to do Hamlet very much.

GJ: Do you prefer film to television or vice-versa?

HP: I used to think I had a preference, but I guess it's like saying do you prefer a Mercedes Benz to a Cadillac or a Lincoln Continental. If you can drive one, you can drive the other. And if you enjoy all three, it really doesn't make sense to start making judgements.

In concluding the interview, I asked Hannibal if there was anything he would like to add, he has this to say: "I am sure that your publication, Soap Opera Digest, will reach many viewers whom I have not, and I would like to thank them for their support and I trust the entire cast of Ryan's Hope would also like to thank them."

As for Hannibal Penney, Jr. the lean lanky Ryan's Hope enigma remains, at least for me, still a bit of a puzzle. Some of the time I spent with him had the makings of a coy cat-and-mouse-game. Did he show me the real Hannibal Penney, Jr.? He was warm and pleasant, and I'm sure some part of that was real...but there's another part, a more honest part, that he has chosen to keep secluded from the world. Oh well, once an actor...always an actor.

---

There's also a cute photo of Penney and Claire Labine on one of the pages. I cropped it to just show the photo.

Edited August 23, 2010 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

Ana Alicia interview from the November 77 SOD.