ATWT Tribute Thread

[DRW50]

Thanks! I really appreciate your effort. I didn't know Karen was involved with them. I wonder if the actors wanted to move on or if the characters just weren't popular.

So Andrea, was she an ex of Nick's or Steve's? What happened to Sofia?

It's interesting watching around this time because the old guard are still there and they are the ones who stayed around, aside from Margo and Lyla.

How long was Brad Hollister on the show? Did only one actor play him? It seems that he was involved with Dee and I thought he was with Annie, yet he was also dating Lisa in this episode. And how weird to see Lisa running a hospital gift shop.

I wonder when ATWT overhauled their sets. The hospital sets in this episode are still the older sets, I think. By the 1984 time I remember a more modern looking hospital.

[Paul Raven]

Peter Brouwer played Brad.He had previously been on Love of Life and after ATWT was on other soaps.

His intro to Oakdale was through Lisa.He wanted a silver mine on land that the Stewarts owned.

Lisa's son was Chuckie.His death in 77 was a strange move as it went nowhere storywise.

[DRW50]

Did the Dobsons bring Brad in?

I wonder if they killed Chuckie off just because they didn't want Lisa to have a child that age, wasn't Tom back and an adult?

[Paul Raven]

Brad was one of the Dobson's first characters.

Tom had been an adult all through the 70's.He married Carol in 72.

The reason for Chuckie's demise remain a mystery.i think Tom was driving the car in the accident that killed his brother.

[FrenchFan]

Andrea was Nick’s dead wife. Steve had an affair with her when she was married to his brother. She was supposed to be dead in a fire but it was revealed in October 1980 that she had survived. Andrea explained that it was Steve's girlfriend who was found in the ashes, but Andrea ran away because of guilt that her and Nick's child also died. Andrea's been living with an ill man who fathered another child, Sofia. After her second husband died, she came to Oakdale. Nick informed her he was filling for divorce to marry Kim. Nick ended up learning Steve had an affair with Andrea and was furious that Kim knew it and didn’t say anything. Andrea left Oakdale in March 1981.

Sofia Korackes came to Oakdale in March 1981, just two weeks before her mother left town. She became Hayley’s roomate and was immediately interested in Eric but in vain. Sofia wanted a part in the movie Natalie Bannon Triandos (Tom Hughes’s second wife) was doing. Natalie decided to use Sofia as she was close to the Andorpouloses: Carol Banning was raising Natalie’s daughter Amy with Steve Andropoulos at the time. Natalie made it clear that Sofia would have the part in the movie if she let Natalie get Amy as she was the little girl’s babysitter. Carol and Steve were furious when they learned that Sofia let Natalie see Amy.

Kim was also worried that Sofia had a bad influence on Betsy when she came back to town. Sofia decided to launch a modelling career and became involved with young Cliff Matson. Kim was upset when she learned Sofia spent a night on the yacht with Cliff in October. She helped her friend, Karen Haines to break up Eric and Hayley and she smoke a joint laced with angel dust with Eric just after he broke up. She began suffering from hallucinations. She was released from the hospital in December. She vanished from the canvas around this time, probably just after Hayley and Eric’s wedding.

[DRW50]

Thanks both of you for the answers.

I can see why Sofia didn't make it past 1981, the actress wasn't very good.

What was it that caused Nick to die of a heart attack?

[FrenchFan]

Nick died in early September 1982 after confronting Steve about his relationship with Betsy.

[DRW50]

Thanks. Well, that's a very...mild reason for a fatal heart attack. I guess they must have wanted done with the character.

[Paul Raven]

By then the Dobsons were gone and I don't think the Nick/Kim pairing had been popular.

They were married far too soon and there was nothing for them to do.

I remember Kathryn Hays saying that a lot of fans were not happy she slept with Nick before the wedding.(Guess they forgot about Kim banging Bob while he was married to her sister)

On his deathbed,Nick made Steve pledge not to pursue Betsy,thus setting up a stumbling block for that romance.

[DRW50]

I guess the Dobsons brought Nick in as a way to free Kim from the repression that greeted her for most of the 70s. She had the scenes where she went to Greece and danced at ruins or whatever didn't she? I haven't seen a lot of Kim with Nick; they seemed OK, but I guess the fans who saw her get punished for sex out of marriage might not have wanted to see her go there again. It's interesting because in the long run Kim went back to being a conservative character, that probably worked best for her.

I guess the line from Kim in this episode, offhand, "Oh, Nancy couldn't come, she's ill," was part of the Dobsons phasing Chris and Nancy out?

What did you think of the Dee and Annie at this time, Paul? Was this the Dee who was tried for John's murder? I can't say either of them did a lot for me here, especially Annie.

[Paul Raven]

Helen Wagner left because Nancy was given little to do.She stated that for the month of Jan(81)Nancy was not seen and I guess that apart from vacations this would have been the first time that happened.

Don MacLaughlin was made recurring and appeared occasionally.

I guess Wagner was offered recurring and refused.It would have been a slap in the face to her.It's hard to imagine that she was treated in that way and the thinking behind it.

The destruction of the shows was happening back then.

Julie Ridley played Annie 79,Randall Edwards for a month or so(I remember that Ridley left suddenly)before Mary Lynn Blanks took over.

Jacqie Shultz was Dee 79-82 and played out the John/Dee story.Vicky Dawson took over until 83.

Doug Marland wasn't interested in bringing back either of these characters,i thought Dee could easily have returned as she only had the marriage to John.

Annie was more problematic as different writers had her married three times in 6 years and saddled her with quads.

[DRW50]

It's strange, this Dee didn't seem the same to me as the one in the John murder trial clip.

Annie just looked so old and frumpy in that 5/81 episode and she seemed tired. Dee also seemed tired. It was strange that Lisa and Kim, who were 15 years their seniors, didn't look that much older and had so much more vitality.

What did you think of that Natalie recast? I thought she was passable, but then I didn't see Judith Chapman. It was nice to finally see more of Carol. I can see why she was so popular. It was the actresses' choice to leave, wasn't it? I wonder if Carol would have stayed around longterm otherwise.

I guess this was around the time that GH had shot to the top of the ratings in spite of barely featuring Jessie Brewer and only slightly more with Steve and Audrey, so they may have thought that they could get away with pushing Nancy off the show. I also wonder if the Dobsons or the producer at the time (Freddie Bartholomew?) had issues with Nancy being such an austere figure. In those clips I've seen from 1985 before Marland took over, Nancy seems slightly out of place as this cold and "what will be said" type of matron. Still, that's no excuse for phasing her out.

I hope there are some clips of Randall as Annie out there. I loved her work as Delia and although I am sure it was just a temporary nothing stint as Annie it will be interesting for completion's sake.

[FrenchFan]

I think Mary-Ellis Bunim was the producer. She switched with Fred Bartholomew who moved to SFT. I always read it was under Bunim that Helen Wagner left but I may be wrong.

[Mitch]

No, it was Bartholomew who was there when Nancy was obscured and Wagner finally left. Bunim came after him and she came from SFT. She did update the sets and the show had more energy with her. Watching those clips of the Dobsons first run, the show WAS stale and tired, but it wasnt because of the "old," people as mentioned above they had more energy and were way mor vital then the Dee and Annie actress/characters. The Dee actress especially would rely on those pauses, staring off into space with her mouth open..I remember as a kid thinking she was old but she had to be in her 20s? The Brad actor was the worst, with the red hair, mustach and slouch, he was supposed to be the young stud? Funny but a couple of years later he had a small role as Reva's old friend who owned a beauty parlor in Tulsa that Reva worked at. They played him obviously gay but at that time you couldnt say that, he would have been good to stick around on GL as a buddy to Reva and someone who could pull her chain once in a while "Girl, sit down and shut up and quit thrustin' that cleavage out, you know I'm not interested in that. The Stewarts were never that exciting and vital, David and Ellen were both mopes, I wonder why the Dobsons focused on them?

The pre Marland clips of Nancy really had Nancy's character more consistent with the Irna Phillips version of Nancy. Though at that time the writers were setting up a little antogonism between Nancy and Kim, with Lisa instigating it. Kind of interesting and historically acurate (Nancy would have been there during the Bob/Kim blowout and Lisa back to manipulatiing people) but ultimatley it was better to have everyone be friends and one family unit.I do think the Dobsons had trouble writing for this forminable matriach, who was still "good," They came off of GL where Bert/Charita was a totally different matriach, warm, forgiving, cheerul, Nancy was kind of cold and stern and forceful. Maybe the Dobson's felt that it was "old fashioned,' that young people would be bullied around by a woman who was not a doteing grandma. Marland immediatley softened her up and she became the nice grandma we know today. The Dobsons could have used this time to transtion her into that role, as Nancy realizes the times were changing and she became more forgiving. I think at that time she was such an iconic role that it may have been hard to change.

I acutally think that Kim and Nick in the day were pretty popular. But he had to die to give Betsy the guilt that she carried to keep her from Steve.

The Natalie recast was terrible, the worst "vixen," on ATWT until Marland's casting of the actress who played the Taylor role. I didnt see the first one but the actress was pretty hot and the character was one of those who led men around by their dicks.

[DRW50]

Did Eileen Fulton leave under Freddie or under Bunim? Was it because of the producer that she left or the actor who played Whit?