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GL recasted Alexandra?


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Beverlee left in 92' and it took the show a year to recast! Robin Strasser was up for the role (cant see it) and I sometimes wonder if JFP's hate for Strasser on OLTL came from Strasser not taking the role of Alex at the last minute! Marj Dusay later got the role and was wonderful!! but if you could pick an actress to take over from McKinsey, who would it be?? mine off the top of my mind would be Constance Towers and Carmen Duncan!! who would yall pick???

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Constance Towers would have been a good pick, especially during that period when Alex was so angry and was doing more underhanded things. She was becoming quite cold and ruthless, showing less of her heart and Towers deserves a complex part like that.

Alexandra is a tough part to recast. I'm not really a big fan of Marj in the role but it's not her fault. Beverlee is kind of irreplaceable.

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I'd tend to agree Alex shouldn't have been recast. I think the character was poorly written in Beverlee's last year on the show, I think JFP didn't see Alex as anything beyond Nick's shrewish mother. I have some pity for Marj because she played Alex off and on for 15 years and she almost always had terrible writing. The few months Joan Collins was in the role had better writing than Marj's whole tenure.

I think Constance Towers would have been terrific, but she was mostly seen as more of a heroine at that point.

I think Judith McConnell could have been decent too, although she was a little flighty.

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I like McConnell,too. After she established herself in a strong role after Valerie on ATWT, who was kinda just there, and Miranda' short term on AW. Then there was blink and you missed it Eva Vasquez on OLTL. She was strong on SB, and I'm sure Augusta McLeod was a strong part, too. I think she would have brought back a softer side to Alex, yet could hold her own with the likes of Roger. As far as how solid she was, she stuck with SB from 84-93, so she probably would have stuck around.

To me. I've loved Marj since the Facts of Life as Monica Warner, so I can;'t badmouth her, but her Alex was a mess, "all over the road" as my friend Linda would say[not that LindaNo1]. She was right to leave for a stronger [though written into a corner] role on AMC. I appreciated that she got to leave Springfield with Fletcher, giving her her first happy ending in a series of WTF? relationships[looking at Cyrus].

McKinsey was the one who nailed the role, and God rest her soul, I'm glad she screwed JFP!

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I have said it before, I love Marj but I hated Marj's Alex.

Marj's Alex was always just loud and ineffectual...a characture of a worn out older harpy woman grabbling for dominance. She was always way too dominated by RR's ineffetual Alan...(Joan got it just right, the love, the competitive nature of their relationship and her tweaking and teasing of him..Bev's and Joan's Alex would kick Alan's butt but woe to anyone else who would try..)

I totally agree that they should have given Alex a happy ending off screen...(by writing Jay Hammer off at that time to go live with her in "Europe," would have been a win, win for me...) and if castin Marj, she would have been great as a Lewis, or someone who married into money. I always thought she would have been great as a woman who married H.B. off screen and got his stock and decided to screw with the Spauldings on his behalf. I will say, that Marj had a great scene once in a while when written correctly. She had a scene in the Spaulding attic where she confronted Faux Annie and got the best of her. laughing off Annie's threats. However, she stil came off as more "street," then Bev..so again, she should have been another character. I always thought that Bev and Bernaus Alex and Alan were more East Coast Society and both RR and Marj came off as more midwestern.

A possibly good recast of Alex would be the woman who played Angelique on Dark Shadows..she could bring the cold but could also look like she was still a hot number in the sack.

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I loved Marj Dusay, she wooed me over from GH. I think she perfectly played what she was written. But the more I've seen of Beverlee McKinsey's Alex, the more I understand the adjustment for long-term fans. In a vacuum, Marj's Alex was fabulous. And in truth, what was on the page was so different for each lady. Had Beverlee still been in the role, people would have most likely criticised the writing as weak and out of character. Marj was a great comedian with a lot of pop and style and she was very good at jazzing up her dialogue. Beverlee was exhausted and ready to check out, and had she stayed on, she probably wouldn't have bothered.

Stunt casting: Faye Dunaway

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The biggest failing in the writing for Alex for most of Marj's run was they defined her by a man (when they weren't doing that she was just this bizarre drug-running villainess). For most of Beverlee's run, she was her own character. As soon as that changed, she split.

I used to be much harder on Marj than I am now, partly because I got to see her work on AMC (which was good, at times downright harrowing - she was the only part of the "Phantom of the Erica" story that really worked for me), and partly because Youtube confirmed my memories of just how much the writing declined for the character.

I did enjoy stuff like Alex/Hawk, but that was mostly thanks to the actors. I think Bev's Alex would have had him dumped somewhere in the middle of Argentina.

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