Daytime's Master Headwriters: Their Strongest and Weakest Work

[DRW50]

I also thought Hulswit was handsome, and charismatic, and had good chemistry with Lenore Kasdorf (even if she apparently didn't like working with him). Hell, I thought he had a lot of chemistry with John Wesley Shipp too, although I highly doubt that was intentional...

 

When I started watching, Peter Simon was Ed, and I liked him a lot. I did grow to like Hulswit as much, if not more, after seeing him. I remember a longtime fan who told me they never liked Simon, that they called him, "Depressed Ed." 

[Soapsuds]

Here is Hulswit...

 

I wish this was available in the US…the is just classic The Guiding Light

http://www.amazon.de/Die-Springfield-Story-Staffel-Guiding/dp/B007RU6JI8/ref=sr_1_3?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1448399216&sr=1-3&keywords=springfield

[vetsoapfan]

Hulswit and Stewart felt like brothers, Hulswit and Charita Bauer felt like mother and son, and Hulswit had great chemistry with several other actors on the show as well. That's what the audience responded to, and that's why longtime viewers missed Hulswit's Ed for years after the actor was replaced by other actors in the role.

Yes, Hulswit even had chemistry with Shipp. In fact, it was this chemistry which helped me warm up to Kelly Nelson so quickly, and accept him as Ed's godson, whom the Bauers had supposedly known for many years before viewers met him.

 

Peter Simon was definitely a good actor, and the better Scott Phillips on SFT, but his "depressed Ed" was always so listless and lethargic, which drastically altered the character from Hulswit's warm, charismatic, often sunny portrayal. It would be like replacing Charita Bauer, who was cute as a bug in a rug and so maternal on-screen, with the colder, more aloof Sheila Mercier of EMMERDALE FARM. Mercier is a capable actress, but she does not exude the same kind of warmth and sweetness that Bauer exhibited, and being played by such a drastically different actress would have changed the character of Bert for the worse, like replacing Hulswit with Simon did.

[DRW50]

I have to admit that image fascinates me, although knowing P&G at that time, I'm half-surprised they didn't try to recast her with that older woman on Texas.

[Mitch]

As a kid I always thought MH was kind of sexy..in a suburban dad kind of way ///not that I knew what that was.

Simon's Ed was colder and made it hard for him to be the core of the show after Mo died. I do think however, that he was more in keeping with Ed's early version, with the booze and the wife hitting. MH was sunnier and nicer, but was that Ed? Simon only worked during Taggert's run as a Judge Lowell kind of figure that everyone respected. I remember a scene of his and Zimmer and she was pulling her tricks and Simon somehow managed to even the scene and Zimmer calmed down and they had a nice scene..which would have been in keeping with how Reva and Ed would interact.

MH does remind me a bit of MOL...both look like normal nice guys which is what the Bauers should be,,, the oasis of calm and normalacy and "us," with all the Roger's and Revas and Spauldings running around town. MOL had the same problem though when he bloated out like hell and did something to his face and just started acting like a buffoon

Speaking of Bert being replaced..I think that is one of the reasons the Dobsons had such a hard time writing for Nancy Hughes...she was not the sweet grandma that Bert was she was tough and determined and I don't know that coming off Bert they knew how to write for a matriarch like that. So to think of Bert being played by Wagner who was also colder..

 

 

 

[vetsoapfan]

If Sheila Mercier had  to replace any matriarch on American daytime TV, I'd say it should be Helen Wagner as Nancy Hughes on ATWT, since neither Wagner nor Nancy ever struck me as being the warm, fuzzy type, and both Mercier and Wagner came across (particularly in the early years) as austere and slightly domineering. Longtime viewers will remember how Nancy used to light into poor Bob all the time, and how she could be very judgmental.

 

In the end, I would never want anyone but Wagner to portray Nancy Hughes, and anyone but Mercier to play Annie Sugden, but I know i REALLY, REALLY, REALLY cannot picture Mercier as Bert Bauer.

[vetsoapfan]

Agreed, Simon's Ed was closer to the darker, more troubled version of the character, as played by Robert Gentry in the 1960s, but at least Gentry displayed some fire, passion and energy in the role, whereas Simon always came across as so devoid of energy, so morbid. I could accept Hulswit's sunnier Ed as a man who had been able to put the worst of his demons behind him, and allow his decent, compassionate side, as nurtured by the likes of Papa Bauer, to come to the surface. Seeing Ed regress into his colder former self under Simon, who displayed none of the fire that Gentry displayed, damaged the character. They should have left well enough alone with the warmer, more evolved, paternal Ed as played by Hulswit.

 

Having Michael O'Leary as the show's principle Bauer at various times during Ed's absence was difficult, particularly when he bloated out and started acting like a buffoon as opposed to a real, warm, normal human being. We needed Hulswit there to represent a nice, everyman patriarch as the show's...ahem...guiding light.

 

You're right, the Dobsons did not know how to write for Nancy Hughes the way Irna Phillips or Douglas Marland did, which presented quite a problem for ATWT. Whether the likes of Mary Ellis Bunim understood it or not, Nancy was a cornerstone of Oakdale, and needed to be there.

[DRW50]

I think P&G and the Dobsons, Bartholomew, Bunim, whoever also took Nancy for granted and assumed they could put her in a minimal role while they focused elsewhere. I've always loved that Helen Wagner basically said "bitch bye" and quit the show for several years. Wagner was such a formidable presence as Nancy even in the 1979 material uploaded a few years ago. While I kind of prefer that Nancy (harsh and judgmental, but also capable of understanding and support) to the softer Marland version, I'm just glad that Calhoun knew how needed she was on the canvas. 

[cassadine1991]

Didn't Gentry return to GL in the 90s?

[Khan]

He did.  For awhile, and on a recurring basis, I think.  They didn't give him much to do, though, and I thought that was very stupid of them, too.

[Mitch]

MOL was a problem in the last few years. He really was, along with Zimmer and Newman and Alexansder and JVD the last ties to the Charita Bauer years so we needed that link.  I thought he and Abby made  a nice cute everyday but the Rauch E & B era had to have everything BIG so they did not use them well, which was too bad, GL needed that and Reva and Josh and even Ross and Blake couldnt fullfill that role.

Then he started to really as we said, bloat out, I think he had something done to his face and worst of all, just relied on his goofy side which made Rick a joke instead of everybody's buddy.  I think Wheeler was a big part of that problem in an interview about the characters she was going on and on about the "actors," themselves and not the characters, and she talks about MOL being "so funny and always picks people up, etc, etc." so I think she just had them write to his goofiness.

I thought Marland wussed Nancy out during his tenure...but with Chris dead (he always leveled her out) they most likely had needed her to be softer. I do like that up until the end she still had her feist and during the anniversary of Bob and Kim, when she tells Lisa... "Your NOT helping things, DEAR" which is a line that could have been played soft, Wagner gave it the old tartness and Fulton played off it perfectly with a face that said, "Oh sh*t, the old gall still can ring my beads after all these years!"

 

 

[te.]

It's interesting that Germany is ahead of the game with releasing their soaps on DVD. I'm honestly surprised that at least no streaming services in the US are interested in these classic soaps - it seems like something that could really help something like Yahoo's service to help profile themselves with. In Sweden Days of our Lives has been moved entirely online and classic Bold & The Beautiful episodes are being put up for streaming.

[zanereed]

You absolutely hit the nail on the head regarding Ed.  Gentry's Ed was definitely troubled, but he definitely had emotions. I know there's not much of his work out there, but you can see some of it in the 1966 episodes, especially in his interactions with Bert and Bill. Hulswit's Ed was definitely warmer, but he still had a temper.  Again, I can see Gentry's and Hulswit's version of Ed having a fistfight with someone like Roger, but not Simon's version. Very rarely did I see that temper/passion flare up in Simon's version.  I also thought that Hulswit and MOL looked similar, so I could believe they were father and son.  Between Simon and MOL, it was a bit harder to do  

 

I want to point out that I do think Simon is a great actor. I remember him fondly as Scott Phillips on SFT. I guess it was just such a jarring changeover in 1981 when "Scott" became "Ed".  

[vetsoapfan]

I've often wondered if Marland softened Nancy at upon her return in order to make her more sympathetic to the audience, and therefore garner more fan support and loyalty. The more viewers loved Nancy, the more they would demand she remain on the show this time. If the audience saw her as a traditional, loving matriarch, she would become more indispensable, and TPTB might think twice about dwindling her role down to nothing once more. Pure speculation on my part, of course.

I watched Gentry's portrayal of Ed, first-hand, during the 1960s, and it often seemed like intense emotion was burning just under the surface, particularly when in conflict with his parents. I think Phillips is a good actor too, when cast in appropriate roles. I'm not saying that his Ed was awful; he was certainly better in the role than Richard Van Fleet was. Unfortunately, there was simply no fire, and not much emotion or passion when Simon was playing the role.

[vetsoapfan]

Writer-related tidbits:

 

Heading out of GH after her first, very successful tenure as headwriter, Pat Falken Smith remarked to the press that Gloria Monty was a genius...who ran a gestapo operation.

 

Of Thom Racina's legendary awful Ice Princess garbage, Smith said, "That crappy writing all summer wasn't mine!" (She needn't have worried; viewers could tell.)

 

As a newbie to daytime, Harding Harding had the chance to interact with Irna Phillips, and watch the work of famous headwriters from the early 1970s. When asked what he had learned from the masters, Lemay piously replied that he had only learned what NOT to do. (Pffft! I wonder if he ever realized how arrogant that sounded?)