Sean

That photo was originally posted on that group as a joke. Per the original poster, "Ok - Dark Shadows Fans - I want to avoid any Fact Checkers calling me out - this is actually a photo of a house in Herculaneum destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79 (I accidentally put AD 70 on my original post) OOPS - I was attempting a bit of humor because to ME it looked like the foyer and staircase at Collinwood (in the 'new house" and I was making a sly reference to a story line that never aired because it was never filmed (although it might have been an interesting story line if Quentin stayed on the Stairway Into Time too long and went way beyond the 1795 story line) Cheers !!!"

10 hours ago, SoapDope said:

Lamaze classes started becoming trendy in the 70's. 

 

Mary Ryan on Ryan's Hope went to lamaze classes while she was pregnant with Ryan; they even showed her practicing her breathing technique on at least one occasion. This was during the period when she and Jack Fenelli were separated, and she kept asking him to attend class with her.

Well, as a fan, I'm personally glad they gave Ryan's Hope a few more years.  1984-86 was a dire period, but some of my favorite material aired in the 80s—1983 and 1987-89 in particular were strong.

Even if it never attained the heights of AMC/OLTL/GH, it did well for them for a few years, and without a soap as a lead-in for most of that time. Plus it's my understanding that the demos were solid (I think there's a post early in this thread where AMC and it were at the top of the key demos in 1977-78). Once the ratings began slipping at the end of 1982, I can understand why they gave it some time to recover before effectively issuing it a death warrant with the move to noon. AMC was a behemoth on its own, and I doubt a stronger lead-in would have materially changed its performance unless it was something on the level of General Hospital.

Launching Loving when they did has never made sense to me—I find it hard to believe that they thought it could succeed in a time slot that hadn't seen a successful soap in years. Plus, based on the fact that it never had a consistent creative direction at any point in its 12 year run, it doesn't seem like they believed in the material, either. At least with Ryan's Hope they fully owned the show and had an incentive to keep it on until it no longer generated enough profit. Was there ever any genuine fear that Agnes Nixon would leave the network if they didn't greenlight a third show?

4 hours ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

Okay, thanks! I knew there had been a situation where the show & PFS did not gel. It was just GL, got it. 

Pat Falken Smith was headwriter of Ryan's Hope from October 1983 through February 1985, at which point ABC moved her back to General Hospital.

2 hours ago, beebs said:

RH clearly the biggest crash that year. Something about Labine/Mayer's return was not connecting with the audience, combined with Y&R's return to form really hurting them. I'm not entirely surprised ABC was willing to push it out the way in favour of Loving at this point. Nice to see AW making such strides, moreso than even DAYS!

2 hours ago, j swift said:

Further confusion on the Sleasar timeline from SOD - a time capsule from 1982 that states he was paired with Sam Hall that year - is there any possibility that he wrote more than one show at time, and then was made headwriter after he was fired from EON?

I think SOD is wrong on this point as well - I wouldn't be surprised if this was sourced from Wikipedia, or vice versa. Here's the text of the article I linked from August 21, 1983:

Henry Slesar, who spent 15 years head-writing "Edge of Night" until he was let go, is back on the Soaps. This time he has been named co-head writer of "One Life to Live." The show has been slipping in the ratings, and evidently it was decided that Slesar's touch with mystery is just what was needed to land that show back on top. Sam Hall will remain as co-head writer. Hall replaced Gordon Russell, who left "One Life to Live" to head-write "General Hospital." Unfortunately, Russell died before he was able to make the move. 

I can't find any references in online newspaper archives to Slesar writing OLTL prior to August 1983. While he also wrote Somerset and Search for Tomorrow while at The Edge of Night, those were P&G soaps - I'd be surprised if P&G allowed him to write for another production company. Not sure how true this is, but I'd previously read that ABC brought him onto OLTL because they were happy with his writing at EON and P&G made the decision to axe him without their buy-in.

33 minutes ago, j swift said:

I was interested in the discussion of Henry Sleasar's run as head writer on OLTL on the EON thread.

Given that I am terrible at remembering who wrote what when, I went back to the wiki which states that Sleasar came on as co-writer with Sam Hall in July 1982, then was solo head writer from February to June 1983 until Jean Arley came on as Executive Producer and fired him.

The dates for Slesar's tenure on Wikipedia are off by a year. He was at The Edge of Night until May 1983. The soap press then reported that he was joining OLTL as Sam Hall's co-headwriter in August 1983, roughly three months after Kim Zimmer joined the show, so the Echo story was already underway.

The Corrringtons were announced as OLTL's new headwriters in July 1984, and by November 1984 Slesar had been signed to write Capitol.

On 6/27/2022 at 7:18 PM, slick jones said:

Gwyn Gillis

 

RYAN'S HOPE         Elizabeth Maxwell        1989

ANOTHER WORLD            Louise Chapin     1989

I believe her Ryan's Hope appearances were in January and February 1985 - Elizabeth Maxwell was the head of a cosmetics agency that hired Maggie Shelby to be its spokeswoman. She first gets mentioned in Lynda Hirsch's recaps for the show for the week of January 14-18, 1985. 

On 5/30/2022 at 6:54 PM, DeliaIrisFan said:

I've often wondered what the deal was with RH and the Emmys as the '80s wore on.  I know the show was in a bad way for quite a bit of the decade, but still.

Given just how low the ratings had dropped and the relative dearth of press coverage even as the show’s quality improved, I’m impressed they were able to net 3 acting nominations (and a win) in 1988, though the Emmys do have some history of nominating shows in danger of cancellation. (The Edge of Night also managed to get a few in 1984 before the axe came down.)

The one miss that really surprises me is the failure to get a writing nomination, considering that the show managed to win 4 consecutive WGA awards at the end of its run. I realize those wins were probably helped by Claire Labine’s stature within the WGA—she was even on one of the negotiating committees during the 1988 strike—but to be completely blanked seems strange in retrospect.

Acting-wise, it would have been great to finally see a nomination for Ilene Kristen. Given the way ABC highlighted her in promos, and some renewed attention from the soap press, that seems like it could have been in the realm of possibility. I also would have loved to see Diana van der Vlis recognized for her work as Sherry Rowan—she did some fantastic work during the Richard Rowan murder storyline, though she was hardly a big name at that point.

On 5/30/2022 at 6:54 PM, DeliaIrisFan said:

On a related note, I wonder what would have happened if the awards ceremony had aired in 1984, when Pat Falken Smith was head writer but Labine/Mayer had been at the helm for most(?) of the eligibility period.  Would they all have attempted to take the stage (speaking of SB)?

It doesn’t look like Pat Falken Smith was actually included among the list of nominees for the show in 1984—I’m assuming none of her material was submitted? Still, would have been fascinating to watch Labine and Mayer accept after being forced out for a second time in 18 months!

On 6/19/2022 at 8:26 PM, gimmetoo said:

I know some fans resent that Rae-Kim-Michael shifted focus from the Ryans...but I'd argue it was a jolt of freshness that RH desperately needed.  By the early 80s, the Ryans had grown stale, we all needed a breather from their sanctimoniousness and the revolving door of actors playing the Ryan brood was inconsistent.

It’s funny seeing all the disparate reactions to the Rae/Michael/Kim story. There’s a lot of people on the RH Facebook group that swear by the storyline and point to it as the one that got them hooked on the show in the first place. I thought it was fun to watch play out, but certainly not among the show’s best. I’m currently rewatching episodes from September 1979, and I’m wary of Kim’s imminent arrival and her swallowing up of the show.

I appreciate that it gave an excuse for keeping Louise Shaffer around after Rae and Frank’s breakup, but as far as scene partners are concerned Michael Corbett and Kelli Maroney weren’t quite at the same level as Daniel Hugh Kelly and Nancy Addison... to put it mildly. I liked it better after Kim was written out in 1981 and Rae was paired more frequently with Jack and EJ, who served as an infinitely more tolerable substitute for Kim (at least in my opinion! I know EJ wasn’t exactly beloved, either). From reading recaps of 1982, it sounds like the show tried to better integrate Kim into the Ryan-sphere by having her pursue Pat... hard to imagine, but wish we could see that play out (as with all the 1982 material).

9 hours ago, will81 said:

No worries. So Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer were the last HW's on Where the Heart Is and Tom Donovan and Jean Arley were producers of that show to the end. All of them moved to Love of Life and I wonder if they went straight from WTHI to LOL, meaning their first credited eps may be from Mar 26, 1973??

According to an interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal published in July 1975, Labine & Mayer became headwriters of LOL in September 1973.  There was a writer's strike from early March through late June 1973, so it's possible they may have taken over directly from the scab writers (or an interim writing team post-strike). They signed with LOL the same week they formalized their development deal with ABC for what would later become Ryan's Hope:

[Labine and Mayer] wrote dialogue for CBS's "Where the Heart Is," later became its head writers while developing the ABC project. In September 1973 they became head writers for "Love of Life." They have resigned from those jobs, now that "Ryan's Hope" is a reality. 

....

Q. How long have you been working on this?

A. When "Where the Heart Is" was cancelled in 1973, our agent got us in contact with ABC. We had a couple of meetings and they said, "Hey, fellas, would you like to develop us a serial called 'City Hospital'?" And we said, "Not very much, thank you, but we'll think about it." So, we liked the "city" part a lot, and we came back with a big-city serial. So, they gave us what they call a development fee to sit down and work with an idea and to come up with a thing called the canvas, the basic characters and the situations in which they find themselves when the story begins. Plus, you write a projected long story, six months to a year. So you have the beginning of a show right there. In serials, you don't do pilots. You do bibles, or presentations. That was what we were hired to do. This does not mean that they are going to buy it, You just get paid for developing it. In August of 1973 we said we would like to write this bible, and the very next day CBS offered us the head writership of "Love of Life," an old, old show that had been on 22 years, I think. At that time, it was in very bad ratings trouble. When we left this year in May, the rating situation was much improved and we were very proud, though we were not solely responsible for that. While this was going on, we were doing the development deal for ABC. We had an "out" in our contract to do "Ryan's Hope" if it was bought. And it was, in March of this year.

10 hours ago, DRW50 said:

90 is a long life, but still sad to hear. Seneca was such a wonderfully rich character in those first few years - the story with Nell was incredibly powerful and still stays with me. Sadly the character was one of several trashed for Kimberly, but at least he managed to have a good ending.

Rest in peace, John Gabriel. Seneca could be insufferable at times, but JG always ensured there was something softer just beneath the surface even when Seneca was at his worst.

The Nell/Seneca storyline was the highlight of the show's first year to me, along with the initial Jack/Mary romance. John Gabriel and Diana van der Vlis did some fantastic, truly compelling work together those first months of the show.

3 hours ago, j swift said:

I read the news of John Gabriel's death this morning from the (not so) reputable New York Post.  I noted that they mentioned that he played the "controlling" doctor Seneca Beaulac which I found remarkable because I don't think that controlling was a defining characteristic on the character.  Then, I looked at the wiki, and I found that they lifted the adjective from the one sentence character profile on the Ryan's Hope page.

 

Anyway, I see that Seneca returned for the finale, but I was wondering if anyone remembers his exit storyline in 1985?  Where did Seneca go and with whom did he end up?

I do think "controlling" is a fair descriptor and applies to all three of his marriages. Beyond her health, Nell's reason for leaving Seneca and coming to Riverside was in order to get out from under his control and do the kinds of medical research she'd always wanted to pursue. Seneca then tried to dominate Jill throughout their marriage, insisting that she put aside her career to have another child with him after Edmund's death and proceeding to nearly rape her. Seneca's attraction to Kim seemed to arise in part because he thought she would be easier to control than either of his past wives, though of course that didn't end up being the case.

I don’t think he received a proper on-screen sendoff, at least based on the newspaper and SOD recaps I’ve read. The last time he appears in the episodes that are available on YouTube is at Maggie and Dave’s wedding, where Maggie thanks him for starting her modeling career (he’d hired her to be the face of Riverside Hospital in a charity campaign back in late 1983). If his absence was ever directly addressed, it must have been in passing. Tom King & Millee Taggart had a habit of dropping characters without explanation throughout their tenure as headwriters—see also Leigh Kirkland, Bill Hyde, and some more short-lived characters like DJ LaSalle, Betty Sherman, and Gloria Tassky.

By the time he was let go in June/July 1985, Seneca hadn’t been involved in a major storyline since Kim’s departure in March 1983. He and Rae interfered during the early days of Frank and Jill’s marriage, but Louise Shaffer was then dropped to recurring and Rae disappeared shortly thereafter. Aside from that, he was mostly entangled in some hospital politics with Roger and Max Dubujak that was basically treated as a C/D-level story. His last significant relationship was with Judith Barcroft's Barbara Wilde, which ended in January 1982; that same year they hinted he might get back together with Jill during his custody battle with Kim, but that was squashed when Frank returned in the spring of 1983.

When he showed up again in December 1988, he was working at a hospital in Quebec and came back to New York to perform emergency surgery on Robert Rowan at Roger's request, at which point he became intrigued by Robert's mother, Sherry Rowan, who was played by the former Nell Beaulac herself, Diana van der Vlis.

16 hours ago, beebs said:

Yeah, saw that, though going through Capitol's credits from that period, and there's no mention of him that I see (though they could omit writers who aren't writing that particular episode, so who knows?)

Just working on a little project for YouTube, and am looking for whatever info I can find.

According to this, he's listed as one of the writers in the credits for the first daytime episode of Capitol, though I don't believe that episode is on YouTube currently. It's my understanding that Capitol experienced some abrupt changes in writers that first year, with the Corringtons replacing the Karpfs as headwriters before the end of 1982, so I wonder how long he lasted.

I know he was first credited at Ryan's Hope in late May 1984, a little over six months into PFS's tenure there. 

11 hours ago, John said:

So Kelli was only Tina for a month? I know KM said that Paul Rauch didnt like her and it was mutual

Were Kelli and Marsha just place holders until OLTL could get a deal done with Andrea as Tina?

Not to "spoil" () anything from the blog, but from what Jon-Michael Reed and Linda Hirsch reported at the time it seems like Kelli Maroney was intended to be in the role long-term, while Marsha Clark was always meant to be temporary.

This is from a JMR column, published around October 8:

"ONE LIFE TO LIVE" has been announcing for the past year that actresses have been cast to play the returning role of Tina Clayton. For some reason they've never worked and never appeared on the screen. But the big surprise is that "OLTL" has cast Kelli Maroney, (formerly Kimberly Harris on "Ryan's Hope"), one of the more uninteresting actresses to ever appear on a soap. Although there weren't many defenders of her talent she managed to have a fairly long run on "RH." She will appear as Tina Clayton, again, around mid-October.

(JMR was really not a fan of Maroney's - he made similar comments when she re-joined the cast of RH in the spring of 1982.)

On January 17, Linda Hirsch reported that Clark's stint was temporary and that Andrea Evans was on her way back:

With the exit of Kelli Maroney from the role of Tina on "One Life to Live," the show's producers have been looking high and low for a replacement. They brought in Marsha Clark, last seen as Hilary on "Guiding Light", for the short term, but she was not interested in taking over the role on a permanent basis. The producers have now decided to go with Andrea Evans. If the name is familiar, it's because she created the role of Tina several years ago. She left that show and was then seen as Patti in "Young and the Restless."

On 1/25/2021 at 9:54 PM, DeliaIrisFan said:

I am curious how much the ratings actually dropped in 1982.  It seems likely the show would have reached "an all-time low" by the end of the year barring a miracle, because the entire ABC lineup had enjoyed GH's lead-in audience during the Luke and Laura heyday (it's a cruel irony that the highest ratings of the show's history were probably during that putrid strike material in the summer of 1981) even though the long-term trajectory of soap viewership by that point was downward.  It's hard to believe RH plummeted as drastically that year as it did in 1984, after the show had been completely gutted and lost its timeslot to boot. 

You make a very fair point, and from what I've read the ratings in 1982 can only be considered disappointing in light of how well the show was doing during the summer and fall of 1981. ABC's disappointment in the ratings and itchiness behind the scenes is understandable only in that context. It does make a certain kind of perverse sense that they'd begin to feel that Claire Labine was replaceable given the success of the show under the scabs.

A while back, the monthly ratings reports from Daytime TV were posted in this thread. They're not always the most reliable indicator as (1) the reports seem to be linked to specific weeks rather than specific months and (2) they were published a few months behind and not consistently so—based on the specific shows that are listed, some are only 2 months behind and some are up to 4 months behind.

With those caveats out of the way, in the Daytime TV  ratings reports Ryan's Hope seems to peak around August 1981, when it ranks in fourth place with a 7.8 rating—that's the last month of the strike, around the time Kim gave birth to Arley and the Monte Carlo Room opened at the Crystal Palace. For the remainder of 1981, the show is consistently ranking in either fifth or sixth place. Somewhere in that thread there's a separate breakdown of the key demos for the fourth quarter of 1981, and Ryan's Hope was also in the top 5 for that report. I have to imagine ABC was pretty happy with that performance, given that the ratings had been stagnating a bit around 1979-80.

By the time you get to early 1982, the show dips down to seventh and eighth place, with a small bump back up to sixth place for May/June 1982. So by the time Labine is dumped in favor of Munisteri, the show is down compared to 1981 but basically back to where it was in 1979 and 1980. ABC's decision to make this change in writers really only makes sense in the context of the ratings drop relative to the strike material, as well as the tumultuous relationship that Labine acknowledges she had with the ABC brass at the time.

Of course, by the end of Munisteri's brief time as HW the show has dropped even more, with ratings now in the 5s and dropping to ninth place. The ratings don't seem to move at all throughout Labine & Mayer's 1983 return, with the show consistently ranking either in ninth or tenth place and sometimes dipping into the 4s. Under Pat Falken Smith that ranking remains unchanged and the ratings continue to atrophy until the show ends up at the bottom of the ratings basement with The Edge of Night and Search for Tomorrow after the timeslot change.

As to why ABC allowed PFS to go more than a year as headwriter when they were so willing to make quick changes in the writers' room in 1982 and 1983, I assume that they were giving her a wider berth given her track record at General Hospital and given the degree to which the show's character was altered. It may also be that they were becoming less invested, particularly with the timeslot change.

(IIRC, Soap Opera Digest was speculating as early as spring 1983 that ABC was going to cancel RH in favor of Loving, though that seems drastic given that it had been in the top 5 only 18 months earlier.)

On 1/25/2021 at 9:54 PM, DeliaIrisFan said:

I suspect Labine being in the room in 1986-87 couldn't have hurt, plus the fact that she was welcome back in the room was probably itself an indicator that there was general interest in making the show better and reviving the core.  Whether or not aging Little John so drastically and making Delia a grandmother (even with Yasmine Bleeth/Ryan, her surviving parent was muuuch older) was the best way to do that, at least they were trying.

To be fair, I feel like by 1986 you really had no choice but to make Little John college-aged, given that LJ was always a few years older than Ryan and that they'd already aged up and married off (!!) Ryan by the time Jason Adams was cast in the role. Of course, no need to make Frank and Delia grandparents!

On 1/24/2021 at 11:26 PM, DRW50 said:

The Ryan family feels played out and at a real loss by the time the Soapnet run ends, with Pat and Frank gone, a wan Siobhan recast and an unsuccessful introduction of cousin EJ after bailing on her brother Barry after only a year. I can see why ABC may have wanted a fresh start, while still keeping the figureheads of Maeve and Johnny, along with Siobhan. I can also see why they tried to rebuild after the changes caused further audience erosion. I haven't really watched enough of 1983 to know how it would have worked out - the Delia stuff is so bad and the show just feels very flat in that way ABC soaps of the '80s sometimes can, if you know what I mean. That and I'm not exactly rushing to see Faith/Pat round 4 (or was it 5...).

I had a longer response drafted to this that was unfortunately eaten by the board, but I'll just join DeliaIrisFan in singing the praises for 1983. It's definitely one of the show's most consistent periods, alongside 1976-78 and 1987. The Charlotte Greer and early Maggie/Bess storylines are really well-done, and the show is smart enough to play the Faith/Pat reunion as a B-story—it helps make the show feel more like itself, without spending too much time actually regurgitating well-trod plot points.

I hated seeing Delia's role reduced, but the only material I truly loathed was when they had her frame Little John for stealing money in order to get Frank's attention—mercifully, that was abandoned after all of one week. (Her exit after L&M were fired also sounds bad.)

I did like how Delia was incorporated into the Charlotte Greer story at times, and they also played up her friendship with Siobhan which I enjoyed—that friendship seemed to go by the wayside during Ann Gillespie's time as Siobhan.

On 1/21/2021 at 8:34 PM, DeliaIrisFan said:

 

These are great finds, especially that '82 cast photo.  (Side note: How recently did lower-rated soaps still get swanky all-cast parties for off-year anniversaries?)  Interesting that Claire Labine is standing with Haskell and Nancy Addison, though.  It reminds me that the early recaps involving Hollis had him interacting with Jill.  I wonder if Claire had more of that planned.  Jill representing Hollis in his efforts to take Delia's restaurant—while Rae seethed at the idea of her secret first love spending time with Jill—would have made for lots of interesting scenes, at least.  Or would Hollis have even had a past with Rae—and Kim, whom Labine and Mayer had just written out—or something else?

Hollis's past with Rae seems to have been baked into his backstory from the start, with him realizing he was Kim's father as early as June 1982, a few weeks after his first appearance on the show. Kim didn't find out until after Christmas, though. Having Hollis more closely linked to Jill would have absolutely been a rich source for conflict, and a good way for the show to utilize Nancy Addison at the time - aside from being Seneca's lawyer during the Arley custody trial, she didn't have much to do post-Meritkara and pre-Geoff Pierson based on the summaries that are available.

On 1/21/2021 at 8:34 PM, DeliaIrisFan said:

Knowing more about the timeline, though, I wonder if Labine would have been perfectly content to have Hollis and at least one daughter mixing it up with the original cast members.  Perhaps jettisoning the Kirklands altogether was a consensus decision when both creators returned together—since Mayer had no hand in creating them and I'm sure neither of them were thrilled with their having completely taken over the show by the time they came back anyway.  Labine seemed a bit more comfortable integrating the newer characters into her vision when she returned in 1987 as well.

I suspect you're right about that - given how much energy was invested in the character of Leigh, it feels surprising that they would have felt so strongly about throwing out the rest of her family. Considering the significant ratings drop that occurred midway through 1982, I assume there was pressure from the network to do a sweeping overhaul, even if it meant jettisoning an element that they'd been pushing heavily a few months earlier.  Something like 10 contract cast members were dropped between January and March 1983, with only one (Roscoe Born) being by the actor's choice.

It's definitely an interesting contrast with her return in 1987, when Max Dubujak was the only major character that got knocked off the show, and that move seemed destined to happen anyway given the way the Overlord storyline made no qualms about his (cartoonish) villainy. (And while I realize being a consultant is virtually always a toothless role - as shown over and over again throughout daytime history - part of me wonders if the higher-ups implemented some of Labine's suggestions when she joined RH as a consultant partway through 1986, as the show was much better then than it had been during pretty much any other period under Tom King and Millee Taggart. Maybe just my bias showing!)

On 1/21/2021 at 8:34 PM, DeliaIrisFan said:

As far as the 1988 strike, this sort of confirms that Behr took over for Hardy midway through that.  I've always been fascinated that Hardy lasted so long at RH, through multiple transitions, culminating in Claire Labine's final return, at which point he seemed to be on good terms with her—only to go onto his last job (I think?) at GH, which by most accounts was more in the vein of the material he produced at RH during Labine's absence.  And that timeline means Behr only executive-produced the show for a few months when Labine was in the building, but they apparently had a very strong working relationship, though of course Behr was promoted from within the show so they presumably knew each other before that.

Before Hardy moved over to General Hospital in late 1989, he was the executive producer at Loving for a little more than a year. According to a Nancy Reichardt article I came across, his transition to Loving was announced at the show's five-year anniversary party in June 1988, where he joined Agnes Nixon in cutting the cake. In articles where he's interviewed, Hardy has always struck me as the kind of EP who didn't necessarily have his own vision to imprint on his shows but was instead happy to implement the directive of his network. That seems to be the spirit in which ABC moved him over first to Loving and then to GH, both shows that were seen as being in choppy waters (of different kinds) at the time.

According to the same press coverage, Felicia Minei Behr took over at RH on June 20th (not sure if that was the production date or airdate). I believe FMB joined the show as a producer in either 1982 or 1983, so she would have overlapped with Labine & Mayer's 1983 stint as well.

Someone recently posted an episode from 1975 to YouTube, along with two additional episodes from 1977. I don't think I've ever seen these circulating before online, though my apologies if I'm mistaken!

20 hours ago, DeliaIrisFan said:

I suppose some iteration of Hollis must have been a Labine/Mayer concept, or at least a Labine concept (adding to the chaos of 1982, didn't Paul Mayer supposedly leave of his own volition a month or two before Claire Labine was forced out?), although I have my doubts about Amanda given the character was recast and then abruptly written out within a handful of months in 1983.  I am forever fascinated by the bit of trivia that those scenes from Kate Mulgrew's return, in which she and Michael Levin spoke of Leigh Kirkland and her family by name, were supposedly filmed a year earlier, before the writing shakeup.  Even though Leigh ended up being the last Kirkland to arrive, I wonder if she was actually supposed to be the main Kirkland all along and Munisteri changed the daughter's name to Amanda just because, ultimately giving Labine/Mayer the opportunity to revert to their original plan when they came back and finally get to use those pre-taped scenes.

 

I assumed the Kirklands were completely Munisteri's doing (Leigh excepted), but in spending some time during the early days of the COVID lockdown digging through old newspaper columns my impression is now that Claire Labine's stint as solo HW lasted longer than it's usually presented and would have overlapped with the introduction of both Hollis (week of April 26-30) and Amanda (week of August 2-6).

Paul Avila Mayer was gone by the St. Patrick's Day episode that SOAPnet aired, as he's not listed in the writing credits for the episode. Lynda Hirsch reported his departure in her column on February 7, 1982, only a few weeks after the end of the SOAPnet run:

When Claire Labine and Paul Mayer sold "Ryan's Hope" to ABC last year, they probably didn't think the move would break up their writing team-up, which goes back many years. However, that's exactly what happened. ABC has decided to retain the services of Claire Labine and team her with several writers to produce "Ryan's Hope." As for Paul, he is no longer writing scripts for "Ryan's Hope," but we assume he will turn up on another daytime drama - not that he needs the money, however, since he was given quite a hefty piece of change by ABC network for "Ryan's Hope," which is its leading soap opera. We understand ABC Is gearing up for competition that may be coming its way from the newly spruced-up "Search for Tomorrow" when it hits the NBC airwaves March 29. ABC is also aware of "Young and the Restless," which always runs a respectable fourth or fifth in daytime ratings, but has no plans to change the basic "Ryan's Hope" format, which is never at the top but also never at the bottom.

Jon-Michael Reed reported that Kate Mulgrew's scenes were filmed in late July 1982, and there's a subsequent Connie Passalacqua column from early September 1982 in which Claire Labine is quoted about Kate Mulgrew's return that implies that KM returned as a favor to Labine. (Also, not that this is anything conclusive given that Labine technically remained a consultant after she was fired as headwriter, but she was also pictured prominently in the cast photo at the 7th anniversary party in July 1982, alongside Mary Page Keller and Peter Haskell.)

(I've always found that situation--in which the show held off using these scenes for roughly eight months--fascinating as well, given how seamlessly those scenes with Kate Mulgrew were incorporated into the ongoing Jack/Leigh story. Imagine how frustrating it would have been had the change in headwriters/story ultimately junked that footage.)

The first mention I've found about Labine's ouster as HW was in Jon-Michael Reed's column on October 2:

"RYAN'S HOPE," once the most sparkling gem among daytime soaps, has fallen on weak-ratings times as well as uninteresting plot times. The show has lost its luster since ABC took over control from creators and former co-owners Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer. Labine was "kicked upstairs" from headwriting chores to a consultant position, while Mayer is no longer associated with the program. One of the most recent and not-so-bright decisions was to pack off the character of Jane Ryan, played by Maureen Garrett, a brightly and sprightly conceived and executed lady.

Lynda Hirsh reported this in her October 17 column, mentioning Munisteri as Labine's replacement:

Mary Munisteri has been named head writer of "Ryan's Hope." Mary, who worked for a time on the show at dialoguer and sub-writer positions, takes over for Claire Labine, who will remain on the show as a consultant. Claire was the original creator, producer, and co-head writer with Paul Mayer on "Ryan's Hope." Labine and Mayer have also worked on "Love of Life" and "Where the Heart Is." 

Of course, by late January 1983 these same columnists were reporting Labine & Mayer's return in an effort by ABC to go back to basics and save the ratings.

(Regarding the choice to recast Amanda, one of the columnists reported that Mary Page Keller was replaced because the network felt she would look too young paired with Malcolm Groome, who returned in early February 1983 and replaced the 4-years-younger Patrick James Clarke. While I can understand the hesitation around the 12-year gap between MG and MPK, her replacement Ariane Munker ended up being only 1 year older! Age also didn't seem to play a factor when the show paired 37-year-old MG with a 21-year-old Nancy Valen in 1986...)

Sorry to go on for so long - figured this was a good opportunity to share some of the (admittedly mostly useless) information I dug up earlier in the lockdown.  From the recaps I've read, I totally agree with your take on Munisteri. She was the logical candidate to take over the reins from Labine, but the comments I've read about her other headwriting stints do seem to suggest that she was better suited to executing the visions of others rather than establishing her own. In the case of RH, that meant emphasizing the gangland wars and the wealthier Kirklands (including Rae and Kim) that ABC favored.

20 hours ago, DeliaIrisFan said:

Not having seen any of this material play out on screen, I just assumed some scab writer said, "Oh, Jack always was so attached to that nun—what was her name again?—and we don't know anything about his birth parents.  Wouldn't it be interesting if it turns out she was really his birth mother?" In any event, even if this was something Claire Labine might have come up with herself, I feel like half of the experience of seeing her tell the story would have been the dialogue, and if the 1981 episodes that aired on SoapNet are any indication the scripts in that period may have gotten very rough.

I don't disagree with that - in many ways, it sounds like fan fiction. I assume that, with the show's future looking increasingly tenuous, Labine wanted to bring Jack's story full-circle, both by having him settle down with newly-returned Leigh and by having him once again revisit his abandonment issues. However, it definitely reads as being too neat an answer, at least on paper.

Having only read recaps of the story, I wonder how the show had Jack grapple with the fact that he is the son of a man engaged in the very system of violence that killed his wife in 1979, nearly killed him and destroyed his career in 1981, and consistently imperiled his sister-in-law for the better part of a decade. I could see Labine doing some interesting things with that, but not necessarily the scabs. (I should also add that in that same article Labine mentioned that she couldn't bring herself to actually watch the show and was instead relying on recaps of the action when she returned after the strike, so I'm sure there must have been other things amiss with the execution that a simple recap wouldn't capture!)

ETA. Found that article about the strike, which DRW50 posted here. Here are the relevant portions:

As it happened, Labine had left RH in extraordinary good shape before the walkout. “It was as well-organized as it has ever been,” she says, noting that former Executive Producer Joe Hardy, Producer Felicia Minei Behr, and Coordinating Producer Nancy Horwich closely monitored the non-union writers and stuck close to her plot projections. “They were terribly careful and, out of deference, tried very hard not to commit to anything new.”

There was really only one hitch—the Jack/Silvio/Sister Mary Joel situation. It wrapped up way too quickly [Labine had hoped to carry it into the new year] and, somehow in the shuffle, also wound up concentrating way too much on Jack’s daughter, Ryan. Other than that, no gripes.

Seeing more material from Mary Ryan Munisteri's period as headwriter remains my holy grail as an RH fan. As has already been noted, of the Labine/Mayer replacements, her writing seems easily the most aligned with the show's original identity. I'd love to see the Kirkland story play out, and how it may have shifted over time given that Hollis and Amanda were both Labine creations (I believe). At least during those early months, they appear to have been relatively well-integrated with the show's core characters, so the moniker Kirkland's Hope seems misdirected - I believe that originates with Ron Hale, which makes some sense since Roger was on the backburner for a while after the EJ story ended.

Those early weeks of Pat Falken Smith's run that are available on YouTube are fascinating in that they retain some of L&M's scriptwriters and maintain the overall look and feel of the show, though you can feel the show's center of gravity beginning to shift. Beyond the backburnering of the Ryans and the ascendency of the Dubujaks and the gang at Greenberg's Deli, 1984 presented such an extreme makeover for the show - the music changed, the types of actors changed, and of course the sets changed, most notably the bar. In retrospect it's hard to see how anyone could have thought something that extreme could work without alienating the core viewership.

The Dubujaks were awful, particularly Jacqueline. I guess I can understand Daniel Pilon's appeal as a debonair man in the Dynasty vein, but Max wasn't much of a character. King/Taggart's decision to make him the sudden romantic lead of the show for the latter half of 1985 was such a head-scratcher considering how much time the show devoted to portraying him as the big bad up to that point.

On 1/3/2021 at 2:29 PM, DeliaIrisFan said:

The one thing I will say is that if Joe had died saving Siobhan and/or other Ryans from a member of his own family, it would have hearkened back to Mary's murder, which in my mind was much more interesting history than what I've seen of the Max/Siobhan interlude.  I believe at some point Joe had a cousin or something on Uncle Tiso's side, but I skipped most of the mid-'80s episodes that have been posted on YouTube, so I have no idea how he was written out or if it would have been at all plausible to bring him back.

Interestingly enough, Joe's cousin Laslo did end up becoming a threat to Siobhan during the period in which Joe was presumed dead, though it played out as a way to further justify Max and Siobhan's romance. Laslo was responsible for reporter Sydney Price's accidental death, though everyone assumed Max was responsible since Sydney had been his escort at some point in the distant past. Siobhan eventually figured out Sydney had died during a scuffle with Laslo, and Laslo kidnapped Siobhan and whisked her away to Canada. Max rescued Siobhan, which is partially how the other Ryans came to accept him despite the fact that he was widely acknowledged as an international crime lord (ugh).

8 hours ago, dc11786 said:

Also, casting was a mess for the Dubujaks. I know it was common practice to hire young actors to play parents of 20 somethings (I think Callan White joked about playing a grandma at 29 in the "Loving" interviews), but I don't know in what world Susan Scannell was acceptable casting as mother of Gerit Quealey. On a complete side note, my mother had considered naming me after Jacqueline if I had been a girl and still I have no desire to explore what all that Dubujak / Overlord nonsense is about. 

The Gabrielle Dubujak/Chessy Blake doppelgänger storyline was one of the worst stories the show ever told... if not the worst. From what I remember watching on YouTube, the story largely kept Gabrielle and Jacqueline apart until right before Quealy and Scannell were written out, which was wise - Scannell being all of 2 years older than Quealy.

8 hours ago, dc11786 said:

I think by offing Max and Joe in one shot it eliminated the mob story, but then again was Jack Fenelli's mobster father still on at the end? I don't know. I don't even know if I want to know. The later 1980s (1986-1989) intrigue me, but I'm not surprised how little material is available from the 1988 Writer's Strike. I'm sure that low clearance doesn't help, but that stuff doesn't seem to memorable. 

Cesare Danova as Silvio was still a contract cast member when the show ended, though I imagine they would have written him out had the show continued. By November 1988 he'd completely disentangled himself from the mob and attempted a reconciliation with Sister Mary Joel, but she'd made it clear she intended to stay committed to the church. Danova and Rosemary Prinz make few appearances in the last two months'' worth of episodes that are available on YouTube.

Unlike the 1981 Writer's Strike, I believe the scab writers in 1988 aligned very closely with what Labine had outlined in her story projections for the year. SOD or another publication at the time had writers comment on the work of the scabs, and her only complaint was that they'd overly emphasized Ryan in the Jack/Mary Joel storyline. Compared to the creative resurgence the show experienced in 1987, 1988 an odd year in terms of how many long-term characters left the canvas: Jill, Maggie, Pat, Dakota, and finally Joe. As much as I've enjoyed what's available of Roscoe Born's return that fall, moving Siobhan out of Joe's orbit strikes me as a wise choice.

On 1/2/2021 at 5:15 PM, amybrickwallace said:

Was it ever explained why none of the Kirklands returned in the end for Leigh's wedding to Jack?

Beyond what's been said, I seem to recall Leigh not having a good relationship with either of her parents. I did enjoy the fact that the show brought back the Kirkland butler, Mendenhall (played by RH stage manager Dick Briggs), in the weeks leading up to the finale. (He'd also been the butler for the Kirklands' predecessor in their penthouse, Spencer Smith, during the Egyptian storyline.)

7 hours ago, DRW50 said:

 

Delia was still a mess with Randall, but was more of a hurt little girl and less of the abject schemer - even when she was scheming it was much more scattershot and fragile. Sadly, the writing in Randall's last year devolved Delia and worked overtime to degrade her in their failed attempt to push KMG's Faith as a central heroine. 

There's a quote from Ilene Kristen where she describes Delia as a walking open wound, which I think perfectly describes the way the other characters handled Delia from 1975-78. By the time Randall Edwards assumed the role she was usually more restrained in her destructiveness (not always, but usually).

I think 1980 was probably RE's best year in the role, story-wise (notably all the stuff with Barry). In re-watching the 1979 episodes, I've been struck by how much the show wastes RE by having her constantly interfere with Pat and Nancy's relationship, which is a shame since her Delia was many magnitudes more interesting than either of them. She got plenty of airtime but wasn't necessarily well-served by it. That dynamic kind of repeated itself in late 1981 in the E.J. Ryan storyline. (Though I did enjoy E.J. a lot, which I realize puts me in the minority.)

IK's return in 1986 certainly feels like a more successful synthesis of the Delia she played in her first stint and the more whimsical interpretation of the character that was foregrounded by the show during the RE era, though it's hard to tell given how little of her second stint is available.

6 hours ago, John said:

Robin had a 6 month deal on RH and didnt renew, they wanted her to. That is why Delia's 1984 exit was aburpt.

 

How long was Christian Slater on RH. I know he left to do Name of The Rose and wanted to return but ended up as Caleb on AMC with Cliff and Nina for a stint

Christian Slater was on from May 1985 through November 1985. From the recaps I've read, his character kind of just faded away, which seemed to happen a lot to characters under Tom King and Millee Taggart (most notably to Seneca, Leigh Kirkland, Bill Hyde, and a whole slew of characters written out at the end of 1985). 

IIRC, Robin Mattson left GH at the end of her 3-year contract after ABC refused to raise her salary, but that ABC subsequently agreed to pay her a higher salary at RH even though it was a shorter program. She felt the offer was too good to refuse but left RH after 6 months so that she could participate in pilot season on the West Coast.

ABC's issues with Ilene Kristen's weight made it into the press at the time, which seems absolutely horrifying. ABC was on her case about her weight even before she returned in 1982, including during her recurring stint on One Life to Live that immediately preceded her return to RH. This is from a February 1982 Jon-Michael Reed column:

When the character of lady mechanic Georgina Whitman surfaced on "One Life to Live" three months ago, she was intended as an "interim buffer'' to re-introduce the character of Tony Lord. Now, the show's writers have "extended" the character to become more active. But the actress originally hired to portray Georgina has been dropped. Actress Ilene Kristen was the original Delia on "Ryan's Hope." She left that show to pursue off-Broadway interests. Her return to the soap world as OLTL's Georgina signaled a willingness on her part to combine soap acting's financial security with her outside interests. Unfortunately, Kristen gained noticeable pounds to her girth between soap stints. A "OLTL" source claims that Kristen was cautioned to lose the flab or risk her job.

Last week, "OLTL" announced that Nana Tucker will take over the role of Georgina. Interestingly, Tucker is also an "RH" alumna. She played a Jewish girl, Nancy Feldman, who had an ill-starred romance with Catholic Pat Ryan. Tucker later portrayed Darcy Collins on "The Doctors." Kristen, meanwhile, is rumored to be negotiating with "RH" to resume her role of Delia. The current Delia, Randall Edwards, is, according to another source, "tired of the part and not afraid to let her displeasure show." Edwards garnered an Emmy nomination last year and was a delightful Delia.

If his reporting is accurate, ABC essentially fired her from two shows due to her weight. I seem to recall another column around the summer or fall of 1983 suggesting that ABC sent her to a weight-loss retreat, which would have been only a few months before her firing. If you watch the 1983 episodes that are on YouTube, it's essentially the only period of the show's run in which Delia is marginalized while the character is still on the canvas. (Based on the recaps available for 1982, Delia was still integrated into a number of the stories until the Crystal Palace shuts down in early 1983.) I'm assuming that's because ABC had issues with Ilene Kristen being front and center. 

On 12/14/2020 at 10:42 PM, DeliaIrisFan said:

I'm probably the only one who cares, but I wish he had been asked to speak about what, if anything, he knew/remembered of the original plans for the aftermath of the Charlotte Greer/McCurtain story that first introduced his rendition of Frank. 

I was hoping the Charlotte Greer story would come up as well, given that it's the story I associate most closely with Geoff Pierson's Frank. I love the not-insubstantial amount of material that's available from that period on YouTube, but it would be fascinating to find out what was intended to be the outcome aside from the wedding of Frank and Jill.

In general, I wanted to hear a little more about how the actors felt about the various writing regime changes over the years (particularly IK and MG since they experienced most/all of them), though I realize that's not an area Alan usually wants to probe on these shows.

12 hours ago, amybrickwallace said:

Thank you, @Sean. Maybe RH would have brought Dakota back (with or without Christopher Durham) at some point had they not been cancelled.

It’s a little surprising they didn’t bring him back for the final weeks of the show given the prominent role he had played, though I can’t see either Roger/Delia or Jack/Leigh being especially eager to invite him to their weddings.

57 minutes ago, j swift said:

I think the disconnect for Dakota's introduction was the de-evolution of the character of Jill.  Jill had a bout of amnesia when she met Dakota, which in typical soap style caused her to change her hair and wardrobe, rather than seek medical intervention.  A later version of the same plot was attempted on GH when Felicia hooked up with Decker Moss.  The result was that both women looked foolish to fans.  Jill was a sophisticated Manhattan attorney, why would she suddenly wish to run around with a perm and ripped jeans? 

  It’s funny—in writing my post last night, I’d basically blocked out the role Jill’s amnesia and her becoming “Sara Jane” played in all of this. Totally agree that this was a dumb development, made only worse by the fact that the writers had already leaned on amnesia as a plot point earlier that same year when Katie Thompson couldn’t remember the circumstances around her being pushed down a flight of stairs by Maggie. Given how fraught Frank and Jill’s relationship was throughout 1984-5, there should have been another, less clichéd way for the show to have Dakota cause a rift between them.

5 hours ago, Chris 2 said:

Yep. The only reason they killed her off was because they thought the recasts didn’t work and there was no way Kate Mulgrew was returning full time.

Sign me up as another person to like Mary Carney the best of all the Mary recasts. I know some grew to like Nicolette Goulet in the part, but her version of Mary just seemed so divorced from KM's iteration - the balance of self-righteousness and charm wasn't right. I'm currently watching episodes from August 1979 in which Jack and Siobhan are still in the process of grappling with their feelings for each other, and while I loved KM's Mary (as much she she could also frustrate me), I find it hard to care about how this situation impacts her.

My one qualm with MC is that it's hard to imagine her Mary as a lead, though that may simply be a side effect of how the character was backburnered in those first months post-Mulgrew.

46 minutes ago, amybrickwallace said:

How was the Dakota Smith character received back in the day? He wasn't a Labine/Mayer creation, was he? After watching the episodes rerun on SoapNet and what's out there on YouTube, I couldn't imagine Johnny stepping out on Maeve. I can't imagine the audience did, either.

The consensus has seemed to be that this was a mistake and out of character for Johnny, but I do think it added an interesting tension within the family and also had the nice side effect of bringing more attention to the Ryans after they were largely sidelined as a unit throughout 1984 and 1985. Quality-wise, I think it also easily eclipses all of the other stories Tom King and Millee Taggart told during their first year as headwriters, though that's not necessarily saying much given how low the show had fallen by that point. (Mid-1986 is really when the show begins to turn around in my book.) I also really liked Christopher Durham in the part.

I was surprised to see Claire Labine list it as one of her favorite RH stories in this article from 1998 (https://ryansbaronline.tripod.com/labine3.html), and she definitely maximized the fallout when she returned as headwriter in February 1987. King/Taggart had Maeve forgive Johnny and accept Dakota into the family in relatively short order in the spring of 1986; once Jill reunited with Frank in August 1986, a lot of the tension in the Dakota/Ryan dynamic had seemingly dissipated. By contrast, Labine chipped away at whatever peace the family had achieved by having Dakota constantly trying to undermine Johnny's relationship with his other sons, driven in part by Dakota's blaming of Pat for the death of Melinda Weaver (Pat's wife and Dakota's childhood best friend) and his general apathy for Frank due to the Jill situation. Dakota's constant scheming ultimately led to the separation of Maeve and Johnny right after Christmas 1987, which led to some dynamite scenes for Helen Gallagher and Bernie Barrow (winning her a third Emmy and him another nomination).

There was another interview where Christopher Durham attributed his departure from the show in September 1988 to Labine not liking the Dakota character, but I can see why she ultimately chose to write him off. At that point, Johnny had given Dakota so many chances to turn things around, only to be proven wrong yet again; by the time his latest schemes to undermine John Reid's political career and impregnate Nancy Don with a baby she was going to pass off as Ben's were revealed, it made sense that they needed some time apart.

3 hours ago, Bill Bauer said:

 

Nice to know my imagination isn't as morbid as the writer's. Thank you for the information, soaplovers. I knew someone here would be able to help me. Do you have any idea of the month/year of that episode? I'd like to try and find it on youtube or something.

This would have been in August 1978 - it was the cliffhanger for episode #810 (OAD: 08/18/78).

On YouTube:

Alan shared a recorded video of Catherine Larson (Lizzie Ransome Ryan, 1986-89) on Instagram; during the reunion they'd mentioned reaching out to her, but that she was unable to join. She left acting to raise her children and is now a hospital chaplain. 

I found the SOD article I mentioned earlier that described the affiliate situation (from June 1986):

When RYAN’S HOPE was moved to an earlier time slot two years ago it saw a five percent drop in its ratings. Commenting on the move, [executive producer Joseph] Hardy says, “We were affected very badly. We now have poorer coverage. Noon’s a bad time for any ABC station to take us because they usually have on their own local programming.”

… As an example, ABC's top-rated late afternoon soap, GENERAL HOSPITAL, is carried by 214 affiliates. Meanwhile, LOVING, aired in an early afternoon time slot, is carried by 191 affiliates. RYAN’S HOPE trails with 179.

Here's the full article, which also delves into the creative challenges and ratings woes of Loving, Search for Tomorrow, and Capitol.

I'm biased since RH is my favorite soap, but I thought that was really well-done. It was evident just how much they all enjoyed working on the show from how they spoke about it (even in cases where they didn't overlap, like Geoff and Ash/James). It was great seeing Cali Timmins join at the half-way mark as well, and hearing them discuss some of the actors who have died (Nancy Addison, Gloria DeHaven, Bernie Barrow) or weren't in the reunion (Helen Gallagher).