DRW50

I love Jane and her work as Carrie is compelling, but for all the airtime they gave Carrie and that she killed two people (three if you count Jackie), she still felt isolated enough to where they could easily write her out. Shades of what happened with Tangie a decade later (although they barely bothered to write for Tangie).

You're right. Sorry. I did not remember that. Soapcentral says Betty Runnel, December 88/January 89.

Thanks. Has he ever spoken about their return?

I think there were also claims of an ugly argument between them but I'm not sure if that is true.

Not that we know of. Helen was briefly fired or almost fired by Irna - I'm not sure if we ever heard of potential replacements for her.

At about 55 minutes you can see auditions for Endless Love, including Chris Marcantel and Mark Arnold. Marcantel does look especially gorgeous here. Earlier at around 43 minutes there's a Glad Bag commercial with Gail Ramsey. Given that she was still on GH at that time I wonder how many viewers were watching and thought - "There's that bitch Susan."

Thanks.

He probably would have just been a psycho who got killed or banished. Didn't the same "writer" redo this with Adam Hughes? Or was this still Sheffer?

Given today's climate and the demos of the soap viewers who are left, I do wonder if a number of them just will not watch a show with a focus on black characters. That is not me saying the show should change focus. It's good that we have a soap trying to appeal elsewhere and not doing so in a clunky manner like, say, Doctor Who. I just think many of the soap viewers around now will not want to watch. Hopefully they can find more who have moved away from soaps or are new to soaps. That's where I wish they had done a half hour show instead. A half hour show also would have cut down on the character clutter.

Jon was very charismatic early on but within less than a year he started looking miserable all the time, a permanent stick up his ass. I don't think he was happy there as he left repeatedly - twice in less than a decade. Once he realized that he had no other options, he seemed to loosen up a little. I never gave a damn about Holden, but I grew to tolerate him, and I do think Jon looked better, hair aside. I wouldn't say things have gotten better. None of the soaps are killing off gay characters for shock value, as ATWT did with Reid. I guess that is an improvement. Van is not an actor, but he does have a somewhat warm, goofy screen presence, which helps with GH as the show has some cold fish.

That and the framing of what burdens they were to the men in their lives.

I think there was a disconnect between how Marland saw the show and what was onscreen - for me, anyway. For instance, he talks about how funny Floyd is. Anything I've seen of Floyd in Marland's run is very serious. The other comedy character on the show at the time, Katie, also became very serious. He seemed allergic to lighthearted characters. Admittedly, GL did not ever seem to be a show with comedy elements in the fragments available, but Floyd and Katie were the exceptions until his arrival. Kelly is a character who probably should have been interesting, what with his obsession over the purity of marriage and life compared to his inappropriate behavior toward Morgan, but the execution isn't really there for me. It doesn't help that we have characters like Hilary endlessly telling us how awesome he is. There's generally a lack of trust in viewers in most of his GL run (that I have seen - again I know most of it is not available), which is true for most soaps, but for me did not mesh well with a show as emotionally complex and messy as GL often was. My favorite part of the interview is how openly negative he is about GH. That wouldn't happen with soap press in later years. I think he meant the older actors, rather than just long-term characters, because the firings got a lot of soap press at the time. Barbara Berjer's did anyway as it was part of a pattern across P&G soaps.

Sharon wishes she looked like that these days...

Thank you.

I think Caso was there for up to the last 5-6 months of Seganti's run. The Grimaldis definitely could have been more. Letting Claire Bloom get away was a big mistake.

@DeeVee @Mitch64 I enjoyed all of your comments about Amanda. It's not my place to say because I have not seen Cullen's full run, but I tend to agree she was more compelling under the Dobsons. Lucille may have been a boo hiss baddie, but Rita Lloyd was riveting to watch (as she was when Marland gave her a recurring part on ATWT a decade later - she stole every scene she was in) and this drove the conflict for Amanda, along with her conflict over her sexuality. There was not very compelling conflict under Marland, even though on paper there should have been, because everyone involved, even Alan, seemed to be on tranquilizers. Someone here once wrote long ago about how much Amanda improved with Pat Falken-Smith, especially a scene where she was caught in a storm and talking about how she was finally going to live her life and her desires. We never got to see most of what could have been, but I thought Cullen did a good job in her late '80s returns showing a stronger Amanda. I liked Toby Poser. She was very charismatic and unlike anyone I'd seen on GL. I tend to wonder if McTavish or someone else did not want her because the writing was extremely negative. Liz Keifer spoke in SOD at the time about how uncomfortable she was with the way they had Blake speak about Amanda, mentioning the scripts where Blake was talking at length about her hair. It feels very coded, whether that was intended or not. The whole thing reminds me a little of when Lara Parker played a vampire Angelique on Dark Shadows and they went to great lengths to show that all of the men were not attracted to her. I kept thinking - this woman is so gorgeous and not one man she goes after sees it. (meanwhile every woman in Collinsport but Joan Bennett was horny for Barnabas) After the initial stories, they did show softer sides of Amanda, but they also did nothing with her. Clearly the relationship with Roger was never going to generate interest with Zaslow gone, but that became the only reason she existed, beyond the occasional nice scene with Philip, for a year and a half. And then she just...left, never to return (I can't even remember if she was mentioned). Such a waste.

That was very gracious. I remember her saying how hard it was for Jon to play their final scenes. She was a class act.

I would have agreed at the time...and I'd still agree now. On paper I think there's more you could do with Lily, but we weren't going to get that.

That's fascinating. I didn't know Seganti almost left that early on. It helps explain some of the choices. I still wonder if Luke would have been Holden's son if Hensley hadn't decided to leave.

The funniest part is he and Byrne also didn't seem right when she returned - Holden was just so cold (which had started years before the brain injury but was now ossified) and Byrne had more of a genuine spark with Paolo Seganti. A gorgeous, rich, charming man of the world or a sanctimonious, constipated, deadbeat dad? Some choice. Later on, when Hensley returned and the show just made Holden a dumb house husband and "hero" rather than trying to actually write for him, they seemed to have more chemistry, although I was never much of a fan. This is one of those situations where Rattray was the first Lily I saw. If she hadn't been, I might feel differently. Maybe not, as Mary Ellen Stuart was "my" Frannie and I still enjoy all I've seen of Julianne Moore, but it's a factor. I remember reading that Byrne did not care for the business stories Lily was in when she came back. I can understand why. Business stories had had their day on ATWT - even if Marland had lived, they had hit a wall, in part because so much focus went to KMH bursting out of tight skirts and tops (I think the Marlena de Lacroix quote was, "t'aint fittin'...and t'aint natural either") and because having three companies chattering on about mergers was never what the core of the show should have been, no matter how much fun you could have with Liz Hubbard, Tom Wiggin, Jenny O'Hara, etc. The problem is once Lily was taken entirely out of the business world she was just a stricken heroine. Once she aged out of that, she was, by the late '90s, wandering around a mansion wearing baggy, flowery dresses. I'm sure that's true to life for heiresses, but it's not especially interesting to watch. Things had to just happen to her, but she had no character. She rarely did under Byrne. What helped Byrne was she had a certain earnestness even though she was never much of an actress. I don't think Rattray was a very good actress either, but Marland not being so personally fond of her the way he was with Byrne meant he was willing to make some tough choices with the character. I still wonder if Rattray could have played out the story of Lily becoming cold and ruthless due to all of her losses. Marland cut it short fairly quickly. Redirecting her to Holden once Hensley returned was just easier. And then Marland smartly turned around the happily ever after concept with one tragedy after another, which went back to what I think the core of Lily should have been - Iva and Lucinda had, from Lily's conception, done what they felt was right for her, with this going on to hurt her so many times. The brilliance of the "truth about Aaron" story was that Iva and Lucinda each trying to "protect" Lily ended up completely destroying her. When Lily did return, this should have led to story for years and years - her estrangement from Iva, running away to a fantasy life with Damian, disavowing her adoption from Lucinda. It's a shame that none of this really worked...and I am not sure Byrne was ever comfortable with the material, or a good enough actress to play the material. I remember talk that Byrne was happier playing Rose because Rose was similar to her. I can believe that, as Rose (fond as I was of her) would have also gone on to be a huge Trump supporter. If the writing had been better in the show's later years, I would have had Lily coming to grips with a hollow life and a dreary marriage, trying to find her identity and rarely succeeding. Resenting Lucinda being freer with the grandkids than she ever was with Lily. Maybe bring back Iva for a while, showing how they have lost touch, little by little, and have Lily nurse her through an illness or some mental health story. Reveal that the farm stopped being a real farm many years ago and Lily has kept it afloat as what amounts to a museum for the last time she felt happy. Have her meddle in the lives of her kids the way Lucinda did with her, like trying to find the "right" man for Luke, or manipulate him into the career she wants for him, etc. I'm not sure Byrne would have or could played it, but we'll never know. Noelle Beck may have (Lily and Trisha weren't that far apart anyway, other than Trisha not having the whole town throw her birthday parties...) although I think she was always screwed in that part, due to the lousy state of the show and the horrible optics of how Byrne was treated at the end.

You aren't wrong there. The misogyny doesn't feel as suffocating as it did in the '00s, but given where the country is now, I shouldn't speak too soon. I wish we could see more of that period of soaps as the bits I've seen don't come across as heavily sexist, although reading the synopses, I can see where characters like Julie and Robin on GL may have met a misogynist fate.

@Paul Raven Thanks! Lots of endless pseudo-intellectual navel-gazing, typical of a number of TV Guide soap articles in those years, but invaluable for all the story information and even the dialogue recited which we may not know otherwise. Roy Winsor's views on the youth viewer haven't changed that much.

Thanks @Paul Raven I'd never heard of that miniseries. Odd that they are trying to put him out to pasture at 53. Some of his biggest hits were ahead of him. I'd never heard of Friends, or his horror pilot (not sure if that ever aired).

@Franko Thank you for the promo and the song. Weird how I did not remember Cathryn Damon, even though I adored her on Soap, but I remembered Loretta Swit. Maybe this was before I watched Soap... As @Paul Raven said, what a killer cast. And how nice that it was all-women even in major roles behind the scenes. And they didn't have to fly up in a Jeff Bezos junker for ten minutes to show equality... NBC really was letting it all hang out in the late '70s and early '80s to try to get interest. Many times, it failed, but what fascinating failures - some of the most fascinating in TV history.

I remember when I was a kid, I was disturbed by some TV movie that was repeated on Lifetime. It had Loretta Swit, among others. Sorority sisters with a secret. I remember near the end or over the closing credits they were singing a song like "beta cappa chi."