DRW50

I wonder if it was a network mandate, not to have him actually raped, especially since he was probably their main younger leading man, wasn't he?

Thanks for reading it and commenting. That's why I enjoy posting these. I'd totally forgotten she was headwriter at AW, and I think that was during a sluggish period for the show. It sounds like she fit GL better, although I'm not sure what happened with her after Culliton and Long came in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M81JKYlIeXw

both...the one named Ellen Demming Thompson - Mrs. Hal Thompson - who lives and laughs with her in their own charming home...and the one called Meta Bauer Roberts - Mrs. Joe Roberts - who lives in that big cabinet in the corner of the Thompson living room. Ellen Demming herself feels as if she had lived on a television screen for a good portion of her life, because she was in TV in the early experimental days (on Station WRGB) in Schenectady, New York, the town in which she was born and brought up. Meta Roberts, in The Guiding Light, is the first continuing dramatic role she has ever played. Ellen admires the woman she portrays, grows more interested in her every day. She thinks the cast and all who work with her are tops. "Although most of them were already on the program when I joined it, they never treated me as a newcomer," she says. "They made me one of them, right from the beginning. Ted Corday, the director, was wonderful - kind and patient. What extraordinary patience that man has with everyone! The producer, David Lesan, couldn't be finer to work with. And the cast - well, they're all just swell. That goes for the crew, too. You never saw a nicer set of people." Ellen is a fairly tall girl - five feet seven - with a good figure and a tiny waist. Her brown hair is touched with gold lights, her hazel eyes are set wide apart and have a soft and velvety quality, like her voice. That distinctive, low-pitched voice, now so familiar to listeners, is her natural one, except that the microphone seems to emphasize its throatiness and the soft drawl. Many persons ask her what part of the South she hails from, and they can hardly believe she's an up-state New Yorker and that it's her husband, Hal, who hails from Georgia. Hal was an actor when he and Ellen met, as co-stars in the Green Hills summer theatre at Reading, Pennyslvania. It was Ellen's fourth season of summer stock, most of it on the New England coast, and Hal's first. "Claudia" was the play that brought them together, and they've been very fond of the girl in the title ever since. The year was 1946. Hal had come out of the Army, which he entered from college and in which he served five years. Theatre interested him, and he did some night-club emceeing, then took the acting job as a means of learning what went on behind the scenes of show business. Ellen, of course, had been a professional actress since those early television days. She had gone to Stephens College, in Missouri, to continue her study under the famous actress, Maude Adams, who was then the head of the drama department there. She had served a summer apprenticeship at the Mohawk Drama Festival during Charles Coburn's last season there. And she had a season with the Clare Tree Major Children's Theatre, a touring group of talented young actors which was led by Mrs. Major. "I was twenty the summer I was with Mrs. Major and it was a thrilling year. She made me company manager - which amazed me - and which meant I did a little of everything, from managing the company and acting to hoisting scenery and driving the truck." Both Miss Adams and Mrs. Major had wanted her to change her name from Ellen Weber (she had already dropped her first name, Betty, and was using only her middle name, Ellen). Demming was her great-grandmother's name and both women thought it would look better on a theatre program. Ellen's name on special interest because of something that happened right after Hal met her and began to think seriously of marriage - which seems to have been not later than five minutes after they were introduced! Almost immediately, he began to speak of her a great deal to his family, and his mother asked if Ellen Demming was a stage name or her real one. "I had to admit that I didn't know," Hal says, and he laughs as he remembers his own confusion. "I could only say, 'Well, that's her name, the only one I know.' It had happened so fast to both of us. Ellen assumed I knew all about her, I guess, and I knew that what I already knew was enough to make me know that she was the only girl for me." It had happened fast. In six weeks, Ellen and Hal were formally engaged. Then they begged off for the rest of the stock-company season so they could meet each other's families and plan a wedding in New York, where they were married on September 14, 1946. It was a lovely wedding, and everything went beautifully, except that they had no apartment. It was the time of the most acute housing shortage, and they had to settle for a heatless, cold-water flat in the Hell's Kitchen section of New York City. They shared a bathroom with other tenants. Hal's first birthday present to his bride was a portable canvas bathtub. Fortunately, by the time Erica was born, the Thompsons had settled down in the charming apartment in which they presently live, in one of New York's big garden developments, where there is a playground, and a sandbox for Erica to dig in, a pool for splashing about on hot days, and lots of grass and trees. Perhaps because they waited so long for it, their present home has a rather special feeling of comfortable living, of quiet and of peace. The living-room walls are a soft shade of deep green, restful and cool. Ellen designed the stunning high cabinet and shelves which dominate one wall, and Hal made it to her specifications, with the help of their friend Peter Birch, painting the wood to match the wall. A deep sofa, in gold-colored fabric, faces the television set, on which stands a glazed jardiniere with big white leaves forming a huge bouquet against the background of green wall. There are comfortable chairs and convenient tables. The rugs are beige cotton pile. Lamps and ornaments make color notes here and there. The adjoining dining portion forms an L to the living room and is furnished with dark green wrought-iron table and chairs. Their home is a restful background for two busy grownups and one extremely busy little girl who has to keep up with all her picture books, besides taking care of her extensive family of dolls, and still find time for all her little playmates. Part of Erica's summer is being spent on a side live - and there will be a visit to Ellen's family in Schenectady. "If I didn't have such a fine maid, who loves Erica, I couldn't possibly leave her as I do for rehearsals and broadcasts," Ellen explains, looking serious. "But I do think that it's a good idea for every wife and mother to have some outside interests. I just happened to be an actress who wanted to continue my work, but if I wasn't doing that I would try to find something else which would be stimulating and bring me home to my family with more to give than when I left. It wouldn't have to be paid work. It could be community work, following a hobby, or promoting a cause that does good." Actually, Erica gets little chance to miss her mother, because there are so many hours when they can be together, Ellen's are mid-day programs and she is home quite early. She and Hal have most of their evenings free, except when she does something special, like a dramatic television show at night. She was doing an ingenue role on the Robert Montgomery program when she got her chance to play Meta Roberts - and almost missed it. Jan Miner had recommended Ellen to both the producer and the director of The Guiding Light, but it was generally felt that Ellen felt that Ellen looked too young for the part. "I don't know whether any of the powers-that-be on Guiding Light saw me that Monday night doing an ingenue role on the Montgomery television show, but I hoped they wouldn't. I was supposed to look young and I had worn my hair down, very girlishly. It was the day after that telecast that I was supposed to read for the role of Meta. "What a transformation I tried to make! I slicked my hair up, under my most sophisticated hat, and chose a tailored suit, and did a complete turnabout from the ingenues I'd been playing. I got the part. "Each day I feel closer to Meta. I think that now I look more mature when I'm playing her, because I think of her as an emotionally mature woman, secure in her overcoming of many difficulties. I admire her, knowing that another woman less strong than she might have grown more frivolous and unstable during the period when she was going through such grave ordeals. I have been proud of the poise she has gained, and of her her ability now to help others who are confused and unhappy. Like her step-daughter, Kathy, for instance, for whom she has such tenderness and compassion." How interesting and real Meta is to other women, as well as to Ellen, is frequently demonstrated by incidents like a recent one. Ellen was shopping at her neighborhood grocery and a woman recognized her. "You're Meta," she said. "On Guiding Light." Her face brightened. "It's wonderful to bump into you today of all days, because I had to miss the program and I have wondered what happened." Ellen filled in the day's events, and that led to a discussion of Kathy and her problems. "You know," the woman told Ellen, "I have a mixed-up daughter myself, so much like Kathy, and it helps me greatly to see how you help Kathy. It makes me understand my own child better, and I am really grateful to you." Hal Thompson is apt to smile a little indulgently at the diversity of names by which his wife has been known. He puts it this way: "When the telephone rings, and I answer it, and it's for my wife, I can always tell from exactly which part of her life the caller comes. IF a voice asks for Betty, then I know it's someone from home, or at least from her early days in Schenectady. If someone asks for Ellen, then the call is from the theatre or New York portion of her life. An d if they say, 'Mr. Demming (instead of Mr. Thompson!), may I speak to your wife?' well, then I know it's probably someone from radio or TV." As the husband of Betty Weber - Ellen Demming - Meta Roberts, he's more than satisfied. Erica may have two wonderful mothers. Hal Thompson has three wonderful wives, and he loves them all.

mother said no, Cook would see that we got them, just to see our faces light up. She probably thought a few cookies more or less didn't matter, and she wanted us to be happy. "All of these things came flooding back into my memory when I began to create the character of Hannah. So she is very real. A wonderful person. Someone you can love, and admire." As Mrs. Norris, on another daytime radio serial, When A Girl Marries, Miss Darvas must make herself into a completely different type of woman. "Mrs. Norris is a cultured older woman, well bred and well educated, in contrast to Hannah's lack of formal education and of polish. Remember how, in Hilltop House, Hannah must ask a child to help her when she has to write a letter, because her spelling is so uncertain? Mrs. Norris, of course, has no such problems, but the two women have one thing in common. It's a kind of goodness, although each expresses it quite differently. A need to be helpful to those in trouble. And it is interesting to see how it is expressed by two such contrasting types of women. It makes them both so challenging to play." Watching Miss Darvas talk about these women, with whom she has such a deep sympathy that she can portray them with a rare understanding her own warmth and her interest in everything that goes on around her are apparent. She is an intense woman, with reddish-blonde hair and hazel-green eyes, and every inch the actress. Mature, yet youthful, simply dressed but with the chic of the Continental woman who has traveled all over the world and knows how to choose and modify the fashions that best suit her. Yet she is a woman who loves home and perhaps appreciates it more than other women do, because it was long denied her. "I have been in the theatre since I was sixteen," she reminds you, "and only after I arrived in New York, in 1938, did I at last have a real home. Other women may dream all their lives of living in apartments and giving up home responsibilities as families grow up and conditions change, but I dreamed always of settling down somewhere with my beloved possessions around me, creating my own kind of home." Her European career as an actress, begun in her home city of Budapest against the wishes of her family, had been fostered by Max Reinhardt, who starred the lovely and talented young actress in his famous theatrical productions in Berlin and Vienna and the other great cities of Europe. Playwrights created some of their best works for her - among them Ferenc Molnar, whom she later married and who died a year ago. Lili fled from Vienna, where she was appearing in a play, when Hitler's armies began their march. After her arrival in America, Lili appeared on Broadway in Maurice Evans' production of "Hamlet," in the George Kaufman-Edna Ferber play, "Bravo," and in many others. Work on the American stage and in radio and TV at last allowed Lili to have the home she always wanted. The living room of her apartment reveals her passion for fine old things, all the reminders of the life that used to be. Contrasted with these is her bedroom, thoroughly twentieth-century modern in furnishings. Nostalgia for the old is only one side of her nature. The other side is an attempt to live in the present, enjoying today's things today. The dining portion of her living room has a table, the pedestal of which is a desk from her childhood home. The chairs are fine examples of Biedermeyer, of a richly dark old Hungarian wood. The same wood forms the frame of a fine old sofa, upholstered in dark green. An antique tall clock, little tables, chairs, lamps and ornaments are from her old European home or were collected in her travels. The predominating color note is green, in a deep, restful shade. The bedroom is all light color, even the wood of the furniture. A modern bed is recessed between two tall wardrobes which flank it on each side. Dressing table, chests, chairs and stools and lamps are all strictly America 1953. So is the compact little kitchen. Strictly America 1953 are the housekeeping problems, also. Like all women who have interests outside the home - and one doesn't have to be an actress, of course, for this - Miss Darvas has had to learn to apportion her time and energy to handle both jobs as well as possible. "I am a very orderly person by nature," she explains. "I would like everything to be completely tidy. I dream of being a perfect housewife. My two regular programs, Hilltop House and When A Girl Marries, take just so much of my time and I can plan the rest. I know what I can do at home, and what must be left undone. But then I get a television role, or a play, and the schedule is all off. If it's a role on a TV drama, there are rehearsals and costume fittings, and lines to be studied. There are always such roles - on Hallmark Theatre, Studio One, the Robert Montgomery show, Lux Video Theatre, Kraft Television Theatre, and many others. They are wonderful opportunities, but it is demanding of time. Somewhere in my day, I have made the time to do recordings for Free Europe, to be beamed to the Iron Curtain countries where freedom is at the moment only a word. This, of course, I feel is a precious privilege. "Yet I know my home is always there, waiting for me. That is the big thing. Then such matters as not finding the time to order the new vacuum cleaner, with the old one practically falling apart, do not seem too important. A lull will finally come, and then we will work like mad getting the house just the way we want it. I can take time to cook a little, and I can enjoy being a housewife." The Darvas household now consists of the maid, who has been there for ten years and learned her cooking from Lili's mother - which makes her a very good cook. And a friendly taffy-colored cocker spaniel whom they call Mommie, "in view of her motherly - almost grandmotherly - demeanor after thirteen years." Mommie has grown quite deaf, but she is a sweet old girl. Lili's first radio audition is something she will never forget. It was for the role of Mme. Sophie in a dramatic serial, We Love And Learn. On the day I auditioned, I had a bad cold. I wasn't feeling well, I was hoarse and uncomfortable, and I felt I had done a poor job of reading. I was holding back the tears when I left the microphone, sort of mumbling to myself about how awful I had been. A group of people were standing near the door, and one man asked me what was so awful, having overheard my self-recrimination. 'Oh,' I said, 'It's my cold. This awful cold.' "'You had better hold on to it,' he answered, and I wondered what he meant. I went out and made for the nearest shop and brought myself a new dress to raise my spirits, an old trick of us women when we are unhappy. When I got home my maid told me the phone had been ringing for me, and I later found that the caller wanted to know how soon I would be free to take over the role of Mme. Sophie. 'And please hang on to that cold.' I was told, 'Your voice sounded just right.' Of course my happiness at this turn of events completely cured my cold. But my voice must have been all right - with cold or without - because I played Mme. Sophie for about a year and a half, which was the length of time the program remained on the air. I was very fond of her. "I am fond of all the people I do on radio. I could not play them, day after day, if I did not believe in them. Mrs. Norris, in When A Girl Marries, is like many women I have known and admired. Hannah, the Lovely Hungarian cook in Hilltop House, is someone I have loved very much. Playing them has enriched my life, and that is what working should do for a woman."

August 1953 Radio TV Mirror.

August 1953 Radio TV Mirror

Thanks for reminding us. It's funny, as much as I miss ATWT and GL, I don't think I ever miss a soap the way I miss AW.

Heather loses her baby. They should bring this child back to torment Leatherface. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlmlcWEe6cY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN57HtX0Ops&feature=autoplay&list=ULny82BlA2FdI&playnext=1

August 1982 Daytimers

Not to be rude, but it's hard to imagine they looked less sexy than this group.

I think this story is a real insight into what a Romney Presidency will be like. Romney's campaign hired an openly gay man as a foreign policy spokesman, one who was highly prized on the right, due to his work with conservative icons like John Bolton. This briefly got some positive press, and the usual, "Look out Obama, this just proves Romney's so much better than you are!" In no time at all, anger towards this man for being gay, and for supporting gay marriage, hit the social conservative press, with even National Review, which is passed off as "intelligent" or "sensible" conservatism, joining in, claiming that since he supported gay marriage, he would in no time at all desert the campaign to support Obama.. The Romney campaign went on to essentially muzzle this man, in a week which was full of big foreign policy news. He essentially had to sit in on conference calls, not allowed to say a word. Finally, he quit. Some will say that he was forced out by the left because of very sexist comments he made about Hillary, Calista Gingrich, and Rachel Maddow, among others, but since when does anyone on the right care about that? Ted Nugent said far worse, and Romney didn't care. So the far right will dictate that Romney cannot have an openly gay person working for him, and Romney will be too frightened to say a word in disagreement. He will instead weasel until this spokesman, having zero role other than being degraded, quits. As Andrew Sullivan says, this means that most likely, he will be more anti-gay as President than Bush was. Everyone loves to talk about how times moves forward, but in many cases, it is hurtling further and further backward. http://www.washingto...cGcuT_blog.html http://andrewsulliva...rter-asked.html

There are about 7 clips. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8JIYDfEWAU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDx958ghUeY&feature=channel&list=UL

Doug Davidson is wonderful in this long, slow scene. Imagine if Y&R wrote for him instead of comatose Nichols and Braeden and bored smirkers like Miller. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTeZUOZy0Ss&feature=autoplay&list=ULdyiJofS3EFY&playnext=1

I could see Susan Haskell as Lily. Neurotic princess.

According to SOD, Y&R insiders were sure that Diego Serrano (ex-Diego) was going to be cast as Dante on B&B. (The role went to Antonio Sabato Jr).

This is a Daily TV Serials look at the controversial prison rape story.

This is from a January 1995 Digest

The show always sounds like a mixed bag, but the Slesar material is what I most want to see, especially the Jingles the Clown storyline.

Thanks! How long does that usually stay up?

That sucks I still went to the EON page. It was where I learned so much about the show, years before I watched an episode. I remember trying my best on dial up to watch a few of the clips and listen to some of the audio. I loved the character biographies, especially the sections like "ten best villainesses." And all the synopses are gone now too. That's just awful. I have gotten some people hooked on the show lately and went to the site a lot to look up dates and details. What a waste.

December 1969 Hollywood Screen Parade

I think Katherine, Maxwell Caulfield, and PodFallon were the biggest mistakes, although the biggest issue may have just been bad timing, since these were stories people had tired of on Dynasty. It's still amazing that Stephanie Beacham was cast and was so phenomenal right out of the gate.

I never did get around to watching most of it, perhaps because of some dud casting in key roles like Katharine Ross. I think they would have been better off not being tied to Dynasty at all.