DRW50

I'm sure it was a shock at the time, especially since he was one of the few actors on a regular show who kept working up to the point where such a change was noticeable. I think he denied it was AIDS until the end.

Kelly Menighan and Jon Hensley. Jon Hensley and Renee Props (with that split supposedly being why she left).

I just remember something where he took her to some award shows and it was said they were dating...not totally sure though.

Jacqueline Schultz and Larry Bryggman. Ben Jorgensen and Barbara Mandrell's daughter. Margaret Reed and Michael Swan were together for some of their ATWT run but had split up a few years before she left. I think PJ said Lisa Brown and Larry Brygmann were together when their characters were paired. Maura West and Scott DeFrietas.

Was Reinholt gone by this time? It seems like Tony was thrown at so many women, but not ever a solid story. I'm not sure if having Tony and Pat drowning in so much backstory was the best idea. I didn't know Marco was around at this point. Oh my. I have some 1976 scans if you want to see any.

Was Marland still at The Doctors at this time?

Knots Landing was a show which generally treated their main characters with some respect and dignity. They also rarely dabbled in blatant sensationalism. Linda wasn't a core character, but she was an important part of the show. To kill her off in a snuff porn manner, with the tasteless shot of blood running down her shoes (that was like something out of Serial Mom), was a big slap in the face. It told viewers to expect trash.

I wonder if this is why they were both abruptly fired from the show? I did not care for Sherri Alexander. She reminded me of Big Bird.

Some very nice Cord/Tina and Max/Gabrielle scenes in here I haven't seen on Youtube before (this was done during the brief time in late 1988 JdP announced he was leaving the show).

GH ad at about 20 minutes.

GH Christmas ad at the end of this clip.

I love the Megan/Andrew scenes in this SO MUCH. This is what I began watching soaps for.

I think that was Lucy Johnson. MADD didn't come in until fall 1996. I do remember how both ATWT and GL became cluttered with generic beefcake in 1996.

I typed out some of it as it was only a partial page and more difficult to scan. The last page was full page.

into my last month, I really did forget completely, from time to time. It no longer mattered. There were more urgent things, more exciting things, to think about than that old wound. And Bill perked up correspondingly. I suppose several weeks went by without a single quarrel. We didn't even argue when he told me, one Thursday at breakfast, that he had to fly to San Francisco on business over the weekend. "Short notice, Bill," I said. "is it something important?" "Well, sure, or I wouldn't leave you alone right now. Um - I'll tell you about it when it's settled. I hate to go, Bert. Did the doctor really say it might be any time now?" I smiled at his troubled face. "Really, I couldn't feel better. And if anything happens - even if I feel lonesome - I'll just call somebody to come over. Your sister Meta, maybe." "Well..." Bill said uncertainly. "Be sure you call Meta, honey." He kissed me quickly and hurried off. Such concern, I thought as I went about the morning routine. Such fatherly, husbandly concern. It was nice, though. Everything was nice, these days. The way the little house - and not so little, either, I thought proudly - shone and gleamed. All at once I began to laugh, realizing that I'd been talking busily out loud for the past five minutes. I would call Meta, I decided. Calm as you might be in the last few days, I guess you are never as calm as you think. I could use Meta's lovely face across the table, and her wonderful figure as an inspiration to get busy on my own the minute the baby was born. As it turned out, it was lucky I did call her, for the very next morning I woke up feeling queer, and by afternoon, sitting in the living room watching the desk clock, we decided it was time to call the doctor and get me to the Selby Flats Hospital. The next thing, I was fully awake and Meta was leaning over me, whispering, "Bert? Bert! It's the most wonderful boy!" Dimly I answered her smile, but I wasn't satisfied. The father, I thought hazily, ought to be the one...Then, behind Meta, I did see Bill, his eyes blazing with joy as he pushed her aside. But, even as I met his kiss, the small dissatisfaction remained. He should have been there all along. His should have been the first face I saw. Falling slowly, softly into sleep, the thought came with me. No matter what, Bill shouldn't have left me alone. I woke up to a sunshiny new world, a room full of flowers, and an indescribable feeling of calm, but eager, expectancy. I remembered the dissatisfaction, but I no longer felt it. Who cared? What mattered was that the baby was fine - the recollections of the last few hours were creeping back now and I remembered the doctor's voice in the delivery room, making a satisfied comment to the nurse. A perfect baby. Relief and gratitude flooded over me as, a little later, the nurse brought him in for feeding. In about twenty minutes, the nurse came back, took the sleeping baby, and left me a folded morning paper in his place. I was too drowsy to do more than glance at the front page. But after lunch I suddenly felt restless. How quickly one's strength came back! It was a miracle, really, the whole complex business... I sighed, fidgeted, and took up the paper. From habit I turned to the theatrical page, and followed with mild interest the activities I felt I ought to keep up with for Bill's sake. The television and radio news. I glanced down the column and was about to turn the page when my eye picked up the name of Bill's agency. And then I read the paragraph in which it appeared...and gasped, and read it again, and then sat, stunned and numb, while my mind took it in. Instinct forced me to breathe deeply, to relax. But long after my heart slowed down and my face lost its furious warmth, my thoughts went clicking along in a tight, angry rhythm. So that was it. So that was why he went to San Francisco - why he couldn't be here when his son was born. Once again she was dividing him from us... I took some trouble to be in good shape by the time Bill came in. I spent quite a time with a mirror and some make-up, because I'd learned long ago that a woman had to go into battle looking her best if she hoped to win. And this, I foresaw, was going to be quite a battle. Nothing could have been more disarming than Bill's dazed happiness, or the armful of magazines and candy and flowers he spilled lavishly on the bed. He kissed me, and then stood back and shook his head. "Gosh, it's a funny feeling. Isn't it? They let me look at him, through the nursery window. I saw him - he's real. Bert, honestly, can you believe it?" "Well, yes," I said. I folded my hands on the sheet. "I had him, remember? That makes it easier, when you've been right there with the event, as it were. Oh, thanks, for the flowers and candy and things." "Don't thank me, Bert. Don't thank me for anything. There's nothing I -" he hesitated. "Sounds corny. But oh, Bert, do you feel the way I do, that everything is different as of now? We're different. We'll be better. Stronger. Smarter, too. I feel as if I could get hold of the moon, if it would do you and the baby any good to have it. We're going to have everything, Bert, and do everything and be everything...just for him." I let him take my hand. For a minute I was really joined with him. He did love us. We were his family. No other feeling could ever be quite like that. Bill was ours. This other thing was outside, it didn't matter. But my hand stiffened of itself, and I drew it away. It did matter. I said quietly, "This is really your big weekend, isn't it? Two important events..." "Two?" He frowned, and then he stiffened, too. "I get it. You've seen the paper, I take it? You know. I was going to tell you, Bert, just as soon as I - but I couldn't find the right words. I had a feeling it would be hard to get you to understand." "But why?" I didn't feel angry, I wouldn't let myself. But my voice took on an edge that even I could hear, and it pleased me to see Bill wincing under it. "Why hard? Just because your agency has sold a program to an important sponsor? Just because it was you who sold it, who - gave birth to it, one might say? Just because it happens to be called The Woman Gloria, and happens to star a singer you thought you were in love with a few months ago? But it's nothing, Bill. Nothing at all. It hardly matters in the least that your own wife was so deluded she thought that woman was out of your life completely. Just explain it to me, I'll understand. I'll understand it was more important to go to San Francisco to sell this woman's show than to stay here when your baby was being born - to say nothing of your having anything to do with her at all, which I haven't words to say anything about..." Bill held his hand. "Oh, brother," he said. "Here we go again." I felt almost sorry for him. It was a hard spot to get out of. What could he say? The plain fact was that all the time I'd been foolishly congratulating myself on how well things were going, he'd been seeing that woman, working with her, planning this show and making her career an important part of his own...and I'd thought she was out of his life forever. The bitterness I'd believed dead came rushing back and engulfed me. I could feel it, all the old humiliation and horror. And all the time Bill talked...It was business. Nothing but business. Gloria was a good singer, she had a special quality, he'd suddenly thought of her when the client started looking for something new...The agency was aglow because it looked as if Bill had something big... "It could mean a vice-presidency for me, Bert. You'd like that? What different does it make how I get it, if I swear it's only business?" "Why did it have to be you who developed the show?" I said. He explained all over again that it had just happened, that Gloria's husband, a theatrical agent named Sid Harper, had talked to him about the possibility of doing something on TV just at the right time...that Sid was really responsible for building the show. "But they wouldn't have gotten the chance except for you." "But it's a chance for me, too. If the show goes over, and the client seems to be crazy about it, well, it could mean really big things for me. I couldn't kick that kind of chance in the face," Bill argued. "Bert, believe me, as far as I'm concerned, she and the show are a property, a - a piece of merchandise." There was a long silence in the hospital room, as I lay back, pretending to be exhausted but really very busy behind my closed eyelids. I did believe him; if I didn't, I'd be screaming my head off and didn't, I'd be screaming my head off and talking divorce, baby or no baby. So - why not give in, quit arguing? Things had been so nice, just these few weeks past, when we'd been friends - in my stupid innocence. Let us be friends again; why fight? I didn't feel friendly; I couldn't. That slow rebirth of tenderness, of reaching toward Bill as it had been in the early days of our marriage, that was nipped in the bud. But what was the use of fighting and yelling? Somehow, sooner or later, I'd figure out a way to get that woman and her program out of my life...somehow. But, in the meantime, I couldn't afford to waste energy in arguments. It was a truce. Warily at first, and then with slow relief, Bill saw that I wasn't going to rant and rave. It made all our dealings much pleasanter, of course, and my days at the hospital went by in dreamy, more or less contented preoccupation. There were only two flurries...one when I insisted on calling the baby Michael...the other when I asked for a television set in the room. Bill realized I wanted it so see just one show. But he had it set up, and I watched The Woman Gloria a couple of times. Program time coincided with one of Michael's feedings, so it got scant attention after my first look at it. I got a queer flash of satisfaction the evening Bill came in and saw Gloria yapping away on the screen, with me so busy with Michael I wasn't even glancing at her. "Glad you came in - you can turn that thing off," I said casually. "You don't want to see it? I mean -" Bill blushed, and snapped off the set quickly. I smiled secretly over Michael's dark fuzzy head. "When you've seen it once, you've seen it, haven't you? There's nothing earth-shaking to watch for. Besides, I can't bother with anything else when Michael's around." "Bert..." Bill hesitated. "Look, are you sure about the name? I mean - I'd sort of counted on his being Bill, Jr. Maybe Michael could be his middle name, if you like it so much." It was a plea, but I didn't let him see I knew. I had made up my mind. "No. I gave it plenty of thought, Bill. The night you were in San Francisco it sort of came to me." I almost believed it myself, it was such a just punishment for his not being with me when he should have been. "Michael, that's what I kept thinking that night. I had no one to talk it over with, so..." Bill flushed. "Punishing me, Bert, for something you agreed at the time I couldn't avoid? That's kind of petty, isn't it?" "You don't think I'd be petty about a thing as important as our child's name, the one he's going to carry for the rest of his life?" I glanced away from Bill's accusing eyes. They were saying altogether too clearly: Come off it, Bert, you know what you're doing. You know you're getting back at me, and it is petty, it is mean. The day I was allowed to leave the hospital came at last. I was terribly eager to get Michael into his own room and start making him at home there. Bill told me to call the office as soon as I knew exactly what time we'd be ready to leave, and he'd come pick us up, and Meta assured me she'd have everything ready. Bill and his secretary were both away from their desks when I called. Nurse Holt got us ready so early that there was nothing for me to do but hang around, a superfluous graduate mother, on that busy floor. Besides, there was the timing - I had to get home for Michael's next feeding or we'd be held up for hours. Anyway, there was plenty of reason for me just to get dressed, get the desk downstairs to call me a cab, and simply take Michael home myself. Plenty of good, honest reasons...except that, when Bill came storming into the house, later that afternoon, and I saw the glare of incredulous fury he gave me, I felt a stab of satisfaction that told me plainer than words what me real reason had been. A touch of shame went with it, when I realized how hurt Bill was...but I was being hurt all along, wasn't I, as long as that program was flaunted at me every evening? "Sh-you'll wake Mike," I whispered. "Wake Mike! I'll tear the place down," Bill said, but caught himself in the act of slamming the door and closed it quietly. "Where is he? Can I go up? Bert, I just don't get you. How could you - never mind, I want to see my son first." He was up there so long I almost went after him, but I decided to wait and give him time to calm down. He strode in after a while and made himself a drink without offering me one, and only after he had done away with half of it did he trust himself to speak. "Of all the rotten tricks, Bert. I wouldn't have thought it even of you." He spoke quietly, but the glass was shaking in his hand. Again I felt a vague shame, but my own sense of what was right stiffened me. "It wasn't a trick, if you mean my coming home alone - " "You knew what it meant to me. You know how I've been waiting all week long, planning just how it would be - how I'd roll out the red carpet, how I'd go with trumpets and drums to escort my family home. My family." Bitterness edged his voice. "How would you cheat me like this? It'll never come again, this one moment - and now I haven't had it. I haven't brought my son home." "Well, I did call, Bill. But you weren't there, and it was getting sort of late, and really can you tell me what point there was in my hanging around - " "Don't give me that, it makes me sick," Bill flung at me. "Excuses, double-talk, treating me like a fifth wheel. What goes on, anyway? And let me tell you another thing. I don't like this stuff about sh-sh, you'll wake the baby. If you think I'm going to put myself on a schedule and wait around to see my son as if I were one of the peasants getting his annual chance to see the squire, you're crazy. By golly he's my son, and he's going to be part of my life and I'm going to be a darn great big part of his, and if you think - " "What have you got to complain about, Bill Bauer? After all, all I've got is this house and my baby to keep my life exciting. Aren't you being a little bit selfish to want to cut me out? After all, you've got plenty of important things to keep busy with. All your work at the agency, all those big deals with television shows and important clients..." There was a pause. Bill stared down into his glass, finished it off, and slapped it down on a table. Silently I picked it up and polished away with my handkerchief the damp ring it left. After a while he said very quietly, "So that's it. I was fooling myself all along. i knew it. You were never big enough to mean what you said - " "What I said? What did I say?" I challenged him. "Did I ever say I could just put it out of my mind, all this stuff with that woman? Do you think any woman could? You're not that dumb, Bill, not even you. How would you feel if there were some man who'd wanted to marry me, and I still kept him hanging around?..." "Let's not go into it, Bert, huh?" The anger had quieted. Bill seemed more thoughtful now than anything else. He was turning something over in his mind. Into the silence, Meta's voice came from the kitchen, saying, unemotionally, "Dinner is served, if anyone cares." Everything considered, it was a pleasant dinner in the end. Bill's effort to put aside his anger was so evident that I felt it would be smart of me to meet him halfway. There was Meta to consider, too; she was hardly a stranger, but still you don't want a third party in on all your quarrels. And then, anyway, there was Michael. His tiny presence sleeping away upstairs made everything else trivial. Both Bill and I relaxed, as the evening went on, in making plans for him, in wondering what he'd be like, in sneaking up to peer in at him, marveling. I felt so good when we went to bed that I handsomely offered to let Bill give him a nickname, since he disliked the name Michael. "It's not that I dislike it, it's just that I wanted - oh, well, never mind that. Let's see. What did that nurse use to call him? Butch. I like that pretty well." Butch. If that wasn't just like a man. Still...it was a small concession. I'd keep calling him Michael, and Bill could have Butch for his own. Yes, things settled down. For the next few days, apart from Bill's rather frowning thoughtfulness, the Bauer house was everything a new infant's home ought to be, complete with doting aunt in the shape of Meta...But I knew Bill was as conscious as I that there was an open question still unsettled. I didn't know, yet, what I could do about it, but while that show went on, and while Bill was such a big factor in it, I just couldn't relax and act happy about everything. One afternoon Bill came home early, went up to look at Michael - he always called it "playing with Butch," though, of course, the baby was too young to be played with, really - and came down again with an expression of such obvious determination that I simply stopped preparing dinner and said, "Well, come on, let's have it. I can see there's something on your mind." Bill cleared his throat. "I don't like to bring it up, but one of us has to - " "If it's about Gloria - person me, I mean The Woman Gloria, as on television - don't spare my feelings, Bill. You don't think it's far from my mind whether or not I talk about it, I hope." "That's just it," Bill said. He opened the icebox, peered into it, and closed it again without getting interested in any of its contents. "I had to do something, Bert. The strain was just getting too much for me. So I - well, I've been working something out at the office and I think I've put it over. It looks pretty set that Gloria's program may go network very shortly." I eyed him. "Well? Do you want me to write her a letter of congratulation?" He flushed. "Please, Bert. I'm trying to explain that I've done something for you, to make you more - more - well, anyway, the point is, if it does, it'll probably mean everyone on the show goes to New York, and the show will come from there." "Oh, Bill!" I turned away, to hide the sudden quivering of my lips. I suppose it was the measure of how far apart we'd come that I wouldn't let my husband see me crying, but something stiff and unyielding inside me kept me from showing him any softness. "That would be fine with me," I said. I added firmly, "It'll be best for everyone. You'll see - especially for you." "It makes no different to me if it comes from New Zealand," Bill snapped. "Only I can't go on the way we've been, Bert. You're all tied up with Butch, never any time for me - sleeping in his room on that cot -" "It's because I don't want to disturb you when I get up to feed him at night, I told you that." "And I don't believe you. Why, even Meta's more part of this family than I am. Do you realize that? Anytime I sneak in to see my son I get dirty looks from the two of you as if I were going in to cast an evil spell -" He stopped, drew a deep breath, and went on, "Enough of that. I get the message. Things aren't going to be right around here until I shed this TV show. So okay. Bert..." He came over and forced me to look at him. "Do you see now that I'll do - anything I can to keep everything right for us? Do you believe me?" With Bill's serious blue eyes so close, and his thin, worried face almost touching mine, I couldn't remain cold. I put my hand against his cheek, and the warmth of the gesture startled both of us. To me it was like an electric shock, for even as I touched his face it came to me how dreadfully long it had been since I had shown Bill any tenderness, or allowed him to be sweet to me. And yet I loved him; I still loved him, and I didn't really want to make him as unhappy as he'd been...I slipped my arms round his neck and kissed him. Bill and I were coming so dangerously close to having nothing, together...it musn't go that far. He rubbed his cheek against mine, and sighed. "Oh, Bert. Let's try to be happy. We have so much."

Do you think if they hadn't put them together, Paul might have been written out? It seems like SOD and Doug Davidson both talked about how little he had to do in the early 90's.

Did you like the writing for Cricket once she got together with Paul?

Sorry about the bad scan.

My favorite was always the abusive relationship where she kneed Woody Brown in the balls. I guess that isn't on Youtube.

him. Looking back over his young life, I remembered the time when I opened my apartment door in New York to find his forlorn little figure, tense with fear and antagonism, waiting anxiously to see if he could find shelter with me. Hearing and seeing what he wasn't supposed to, and not comprehending what he did hear and see, were at the root of the fear-ridden trip he had just made to me from Barrowsville. Beanie had a fear, common to many children - the fear of being an unwanted child whose mother consequently doesn't love him. The basis for this fear was very real in Beanie's mind, for he had heard Charlie, his father, his father, and Meg, his mother, quarreling about the way he was being brought up. Charlie was blaming Beanie's faults on Meg, forgetting in the heat of anger that, as Beanie's father, he was as responsible as Meg. Meg, lashing back at Charlie in unbridled emotion, had screamed that she had never wanted a child anyway. In the white heat of temper, Meg had, with her own lips, voiced the fears which Beanie secretly harbored. No wonder he had taken his mother at her word (words which she really didn't mean) and had come running to me for comfort! While Meg was on her way to get Beanie, I tried to make Beanie see that he was not the cause of the discord between his parents. I discovered that he heard them arguing frequently, often mentioning his name, and he had begun to believe he must be doing something very wrong which made them both unhappy and angry. Then, hard on the heels of this experience, Beanie found himself the object of scorn both at home and at the school, through no fault of his own. Meg became the defendant in a murder trial because of an indiscreet meeting with attractive Miles Pardee when Charlie was away. Meg had witnessed the killing of Pardee. Because she was the last person to see him alive she was accused, tried and convicted on circumstantial evidence. The fact of her complete exoneration and legal acquittal later could not erase altogether the wounds of the whole tragedy - the scars of which Beanie will probably always carry on his soul. In my ignorance and innocence I thought the best place for Beanie would be with my father and mother. What I didn't know, and probably wouldn't have admitted if I had thought about it, was that my father does not approve of Meg. To Dad, a human being is either all good or wholly bad and he could only see bad in his daughter Meg. To Beanie, he transferred all his pent-up anger at the situation Meg now found herself in. It was the same situation I had seen so many times in so many homes where the child is left defenseless because one of the parents takes out anger, really felt toward the partner, on the child. At school, indignities were heaped upon a child who already, at home, had almost more than any little human should be asked to take. The other children, hearing scraps of conversations about the sensational Dales through their parents, began to taunt Beanie, ridicule him. Beanie struck back the only way he knew - with his fists. With all the strength of an eight-year-old, Beanie fought the bullies who had taunted him the most. He had to defend his mother for, in attacking her, they were also attacking him. At this point, what Beanie needed from his grandfather was understanding. What he got was punishment for having torn his clothes and dirtied his face. Dad in his stern and righteous code of ethics had no patience, no tolerance for wrong-doing and he felt it was right for his grandson to bear the burden of Meg's mistakes and, if bearing up under his classmates' taunts was part of that burden, then so be it. All of this, coming to a head, was what was speeding me on my way from New York to Barrowsville. The school principal had thought it might be a good thing to remove Beanie from the school for his own sake. Dad was willing for him to leave, too. I think everyone concerned felt that if Beanie were put in another school, far, far away from the scandal of the past few months, he would automatically be all right. In my heart of hearts, I could not feel this was so. To me, one of life's principles is that, if you fight through and win, you will be a better person for having stood your ground. When I arrived at Dad's home and saw the draw, haunted look upon Beanie's face, I almost weakened. For a few minutes I felt the cruelty foisted upon Beanie was something he should not be asked to take, but then I talked to him. Beanie told me that, until this time, this school had been the one place where he had been happy, and that among the children he had some friends whom he liked a lot. Knowing this, I explained how I felt about his standing his ground and fighting it out, not necessarily with his fists, but with his whole spirit. Dad and the principal at last agreed to try, for Beanie's sake, once more. I almost regretted interfering within a week. One of the boys taunted Beanie by drawing a picture on the ground with his pocket knife, showing a woman shooting a man. Beanie knew the boy meant his mother and Miles Pardee. With coolness which would have done justice to an older man, Beanie took the knife from the boy and threw it away. That night the boy and his father came to my dad and said Beanie had tried to kill the boy by threatening him with the knife. It was at this point, I was proven right. For once, Dad stood firmly on Beanie's side. Unceremoniously, he put the boy and his father out of the house. In that moment, Dad and Beanie had learned their first lesson in living together. My father had learned simply to trust Beanie. Beanie had learned that, instead of running away as he had once run to me in New York, he had the power within him to stand up for what is right and solve his problem. I wish I could say that Beanie's difficulties were over. But isn't the process of growing up actually the meeting of difficulties and overcoming them in ever more efficient ways? We Dales seem born to get ourselves out of one dilemma and into another - especially my sister Meg, who in this case also happens to be Beanie's mother. I only know that Beanie will never lack for love and understand - will never lack for love and understanding and it will come from his mother ultimately. Every child needs at least one person who stands solid as a rock to protect him and give him the unwavering love and comfort he must have. It should be his mother, and eventually Beanie will find that it will be. In the meantime, I shall do everything in my power to establish a fine relationship between Beanie and Meg. It's a job I'm proud to accept. I have always known that Beanie is not a problem child - only a child with a problem - which is always a heartbreak child.