DRW50

I can't do the 1992 right now but I have some, just let me know the dates.

Oh. For some reason I thought he died sometime in the winter, like early 1990. Oops. I have a few more 1988 recaps, if you want to see them.

Was Phillip (Bierdz) still on the show at this time? I get very confused as at times he seems irrelevant in a lot of the promos and such by this time.

I wonder if Jess had an eye problem.

Thanks for sharing that. I'd never seen that. It's too bad they didn't do more with that storyline, as it seemed to be one of less awful stories by then.

I thought they were very dour and overly earnest and got too much airtime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJfHXyM3Itw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1IB0CKTbIk

A 2/73 soap magazine mentions that OLTL's Herb Davis (Bert Kelley) was out for five weeks due to a mild heart attack. Earl Hyman replaced him.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/colbert-delights-in-cains-smoking-new-ad-video.php?ref=fpb And more Romney flops. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ijLYYhUYY24Sg6pgi9aNE6z0Oi7A?docId=4f63847f23d446d29173e58a3df46908

I don't know if there are any Dorothy Malone fans here but later I'm going to post an interview she did during her run on High Hopes.

Yet another issue that Mitt Romney is awkwardly, embarrassingly vague on. He's running for class president, apparently. http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/shows-a-lack-of-principle-conservatives-rail-against-romney-waffling-on-ohios-sb-5.php?ref=fpb

Last but definitely not least.

September 1978 Daytimers.

September 1979 Daytimers

For some reason I thought he was killed. You're probably right. What gets me in some of those is how quickly some cliche devices are thrown in at random, like Sunny's brain tumor, or Kathy's husband cheating on her because she worked long hours. Did that happen overnight? It's like they didn't know how to end stories.

What did you think of Peter Ratray as Scott? Was Scott killed oncamera or after he left town?

I wish we could see some of that. I know she was on ATWT too.

Thanks for all these pages. The stories really start to get bad around the time of Aja and so on. It becomes such a muddle. I'm not sure I believe Sunny would attempt suicide over Hogan.

I'm surprised at this. Susan Bower is leaving. http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2011/10/neighbours-executive-producer-resigns.html/comment-page-1#comment-290876

From a December 1986 SOD. John Kelly Genovese reviews the show. The vibrant opening of ONE LIFE TO LIVE promises a soap that goes where no soap has gone before. Closeups of the regulars are superimposed onto city scenes representing each character's milieu - the courhouse, the hospital, the diner, etc. The synthesized Dave Grusin theme pulsates, dictating the rhythm in which the title slides change. This is no hourglass standing in the middle of nowhere, filtering sands to the strains of a comforting string section. By and large, the cast of ONE LIFE TO LIVE lives up to the promise of its logo. Each character is unique and individual. Surely no heroine has the combined patrician elegance and straight-shooting business sense of Victoria Lord Buchanan (Erika Slezak). No bitch goddess can be as vulnerable and childlike one moment, then suddenly so fearsomely indomitable as Dorian Lord Callison (Robin Strasser). And few soaps can claim such an array of strong, believable male figures - from the rugged Clint Buchanan (Clint Ritchie) to the fair (but not square) lawyer Herb Callison (Anthony Call) to the idealistic Pete O'Neill (James O'Sullivan) to the dependable Dr. Larry Wolek (Michael Storm) to slimebucket-turned-antihero Brad Vernon (Steve Fletcher). Patriarch Asa Buchanan (Philip Carey)? Not always believable. But what fun! ONE LIFE is also perfectly centered. Most roads lead to the fragile, sometimes fiery relationship between Viki and Dorian, rooted in Dorian's manipulating of her deceased husband and Viki's father, the powerful Victor Lord. The current core families on ONE LIFE, the Texas Buchanans and the earthy O'Neills, play into, rather than detract from, the show's Lord roots. The problem which has plagued ONE LIFE TO LIVE for the past several years is its uneven, choppy plotting. Ideally, a soap should be a unit of integrated stories which grow, change course when necessary, and feed into one another over a long period of time. Short-term stories are not stories unto themselves, but events directly leading to an ensuing long-arc treatment. CHaracters are introduced with specific purposes, intended as essential cogs in the story wheel. For a while, ONE LIFE had rediscovered this ideal form of story telling in the riveting Viki/Niki split-personality sequencce. Although it twisted and turned Llanview history somewhat (was Victor Lord really such a monster?), it nonetheless served to unify characters via a natural catalyst: Viki's discovery that her viperous ward Tina (Andrea Evans) was her half-sister. Not to mention that it gave two-time Emmy winner Erika Slezak a long-overdue showcase. Here is an actress and a half. But such is not always the case on ONE LIFE TO LIVE. More often than not, it pounds its front-burner stories mercillessly into its viewers' consciousness. Anything not directly related to the main issue at hand is reduced to filler material; an excuse to give overplayed characters and overworked performers a breather. Worse, the substance of many of this show's recent stories has been almost laughable in their blatant manipulation of characters. As of this writing, the schemes of the nefarious ex-con Mitch Laurence (Roscoe Born) are paramount. Therefore, anyone touched upon by Laurence has his or her fair share of plot. Viki and Clint are involved, because Mitch swears revenge on them for his incarceration. Ditto Asa, because Laurence is blackmailing him with his knowledge that Tina's new husband, Cord Roberts (John Loprieno) is Clint's illegitimate son. The O'Neill family shares center stage with the Buchanans, particularly teen Joy O'Neill (Julie Ann Johnson). Joy, you see, has fallen under Mitch's spell now that he's heading a bogus religious cult. Forget that he killed the father she adored. The Laurence caper is, at best, an appalling excuse for a story. Would a man so hell-bent on conving the world he's Llanview's answer to Bishop Fulton Sheen resort to blackmail in the next breath? And how much more stupid can Joy Be. The believable, intelligent young girl of two years ago suddenly fell for hit man Chip Cooper (Cane DeVore), and is now worshipping her father's murderer. Some example for impressionable, school-aged viewers. The one saving grace has been the Tina/Cord marriage, which was deftly handled. Her genuine love for Cord, despite having wed him for the Buchanan bucks, has fleshed out Tina to the point where her vulnerability is as obvious as her calculated bitchyer. Indeed, she could be the young Dorian. But what of the other residents of Llanview? In some instances, what was frontpage news last year is shoved into a tiny box under the obituaries. Rafe Garretson (Ken Meeker) and Delila Buchanan (Shelly Burch) were part of a fascinating embryonic transplant story two years ago. Now they share an occasional scene, casually alluding to marriage. Cassie and Rob Coronal (Ava Haddad and Ted Marcoux), probably the most appealing young young couple this show has had in a decade, were allowed to split with nary a chance for reconciliation. Dorian is caught between Herb and hunky private-eye Jon Russell (John Martin) as a result of a dead-end story about a psycho. Didi (Barbara Treutelaar) got stuck playing a shrieking deprogrammer to sister Joy after hubby Bo was lost in the wilds of Vietnam. Pamela (Christine Jones), the pivotal figure in Asa's second bigamy story in five years, has no other purpose save hanging around Asa. And Larry Wolek'smajor love interest is, once again, Llanview Hospital. When all else fails on ONE LIFE TO LIVE, it resorts to the tried-and-true. The results of these forays into the past are usually nowhere nearly as satisfying as the Viki-Niki material. Mad scientist Ivan Kipling (Jack Betts), Bible-belt beauty queen Mimi King (Kristen Meadows), heroic fugitives Jenny and David Renaldi (Brynn Thayer and Michael Zaslow), and tenacious journalist Dan Wolek (an endless parade of young actors). were all brought back amidst great hoopla. Yet their stories all proved negligible, and all were disposed of quietly. Now Dan is back for the umpteenth time. So is actor Lee Patterson, who may or may not be playing Viki's presumed-dead husband, Joe Riley. Bets are he's really Bobby Ewing. The two groups that have the toughest time in Llanview are teenagers and Blacks. Youths are either misused (Joy), reduced in importance (Cassie), or simply allowed to ride off into the sunset when their stories go nowhere. Remember Julietta (Fabiana Udenio)? The story hubbub upon her introduction led everyone to believe she would become a Laura Spencer or a Hoope Brady in pesto sauce. Where is she now? This show's treatment of Blacks is especially disappointing. For a soap conceived to represent an ehtnic balance, ONE LIFE TO LIVE is taking a back seat to such previously whitewashed soapers as AS THE WORLD TURNS. The elctric triangle of Josh Hall (Guy Davis), Lisa (Laura Carrington) and Bobby Blue (Blair Underwood) fizzled when Underwood left the show. And the criminal doings of Lisa's father, Bart Baron (Lloyd Hollar) have been stop-gaps for so long, one easily forgets the premise of his so-called story. Where is the imagination? Where is the originality which made this show sparkle in the late 1960s and early '70s? Here was a show about real people from every conceivable arena of human existence. The privileged Lords were intermingled with professional-class Jews and Irish, who in turn grew up with working class Poles and Blacks. Every romantic story, psychological dilemma and crime sequence was rooted in how these groups related to one another...accepted one another. Where are those moments that were so real and simple...the deaths of Dave Siegel and Meredith Wolek; the crackling confrontation between Dorian and Victor prior to his stroke; the wrenching monologue of Pat Kendall after the death of her son Brian; the soul-bearing courtroom confession of Karen Wolek that she was a prostitute during her marriage to Larry? ONE LIFE TO LIFE has a fascinating history. Because of that history - not to mention a largely superb cast and beautiful productoin values - ONE LIFE also has potential. The directing by David Pressman, Peter Winer and Larry Auerbach is usually well paced. Dean Tschetter's sets are attractive, believable, rich in detail and true to character. Erika Slezak, Robin Strasser, Clint Ritchie, Phil Carey, and the much underrated Tony Call comprise an ever-energetic core, constantly displaying acting surprises usually not common to longtieme soap ensembles. And the show's cosmopolitan base in semi-fictional Llanview (semi in that it is equid-distant to Philaedlphia and Harrisbug, PA) is a breath of fresh air in what still seems to be a medium about small, sleepy towns. It is only when ONE LIFE TO LIVE rediscovers its former grasp on reality and satisfying interwoven stories, however, that it will live up to the promise of its riveting opening.

4/19/88 SOD, Chris Schemering reviews the show. If Oscar Wilde were writing soap operas today, the result might be something like SANTA BARBARA. With its colorful characters, farcical situations, and witty, epigrammatic dialogue, SB is a comedy of bad manners one moment, tragic melodrama the next. To give you an idea of its inspired nuttiness, in a single episode Gina Capwell - the real Wicked Witch of the West - poisoned Maon's Chinese dinner with lighter fluid, called Kelly a slut, and tried to set up Eden for murder by dressing up like her and pulling the plug on a comatose C.C. When Gina was kicked out of the Capwell mansion, she decided to leave with what she came with: nothing. So, in front of the entire family, she stripped off all her clothes and, in her birthday suit, slammed the door behind her. Along the way, Gina has made love with Mason in a racing ambulance, cooked hot dogs on a hibachi at C.C. and Sophia's outdoor wedding, and - baking "Mrs. Capwell Cookies" - deadpanned to Santana, who was supposedly allergic to flour, "Doesn't that get in the way of making tortillas?" This comedy of errors premiered July 30, 1984 and traced the lives and loves of four families: the powerful Capwells, the blue-blood Lockridges, the middle-class Perkinses, and the Andrades, a low-income Hispanic family. By the end of the first year, it was good-bye to the Perkins and Andrades (as well as a gaggle of insipid blonde beauties). Soon, nearly every pivotal characters had been recast. After many false starts, the show made its smartest move, employing actors who had made strong impressions on other shows: Jed Allan as C.C., Judith McConnell as Sophia, Robin Mattson as Gina, Justin Deas as Keith, Kristen Meadows as Victoria, Marj Dusay as Pamela, and Vincent Irizarry as Scott Clark. The joke in the industry soon became: Soap stars never die, they merely move to Santa Barbara. This terrific move has been undercut by the show's revolving door of new characters, who have been cavalierly written out before they - or the audience - could find their bearings. In the last year, we have bid adieu to Brian Bradford, Courtney Capwell, Hayley Benson Capwell, Grant Capwell, Lily Light, Paul Whitney, Jane Wilson, Caroline Wilson Lockridge, Alice Jackson, Gus Jackson, and Carmen Castillo. And why was the entire Lockridge clan - Minx, Lionel, Augusta, Warren, LakBrick - dismissed? Structurally, it left the show with only one core family - the Capwells - and no contrast. Secondly, it seemed downright self-destructive to get rid of Richard Eden 9Brick) after the actor's Emmy nomination, and the same applies to Nicolas Coster (Lionel), who received an Emmy nomination and the Soap Opera Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor. Thankfully, the Capwells are such a quirky, murky bunch of individuals that even when the show dumps so many melodramatic situations and pointless plots on their back door, they alternately keep us riveted with their resilience or in stitches with their furtive mischief. The powerful, sometimes bullying C.C., who has had three wives declared legally dead, has been finally blessed with an actor who can really cut the mustard. (And only Jed Allan could bring such sarcastic brio to a line like, "They ought to call my biography The Man Whose Wives Refused to Die.") Sophia is the actress of the family, self-dramatizing yet unpredictable. Ted (Todd McKee) is the Prince Valiant and Kelly (Robin Wright) is a sensual ingenue, whose lovers invariable end up pushing daisies. Eden (Marcy Walker) is the romantic lead, and her star-crossed romance with the Hispanic Cruz (A Martinez) is still probably daytime's most dynamic love story. The non-stop obstacles to their eventual clinch were often ridiculous (Cruz's espionage brain implant) and just plain mean (Eden thrown into a tank of sharks was nothing compared to her losing a baby she didn't even know she was carrying). But Walker and Martinez rise above the fray with all-out energy, humor and sexiness. A recurring theme is the outsider looking in - "ambivalent" characters who act as catalysts to move story and create tantalizing familial and romantic conflict for all. The first of these characters was Mason (the always superb Lane Davies), the black sheep of the Capwells, whose envious and cryptic nature provided the city with a one-man Greek chorus, commenting dryly on all the drawing-room intrigue. With Gina mellowing (well, almost,), the baton of naughtiness has been handed to her sleazeball, aide-de-camp, D.A. Keith Timmons. As played by Justin Deas, Keith is such a greedy sweaty little weasel, one can't help laughing at his antics. With daytime's best romance (Cruz and Eden), funniest couple (Gina and Keith), and one of its most potent triangles (Victoria/Mason/Julia), you'd think SB would be set up for the big time. But the show is inconsistent in the quality of its long-term stories, daily scripts, directing. (The Wednesday episodes are especially weak). There are too few core characters for an hour show, and far too many people are introduced and run out of town. Other technical credits are good. Unlike other Hollywood productions, the makeup on the men doesn't look like it was applied by Tammy Faye Bakker and the hairstyling doesn't make the women appear like Vannesa White clones of one another. And the MIAMI VICE--like scoring is urgent and stylish without being too overpowering. With the carefully planned and executed Elena Nikolas plot - which included and affected all the core characters - SB was at its prime. (And Sherilyn Wolter gave the kind of performance Emmys were invented for; complete with helmet haircut and huge white teeth, coupled with all the cold, calculating passion that would scare the heck out of anyone.) Again, it was an outsider, whose motivations soon became crystal clear, making the drama become more complex and compelling. The various parts of the story came together at Cruz's trial for her murder and the surprise testimony of Pamela Capwell Conrad, who everybody thought had jumped to her death off Manhattan's 59th Street Bridge. The November 3, 1987 episode, written by Patrick Mulcahey (Emmy-winning dialogue scribe for GL), was, simply put, the most thoughtful, witty, literate single episode of the year. From Pamela's poignant entrance into the courtroom assisted by both of her sons, to a sight gag of Gina wearing an ostentatious black veil, to Keith's comment about Pamela's sudden wealth ("I thought she left New YOrk without a pot to puree in.") to Julia finding Mason drunk ("I'm sorry, I can't help it if I'm drowning. It's genetic.") to the tragic finale in which Mason alternately taunts his father and laments his status as the untouchable, unloved of the family, SB's writing, directing and acting finally came together in a coherent and entertaining fashion. The mask of tragedy and comedy had melded quite nicely into one. Unfortunately one story line or episode does not a serial make. As the slimy Keith TImmons asked himself once, "Why can't the course of trickery and chicanery run more smoothly?"

Thanks. Well it sounds gripping, if very dark. I was wondering what did you think of David and the psychiatrist he was involved with, played by Marilyn McIntire. I don't know a lot about those characters. If there are any actors you'd like to see any articles on, please let me know, and I'll try to find some.

Harold was a hero!