DRW50

It's pretty crazy sometimes how you can find so little beyond Althea/Nick/Mike/Maggie/Carolee/Steve. You would think that's when the show began. I have some other dribs and drabs like a few names. They may already be known or in Schemering's book. I can't remember. Anyway I'll post them when I find them again.

Thanks for finding all of this. You always have such info. Nick Savian is in the photo above with Matt, but that doesn't help much.

I always thought they gave them Meg as a reason to not tie Greg down with a child. I wish they hadn't done that - Meg still could have spent a lot of time being raised by nannies, and her presence would have given Greg story and added to his stories. Does Paige want to be a mother this early on? Will Claudia see Meg as a threat to her empire? Will Greg use Meg to replace Mary Catherine? And so on. I forgot that Greg/Anne were still married then. Some of that was good but it saddened me that he had so little respect for her - but then, no one did. Looking back, I can see that the show did try to give Greg and Paige other love interests even though they were supposedly fated to be together, but it seemed like they gave up on this after a while, especially with Paige. I would have rather seen the show end with Greg/Abby and with Paige deciding to be on her own.

To me Lillimae was just a weak character and the only reason she worked was Julie Harris and the initial concept of the character. I would have liked her more if she were a grifter who brought out mixed emotions in everyone and played on those emotions. That's basically what she was in her first appearance. When she came back and they tried to make her more sympathetic and treated her as a mother to Val, I had little patience for her. She was never a mother to Valene for most of Valene's life, and I think it should have stayed that way. All the clucking and the "cute" advice was badly fitted with her self-righteous tirades and judgmental attitude. During times like the reaction to Gary cheating with Abby I wondered if she really thought she was helping Val at all. Lillimae seemed to work best when she had stories about men who seem nice, take advantage of her, and go insane. That worked well with Chip and especially with Joshua. But you can't do that again and again. I would have kept her on recurring, not written her out entirely, but honestly, I understood why they got rid of her. And I think, ideally, it should have been a moment of catharsis for Valene. Saying goodbye to this fantasy she had tried to cling to, as she clung to the fantasy of her dream man Gary. Instead, Valene became a huge victim, and incredibly pathetic, not to mention irrelevant. I never knew she vetoed that. I actually do think that Mack wouldn't have cheated on Karen, but there are other stories which could have been told. I just don't think they knew how to write for Mack. The story with his adopting Jason was a nice story that came after 3 years of DIRTY COP!! and childish behavior and meddling and obsessiveness and so on, with little of the humor and the quiet moments that I had loved in Mack's early years. The homeless plot was pure hell, especially her annoying sidekick. The only good scene was the one where she had a department store put makeup on her. Other than that I didn't think her stories were too bad, just because I think the slinkiness and immaturity were a good contrast to Paige. What were Anne's last stories? I barely paid attention to anything with Anne, Claudia, that boring as hell slab of beef from Italy, and the boring British woman, Vanessa? I had a tough time watching anything with Claudia after how they destroyed her in late season 12/early season 13.

If it had been up to me, I would have written out Michael (who, although he grew up to be handsome and not a bad actor, had little to do other than be cuckolded by Linda, who still would have worked fine without Michael in her early stint as Eric's wife), Olivia (I know the show had plans to make her a mini-Abby if Tonya Crowe hadn't left but I thought her last few years on the show were sanctimonious, self-righteous, and memorable only because her husband had a fantastic chest), Lillimae (I think she'd just run her course), and Val (ditto). I also would have been very tempted to write Mack out, mostly because, IMO, he was ruined when he was so nasty at Laura's funeral and when he became such an obsessive father to Paige, and also because it would have left the show with less room to stand on with Karen/Mack raising Meg, a story idea I wasn't overly fond of, as it took away a ton of potential drama with Greg trying to deal with a child who reminded him of a woman who loved him yet also deeply hurt him - they might as well have just had Meg go live with Richard, for all the story potential wasted I can't think of one strong female character the Lechowicks really wrote for. They did an OK job with Karen - she was two-dimensional, at best, but I think they "got" Karen, and knew what Michelle Lee's range was. They didn't know how to write Abby (meddling mother, that mess with Michael York, the Yurikami or whatever stuff), they hated Val. I think they did know how to write for Paige. I'm surprised Nicolette and the Lechowicks have never teamed up again, because I think that was a perfect mating of actress and writer/producer. Nothing Nicolette has done since has been the same, including her endless degradation on Desperate Housewives.

Oh good, I'm glad it wasn't already out there. When I first saw it I thought, "SFK will love this." And other Nancy Dorian fans (if we can be a fan of someone we have seen a 30 second clip of). I remember the story about Viki upstaging Dorian, but I'd forgotten the portrait went that far back. I hope we might get to see this in color, or even <gasp> a clip, someday. It sounds like brilliant soap. I love Nancy's facial expression as she stands by the fireplace. It is in many ways the essence of Dorian, even now.

This may be a common photo and I missed it, i don't know. I scanned it anyway, as I like the image of Nancy Pinkerton and her portrait, as Robin Strasser's portrait became such a critical part of her time on OLTL in the 93-00 run (not sure if Elaine or Claire had a portrait). I sometimes wonder if they just stuck a head on a body in Nancy's era - this portrait reminds me of the Angelique portrait from DS and the Rae Woodard portrait from RH. Don't you think she looks a bit like Jacquie Courtney in that portrait? This was in Bryna Laub's Soap Opera Annual.

Thanks for reading. I thought Jody was a female too until I saw an interview or a quote from the actor in one of these. No other soap ever had stories about janitors working their way up, did they? St. Elsewhere did this with Luther. Did you notice they completely excluded Ann Williams? How odd. This may have been material from late 1969, if Lakin was still there, but I don't know when the exact dates would be. I didn't know a lot of these actors too. You probably already knew this but I didn't have any idea that the early stories centered around the chaplain and that other doctor. I wonder why they were written out. I hadn't seen Nick Savian before either.

So did Liz leave for good but then return? For some reason I thought that Virginia only replaced her temporarily, for a leave of absence or maternity leave. This doesn't sound like it was meant to be temporary.

From the April 1970 Daytime TV. A glimpse of one of my favorite soap actresses and someone who should have had so many more years with us - Virginia Vestoff. This is the first time I've seen her as Althea.

From the September 15, 1981 Digest. http://www.soapoperaworld.com/soap-opera-digest-richard-van-vleet-andrea-moar.html

I never thought I'd see it either. I guess if I went through all the 1984 episodes that are on Youtube I might have but I haven't had time/energy to do that. This must have been summer or early fall 1984. The kid is some annoying brat named Jonathan, a computer genius who came to live with Nola and Quint. He didn't see himself as being a child, but an equal to Quint, which annoyed Nola, as he had no respect for her and she wanted him to go outside and play and have picnics and so on. Not a very good story (the kid also couldn't say his lines very well) but it had its moments (the clip before this has a cheesy Star Trek fantasy where Nola is dressed as a Klingon but looks more like one of the B-52s). I know Beverlee also had a Southern drawl but for some reason Lydia's sounds more put-on. I wonder if they should have cast her as Miss Sally the next year? I think she could have been great.

How random! I was watching a Quint/Nola clip and this woman I didn't quite recognize comes on. Henry calls her "Alex." It's Lydia Bruce! I knew she'd temped for Bev but never seen it myself. Go to about 6:50.

So are the famous people on BB the ones who won a pageant or were on the water bottles? I still don't know why they needed to cancel Marienhof so abruptly, after such a long and popular run. I hate seeing this happen in other countries like it has in the US.

I'm glad it was something you enjoyed. I don't know very much about her either. I guess Loving ground people down. Did she create any big stories or characters? I guess it's probably discussed in previous pages. I like how she talks about the appeal of soaps, and mentions her grandmother. Was this when Christine Tudor had returned?

Karen's pill addiction story was so well-paced. I wouldn't have minded seeing Laura with a darker side but I mostly loved seeing her fight to build her life - on her own terms - and also forging a strong friendship with Gary (which was later ignored) and the complex relationship with Abby. I loved that she refused to listen to Karen's attacks against her for taking money from a bad person like Abby. Laura was a little too "real" for an increasingly one-dimensional set of characters. The woman who played Jean didn't work for me. Maybe she was better on Paper Dolls. There was something about the seventh season which just seemed off to me. I guess it was the changing of the guard. Paige didn't work for me at that time, it wasn't written to Nicolette's range. For me Olivia's drug addiction carried that season.

From the November/December 1991 Episodes.

Did Paulsen do the Jean Hackney story? I hated that, aside from Ben putting Lillimae in a headlock, which I would watch several times a day if I remembered where I had the tape.

That was nice of her to acknowledge ATWT.

That's sad to hear. I wish We Love Soaps, which gets some great interviews, had had a chance to talk to her. I'm sure she had many stories to tell.

I would have been interested in seeing Luke get involved with an older military man, perhaps someone fairly high up, who then comes out after DADT repeal and faces the various reactions and hardships. I think there was a certain "daddy" potential they ignored when they wrote out Larry Lau.

To me they are carrying a lot of the show. While I don't see the show as being in dire state or the worst ever, in spite of the usual DS hysteria, I do think that the Masoods are a major asset, and I'm glad they have finally made Syed viable (I know some will say he's always been great and I can understand what they feel but I couldn't stand him until recently).

To me it never made a lot of sense after they were involved in worldwide spy schemes or whatever was going on when Gary blew that one place up. I think Greg would probably invest mostly in big resorts with golf courses he'd spend most of his time on.

I have no idea. I would probably have Lucinda trying to get in on some defense deals, arms, which would cause tension with Sierra, because of Montega.

Wow, she doesn't look that much different. Too bad she didn't do more soaps. I'd love to see her acting with Pamela. Hell I'd love to see Pamela on anything at this point. So were they both in Working Girl?