DRW50

Was Pamela the girl who had an affair with Mark and then tried to commit suicide? I guess one of the movie offers they mentioned was Sleepaway Camp. She's interviewed about it here in 2002 (some gory photos included). http://www.angelfire.com/retro/officialsleepaway2/kkamhi2002.html She seems to be active in S cientology. I wonder if she keeps in contact with anyone from AMC.

I've seen a few photos of him here and there - including one where his good friend "Benji Stiller" showed up to be in an article with him. I guess it must be tough to see your replacement become a superstar.

June 8, 1982 Digest.

Ellen is the type of character who got me hooked on soaps - the relateable person that has to deal with crazy stuff surrounding her. Kathleen Noone also has such a great voice and striking features. I have to check out more of her AMC work.

November 17, 1987 recap.

October 20, 1987 recap

Megan learns that Viki is her mother. That scene doesn't quite work (throw the lotion bottle in rage!), but the first scene between Viki and Megan post-reveal is phenomenal, so understated and beautifully acted. Remember when Viki had children who were worth a damn?

July 28, 1987 Digest.

I love Nina Wadia. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xikhap_nina-wadia_people

From the January 1970 Afternoon TV.

I thought they should have had Val's father as either a lot older than Lillimae, or a fair amount younger. Did we ever hear anything about her father?

Any Lydia Bruce fans may want to know that I posted a few clips of her temp run as Alex Spaulding in the temporary recasts thread.

More of Lydia Bruce (I love the smirk on her face when she goes to the phone).

That's fascinating. Judy Lewis was in Kitty Foyle too wasn't she? (Not that that has anything to do with The Doctors). Thanks again for your hard work.

Tonight was the South Carolina GOP debate - most of the big names skipped it. Media darling "T-Paw" was there, someone the press has been hyping relentlessly for years now, even though he only won as governor of Minnesota because of a third party, even though he has changed his position on so many issues, even though he panders so blatantly that he was a foot soldier for the likes of Michelle Bachmann when she was in MN politics, and even though he has the charisma of a tree stump. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54434.html

I guess I saw Lillimae as being better in a recurring capacity, popping up in and out of stories, with a lot of ambiguity. Did she really feel bad, or was she looking for a place to stay, someone to help her through, etc. Did she resent Valene for the life she never had - did she think, "If I'd been pregnant by an oil heir I wouldn't have screwed up the way Val did?" What if Abby used Lillimae in schemes against Gary/Val? What if Lillimae played Valene and Abby against each other and preyed on Abby's own mixed feelings about her mother? If they did have the reformed Lillimae, then, instead of writing her out in 1987, I would have done a story where Ginger returned, 8 months pregnant, after calling Val, feeling she had nowhere else to go. Kenny had told Ginger his career meant he didn't have time or money for another baby, and he had little interest in the child they did have. He told Ginger to have an abortion or clear out. Ginger left him. After having the baby, Ginger develops post-partum depression, and struggles to separate this baby with the unborn child her mother made her abort. Lillimae takes care of the child, and works hard to help Ginger reunite with her baby. Valene tries to understand, but resents this - why didn't Lillimae work this hard to help her find Lucy? Why did Lillimae turn her away? Karen's brother visits, and helps Ginger get back on her feet. He is still in love with her, and Ginger falls in love with him. Kenny returns and says he regrets the way he acted. He wants a second chance. Ginger says if he ever loved her, he will give her a divorce. Kenny reluctantly agrees. After they marry, Ginger and Karen's brother move away to start a new life. Ginger tells everyone she will stay in contact, but Lillimae asks her not to - it hurts too much. After this I would have Lucy arrive in Knots Landing and be ashamed of Lillimae, but also see something of herself in her grandmother.

I like your ideas. My choices for who to write out were based on what the show did with the characters after that time that Julie Harris and Constance McCashin were let go, not based on their potential. Did Val ever really have any good stories after the baby saga? Did Olivia have any worth after the drug use/Peter murder stories? One thing I would add is a story that would play up a lot of scenes between Laura and Valene. It always annoyed me that the bond between them was so underexplored, especially since I thought they were more natural together than Karen/Valene.

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.