DRW50

Janine's mother died of cancer when she was 4. Janine went to live with her mother's sister, Clare, before going to live with Frank.

Grayson McCouch was teaching acting??

That's great to hear. It's a shame he didn't get to stay on AW but at least he's happy.

From what some fans at DS said the first episode was a bit dull. The previews don't seem to be a whole lot better.

Philece's Donna was more of a victim (and also cold and whiny) until her last year, when she was more of a meddler and social climber, and she had the story where she and Michael adopted Mikey. This was after DePriest/Whitesell were gone or going. She was also backburnered for a lot of this time. Probably I most enjoyed Philece when she was dealing with Michael's mother, or as she called her, "Mother Hudson." One time Donna snapped at her and the woman keeled over! Hilarious. I love Anna's Donna as well. As nasty as she can sometimes be, you never forget her vulnerability. One of the last episodes I watched before taking a bit of a break was when she tried to tell Marley it was OK if she didn't have a biological child and Marley was very cold and told her that it was OK for her because she gave her babies up. Donna was clearly so shattered, she was shaking. It was tough to watch but reminded you of how fragile Donna is. It's just too bad so many of AW's brass did not understand this character and at times seemed to outright loathe her. Reginald had a sense of humor too but he was just so hammy and so diabolical. They tried to show some vulnerability, mostly through his obsession with Mary, but I felt like he was a mark-down Stefano, or Victor Kiriakis. It doesn't help that I was not fond of the writing on AW at this time. I think AW's cast is what often kept it from going under. While I think the ratings did increase at this time, and the show probably needed the refocusing after so much turnover in 1985 and 1986, the stories on AW for a lot of the Reginald era were so vile towards women. I was especially offended by MJ's story. The Sin Stalker story also sounds awful but then I have never seen it, only read about it.

Basically Reginald Love was a control freak and he dominated his family and caused his wife's death, or was speculated on as doing such. When he found out about Michael and Donna, he lied to Michael and bribed him to leave town. Donna was pregnant. She gave birth to twins but she was out of it during labor, so he gave one twin, Vicky, to the family maid, Bridget, and paid her to leave town. Donna was forced to raise Marley as her sister. Peter was intimidated by his father but was more of his own man after his father died. Nicole was a little girl so she didn't have as many memories of Reginald. Reginald wasn't actually dead, he faked his death and went away with Mary McKinnon after she got amnesia (she was involved with him but was going to leave him for her husband, but then she hit her head or something and didn't know who she was). Reginald came back in 1986 and began drugging Donna and driving her to a mental breakdown...he was supposed to show her a photo of three babies (Scott LaSalle, Mary and Reginald's "son", was supposed to be Vicky and Marley's brother), but when Anna Stuart quit, Philece Sampler was too young to be mother to Scott, so they changed it and instead the photo was of John holding the baby twins, and Donna knew he might have been the father, as he'd raped her while she was with Michael. (Sadly like a lot of AW at this time the rape was written in a very misogynist manner). Reginald made Peter his flunky, and that really knocked any wind out of Peter's sails as a character. I think he also had issues with Nicole, as she started to remember something about her mother's death, but I'm not sure now. Anne Howard played the mother in flashbacks. Reginald was killed in a fight with Michael on a roof, after Donna miscarried Michael's baby while fleeing from Reginald. I hated Reginald. I thought John Considine was a ham and the entire family, save Vicky, were written as simpering, pathetic victims. It sucks because if you see early Donna, she is so much more fun than that.

From the August 25, 87 Digest. K-III Magazine Co

From the August 25, 1987 Digest. Network Publishing Co

August 25, 1987 Digest (Network Publishing Co.). Cover/interview with Bill Fichtner (also on the cover is the underrated Lindsay Frost -- still wish ATWT had kept her around, Betsy was a very important part of the Oakdale fabric).

Can't wait to see the episode, to get a little glimpse of Blossom again. I heard she looks the same as she did all those years ago. It's too bad that a lot of fans can't seem to see Carol's pain and instead just write her off as being nasty. I keep hoping Lindsey will win some awards but that type of dislike for the character might make that less likely.

Hmm...not too sure on those. From what I saw of FMB's last year, there was generally not a lot of good acting from most of the more recent hires. The ratings were up, but FMB was a demo casualty. They were right about the vets not being used, although thankfully at least Liz came back...she sat around for a decade before finally being used again, but at least she was there. I never understood why she was run off that way under FMB. I think that was the glaring example of FMB not really getting ATWT.

Thanks so much for posting this article, I'd never heard of a lot of these replacements. So this was before Lezlie was cast on GL? I wonder if they cast her based on her work at Y&R. Did AMC cast Beverly as Ann when Judith left? Fascinating comments from Aneta. I'd love to see that. I never knew she was on a soap.

From the November 27, 1979 Digest, interview with Cathy Abbi. S. O. D. Publishing Inc.

From an October 82 Digest -- Nancy Stafford. Hard to believe only about a year after this she got St. Elsewhere. Network Publishing Co

Thanks for the interview. I'm glad he's found a good job. That's such an extensive site! I hope I'm not posting anything they already did. From the October 20, 87 Digest. Network Publishing Co

From the October 20, 1987 Digest. Poor Peter Love, such a misused character. I actually kind of liked this last actor. They never should have brought Reginald Love in. I guess he brought a ratings boost but every story he was in made my skin crawl, and what he did to the Love family was mass character destruction.

I know what you mean. The magazines at this time try to tell us how open the actors are and go into these great details, yet you can tell it's also manufactured, and there's a lot we don't know. I guess this is better than the sneery and faux-cynicism later on. These were transition years for GL. I'd love to see more of this era. I also wish I knew once and for all about Cindy Pickett, because I get very confused about that. Some SODs from earlier in 1980 call her ex-Jackie and basically say she left to be in that Roger Vadim movie (one of them has screencaps of it...Cindy seems to be stalked by an evil lifesize Muppet with a human face). Yet here it says she is leaving, which means she is still on the show. And she had a big teary goodbye to Phillip in early 1980, which is the type of scene that you would expect if an actress was leaving for good, yet she was back in episodes, living and working in Springfield, in spring/summer 1980. I had to look several times to make sure Lenore Kasdorf wasn't married to Matthew Cowles.

Late 90s probably would have just been Yahoo type search engines, or IMDB. That's a nice story. All the soaps have had actors who passed away from AIDS complications but when you see Joel Crothers, Dennis Parker, and Irving Lee in the same photos it kind of hits you even harder. And Joel and Irving probably could have gone on in daytime for many years. So much potential and talent wiped out and it's awful when you wonder how many forget...

Michael Muhney did every once in a while on Y&R. It seemed so random when B&B brought McKee back for a few episodes last year. I guess it pays to still have a good body even after being off soaps for so many years. I don't care a lot for guys with the overdone bodies but he's generally an exception... (I wonder if there are any of him with a hairy chest, I've seen that in a few photos).

I'm glad you got to read it. I don't see a lot of Capitol stuff in the SODs I have but when I saw that I thought, "SFK might like this." Do you think they had good ideas for the finale (SOD I mean)? I don't know a lot about the characters. I know Paula but wasn't sure who Jeffrey was or if the stuff about her piano playing was an in-joke. It's strange Paula wasn't around at the end. I wonder if the actress was busy. Did she know about Sloan marrying a prince? Who was Kate? I also wondered if Wally, Brenda, Jordy, were not very important characters by the end, as they are kind of brushed off in this article. How long was Gillian on the show?

I usually think of the Telly Savalas ads. I love Lois too. I have an interview with her from around these years that I'll post.

Also from this issue.

From the April 1, 1980 Digest. S. O. D. Publishing Inc.

From the April 1, 1980 Digest. SOD Publishing Inc