DRW50

Jack will be getting a tribute special. http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/soaps/s3/coronation-street/news/a282720/tribute-doc-planned-for-corries-jack.html

Various endings to Ryan's trial will be shown online. For some reason his face in the second photo cracks me up. http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/soaps/s12/emmerdale/news/a282830/emmerdale-trial-endings-to-air-online.html

Corrie's website has added an arcade, and non-UK residents can play! http://www.itv.com/soaps/coronationstreet/funandgames/corriearcade/ I couldn't save Rita

I love Lenore Kasdorf on GL -- how long was she on SB? I wonder if she wanted to leave or if she was fired. I guess she never interacted with Augusta. I'm going to type up a quick interview with the set designer. Here's the photo from the interview.

In archive.org there are some Secret Storm episodes from sometime in the 50s and there's a...bizarre maid/employer relationship in those. I'm not sure how to direct link but it's the 1955 episode. http://www.archive.org/details/TheSecretStorm Do any of you who are "in the know" know if Hillary Edson left AW because she had her GL job lined up? Or was that a while after? I am still bewildered by that story, that basically had Donna being degraded while Michael and Stacey were loved up. Then Donna started going after Stacey for her lack of ethics and this was supposed to be wrong (I thought she was justified), and then suddenly Stacey had enough and was ashamed of her actions and she left town. Then Michael raged at Donna. By this time Donna had decided she didn't want Michael anyway. Was this because Kale Brown had announced he was leaving? Or did he leave after this? Still hate what this Frankie/Cass/Kathleen story is doing to Cass. The only one I feel sympathy for is Kathleen. It didn't take me too long to get used to Judi Evans, although I still miss Cali. A lot of the later Judi trademarks are already there, like her chemistry with Victoria Wyndham and Tom Eplin. You guys weren't kidding about how wrong that wardrobe looks on Judi -- I wonder how long they made her wear Cali's clothes. The episode where she was wearing that that tight, short, red/orange minidress, with smeared red/orange lipstick...yikes!

For a long time I thought Paulina was created with Judi in mind. I guess if she auditioned for Vicky that can't be true. So they considered recasting Amanda in 95 after Tucci was fired? Wouldn't she have been too young? Daniel Davis said he auditioned for Zachary Colton.

Thanks. I didn't know Kelly was involved with her mother's boyfriend. Who played Caroline? Warren was the character they brought back again later played by Jack Wagner? That Ming Li stuff does sound odd. I know Eden's rape got a lot of critical acclaim but I do wonder how I would have felt if I was watching at the time.

Thanks for reading them. What do you think ruined SB? The Dobsons being pushed out or was it something else? Was Anne Howard Bailey, the writer they wanted out, that bad?

From the December 1, 1987 Digest. SB turns 3. Network Publishing Co

From the July 14, 1987 SOD. Network Publishing Co

I keep forgetting about that. I guess I just remember that ridiculous cruise explanation when Colleen died.

From the July 2, 1985 SOD. Ernie Townsend talks about life after soaps. Ernie played Cliff, who was such fantastic (and kind of hot) comic relief. Until I read this I hadn't even known he was on ATWT. GOING THROUGH THE RINSE CYCLE An Actor Details the Pain and Loneliness of Leaving the Soaps Behind By Ernie Townsend (ex-Cliff, EDGE OF NIGHT and ex-Kent, AS THE WORLD TURNS) AS THE WORLD TURNS was changing producers, firing writers, hiring directors, auditioning online assistants, pruning established stars, and grooming inexperienced ones while cast and crew were working eight hours shifts with up to three hours wasted for set change-turnarounds because of the small studio. The workday started a 7 a.m. and ended at midnight, or later. Some actors worked six days a week. I felt as if I were running to the set to shoot the next scene before the next five-minute crew break was due. I was supposed to be in love with a girl that I saw only on the set just before shooting. No one rehearsed. I was hired to kill a character that was then given a two-year contract extension. When I asked the producer why I was doing something, the answer was "because the set is up." One director gave me a note not to react to Steve Andropolus not strangling my girlfriend and protege because "you can't touch the star." I thought he was paraphrasing the old theater joke that springs from the worst summer stock experience but he was serious - in fact, no one ever laughed at the studio. Fortunately for my friends still involved with the show, the problems have been corrected. However, I was there when the script was hitting the fan...or maybe it wasn't that bad. Perhaps my resistance had been worn down by seven years on three daytime shows. I felt it was time to get out of the soap cycle, so ATWT and I parted amicably and I entered the rinse cycle. I never expected the pain such a simple choice could cause. My thought, and yours I'm sure, was that the biggest adjustment would be the loss of a paycheck. Wrong. Money was not the problem. There is always enough money left over in delayed checks, tax refunds, investments or property sold. And you can live off your great credit rating. Then there is always unemployment insurance, if you didn't have a corporation, or pension plans and expense accounts if you did. The adjustment for me and other rinsers was in life-style. Having a check every week for the next 26 weeks means that you can walk down any street in New York, turn into any store, and buy anything in sight. That feeling comes only with television. Broadway pays too little, film pays too infrequently. Yet not eating out every night, not going to Europe, not buying a new wardrobe is not a sacrifice when compared to the average breadwinner's struggle to pay rent or the average actor's struggle to eat. Leaving daytime did mean starting over in my business. But we rinsers start over with the experience of having performed in many television shows (over 1,700 in my case). Not to mention the experience of performing in meetings with countless producers, network execs, agents, and interviewers. We all have wonderful scenes on tape. We have fame that comes only through the intimate exposure of daytime. I was finally available for all those projects that couldn't work around my soap schedule. My problem was time. Every article about soap stars lists his/her workday. Therefore, all of you who faithfully read the magazines know that a daytime show rules your life. You plan around your workdays - workdays that are learned only two weeks in advance. Then there were always inserts; those quick fixes because of sickness, vacation, or lack of studio space. In my case, though, studio time was only 25 hours a week, homework was twice that time. This didn't count charity ball games, auctions, talk shows, interviews, discos, and shopping mall appearances that are the icing of TV exposure. When all that stops, nothing can take its place. I missed the day-to-day contact with creative people who tried to make art out of a new script. I missed the resulting thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. And I did not die. I merely left a job. I was still doing auditions, rehearsing scenes for plays, and shooting commercials...but I was bored. I felt lost. I was still asked to do charity events, but I usually declined because I felt that I was cheating the fans who paid to see a daytime star since I was no longer on daytime, nor a star. Stars are made, not born. The next daytime sex symbol will be the next actor given the sexy storyline on the number one rated show. If enough of your fellow characters call you sex, and enough storylines repeat this fact...your character becomes sexy. If enough magazines repeat this, you become sexy. The image of a star is exactly that, an image. Perhaps daytime teaches the fickleness of fate best. If you were a daytime star and you are not on daytime, you are not a star. This is not true in film or Broadway where you remain a star as long as there is an old film still in syndication or an old producer who saw you tread the boards. Fellow rinse-cyclers take part-time jobs to pass the time. It is a jolt to go from a four figure salary per week to a two figure one. The job market is small. The job you need must allow you to be free to pursue acting work and it must be fun and profitable enough to enjoy. Yet it can't be so fun and profitable that you give up acting. There are only so many bartending jobs around. Most of my daytime friends disappeared. I suppose this is because the greatest fear of those in the soap-cycle is the rinse cycle. That may be understandable, but it still hurt. Not many of my friends were interested in the pain of someone who was experiencing the very thing that they feared most. The loss I felt and still feel is like depositing money in the back and then going to withdraw it to find nothing there. No doors were slammed. They were just not opened as quickly. The fact that my retirement was semi-voluntary was even more threatening. I am not talking about press, Procter & Gamble, or network people. I mean I had no one to go to dinner with, no one to talk to. The rinse cycle is more introspective and lethargic. There is more time for gut-level exploring of emotions - and more freedom to express those feelings. I really was a different person than the one in the mercurial soap cycle...maybe that seriousness was too much for my friends. So I left town. I went to a new coast - a new start, a new set of people. A new life for a while - at least two years. I guess I chose that time period because that was the time I gave myself when I went from Ohio to New York at the beginning of my career. I like symmetry. It feels good to get back to basics after the sugar-rush of soap success, but there is fear. Fear that grows when you write checks without writing deposit slips. No income and dwindling savings. I was poor coming out of Ohio and I find that not even television salaries can wash those painful memories away. There are different people on this coast, many of whom cannot understand why I would leave the safety and security of daytime. The rules are different in this ball park. I went back to acting classes to rinse away the bad habits formed by having to create a product in six hours or less from scenes that had little purpose other than to fill up airtime. I have not tasted this side of the menu. I don't even know if I'll like it, nor do I know if my experience on Broadway or in daytime will translate. These fears are complicated by my being split 3000 miles apart. I am trying to create a life in California without liquidating my life in New York. Indeed, I may return when I feel the spin-cycle kick in. I am comforted by the strength of the friendships that still remain, by the knowledge that I have done all this before. By the courage that I have chosen to create new dreams and by the excitement that I get to try to live them. I didn't die, I just changed jobs.

Marla was pretty striking even up to her DAYS run in 1999. I'm not sure where she is now. Did Beverlee say that about the GL offer in that one where she also talked about Zaslow? I'd forgotten some of that. I would have loved seeing Constance and Beverlee in scenes together. That would have been great. Constance has such a special air -- she reminds me a lot of Alice Faye for some reason.

When you figure it out give me detailed instructions please, as I want to also but keep thinking I will never figure it out.

I guess she would have played Myrna? If so she and Marj just kept on crossing paths in some form or another. I know she probably wasn't in good health by then and she had long retired from acting but I wonder if Conboy ever considered asking her to return to GL when Joan Collins left. They could have even tried for a way to keep both Marj and Beverlee there. Oh well. I have to laugh a bit when they talk about the names Conboy found and then shift in tone to talk about "daytime people."

I hadn't seen that in years. Now that you mention it yeah, that's uncanny. Sad to think we might have more of this available than the actual McKinsey/Oehler pairing.

Thank you for telling me her name! She played Harriet Corbman, Shannon's sidekick on ATWT in the mid/late 80s. In the earlier episode she was playing a professor who had taught Taylor Benson, the psycho shrink who tormented John and Sharlene. There are a lot of people from around this time who are in bit player roles and I keep trying to figure out who they are, like the woman at the hotel desk when a woman was posing as Paulina, or like the woman who played the yacht seller who flirted with Cass. I know Coster and John Considine were jokers on set so Beverlee might not have liked that. I can believe that Espy would have been AW's most popular male at the time or one of the most, because he was a breath of fresh air and had such a sensuality about him. I think that Doug Watson would have probably still been most popular but I guess he had been there longer so he wasn't as fresh. I do wonder about a Pat/Sandy relationship (although it would have been very good drama -- wasn't this around the time Pat had broken up with Mac?), but then, AW had done some older woman/younger man stuff before this and I wonder if they would have said that Sandy was with older women when he was an escort. I wanted to say thanks for reading this stuff, I'm sure it must have been kind of dull all pushed together in one sitting, and telling me about your thoughts at the time you were originally watching. I just watched a few more July 1991 episodes. Can't believe that Amanda passed up that hot hunk photographer for dull Sam. I did a double take when I realized that that actor went on to play AW's umpteenth (although thankfully last) serial killer in 1996, the one who killed Frankie. Maybe Amanda had the right idea after all! And I saw the last episode with Cali Timmins I have always liked Judi Evans but this won't be an easy adjustment for me. So what do you all think the point was of bringing in Hannah, Paulina's old foster sister? She didn't last that long did she? I remember when they recast her in early 1998 when Paulina was on the run with her son Dante. I think that actress does some wedding business now or something.

I hope it pays off for them in the ratings because I can't help thinking that they are doing this because if ratings don't go up the axe may fall. I don't want to see any soaps go, especially since the UK doesn't seem to be making new soaps.

1. Who gave Lucy a duck and who did she name the duck after? 2. Why didn't Scott remember his own wedding to Dominique? 3. Who was Karen's chief rival for Jagger's affections? 4. What is Alan Quartermaine's connection to the Wexlers? 5. Who did Mike once take a bullet for? 6. Which Baldwin delivered A.J. Quartermaine? Answers:

From the July 15, 1997 SOD. Primedia. Early "bonus" feature on PC. This also has a trivia section I'll type up and put the answers in spoilers, and an interview with Mitch Longley I'll type up.

July 20, 82 SOD. Music stars on GL. Network Publishing Co

May 25, 1982 SOD. Texas goes on location. Network Publishing Co

May 25, 1982 SOD. AW goes on location. S. O. D. Publishing Inc.

May 25, 1982 SOD. Network Publishing Co Early interview with Michael Tylo.