DRW50

I can imagine. I am sure there's a lot on Twitter too - luckily, I don't see it. I am glad CBS is trying but it's hard to have much hope. At least they did start out decently, but from a number of the comments here the momentum didn't last, as it rarely does with new soaps.

Reading through this and there's some interesting Jane Elliott info. I searched and could only find a few mentions of her in the thread (the article doesn't mention Felicia Gallant being created for her, which is on an old page in here). A previous page mentions Jane being considered for Stephanie on B&B. Jane says Gail Kobe actually hired her, but Bill Bell went with Susan Flannery instead. Jane also mentions testing for Abby on Knots Landing, and Gina Dante on GH. 'General Hospital's Jane Elliot Dishes on Her Awesome 50-Year Run in Soaps

She did have high praise for Jerry. 'General Hospital's Jane Elliot Dishes on Her Awesome 50-Year Run in Soaps Then there’s Carrie Todd on Guiding Light, which a lot of us old-timers feel was your absolute best work. And I agree. The most was asked of me when I was doing that role. Because she was a split personality? Because there were so many words on the page! [Head writer] Doug Marland used to say that I ended up only saying half his dialogue and he didn’t care. I just cut and cut and cut. He loved words so much and he was so good with them, but oftentimes he didn’t leave you enough time to act, so I had to trim. One day, I performed for 70 pages, with my character both in the present and in flashbacks and she also narrated the flashbacks, and part of it was in the rain and freezing cold. I could not have done it without Jerry verDorn [Ross]. He is one of my all-time favorite acting partners, and the most generous actor I have ever worked with. He is a marvel of selflessness, a man with a wonderful work ethic who is absolutely content to support you in every way. I felt so safe with him. Those were very great times for Guiding Light. Oh, my God, Lisa Brown! The character of Nola! Divine, divine, divine.

Thanks for sharing more details about Julie. This does give more insight than just synopses. I have only seen a bit of Robin, but the framing of her after her miscarriage, how she is with Johnny and Paul, did feel somewhat slanted to me.

I wonder if they made Jim Davies dye his hair or if it just went grey/white and they didn't object. These early promos do a good job of making what feels like a very generic show seem interesting.

Thanks. Getting Shelley Winters and Charlton Heston to pop in is kind of a big deal. Not sure I've heard of that with any other new or new-ish soap. Yet it wasn't enough for them to keep the faith with the show.

I love Jane and her work as Carrie is compelling, but for all the airtime they gave Carrie and that she killed two people (three if you count Jackie), she still felt isolated enough to where they could easily write her out. Shades of what happened with Tangie a decade later (although they barely bothered to write for Tangie).

You're right. Sorry. I did not remember that. Soapcentral says Betty Runnel, December 88/January 89.

Thanks. Has he ever spoken about their return?

I think there were also claims of an ugly argument between them but I'm not sure if that is true.

Not that we know of. Helen was briefly fired or almost fired by Irna - I'm not sure if we ever heard of potential replacements for her.

At about 55 minutes you can see auditions for Endless Love, including Chris Marcantel and Mark Arnold. Marcantel does look especially gorgeous here. Earlier at around 43 minutes there's a Glad Bag commercial with Gail Ramsey. Given that she was still on GH at that time I wonder how many viewers were watching and thought - "There's that bitch Susan."

Thanks.

He probably would have just been a psycho who got killed or banished. Didn't the same "writer" redo this with Adam Hughes? Or was this still Sheffer?

Given today's climate and the demos of the soap viewers who are left, I do wonder if a number of them just will not watch a show with a focus on black characters. That is not me saying the show should change focus. It's good that we have a soap trying to appeal elsewhere and not doing so in a clunky manner like, say, Doctor Who. I just think many of the soap viewers around now will not want to watch. Hopefully they can find more who have moved away from soaps or are new to soaps. That's where I wish they had done a half hour show instead. A half hour show also would have cut down on the character clutter.

Jon was very charismatic early on but within less than a year he started looking miserable all the time, a permanent stick up his ass. I don't think he was happy there as he left repeatedly - twice in less than a decade. Once he realized that he had no other options, he seemed to loosen up a little. I never gave a damn about Holden, but I grew to tolerate him, and I do think Jon looked better, hair aside. I wouldn't say things have gotten better. None of the soaps are killing off gay characters for shock value, as ATWT did with Reid. I guess that is an improvement. Van is not an actor, but he does have a somewhat warm, goofy screen presence, which helps with GH as the show has some cold fish.

That and the framing of what burdens they were to the men in their lives.

I think there was a disconnect between how Marland saw the show and what was onscreen - for me, anyway. For instance, he talks about how funny Floyd is. Anything I've seen of Floyd in Marland's run is very serious. The other comedy character on the show at the time, Katie, also became very serious. He seemed allergic to lighthearted characters. Admittedly, GL did not ever seem to be a show with comedy elements in the fragments available, but Floyd and Katie were the exceptions until his arrival. Kelly is a character who probably should have been interesting, what with his obsession over the purity of marriage and life compared to his inappropriate behavior toward Morgan, but the execution isn't really there for me. It doesn't help that we have characters like Hilary endlessly telling us how awesome he is. There's generally a lack of trust in viewers in most of his GL run (that I have seen - again I know most of it is not available), which is true for most soaps, but for me did not mesh well with a show as emotionally complex and messy as GL often was. My favorite part of the interview is how openly negative he is about GH. That wouldn't happen with soap press in later years. I think he meant the older actors, rather than just long-term characters, because the firings got a lot of soap press at the time. Barbara Berjer's did anyway as it was part of a pattern across P&G soaps.

Sharon wishes she looked like that these days...

Thank you.

I think Caso was there for up to the last 5-6 months of Seganti's run. The Grimaldis definitely could have been more. Letting Claire Bloom get away was a big mistake.

@DeeVee @Mitch64 I enjoyed all of your comments about Amanda. It's not my place to say because I have not seen Cullen's full run, but I tend to agree she was more compelling under the Dobsons. Lucille may have been a boo hiss baddie, but Rita Lloyd was riveting to watch (as she was when Marland gave her a recurring part on ATWT a decade later - she stole every scene she was in) and this drove the conflict for Amanda, along with her conflict over her sexuality. There was not very compelling conflict under Marland, even though on paper there should have been, because everyone involved, even Alan, seemed to be on tranquilizers. Someone here once wrote long ago about how much Amanda improved with Pat Falken-Smith, especially a scene where she was caught in a storm and talking about how she was finally going to live her life and her desires. We never got to see most of what could have been, but I thought Cullen did a good job in her late '80s returns showing a stronger Amanda. I liked Toby Poser. She was very charismatic and unlike anyone I'd seen on GL. I tend to wonder if McTavish or someone else did not want her because the writing was extremely negative. Liz Keifer spoke in SOD at the time about how uncomfortable she was with the way they had Blake speak about Amanda, mentioning the scripts where Blake was talking at length about her hair. It feels very coded, whether that was intended or not. The whole thing reminds me a little of when Lara Parker played a vampire Angelique on Dark Shadows and they went to great lengths to show that all of the men were not attracted to her. I kept thinking - this woman is so gorgeous and not one man she goes after sees it. (meanwhile every woman in Collinsport but Joan Bennett was horny for Barnabas) After the initial stories, they did show softer sides of Amanda, but they also did nothing with her. Clearly the relationship with Roger was never going to generate interest with Zaslow gone, but that became the only reason she existed, beyond the occasional nice scene with Philip, for a year and a half. And then she just...left, never to return (I can't even remember if she was mentioned). Such a waste.

That was very gracious. I remember her saying how hard it was for Jon to play their final scenes. She was a class act.

I would have agreed at the time...and I'd still agree now. On paper I think there's more you could do with Lily, but we weren't going to get that.

That's fascinating. I didn't know Seganti almost left that early on. It helps explain some of the choices. I still wonder if Luke would have been Holden's son if Hensley hadn't decided to leave.