DRW50

This clip is probably already around but at about 20 minutes Chevy Chase shows a short clip of Tom Selleck as Jed Sanders and Tom then briefly talks about the show. (trigger warning for Chevy Chase)

A week or two ago I was trying to remember if he'd already passed. Thom was one of the most purely charismatic performers I've ever seen. This meant that he often powered writing which wasn't there on all of his soaps. Even on Loving, tormenting poor Chris Marcantel while wearing a dyed wig he stole from Sylvester and Tweety's owner. Even on GL, where they finally had to make him a baddie to justify writing him out but you still sympathized with him. And in his many poorly scripted moments as Carlo and Mortimer. Even throwing the most transparent "we're in the '90s now, please stop turning us off while we're turning you on," S&M moments with Alex, Thom and Tonja Walker steamed it up and made all the nonsense worth watching. Nice to see he and the actor who played Johnny Dee kept in touch. I hadn't thought of Anthony Crivello in a long time - glad he's doing OK.

I think if they write Billie as something less silly than her being a cop, as happened with Rinna the last time she was in the part, she could make it work, but I agree there's no need for her. I'd still take her over Julie Pinson. Krista was the Billie I liked most, but that doesn't seem likely.

I used to rag on Dominic for looking older than his age when he first started on GH, but I think he looks decent for 45. It helps that his hair has drastically improved.

The scene I remember hearing about but have never found is Nancy Barrett, Dennis Patrick, and Grayson Hall, all from Dark Shadows, meeting on One Life to Live and asking where they know each other from.

That's also how I got back into EE. I don't have any real connection to the Slaters these days, aside from Kat (and that doesn't mean I care about her stories, including having her son beat the hell out of her so she can reunite Alfie for the fifteenth time, once the most offcamera story in the history of soap was over. I share @Skylover 's view of how hollow and cold EE is these days. The stories do nothing for me and there are no characters, just plot points. I would rather watch a test pattern than Cindy's return, anything with the Panesars, the wretched Reiss, or Linda's drunken loops.

Thanks for sharing. This is a nice treat. I think they have pretty much given up. I hope the material shows up someday.

Many years ago, I remember seeing the script for the episode - it may have been in one of the GL books - and the main focus seemed to be on Rick kicking his pill addiction because of wanting to do right by Bert's memory. I'm sure that was moving for some viewers but that shouldn't have been the best the show could come up with for a character who had existed even on the radio version of GL. Van Vleet has a big eulogy at Hillary's funeral and it's hollow there too. He was a good fit for Chuck Tyler but was much more of a glossy ABC soap type than suited for Ed Bauer. An early example of how P&G's ABC-ification hurt them.

@jam6242 Thanks so much for finding and sharing that. What fun. Mrs. Olsen sure was around a long time.

There are a few cases where I am glad the show kept the character alive - after all the tragedy Sally Spectra suffered and how much joy and fun she provided B&B, I was happy the show just let her live a good life away from LA - but never Bert Bauer. She was home to many viewers, and they would want to say goodbye. It seemed like Long ended up going through the motions with the Bauers when she came back. I wish she had brought Meta on - Johnny's cancer would have been a good reason. Maybe she thought Sarah served as a matriarch, but wonderful as Audrey Peters was, Sarah was an isolated character.

Sounds great.

Less than a decade later, EE would kill Mark off because they felt it was not "realistic" that he was still alive. I'm glad GH didn't do that with Robin, although I know that may have been a plan in the early '10s. The show truly did take a huge risk at the time, especially with their ratings struggles. I remember someone writing a letter in SPW saying Robin could be cured via a crystal and Casey the alien.

Thanks for reading it. That was one of my main takeaways with the 1979/1980 material, which probably isn't even seen as his best. Just compare the inner life and complexity of a character like Deborah to later "lady supercop" figures like Harley or Josie.

Thanks! Love Jerry.

There are some instances where soaps wait until the family is ready (the real life family), but I do think this sounds more like passing the buck. And the service was terrible - not anywhere near as much effort as would later be made for HB or even Henry. The lack of respect for a woman who helped make GL a beloved institution for generations was shocking and shows just how little respect that era had. Even the last years of GL had more respect.

I do wonder how much is down to personality in cases like Erika Slezak. She still had a good run under Gottlieb but that wasn't enough. A number of men on the show at the time had very unpleasant reactions toward Gottlieb, including allegedly throwing furniture around, but some of the reactions from Erika and others in the industry (IIRC Marlena de Lacroix used to call her Linda "Dirty Dancing" Gottlieb) makes me wonder if they just did not get along with her.

I think it will happen as it's just too easy to write him as a baddie to prop Sonny, Kristina, Alexis, or even Ava. I do hope they keep him around in some capacity as Rick is very good and he lit a fire under parts of a moribund show.

Likely so. I don't know if any soap hollowed itself out in those years the way GL did. It's the end result of bringing in so many teams who did not actually care about the show or have any history with it.

He did have a lot of presence, but I agree he was very intense. That was an odd period for new male hires. I remember the heavy sexual chemistry Hart and the Rob Layne around then had, culminating in them grappling on a hotel room bed.

I didn't think he seemed that much younger than Kim, even though I knew he was, as he didn't play that young to me. I do think he was dull. What I wonder about is why they didn't do more with that guy who rescued her on the island, Bill Bullimer (?). They dropped his possible relationship with her and also didn't go anywhere with his possible interest in Cassie. He was OK, even if the main talk he got was about his chest.

Most of them happened before. I would say the Selina story, the changes in Blake, the Bauer kitchen shootout, etc. were similar to past plots or character beats of theirs.

I think she was sabotaged from day one - I've said this before but I've rarely if ever seen one fired actor after another going to the press and blaming the new headwriter the way they did with her. Beyond that, I just think, similar to her OLTL run, she couldn't make the current show work or didn't have a producer who was able to actually work with her. The same cringey comedy that had managed to mostly work on GH and then became a struggle on OLTL was even more of a struggle on GL, because you couldn't just give Blake Lucy Coe's old lines - GL had many complicated characters. And in contrast to some of the attempts at comedy, there were pieces of abject misery I just couldn't get through, whether it be a shootout in the Bauer kitchen, Tony beating up Selina, or Cassie being locked up in a tower and then having a late term miscarriage via a car crash while on the run.

I'd totally forgotten. There's also mention that Brian Kerwin and Robert Hays tested. I agree the role was a lot of nothing.

Great find. Looking through the They Almost Became thread I see mention that DAYS originally wanted older actors for Roman. I also see a post saying Wayne was offered the role of Chris Stamp on AMC, but he declined.