DRW50

No, I meant them. I'd looked for them a few times and never could find them. Thanks. I'll look again.

I liked Chris too. Whatever his reasons for going were I thought he embodied what Adam should have been. They've had four liked or well-liked actors in the role of Adam, which is more than you can say for many Y&R recasts. The writing has well and truly been the failing of this character, that and the show's worship of certain Newmans. Part is probably because we can discuss decades and decades (sometimes even the radio days), which we can't with Y&R in this thread, but there's also just something so ossified, so numbing about Y&R's last few decades. The exact opposite of anything Bill Bell wanted his show to be.

Lauren would have been a great choice, although she would have had her work out for her with some of the ham in the Spaulding family at that point. The only time I remember any was Kim Rhodes on AW, but that may be generous.

Anne Jeffreys - YouTube

They could have brought her back when they brought Amanda back in the mid '90s. Maybe she would resent Amanda for leaving the family behind and secretly work to undermine her. Maybe she would form a triangle or quad with Lucy and Alan Michael.

I know it wasn't a Marland touch (shades of years later when Iva adjusted quickly to learning she was given up by a couple who later became filthy rich and stopped being mentioned after a year or two), but they did Jennifer a real disservice by not having much more of an adjustment period for her. She went from barely getting by with Morgan to having a major position at Spaulding. I imagine the idea of her relationship with Mark was meant to show her indulging in a life she couldn't have had, but Mark Pinter always seemed older than his age and they just had no chemistry. Once Cooke was moved away from Kelly and Morgan was able to act her age, I thought she improved, but it was probably too late.

Didn't see this when it was put up months ago. I didn't realize Elizabeth Savage had her own talk show while she was on Loving. She's very...expressive. And she and Tristan Rogers were much closer than I knew.

Luke "dies."

Thanks as always. Well...that's something. Does anyone remember in early 1998 when the ABC soaps all had to do "storms" to promote Storm of the Century? I think most of GH or PC just had the characters in a car...

Was that character played by Giancarlo Esposito brought in under Marland plans or was that Pat Falken Smith? Then he wasn't around long. AW did bring in a slew of black characters in 1981-1982, but beyond Travis having a black friend on Search, and what already existed on EON, GL and ATWT didn't seem interested. ATWT did bring in Heather and Tucker around 1983. I wonder if that was down to Jessie and Angie becoming popular on AMC. GL seemed to, for whatever reason, have the least interest in black characters of any of the P&G soaps bar Search. Even the "better" periods starting with Gilly and Hamp only really have a few strong years (maybe 91-93).

You're right. It was very short-sighted, as anyone should have known Dynasty was not going to last much longer the way it was going (if ABC hadn't been faltering Dynasty probably would have ended a few years earlier than it did). Dallas and Dynasty weren't similar shows and shouldn't have tried to be the same (can you imagine Alexis ever setting foot in Ewing Oil?).

1984 NBC promo Soap Operas (Clara Peller)

@slick jones Thanks for all these updates and the reproduced interviews. I forgot Pam Grier was on Knots. What a waste to just make her a cop. I wonder what her OLTL role was.

Not to be uncharitable, but Atkins never was much of a draw in his own right. The support he did have was for taking off his clothes, and even that wasn't enough to make that stripper movie sell. He probably got more career benefits from, years later, being in that nude photo book with Josh Duhamel and Frank Grillo (among others) than from being on Dallas. His casting, along with others like Barbara Carrera, shows how the powers that be at Dallas had lost grip of what made sense for the show. Dallas was not that type of camp or that type of fantasy material for gay men.

I'd be fascinated by what she has to say. I don't dislike Locher but it seems like he asks even less soap questions than usual in some of his recent interviews.

Thanks. I think there was another version around too - and there's also a full version of both those episodes at a Georgia university site, I think. I wish all those disco performances were available. The only others I've seen are Bertie Higgins (notable for Nola thinking back to her Casablanca fantasy) and Jennifer Holiday (notable for seeing Trish getting down in the background).

Louise is such a gem. Glad she is still showing up here and there.

Thanks. I should probably watch more of this period to know for myself...just kind of tough to find or get into.

Did they also tangle about Mark Evans?

I think there was just a few months gap so I figured they could have sent Ed away. I thought of him mostly because this was the period where Ed was in high hog melodrama in foreign countries and with poisonings at the hospital, which Malloy could play. He was also decent in the everyday family moments on his other soaps - he never had many as Kyle. And he and Susan Pratt later worked together for several years on AMC so they probably could have gotten through Ed/Claire. He was excellent on Dark Shadows. In some ways I think he played the menacing ghost and dark cad better than David Selby but suffered from the story being a retread (and also being sped up compared to 1897, which never seemed to end). Chris Sarandon is a great suggestion. I remember him in that terrible Margaux Hemingway film. There was a magazine article from before Ron Raines was cast which mentioned two names - I think Jed Allan may have been one. Joe Gallison was the other. Jed was so off as Edward Quartermaine, but he did a decent job on PC before then so maybe he just suffered from where GH was at the time. Reilly as Ed does seem very intriguing to me. Ditto for Ron Hale. He would have likely been thrown around more for Alan, but I think he could have played Ed's many shadings. By this time Ron was about to go on GH, where he did some wonderful work, but was often just there.

@applcin Thanks. I had no idea she was doing this.

Rod Arrants is fine from what I've seen of him, but I think he's a little generic leading man for Ed. I know Peter Simon's Ed isn't well-received by many, but I do think he captured the self-loathing aspects. They just never had him as the patriarch he could have been (and presumably Simon wasn't thrilled with that aspect of Ed). I always liked Jim Storm on B&B. He might not have the depths of Chris Bernau or of GL's stronger years, but I could see him as Alan over Ron Raines. I'm not sure who I would choose. I might have had Nicolas Coster play Alan instead of putting him on ATWT as Eduardo. I know Nic was in an older age group for daytime by then, but was he really any less viable than the younger Ron Raines? As for Ed - if only Daniel Hugh Kelly hadn't been busy in primetime. For actors who were available - do you think Larkin Malloy might have made a better Ed than RvV was? I also think John Reilly could have made a decent recast of Alan or, after Peter Simon left in 1996, of Ed.

1993 is a heavy year so you were right to take some breaks. Take whatever time you need as the show will always be waiting. On paper, a Clint/Viki/Roger triangle should have been dynamic. The show was partly to blame for likely not wanting to rock the boat about Clint and Viki, but Larry Pine was miscast - he did well in smarmier or darker roles but was not a romantic leading man. Thanks for your newest recaps. I agree about how limited and tiresome a lot of that material felt. As for Megan, they may have made her a little too nice too quickly, but I think she would have been exhausting if she'd been written too much like Marty was in 92-spring 1993.

Thanks. I didn't know she was let go the second time. There were still many in Springfield she had ties to. I guess Roger being beyond redemption at this point did limit her.

Thanks @Franko Dreary as Laurelton is, I think I would still watch over the last days of Rick and Ginny. Judith Chapman is a very charismatic performer, but I can only take her in limited doses, and I have never liked anything I've seen of Chris Robinson as Rick (seeing him wear a sleazy chain in the episode where Laura vanished only cemented my disdain). At the time Bryan/Claudia and the Asian Quarter characters were likely seen as tokens, yet barely anything has improved since then. I wonder if Bryan and Claudia will even have an exit. It would be very funny if someone who just started the show also read your summaries and thought - Quartermaine stories and Anna stories...not much has changed! I guess this is a reminder that not as much has changed as you would think if you've been with the trenches with the show for eons.