saynotoursoap

Never Too Young, Morning Star, and Paradise Bay were all produced in LA.

I loved the articles. Lana Wood: Good grief! Susan Oliver: She was my least favorite Laura on Days of our Lives, but the character of Ann Howard was one of the saddest in all of Peyton Place. Susan performed marvelously. Barbara Parkins: Ah, the girl from Peyton Place. The title has that salacious 60s sound to it. Married Men Make Dangerous Lovers. Indeed, Babs.

There is not much to tell. Both were minor characters. Betty Miller played the mother of Joe Taylor during the series' final months. Joe was heavily involved in the political intrigue of Spencer Garrison's campaign against Al Preston, which was tied to Mark raping and impregnating his Spence's wife Iris. Joe was being blackmailed by Preston's campaign manager Walter Travis. Years before, Joe had an affair with Travis's wife and was led to believe that he was responsible for her death. Travis blackmailed Joe into bugging Spence's conversations and accidentally recorded a conversation between Mark and Iris that revealed the baby she was carrying was not Spence's but belonged to Mark as a result of the rape. Mrs. Taylor was a very loving and protective mother who wanted only to see her son happy and was supportive of his relationship with Dr. Betsy Chernak. Near the end of the run, Walter Travis was murdered in his hospital room, and Betsy was charged with the crime. Mrs. Taylor was a prime suspect, as she had gone to Travis' room that night and demanded that he free Joe from the blackmail. Karl Light played Dr. Berger, the medical director of the hospital where the all of the show's doctors worked. Dr. Berger was a recurring character and was similar I suppose to Donald Westphall from St. Elsewhere. Berger brought Pete Chernak to the hospital to develop laser surgery research, and was always around to play a part in whatever professional or personal problems the medical characters had. Karl Light just died recently, within the past year. He played Springfield's mayor on Guiding Light in the 1980s.

Awwww, what a great article. I love Christmas, and God, I still love Love Is a Many Splendored Thing. Truly, CBS should not have canceled it.

Thanks, CarlD. How interesting that Tracy and Priscilla Pointer traveled to the UK together on holiday. I think it is nice when screen families are close offscreen as well. She and Priscilla were excellent in their roles as the bitchy Rainey women. I liked Tracy. She was an interesting actress. Unfortunately, a few years ago she was involved in some nasty business with a group of animal rights activists, with Tracy confronting them on the street and hurling AIDS-related epithets at them. I never knew what that was all about.

Good Lord, I had blocked that from my psyche. Thanks for reminding me. Poor Kathy Hays and Pat Bruder also had some unfortunate experimentations with perms and dye jobs through the years.

Oh, me too! Gordon was wonderful as Nick Bellini. I would give anything to see his romance with Althea again. Disheartening to know that those episodes were archived, but SFM Entertainment is just sitting on them.

I tend to doubt that York will be in those episodes as they are from seven years earlier, in 1947. The episode description of the radio shows concerns the return of Rosemary's husband Bill from war with amnesia. It is too bad because what a wonderful cast they have in 1954. In addition to York, Edge of Night vets Mandel Kramer (Bill Marceau) and Virginia Kaye (Rose Pollock) appear. And the fabulous character actress Barbara Baxley, best remembered to me as the villainous Margaret Jardin from Where the Heart Is.

Oh, yes. I agree. Her appearance circa 1986 made her look older in my opinion. I never thought it suited her at all.

Wonderful analysis! I agree. To me, AMC was always a "woman's soap", and by that I mean that to me, the female characters were the ones for whom I loved and rooted. I always found Edmund to be somewhat of an ass, and a story where there are no real villains but flawed good characters is ever so much more interesting.

You are so welcome! I love reminiscing about the early years of OLTL. Yes, Erika was thrown right into a front-burning plot, and what a gem it was. You can understand the confusion the actress must have felt initially, but Erika was box-office from day one.

I know that my parents thought she looked a lady more befitting the upper class lifestyle of the Eldridge family. It signified a great change in the character from a have-not to a privileged woman and solidified her as the diva of Oakdale.

Thank you to CarlD and Paul Raven. Your collective articles provide so much insight and document history with accuracy. Your contributions are so invaluable because they are based on fact rather than speculations and presumptions. Please continue to post!

Somehow, I missed this thread. Many thanks to CarlD for the terrific articles. I wish I had more episodes of A Time For Us. I enjoy the one I have and am curious about the serial. Tom Fielding, now a director, was certainly a handsome guy.

It says in the article that it was more than a 10 year age difference, but I suppose the writer felt that it was better than documenting it at 21 years. Technically anything eleven years and up (even forty years!) would be "more than ten". But hey, he is Italian.

danfling, I found the article regarding Marilyn Chris. She and Ric Mancini were divorced in September 1975.

Dr. Polk was a recurring character utilized by One Life to Live and All My Children. After he "cured" Viki's split personality disorder (we did not term it DID in the 60s), there were other crises in Llanview warranting his therapeutic prowess. He attended to Viki again in the summer of 1971 when Marcy Wade was drugging Viki and attempting to convince everyone that Niki Smith had returned. In February of 1972, Meredith Wolek needed therapy for post partum depression and the death of one of her twin babies. In January 1973, Viki slept with Joe Riley while married to Steve Burke. She and Joe argued, causing Viki to crash her car. When she awoke, she thought it was 1971 and had forgotten everything that happened in between, including her marriage to Steve. Dr. Polk helped her recover her memory. Almost immediately at the end of this story, on All My Children, Kitty Cole had a miscarriage and tried to commit suicide, prompting treatment by Dr. Polk. At this point, Dr. Polk was played by Norman Rose. During the original Niki Smith storyline, Donald Moffat played Dr. Polk. Moffat is remembered as Edgar Halcyon in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. Norman Rose last appeared on AMC and OLTL around 1974. Afterward, the psychiatrist angle was downplayed, and later, in 1976, Polk was no longer necessary because Will Vernon had been created. Dr. Polk was resurrected for Niki Smith's real return in 1985. James Douglas played Dr. Polk then, and it was his Dr. Polk who was eventually murdered by Tracy James.

Yes, they were married during the late 60s/early 70s. I believe they divorced in 1973 or early 1974 after Ric played one of the Redstone Prison inmates on Edge of Night when Vic Lamont went undercover to bust a heroin ring.

No, it's Niki Flacks as Karen.

There were cast changes as robbwolff pointed out; however, the major characters, ones who would have been considered legacy characters later -they remained fairly constant, Texas had somewhat of a large initial cast, so paring it down over time as it became apparent what worked and what did not, was not distracting or harmful. Texas certainly did not suffer the types of casting problems of say, Ryan's Hope or One Life to Live in their formative years. At the time, I found the first few months of Texas excruciating, and I thought early on that it was a mistake. But, in 1981 when cancellation rumours began to swirl, TPTB did take the steps necessary to improve it. By the time Paul Rader, and later Pam Long, took over, Texas had really found its footing and started to gel. The last few months in particular were wonderful. Pam Long had such a feel for the show, and her ability to create warm friendships and strong familial relationships truly began to give Texas its own identity rather than just a spinoff of Another World.

And yet TPTB continue to do it. I watched GH last week, solely for the pleasure of seeing Rachel Ames again. I could not believe the storylines that today's fans find so fresh and re-energizing. Helena held Laura and Luke hostage on The Haunted Star and was then killed. How many times has Helena held Luke and Laura hostage and then appeared to die already? Robin is presumed dead but has been kidnapped. LuLu is presumed dead but has been kidnapped. Ethan had disappeared but was actually kidnapped. Stavros was presumed dead but returned and died again. Seriously? People wonder why GH has such low viewership. Perhaps if every plotline was not identical and had not been rehashed ad nauseum, they might get a bigger audience. I am all for utilizing vets and nods to history that are used in fresh, meaningful ways, but revisiting the "Cassadine Curse" every other year is completely unnecessary. Sadly, AMC did the exact same thing with their super couples.

I do not know, CarlD. I remember the promos. This actress did the same promo on the same set for game shows Showoffs and Rhyme and Reason, which premiered in the same two week period on ABC in the summer of 1975. At the time I thought it strange that actual clips of the new RH were not televised as had been the practice in the past.

Some of Pat Falken Smith's better work at Ryan's Hope. Roger confesses to Jill (December 1983) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhF6PkLNNAs Roger's obsession for Maggie takes a dark turn. (May 1984) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tVEMtDqD1I

Yes, you are correct. Dusty did not die, but rather languished in a coma for a while. Bess was being charged with attempted murder, but I thought it was a wonderful situation. PFS did not drag it out either. I believe the story initiated and wrapped within six weeks, which created just the right tension for the audience. All of those scenes of domestic drama in the Coleridge household were terrific. I liked Julia Campbell, too. Katie's fall, which Maggie engineered for herself with good old Rog's assistance, occurred on the 10th anniversary episode. A nice bit of synchronicity as the series opened a decade earlier with Frank tumbling down the stairs. Robin Mattson was stunt casting to boost the ratings and failed epically. Ilene's return was so welcomed. I recall the ABC promos booming "She's baaaaaack!". Watching Maggie and Dee attempting to out-scheme one another for Roger's affections as they developed a rivalry was deliciously fun, and for me, one of the few times that I did not completely side with one character. I loved Dee and Maggie and found my loyalties continually divided amongst them.

I understand how you feel as I enjoyed the generally reviled era of the Kirkland family. Please, no one misunderstand. I enjoyed Pat Falken Smith (hereafter PFS) very much. Her work for Where the Heart Is I describe as marvelous, and she was second only to Bill Bell as the best headwriter of Days of our Lives. However, in my opinion PFS excelled at sarcastic, bitchy dialogue and strong psychosexual situations, neither of which lent themselves to the style and tone of Ryan's Hope. I think she failed at Guiding Light for the same reason. It is not that she was a bad writer, but rather, her inherent talents were not well suited for those soaps. I agree that PFS had some very good moments at RH, if not truly memorable ones. I loved the very early part of her work, in the autumn of 1983, when Maggie and Roger schemed to make Jill believe that her wayward mother Elizabeth Hillyer was a wealthy, cultured woman sailing off to exotic climes. Bess came to Manhattan, and in order to keep an eye on Maggie, was hired as the Coleridge housekeeper with the in-joke name Betsy Traylor. Bess accidentally killed Maggie's blackmailing boyfriend, leaving Jill to defend her against a murder charge, all with no idea she was representing her mother. The fallout from that situation, particularly with a furious Faith packing her bags and leaving, was fraught with conflict and tension. The bombing of the bar was well-executed, as was a lengthy sequence in which Roger's sexual obsession for Maggie reached a boiling point. He trapped Frank and Maggie in Dave Greenburg's loft and attempting to harm them shoved a heavy scaffolding on top of them. The tense sequence reached a shocking finale when Roger fell down an out of service elevator shaft during a fistfight with Frank. I found the story highly original, exciting, and perfectly within character. So, no, not all of PFS' tenure was bad. What bothered me the most was shifting the action away from Ryan's Bar to Dave Greenburg's deli. Many of the problems of that era were poor decisions made by Joseph Hardy, whom I did not care for as an EP. I recall him stating that the bar was blown up and would not be shown for a year because it seemed too old-fashioned and slow. So, what? He merely replaces the bar, a logical place for characters to converge, with a small Jewish delicatessen? Had he instructed the writers to blend the newer elements desired by the network with the veteran cast and familiar tone the core audience liked, they might have been more successful.