titan1978
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Everything posted by titan1978
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While I have not seen many full episodes of GH from its original decade, when I do it’s very interesting how unsoapy the actors were. Lots of subtle work, and while characters like Jessie are subjected to various traumas, I’ve never seen a clip or episode of her acting hysterical. Or Rachel Ames. Certainly not John Beradino. Emotional sure- but not the high levels of emotion that become more and more popular in soap acting in the 1970’s. Was Denise Alexander as Lesley the first lead on GH that was more soapy? (I love her by the way, I think she is a good actress, but Lesley is much more a traditional soap lead of the more emotive type compared to Jessie, Lee Baldwin or Audrey IMO). -
IIRC, Rachel Ames was no longer on contract during part of this period too. We saw Steve at the hospital, but they didn’t have many scenes until Wes Kenney’s era as EP, when Tom Hardy and Simone became part of the story, and even then, those two were B or C storyline characters most of the time. When you watch the first few Monty years, we see folks like Lee and Gail and the other original vets quite often. Even Jessie has her little story with Dan. I think loosing Jeff hurt Steve and Audrey. And Monty moved away from recasting major roles, so Jeff wasn’t likely coming back. Recasts were so strange to me because I grew up paying most of my soap attention to GH- and by the time I was old enough to know what was going on Monty just didn’t recast parts. When someone left, the story moved on. I’ve recast Jeff as Robert Newman around here before, and I could see him as Tom too. Plus I think he would make a better romantic foil for someone like Genie Francis or Nancy Grahn.
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I am also not remembering them rekindling an affair. He wasn’t even on that much! There was a hospital storyline that was barely talked about, and then the storyline with Laura. Whatever it was supposed to be- either she was molested by him which is what I have heard the original story was before she quit, or she murdered the nurse he was sleeping with and had repressed it and he was protecting her (which was another version I have heard of that didn’t end up airing due to Genie leaving). What we got was a mishmash and horrible to Rick and Laura. I vaguely recall a scene with Rick, Monica, and Alan where Rick and Monica had kind of a moment. Or just expressed fondness to each other.
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There is that old interview from Jackie Smith that I read someplace on SON as well that credited some writer I had never heard of with creating the Quartermaine family. I wish there was an oral history of GH like that great OLTL one from a few years ago. Even if things contradict, it might help make the overall picture clearer. I do believe Genie’s recollection about Monty- maybe Laura and Scotty were already in the works but I don’t think they were planning to focus so much story on her, as in she became a lead. And Stuart Damon has said Alan didn’t really have a personality until Monty got there and they leaned into him having an edge. We know she casted Jane and Tony, but I have also read Jackie was already there as Bobbie, and Marland was there for a period of time before Gloria. Geary told an anecdote about her making Mary O’Brien miserable, yelling at her that she was the worst actress she had ever hired, except she also started airing in 1977. Of course, that story could have been embellished. And from that same interview when Tony didn’t get cast opposite Jane, she said they created the Luke character for him. Now was that Marland, Monty told him what to do, or a little of both?
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That was great! I remember seeing this back when it aired, but not since. What a lovely scene, especially since they didn’t give her much to do for such a very long time. And here she got to use her own character’s important history and had something to actually perform, that was about her. BH really acted the hell out of that storyline.
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Awesome, thanks for posting! I’ve seen so few episodes of GH pre Monty, I know that Tom Donovan was considered a good producer, and the show had stabilized before it expanded to 45 minutes and lost a lot of viewers. I have seen a couple of these older episodes with Diana Taylor, but this time she actually had scenes with some meat. I can see why people liked her, although I enjoy Bundy as well. This episode, while there was movement, felt kind of claustrophobic to me. It was such a simple idea, to make that rounded nurses hub, and those hallways off from it, but it really allowed the show to feel more open, even if the set was technically more closed off.
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Didn’t they lowball Josh Morrow, Sharon Case, and Melody in the early to mid 2000’s, causing all three to not sign contracts and stop airing for a period of time? What happens with their contract negotiations? She deserves everything she is asking for. Even if her new character isn’t as strong, she is still great and they desperately need actors making their bland Y&R material have some spark.
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I think she would have been great with Riche and her writing for Roger makes me think she could have given Tony Geary what he wanted without making Luke so awful. According to Claire, the Labine’s left on their own to try to launch a new show of their own. They were finally back in a groove of new things happening when they left after Stone had dominated the prior 6 months.
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His first period at DAYS, before the possession, was classic and worked incredibly well. I loved the possession at first, but by the end he kind of settled into really slowly moving stories and characters talking to themselves all the time as a style. Everyone got really stupid, and over the top. Which he then carried over to Passions. It didn’t work for me, but I’ve never said he was a bad writer. It’s like Guza at GH- it wasn’t for me. But I can’t deny that he was a strong writer. It was just all misery.
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As far as I know it has always been credited to Demorest/Reilly/Broderick. I love that Nancy came up with the blow dryer though.
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I don’t get what was so awful about what Maurice Benard said onstage accepting his Emmy. I’ve long stopped caring about Sonny, but no matter what I think, he is the tenured star of the show right now, and has been certainly since JFP arrived, if not a couple of years before. Once they put him with Carly, the two corners of the show not storyline connected to Luke & Laura directly became the overwhelming majority of story. Is it egotistical to say that out loud? Yes. Other people say it, not you. But I also get he is proud of the show and his place on it. Now his version of star doesn’t compare to what existed for the popular GH cast of the 1980’s. But he is clearly the star of the show. And I love Genie. She will always be GH royalty to me. Same with Finola Hughes, TR, hell even Vanessa Marcil. She has kept me tuning in during some real boring eras of this show. But by choice and by lack of support from TPTB she has come and gone several times over her tenure on the show. I’m not saying her exits were not justified- they were.
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Alan Quartermaine was my Maureen Bauer. It was when I realized the show isn’t for me anymore, they aren’t going to go back to a GH I recognized or wanted to watch. Sure I checked in at various times over the years, sometimes for several months to a year, but it took me a long time to get over what had happened to my once favorite show and it has never been the same. Alan was not a vet at a dead end story wise. I’ve heard several times over the years that Guza didn’t want to kill Alan. Always reeked of Frons and JFP to me.
He absolutely deserves at least a week! He expertly played every side of Alan and seems like he was a great cast member bts too!
I am also a die hard Brenda stan- however, the wind was really out of the sails in that year long return and marriage to Sonny storyline. Although I love Adrienne Barbeau in almost anything and wish the storyline had centered on her actually being The Balkan. Now the earlier return? The show was on fire, and considering how mad I was at JFP for what happened with Genie, and hated her exit storyline, Brenda was the only reason I tuned back in. And it really was a good run of story. And she would have stayed if they gave her the schedule she wanted with her young son, which was early calls and no more than 3 days a week as I recall reading at the time. But JFP refused.
Sad news. I know he has been in poor health over the last few years. Alan should never have been killed off. I hope he and his family feel some peace. After watching that clip, it reminds me that modern fans have no idea how much fun Monica was as a character. She’s been so neutered by tragedy that she is barely a character at all, let alone the ambitious, passionate and sometimes awful person she was.
I never thought any soap would kind of ascend above how I felt about Labine’s GH- but my last year or so watching almost all of Curlee/Demorest/Reilly/Broderick’s run, it might be my favorite soap period. Not only was the major cast almost perfect, but there was a real balance of types of stories and characters. Multigenerational, rich, middle class, poor, strong women and a real sense of community that makes sense- it’s all I really want in a soap. I even like Dylan, who may not be the strongest actor but he fits into that mold of a character I think a soap needs to have. Beth stories of that time might be the only ones I just don’t care for. Nothing broke my heart like Labine’s GH- and that’s okay. Because with that version of GL I had heartbreak and triumph and flat out entertainment. For how much I loved Laura, Monica, Robin, Lucy, Brenda, and Lois, I equally now love KS’s Mindy, Vanessa, Bridget, Nadine, Gilly, Bev’s Alexandra, Harley, Maureen, Jenna, Holly, Eleni and especially Sherry’s Blake. So many great female characters.
I have such a hard time seeing Marj as Alex. I loved her on AMC. It’s just hard for me as a viewer to go from BM to what Alex became. Maeve Kincaid really was given the chance to shine during Curlee’s era on the show. She got to be an accomplished woman with deep relationships. And sometimes (especially with Billy and Nadine), you would get to see some of that nasty side. She played calculating well too. There are times that I think that era of GL was almost perfect soap opera, the Calhoun period into JFP’s The Blackout.
I loved her as Livvie on PC, and only really enjoyed her as Sam during the Liz/Jason/Sam/Lucky storyline. She seems miserable on GH at this point.
The baby shower thing was just stupid. Drama, especially soaps builds towards a payoff. Moments to breath and showing aspects of life like joy and community are pivotal when the payoff requires an emotional reaction. And back in the day, a beloved couple having a child was a payoff, because the audience wanted to see them, and tuned in. Again- for all the lessons learned from Monty, she missed some of the big ones. Gloria Monty irrevocably changed GH, YMMV on if it was for the better. But they always had a human story going while the action adventure stuff was going on. Characters like Bobbie, Tony, Lucy, the Quartermaines, the Webber family- they were rarely in the full mix of the action storylines and were often involved in hospital stuff, affairs, raising families, etc. When everything is a bomb under the bassinet then nothing really matters anymore.
The Blackout was a perfect plot driven event- because all the characters were in different or pivotal situations but they were so well defined and the writing was strong it all worked. I preferred the show under Calhoun- it was brighter without looking cheap or garish, and Mindy, Blake, and Alexandra were played by great actors who were compelling. And there was still a sense of fun at times. JFP rarely does fun. It’s almost always deadly serious with her.
I wonder if the glossing over of GH has anything to do with how the power dynamic was there. Guza/Pratt had a producing credit (which I assume gave them some autonomy), and we already know what working with Frons on ABC was like. I wonder if she felt she got to put her stamp down more on the other shows. OLTL being a tough show for her is reflected in all those interviews I read back then. HBS and RW were both critical of how the show broke them up, making them both so stupid instead of letting it happen organically. Even if Lindsey was an excellent addition to Nora’s story. Erika loved JFP, but if you were Erika you would too I would think. Viki got to be romantic and dynamic again without her alters.
I do think I learned more about her in this interview than in all the years I hate read everything about her while she was EP at OLTL and GH lol. Killing Maureen was a huge mistake. But I think it is also the line in the sand for the quality of the show changing into the mess it quickly became after, which exacerbated the situation for fans and became a kind of rallying cry for what was wrong and when it happened. I had to chuckle at her feelings of success with the Blake and Alexandra recasts, both of which were not successful in my opinion. I would love for someone to pin her down about the decimation of the Quartermaines, especially Alan. I don’t hate a lot of her ideas- she just almost always executes them in a way that I can’t stand. Drama absolutely needs stakes, and soaps shouldn’t be afraid of taking a risk for drama. Including killing characters off. She just doesn’t have the instincts after the decision to make something worthy of the pieces. My opinion of course, and also the audience erosion she has seen at all her shows (except OLTL).
She missed the biggest lesson Gloria Monty was there to teach her- Gloria wanted to do something different, after decades of playing within the bounds of the genre. But she still understood the genre in a way JFP has always seemed to think she was better than. GM didn’t do right by many of the GH vets- however, we still saw them all the time in the first half of her tenure. Dr. Hardy and Jesse may not have been driving their own stories, but we certainly saw them constantly and they were part of the fabric of the show. And just because an actor was older doesn’t mean they got tossed aside- Ruby, Edward, Lee, Gail, Lila, Dan, and Jesse were onscreen and interacting with Lesley, Alan, Bobbie, etc. The audience still had that comfort while the show morphed into an action/adventure show. GM had the taste in her first tenure of great talent picking and good story instincts. JFP does not have that same skill set, so when she dictates story and tone we get darkness, misery, bland heroines and men as the focus of the show. I wish she left competent writers alone and produced the hell out of what they wrote. Instead of always having her fingers in the story (influencing story in every way possible- from focus groups to changing the scenes as they were shooting them).
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