ellabelle

^ I have no clue, to be honest. There are a few designers who've done tops and dresses for women that have the lingerie look to them but are meant to be worn in public. I'm not a huge fan of the "Is that lingerie or is that a shirt" look either.

I loved it too, but once SL got her boobs done, they were a little bit out of proportion for her very tiny body, and her breasts didn't really fit properly into a lot of the outfits they had her wearing.

Case in point:

The underwire should be all the way UNDER her boobs, not raised up with them. And if you want to get really technical, the middle of the bra portion of that top should be resting against her breastbone, not pushed out with her cleavage. The top doesn't freaking fit.

^ You definitely know a lot about clothes!

I know. It's embarrassing. One of my good friends went to the Fashion Institute of Technology and worked in the industry for a while, so I think that's part of it. That, and I genuinely liked a lot of what Erica wore. Susan, OTOH, is frequently a hot mess when she tries to style herself.

^ That was just for a brief period. NY&Co paid a premium to essentially be a wardrobe sponsor on the show. If you look at AMC's final few years, Erica wore a lot of Dolce & Gabbana. I love D&G in particular, so I can tell you, for example, that when David proposed to "Erica" (Jane), Susan was wearing a D&G dress that retailed for several hundred dollars. If you recall the date that Jack and Erica had on a yacht circa 2010 or so (this was right around the time Brooke and Adam left together), Erica was wearing a Dolce & Gabbana red corset dress that retailed for four figures.

Signed,

Someone who knows way too much about clothes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eut83_KIsy8

A compilation of Erica and Brooke over the years.

McKay's! And Erica's old nose! I never thought I would see either again so soon!

Erica's old nose is all over youtube.

Early 1992, I think. Maybe January or so?

I think he comes across badly here, especially when he gets physical with Opal. This arm-grabbing was something that angered me about AMC for years, as Edmund and Mateo later did this over and over.

Jack was really bad about doing the arm-grabbing thing with Erica too. He did it constantly over the years, and it always bugged me.

I always thought that Erica and Adam had chemistry, and a lot of it, but it stopped for me with a kiss. They just didn't go there for me. I just always thought Adam's love for Erica bordered on obsessed, when it was in the romantic arena. I never got the feeling that Erica was "in love" with Adam.

In 2008, it might have finally been the chance to take their relationship to a real romance, but with Pratt telling the story and the ageism at ABC, if it was happening at all, it was off-camera.

I think their relationship was best summed up by Erica in 2010 when Brooke asked her Erica to help out with Adam - despite their love/hate relationship, she would always consider Adam a friend.

Agreed. I loved that after all they did to each other, Erica and Adam still had each other's backs.

The person I wanted to see her reunite with during/after the Cambias murder and trial was David Hayward. MMT was definitely headed that direction - there was a very telling scene that summer/fall where Erica and Bianca are in her penthouse with David, and Erica is telling him how much she and Bianca depend on him, how he's like a father to Bianca, and how him helping Bianca cope with the rape means so much to her, how she and Bianca both really need him, etc... and then a short-time later, she's pushed back with Jack yet again. I really wonder what went on behind the scenes because a lot of interviews at the time with TPTB and the cast seemed to hint that Erica and David were going to be a couple again, and not just as a public show for their mutual alibi.

Well, there was that one weird period in 2008/2009 where she was getting close to him to spy on him for Kendall and find out what his interest was in Fusion, and they ended up I guess as lovers. I don't recall seeing them in bed or if it was even implied that they were in bed, but there was a lot of flirting and kissing, and she told JR and Colby before the custody fight with David and Krystal over little Adam that she DID love Adam. I thought SL and DC had AMAZING chemistry together, and I loved watching them on the screen no matter what they were doing!

I did enjoy their relationship at this time with them as a bit of a power couple, but it was really poorly written and very half-done.

I felt like David Hayward was sort of being set up to be the next generation of Adam Chandler - he was charming, he was wealthy, he was villainous, but he was capable of bringing such emotion to some of his work (like the basement scenes with Erica when the story of why he hated his mother came out or when Leora died) that you felt for him and you understood what motivated him. He was brought to the brink a few times, where you thought he might be written off for good, and yes he did leave for a while, but there was enough of interest there to keep him around.

I always enjoyed watching VI and DC on camera together, and I would have loved for them to interact more or even team up to take down someone else.

I hated the Dixie obsession, I hated that they killed off Leora. I hated that they rewrote history to make him Babe's father and had him betray Bianca like that, who he loved and adored as if she was his daughter. It almost felt like the whole David/Babe twist was set up because someone thought it would be fun to watch David and Tad on the same side to protect their kids. I get that, I do. VI and MEK had good chemistry together, but it was a crap storyline.

The problem though with AMC in its later years, among many other problems, is that characters like David were pushed to their worst extremes, and "good" characters - people like Tom and Brooke who were flawed but were essentially decent people who tried to do the right thing - were pushed off the show altogether. There was no balance there.

I don't like to think that politics in soap world are anything like ours. I'd like to think they have better people.

Dude, they had Dorothy Lyman's Opal running for mayor. I'm not sure what that says about soap politicians.

Actually as far as politics and soaps go, I'm always amused that characters will occasionally run for office like it's some minor thing that takes no time from their busy schedule of torrid love affairs and such. Speaking as someone who has worked in politics before, running a campaign for a statewide office is pretty much a full time job and then some. The idea that Travis Montgomery could have run for US Senate in the late 1980s in Pennsylvania with his celebrity pregnant girlfriend and his ex-wife helping out on his campaign - and WIN - is just silly. I somehow doubt that Travis and his knocked up girlfriend- the former model, multiple times divorced, previously stood trial for murdering her lover, etc. Erica would have played well in rural PA.

So Tom (if still alive) would vote for Romney.

When Julia was raped by Louie Greco and got pregnant as a result and wanted to end the pregnancy, Tom was among the non-violent protestors outside the clinic, waiving a sign.

Oh, and AFAIK, Tom is very much still alive, still married to Livia, and still living somewhere in Pine Valley. He just apparently doesn't socialize with anyone else in town.

I only knew Tom starting from the early 90s but I always found him to be boring. What was he doing in the 80s after his marriage to Brooke up till he paired up with Livia?

Brooke divorced him while pregnant with Laura because he got wasted and screwed Erica the night before her first wedding to Adam. He married Skye and then Barbara and was married to Barbara when she did a crappy job of babysitting and Laura got run over by a drunk driver. Barbara cheated with Travis after Travis and Erica's first marriage broke up, and Barbara initially passed off Molly as Tom's daughter. Travis and Barbara eventually got back together and had another baby ostensibly to "save" Molly via a bone marrow transplant, but Molly was supposedly in remission, so Sean was pretty much a "eh, just in case we need bone marrow later" baby, which was how they played it in 2006/2007 when Sean and Barbara came back to PV.

After Barbara and Travis left for Seattle with the kids, Tom got back together with Brooke, who was pregnant with a presumed dead Tad's baby, and Tom publicly claimed the baby for Brooke, who was in martyr "spare everyone's feelings" mode and didn't want anyone to know Tad was the father. They were engaged but then broke up, and Brooke hooked up with Jack for a while. Tom was kind of on his own until he got paired with Livia.

I don't remember that Tom and Livia were in Washington, D. C., but it may have been that way.

I do know that Paul Martin re-located to Washington, D. C. after he left Pine Valley.

Paul Martin was way before my time. Where DID Tom and Livia go? Did they just vanish into Pine Valley and were there but not on-screen? Or did they actually leave town for a while? I also seem to recall the actress who played Livia being upset about the pairing with Tom - she wanted Livia to have a fling with Jack instead, or at least that's what I remember reading at the time.

To this day, I have no idea why Susan Lucci didn't click with John James. Nor can I figure out why she didn't click with Jack Scalia. Those two pairings seemed like no-brainers to me.

SL and John James played a married couple in a TV movie in the late 80s, "Haunted by her Past." It's super lame. Finola Hughes played SL's ancestor who appeared in ghost form throughout the movie. When I realized they'd done a film together - and that I could watch it online via amazon - I downloaded it, thinking perhaps they'd been stellar together in that movie and that's why he was cast as Jeff Martin. Um, no. In that movie, they make Jeff and Erica look like wild, hot passionate lovers. :/ I mean, I get that John James did bear some slight resemblance to Charles Frank and Ray McDonnell, but really, he was just not good as Jeff. That movie should have been a huge red flag to AMC's casting director. If you KNOW someone doesn't connect well on-screen with your lead actress, why cast him?

Her not clicking with Jack Scalia I attributed mainly to the fact that their characters did not have a believable romance. Chris Stamp was the type of guy who would have been great with someone like Krystal, or maybe Anna for a hot fling. To me it was just not believable that Erica would seriously consider marrying someone who referred to her dressing up in a fur stole as "puttin' the dog on." I just.. no. No way, no how. I don't know how much of that was the writers and how much of that was Scalia, but it just did not work with the Erica Kane we'd all watched for 30 years. I could see Erica having a secret fling with Chris for the hell of it or because she was bored or whatever and perhaps coming to care for him, but I think she'd ultimately realize that they just aren't meant to be together. FWIW, I think she DID know that, but for whatever stupid reason wasn't willing to just come right out and SAY that. It was easier to cheat on him with Jack and let Jack force them apart the way he did with a lot of her relationships.

Tom/Erica What if she ended up pregnant even though she was secretly on the pills? They could have been recalled or something. Josh should have been the child of Tom and Erica, damn it.

Another "what if" I'd pondered: SL was hugely pregnant during the scene where Tom finds Erica's birth control pills. Erica was off the show for several months in early 1980 when Susan had her son. What if the pills were faulty and Erica was in one of those "I didn't know I was pregnant" situations and realized it once she got out to California to try her hand at acting? Erica supposedly went off to a fat farm in Phoenix or something after she failed as an actress, but maybe that was her cover story. She had the baby (Josh) prematurely, and was told it was stillborn because Greg wanted the baby for himself. When Erica came back from SL's maternity leave, Tom had gotten closer to Brooke, and Erica was trying to win him back. If she really wanted him back, it would make sense for her to avoid telling him that they'd had a baby who died - he'd have never forgiven her for keeping that a secret or for not coming back to PV as soon as she knew she was pregnant.

That would have been a far more workable story than the un-abortion. And we know Tom was alive and well SOMEWHERE because we law Livia whenever someone needed a lawyer other than Jack. Didn't they spend some time living in DC? Or am I remembering that wrong?

Plus SL at least had some chemistry with Dick Schoberg. The Erica/Jeff pairing circa 2006 was devoid of all chemistry.

Seriously, Erica, give me one good reason why making a baby with this hunk was impossible. Go ahead. I'm waiting.

I know, right? I only "knew" Tom from 1990 onward, and I wasn't overly impressed. But dear God, that man was HOT back in the day! No wonder SL speaks so fondly of him and of their honeymoon location shoot!

Omg, now I'm at the Free Erica Rally. This is TOO MUCH. B5 just showed up out of nowhere and started dancing, singing & rapping outside for Erica. LOLZ. I didn't realize this was how the story went, it was a bust

I did love "THIS IS AMERICA, FREEDOM FOR ERICA!!"

I have a "Free Erica" t-shirt, complete with her mugshot.

Neither do I. Although I'm satisfied with how it all turned out, I do think all that time on "Project Orifice" was better served elsewhere.

Project Orpheus was just awful. I like David, but the whole thing was so implausible and such a waste of time. I could buy that MAYBE he somehow managed to save Stuart, but the others made no sense at all.

^ Mercedes Benz product placement. This was when the show was attracting big brand advertisers.

I believe Erica was driving a white jaguar in 2003 the night Bianca was raped.

Don't judge! Maybe she handled it like my family. "We're gonna go visit grandma at *school*..."

Are you by any chance Italian? My Italian ex-bf used to jokingly refer to jail as "college."

He's looking so good now. Imagine had he stayed on as JR

He does look good! I could definitely see him as JR now.

I liked Anton and Kendall. I had always hoped that his character would have returned

Yes! I would have loved to see Anton come back when Dimitri "died" and Alex first showed up. It would have been interesting to see him interact with AM's Kendall.

I adore this clip - they're all playing musical chairs at the Valley Inn. Gloria is with Dimitri. Erica is with some guy. Adam is there with Haley and Charlie. Erica and Dimitri want each other, and Adam wants Gloria. Charlie finally talks Dimitri into taking action with amusing results, and when it's all over, Erica has agreed to marry Dimitri. This was sometime in the spring of 1993.

Donna would have had to be a recast then - the actress left the show in the early 90s to get married and move to Arkansas. I would have LOVED to have Mark come back full time, with or without Ellen. Especially after Mona died, I think Erica needed her brother around more often.

LOL...no but it sure is funny. When I see this girl, I swear this was trailer trash Babe as a kid

Oh God, that child...

Now that I think about it though, yeah, I could totally see Krystal and her Baby Dahl doing pageants.

Someone who was paying more attention remind me: where did Babe supposedly grow up? From the accents that she and Krystal sported from time to time, it almost sounds like Babe grew up in Pigeon Hollow or thereabouts, but Krystal supposedly got knocked up at a party David attended when he was in college... and David went to Stanford for undergrad and Columbia for medical school. Both seem unlikely places for him to meet Krystal with her hot pants and southern accent.

She is so insanely gorgeous in those photos, SFK. Those are some of my favorites too. I tend to prefer her hair straighter too or in loose curls to the wild curly look she has sported from time to time.