zanereed

16 hours ago, DeeVee said:

I get the feeling from Mart's interview that he was a bit of a troublemaker and that's what they didn't like about him, so this does not sound unbelievable to me.

It would also seem that if Marland got his way on this issue, it would make sense he would be surprised and angry when he was told Elliot was being fired. Enough that he would leave.

A link to a press article regarding Hulswit's firing from earlier in this very thread:

@vetsoapfan, I believe, recalled how Marland described Hulswit as a "dodo". Oddly enough, I never read that Hulswit was difficult to work with. The same apparently could not be said about my avatar, Don Stewart...

Mart Hulswit was critical of Marland's writing. So, Marland supposedly pressured Potter to fire Hulswit and recast the character of Ed. I read that account in a book that I frustratingly cannot find to reference here. In that book, Potter stated that he regretted being pressured to fire a long-term actor on the show, and that he learned he wouldn't repeat that again.

However, even if Hulswit had survived the Potter era, I'm not certain he would have survived the Kobe era.

On 3/16/2026 at 1:03 PM, kalbir said:

I've accepted that we'll probably never see any GL prior to 1979. I would love to see Roger/Holly storylines from MG first episode in 1976 until MZ departure in 1980.

There are the occasional episodes that have surfaced from 1973, as well as the two from 1977 that were put out by Soap Classics. I don't have the exact list any longer, but apparently UCLA has color kinescopes of TGL from 1973, assuming they are still playable. When Soap Classics were going through the P&G archive, there were at least 2 existing episodes from 1976 available (which they never had a chance to transfer and release), along with a black and white compilation tape of Bauer footage from the 1960's, possibly even into the early 1970's. Some of this footage was used on the "findyourlight.net" website, which included scenes of Ed Bauer in 1969 (being played by Robert Gentry) getting pulled over and jailed for drunk driving. I still believe there are still the occasional odd episodes with both film collectors and actors who were on the show from the 1970's. I couldn't believe the two episodes that recently surfaced from 1973 - including the return of Lynne Adams as Leslie! - so I believe anything is still possible.

On 3/13/2026 at 6:26 PM, Franko said:

And thank you for remembering to tag folks. (I need to start doing that.) Here's hope that more of Eileen and Don's week will show up.

@Franko (and @DRW50 for the tag),

Thank you so much for posting the link to this. I didn't think I would ever see any footage of Don's appearances on this show!

15 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

so what truly was the golden era of GL? Was it pre-1985... was it 89-93? Do we know much/care about the 70s? I'm enjoying reading about the 50s in those other threads, but haven't heard much about the 60s/70s of GL.

I have two personal "golden eras" for TGL:

The Dobson Era: 1975 to 1979

The mid-Curlee Era: late 1989 to early 1992 (though Curlee didn't take the head writer reigns until 1990)

I know that both eras had their misses. The Dobsons had a huge misfire with Bill Bauer's return from the dead, for example. However, I feel that by 1979 they were firing on all cylanders with all of the characters and storylines they had in place. I wish TPTB would have left them on the show for at least a year or two longer.

I felt the show was really going strong by 1990 into the early part of 1992. After that, there were too many hits and misses for me.

I admit that I am also fascinated by the existing 1966 episodes, and wish more episodes were available from the latter half of the 1960's.

2 hours ago, DeeVee said:

This picture popped up in my Pinterest feed. Does anyone have any idea when and/or where this was taken? It has to be after Mart and Lenore left GL and before Michael became visibly ill.

This looks like either 1988 or 1989.

2 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

I do recall the Alan/Hope getting married thing started in December 1979 at the end of the Dobson regime, but I'm not sure if they would have gone through it had they remained... or if they would have taken a darker turn had they remained in charge into 1980.

Elizabeth/Mike were the logical end game pre 1980, but Marland had his favorites and he had to recognize that Mike/Jennifer didn't share any chemistry right?

He kept trying to make Jennifer happen.. and her character didn't spark on the show even when he spun her off into a different orbit with Mark/Amanda in 1982. The interim writers at least recognized that Jennifer/Morgan weren't working and wrote them off in the spring of 1983 once Marland was long gone.

I don't think the Dobsons had any intention of marrying Alan and Hope. As you stated, I think Alan was going to take a darker turn towards Hope. With Roger no longer in Springfield, Alan could focus all his energies on getting Phillip back, and I think he was going to use Hope in order to do so. Again, the rumor I have heard for years is that had the Dobsons stayed on TGL, Phillip's parentage would have finally been revealed to him sometime in 1980 (either the spring or summer). This was supposed to have started a chain of events that would start new stories for Mike, Elizabeth, Justin, Alan, Hope, Diane, and one or two others. Jackie was supposed to have fled Springfield, but I don't know if that was temporary - meaning she would eventually come back played by a new actress - or semi-permanently. I can only assume that Alan's affair with Rita would have either already been in play or started later on in 1980, as well.

I really wish we knew who the Dobsons had in mind for Amanda's mother, but it certainly wasn't anyone like Jennifer Richards. Court deserved so much better, as the character of Jennifer never did catch on.

Plus, how would the Dobsons have written off Roger Thorpe...?

On 1/23/2026 at 8:10 PM, Paul Raven said:

What happened with Mike and Jennifer? No onscreen chemistry?

Geraldine Court was a Marland favorite, so I am surprised that romance was halted. Pure speculation but maybe Don Stewart wasn't happy with the pairing and spoke out. Allen Potter sided with Don. Part of the growing tension b/w Marland and Potter.

Agree that Hope and Alan were married too soon and given a dud ceremony. They could have got more out the relationship before a wedding. God knows, Alan had enough baggage to make Hope have some second thoughts before committing.

@Paul Raven - you called it. I can't remember if Stewart didn't get along with Court, or if he just didn't like the pairing. I think Stewart still wanted the Mike/Elizabeth pairing to be the endgame for Mike. However, Marland wanted Mike to be involved with Amanda's bio-mother, supposedly creating further tension with Alan and Hope.

The memory does play tricks on me, I'll admit, but I do not recall Ed Bryce reprising the role of Bill Bauer at all until August of 1983. Now, having Bill Bauer at Hope's wedding would have been such a Marland thing to do, but I don't remember Bill being on screen once the character left in 1978, even for a guest appearance.

2 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

Nope, I do not remember the sisters being notified about Bill at all. I did not see every second of every episode, so I could have missed a momentary reference about Meta and Trudy at the time, but I doubt the writers included one. They didn't refer to Trudy when Papa Bauer died, either (again, unless I missed a nanosecond comment).

I actually recall Bert maybe mentioning Meta when Bill died in 1983. Or Bert might have been mentioned Simone? The mind plays tricks on me nowadays...!

11 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

When Bill came back was there reference to Meta and Trudy discovering their brother was alive? I'm sure viewers of 10 years or more (and cwere a lot of them) would have been hoping for/ expecting a mention.

Now that is a great question. I don't remember that at all, unless it was done in passing. @vetsoapfan or anyone else watching during this time, do any of you recall this?

17 hours ago, DeeVee said:

I do give him credit for many things. I think the way he handled the Roger wrap-up was great--he won an Emmy for it and he deserved it. He couldn't help Pickett and eventually Kasdorf leaving. He recognized Lisa Brown was special and built a family around her, a blue color family, something that you saw less and less of on soaps during 80s. I didn't mean to give the impression that I hated everything he did. GL was my show back then.

Marland absolutely handled Roger's wrap-up beautifully. No character deserved a spectacular ending more. He had the core characters who had an involved history with Roger involved (Holly, Ed, and Mike), which added to the impact. Where I think he failed was not really having a good plan of what to do with Holly, post-Roger. Maureen Garrett just seemed to be hanging around for most of the spring and summer.

And you're right - Cindy Pickett was apparently never sticking around past the end of her contract in 1980, so Marland had zero time to focus on the Phillip parentage situation with her in the mix as Jackie. I assume Marland had eventual plans to reveal to Phillip that Jackie and Justin were his biological parents, but I'm curious as to how far out that was going to happen. A few of the key players in Springfield knew by early 1981 (such as Hope, for example), so I always figured it would have been in play by spring or summer of 1981, but that never occurred.

By 1982, I wish they had either moved Sara back into either Justin's orbit or into Mike's...or both. I never thought Sara and Adam worked well together.

Meta Bauer certainly would have been more than welcomed in 1986 after they officially recognized Bert's passing on air. @Paul Raven , you might be right - Ellen Demming may have retired by that 1986. However, others on here have certainly posted good candidates who could have filled that role.

The other "missing" Bauer who could have ushered additional Bauers onto the canvas would have been Bill and Meta's sister, Trudy. Although Trudy wasn't on screen much past the 1950's, she did marry Clyde Palmer and that they were living in New York. I think Clyde passed away in the 1970's, but I don't know that Trudy was ever mentioned again...?

37 minutes ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

She would remain on the show for another 14 years but she was never front and center again. Anyway, Bruce was really the best thing that ever happened to Meta. Even better than Joe. Joe was good for Meta but he brought the baggage of hurricane Kathy with him.

Quick follow up question - was Meta on the show consistently, or was she there off and on for those 14 years? I seem to remember that she and Bruce moved away from Springfield around 1966 (Papa was thinking of moving away with them), and then returned around 1971. Is the latter correct, or was Meta around during the latter half of the 1960's?

4 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

I wanted Ellen Demming (the actress who had previously played Meta for 21 years) to reprise the role. She was only 63 years old in 1985. Springfield needed the stability and comfort of seeing familiar faces back on-screen. Having her and Mart Hulswit return would have mollified me a lot. Having Don Stewart and Elvera Roussel asked back as well would have helped me forgive TGL for all the crap it had heaped on viewers for the last few years.

Agreed. I think Demming would have been more than capable of reprising the role. Speaking of Meta, does anyone know why Irna Phillips decided to kill off Joe Roberts? I assume the actor wanted to leave the show? I haven't seen much footage of Meta's third husband, Bruce Banning, at all, so I don't know how their chemistry was.

Going to Dick Grant...I never found the character appealing at all. He never seemed to fit in as a leading man. I thought Paul Fletcher was a more interesting character of the Springfield doctors prior to the Ed Bauer and Joe Werner years.

2 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

Agree, but since MH was the Ed I saw until high school, he is kind of "my Ed." The 70th anniversary show, where they brought back Don Stewart would have been the perfect time to bring him back, and try to keep him there. With the fallout about Rick's paternity of one of Blake's kids, with Ed being stuck in the middle of Rick and Ross, (and his "step daughter" ) and references to Ed finding out Blake was Rogers, the storyline would have more depth to it then the "shock" value it was played. Of course, if we are dreaming, having him in place if they went through with a " Roger has ALS" would have really been interesting.

By that point, I wish Rauch had brought back both Hulswit and Stewart as Ed and Mike on contract. Hulswit for exactly the reasons you stated. For Stewart as Mike, I was amazed during the 60th Anniversary event at how many people Mike interacted with before he left for DC in 1984 that were still on the show. Plus (as I think we previously discussed), having Michelle's law-and-order uncle on the show when she was involved with the Danny and the mafia storyline would have lent more weight to it.

@Reverend Ruthledge , I can't argue why you liked Gentry in the role. Gentry's Ed was always intense, which absolutely worked with what they were writing from 1966 to 1969. Gentry was a great contrast to both Bill and an evolving Bert. I don't remember Gentry much as Ed, so thank goodness there is some of his work out there (though I have always wanted to see his work as Ed during his final months in 1968/1969). But as @vetsoapfan mentioned, MH was the one that, IMHO, brought into Ed some warmth along with the intensity. And Stewart definitely didn't have that Papa Bauer warmth, either.

@Mitch64 - that's interesting that they tried to get Hulswit back. Do you happen to know when this was?

14 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

Marland almost always came across as a gentleman. I was really disappointed when, in a magazine interview, he snidely referred to Hulswit as a "dodo bird," whom Lenore Kasdorf allegedly couldn't stand working with and begged to be separated from.

Imagine anyone thing Peter Simon was "a more dashing leading man."🙄

PS was good on SFT, but as Ed Bauer, he was listless and morose, and lacked the charm and passion MH brought to the role. A few years later, when TPTB slaughtered the Bauer family, it would have been a comforting link to the past to have Hulswit in the role. Instead, we had the sparse remains of the core family on screen, and a non-descript actor as "new Ed" (which is how I referred to him for the next 27 years, LOL).

Dalton, as Elizabeth, was never one of my favorite actresses, but it was short-sighted and damaging to the drama, to have Elizabeth just disappear and remain off-camera, in limbo for years. We didn't even know if she was alive or dead for the longest time, until it was acknowledged she had died years before.

An actress of Maureen Garrett's caliber should never have been written out. She and MH's Ed worked beautifully together.

Yes, she became a supporting, talk-to character; supporting instead of a lead. I hated the way she was written out: announcing she was taking a three-month sabbatical from Cedars...and then disappearing into the ether and never being seen or heard from again. Why not just SAY she was retiring or moving away permanently?

Again, a poster in this forum who is a more creative than the actual TGL scribes from the 1980s, and from after Nancy Curlee's departure.

@vetsoapfan and I are very biased when it comes to Mart Hulswit as Ed 😁, aren't we? No one else who played Ed Bauer had both warmth and charm like Hulswit did. And yet Hulswit could turn it to irritation, anger, and even aggression at the drop of a hat if someone kept at him enough, which was mostly Roger Thorpe (to be fair). IMHO, Gentry lacked true warmth. Simon had zero charisma at all. Van Vleet was completely out of his depth. For example, could Hulswit's Ed take on Roger in a fist fight? Not likely, but he would absolutely try. Imagine Peter Simon as Ed Bauer in Santo Domingo chasing Roger Thorpe through the jungles in 1980. I'm just not seeing it. Hulswit's Ed might be difficult to imagine roaming around Santo Domingo, as well, but his Ed would act on complete instinct if someone he knew and loved was in danger.

I think that eventually under the Dobsons, Mike and Elizabeth would have ended up together, as would Ed and Holly. I always thought Hulswit and Garrett had good chemistry.

38 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

The Dobsons might have gone down a road somewhat like this. There was the whole Stenbeck heir thing on ATWT.

Speaking of the Dobsons, I wanted to pick up on an earlier post about what they had planned moving forward if they would have been allowed to stay on TGL.

Does anyone know if the Dobsons' original plan for Roger Thorpe truly was for Dr. Renee DuBois to alter Roger's face, so that Michael Zaslow could exit the show (as he wanted) and the Dobsons would have brought on a new actor to portray Roger? If not, I wonder how they would have let Roger exit the show...?

I was told in the past that the Dobsons were finally going to reveal Phillip's true parentage to the entire town by the late spring of 1980. This would have resulted in Hope leaving Alan for a time, Justin and Elizabeth finally divorcing, and Jackie leaving town after a breakdown, as something was supposed to happen to Phillip. He would run away from home, I think is what I heard, and Jackie would blame herself for it and leave Springfield. I don't think Cindy Pickett was planning on staying past her contract when it expired in June, so it could be that Jackie left for a bit and returned later with a new actress portraying her...?

Were the Dobsons always planning on killing off Lucille? I've heard conflicting stories.

I have heard that the Dobsons never planned to actually marry Hope and Alan. Marrying them was all Marland. I'm not sure what the end goal was for Hope and Alan in the Dobsons' plans - does anyone venture a guess?

I think the Dobsons did have someone in mind for Amanda's mother, but I was told that it would have been an original character of theirs versus Jennifer Richards, who was an original of Marland's. Does anyone know if they had something in mind for the mother...?

I don't think Rita and Ed were the final game plan for the Dobsons - would Ed and Holly have eventually reunited?

Would Elizabeth and Mike finally have ended up together after she divorced Justin...?

What were their plans for Hillary and Katie...?

I'm trying to determine if the Dobsons would have redeemed Ross, or left him as the black sheep of the Marler family? It would have been fun to see Hope break up with Alan and start dating Ross. Neither Alan nor Mike would probably have been thrilled.

22 hours ago, DRW50 said:

@vetsoapfan @slick jones @Soaplovers @Tisy-Lish @Soapsuds @SoapDope78 @FrenchFan @Khan @jam6242 @Vee @Sapounopera @soapfan770 @Paul Raven @P.J. @DeeVee @Mitch64 @GL95 @Kane @alwaysAMC @Spoon @GL Oldtimer @kalbir @dc11786 @zanereed @Maxim @Franko @BoldRestless @Liberty City @Reverend Ruthledge @Speed Racer

The channel that tends to provide a few brand new vintage episodes a year for various soaps has found another for GL. In good quality too. April 1, 1953. I checked and couldn't find the episode elsewhere, although there is already some March and April around. There's always a double-edged sword in so much of one period being around when so much else is gone but I'm still very grateful and I'm sure you will be too.

Most of this is just the Roberts and the Grants, the former worrying about Kathy and the latter having Laura Grant at her most imperious in her schemes to break up Dick and Kathy. One surprise is we actually get to see Joey Roberts. I assume this is Tarry Green. I don't think we've ever seen him before, although I may be wrong.

I was going to say he looks a bit old for 18 but this is 1953...not sure how old Green was but I see he had been in Broadway shows starting in 1951.

Thank you for alerting me to this @DRW50 . It is always great to see the original families from the TV years.

On 1/18/2026 at 10:13 AM, DeeVee said:

Strap in, folks, we're taking a deep-dive into this storyline:

It wasn't convoluted, not really. Jackie always knew that Phillip was her son, she knew that her child replaced Elizabeth's child because it was going to be stillborn. She was shown discussing this with Elizabeth's doctor, who was also her doctor while she was pregnant. Then after the birth, she befriended Elizabeth and Alan so she could keep tabs on Phillip.

When the Spauldings first came on the show, Alan was supposed to be from Chicago. They lived with Jackie while looking for a house. Then someone must have said, "Hey, it's too much of a coincidence that they landed in Springfield, where Jackie lived." So they changed it so that Alan's family was from Springfield and had a mansion in town.

If there's one thing that made no sense in this story is WHY Alan did this. He didn't even LIKE Elizabeth. She was never going give him children of his own. Why didn't he just divorce her and marry a woman who could give him children? Or if he could accept an adopted child, why not mourn the child he lost with Elizabeth and then somewhere down the road adopt one?

(It's possible this was explained in more detail at the time, but this is what I remember and what I've read in recaps).

He claimed he didn't want Elizabeth to have a breakdown, yadda, yadda--but he didn't care about her. Like at all. If she lost her mind he could have parked her in an institution and divorced her. The only reasons he flipped out when she left him was because she did the leaving and she was taking Phillip away.

(It's hard to ignore the fact that he was abusive. Not is a physical way, but in an emotional way. He made her life hell. That's why I'm convinced if the Dobsons had remained, he was originally slated to do the same to Hope eventually, which didn't happen until Ryder and Long took over the show).

So the thing that was missing here, again, is what was his motivation, other than to create a long-term baby switch storyline?

I think it had to do with Brandon. If the Dobsons had stayed, it might have been revealed that for one reason or another (my guess is a trust) he HAD to present Brandon with a male grandchild. He specifically asked the doctor for a male child. Remember, Alan Michael had a trust that he tried to get hold of, and even though that happened under different writers, it not hard to imagine that Alan wanted control of a trust for his first child, too. He would have almost certainly been the trustee and would have controlled it until Phillip grew up. (I also think a possible reason he married Elizabeth is because Brandon commanded it--which would be another reason for him to hate him).

He stays with Elizabeth because he falls head over heels for Phillip--come on, Phillip was the one true love of his life; that was the ONE thing that was consistent about Alan though many, many regime changes, right down to the last episode of GL. So much so that he was willing to give up having biological children. He even told Elizabeth after Brandon died and Jackie divorced him that it was unlikely he would ever have more children. It was really Hope who wanted to have a baby, and as we see over the years, AM was never as important to Alan as Phillip was.

There were various reasons why Marland didn't want to deal with the story: first of all, he was way more interested in his own characters and stories. That was pretty much true of every story he inherited. He had something against Lezlie Dalton and wanted to get rid of her. And, as mentioned, he just didn't like adopted children stories.

Also, he had to tackle ANOTHER paternity reveal dealing with Alan: Amanda being his daughter. What he did there, to make it more interesting to him, I would guess, is that when he created Jennifer, he gave her a teen daughter who he made one of the major players in his central young love storyline.

I can see him saying to himself, "Eh, I'll dump Phillip and Freddie in boarding school and deal with this down the road."

Even though delaying so much deprived the audience of a lot of the story beats playing out, especially because he shipped off Elizabeth and inexplicably killed off Jackie, I'm glad he did that. NO WAY would he have handled the reveal was well as Long (and Ryder, too, I think) did.

I'm just going to say it: he SUCKED at plot reveals and plot climaxes. He didn't know (or didn't care enough) how to have the reveals impact the story AFTER the reveal.

Holly is finally free of the threat of Roger and can remake her life, maybe confront her feelings about Ed? Shipped off for years. Alan is reunited with his first love who haunted him for decades? Nothing. They just become polite acquaintances. Amanda loses her child and flips out over the truth about her paternity? Has a brief mental breakdown (but only because Kathleen Cullen was going on maternity leave) then recovers and it's barely a blip. Hope finds out her father was right all along and Alan had been lying to her from the minute they fell in love? Nada. No biggie. She immediately forgives him.

On the other hand, it was Long and Ryder who set up the complex adult relationship between Alan and Phillip that played out for the rest of the life of the show.

So even though I'm p!ssed at Marland for mishandling the story, by kicking it down the road, he allowed other writers to use it to impact the canvas for the life of the show.

There were two people that Marland did not like when he inherited TGL - Mart Hulswit and Lezlie Dalton. Hulswit because he was critical of the writing, apparently too critical according to Allen Potter. Marland allegedly convinced Potter to fire Hulswit so he could replace him with a more dashing, leading man. Potter said later on (I wish I could find the source - it was in a book I read on soaps, in general) that he regretted doing it, and he would never be convinced liked that again. In regards to Dalton, I don't know what issue Marland had with her. It seemed that Marland had no idea how to write for Holly, or didn't care to. I think Marland was always going to write out Peter eventually, so the obvious play would be to put Holly back in Ed's orbit again.

Sara never was interesting again after Dean Blackford died. I really wish the Dobsons would have pivoted in 1979 and had Mike Bauer and Sara get closer, post Dean's death (due to the trauma Sara faced). Then eventually add in Hope by March of 1979, and it would have been the Jackie/Justin/Sara/Mike/Alan/Elizabeth entanglement. The Dobsons didn't seem to know what to do with Sara, though, other than having her go back to being essentially being in a supporting role.

I LOVE your idea about Brandon and a male heir/trust angle "threat" to Alan. Add to that Brandon could have made it a point that the first child Alan had must be a male heir. Meaning, Alan had to make certain to ask the doctor for a male child. Had other writers picked up on this or if the Dobson's would have used this premise, Brandon could have blackmailed Alan after finding out about Alan's liaison with Amanda's mother resulting in Alan's firstborn being a daughter (whether the mother of Amanda turned out to be Jennifer Richards or someone else).

8 hours ago, P.J. said:

I must not watch enough of '84, because I never see much of Mike and Alex, and I'm not sure how they're even showing interest in each other when she slept with Ross and has Warren's balls in a jar on her nightstand.

I'm sure Marland would've developed them differently, but other than early Nola's machinations, the Reardons don't seem all that interesting. Tony sole purpose seems to be bedding anything that moves.

There are some episodes up on YT from June and July of 1984 that feature Mike and Alex.

Looking back, I wonder if Stewart knew his days were numbered. Mike didn't give any speech at all during the Springfield Founders Day event in August of 1984. I think Bert wasn't available because of Charita's health, but the fact that the second longest running character on the show didn't give any speech concerning Springfield, and that a speech was given by none other than H.B. Lewis (who had only been on the show for about a year) made zero sense.

As far as the Reardons go, I agree with @P.J. - I don't really think they had a true direction for the family once Marland quit.

@DRW50 - you are very welcome. Again, who knows how accurate any of this, especially 41-odd years later. The things I believe the most out of all of it are that the Mike/Lillian/Alexandra love triangle was supposed to play out for most of 1984, and lead to ramifications with the Beth/Lujack romance, along with Kobe definitely firing Don Stewart at some point in August.

1 hour ago, Soaplovers said:

Hilary being killed off was pretty sudden and unexpected in the fall of 1984 so I wonder if that was a last minute decision due to the issues between Kobe and the actress playing Hilary?

Exactly. Take these things with a grain of salt. I've heard that Hillary's death was Kobe's call to add more weight/excitement to the story (she said something along those lines). But by the time of Hillary's funeral, Ed was recast, Mike was written out, and the only anchor they had was Bert being there. So, was Mike supposed to go to Barbados for Hillary as well as rescue Alex? I really would love to see Long's actual story projections for all of 1984.

48 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

I only remember Brandon having scenes with Lucille. There's a scene when Alan and Hope were on the island where he tells her his father is in a nursing home but he never sees him. Possibly they had phone call scenes? Seems to me Alan must have kicked Brandon in the teeth once more to get him to leave everything to Amanda. But I don't know for sure.

Supposedly the P&G video archive began in September of 1979, which should have all the episodes with Brandon Spaulding and his death. I was hoping when that first German "Guiding Light" DVD set came out a few years ago that it would begin with those September episodes. Instead, it began in November of 1979. Maybe the September episodes are no longer in the archive.

21 hours ago, DeeVee said:

Hang on.

I believe they MIGHT have.

In fact, it's possible that it was Mike who helped Brandon with his will, where he left his Spaulding stock to Amanda.

There was an episode from late August 1979 recently uploaded which had scenes that implied Ross knew Amanda was the Spaulding heir before Brandon died. He was really sneaky back then, and possibly found out by snooping around Mike's office.

I can't say this is correct with absolute certainty, as this is over 45 years ago and I wasn't watching the show regularly at the time (had to fight my sister for the TV because she watched GH). Also, not much survives today of scenes with Brandon before he "died" the first time.

But if Mike was his lawyer when he wrote that will, then him being involved in the Barbados story would have made sense.

You may be absolutely right! I'm trying to remember who actually interacted with Brandon before his death in and around September of 1979. I do remember Lucille being with him, but was anyone else? I honestly can't remember, other than Lucille. I assume Alan was...? I was very young at the time, so I can't recall.

Regarding 1984 and the November Babados storyline - all I was able to gleam years ago was that Mike - still apparently upset with Alex at that time (for whatever reason, that wasn't clear) decides to go to Barbados to both help rescue Alex and to get some type of revenge for the death of Hillary. Lillian doesn't want Mike to go, but he does it, anyway. The point of this was to bring Mike and Alex back together and to legitimize Brandon's sudden reappearance. And you are correct - if Mike helped Brandon with his will, it would tie him in some way to Brandon besides just Alex accepting his return.

I never found out if Pam Long had anything else planned for Mike Bauer beyond 1984. I've been told that Mike was going to have to make a tough choice at Christmas, whatever that meant. I assumed it would mean being with either Lillian or Alex. Hell, it could have meant choosing between regular and decaf 😆.