Mona Kane Croft

That Justine plot had to be the worst doppelgänger/twin/clone storyline in the history of soaps. The were so many holes in the plot, not to mention the absurd campiness (which did not fit on AW). And there was absolutely no explanation of why Rachel and Justine were identical. Just a pile of silliness from start to finish. This was during a period on soaps where is seemed every show decided to do a doppelgänger/twin/clone plot with a major star, whether it fit the show or not. Didn't AMC even give Erica Kane a doppelgänger briefly? Jeeze Louise. I'm not fundamentally against these plots, because occasionally they work quite well. Frannie/Sabrina on ATWT in the mid-1980s was probably the best of the bunch. I accepted that storyline completely and was drawn in by it. It was well written, superbly acted, and the special effects were absolutely believable. Marley/Vicki on AW also worked for me. Lily/Rose on ATWT was also a storyline that I enjoyed, but I will admit it had very shaky beginnings because it toyed with established history too much. I have come to believe that the best doppelgänger/twin/clone plots on soaps tend to those in which both characters remain on the canvas more-or-less permanently. Unfortunately, most of these stories are so bad, and so completely rejected by the audience that the "bad" doppelgänger is dispatched rather quickly and the entire plot is never mentioned again on the show.

I asked Eddie Drueding what set the party took place on, and he told me it was a large country-club set they used in the early to mid-80s for large events. I think this is also the same set that held a party just after Jacquie Courtney returned in 84-85. Alice attended the party and, I think, had her first interactions with Donna, Felecia, and some of the other newer major characters.

Discussion of VW got started here because we were discussing her role as Charlotte Bauer. It's only natural that the conversation might evolve to her work on AW. There is really no way to avoid that, especially if people engage. I'm sure it won't go on forever. It doesn't bother me at all, since she did play an important role on GL early in her career. I will agree with you, VW may have picked up that accent through working so closely with Charles Keating. But that's really not a good excuse. She is an actress who played a character for whom that accent was completely out of character. Just my opinion.

Yes, that pseudo-British accent VW started using in the last few years of the show was one of the strangest acting choices I have ever seen anywhere. Until then, I had always liked her acting, but I believe she more and more began to play herself, as the years went by. Why in the world would working-class Rachel Davis ever ever ever use a British accent? Connie Ford would have slapped that accent right out of her mouth.

Thanks for that information. I'd love to see those scenes.

Several of you have probably seen the early B&W episode of ATWT in which Chris Hughes is preparing to fly to California to get his ne'er-do-well brother, John. Much of the episode is devoted to discussion of John and his past troubles. Does anyone know if Chris was successful in finding his brother? Did John ever appear on the show? And if so, which actor played him?

Her son also played Dracula in the final season of the series Penny Dreadful.

That's hilarious, but pretty darn accurate, especially when Wyndham was playing "bad" Rachel. My God, she could be scary and mean!! She certainly wasn't Robin Strasser's "Erica Kane" Rachel. I find it kinda surprising, since Harding Lemay supposedly wanted to reform Rachel even before Wyndham was cast, that he actually wrote her much darker and almost frightening after Wyndham took the role. Lemay certainly didn't mellow Rachel at that point. He made her even more villainous, before he reformed her. Strange choice, I think. I did see her as Charlotte a couple of times, but I was rather young. As I recall, she was in a hospital bed and very resentful about something. She treated Mike very rudely. I assumed she was a bad character. I can understand why she was cast as AW's Rachel after demonstrating her skills as Charlotte.

Were Victoria Wyndham and Nancy Addison playing the roles at that time? Wow, those two on screen together must have been electric -- especially if they were enemies! I'd love to see that.

Yes, that does seem very rude. How could anyone turn-down a homemade gift from Grandpa Hughes. Wasn't Jennifer a good character? Did she have a mean side? I think I remember her as kind and soft-spoken. Maybe she was a snob, but that's not what I recall.

Which of Grandpa Hughes' granddaughters in law was pregnant while Kim was in town? Was it Jennifer?

Thanks. You may be right about union benefits being like Medicare Plus. So that would be an incentive to return even after 65 years of age. But at some point, actors do get to retire without returning to work. And surely they don't lose benefits at that point. I'm sure it's a complicated situation, just like health insurance for anyone in the US.

That's strange, because isn't Jane Elliot older than 65 now?

I'll respectfully disagree with that statement. I think All My Children did a wonderful job of using a semi-permanent secondary location in the early 1980s, when Erica was living in New York City. Erica was living there and she associated with people there, a few of whom became important to the story. Plus others from Pine Valley also ended up in Manhattan for extended stays (although none nearly as long as Erica). If I recall, Jessie and Jenny were there for a couple of months, and others visited from time to time. They built wonderful sets for Erica, and I thought the entire experiment was very refreshing and 100 percent successful. I don't remember how long Erica lived in NYC, but I'd guess many two-years??? I really think it worked. I will agree that GL's attempt at a second location was far less successful, but that may have had more to do with the plot -- a fantasy prince/princesses romance that was fairly unbelievable in the first place. I don't think any fans of GL were wishing for that type of fantasy garbage. And I feel the audience rejected the plot as much as they rejected the second location. GL and AMC are the only two soaps I can remember that used a semi-permanent second location. Were there other soaps that also did this? Does anyone remember if any radio soaps tried this?

I think she was probably trying to extend her actors' health insurance until she was old enough to go on Medicare. Just like everyone else in the US, when she became 65 years of age, she would have been eligible for Medicare and would no longer have needed private health insurance. All of this is just speculation on my part, but I've heard of other actors doing the same thing. I believe to remain on actors' health insurance, and individual is required to work as an actor at least one time during a particular length of time -- perhaps at least one job every 5-years. Or maybe 4-years. It might even be 10-years. But if they do not have a paid acting job within that interval, they lose that health insurance.

Slight change of subject -- but did anyone else notice the minor changes to the Matthews house set in both these scenes and some others from the same era? There had previously been a short waist-high partition/bookcase between the living room and the hallway by the stairs. And that partition/bookcase is gone in these scenes. It's a small change, I realize, but really opened up the space. There may have been other minor changes to the set at this time also, but I haven't seen a shot of the entire set from this era. A year or so later more minor changes were made, including that silly oval shaped window they added over the staircase. The oval window had never been there before, and didn't make sense, because that wall was not an exterior wall. So logically, there could not be a window there.

And misguided changes they were . . .

Funny, the things I loved about CBS and NBC soaps are the very characteristics other people ridiculed.

Yes, I believe Patti and Jo had a short conversation about Sarah's death in one of Patti's early scenes. Probably the same scene in which Patti tells Jo she and Lyn have divorced. And after that, neither Lyn nor Sarah were mentioned again (as I recall). Patti's return could have been a great thing for the show -- finally giving Jo a family to surround her. But of course, Patti needed to bring at least a couple of kids along with her to Henderson. And perhaps, even bring along Lyn. Had Patti returned with Lyn and some children, the marital troubles and divorce could have played out on-screen, giving Patti some drama appropriate to her age (Patti was originally of similar age to Janet Bergman Walton and Emily Rogers). And instead of trying to shoe-horn Patti in as the "new" Liza, Patti should have been the new Janet, with one of Patti's daughters becoming the new young romantic lead (ala the "new" Liza). I'm not suggesting Liza should have left the show, but perhaps it was time for Liza to be played a bit older, as she had been SFT's young female romantic lead for nearly a decade. In the mid-1980s, there was still so much promise for Patti and what she and her progeny could have added to Jo's life. But sadly, most of that was squandered by de-aging Patti, almost forgetting she already had children, and putting her in romantic competition with Liza and Sunny. Big mistakes, in my opinion.

The casting for Patti was all wrong, and she was almost a generation younger than the character should have been. Plus, bringing her back to Henderson alone with none of her children seemed a waste. Having Patti return to the show was a generally good idea, but the execution was horrible.

Was Calhoun at ATWT for only two years? That's an amazingly short amount of time. What years was he there?

That's an interesting perspective. But I honestly believe serial killer plots (if written well) are very well suited to daytime drama. The problem, in my opinion, is that they are seldom written well, and often terribly written. The compelling thing about a serial killer is the truth of it all -- the simplicity. All serial killers murder for one reason -- a psycho-sexual compulsion. Nothing more, nothing less. They don't murder for revenge, for money, for love or hate, or because somebody is trailing them. Also, there is a fairly narrow profile of likely serial killers. But soap operas almost always go well beyond that profile, when the killer is finally revealed. If soap opera writers would do even one-hour of research before beginning a serial killer plot, the result could be Emmy worthy. Sadly, that doesn't seem to have happened yet.

Two serial killer plots one month apart? Are you kidding? Jeeze-Louise . . .

I think you are both right. I forgot about the thing at the hospital. I don't think I was watching closely at that time, as I have almost no memory of it. Was that a serial killer? Or just a murder in the hospital?

I guess if you are going to do a serial killer storyline, it needs to be disturbing. And Frankie's murder certainly was. Chilling and revolting, actually. But if I recall correctly, Fax Newman's motivation for at least some of the murders did not fit those of a believable serial killer. Real serial killers typically have one single motivation for all their murders (a psycho-sexual fixation of some sort), but didn't Fax have different motivations for each victim? For example, he stalked (but didn't murder, obviously) Felicia, because she had found a clue that might lead to him. That seemed poorly researched, poorly written, and slightly cartoonish to me. Donna, did AW do only two serial killer plots in it's history? I think the plot featuring David O'Brien was far better written.