Mona Kane Croft

3 hours ago, tune_in_tomorrow said:

I know I am with several others who wish we could have seen more of Audra Lindley's vicious take on Liz. For those of us who only know her sitcom work from the mid '70s until her death in 1999, it would definitely show a different facet to her career. 

Although I barely remember Lindley as Liz, I assume she was somewhat similar to Phoebe Tyler on AMC.  Not as wealthy and probably not played with as much humor -- but Phoebe would probably be the best way to describe Liz, especially when Agnes Nixon was writing AW.   

5 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

During the Strasser/Lindley era, Rachel tried her very best to ingratiate herself to Aunt Liz, but Liz never really gave her the time of day.

 

It is possible that Aunt Liz had mellowed during her time away from Bay City. Her son Bill was dead and she was alienated from her daughter Susan and daughter-in-law Missy, and extreme loneliness can force people into reflection. I just wish we had SEEN more of Liz's transformation, rather than just being asked to accept it after the fact. (Still, Irene Dailey was so brilliant that she could sell us on anything.)

During Dailey's early months on the show, Liz was still rather nasty and self confident.  She was never quite as villainous as Audra Lindley's Liz, but she wasn't the pathetic lonely woman we saw later.  It wasn't until around the time Mac rejected her romantic interests in favor of Rachel (late-'74?) that Liz started to become more sympathetic. And then after Mary died (April, '75), Liz mellowed a bit more as she assumed a slight motherly role with Pat, Alice, and Russ. As someone else has mentioned, she became less a trouble-maker, and more a meddler.  I wish Lemay had allowed Liz to maintain more of her elitism and fire. I think she would have been more functional as a legacy character in the later years of the show.   

19 minutes ago, Xanthe said:

I was watching an episode from 1981 where Pat and Olivia are talking about a fundraiser and one of them suggests approaching a station with the call letters WCCB for help with a telethon. A few years later Mac's TV station was KBAY. Even with the Michigan/Illinois confusion I don't think anyone has ever intended to depict Bay City as west of the Mississippi. It never occurred to me before but KBAY is a bit of an anomaly. 

I'd never thought about that, but I do remember the TV station in later years was KBAY.  It's unfortunate they didn't stick with the Michigan location, and maybe even put it into cannon, rather than the abrupt move to being a suburb of Chicago.  I remember when Reginald Love said he could see the Chicago skyline from the balcony of Tops Restaurant.  Until then, Bay City had never been said to be close to Chicago.  

Virginia Dwyer certainly did a terrific job of keeping herself hidden, after her departure from AW.  She appeared in one national commercial for Bufferin or Anacin, and then disappeared.  I've never found even one post-AW photograph of the woman.  And that's strange, because she lived in Manhattan for the rest of her life, and was socially active in charities, etc.  But she somehow avoided having her photo taken.  Or at least found a way to keep them off the internet.   

8 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

That's Audra Lindley, screaming her way through yet another scene. I loved watching her rant and rave.

 

Virginia Dwyer was brilliant in the scene where she finds out about Rachel's baby. It was actually unnerving to watch Mary fly off the handle.

 

And yet, no matter how much Lemay altered and diminished the character of Mary, the audience continued to adore her. The daytime press was awash with complaint letters from AW viewers that year, thanks to the show's axing of Dwyer, Reinholt and Courtney. They lost Susan Sullivan shortly as well, and all the departures left a huge hole on the canvas.

Heck yes.  Mary was NBC's version of Nancy Hughes and Bert Bauer, and the fan's loved her.  You simply don't kill-off a soap opera's matriarch.  

23 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

Lemay admitted, himself, that he diminished Virginia Dwyer's presence on the show by shifting story focus from Mary to Aunt Liz. But even Liz Matthews went through a transformation under Lemay's pen. Previously, she had been much more fierce and aggressive, particularly when Audra Lindley was in the role.  Lindley's Liz would fly into rages and scream and SCREAM at people, whereas Lemay turned Liz into an overly-emotional busybody with good intentions. There's a famous scene (available on youtube) in which Aunt Liz is looking after Alice, who is teetering on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Rachel marches into the house and announces that she is kicking Alice out of it so that Rachel can move in with Jamie. As Rachel attacks and berates Alice, Aunt Liz just sits there meekly on the bed with tears in her eyes. HA! The Aunt Liz of yore would have ripped Rachel's hair out, dragged her down the stairs and thrown her out the door...screaming at her all the way!

 

As Lemay's writing started to deteriorate in 1975, I believe that it was mainly the core elements of the show still intact, and the talented actors involved, which kept it afloat.

Lemay preferred writing for neurotic characters.  So, if he could find (or manufacture) even a little neurosis in a character, he was happy writing for them.  He found neurosis in John, Pat, Lenore, Alice, Steve, Rachel, Willis, Iris, Angie, etc. He didn't like Mary, because she was basically the show's matriarch and a happy well-adjusted woman -- an archetype he didn't understand, and thought unnecessary.  He wanted very badly to turn Mary into a meddling shrew like Aunt Liz. But when Dwyer was reluctant to play the role that way, he simply brought Liz back from Arizona, gave Liz most of the scenes he'd formerly been writing for Mary, and then minimized Mary to the point she was "out of town" much of the time.   

51 minutes ago, Soaplovers said:

Well a November 1964 episode had scenes of Alice talking about a party she was going to host, a beer keg, and stringing 2 guys along.  I always assumed Alice changed witnessing the drama of Pat, etc.  

 

 

As you'll see...Alice had a little Rachel in her back in 1964.

Wow, I loved Virginia Dwyer.  Mary was NBC's Nancy Hughes.  I was surprised to see the Gregory family already in the credits.  Who was the head-writer during this time?  

54 minutes ago, BetterForgotten said:

I liked quite a bit of what I've seen of Susan Harney's Alice. Obviously, I wasn't alive to see Courtney at her peak, but I thought Harney was able to play both toughness and vulnerability well. 

 

What was the main problem with her Alice? Was it simply because she wasn't Jacqueline Courtney?

 

Personally, I don't think Harney played weakness or emotion well.  She was great 90% of the time when Alice was strong.  But when Alice needed to display emotion, Harney just couldn't do it.  One great example is the episode in which John Randolph dies.  Harney wails and moans trying to cry, and her performance in that episode is embarrassingly bad.  Close your eyes and imagine Jacquie Courtney in the same scenes.  She would have played it perfectly.   

I liked and accepted Harney as Alice.  And I believe she was the most accepted of all the recasts. I was rooting for Harney, because I wanted the character to remain a major focus of the action.  Harney managed to keep Alice almost front-and-center, so that much was a success.  She just couldn't play weakness or emotion.  Just my opinion.    

4 hours ago, j swift said:

This is an interesting hypothesis that gave me pause.  However, what held my interest in the early Rachel/Steve/Alice triangle was that Rachel and Steve's motives (as the "bad people") were well explained.  One of the highlights of AW was that every talk-to in Bay City had some sort of Freudian ability to analyze Rachel and Steve so that the audience understood their backstory.  Ada was frequently explaining how Rachel was seeking the type of attention that was denied by her missing father.  John figured out that Steve escaped his family of origin and was trying to recreate a new family in Bay City.  So, their actions made sense and never seemed plot driven.

 

In contrast characters like Alice were never as well defined.  She was just a 'good girl.'  My humorous take on her is derived from the fact that she often got away with poor behavior because other characters defined her motives as benevolent.  However, in hindsight, her actions were often selfish and inconsiderate.  

 

I think it's a mistake when people (LOTS of people) describe Alice as a weak character (or weak woman).  Alice was only weak in regard to Rachel and Steve.  Otherwise, she was a very strong liberated woman.   She was always strong with other characters -- helping Lenore and Pat through their troubles; standing up to Aunt Liz; going against Mary's dislike of Steve as a potential husband; plus, she was strong at work, as a nurse.  But Rachel's tenacity at pursuing Steve, and Steve's inability (or unwillingness) to shake Rachel loose, drove Alice to the edge again and again. That, and only that,  was Alice's achilles heel.   And I think that all makes sense.  Seldom in real-life is a woman (or a person) confronted with someone so determined to steal one's fiancé / husband / happiness / life.  Rachel's tactics were cruel and shameless, and I think that is enough to drive anyone nuts.  I certainly would have ended-up in the boobie-hatch, had Rachel Davis been my enemy.

This view of Alice as a weak woman also impacted the many failed attempts at recasting the role.  TPTB thought they were casting a weak character, which was a mistake.  Jacquie played a strong woman with one fatal weakness, Steve and Rachel.    

19 minutes ago, Khan said:

 

Is there anything Pete Lemay DIDN'T say?   

Yes, he never said, "I want to write a plot."  

11 hours ago, j swift said:

At the risk of repeating a blasphemous hot take on Alice from a few years back on this forum; I never liked her or her family (except for Pat and Aunt Liz). 

 

Alice was emotionally unstable and sexually stunted, yet her siblings considered her to be bonanza rather than a burdon.  Whether it was Steve, Elliot Bancroft, or Ray Gordon, Alice was always the consolation prize trying to be top banana. 

 

Alice tried to slut shame Rachel, as if Steve didn't play a role in their affair.  She was so jealous that Rachel had a child first that she tried to keep Steve from bonding with Jamie and demanded that he never have time with Jamie and Rachel together.  That resulted in Steve becoming so crazed in his need to spend time with his son that he conspired a fraud with Rachel's father in the custody trial and went to jail.

 

She was also snobby with Lenore about Rachel's desires to want Russ to provide a good life.  As if Alice couldn't understand why Rachel wouldn't want to live as a newlywed in her husband's teenaged bedroom, with her father-in-law, his sister, and two daughters.  Yet, as soon as Steve built her a house, she never wanted to give it up, despite the fact that Steve's son was the rightful heir to his property upon his death.    

 

Alice pretty much stole Sally from her parents family when they died because everyone in Bay City knew that she was desperate for a kid. After she got tired of raising Sally, she sent her off to a soapland school to grow up on her own.  Until Sally became a teenager and moved in with Aunt Liz (an honorary Matthews by marriage).  Then, when Alice finally returned to town in the mid 80's, she slut shamed Sally for having a child with David, while totally ignoring that she missed Sally's weddings to Peter, Caitlin, and Denny.  Later when Sally died, Alice never sought custody of her grandson and allowed Kevin to be raised by his ex-stepfather (who barely knew him) and his convicted murderer wife.  BTW,  for those who mourned Sally as gone too soon, she ate up a lifetime worth of plots in her five years as an adult on the show.

 

Also, I hate a soap romance where one partner tries to domesticate the other.  Alice's insistence on calling him Steven, when the rest of town called him Steve was the perfect example of her misguided attempts to change him.  She then pressured him to sell his football team in order to go into construction and employ her drunk brother-in-law.  Any relationship based on the false ideal that love can change someone's true nature is bound to fail in soapland.

 

Obviously some of this is written in jest.  But, in hindsight, Steve's stay in Australia makes sense if he was trying to avoid Alice at any cost.

Your feelings about this are valid, but I'm not sure they are healthy for soap operas in general.  This attitude goes along with the current (now long-held) soap opera trend  that there should be no good people or bad people -- that all characters should be morally ambiguous.  Ingenues are boring, middle-class core-families are boring, the villainess should be the show's female romantic lead, a barely-reformed anti-hero should be the male romantic lead, etc, etc, etc.  

That's been the philosophy in soaps for the past 35 years, and what has happened to the ratings?  I do think soaps require characters to root for, and the audience long-ago grew tired of being told they should root for essentially bad people.  Soaps need protagonists and antagonists.  The most prominent characters on nearly all soaps for the past 35 years have been a group of antagonists (with some exceptions). Good storytelling doesn't work that way.  It's perfectly okay for the good people to have flaws, and for the bad people to have some redeeming qualities.  But the audience wants to be able to tell the difference.  I think the ratings add validity to my point.  

16 minutes ago, j swift said:

Not to rejudicate plots from 40 years (although that's what we do on these boards), but I think the replay of the Steve/Alice/Rachel plot failed for more reasons than just the recast.  David Canary was an excellent Steven Frame, he was sexy, debonair, and had an easy chemistry with most female leads.  The build up of the story was great because everyone was talking about Edward Black before he came to town.  That created intrigue about the character while there was never a clue about his true identity (much like the introduction of Adam Chandler on AMC).  I remember the silhouette of what seemed to be Reinholt turn into David Canary in his first scene even before seeing it again in the clip that was posted because it was such a classic cliffhanger.  And sufficient time had passed between the actors that the recast was less jarring.

 

However, (from a plot point of view), the breakup of Rachel and Mac to facilitate the triangle seemed rushed.  Mitch was a viable option for Rachel, but as an audience member, the true rooting value was for Rachel and Mac to reunite.  She had changed so much during their romance, and she had fought Iris and Janice in order to be with Mac, that it made no sense that Rachel would regress to point of wanting to get back together with Steve.  Also, Mac was caddish playboy with a wandering eye when he met Rachel, so sweet nurse Alice was unlikely match for such a lusty guy.  Furthermore, it didn't help matters that during the storyline Rachel (who had just survived a barn fire) suffered from car-accident-induced-amnesia and then car-accident-induced-blindness making her the most accident prone character in Bay City.  

 

George Reinholt,(like many soap hunks in a triangle) was never the appeal of the original story.  He was wooden, he had terrible hair, and his delivery was so contrived he made Drake Hogestyn look like Laurence Olivier.  We tuned in to watch Alice and Rachel fight.  The classic scenes were Rachel crueling informing Alice that she was pregnant at the engagement party and then Rachel crueling trying to kick Alice out of the house when Steve died.  But, by the 1980's Rachel had outgrown her cruel nature.  She was still impulsive, but she was no longer driven by a need for attachment to men who didn't want her, like her father.  So, the story felt like a big step backward for Rachel.  

 

Also, without Jamie as a major character within the story, Steve's motivation was suspect.  Jamie was in Bay City during the storyline, but he did not have much of an impact on the plot.  Why would Steven abandon Jamie after fighting so hard for custody that he went to jail?  Why would Steven be so devoted to his horse loving stepdaughter Diana that he would forget to ask about Jamie's well being?  Why would Steven build a new company and not want to take care of Jamey financially? 

 

So much great plot resulted from Steve's death, including the evolution of Willis (my favorite AW male character beside Robert Delaney), the introduction of Ray Gordon and Olive Randolph, and mostly the Mac/Rachel/Iris storyline that reviving the character at any point afterward would never be as good.

I completely agree with you regarding Rachel and her unexplainable return to lusting after Steve. Since 1975, Rachel's endgame was always Mac, and the audience knew it. The triangle was long over, but I think there was still energy in the Alice/Steve romance.  Had the recasts been successful, AW could have moved forward with two popular super-couples, Rachel/Mac and Alice/Steve.  I could see Steve and Alice growing into a relationship similar to Victor and Nikki on Y&R.  

I also agree that Steve's motivation for staying in Australia for so long was botched.  The real Steve would never have stayed away intentionally, with Jamie and Alice grieving and waiting back in Bay City.  They should have gone with severe physical injuries and amnesia, and Willis (the perpetual loser) could have played a role, since he and Gwen had moved to Australia just a year or so before Steve's return.   

2 hours ago, Darn said:

 

Thank you. He's not Barbara Walters, he's a moderator just trying to get these actors to reminisce not trash producers or writers. If they happen to while talking about the past that's on them but I don't expect him to pull it out of them.

He's really doing a great job.  I'm so glad he's been doing this.  He knows what he's talking about and he respects the genre.  

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

 

I think he may see these more as catchups for fans than in-depth interviews...if anyone knows how to contact Sandra I hope they can get her to say more.

You're right.  I too wish he would ask more serious questions, but he wants these to be reunions, so things need to be kept rather light.  It can be frustrating, but I completely understand why he gives them soft-ball questions. The responses to some serious queries might embarrass others in the reunion, or make them feel uncomfortable.  The last thing Alan wants in a reunion is for someone to regret their decision to participate.  If we want more serious questions that might get into criticizing others, trouble in the studio, or conflicts with co-workers, he probably needs to do that in one-on-one interviews.  And I don't know if he has any interest in doing that.  

So before we criticize his interviewing skill too much, we need to think about his fundamental reason for holding them.  And I don't think it's to dig up dirt.  

23 minutes ago, AbcNbc247 said:

Great new updates have just been posted on AWHP

Where are the updates?  I just checked, and the last update I see on the list is March 25, 2020.   

47 minutes ago, Khan said:

I'm not sure, but I THINK that's Paul Tulley (ex-Dr. Larry Wolek #1, OLTL; ex-Creepy Edward, Y&R).  He played Scott Bradley.

Yes, it's Paul Tulley.  It's strange Tulley is in this photo, because Scott Bradley was a minor character, and all the other actors were in major roles.  Janice being the least, but she was important during this short time.  Plus, all the other actors are closely connected to Mac and Rachel.  Again, Scott was not really.  He was an attorney for Cory Publishing, but he was more personally connected to Alice Frame, than to Rachel and Mac.   

1 hour ago, VanessaReardon said:

Yikes. Locher is desperate for clicks. He makes money everytime someone clicks on his page. Zenk Pinter again?? Hard pass! 

Who cares if he's making money?  He works hard putting the reunions together, and he does a great job.  At least we don't have to pay to watch them.  

8 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

Sara remained on the show through Pat Falken Smith's excellent-but-brief tenure as head writer in 1982, and was written out by subsequent scribes during the cast massacre of the early 1980s.

 

 

Most of the vets were fired and did not leave voluntarily. Peter Simon (Ed) recalled that on his final day of taping, Tom O'Rourke (Justin) ranted and raved his entire way out of the building.

I still find it hard to believe that both Mike and Hope Bauer were written off the show around 1984, and none of the subsequent writers thought it might be a good idea to bring either of them back to town.  The Bauers were such an interesting flawed core-family, surely they would have been wonderful to write for.  They weren't perfect like the Hughes or the Matthews.   

46 minutes ago, VanessaReardon said:

You’re right - you control your keyboard. Glad you’re not letting anyone control it for you even though some will try. 

My records show Millette Alexander’s last episode as 12/24/82 and Geraldine Court’s last episode as 2/4/83. Mike Bauer was in the opening you referenced above. He didn’t leave until 1984. 

Thank you for the information.  Do you know if Sara was written out, or did she just stop appearing?  Was Sara still important in the storylines up until she left?  Or had she been minimized?

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

 

And they're in them until at least March 1983. I guess these must have been stock credits they didn't want to bother changing...

 

 

Looks like Mike Bauer has been removed from this one.  Does anyone know approximately when Sara and Jennifer left the show?  

1 hour ago, watson71 said:

 

This is so true- this triangle was doomed from the start because you had two recasts instead of Reinholt and Courtney.  Paul Rauch's ego was probably too big to even contact them to see if they were interested in returning.  If the show had waited until 1984 to do this triangle once Courtney had already returned and rehired Reinholt, I believe would have been successful.  Rauch was long gone by then, so his dislike of both of them would have not have  an issue.  I wonder if they ever considered rehiring Reinholt in 1989 after he appeared in the 25th anniversary episodes after Douglass Watson died.  You could have even incorporated it into the red swan mystery storyline- Mac  really left town because he discovered the real Steve Frame was alive with amnesia and that Edward Black (David Canary) was an imposter who assumed his identity.  Mac placed this information into the red swan and sent it to Rachel before he passed away.

A year or so ago, I read an interview with Rauch.  He said that in 1981, he asked George Reinholt to lunch to discuss the possibility of returning to AW.  He said the meeting was pleasant, and that George was a great talent.  But he could tell George still wanted to "be the writer" (which caused most of the trouble in 1975), and he couldn't take chances on bringing that type of toxic behavior back into the studio.  So he hired David Canary instead.   

I think Jacquie Courtney would have been great with David Canary.  Although I didn't like Canary's interpretation of Steve Frame, it really wasn't his fault.  He obviously knew nothing of Steve's history or Steve's personality. He played Steve as loud and happy, while the character had always been rather quiet and brooding.  Canary just needed some direction, and I'm sure he would have been very good as Steve.  

4 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

 

I wonder if they were just slow to update the credits (although you'd think it would have been easy to change out a few shots).

Funny, but I don't remember ever seeing Sara or Jennifer in the disco-opening before.  

7 hours ago, DRW50 said:

 

That's an odd mix for the cast shots. I think I see the last Tim recast. I thought he was also gone by this time. 

Is it possible this is the wrong opening credits for this episode?  Maybe someone just edited it into the video?  Is there a GL expert here, who can verify all those characters were still on the show in 1982?

7 hours ago, DRW50 said:

 

That is pretty. I'd never heard it. I didn't realize Vera Moore was still on at this point. I guess she was passing the torch to the next black actress, as the show so often did...I didn't know Jim was still around either. 

 

This Alice looks so old. 

 

I first read about the mob story on AWHP, and so much of it, especially Jason's last words, read as genuinely gripping. It doesn't seem to be as gripping onscreen, sadly. 

Yes, Vera Moore (Linda Metcalf) made appearances at the same time Quinn Harding was on the show, sadly the two never had scenes together. But this is VERY late in Vera's run.  She's out the door soon.  What puzzles me is, why is Vera listed with the contract actors?  Surely she wasn't still on-contact at that time, since she appeared only when they needed a nurse, and hadn't had even a hint of a storyline since 1975.  But in this episode, she is listed several names before Linda Borgeson, and I know Borgeson was on-contract.  During this era, the cast was listed in order of seniority, except VW and DW (who had billing at the top of the credits) and the non-contact players were always listed at the end.

The mob stories seemed to go on and on forever.  At least 2 or 3 years.  I'm confident they contributed to the show's staying low in the ratings throughout the early-80s.  AW viewers didn't want a crime-drama.  We wanted family drama and class-conflict.   Every soap can do a crime/mob story once in a while, but not one after another after another.  AW wasn't Edge of Night.

40 minutes ago, victoria foxton said:

Wanting Russ out the way Jason went to European lady pimp Isa. Isa arranged for a hit man to plant a bomb in Jason's car. But it was Tracy the object of Jason'a affections. Who was blown to kingdom come. When she got in the car. Alice Frame came back to town. Ada's husband Charlie died of natural causes in his sleep. Charlie's sons Leigh and Denny hit Bay City. Both brothers were involved with Sally Frame. Rachel who faced prison for Mitch's murder. Went on the run and found Mitch. Mac 's son Sandy arrived in Bay City. A now widow Russ dated Olivia. Noting came out of that. Months and months after Tracy's death. Russ found out about Jason causing Tracy's death. Quinn Harding arrived in Bay City. Quinn hired Denny for her mysterious boss Edward Black. When Jordan Scott was murdered Blaine became the prime suspect. Blaine was put on trial. The DA prosecuting Blaine was the killer. Rachel left Mac and embarked on a relationship with Mitch Blake. That's all i can remember from the top of my head. Brown wasn't perfect but she was way better than King and Jacker. Out of King we got Janice and Mitch's plot to kill Mac for his money. Which was really good. Everything else was BORING. Out of Jacker we got Cass. And some much need diversity. But the rest of the show was all over the place. 

Ahh, I see all that mob nonsense was still running.  Tom King started that about a month after he replaced Lemay.  It was badly written, unconvincing, and didn't belong on Another World anyway.  And I see Browne and Jacker continued it.  Neither of them wrote the mob storylines any better than King.  Another big problem during this era: the cast was in a constant state of turn-over from King's arrival, all the way until Felicia Gallant and Donna Love were introduced, when some of the new characters finally began to stick around longer than a year.