Mona Kane Croft

If Laura Collins was Jamison's mother, and Jamison was Roger's father -- does that mean Roger married his own grandmother? I had never thought about that until a few days ago.

Interesting observations. And then a year later, NBC asked Irna to do it again, and create another ATWT clone - Days of Our Lives. DOOL also had many parallel archetypes, and also had a very slow start before gaining popularity.

Does anyone know who was head-writing As the World Turns when Lisa and Alma were created? Could Agnes Nixon have been involved? I've always believed Lisa and Alma (in their early years) to be quite similar to Rachel/Ada and Erica/Mona. Any possibility Nixon might have created Lisa/Alma?

Do you feel this was solidly confirmed? Are you aware one of the existing scenes from that day's episode actually includes Pat, Dennis, and Louise (along with Alice and Steve)? So to me, that seems to confirm the episode was not a two character episode. Unless I'm misunderstanding something.

It's odd the AWHP says they had to use flashbacks for their partial March 6 synopsis, because isn't the entire episode available for viewing on YouTube? At least I believe it used to be on Youtube.

It's not a very important issue, I suppose. But the Another World Home Page lists John Randolph's death as March 6. I've also always heard he died on the second 90-minute episode, which would be March 6. The first 90-minute episode was March 5. Aside from the AWHP, I don't know any other way to verify this.

Wow. This all makes Jim and Mary's branch of the family sound much more working-class than things ever seemed on the actual show. Gives some insight into Irna Phillips' and Bill Bell's original vision of the family. And it makes Liz's upper middle-class dislike of Jim and Mary much more understandable. Frankly, it sounds exactly like something Harding Lemay might have created. How ironic, right??

Yes, Ann Fuller appeared on the show. I believe she was Missy's social worker early in the story. What were the original plans for Russ? Russ went away as an adolescent, and Agnes Nixon brought him back a few years later as a young doctor, played by Sam Groom.

Yes, that is interesting insight. I think that relationship is less folksy and loving. And certainly less appealing to watch play out. Again, maybe sexism speaking . . .

Janet actually survived for several years, well into the James Lipton era. I've often been a little surprised Lemay never brought Janet back to the canvas -- since she was a complicated woman with many flaws. Just the type of character Lemay enjoyed writing. Granny was written out very early in the series. And yes, I believe she was originated to be a counter-part to Grandpa Hughes and Papa Bauer -- imparting sage wisdom when needed. I have no idea why the character didn't succeed. Could it have been underlying sexism? Meaning the audience accepted wisdom and advice from Pa Hughes and Papa Bauer, but was uncomfortable accepting wisdom from a woman? Who knows??? Was Granny ever mentioned again? I have no idea. I started watching AW regularly in 1971, and she was certainly never mentioned while I was watching.

No, John died on March 6 -- the second 90-minute episode. The first 90-minute episode (March 5) was more Cory-centric, and it set up the events of the next day. I have seen no verifiable evidence that Micheal Ryan (John Randolph) voluntarily quit the show because of the potential increased work load. (Damn it, another myth? Really?) A couple of individuals have posted that on the internet -- but that's the internet! For God's sake. At the time, the soap press reported Rauch and Lemay wanted a big event to begin the 90-minute era, so what's bigger than putting both Alice and John in danger of burning in a fire?

This is my most hated urban myth in the history of Another World -- the myth that James Lipton replaced (or was replacing) the Matthews family with a new core family, the Gregorys. Actually, the Gregory family replaced the Baxter family (not the Matthews). The Baxters began to exit after Pat Matthews' first trial for murder, so Lipton wrote-in the Gregorys. In fact, Lipton wrote-out no members of the Matthews family. Although Grandma Matthews, Susan, and the adolescent Russ had been written out by earlier writers. Another somewhat incorrect myth about a later head-writer is that Harding Lemay wrote-out the Matthews family. Here is the truth: I will admit Lemay's writing choices eventually led to the decimation of the Matthews family on AW (by killing-off the family matriarch (Mary) and two long-term popular sons in-law (Steve Frame and John Randolph), and recasting the female romantic lead of the show (Alice) -- all during Lemay's tenure. Whew! But it is important to note that, as those characters left, Lemay repopulated the Matthews family with returning family members and grown-up children. So, believe it or not; in February 1979 (just before the 90-minute expansion), the Matthews family was still the largest family on AW (still larger than the Cory family, including in-laws and not including servants). John Randolph was killed-off on March 6, 1979, and by mid-April Harding Lemay had resigned as head-writer. After that, the Matthews family disappeared one-by-one in fairly quick succession.

Yes. I wonder if Irna Phillips was writing GL during the make-over? If so, that would be another case of the creator making the changes. Nixon didn't really change the cast of characters drastically. But she certainly improved the writing. In terms of cast, she really just got rid of 3 or 4 members of the Gregory family, and introduced Ada, Sam, Rachel, and Steve. Nixon made AW perhaps the best soap on TV while she was there.

I believe revamping Y&R was only successful because Bill Bell was still in charge, and he had been the creator of the show. He knew his audience, he knew his show, and of course he was a brilliant writer. I can't think of another soap opera that was reinvented successfully. Soap opera fans generally tune-in for the characters they know and love. The audience will tolerate a good deal of bad writing without abandoning the show. But if their beloved characters disappear, the audience loyalty typically disappears also.

I'd suggest Courtney was a far superior actress to Harney. Harney was okay with what Lemay wrote for her on a day to day basis. But she was incapable of playing the emotional stuff in a believable way. Her artificial wailing and sobbing after John Randolph's death is embarrassingly bad, in my opinion. Having said that, I did generally like Harney in the role and I completely accepted her as Alice -- again, on a day to day basis. But the woman simply could not play strong emotion, and that had been Courtney's strongest skill. I would have preferred an actress like Jada Rowland or Denise Alexander as a replacement for Courtney. Even if they weren't blonde.

Rauch was probably one of the most successful and effective executive producers in the history of daytime. But that does not diminish his mistakes. He was great at production values, stretching the budget, attracting and hiring talented actors, efforts to get what writers wanted in terms of sets, permissions, etc. But he made huge mistakes at every show that hired him, including leaving AW with no structure, and by the time he left -- about half the cast was made-up of characters nobody cared about.

Lemay was a wonderful writer, but he often allowed his ego to get in his way. He did not like actors who were known as soap opera stars (Dwyer and Courtney, for example), regardless of their acting talent, popularity, or status on the show. He claimed to have populated Another World with actors he "grabbed" from the theater, but actually nearly every major role cast during Lemay's tenure was cast with a former soap actor who also had theater experience (which was typical for all New York soaps). He did grab a few theater actors directly off the stage, but nearly all of those had minor and temporary roles on AW. Lemay also did not understand the purpose or importance of the traditional soap opera matriarch (Nancy Hughes, Mary Matthews, Alice Horton, for example). Plus he did not like writing for happy characters who had little conflict. (If you notice, nearly all important characters on AW during Lemay's run were fundamentally unhappy people.) So he set about to turn Mary Matthews into an unlikeable meddling shrew, who would stir up trouble for her adult children. That is more the Phoebe Tyler, Liz Matthews, Mona Croft type of character. Virginia Dwyer knew that this would not work for Mary, so she worked to minimize his efforts. She did play some of it however -- specifically when Mary turned against Steve and actively discouraged Alice from returning to him. In reality, Lemay wanted Mary to behave like Liz Matthews. He clearly explains this in his book. When Dwyer didn't play it his way, Lemay hired Irene Daily to return as Liz and minimized Mary's presence on the show by having Mary often out of town, or by simply not writing for her much at all. He also more and more gave Mary's lines to other characters -- specifically Liz and Ada during important scenes. Lemay's ego and his growing hatred for Dwyer (and Courtney) should have been controlled by someone in management -- either Paul Rauch, or higher-ups at P&G. Lemay could have written everything he wanted to write, without dismantling the structure of the show. But again -- ego. So within a four-year period, Another World lost five leading actors (four were fired, and one left for Hollywood). Those five are Virginia Dwyer, Susan Sullivan, Jacquie Courtney, George Reinholt (all in 1975), and Michael Ryan (in 1979). Four of the five were important members of the Matthews family.

I would have preferred Denise being cast as Missy Matthews, Liz's daughter in law. Missy was AW's first ingenue and a part of AW's first popular romance (Missy/Bill). Plus in my opinion, Missy had more star-power and a stronger back-story than Susan Matthews. The historical conflict between Liz and Missy (along with Missy's son Ricky Matthews) could have driven interesting material for years.

Does anyone know if Beverly Penberthy was invited?

Ahh, okay. I sort of remember that. Also -- around the same time, wasn't there a tree with their names carved into it that also miraculously moved from Lassiter to Bay City?? Reminds me of the Frame farm which unexplainably relocated from Chadwell, Oklahoma to Bay City around 1987-88. Jeeze-Louise!

What do you mean by "swing set"? I don't understand this question. Sorry.

Judith Barcroft.

Agreed. In the 20-year post Lemay/Rauch era, AW never hired a well-known head-writer with a history of success, who would have had the creativity and gravitas to grab the bull by the horns and make the show a successful soap opera again. I'm talking about a head-writer like Nixon, Bell, Marland, Phillips, or Labine. I realize some of those writers were not available to work at AW, but just imagine what any of them could have done with the show -- especially if they had a very good executive producer working in tandem! To AW's credit, they did briefly hire Michael Malone who had great success at OLTL, but for some reason his work at AW was a complete flop. I don't understand why he was not successful, but the things he tried to do just didn't seem a good fit for Another World. It has been suggested by others that Malone was most successful with he had a good writing partner, so perhaps the lack of a partner contributed to his failure. Or perhaps there was not a good fit between Malone and the executive producer. But I can just imagine what Douglas Marland would have done at AW. Too bad Marland didn't come to AW directly after Lemay!

If you notice, most of the sets on SFT during this era actually do have black backgrounds (black walls) with windows, doors, pictures attached. I'm surprised the black walls are not more distracting, but it is easy not to even notice them. I'm assuming the audience accepted the black walls because the show was aired in black and white. Or course this never would have worked in color.

I get it. But when somebody does something right, I'm thankful for that.