Mona Kane Croft

As someone already mentioned, Sally was away at boarding school during this period. Regarding Charlie and Clarice, I'm fairly sure Ada and Charlie were not married at the time the photo was taken, so I did not count them as Corys. I did include Sylvie as a Cory, since she was Iris's mother. Regarding the Frames, I didn't count them, but I'm sure there were fewer than eight. Janice, Vince, Willis, and Jamie. Any other Frames? I do not think Willis and Gwen were married at the time of the photo. Pat and Liz began working for Cory Publishing around 1976, I believe. And you are correct, by 1979, there was not much of a close connection between the Matthews and the Corys. Russ and Iris ended their engagement in 1975, and that had been the closest connection between the two families. Harding Lemay did make efforts to have the two families interact fairly often by having Rachel and Russ become close friends and confidants; John Randolph doing legal work for Iris; by having the Cory housekeeper, Beatrice revealed as Sally Frame's bio-grandmother; and by having Pat and Liz employed by Mac.

Prior to the early-1970s, both The Doctors and General Hospital set aside casting budget for temporary characters coming on the show(s) as patients for hospital/medical plots. And typically, after each patient either recovered or died, the character would be written off. But in the early-70s, both TD and GH stopped bringing on new temporary characters for medical/hospital plots, and started using on-contract actors/characters as patients for all their medical storylines. I think this harmed both TD and GH, making their medical drama less believable -- because all their patients were their friends and colleagues. Can anyone speculate on why this decision was made? Especially on both shows at approximately the same time? The practice continues today on GH. All the featured patients in the hospital are existing characters on the show. When was the last time GH brought on a new temporary character just for a medical plot? Decades ago?

1979 was the final year there were more Matthews on AW than any other family. In this cast photo, there are eight members of the Matthews family plus Dan Shearer, who I don't see in the photo. So that makes nine Matthews (counting in-laws) There are eight member of the Cory family in the photo (counting in-laws, but not counting servants). By March 1979, the Matthews family began to diminish rapidly -- starting with John, Dan, Susan, and a few months later Alice and Michael were written off.

Is this the storyline what took place partially in England? And if I recall, Penny Hughes was prominent for a short while, since Andy and Courtney visited her. I always felt this was probably written or at least conceived as one of Doug Marland's last contributions to ATWT, especially since he seemed to love to bring Penny back as often as he could do so. Penny seemed like she was going to be fairly significant to Andy and Courtney's storyline, then she just sort of stopped appearing. So I've also assumed this was the point that Marland's material finally ran out, and other writers finished the plot. Sans Penny. Just my possibly faulty recollections and speculations. LOL.

So Marianne Randolph's abortion in 1975, might have been the first post-Roe abortion. Does anyone recall any others between Erica's and Marianne's?

No, it was Pat Matthews on Another World in 1964. And then Pat's daughter, Marianne had an abortion in 1975.

How could she have meant the first abortion on Y&R, when she clearly said -- "I believe Ashley had the first abortion on daytime"??? There is no reason to make excuses for her, Eileen said something completely incorrect. And that statement should not have been included in the special.

Alice??? Marianne Randolph on Another World had a legal abortion in 1975. A few years after Erica. Years before Ashley even appeared on Y&R. And besides, Eileen didn't use the term "legal". She said, "I believe Ashley had the first abortion on daytime." So "legal" does not come into play. Eileen said something completely untrue, and the producers of the special did not edit it out. No excuse for that. Entertainment journalists are journalists. At least they used to be.

Just wanted to correct something I saw on a soap opera special this evening on CBS. Another World's Pat Matthews had the first abortion on daytime (and maybe the first on TV) in 1964. It was not Ashley Abbot or Erica Kane. Jeeze-Louise!!

Wrong. Another World's Pat Matthews had the first abortion on daytime (and possibly the first on TV) in 1964. I can't believe the editors let Eileen's comment get on the special. Something tells me they knew better, but let it go anyway -- especially since Eileen said "'I believe' Ashley had the first abortion on daytime." So that makes it Eileen's "opinion", even if it is incorrect. Sorta sad the producers of the special care more about Y&R than they do portraying an accurate history of the genre.

I absolutely agree. Reformed Rachel was okay. Mellowed Rachel was okay. But sweet Rachel and heroine Rachel became ridiculous. After all, this is the woman who purposefully sent a package of baby-clothes to Alice, just a few days after Alice's miscarriage. Rachel ain't nobody's heroine. And Lemay always wrote Rachel as damaged -- even after he reformed her. And again, when he returned in '88. It was the other writers who wrote Rachel as the sweet heroine.

Perhaps, but Sloane wasn't around long enough to establish a writing "era." And most short-term head-writers (regardless of how bad they are/were) have moments of greatness. But moments of greatness do not make anyone a well-regarded head-writer. To be a great head-writer, the writer must fill his/her era with extremely good material on a long-term consistent basis -- with occasional moments of weakness.

I would say that entire period (1965 to 1979) would be considered Another World's golden era. But breaking it down between the three head-writers, the Cenedella years were the weakest -- but still extremely good. Nixon, Cenedella, and Lemay were by-far AW's best head-writers. Followed by Irna Phillips, and Donna Swajeski. All the rest were hardly worthy of mention - just cogs in a merry-go-round of head-writers, while the show declined.

To anyone who has read Mary Stuart's autobiography, Both of Me, do you recall if Mary comments on the writing of William and Joyce Corrington? They were the head-writers who brought the Tourner/Sentell family to Henderson, and introduced a New Orleans vibe to the show. And they were arguably the writers who changed SFT more than any writers who came before. I am aware Mary mentioned the work of several head-writers in her bio, but I do not recall if the Corringtons were among them. I've been curious if Mary mentioned the Corringtons for quite a while.

Both of Lucinda's companies were management consulting firms.

It's interesting to me, how much of the Corringtons' influence remained on SFT a full two-years after their departure as head-writers. I didn't realize that was the case until seeing this episode. I assume their influence eroded pretty quickly soon after this episode. I do recall that Harding Lemay planned to bring back Mignon Sentell, who was a meddling neurotic type - sort of a combination of Iris Carrington and Liz Matthews from Lemay's Another World. But Lemay's time on SFT was extremely short, and few of his plans were ever realized. It seemed to me, the later head-writers on SFT deliberately ran away from the Corringtons' version of the show, and those attempts to remold the show resulted in characters and plots that were very bland.

This seems to be something Paul Rauch enjoyed doing, at least on AW. I recall at least three times he did it, but there were likely a few more. First, the episode we are discussing. Second, when John Randolph shot Even Webster in self-defense, during the closing we saw/heard Olive Randolph whimpering and wailing about losing Even. And third, in the episode in which John Randolph died, footage of fire fighters extinguishing the fire, and the sounds of this replaced the closing theme song. One more may have been, when Clarice gave birth to her son Cory. That episode may have closed with Clarice crying alone in the hospital. My memory is cloudy on that one.

You may be aware -- but the scenes of Walter's car crash were taken from an episode of a prime-time crime drama (Starsky & Hutch, I think), and was on film (of course), not videotape. So it probably was a bit off-putting, and not particularly believable. Still, it would be wonderful to see this episode!

I'm not surprised at all to hear the Corringtons wanted to move SFT out of Henderson, although this is the first time I've seen it in writing. It seemed clear to me in 1978, the Corringtons would move the entire show to New Orleans, if they could. But I really do not believe they would have dropped all the vets. I think they would have connected as many existing characters as possible to the Sentells and the Tourneurs, and then moved all of them to New Orleans. Those who hadn't found a connection, or a logical reason to move to Louisiana, would have been left behind. This is essentially what they did anyway, but without changing the show's location. Although I typically do not like big changes in soap operas, and I believe efforts to "modernize" soaps are rarely successful - I did enjoy the Corringtons' work on SFT, and I believe they rejuvenated the old show in ways no other writers could have.

Who was the boy-toy who lived with Millie Marbury in St Tropez, when Iris visited a couple of times in the late '70s? Wasn't he related to the Matthews family back in Bay City? All I remember is, he was tall with dark hair. And in every scene, he wore either a Speedo or a towel.

It was all scripted and fictional on the show, of course. But Sylvia played herself. She made several appearances during that storyline.

Sorry, I do not. She was so well known at the time. She had a deep voice, and was aging. She died a few years later. Her name is on the tip of my tongue, but not coming out. Delores, Doris, Phyllis, none of those . . . Just looked it up. Sylvia Browne -- that's her.

Yes. But I still didn't find it believable. I wasn't crazy about Frankie being a psychic either. I don't mind psychics on soaps, but I prefer they be supporting characters (rather than major characters), and somewhat exotic -- giving the audience a chance to either believe them, or write it all-off as hocus-pokus. My three favorite soap opera psychics were Magda on Dark Shadows, Tante Helene on Search for Tomorrow (two complete stereotypes, I admit), and the lady on Y&R who helped Katherine remember she had done something nutty with Jill's son Phillip when he was an infant. That lady was a REAL psychic, fairly well known at the time. So she was no stereotype.

I believe she did, but I may be wrong. I didn't buy Lisa as a psychic at all. Lisa was a romantic ingenue type, and that doesn't fit with the psychic stuff, in my opinion. So I was happy when Harding Lemay (or possibly the writer previous to him) dropped Lisa's psychic schtick, and made her a full-on romantic heroine, in the triangle with Jamie and Vicki. I loved Lemay's attempt at recreating the Alice/Steve/Rachel triangle with Lisa/Jamie/Vicki, and it was working until Swajeski pulled the plug, and sent Lisa out of town. Very few head-writers since 1982 have been able to successfully write a long-term ingenue. Not even Agnes Nixon had any success after Jenny Gardner, even though she tried a couple of times. Exceptions were Lily Walsh on ATWT and Lily Winters on YR. Since around 1982, most of the time the guy chooses the bad-girl over the good-girl, and the good-girl either leaves town or goes crazy. Then the bad-girl reforms slightly, and becomes the star of the show. Pure idiocy, in my opinion.

I may be mistaken, but I don't believe AW ever got higher than number 9 after 1979. It may have risen to number 8 briefly at one point, but I can't verify that. Still, number 9 or number 8 in the ratings for 20 years, is not going to be considered a success by anybody. So all the things they tried - hijinks and comedy, crime drama, over the top foolishness, dozens of new characters in and out, etc. - even though some fans enjoyed it, the ratings did not go up. So none of it worked.