Mona Kane Croft

Are you suggesting Maeve and Julie were counterparts on their respective shows? I'd say Maeve was the counterpart to Alice Horton, not Julie. Alice and Maeve were both matriarchs of large families (and matriarchs to their entire shows). Julie was the female romantic lead of DOOL at that point. Marlena did not take over that role until at least 1983 -- and even then, she had to share the "title" with grown-up Hope.

It's hard to imagine Harding Lemay writing a soap like Strange Paradise. Knowing how Lemay's writing style was completely character-driven and nearly plotless -- how could he write a plot-heavy show like SP or DS? He must have had to literally force himself to write strong plots for SP.

Max was less like Sonny Corinthos, and more like Stefano Dimera. A Euro-trash mobster with 9-lives. Far too unrealistic for a fairly believable soap like Ryan's Hope. But Labine was probably under tremendous pressure from ABC to add a mustache-twirling super-villain to the show. I honestly believe Max was originally planned to be a relatively temporary character, and his daughter Jacquline was slated to be a long-term villainess. But Max had chemistry with Siobhan (the actors, I mean), so they more-or-less ditched Jacquline, and kept Max.

By "movie", I assume you mean Next Generation. And it was shot in Dallas? Wow, I had no idea. It really looked like a back-lot.

Thanks. I thought it might be the same square, but wasn't sure. And since it was a one-time movie, it's possible even the interiors were shot on location in real houses -- rather than building all those sets for one use. So that may be why they didn't resemble the original sets. The first season (5 episodes) of Dallas were all shot in real locations around Dallas, even the interiors. They didn't build the sets in LA until the second season.

I wonder if it's possible the actor just got the lines wrong in the first episode. I watched the first few episodes years ago, but didn't catch the birth year inconsistency. If I'm not mistaken, doesn't the show suddenly change locations at some point in the storyline? From one mansion to a completely different mansion in a different town? Very few soaps have changed locations. Guidling Light and Love of Life are the only others I am aware of.

Does anyone know if the exteriors in The Next Generation were shot on the same backlot as the original primetime PP series? And were any of the interior sets based on the original designs? or at least similar to their counter-parts on the original series?

Its possible the small networks (like RetroTV) are able to pay so little for programming that it would not be worth the effort and expense involved for the production companies to syndicate the old soaps. Contracts (depending on the age of the episodes) might require residual payments to actors, directors, writers, set designers, etc. Plus there are the expenses connected with preparing the old episodes for broadcast on today's technology. I know many of these sub-networks (like RetroTV) pay very little for their programming. That's one of the reason Retro airs so much material that is in the public domain. If the production companies cannot make a substantial profit, they likely are not going to invest in syndicating their old soaps.

Evan's name change was a weird one, because Frame was his mother's last name. He was already using a variation of his father's last name -- Basttis. Apparently Evan had originally shortened his last name from Battiis to Bates, as a professional name, or in order to conceal his identity. I've never know anyone in real life who stopped using their father's last name, and changed to using their mother's last name. That's bizarre. I think the writers changed it to Frame because they thought the audience was too stupid to remember Evan was a member of the Frame family. That sort of thing is insulting to the audience, and makes the show less believable.

Harding Lemay did not contradict that Jason had daughters. But he may not have had the inclination to bring them to town. Or maybe he planned to, but didn't have time in his two months as official head writer. Donna Swajeski still could have added them to the cast, but clearly chose not to. But I will say -- there were probably enough Frames in town. Especially after Evan Bates admitted to being Janice's son.

I hate return from the dead plots, but the most believable return was that of Bill Bauer on Guiding Light. I remember scenes in which Bert Bauer was being forced to return Bill's life insurance payment, and what a financial problem that was for her -- especially since they did not plan to live as a married couple again, and Bert was still ostensibly living as a widow.

In my opinion, Denise Alexander should never have played Mary at all. She should have been cast as the returning Melissa Matthews -- daughter-in-law of Liz. Missy could have returned with her son. The natural conflict between Melissa and Liz would have been wonderful, and far more interesting than some unbelievable return-from-the-dead plot, and a brand new character nobody really cared about.

I don't often comment on an actor's appearance, but that haircut was all wrong for Alice's return. The audience (and Alice's loyal fans) had been through ten-years of Alice-replacements -- a few of which were borderline terrible. So when Jacquie Courtney returned, the audience wanted the real Alice. And the real Alice had long blonde hair. Alice's opening scene with the "butch haircut and mannish clothes" was a jolt to the viewers, and turned me off immediately. If Jacquie wanted to cut her hair, she should have waited a couple of months -- after she had settled back into the role. I realize TPTB were trying to portray Alice as a stronger woman. But Alice had always been strong -- at least when Courtney was playing her. Alice's only weakness had been her reaction to Steve and Rachel's shenanigans -- which almost drove her over the edge. But otherwise, Alice was a very strong character -- as a nurse, with her other family members, with Sally, etc. But the 1985 Super-Alice seemed artificial, and that was a turn-off to the long-term viewers. So that, along with her lack of strong story and lack of a major romance all contributed to the failure of Courtney's return. Too bad, because it so easily could have worked.

I don't even remember the character's name, but he was one of a group of teenagers (which included Cassie, Rob, one of the O'Neil sisters, and a couple of other teens) who had found a cabin in the woods -- or were staying at a cabin, or planning to stay at a cabin... LOL. Anyway -- Ivan Kipling (at the time, OLTL's version of Stefano Dimera) was skulking around the forest, planning to do something to them. It seemed to be the beginnings of an important storyline, then the entire plot was just dropped. As I mentioned in a couple of previous posts, I can't remember if Ivan Kipling or Jon Hensley's character were even written off, or if they just stopped appearing. I don't believe there was any resolution to the "cabin plot" at all. I think it was all just dropped without mention, and the show moved on to other things. And if my memory is correct, this was the final time Ivan Kipling appeared on the show, or was ever mentioned. If I am wrong about any of this, I hope someone will correct me.

Are you sure that age is correct? George Reinhold was 36, when he was fired from AW in 1975. That would make a big age difference between GR and JC -- eight years, it seems. I'd always assumed they were around the same age. You may be correct, but I'm surprised she was that young.

I loved Victoria Wyndham. But over the years, she had some of the most terrible hairstyles (mostly curly perms) of any soap star. They didn't do that to Susan Lucci, Erica Slezak, or Kathryn Hays. Sometimes I look at old photos and videos of VW, and I'm almost embarrassed for her. Sadly, it was almost as if somebody was experimenting with her hair.

I wasn't crazy about seeing Alice with Mac (it seemed too predictable), but they had to attach her to the show's leading man in order to raise the stakes of Steve's return. It Alice had been engaged to a less important male character, the break-up and her return to Steve wouldn't have had any real consequence, and would have been a "B" storyline. It really needed to be the "A" storyline.

What happened to Ivan Kipling? Did he just stop appearing without explanation? He was obviously up to something with those kids, but it all just seemed to stop without mention. And was John Hensley's character written off, or did he just disappear?

Are you sure that isn't from the first time Carla left town? I don't know what year it was, but I believe the actress was fired two times.

Carla had become an attorney very quickly, and it didn't really make sense. I think they made her a lawyer because they were not interested in writing any personal storylines for her. So at least she could get some airtime as a lawyer. Then wasn't she in the middle of a murder trial (or some kind of trial), when she suddenly had to leave town, and another lawyer replaced her? If I recall correctly, she didn't even have any good-byes with the other characters -- she was just gone. I thought it was odd they didn't at least wait until the end of the trial. Am I right about all this? It's been 35 years. LOL.

Wasn't there a dropped storyline that included Ivan Kipling and a group of teenagers? I remember Jon Hensley was part of that group, and also one or two of the McNeil sisters. Although I was never a fan of Ivan Kipling (OLTL did not need its own version of Stefano Dimera), I was sort of into this storyline. Then, if I'm not mistaken, it was dropped with absolutely no explanation or wrap-up.

He was definitely mentioned sometime between '73 and '75. I was watching, and I believe it was Pat who brought up his name to either Mary or Alice. So it is possible the memory I have is the mention in '75 that was listed by the AWHP. Mike did tell me the information was found by reading scripts. But he was not aware of any details. Typically, they note things like this in the daily synopsis, but not this time. That makes me wonder how they even remembered it, when they posted it. And a correction -- the date listed on the AWHP is May 9, 1975. I mentioned May 19 in my earlier post.

Here's a question for AW old-timers: A couple of weeks ago, there was some update info from the Another World Homepage saying they had discovered the final mention of Mitchell Dru was May 19, 1975. But when I looked at the synopsis for that day, there was no information about that (as there usually is, for historical facts such as this one). So, does anyone know the context of Dru being mentioned? What was the scene?, the characters who were talking about him?, what did they say?, etc. I asked Mike about it, and he said he didn't remember -- which is unusual, because he and Eddie almost always document information like this in detail. I watched AW through the entire Lemay era, and recall a mention of Dru sometime around 1973-75, so I'm wondering if this is the same one I remember.

I believe you are correct. I would even go further to suggest some of the actors you list as having contracts, likely did not. I doubt Briscoe, Karlen, or Pennock had contracts. And although Joan Bennett almost certainly was on contract, her guarantees of episodes must have been extremely low, considering she was often gone for weeks at a time. Maybe Edmonds also had a contract with very low guarantees. As you speculated, perhaps some of the other actors had short-term contracts -- maybe 4-months or 6-months. But I think many/most of the actors on DS probably had no contracts at all. Maybe they just had a verbal agreement not to work on any other shows, while they were appearing on DS. I don't remember any other soap operas of the era that had such a merry-go-round of actors, some of whom were gone for weeks or months before returning.

I remember when they mentioned the sons on an episode of Another World. One son was in the oil business with Striker, and the other one took care of the ranch. So at least originally, the Bellmans lived on a ranch and had four children. I think the Bellmans were originally going to the the core family. But all that went out the window, when Rauch insisted on including Iris in the show.