Mona Kane Croft

#2 Beginning the premier episode with a scene from a fake soap opera. Could anything be more confusing to a new audience?

They had to make Marley crazy and vindictive, because Jensen Buchanan had essentially turned Vicki into Marley. So there was nothing for Ellen Wheeler to play as "good" Marley. They made her bad. I would have preferred giving Vicki back her edginess, then allowing Ellen Wheeler to play Marley the way she played her a decade earlier -- as the good sister.

There's nothing crazier than a has-been soap star. No idea why, but a lot of them seem to go off the rails.

That's very similar to the promos I was asking about. But the promos I'm looking for all mentioned old characters who were returning for the celebration. And I'm sure you're correct, these promos would have appeared only on NBC.

Thanks. I remember one more of the promos, but in less detail. That one featured Matt Cory, but I don't remember which returning character he discussed. Maybe Russ Matthews?? So there were likely a total of five of these promos. One ran each day for the week prior to the 25th episodes.

Do you know if they are on Youtube? Or anywhere else online?

Does anyone have the promos for the show's 25th anniversary episodes? There were four or five of them, each with a character addressing the camera, and talking about a character who'd be returning for the celebration. I remember one featured Vicky talking about Alice Frame, and another featured John Hudson talking about Pat Randolph. I haven't seen any of those promos since they originally aired.

Good point. But English was naturally curly, I believe. And I don't think he set the trend, but who knows? The other three were perms.

I didn't see Wickwire in the role, but I don't think there was much for Liz to do during that period. Trying to wreck Bill and Missy's romance had been Liz's major storyline for years, but by the time Wickwire arrived, Bill and Missy had married and moved out of town. During Wickwire's time at AW, Missy returned (Bill had died off-screen) for a couple of months before her spin-off to Somerset. And Liz had some sort of romance with the same man her daughter, Susan, was involved with. Then Susan married another guy, Dan Shearer, and left town. From what I've read, it seemed maybe Liz had mellowed a bit, but it may have just seemed that way because they didn't write a major conflict for her. At least Liz still had her big house, during that period. When Irene Daily was on the show, Liz always lived in apartments, and then eventually moved into Jim and Mary's old house -- which was out of character.

They really didn't exchange punches in either of the scenes. It was mostly just spiteful dialogue and some pushing and grabbing. Still great stuff!

You're right, Lemay would never have written a whodunit. He didn't seem to mind writing murders, but never whodunits. And only two of his murders had trials. Both were extremely brief trials.

It seemed like he had far fewer technical problems in his earlier reunions. The last three or four have been difficult to watch, because of tech issues. One would think he'd be getting better with the technology, not worse. I wonder if it's a growing problem with Zoom, and not something within Alan's control.

I think that's the scene in which Rachel was wearing pearls (or beads of some sort). When Liz grabbed her, she also grabbed the beads, and broke the string. So they rattled all over the floor. It was wonderful and realistic, but I think it was actually a mistake. I doubt Irene Dailey could have choreographed it so perfectly, had it been intentional. Such a great scene! I think Liz's emotional condition was the reason Jim and Mary invited her to go along on their vacation to St Croix in April, 1975. That's the trip on which Mary died unexpectedly on the terrace. All we saw was her broken glass of iced-tea on the floor next to her lounge chair.

Yes she was, maybe for close to a year. Great photo!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.