robbwolff

Thanks for sharing this! What a treat to watch this and to see Jada as a child. What really struck me was the announcer inviting the audience to listen to The Secret Storm during the closing credit as opposed to watch it.

I'm thrilled to see a woman back as a head writer. It's been nearly 5 years since a woman has been head writer of a soap.

I've been watching old episodes of Guiding Light lately and there's a June 1982 episode available on YouTube that features Amanda at the mansion on the Wexler estate and Jennifer is living in the cottage on the estate. The house is specifically referred to as a cottage, not a carriage house. In that episode, a shirtless Mark Evans descends the staircase in the cottage and Jennifer reveals to Amanda that they were married in Paris that day. In the same episode, we also see Carrie and Ross in their carriage house as Carrie attempts to flee Springfield. If I remember correctly, Ross and Carrie's carriage house was located next to the Kennedy house as Carrie seduced the Kennedy's teenage son Ron. Perhaps the carriage house was part of the Kennedy's property. I started watching in April 1982 when Texas was shifted from 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 a.m. I recollect that one of the stories at that time involved Alan and Hope moving from their mansion into a smaller house while Floyd Parker, who was embarking on a career as a rock star, moved into the Spaulding mansion. Floyd's career tanked later that year and I believe Alan and Hope reclaimed the mansion.

Murder mystery parties/dinners are extremely popular on the east coast. I've already run three and am writing the script for a fourth -- a murder mystery inspired by The Golden Girls and Schitts Creek. They're sellouts every time and a great way to raise funds for causes.

I’m a credits nerd and remembered seeing her name in Texas’ credits. I found some closing credits for Texas from 1980 and she was listed as a production assistant. I believe both Texas and AW taped in the same Brooklyn studio. Eddie Drueding’s site does list her as a secretary for Paul Rauch in 1983. It’s all very curious since by March 1983, Carolyn, her husband Richard, and Gary Tomlin were listed as interim head writers of Guiding Light until. The credits changed that May with Pamela Long Hammer and Richard Culliton being listed as head writers. I remember that the Culliton name stood out to me back then because there was an actor named Patrick Culliton in the movie The Towering Inferno and I had wondered if they were related.

Actually Carolyn was not yet writing for AW in 1980. I don’t think she started writing for the show till 1984. She was a production assistant for Texas in 1980. That said, I really wish Michael Fairman would do an interview with the Cullitons about their work on soaps.

Brown and Esensten revealed months in advance about the direction Holly was going to take. In an interview in early 1998, they indicated that Holly would become obsessed with baby Maureen and kidnap her. Somewhere along the way, they morphed it into the nursery rhyme stalker storyline.

Had Kobe stayed, I think we would have seen Pam Long return sooner than 1987, which may have spared the show from the disastrous Munisteri/Barrett and Anderson/Manetta regimes. We may have also actually seen the return of Hope Bauer, which Jeff Ryder previewed in SOD.

Mark Faulkner’s Edge of Night homepage features a treasure trove of information, including synopses and transcripts. According to the late 1978 synopses, an imprisoned April had been having visions for months about Draper’s car careening over a cliff. That indeed happened and the Karrs were informed that Draper had died. But then Draper showed up at Geraldine’s with the sad news that Kevin had borrowed his car after he had told Kevin that Raven was planning to leave the country and had died in the accident.

Kobe was credited as EP from around February/March 1983 to March or April 1986.

From reading the synopses on the Edge homepage, Danny left Tracy after learning she was unable to have children because of having a number of abortions. Danny got involved with Tony Saxon and Beau Richardson in 1976 when he became manager of the Ace of Clubs. Beau was murdered around April 1, 1977 and that’s when Inez Johnson and Mrs. Yost appeared. Inez had implicated Mike Karr in Beau’s murder. Tracy, who had flirtations with Chris Neely and Steve Guthrie, went undercover and moved in with Mrs. Yost to prove Inez was lying. Tracy and Danny reconciled in August 1977 after Danny learned of Tracy’s actions. The synopses don’t mention when they left (a few are missing), but Tracy is last mentioned in the October 1977 synopses.

I think Danny and Tracy are written out in 1977 along with Johnny and Laurie. Tracy’s call girl past is explored in 1976 when her former madam Mrs. Yost and fellow prostitute Inez Johnson appear. For a while they toyed with an attraction between Phoebe and hunky psychiatrist Chris Neely but Phoebe is murdered by Dr. Clay Jordan in late 1976. I absolutely loved the story about Nicole, which doesn’t end until February 1977. I was 12 when Edge moved to ABC in 1975. Mom was a fan from the CBS days and we had watched Somerset at 4 PM in the New York market. When Edge moved, she followed it to ABC and I immediately got hooked.

That's really not completely accurate. Gary Tomlin was not associated with Another World when it ended as he was Executive Producer of Sunset Beach in 1999. And Samuel Ratcliffe, who apparently had a role in creating the gorilla, passed away in 1995. So someone on the final AW writing team had to come up with the idea of bringing back the gorilla, which originally appeared in late 1984/early 1985.

Storm of the Century aired in February 1999. If I remember correctly, as a promotional tool, ABC incorporated the storm into all four of its soaps while the mini-series aired.

vetsoapfan is correct. I remember a scene around 1981 when Rachel was searching for the supposedly dead Mitch. There was a shot of a map showing Bay City and the state map was clearly Michigan. I remember being surprised circa 1986 when TOPS was introduced and Bay City was said to be in Illinois.

Cali does mention that Paulina was not supposed to be the daughter of Mac Cory. She was originally slated to be another character's daughter. I'm guessing she was supposed to be the daughter of Felicia and Lucas.

I was just now reading the part where Shaffer talks about this. She referenced Mary-Ellis Bunim being EP. Bunim was there from Dec. 89 to April 90 according to what I read on the web. She also said Millee Taggart fired her.

Not sure if this has already been posted, but Toby Poser (who played Amanda on Guiding Light) plays a district attorney in episode 7 ofThe Fall of the House of Usher on Netlfix.

Welcome to the community, GL Oldtimer! I loved reading your post and look forward to your contributions.

Mavis was Lurlene's aunt.

Thanks for the tag! Looking forward to watching it tonight. It's interesting that Peggy McCay got billing in the opening credits.

Rick does a good job though his tenure is short. I think he's only there for about six months and is then replaced by Ira Avery. I adored Rita's writing!

I thought it might be interesting for us to share stories of our own happenstance connections to soap stars, writer, producers, directors, etc. I’ve got a few I wanted to share. I’ve shared this in other discussion threads in the past, but the first involves my house. My husband Eric and I fell in love with the town of Collingswood in New Jersey. It’s like a real-life version of Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls. We found out an acquaintance was selling his house there so we went to check it out and an hour later, we had a deal to buy the house. The owner told us that he had bought the house from the Cianfrani family and shared that the Cianfrani’s son had been a soap opera actor. Through the information he shared, we realized he was referring to Michael Corbett of Ryan’s Hope, Search for Tomorrow, and The Young and the Restless. Michael's mother has since passed (she was 101 when she died), but Michael would often drive her by the house on holidays. Unfortunately, our acquaintance tossed all of Michael’s soap and theatre memorabilia, but saved two items that we now have: Michael’s childhood ruler and wallet from when he was a teenager. The second story involves writing. Back in 2005, I participated in a novel writing workshop on Cape Cod with writer William J. Mann (Bill), who has written novels in addition to biographies about Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Barbra Streisand. One of the students in the class was the late Harry Eggart, who had directed Guiding Light for many years. Harry was workshopping his novel, which was a murder mystery set behind the scenes of a fictional soap story. He was quite a talented writer! He was also kind and compassionate. Turns out Bill and I had been fans of Guiding Light in the 80s and Harry regaled us with stories of that period, including tales of Nola and Kelly, Quint’s house on Thornway Road (I believe it was inspired by an actual house on Long Island), and Charita Bauer. What stories do you have to share?

Shouldn’t it be Feb. 1971? Best of Everything and A World Apart didn’t debut until March 1970.

And from September 1982 to August 1983, Guiding Light had Douglas Marland, then Pat Falken Smith, then L. Virginia Browne and Gene Palumbo. Next came an interim team of Carolyn Culliton, Gary Tomlin, and Richard Culliton. Then came Pamela Long Hammer and Richard Culliton.