robbwolff

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.

Nope. She was head writer for at least a year. And her stint at GL didn’t even last 13 weeks.

I believe Peggy O’Shea was head writer that summer.

The latest ratings Jason posted reflect Lee Sheldon's first four weeks as head writer of The Edge of Night. Three weeks into his run, he killed off Nicole Cavanaugh. And I also think these ratings reflect the beginning of Richard Culliton and Pamela Long Hammer's work on Guiding Light. Pam's name first popped up in the credits in mid-May. And we immediately saw the introduction of new characters like Mindy Lewis, Billy Lewis, Beth Raines, Lillian Raines, and Bradley Raines.

I had watched the movie back in 1983 and remember Dorothy's preview. Here's a video of the segment with Dorothy followed by most of the first episode of the serial.

If I remember correctly, after the movie ended at 10:50 p.m., the last 10 minutes featured Dorothy Lyman from All My Children giving a preview of Loving.

She claimed so in an email to Eddie Drueding on the Another World Home Page, and Eddie shared the email on the site back in January 2006. I always doubted her claim. In the same email, she also claimed that Guiding Light continued to use her bible for nine months after she was fired and credited her as head writer during that period. She was defintely removed from the credits by late February/early March 1983.

We'll also see if there's any truth to L. Virginia Browne's claim that she brought Guiding Light up 2 full ratings points -- from 8th place to 3rd place -- during her short stint.

I'm not sure what Edge's taping schedule was like, but Raven vanished around Halloween 1984, right around the time that Edge's cancellation was announced. Sharon returned early from maternity leave to wrap up the show was back on screen by early December. Edge continued to update its opening throughout most of 84. Beth did make it into the opening, along with Del and Jeremy sometime in 84. Liz wouldn't have been included in the opening. The opening credits only featured contract actors and Marcia Cross was recurring. Preacher and Jody were the closing shot until around August/September 84 when Raven and Sky were moved into that slot with footage from the recent Mexico remote. By the time Sharon went on maternity leave, the emphasis on Jody had begun to fade. Whatever magic there was between Jody and Preacher was lost when Lori Loughlin left the show. Preacher was featured a lot with the new bad girl Liz while Sharon was on leave while the now boring Jody was beginning to be paired with the equally dull Jeremy. As for Jody, I'm not sure how old she was supposed to be, but she was a first-year student in college when the show ended. She started at Wellington College at the start of 84 and then transferred to a college in Monticello by mid-year (when the Wellington College murders storyline ended).

If I remember correctly, it was both L. Virginia Browne and Gene Palumbo who were head writers, not just Browne. And there were interim head writers between Browne/Palumbo and Culliton/Long: Carolyn Culliton, Richard Culliton, and Gary Tomlin. Pamela Long's name first appeared in the credits sometime around mid-May 1983.

I've watched every episode of Dark Shadows and never saw star billing in the opening credits. I believe it was in the closing credits where Joan Bennett and later Jonathan Frid got star billing.

Who were the doctors who were brothers? I don't remember them. I remember Dr. Jack Garner and Dr. John Bennett were introduced in 1979 along with John's wife Ashley, who was portrayed by the wonderful Valerie Mahaffey.

It's on page 18 of this board. According to producer Linda Wendell: "We had secured Inge Swensen, a wonderful actress, to play a nurse and we were going to follow a 'Children's Hour' type theme, eventually working in a conspiracy against Betsy."

I'm glad you were able to find the book. I must have lost my copy in one of my moves.

There's no doubt the expansion affected the ratings. However, the 1970s ratings that Jason47 clearly show that AW's ratings drop happened well before the expansion -- around June 1978. AW went from an 11.1 in mid-January 1978 to a 6.7 in late August 1978. That's a massive drop. AW spent the second half of 1978 with ratings in the 7s and then had a boost to the 8s in early 1979 but then dropped back to the 7s before the expansion in March 1979.