SoapDope

1 hour ago, vetsoapfan said:

@MissPalmer and @FrenchFan, I remember Bryna Laub and her newsletters! Back then, the publication dates of various magazines and newsletters were often slightly "off" from the news contained in them. Still, there's always the possibility that back in 1975, I wrote down the wrong date when I first saw Courtney appear on the show. Or maybe she had actually appeared before *I* first saw her on November 12, 1975. But it's hard for me to figure out how I could have gotten the date THAT wrong, LOL. And Jacqueline Courtney has always been my favorite soap opera actress, so I was waiting on pins and needles for her to show up. I watched the show every day, and on the rare event that doing so was impossible, I audio-recorded it. I am willing to admit I could be mistaken, but...hmmm. I guess there will never be concrete, definitive proof.

Did you watch all the shows back then ? If so, how did you manage when shows were on opposite each other ? All the shows seemed to be on fire back then with a few exceptions. I remember you talking about Y&R blew you away with how it looked compared to the other soaps. 

What was the first soap to show a sex scene or 2 people in bed together ? I recall seeing in one of the Doctors reruns from around 1968 or 69 where Matt & Maggie had some afternoon delight. I don't think they showed anything racy if I recall correctly. Matt was shirtless and I think Maggie was in her slip. They also showed her making up the bed after. 

I think Y&R pushed the envelope with the characters of Snapper Foster and Lorie Brooks in the 70's

I would love to see a decent chat with all the old school Dallas actors including Victoria Principal & Mary Crosby in the mix.

An old school Days chat with Susan Flannery, Bill Hayes, Susan Hayes, Maree Cheatham, Heather North etc....

An old school Y&R chat with Jamie Lyn Bauer, Janice Lynde, Trish Stewart, Pamela Peters, William Gray Espy, James Houghton, Brenda Dickson, Robert Colbert, John McCook, Tom Ligon

Y&R: Erica Hope's Nikki married to Victor. Lilibet Stern as crazy Patty with the dead stuffed cat. 

As Dan Stewart with Kathryn Hays as Kim and Larry Bryggmann as John. 

I recently discovered that Sherilyn Fenn aunt is 70's rocker Suzi Quatro. Quatro is best known to U.S. audiences as Leather Tuscadero on Happy Days and her 1979 hit Stumblin In. Quatro was really popular in the UK. Many artist copied her style like Heart and Joan Jett.

Y&R: I felt the 2003 return of Snapper & Greg was a bit off. James Houghton (Greg) came across as sarcastic and catty and William Gray Espy seemed to go through the motions. When Jamie Lynn Bauer returned the first time. They had her getting divorced from a character we did not care about and they de-clawed her. She was whining how she wished she had married Victor years earlier etc...stroking Eric Braeden's ego. 

5 minutes ago, Chris B said:

Bryce was great in his return and brought some humanity back to the role. I felt this was similar to David Tom’s return where they punished the original actor for not being more like a recast, which is bizarre. 
 

It was almost as if they showed up to set and the show forgot they were coming and told them to wing it. You couldn’t get any essence of their characters. It was SUCH a waste. They could’ve easily used them to usher on Brooks. Hell, John McCook is right down the hall. They could’ve all three been used to introduce him.  

I agree. I also have never understood why the show ha never brought back Brooks Prentiss. Instead we get all this re-written history to usher in new characters. 

Janice Lynde (Leslie) and Jaime Lyn Bauer's (Lorie) return on Y&R was awkward as well. Janice barely had any lines. 

What characters/ actors that returned years later (sometimes decades) that came across awkward or cringe worthy ?

I just saw some uploads of when Karen Lynn Gorney returned in the role of Tara on AMC in the 90's. She seemed a few beats behind her replies and had trouble remembering lines. They also had her made up to look matronly.

David Hasselhoff and Wings Hausers return to Y&R was also cringe worthy. 

Sean Garrison who played John Abbott in the 1980 episode with Bond Gideon in a Love American Style Episode circa 1970.

4 hours ago, danfling said:

I am under the impression that Ms. Burns did not appear in many acting roles.    She did created the role of Cathy Craig, and I do not think that she was in role all that long.   (I cannot specify the length.)  She did appear in the movie Last Summer and was nominated for an Academy award.  I was not aware that she had been on Adam-12, and I think that her television roles were few.

 

She later became a writer.

Between 1967 - 1984 she has around 30 movie, TV and  self guest appearance credits. She stopped acting around 1984. By 1989 she was writing for Guiding Light.  I assume she only played Cathy Craig during early 1969, by 1970 the role was recast. I remember seeing her in a rerun of Love American Style. She was hilarious as wife who gets addicted gambling on her wedding night and leaves her husband to play at the craps table. 

I was watching my Adam 12 DVD's the other day and saw actress Catherine Burns in an episode. She did a lot of TV in the 70's after a Oscar nomination for the 1969 film "Last Summer".  I know she played the first Cathy on OLTL. How long was she in the role ? She was in the 1969 episode that has surfaced on youtube. She later did some writing for Guiding Light in the late 80's. She passed away last year. 

Adam 12 was a great show. A lot of soap actors appeared on the series. Jed Allen played many times on there as various characters. He was friends with the leads Martin Milner and Kent McCord. They would guest on his show 'Celebrity Bowling". Susan Seaforth Hayes also appeared on Adam-12 (and Dragnet). She was a favorite of producer Jack Webb. 

I wish some footage of Ron Becker would surface. He sounds creepy and sad at the same time. Dick DeCoit who played Ron still acts and looks pretty much like he did back then, only a bit older. I think Carolyn Conwell who played Mary Williams also played his mother.

The scenes of Jill being propositioned by a handsome young man sound seedy. She even toys with idea of taking him up on his offer about the money and new dress. What if Jill had turned to prostitution after what Kay had done to her ? That would have been interesting. Jill was self destructive in may ways. 

2 hours ago, Chris 2 said:

A few comments:

 

There was no “miniseries.” It was a weekly series from the get-go. The first season was short - 6 episodes. That happened sometimes with midseason replacements at the time; the first season of “Three’s Company” was six episodes, too. “Eight is Enough” also had a short first season.

 

Nigel and Carol McKeand were the showrunners for the first four seasons. Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz were the showrunners for the final season.

 

Playwright Jay Presson Allen, who wrote the pilot (and therefore got a Created By credit) had nothing to do the with series after the  pilot.

 

Elaine Heilveil, the original Nancy, was let go after the first season. Presumably the producers and/or network were looking for something different. You’ll notice that Heilveil was used very little towards the end of season one. Her initial replacement, Jane Actman, was also fired, after filming a few episodes for season 2. Meredith Baxter Birney had to refilm all of Actman’s scenes when she was hired.

 

The show is not a soap, IMHO. Each episode is self contained, for the most part (though there’s a lot of soapiness within each self-contained episode).

 

The producers wanted to do a two-hour reunion movie in 1987, when TV movie reunions were in vogue. The storyline would have centered around the kids coming home for Kate’s remarriage. It was delayed due to a writers’ strike. After that, Meredith Baxter Birney declined to sign on because she didn’t like the script. They did a rewrite to accommodate her and she still didn’t like it. So it never happened.

Elaine Heilveil looked like she could be the sister to Brianne Leary of CHIPS. Yes a lot of mid season replacement series started out with 5 or 6 shows their first season. Dallas started as 5 episodes in April 1978 before getting picked up for season 2 in the fall. A lot of series back then sometimes would start off as a TV movie like Charlie's Angel, Hart To Hart, Cagney & Lacey etc..before getting picked up. David Jacobs who created Dallas was a writer for Family.

I had read that they wanted to do a reunion and that Baxter Birney was the one that killed it. Gary Frank never really got the popularity he had received on Family in his later career. Kristy left acting after leaving Empty Nest in 1992. Most Millennials have no idea who she is. 

Aaron Spelling considered Cheryl Ladd for Nancy but Baxter Birney won the role. The following year she replaced Farrah Fawcett on Charlie's Angels.

13 hours ago, asafi said:

John Lupton died on November 1993. I guess this is the reason TPTB didn't brought back his character for his dad's funeral held in June 1994. 

 

I wish I could see the story of Marie falling for her brother and the whole Kitty/Sandy/Tommy reunion.. but I guess this will not happen. ever. 

I wish to see it as well, but it would only happen if they opened up their archives to stream online. A few years ago they showed Susan Hayes first appearance as Julie in 1968 and the footage looked well preserved. 

3 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Looking at those figures for Tommy some of them seem so random eg 2 appearances in May 73. What was happening that suddenly demanded Tommy's presence?

It would be interesting to know the background.

 

At least Tommy was a presence throughout the 70's so John Lupton must have been happy enough to appear from time to time. It's a pity he wasn't used in the 80's for Xmas visits or when Sandy was on the show.

 

As to why Tommy wasn't used after 1970 in any meaningful capacity there could have been any number of BTS issues.

Firstly with a half hour format there was probably no room for Tommy to get a new romance and storyline and budget was probably an issue as well.

 

In the correspondence Jason posted between Betty Corday and Bill Bell I recall the subject of the budget coming up repeatedly.

 

PS Jason, are those letters still available on your website? I looked but couldn't locate them.

Looking at Lupton's IMDB page he appeared in a lot of TV shows and films at Universal. I wonder of he had a studio contract with them ? Universal was one of the last studios that had the system of contract players till 1983. I read in the 80's he got into computers and worked for a tech company and would act occasionally. 

12 minutes ago, beebs said:

So, according to the recaps (which I think I may compile into a blog at some point), Tommy basically starts to reappear in 1977, starts dating Linda, who is only using him to make Bob (her real target, because she wants his $$$) jealous. Once she gets what she wants, Tommy is dumped, and is a talk-to for the next year, before vanishing again, only to show up for Tom and Alice 50th wedding anniversary party in March 1980, and then he vanishes, never to be heard from again. 

 

That's literally it. 

He was on and off since 1970, so his other appearances must have been short.

Here is a creepy 1967 photo of Tommy Horton (John Lupton) as a prisoner of war. He returns under the alias Dr. Mark Brooks (Bill Bell must have loved the Brooks surname as he would use it on Y&R). 

Since we are discussing the 70's. What did Tommy Horton do after the late 60's ? I saw John Lupton in cast photos through out the decade, but what did his character do onscreen ? He last appeared in 1980.

13 hours ago, kalbir said:

 

No wonder Nikki ended up climbing that pole three years later 

You mean the one at the Bayou or Victor's ? 

47 minutes ago, Broderick said:

Yeah, Erica Hope definitely gave Nikki a trashy look and attitude that was completely believable.   I can remember a scene where she was in the Allegro with that Patty Minter girl, and I made the comment to my siblings that Nikki looked as though she'd been gang-banged the previous night.   Melody Thomas initially played the role more like a silly airheaded bimbo and less like the complete slut we'd seen with Erica Hope.    

LOL @ Erica. What I have seen of her, she looks pretty rough. I have seen Patty Minter mention in  synopsis, but what was that character all about ?

I was watching an old Match Game episode  where 70's/ 80's teen queen actress Dawn Jeffory was announced being on Y&R in the opening segment. Who did she play ? In 1979 she played one of Lucy's friends on Dallas that helped her score some drugs when she was squalling around over her break up with Kit. This would have been around the same time she was on Y&R. 

6 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

I think skanky is the correct word here...

Or trailer trash.....LOL She did give Paul VD.  I can picture her wearing a tube top, satin short shorts while getting high with Paul out by the school dumpsters and then making it with him in the back of his Van and/or Trans-Am. 

10 hours ago, DRW50 said:

 

I've never understood why they cast Hauser. If I was watching at the time, maybe I would know, but he feels like such an odd choice for Y&R (which cast beautiful people) as well as for the Foster family (who were all troubled on the inside but able to present a more acceptable, polished face to the world). And James Houghton was so incredibly handsome, it's just jarring. Was this down to soaps moving toward the "anti-hero/bad boy" format by 1977 or 1978? 

Hauser was trashing his time on Y&R in the 90's and complained that he went shirtless on the show once, and then was never asked to do so again. He said they show probably did not like what they had seen.....LOL The late 70's and early 80's had some questionable casting choices on soaps. I guess that explains Anthony Geary. 

11 hours ago, DRW50 said:

 

To be fair to her, I don't know if anyone could have survived their hairstylist judging by that clip - Doug's hair looks lumpy and misshapen, like Playdoh left behind, while the beautiful Roberta Leighton has been assaulted by a demonic cereal bowl.

 

I'm just shocked that we got to see her. I'm shocked that we got to see a number of those clips. The karate one was fascinating as it has that raw type of feeling which was sort of being phased out of the show by then, with the increasingly ossified Brooks sisters, Jill, etc. And it's such a reminder of how incredibly gorgeous and charismatic Doug Davidson was in those years. 

 

The moment where he was too awestruck to speak about his wife was sweet. 

 

The writing quality - the quality, period - has declined so much, as shown by the time of those 2003 clips, but I'm glad they didn't try to hide the past to prop up later stuff, and just let the material stand.

LOL at Playdoh left behind. It was bad even for late 70's standards. It was straight out of Eight Is enough. That karate clip was a surprise. I wish we could have seen the entire segment. I wonder if Greg and Paul got into a confrontation over Nikki ? Wings Hauser was just seedy. They should have re-cast a better Greg than that, especially to pair with Melody's Nikki.