SoapDope

 

When the Frannie/Sabrina story kicked into high gear, didn't they bring back Rick Ryan (the original actor), saying he engineered the whole thing?

 

He initially came back for the anniversary several months earlier, I think (or did he?), and then that story. I think he was the lackey of the British villains who were pursuing Sabrina.

I have the first two seasons on DVD and plan to buy more as I work my way through the series. I love all of the 70s family dramas. They were sorta like precursors to the 80s nighttime soaps but with an earnestness that actually worked. People often pit EiE against Family, but I think they're really two very different shows with two different purposes. While Family thrived on being quiet and understated, EiE was all about the raucousness of a house full of people who didn't always get along, and it was just a very busy show. And it worked!

I had not seen the picture from DVP's funeral. Susan's absence really does make me worry for her...

Who is the guy next to Adam Rich? 

 

Sometimes you have to read in between the lines of interviews and comments by actors, producers etc...I remember reading over the years that several people from AW and OLTL said Reinholt was his own worst enemy. He wound up pissing a lot of people off and nobody would hire him. He was living in a converted garage and supported himself as an escort. Someone posted that he later came out and had profiles on same sex dating sites. 

Yes, Reinholt had certain issues while working on both AW and OLTL...and I don't think we even had to read through the lines to see it. His problems were pretty overt. Whether or not his loud, public complaints about the shows' writing and producing were justified (and in certain key areas, I  agreed with his criticisms), by all accounts he must have been a handful. He later spoke about working as an escort, claiming that he went out on platonic dates with fans who wanted to spend time in his company.

 

As a viewer, my principle concern was what he brought to my TV screen, however, and for most of his tenure on AW, he gave complex, mesmerizing performances, and had great on-screen chemistry with Jacqueline Courtney, Robin Strasser, and even Victoria Wyndham.

Courtney has said in interviews that she liked Wyndham a lot, and that Victoria was very much into her character. Wyndham has also been quoted as saying she liked Courtney and Reinholt, although back in 1975 she wondered if it was a good idea for Reinholt to join OLTL after leaving AW, because he seemed unhappy working within the soap opera medium. Considering how much Reinholt later badmouthed OLTL, claiming its writers were even worse than AW's (!!!), and how Reinholt ranted his way out the door of the ABC soap, Wyndham was probably right. Using a huge knife to stab into a cake at the OLTL anniversary party one year, producer Joseph Stuart joked about the cake being George Reinholt's heart, LOL.

 

I have a letter to the editor of Afternoon TV Stars from Reinholt, published soon after he was fired by AW's Paul Pauch, in which he says that both he and Courtney had originally felt Wyndham was miscast as the third part of the Alice/Steven/Rachel triangle. Courtney made a comment once about the cast being miffed about all the new, aggressive actresses coming aboard AW and getting attention for their work that perhaps others, like Robin Strasser, deserved more. This was before Wyndham arrived, however, and it sounded like she was referring to Susan Sullivan.

 

I tend to believe Courtney and Wyndham got along fairly well. It was just Reinholt who could be prickly, based on so many other actors' comments. At this point, however, 40+ years later, we'll never really know. Heck, even Paul Rauch, who was so critical of Reinholt and Courtney back in the 1970s, praised Courtney when she passed away a few years ago, calling her a "great gal" who always gave first-rate performances. 

Lol I remember the Scott Reeves one, it was embarrassingly bad! Like that Nightmare on Elm Street movie that had Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold playing the neighbors, the movie made it sound like Jason became a Muppet. . It's quite weird how the Friday the 13th movies were usually no name and low budget but a number of starts did get their start their too. The one with Reeves also had Kelly Hu in it in an early role for her! The one with Barton had Corey Feldman playing the kid and Crispin Glover in it too. Lar Park was the no name lead in New Blood and next thing you know she's playing Linda Fairgate on Knots Landing looking her real age. 

 

I'm always checking this page whenever I see new posts just to see if I ever miss any old videos so I don't miss them before it's too late. Nice to see those Dickson clips!

Don't forget Kevin Bacon! LOL

Those movies are so notorious of having actors that just gave up or moved on from their careers, besides the ones we mentioned....(also Renee Jones was in the "Jason Lives" one where we were treated to watching Jason rip her pretty head off...LOL) I still appreciate how back then it seemed like most of the actors who later joined a soap like Barton, Reeves, and Jones didn't see the genre as a "step down"  compared how most young actors today thinks being a part of a popular movie franchise means you always have to get "bigger" and "better" roles in primetime/other movies....never giving soaps a thought or the time of day....

Even though the characters were ridiculously aged,Wesley and Richard were popular.I recall Wse claiming he was dropped because he was gay, but was it Richard Guthrie's choice to leave or was he fired? This was all around the Days massacre of 1980 so it is a bit confusing.

 

 

I saw the Bell interview. Conboy is a strange kind of guy. A lot of people like him and a lot of people don't. I think Eric Braeden fought with Conboy in his early days on the show. He was replaced by Wes Kenney when he left to do Capitol. I have seen pics of Conboy in magazines on dates with people like Donna Mills etc.....but I also read/heard that he really was into blonde guys and that's why he would often cast them. If you look at the late 70's/ early 80's cast of Y&R most of the men were blonde Kevin, Jack, Lucas, Paul, Greg, Andy, Cash etc......On Capitol he casted blonde Shea Farrell who later went on to Hotel.

 

I saw some 1965 episodes of Days and they were OK, but a bit slow. Bell said that when he told Corday he would take over, he said he watched the show and saw a lot he did not like and then set about making changes. The show was only give another few weeks to improve and several people thought Bell was crazy to agree to sign on.

I think for Conboy, Donna Mills and his other female dates were merely "beards," to help him conform with societal pressure of the day. Now, it would be less likely to raise eyebrows from him or anyone else to bring a date of the same gender.

 

I watched DAYS from its inception, and have many 1965 eps in my collection, and I cannot say it was bad during the first year, only...uninvolving. Fortunately, Bell was able to work magic on DAYS in 1966 and helped raise the ratings considerably. As I wrote in an earlier message, soap fans way back then did not even know had good we had it. So many of the shows were magnificent in the 1960s and '70s.