SoapDope

Yes, his character was Oliver and was never developed.He worked with the original Melissa (Debbie Lytton).The writers made Gwen his sister.She was getting involved with Don and it was revealed she was sleeping out of her office.The cleaning woman was revealed to be her mother Esther.Hot shot singer Woody King was another brother, and the family had splintered due to trying to escape their criminal dad Orby Jensen.It seemed like a desperate move to tie these characters together and was never followed through.

According to Jason's page Oliver was on 31 times in 82 and 43 times in 83 which is quite a bit but I can't recall in what context.

Thanks for the info. Gwen sleeping in her office sounds off the wall and the entire plot complicated. I figured he was short lived since he didn't have a whole lot from DOOL posted. I mainly remember him being one of those teen stars that made the guest rounds like Clark Brandon and Greg Bradford who's careers were short lived and now long forgotten.

I saw one clip, but what was the other?

Your right, it was one clip. I thought it was two since they were different scenes strung together. The other clips listed are from his other TV appearances. That clip from that movie he did with Jennifer Jason Leigh in a bad wig is 80's after school specials at it's campiest.

Wow, he did look hot back then, but as Whit, not so much! Plus he and Fulton had no chemistry..she always looked grossed out by kissing him! I can't think of anyone that age who would have been a good match for her...I do think the guy who played Nick and she had chemsitry..too bad they didn't bring him in as a Whit McColl type and I think he played "bad," better then good.

LOL at being grossed out. Yes, she and Nick would of been good. I never understood why the show didn't just put Bob & Kim together after Dan's death instead of putting her with Nick and him with Miranda.

I saw an old episode of The Facts Of Life and saw the boy Jo was studying/going out with was played by Shawn Stevens. I looked him up ( I look up just about every actor on old shows to see what their up to now) and found a recent article about him. He is a Mormon and talked about his career and how he left it behind in the late 80's. He said he was interested in coming back to acting. He has grown children and grand children now. He has a you tube page where he has posted some of his work including 2 segments of when he was on DOOL circa 1982.

I never watched Days (was always a Y&R/CBS soap watcher), but the clips had him arguing with his sister who appeared to be some sort of a trouble maker. She was calling his character Oliver. What was the storyline about and was it short lived ?

I actually think the Dobson's were gearing things up for fun things for her to play, with the intro of Diana McColl, spoiled daughter of Whit. Would have been fun to see Lisa and her go at it and Lisa butting in when Diana was trying to break up Betsy and Steve. I think that the problem was the actor who played Whit, with the dentures and the wig. Wasnt he a friend of the Dobson's? Fulton left too early, for the Dobson's to write a whole family around her was a big thing.

Never liked Craig as a "villain," he was too whiny and not fun..and of course that weird sex thing the D's would always bring up, making him impotent on his wedding night to Betsy, (thus insuring that Steve broke her cherry like that was a big deal) but able to screw around with a waitress on their honeymoon, (I think they even had Craig have a fantasy of her in a german beer wench costume so he could get it up...) weird,weird stuff.

I like MD's Margo, she just came across as too strident sometimes. I can't imagine Marland writing for her and her having scenes talking with "Gram," etc.

I never liked the

Whit was played by Robert Horton who was a popular TV star in the 50's/60's western series Wagon Train. I have seen reruns of the show. Women back then considered him hot stuff.

Yeah, that stuff with Craig was weird and over the top. I was just a kid back then and it drove me up the wall.

Here is a pic of a young Robert Horton aka Whit McColl

Jesus, some of these sets from the late '70s look like they haven't been renovated since Day 1. It's like Dark Shadows infrastructure and tone - when everything about the "present-day" storylines and vibe seemed off and weird in some way.

I agree. The makeup they were using looked horrible as well. It has an almost reddish purple tint to it. In the 80's it got better with the sets and makeup. I can see why Y&R in the 70's shocked viewers with it lavishly decorated sets, flashy wardrobe and background music. A lot of soaps were still using organ music.

I saw the 1974 episodes of GH and it came across kind of old fashioned and a bit cheesy. Compare it to the 1975 Y&R episode and it's like a whole new soap universe. Now days Y&R is considered the old fashioned soap.

I liked Teri Vandenbosch's Frannie and found Julianne Moore an adjustment, but I felt she really grew as an actress on ATWT. I will also say this, she is one of the classiest former soaps stars around. She is an Emmy award winner and has been nominated for a handful of Oscars, yet she asked to return to As the World Turns for one last time before it left the air, because she harbored such warm feelings toward it and the audience that made her star. There are damn few performers with this attitude, and some, such as Meg Ryan, would rather pretend the show never existed. I think Julianne is wonderful.

I remember Teri and liked her too. She was playing Frannie when they introduced Marcy (Marisa Tomei). I will give credit to Julianne for not forgetting her soap roots. Meg Ryan is pathetic for dissing the show. I read an interview one time with Michael Park and he said he was doing a stage show and met Meg. He commented he was on ATWT her old stomping grounds. He said she looked like she could run right through him.....LOL

Lindsey Frost reminded me of Lindsay Wagner.

I think over that summer of 80, or 81 HF was off doing the road tour of "Whorehouse," so they had David disappear right after John was run over, and of course, they had him as a major suspect in the piss poor "mystery," that became of it. They would bring in Chris for a scene every month or so where Ellen would worry about David's whereabouts. It was stupid that they had Jame run him over as A) James would hire someone and if he did want to run over someone he would not miss, and B, it made his character a cartoon (all I remember him during the Dobson's is rubbing his hands together for some dumb master plan of his.) Jame should have been much closer to Alan Spaulding, a conflicted villain. So they brought him back right before the Dobson's came back. And yes, Ellen moved into some swinging Oldster complex, which was weird, as they had her lonely and loosing touch with her old friends instead of how Marland would write it, as everyone supporting her (the Dobsons really took the idea of Oakdale being a community and threw it in the toilet.) Even weirder was boring Ellen screwing the hot doctor. Ellen's sex life, nawww, I don't need to know anything about it.

I thought at the time it would have been interesting to have Lisa go after David...reigniting the Ellen and Lisa fued. Imagine what Nancy would say (though Wagner was off the show then) about her "daughter," going after her family friend's husband? It would also bring back Bitch Lisa (Fulton would have loved it) and made her town pariah again. I woulda brought back a recast Don and had him screwing Ellen just to REALLY get Nancy clutching her pearls and the town in an uproar!

I

Larry and Frannie were together? What was it about her that attracted nuts or turned nomal guys onto older women? Larry was hilarious as he never appeared "straight, " for a minute so I would have thought they would have him run off with a guy not a woman.

Your not going to believe this, but I was going to post the exact same thing about Lisa going after David. That would have been an awesome storyline. Don screwing Ellen is too funny. Who did you have in mind as the recast ? Conard Fowkes was good as Don.

Ed Fry who played Larry did a series of commercials with Mary Ellen Stuart (Frannie) for Rooms To Go for close to 15 years.

I really liked Mary Ellen as Frannie. I didn't care for Julianne Moore at all. I still don't like her all that much as an actress and never thought she was attractive.

The actress playing Betsy's friend is actress Diane Franklin. She was a popular 80's actress. She did a hilarious movie called Better Off Dead with John Cusack. She played a exchange student from France and was staying with a weird overweight boy and his mom. She was struck on John's character who lived across the street. There was a school dance scene where the overweight boy was slinging her around like a rag doll on the dance floor.....LOL

A few random thoughts:

I never liked Yvonne Perry or the Roseanna character at all. I couldn't believe she won an award after being on for a short time. I got fed up with the show and stopped watching around 1998.

I always thought Hillary B. Smith was an excellent Margo, but didn't care for Ellen Dolan all that much. Glynnis O'Connor was just gross as Margo.

Most viewers feel Hal was the best mate for Barbara, but I liked her best with Gunnar. It seems like the show didn't know what to do with Babs brother Rick Ryan. It would of been interesting to see what he would have been like if he had remained on the show.

I loved Bob and Kim. I always remember that scene where Kim was crying and telling Bob she always loved him from the minute she laid eyes on him and that she never stopped. She also confessed how she set up their meeting when they had the affair years earlier.

I love the clips from 79..I think this Tom is kind of hot the more I watch (in a stuffy Hughes way) I still don;t know why they would recast with that troll Deas? I do want to say, "Hey Tom, if you didn't live with your mom, you might be able to score more ass!" What was Sheila's story anyway? And the dropped Penny story? And I have to laugh at Lisa in her old lady sweater and why in hell Lisa would want to live in that dumpy inn! Where the hell is she going to get her hair colored that brassy shade of blonde! How can she eavesdrop and meddle in people's lives there? The owner of the inn is quite, uh, non-threatening as I said before, or the least bit interesting. He looks like he should sell cars. This all was Marland's material before the Dobson's right?

Speaking of Justin Deas, I remember one time reading an interview with Colleen Zenk Pinter (Barbara) where she was discussing her early days on the show and and she said something like Margaret Colin was my Margo and Justin Deas was my Tom.

Ok, she is right about Colin as Margo, but her romance was with Tom Tammi's version of Tom Hughes. I don't recall her being involved with Jusin Deas Tom. By the time he came on, she was married to James and he cheated on her with Margo. Then Gunnar came into the picture and he and Babs fell in love.

I think the actor playing Tom (Tom Tammi) in the 1979 clip would have made a good recast for Snapper on Y&R. He resembles William Gray Espy. David Hasselhoff was annoying.

I read somewhere that William Gray Espy who played the original Snapper Foster on Y&R and Mitch Blake on AW is back living in his hometown of Dothan, Alabama.

Supposedly Trish Stewart who played Chris Brooks Foster is living in Hot Springs, Arkansas & Pamela Peters Solow who played Peggy Brooks is living in NY.

I saw a bit of the Paley Center interview with the Y&R cast and when Melody Thomas Scott was taking questions, Roberta Leighton who played her sister Casey Reed stood up and asks why doesn't Nikki call her sister and surprised Melody. Melody remarked " I haven't seen or talked to you in years" and said she wanted her number after the show and would call her. Melody kind of acted a bit snotty. She also couldn't name all of Nikki's husbands......LOL

Lilibet Stern who played Patty Williams Abbott 1980-1983 now goes by her married name of Lilibet Iken. If you google her you can see how she looks today. She also owns some sort of business.

Yeah it gets frustrating. Many years ago there were a lot more clips from the very early 80's, around 82/83. Like full episodes during the time Nikki was pregnant with Victoria.

Unfortunately I never thought to save them.

The weird thing is, a ton of stuff from GH, GL, OLTL, SFT and Days has turned up from early home video recordings from like 1977-1982. I would assume there were people/fans taping Y&R as well at this time.

I get frustrated by the lack of episodes and clips of the 1973-1983 period. I have already seen what is already on you tube. I wish some episodes would surface of Nikki & Greg Foster's marriage, Victor and the dungeon. Leslie Brooks mental break down etc......

I remember a few years ago there was a promo that was missing nearly all of it for Y&R around 1980. It was only uploaded for maybe a month before it was removed.

It had a voice over that said something like " In Genoa City a young couples marriage is in trouble" and it was a scene of Nikki and Greg playing pinball and Greg looked skeezy and had on a running jacket unzipped without a shirt on. Nikki had on one of those sun dresses ala Val Ewing from Knots. Nikki was asking Greg why he was acting weird and he had a flashback to a court scene. She went to get something and he was asking himself if Nikki was lying to him. Before the N&G scene there was a quick glimpse of a scene where there was a door slamming and Julia Newman was sitting in fron of the mirror as the sad vintage background music was playing and she dropped her head and started to cry. I assume she and Victor had an argument.

I will always remember this explosive storyline. I still laugh at when Kim asks Bob if he used protection with Susan and Bob say's somwthing like " I didn't exactly go there with a box of condoms and Kim goes into a rant about Susan's past and all the men she's been with and him catching something.....LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8-PGnKPHdA

I wish footage would surface of when Kim arrives and meets Bob from around 1972. When they would show flashbacks, they would only air their early 80's reconnection. I always remember that scene where Kim tells Bob she has always loved him and never stopped.

The Brooks house and Forrester mansion are two completely different sets.

I'm not saying it is for sure. I was just told that several years ago on another message board. It does have the same kind of layout. The Brooks house was one of the first sets I remember as a small child. The double doors that came into the foyer always stuck in my mind. There was a porthole window near the piano and a stained glass window at the top of staircase.

I have a fondness for more traditional style homes and decor. The Williams home is another set I miss seeing. Nikki and Victor's new house is crappy. Someone said the front door reminds them of an 80's dressing room in a department store......LOL

Thanks for the article Carl. It's a shame that Y&R did away with those sets. I think the Forrester house on B&B is the Brooks home set with the windows and doors changed.

I always thought it would have been interesting that after the ranch burned, they had Victor buy the old Brooks home and he and Nikki live there. That new place Victor built has no class.

Heather left because Y&R decided Victoria was a creative dead end.

Y&R ridiculously cut both Heather's money & airtime (angering her & causing her to walk) while Y&R made Nick & Sharon the primary leads of the second generation Newmans (which eventually led to Cassie's death).

I have never liked Nick or Sharon. I think they have hogged up the air time for decades. Everytime some 30ish character is introduced, they are thrown into that pairs storyline and it's non stop screwing and musical beds. Like they have recently done with Steve Burton and Jessica Collins.

I always thought Joshua Morrow's acting sucked like a Hoover.

Wasn't Julia Duffy of Newhart fame on this soap ? I think she played the daughter of Liz Hubbard's character.

Thanks Soapdope for that info, clears it up. Yeah I read the same article where he stated he wanted the show pulled, also saw the interview he did and yeah I am not surprised he retired that year (believe it was done in 1998) it is sad because if he hadn't been sick he could have written the show for a few more years and delayed the destruction of it.

I thought Bell's interviewer was not that great, which is too bad as I really thought they only skimmed the surface. Too bad it was done when Bell was not in as great shape.

I agree that the interview was not that great. He was having a lot of problems by that point. I wish he hadn't gotten sick and was still here writing the show. He's probably turning in his grave at what they have done to Y&R and it's history.

The Kay Alden interview was better in giving a little more detail about history, characters, actors etc.....One thing I seem to remember though was she said Melody Thomas Scott joined the show around 1976, but she didn't come on till February 1979.

You know as much as I admire Bill Bell, I think it was obvious that by the time he had that interview he was already sort of "losing it"

I mean I Just think Agnes Nixon just did so much better than Bill during her Emmy legends interview. I know people hated the interviewer for not asking more "intelligent" questions but I just love how Agnes shows her passion and enthusiasm while giving her interview and she really gave the viewers in in depth analysis of soap operas and why they are (or were) so important and even educational.

I always wished Bill would have delve more info on the history of Y&R besides talking about the first few years with the Brooks and Fosters etc... I would have loved to listened to him talk about introducing the Abbotts and Victor/Nikki etc....

Also I liked how at the end of Agnes's interview where they ask her to give her opinions on different writers and actors she has worked with, they asked her to talk about almost every key important actor on AMC/OLTL (Susan Lucci, Ruth Warrick, Mary Fickett, Erika Slezak, Robin Strasser) but when they asked Bill to make comments on his co-workers/actors they mainly just asked him about actors on Days like Doug Williams and Deidre Hall. He should have asked him about the actors on Y&R/B&B I would have loved to have heard Bill talk about Jeanne, Jess Walton, Braeden, MTS, Jerry Douglas, Peter Bergman,Susan Flannery, Darlene Conley, John McCook etc...

I agree. I noticed even as early as 1994 Bill was starting to have problems. In the 50 Years Of Soaps celebration there was a short interview talking about the Jennifer Brooks mastectomy story from 1975 and Bill was kind of stammering when discussing it.

Considine started on AW around May 1974 or something and Donnelly Rhodes said he was with Y&R for about 18 months. He is part of the first cast photo which I assume was taken around the anniversary in Mar 1974, Daytime TV listed JC as a cast member around Jan/Feb 1974 so I assume the swicth took place around then. I too saw the scene with Kay and Phillip (Considine) in her living room. It is on an interview Jeanne did to celebrate one of her anniversaries with the show.

One thing I can't grasp is when Jeanne came on the show. Jeanne always said she started 6 1/2 months after the show began, making that around October and most list her start date as Nov 1973. But Daytime Tv list her as a new Cast Member for Jan 1974 and in Jan 2004 there was an article in a newspaper (which I can't find) that said Jeanne was celebrating 30 Years with the show that month.

The synopsis from Bryna's newsletter I found for Jan 1974 makes it sound like Kay is a new character too introducing her as socially prominent Mrs. Chancellor, and a new customer at the Salon. So confused on that one.

I saw an interview with Bill Bell a long time ago where he said he wrote Kay Chancellor months in advance and knew she would debut in November and Laurie Brooks in December 1973.

Since soaps tape in advance, maybe Jeanne taped her first scenes in October.

The Daytime TV mags use to be published every few months, so I assume Jeanne was written about in late 1973 (probably December) and the magazine was published and hit stores in Jan 1974.

One thing I noticed in the Bill Bell interview for the Academy, he was asked the question about pulling the show off the air after a few months because he didn't get the instant ratings. They told him Jeanne Cooper said that and he said no offense to Jeanne that was bull and he never intended that and knew the show would be a hit by the following year. Then I read an old 1976 article later where he said he DID intend to pull the show at first......I say Bill either forgot, didn't want to remember he said that, or didn't remember due to his alzheimers. In the interview he looked uncomfortable and was having trouble in certain spots remembering some things.

Kay always had a glass in her hand in those days! You could be right and Jeanne may have forgotten the sequence of events.

From everything written,it seems that Jill came across Katherine at the beauty shop and befriended her. Then Phillip was introduced. Maybe what happened is that Considine only lasted a few days and Jeanne recalled that event ,having hardly acted with him at all and then told he was gone.

I wonder why TPTB rejected Considine. Maybe he was non contract and decided to leave himself.

I went back and read that part in the book and she just say's Phillip was played by John Considine who was promptly replaced. She said she didn't think to ask why.

In an interview about the book, she said the thing about them running lines and she was told no need to do that he was no longer playing Phillip. I would really like to know why they replaced him. Since it has been 40 years, we will probably never know unless John Considine tells the story himself.