SoapDope

Thanks for the upload.

Christopher Bernau in 1977 commercial. 

Victoria Principal. 

23 hours ago, AMCOLTLLover said:

Im currently watching the 1986 episodes in German coz I really love Brenda Dickson! She is my Jill. I love Jess but Brenda is amazing and I don’t get the hate she gets sometimes.

Yes she was campy but that made it worth to watch it. The whole Who shot Jill story is amazing soap opera stuff. 
 

I think that Michael (Jill‘s lover and lawyer) had such natural chemistry with anyone he interacted with especially with Jill. He is definitely my favorite men on her side.

 

Colby Chester who played was Michael Crawford was a contract player at Universal along with Jess Walton in the 70's and they appeared in several TV projects together. Back then he had a pornstache and Jess's voice wasn't as gravelly. They were reconnected when Jess took over the role of Jill. 

1 hour ago, te. said:

Yep, I've also wondered if the original treatment that Jacobs presented to CBS only initially had the Fairgate, Avery and Ward households and that he just tacked on the Ewings when CBS wanted to spin off Dallas. I think they early on tried to do slightly "youth" focused storylines with the Wards, but I think because they couldn't really fully separate Ewings / Wards by an age difference (the Wards being obviously in their 20s still) it just never quite worked out for them since Ewings just inherited the "young married couple" thing (despite Val and Gary being in their early to mid-30s but don't tell Joan Van Ark that). 

David Jacobs said Joan asked "How old is she supposed to be" ? ......LOL Joan said she saw the first 5 episodes of Dallas when it aired and loved it. So she would have known that Lucy was a teen when she agreed to take the role.

Joan was born in 1943 and would have been 35 in 1978. Her daughter Vanessa was born in 1969. 

10 hours ago, te. said:

I wonder if they at that point wanted to involve Ray in the "who's the daddy?" storyline but ditched it?

I thought about that too. Ray really got around on that ranch.

When it was revealed Ray was a Ewing, it never really opened up too many storylines. He was still the ranch foreman and still kind of isolated in storylines with Donna. They also ignored the fact he slept with his niece Lucy. 

David Jacobs was hoping Lucy to be a 1970's & 80's Paris Hilton type (rich wild girl constantly getting into trouble with sex, drugs, and other scandals), but they quickly realized they screwed up with the casting of Tilton(rhymes with Hilton....LOL). They only threw storyline crumbs her way to justify cutting her a pay check. She was also used as Tiger/Teen Beat type press fodder for the younger viewers. 

Maybe if instead a Lucy, they should have had a teen grandson Lucas (Luke) and did the Kit Mainwaring storylines with him. Jock and J.R. would constantly berate him and he would act out. It would have been pre-Steven Carrington on Dynasty....which Dynasty was a blatant rip off of Dallas. 

2 hours ago, Vee said:

Lucy was just always a complete wash for me. Charlene Tilton is astonishingly bad in virtually any scene and I can't take her seriously doing anything.

I do agree that after her decent intro scene Jenilee Harrison is also quite cringe.

Even David Jacobs said she could not act. One of the most cringe worthy performances is when she attacks Ray after Mickey's death. Too bad Heather Locklear went to Dynasty instead of Dallas. I could picture her as Lucy ripping everyone a new one. Maybe Amanda Wyss as Lucy ? Here she is in a 1979 ad. She has even has hair like Charlene's.......LOL

12 hours ago, Chris 2 said:

I always thought they should have gotten Gregory Harrison to join as a Bobby substitute - whether as Jack or someone else. He is a similar type as Patrick Duffy and would have looked good with Victoria Principal. He was finishing up his run on Trapper John MD as the dream season began.

Gregory Harrison would have been great on Dallas. I'm surprised that Larry Wilcox from Chips never showed up on the show. He was kind of a real life cowboy and owned a ranch. I could picture him as a cousin of Ray's. The cousin would fall in love with Donna and step in to declare his feelings for her when Ray got stupid and pulled away from her. 

Those duds they paired Lucy with like Mitch, Mickey etc....was worthless storyline. They could have had Lucy work with Aunt Pam at Barnes-Wentworth or at least given her a love interest that didn't blend in with the wallpaper. Maybe Grant Goodeve from Eight Is Enough ? 

1 hour ago, Beetle Bailey said:

I agree about the casting of Jack and Jamie Ewing.  Since The Dukes of Hazzard had ended in spring 1985 and it had been Dallas' lead in for many years, either Tom Wopat or John Schneider should have been Jack.  I would have cast John Schneider as Jack and Tom Wopat as Matt Cantrell or another character.  As for Jamie, she should have been a Southworth, from Miss Ellie's side of the family.  Dallas should have casted an unknown actress and saved money.  Maybe Susan Dey could have played Jamie?

I would have loved to have seen Susan Dey on Dallas. She is one those actresses that draws you in no matter what she's playing. She could have played Jamie hard as nails that took now crap from anyone. I couldn't picture her with Cliff though. 

Maybe Dey's Jamie could have been paired with Mark. 

On 6/25/2023 at 4:51 AM, DRW50 said:

 

Thanks for the interview. That kitchen is so 80's. I wonder if Donna still lives in this house ?

1 hour ago, Soapsuds said:

Speaking of.. Deborah Shelton looked so beautiful and regal during her return. 

She was always a beauty. She was Miss U.S.A. 1970. Victoria Principal was also on the beauty pageant circuit at that time. She was Miss Miami 1969. 

14 hours ago, kalbir said:

Larry Hagman didn't look like a romantic leading man but he still got much younger (as in 20+ years) love interests.

Like Eric Braeden (Victor) on Y&R. He was already in his 40's when he joined Y&R and his first wife Julia was about 10 years younger than him. I think Nikki was about 15 years younger then they all got younger as time went on. 

These have probably been posted before, but if not...Enjoy !

I felt PP as Jenna really stunk on the show. I had no interest in her or Charly. I hated they broke up Ray & Donna and have him marry Jenna, which was really stupid. Then we finally played out all that mess that Bobby is not the father of Charly yet again(this was clarified back in 1978) and then just as Bobby is free from Jenna, they have her be pregnant by him. Then Pam acts out of character wanting to adopt/buy the baby.....the show was a freaking mess. I think Dallas became such a success so early on, that it quickly burned itself out. 

6 hours ago, Chris 2 said:

I was watching the remastered episodes on FreeVee and I agree she was stunning during that first year. Her look was very simple and that worked because she was a natural beauty. Then in the middle of the first year she got the shag and started wearing heavier makeup. There’s speculation that she got some work done during the dream season because she missed an episode (during the Colombian emeralds storyline) and after she came back, she never looked the same.

She definitely had something done. She almost looks like a totally different person. She claims that she has never had plastic surgery (even though she was married to a plastic surgeon) and that her skin care line is all she uses.

There is a 1973 episode of Love American Style on youtube featuring her. She was good at comedy and has a Marlo Thomas That Girl thing going on. I almost kept waiting for her to say " Oh Donald".....LOL Lenore Kasdorf (Rita GL) is also featured. 

When Dallas started in 1978, Victoria was stunning with her long hair. Later on she got that weird shag haircut and other bad hairstyles and dye jobs when she did the commercials for Jhirmack. I think she may have had some plastic surgery in the early 80's. She looked odd around the time of J.R. & Sue Ellen's remarriage in 1982. 

11 hours ago, fivethej said:

What was the scene?

It was a scene of the Brooks family getting ready to attend Leslie's concert. 

6 hours ago, te. said:

Kenny and Ginger's decoration in season one is hilarious, especially the whole bean bags/pillows instead of couches, just to show off what a swingin' couple they are! When Kenny's finally kicked out for a bit Ginger apparently went on a splurge and bought herself a couple of proper furniture.

That set was awful. I hated the architecture of the house too. The characters were a bust with the writers not knowing what to do with them. In season one there are several episodes where they are not even shown or they are given few lines. I guess they are the Chris & Tracy Partridge of Knots Landing.... 

4 hours ago, Chris 2 said:

These days, Victoria says that she told Lorimar when she signed her two-year contract extension in 1985 that she wouldn’t sign another. But her colleagues say (and some trades reported at the time) that she was negotiating for another extension in 1987.

Patrick Duffy got a huge salary increase to return in 1986. Victoria, by some accounts, wanted salary parity with Duffy to sign another contract (she deserved it by the way). She also wanted to sign just a one-year deal. Lorimar didn’t want to pay her the same salary as Duffy and wanted a two year commitment. TV Guide at the time reported that when negotiations broke down with Principal, they had to quickly rewrite scripts to take out the Pam character. So they were expecting her to sign, and that’s why Pam’s exit is so clumsy.

Lorimar also initially announced that they had dropped Principal. She was furious about that and got her lawyers involved and forced the studio to retract this. She also said they took her parking space away during her final weeks there as retaliation. Later on, she refused to allow the studio to use her image on the show or in clips (during Sue Ellen’s movie storyline, for example).

Larry Hagman had dinner with her a year after she left to convince her to return but she declined. She wouldn’t even come back for a handful of episodes to resolve Pam’s storyline. That’s why Pam was recast for one episode.

She as willing to return for the series finale if it wrapped up the story of Pam, but wasn’t interested in the fantasy storyline. She turned down the JR Returns movie. I’m not sure if she was asked to do War of the Ewings. Accounts differ whether she was even asked to do the TNT revival, but when the show started teasing Pam’s return, she released a statement saying that she was not going to do a “desperate reappearance” and that as far as she was concerned, Pam died in her car crash. 

The studio produced a in-studio mini reunion with Duffy, Gray, Charlene Tilton and Steve Kanaly for the 40th anniversary DVDs. Principal didn’t appear on camera but did call in. She seemed to enjoy reminiscing and had some laughs with Duffy. She also posts reminiscences on instagram. She says she’s proud of the show. I just don’t think she wanted to be part of its long decline.

Thanks for all the info. I did not know about some of that. That explains when Sue Ellen did her movie, she did not include Pam. I figured she would have the them do the scene of when J.R. caused her to fall that caused the miscarriage or show the flashback of it. Victoria was right to leave if they were not willing to pay her the same rate as Duffy. She got screwed because of Duffy leaving and then he gets paid the big bucks to return.

I have come to dislike the Bobby character somewhat. Duffy seemed to get more smarmy/hammy as the show progressed, especially after his return. I always hated how Bobby threw Pam under the bus where Jenna was concerned. Even in the first year, Bobby would drop everything for Jenna and then acted like Pam was being ridiculous when she was a bit jealous. They resolved Charly was not Bobby's in that episode, but then when Jenna returned, they started that crap all over again. I might have cared if Fairchild had returned to the role and it was better written, but Presley did not impress me enough to care about Jenna. 

I also thought it was a mistake to kill off Kristin so fast. She could have driven story for years. Since they did kill her off, they should have had baby Christopher to really be J.R.'s and have Bobby and Pam keep the secret for years. Maybe have little Christopher start to exhibit devious tendencies as he started to grow up. 

32 minutes ago, GLATWT88 said:

Can you elaborate on the Victoria becoming a laughing stock.

Also, it seems like Victoria wanted nothing to do with the show post her departure. Did something else happen behind the scenes? What's her relationship like with the cast? 

I remember people making jokes of "Pam's dream" on late night shows. Also Newhart did the "It was all a dream" joke for it's series finale as a jab at Dallas. Victoria also expressed in interviews that she wanted to leave the show after season 5 because of the decline in writing. The dream season really drove home her point on that.  

Victoria's relationship with the cast was kind of "She felt like an outsider". When the cast discusses her they walk on eggshells when she is brought up. She rarely participates in interviews with the rest of the cast. At times Patrick will praise her and other times he will subtly throw shade at her. John Beck (who played Mark) said in an interview that he preferred working with Linda Gray than Victoria. 

There have been rumors of Victoria being a difficult or to herself behind the scenes. She was the closest to Jim Davis till his death. 

Not only did Dallas screw it up, we got Patrick Duffy and Larry Hagman to thank. Patrick insisted Bobby be killed off on camera. They asked him are you sure " Yes, I have no intention of ever coming back".....then Larry pissed and moaned that he didn't have his playmate he could cut up with and wanted things back to the boys club behind the scenes that he was accustomed to. 

I wish they had told Patrick " Sorry, we have moved on and you should to. Good luck finding work".....I think Larry threatened to quit the show and that's why they catered to his demands. Victoria/Pam/the show became a laughing stock after that and she eventually walked away because of the decline of the writing and the show.