BetterForgotten

Thanks, it seems like P&G never gave her much of a fair chance at either AW or GL then.

Anyway... I've seen some of L. Virginia Brown's work on AW, which I enjoyed. How was her work on GL? The period between Marland and Pam Long is a weird period for the show, and I know Brown was one of the many HWs during that time.

I know it's not considered the show's best era, but I've really enjoyed the material I've been able to see from L. Virginia Browne's year-long HW stint. The show feels focused, appropriately paced, and still character-driven amongst the changes happening to the genre in the early 80's. Some characters do seem a bit aimless, but this is probably the tightest I think the show's been since Lemay's heyday (I'm not a fan of much of Donna Swajeski's overrated tenure).

I never liked Lilly until Heather Rattray, and I stopped liking her again when Martha returned. It is absolute revisionist history that she was a bad recast - in fact, much of the soap press praised her at the time, and she definitely added more layers to the character. In fact, her Lilly felt more like the daughter that Lucinda would've raised to me.

I have to say that I'm always surprised when watching episodes form the 70's and very early 80's at how much superior AW's production values were to the other soaps that taped out of NYC at that time. There was a real aesthetic to the show in the 70's that the other P&G soaps or ABC soaps out of NYC just didn't have. I've mostly found Paul Rauch's tastes in aesthetics really tacky and even garnish on other soaps he produced, but 70's AW is a different animal on the production end vs. other east coast soaps. I don't think this lasted into the mid-80s though - somewhere at that time the show took on a very washed-out and dated look that largely followed it to the end.

The part about Marland is 41:20 into that video with Alan if you guys want to check it out yourselves. It does seem like their complicated relationship went back to THE DOCTORS. She said she once suggested that he write an ‘All About Eve’ type story on that show for her, but he wasn’t interested and only cared about “young love.”

Liz also freely admits she always re-wrote her lines and ad-libed. She told a funny story in that interview with Alan that someone once told her they couldn’t believe she was still re-writing her lines on THE DOCTORS, and her response was, “Well, somebody should!” I can imagine something like that driving someone like Marland insane. He wrote so much of his shows by himself and was often involved to the in every aspect of the writing. It probably worked his nerves to have an actress like Hubbard putting her own unique stamp on the material in ways he might not have imagined.

It seems to me like she enjoyed the pre-Marland writing for Lucinda more. I guess I can see a more free spirit like her not adjusting well to Marland's sometimes heavily rigid approach to characters. And I love her to bits, but I know damn well she was never easy for producers, writers, directors, and actors to work with, lol. Lucinda wouldn't have been Lucinda without Liz, but I know she probably didn't make that many friends in the process.

It's funny that Liz does not seem to think very fondly of Marland's writing. When she was asked what she thought of Marland's writing for Lucinda, she said he didn't enjoy writing for her and he preferred writing "young love." She said she had to fight very hard for Lucinda. Very strage to hear all this as Lucinda has always been one of my favorites from Marland's era.

I love how Liz says what she feels with no f.ucks given.

Did anyone watch Alan's chat with Luz Hubbard (and uh, Martha)? I haven't seen it yet, but looking forward to seeing Ms. Hubbard speak.

None of her successors were any better. Laibson and McTavish tanked the show so bad they had to bring in Paul Rauch. That’s also when cancellation talk started to happen for the first time. Initially, Rauch and the interim writers, Victor Miller and Michael Conforti, did add some momentum back to the show but it unraveled pretty quickly.

That last decade must have been a real clusterfuck behind the scenes. Didn't Gina Tognoni and Tom Pelphrey also have a bad break-up (he cheated on her) that led to her destroying a dressing room? That was the rumour back then.

Gee, I wonder what she spent most of that on...

You've only posted about Beth Ehlers on this board so far, Kimmy. I can only assume you must be her.

Not surprising, Linda Danilo was one of the few keeping a somewhat positive spirit alive on that set during the last 10-15 years of the show.

MAB had the longest run of any of those hacks. So her tenure was a lot more painful for me to sit through and the most satisfying when her ass was rightfully fired.

Of course she omitted her disastrous AMC stint in that narrative, lol. I'm surprised she admitted to missing Harley as I felt her hatred for playing the character really showed in her last few years in the role.

I think the first firing from DAYS humbled SSH a lot, and certainly the second one too. She's said as much over the years. The reason she agreed to play Johanna on Y&R, which was never a big role and could have likely been played by anyone, was out of her friendship with the Bell's. She said she knew she would never have the same stature on that show, but appreciated and respected that Bell came to her with a role when DAYS had dismissed her.

Or why they seem to appreciate the classic library so much, yet refuse to let the show embrace it's identity in present-day and has actively tried for years to prevent it from doing so.

Kristen was also god awful and boring for the first two years or so.

I've never been a fan of Lindstrom in any role, but I think it was just a misuse of words, he seemed fairly complimentary of Hubbard. That's nice of Cady for complimenting Yvonne Perry, but really, I thought she made Rosanna her own and did the best work of her daytime career during her first stint at ATWT. I think the most honest part of that video chat was MEK basically saying he did the GH role to keep his health insurance, and how he wrote Frank a letter basically asking for a job. I hope he's well (not that he isn't or anything).

I will always hate MAB and company for making Katherine the saint of Genoa City. She's a bitter and miserable old lady, and I loved her that way!

I'm almost sad that discussion of classic episodes being re-aired is driving more discussion in this section than when the soaps were/are airing new episodes, lol.

What's even funnier is that Amy subbed for Beth Ehlers when she was on maternity leave in '99. It was like someone at P&G was in on the joke.