j swift

I'm following Classic SOD on Tumblr and 1990 is nuts, (in retrospect), when covering sexuality.

I tried to copy/paste but it wouldn't work.  Page 56 has a coded story about Terry Lester and his "assistant" who was also his "cheerleader" and catered parties for Merv Griffin.  Then, Page 58 has a story about the seminal gay movie "Longtime Companion"  and laments how AIDS was really tough for soap writers to deal with.

There's also an odd line about how the actor who played Bunny on Santa Barbara couldn't be a cross-dresser in real life because he is getting married.

I think any actor has the right to maintain privacy from their fans, but the mixed messages of acceptance, fear, and mocking are remarkable.  Considering that SOD rarely named AIDS as a cause of death for actors, it does make one wonder about their editorial choices.  Previous daytime magazines had used coded gay language in order to promote the actors as sex symbols, but SOD created a niche as a news source, so their editorial choices are more suspect.  28 years later, I hope Terry Lester's assistant had a nice National Coming Out Day on Thursday. 

How many of Marco's siblings were introduced to Llandview?

I know he had a twin Mario, but I get confused about Marcello (Stephen Schnetzer) and Gary (Jeff Fehey)?  Which one was with Edwina and which one dated Cassie?  Were they both killed off?

From today's classic soap recap Tumblr posting

ANOTHER WORLD: Week of May 10 - May 14, 1982
Rachel told Steve she thinks Maggie is Jamie’s child.  Jason and punk rocker Deek vied for Julia’s favors.  Vick is attracted to Cecile.  Steve left to open an office in Finland.  Cecile vowed to get even with Blaine, who tricked her into signing Sandy’s separation papers.  Nicolai is discontented with his country’s government.  Thomasina advised Quinn to tell Bob she had taken bribes from Denny.

Is this when Steve was killed off in the plane crash?  If so, who inherited his company and was it ever mentioned again?  Is Frame Construction a subsidy of Blackwater, (was that the rather prescient name of Steve's company?)?  Does Quinn get a part of the company?

Also, isn't funny how brief these summaries are written given the space limitations of newspapers at the time?  It is as if Rachel confesses to Steve, then he turns around and leaves for Finland   

I don't want to spoil anything but the UK tabs say she is only in it for this week.  That Masquerade ball is going to be fatal.

I read and respect @I Am A Swede's concerns about Kim's return.  While I agree that not having Chris, Zoe, or Seth around limits her impact, I am interested in seeing if they sew up some of Kim's loose ends.  Where's her son?  Is her son really a Tate?  What is her impact on Joe?  How is she going to insult Charity?  I dip in and out of the show, but I will watch all week with some excitement.  

There's a scene of Clay asking Gwen about Curtis's mental health, "as a psychologist", on the actor who played Curtis's YT reel.  Was Gweneth a psychologist or is Clay just trying to be snarky?  I know she worked in a diner, but I had no idea she completed graduate studies.

I went watched and read up on the Rick Alden stuff today.  I hadn't realized he was recast from Ron Nummi to Bryan Fitzpatrick right before he was murdered.  Loving had a tremendous amount of recasts, and usually not for the better.  Given the number of characters, one would think that they could simply replace rather than recast, but that seemed to be the ethos of that period.  

In my book, both Ricks were too old to be Clay's son.  Part of the issue is that he was constantly costumed in suits, but he seemed to also be a maturational peer to his father.  I know Clay and Gweneth were teens when they had Rick but he still appeared much older than Curtis or Trisha .  It also doesn't help that both Gweneth and Clay take multiple lovers who seem to be even younger than Rick.  I think it was easier to kill him off because of these discrepancies.  Also, at the end, Gweneth is so upset that Trisha might be dead, or just won't talk to her, but I don't recall her even mentioning that Rick was murdered.        

3 hours ago, yrfan1983 said:

Leanna was never fully exposed as the author of Ruthless

As I recall, both Leanna and Victoria were established early on as being literally "frigid".  It was an interesting choice for the time, given the rise in HIV awareness in the 90's.  It seemed like they tried it with Leanna, then she was dropped, so they carried on the theme with Victoria, but then that issue fell by the side as she grew older.  Female libido was a theme in soaps twenty years ago, I wonder why it is no longer explored? 

6 hours ago, EricMontreal22 said:

Ha!  I\m trying to find a file I have saved from Babbin about being an openly gay woman in the industry, she pulls no punches!

 

That's an interesting perspective that I would like to read.  So many male actors had weird relationships with female producers, as evidenced by their exit interviews.  They were either kind mothers or brutal bitches.  It would be delightful to hear how an openly gay woman would navigate that territory.  

Not to go off on a tangent, but I am fascinated by lesbian soap actresses, like Maureen Garrett, and their time on the shows.  Soap fans are constantly trying to suss out the sexuality of male stars however, nobody ever talks about any falsehood in the chemistry between Holly and Roger.  She must have worked hard to establish and maintain a sensuality that would be appealing to daytime viewers. 

I maintain that part of the dropoff in LGBT soap viewership is that fans of my generation were willing to watch "approximate gay characters",  (like Ava Rescott, who faced many of the same issues as LGBT fans: i.e. family acceptance, feeling different, and liking some sparkle, but weren't actually gay), whereas today we have the choice to watch more accurate representations.  When Tim Gunn got his job on ABC daytime and revealed that he hadn't had sex in 20 years, I joked that made him the perfect guy for a network that created gay characters; just as long as they never actually had sex or expected to find love.

It's amusing to note that both Babbin and Sleasar wrote mysteries about killing producers on soap sets; a bit of hiding in plain sight. 

I'm following the classic SOD recaps on Tumblr and we are currently at the Rick Alden murder.  There is also a story about Jacqueline Babbin, who came on as headwriter with a love for writing mystery.  I've totally forgotten the outcome, but so far it is a delightfully constructed story.  Stacy has been set up as a pawn, but she is not doing anything out of character.  The murder brings about the introduction of great side characters like Norma and Paul.  It is exciting that there are so many plausible solutions, even though SOD immediately pokes holes in it by revealing the actor's contracts for key suspects.  What I really appreciate is the "EON-style" of soap mystery wherein the main mystery is exciting, but there are also secrets that will come out at trial, romances that blossom while trying to solve the mystery, and the story propels the plot forward by resolving the Rick/Stacy/Jack triangle rather than being resolved and forgotten.

I must have stopped watching during the Rick Alden years because I have no memory of the character or the portrayal.  As I've mentioned before, to me he is conflated with Tony, (Jack's roommate, not the later mob character), Curtis, and Dinah-Lee's brother.  Loving always seemed to have a spoiled bad guy character over the years.

Side note: 1989-1990 was a mess of a year for the soaps.  All of the ABC soaps changed executives.  Major characters like Max (OLTL) and Reva (GL) left their shows.  New characters like Dawn (GH) are being recast right and left.  The Daytime Emmys weren't broadcast.  Writers are quitting and then giving very gossipy exit interviews.   It's four years before the OJ trial and the soaps were already in major trouble.

8 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I see Jason in there. I'm going to spare you my long post about how Jason was an OLTL character through and through and how he should have been a much bigger presence than he was. 

Then I'll also spare you my longer response on how a ponytail is not the same thing as a personality for the establishment of a character -

2 hours ago, EricMontreal22 said:

Yep.  But you know, she was old.  Didn't fit Frons' Sex and the City vibe for AMC I think a number of other vets did go on recurring around then.

 

Writers certainly played a lot with who was Adam's true love, but I always assumed it was Brooke.  Liza was a younger model of the same pairing, and Erica could never be a lasting relationship, so it seemed like Adam and Brooke were destined, (by the soap gods) to be each other's end story.

However, I miss the messier younger Brooke from her days with Benny and Aunt Phoebe.  Even during Brooke's early pairing with Tom, she exhibited an impulsive spark and a bit of brattiness.  Somewhere along the line, someone noticed that she had dated most of Erica's exes, so she was written in contrast to Erica.  As a result, she lost some of the phrenetic energy that she had when she was introduced.  I recognized her more when she became pregnant by Tad but realized that he belonged to Dixie, but that was the last time that she seemed like Brooke English to me.  While it was true that she dated men who had been with Erica if we judged every character by that criterion the whole town of Pine Valley would have issues.  It never made sense to me that Erica was allowed to maintain her motivation for 40 years, but Brooke's reason d'etre lacked consistency.  She also was often absent from Jamie's universe, which was odd given all that she had risked in order to raise him.

1 hour ago, Franko said:

Like @j swift, I've been reading the Classic Soap Opera Digest Tumblr. One thing I've just realized is that 1990 was an across-the-board bad year for female Hortons.

 

Hope died. Jennifer was raped. Alice had heart issues. Maggie got hit by a wall during the storm. Julie came back divorced. Melissa ended up losing Emilio. And didn't the Maggie and Neil affair start that year, causing Sarah angst? (ETA: Yes it did, and Sarah ended up in a coma, too.)

 

Laura was lucky to be in the sanitarium. Ditto Sandy out in Hawaii. And Marie wherever she was. 

Fans who complaints about current doppelgangers should read about the period of the show when not only Shane had an evil twin but his ex-lover also had an evil twin!

Also, if I didn't know better those stories about Emilio's return due to viewer demand seemed like a parody. 

26 minutes ago, Vee said:

I think as ludicrous as it was - and it was hilarious when it aired - it worked because the entire cast committed to it 100%.

It's also amazing that the scenes have so many big name actors, but it's almost a Barbara Rhodes monologue.  There's the usual begging to hear the story, and some interjections to move the plot along, but mostly she's just sitting there talking.  It was an incredibly huge job to give to someone who was not a known character or actor (on that soap).  When we recall Karen on the stand, or Nora's summation at the rape trial, or Tina in the taxi before Cord's wedding, those monologues were earned by characters who had been on the show for years.  Irene got one scene to walk into Llandfair and then she had to captivate a whole episode.

The detail that I appreciated was Todd's anger that everyone believed he had already returned from the dead.  As I recall, Todd was incredulous that Blair trusted Victor's outrageous story; prior to learning from his mother that the truth was even more outrageous.  It was great to see a soap play out all the beats of returning from the dead, rather than just write it as if someone had come back from Europe.  I admire the audacity of trying to be so meta in a soap universe, and I think that Irene Manning Day should hold a special place in Llandview history.

My oddest recollection about Mitch Lawrence was from his stint as a cult leader.  He ran a cult and everyone referred to it as a cult.  It was as if there was no attempt cover the fact that it was a cult, and yet it kept attracting new female cult members, (there never seemed to be any men in Mitch's cult).  Roscoe Born was great at delivering fire and brimstone speeches, so he was well cast a cult leader, but it was bizarre that the cult-y nature of his church was so brazen. However, the illegal part of Mitch's cult was unclear.  He didn't seem to be stealing money, or selling false idols.  As a result, I was always confused as to why anyone needed to go undercover to expose a cult that everyone already knew was a cult.

I guess the second most odd thing about Mitch was his weirdly retconned brother Walker, who somehow looked like Todd, (but not the Todd before plastic surgery).  The exposition dump that Irene Manning (Barbara Rhodes) had to do to explain all of the plastic surgeries will forever be legendary to me.  I have re-watched it a dozen times on YT, because it was such an outrageous swing and a miss.  However, Ms Rhodes commitment, (coupled with the crazy lighting in the flashbacks), is something that one can only appreciate on soaps.  If that nutty episode happened in a second season primetime show, I would turn it off and never watch it again, but sometimes the eye rolling exasperation was part of the fun of watching OLTL.

Did we ever get the lowdown of the disappearance of Kirk Anderson; either fictionally or IRL? 

It's just so odd to have a character who drove story simply disappear.  Tom Wiggin has worked continuously ever since his time on ATWT but, I've never read an interview where he explained his side of story.

1 hour ago, Cat said:

See, if Bravo had hired Kathy Hilton like I suggested, we wouldn't be having this problem! Kyle and Rinna would be too busy fighting with Kathy.

Kathy's tendency to ice out her sister and stop communicating with her seems like a barrier to having them on the same show.  Kathy seems more old school and would not want to share the details of her private life in order to gain fame.

Am I correct in remembering that Sloan's opposition to the AIDS quilt and his homophobia toward his dead son were resolved in the course of an episode?  I recall Sloan voicing his opposition all summer, then Andrew lectured him, and he was instantly down with the cause.

I wonder if his quick change of mind was meant to rally support for his relationship with Vicky and make him a viable partner?

I disagree about the differences between Clint and Sloan.  Clint may have evolved into a jerk, but he started as a well educated journalist who rejected the macho ethics of his father. 

I wonder if Agnes Nixon and Bill Bell ever spoke to each other about Irna Phillips with the same type of derision that Pete Lemay used in his book?  

I know both of their memoirs lack any real criticism of Irna, but it is hard to believe that they never had a bit of a kiki about her antiquated style.  Y&R was publicized as a modern soap for young people in direct contrast to the other Irna-created CBS soaps.  Ms. Nixon always included socially relevant stories that would have been verboten on older soaps.  I don't even know the personal relationship between Bill and Agnes, but it would be fun to hear how they felt about her, and her capricious relationships with her actors, once they were running their own shows.  Because it is an interesting contrast to hear the Nixon and Bell acolytes praise their mentorship, while Irna is not remembered as kindly.

51 minutes ago, Khan said:

RE: Pete O'Neill -- In retrospect, it's annoying how the writers made it seem as if Pete was Niki's true love, when history says it was Vince Wolek.

Meanwhile, we both confused Pete O'Neil for his brother Harry, father of Joy, Connie, and Didi, lover of Dorain and Niki, so I'll correct before someone else does.

The O'Neil family was flawed, but remember when an entire family would get introduced?

So, we all agree that Pete O'Neil was the true love of Niki/Vicky's life; right? (lol)

My problem with the reiteration of the DID story was the tonal shift.  Under different writers and producers in the 1980's Niki Smith was an unintended campy performance.  Vicky would throw on a long red wig (wig buying was a previously unknown symptom of DID), look at herself in the mirror with a maniacal smile, and become Niki.  It was more similar to Samantha and her evil cousin Sarina on Bewitched.  It was a plot point in a murder story and later Tina and Maria used it against Vicky to try to hump Clint.

When Vicky's DID was re-introduced it was suddenly supposed to be a mental illness storyline, told with some sensitivity, about the origin of her psychosis.  However, in my experience of watching both, it seemed to silly to treat this plot point seriously that had previously been so campy.  Coupled with all of the soap DID tropes, like a sudden different wardrobe for each personality to convey the personality changes to the audience, it felt like it was underestimating the viewer's sophistication about mental illnesses.  Trying to tell a story about the effect of childhood trauma while trapped in a secret room of a mansion is a mix of silly and serious that never worked for me.  Also, unlike alcoholism stories where they are careful to make the character never drink again, or medical stories where they always showed the scar, Vicky psychosis had no effect on the characterization.  She was still  a solid citizen whom others look to for support.  Nobody ever questioned her decisions or treated her differently despite the fact that she went completely unmedicated for years.  It was another 90s attempt to try to be socially relevant but really being a bit insensitive and wound up poorly informing the audience.  

Then, when it was repeated a third time with Jessica it was even sillier because now the audience was fully aware of DID, and Jess/Tess did not fit the profile of a DID client.  OLTL had to learn the lesson that once you go to Heaven, the Ol' West and Eterna you should not try to tell sensitive dramatic stories with the same set of characters.

After reading the AMC critique from its early days on the AMC tribute thread it got me thinking about how much of our fandom is based on the soap press.  When a soap fan blames network executives, to me,  that always seems to be based on exit interviews of producers to the soap press where they blame network interference on inhibiting their creativity.  SB is a perfect example of this issue.  The Dobsons gave a couple of juicy interviews to SOD when they left and returned to SB and much the parlance in those interviews is repeated by fans when we despair over the loss of the show.

However, I've also been reading the Classic SOD Tumblr, and noting similarities between interviews, which may suggest that our collective understanding of the behind the scenes issues of SB may have been biased.  The Dobsons were also interviewed when they left GL and ATWT and they complained about the executives at P&G in very similar tones to their complaints with New World.  However, at some point don't we have to question whether or not the Dobsons were the common variable?  The first year of the show relayed on multiple recasts that changed the characterizations of both CC and Santana, so was it that outrageous that the network questioned their choice for Pamela Capwell?  Networks are asked to put up a lot of money, good producers learn how to get along with the network, perhaps their unwillingness to compromise created many of their own problems?

I'm just suggesting that in retrospect it is interesting to look for bias rather than allowing those with access to the press to dictate the narrative.

7 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Heather got pregnant and gave up the baby before Jeff met Anne.

Does that vindicate Jeff's behavior or is it just a correction of the sequence he used to drive Heather mad?

I feel like I finally understand the female Spaulding sibling sequence.  It seems like GL always wanted to have a female family counterpart to Alan throughout his time on canvas.  Despite the fact that Alan's familial heritage was retconned, everyone always thought that they had a right to the company that he started. 

First Amanda comes along, but she was already established as an anemic character, so although she was a drain on Spaulding resources, she was no match for Alan.  She leaves in 1983 and Alexandra arrives in 1984.  Alexandra by Beverly was an excellent foil for Alan and she could extend the Spaulding line.  But, Beverly left in 1992 and Marj sputtered along with multiple Mindy's until the mid-90's.  Then, in 1995 we get the questionable, (I still think she was fake), Malibu-Amanda; whom I was shocked to learn stayed until 1998.  I did not recall that much story for Amanda, and there seems to be some lingering stories about the choice of reboot for that character, with that actress, in that way.  Then, in 1998 we get Viki Brandon aka Vicky Spaulding; the girl with the least clever undercover name in history.  The only satisfaction that I had with her was that she was not instantly given access to Alan's wealth simply because they were related.  I know if my here-to-for unknown and disloyal niece suddenly appeared from the Bermuda, I wouldn't give her half my company.    She stays until 2001, by then Lizzie was SORASed to fill the female Spaulding role.

I find it interesting, in retrospect, to see how different writers tried to extend, as well as balance the family.  Of course there was Phillip, Alan-Michael, Nick and all of the male heirs, but I was captivated by how different writers conceptualized the family side of the family.  The 70's gives us Sensitive Spaulding, the 80's is SuperDiva Spaulding, the 90's gets Suspiciously-Diverse Spaulding(s), and the 00's got Spoiled Spaulding.  Each period had it's own Spaulding lady, and each seemed like a response to the time, rather than an organic character responding to living with Alan Spaulding.