j swift

I think of Whit as a generic daytime version of JR Ewing, (an oft knocked off character at the time) rich guy who brought some sudden 1980s glamour and aspirational wealth for the female vipers in town, but mostly served as a vehicle for stories about his offspring. Whit and Lisa married after a very short off-screen courtship, so we never saw their budding romance. Also, he was a total prick to Margo, so he was never meant to be well liked. My question is based on this quote from soap columnist Jon-Michael Reed's column published two weeks before Eileen Fulton's return and Whit's death. While it is entirely possible that the soap press was spoiler-free, so they didn't know about Ms. Fulton's return, I wonder if Whit's death had always been planned, or if it was a sudden choice to hype up the return of the original actress? This is one of my patented conspiracy theories based on absolutely no facts, yet the speculation does hold water because the secrets that came out of Whit's death did not require him to be murdered in order to be revealed. In fact, Kirk was in his will regardless of his parentage, and most of his kids left town before the conditions of his will could be enforced. On the other hand, he was classically set up as a murder victim from the start because he was a jerk to everyone and collected new murder suspects every month that he appeared in Oakdale. We don't need YT video to know that at some point in 1984, half of the cast would have a line suggesting that they could kill him for being so evil. And there was lots of story to be mined from a Lisa/Lucinda feud.

I'm sure there's a thread somewhere when we've compared and contrasted final episodes of the various soaps. However, my recollection of the ATWT finale was that I was suffering from "finale fatigue". There was so much discussion about the "Capitol model" of ending on a cliffhanger, or the "Guiding Light model" of ending by tying everything up in a bow that it created a false dichotomy. While I believe that we need to distinguish between disliking a creative choice versus wishing other choices were made. I did not resonate with the finale episode because it lacked emotional empathy. The audience was experiencing a loss, but the characters and plots did not reflect those feelings. In hindsight the example that best fits was probably the one story that they couldn't plan for; focusing on the loss of Reed, as opposed to the loss of Nancy. Reed's story seemed to convey to the audience that loss was also an opportunity for renewal, because his organs literally lived on. But, if they were able to write about the loss of Nancy (although they obviously could not have predicted that Helen Wagner's death), we could have empathized with the experience that some things are lost forever.

Perhaps you've uncovered an Agnes Nixon writing trick. From the start, the audience thinks that we'll be following the blonde ingenue (Tara Martin, Alice Frame, Meredith Lord), but the real star emerges as the sassy brunette (Rachel Cory, Erica Kane, Dorian Lord)

I actually think that the opposite is true, if a writer "hated" a character then they would just have them disappear. Creating a drug storyline for Steve was in keeping with the hot-headed nature of character, as well as popular story for time. And, the actor got to play scenes with the types of exaggerated emotions that are useful for one's resume reel when auditioning for other soaps. So, if there is no future for a character, or an actor, in the writer's plans, then it seems like a win/win situation. Things may not be as personal as they seem in entertainment, and if soaps kept every flawed romantic hero, then there would be no opportunity for growth and new stories. I know that I would take hunky-early-Holden, over nose-flaring played-out-Steve everyday of the week. I am of the belief that each new writer should get the time and space to experiment, rather than be beholden to their predecessor who were dismissed for lack of popularity among the fanbase.

Ugh, it is just like those darn Matthews to think they are better than a woman who was the actual Queen of Tanquir!. I mean, just because Lenore was able to have her wedding at the country club doesn't mean that she's classier than the daughter of a European Countess. Cecile may have been married a few times, but at least she didn't leave her scarves in the apartments of unsavory men. (lol) 😉

For some reason IMDB doesn't list Ms. Wolter's role as George on Guiding Light in 1993, but it came with a lot of fan fair and press at the time.

Yeah, I don't think they consulted a map because the route from Majorca, Spain to the nearest oil producing country is pretty far...

Well as I’ve mentioned previously, Elena was written into a corner, with no future as a love interest. Also, with the battle over casting Pamela, there may not have been support for characters from a prior regime. Finally, as a big name at the time she might have signed a limited contract

I agree that the mountain portion of the Eden/Elena story went on too long. It was so much more fun when Eden returned and spared with Elena. Elena was written with my favorite type of bitchiness, where she would be so sweet that sugar wouldn't melt in her mouth to Cruz, and then cruel to Eden. So, every time Eden tried to tell people that Elena was awful, she just looked jealous. It played so well on Eden's history that she would be envious of the attention that Cruz and CC paid to Elena, that they just chalked up her reaction to Eden's insecurity. When, as an audience, we were in on the reality that Elena was awful. The writing and performance balanced the line of Elena being unhinged and it going slightly unnoticed without making Cruz and CC seem dumb.

I feel it necessary to clarify that I am not pushing a false comparison of Sami and Ben. I am simply asking if it is a generation divide that younger viewers are no longer swayed by the soapiness of characters being redeemed by love.

@Wendy of course money was involved, my mistake, here's the amusingly poorly translated summary from the French SB site. Mason was always a sucker for the promise of a consequent heritage from his father (lesson learned: always get the cash up front). C.C. Capwell learns by chance the identity of the father of the child, he orders Mason to marry Victoria. To keep intact the couple of Eden and Cruz, he proposes a consequent heritage to Mason if he adopts by the same occasion the child and gives him the name of Capwell. What does Mason, who marries Victoria in a ceremony one cannot sober any more. Victoria is confined a little time later at the beach house with the help of Cruz, who is unaware at this time that he is the father of the baby that he helps to born. Mason takes immediately officially in charge the declaration of birth, not omitting to baptize the baby of his own choice C.C. Capwell III.

I would add that what really didn't make sense was Mason's explanation for claiming to be the father of Tori's baby was to help Eden and Cruz. As if it was ever in keeping with the character of Mason that he would sacrifice his own happiness for Eden's? I don't buy it for a minute...

I admit that I am never going to win this argument, but I'm bored on a weekend night with nothing but time so here it goes: To use your example about Eve, after Sami was wrongly convicted of killing Franco, Kate was vilified by everyone in Salem for hating Sami. Kate lost her job, her fortune, and the respect of her children. Even though Sami withheld the information that Will was Kate's son Lucas's child, falsely accused Lucas of abusing Will, and assaulted Kate. While I agree that few defended Sami (with the notable exception of Roman), her felonious intentions were always justified, and the audience was meant to take her side in romantic stories, because we were supposed to root for the redemptive power of love.

To be fair, and keep the record straight, Sami shot Allen (in the crotch) and EJ (in the head) with the intent of killing them and she kidnapped baby Belle in order to sell her. While maintaining her status as the romantic lead of the show for over decade. So, the question remains, can soaps no longer use stories about characters being redeemed by love?

Just for discussion sake, and not to defend or compare offensive behaviors, but to those who object to Ben ever being written as a romantic hero, should the same rules apply to Sami, who drugged Austin in order to have sex with him without his consent (or at least make others think they had non-consensual intercourse)? In other words, does the classic soap tale of people being redeemed by the power of love no longer work for today's generation of soap fans?

Once again I am amused by the soapiness BUT Where did Alexis get dressed for the gala and why didn't she see the guy who died on the sidewalk in front of her building? Why did Eva get made up, change her hair and dress, and then drive back to La Mirage to shoot Fallon, when she was already at the hotel moments earlier? So, Dom turns down Brady for dinner because she's afraid that Jeff is in a crisis, but then he says that he'll see her at the gala, as if by the next night everything would be OK? I'll give a pass to the security companies on soaps who never seem to screen for weapons, but what gubernatorial candidate has a "gala" (with ten guests) at the opening of a nightclub? Here in California, our governor had a recall election, in part, because he ate dinner at a fancy restaurant!

With the hiring of Jerry O'Connell and Natalie Morales, isn't funny when a production just gives up on diverse casting and goes back to hiring the same old people again and again?

Euphemisms have been used indiscriminately by soap recap editors for years. I was reading an EON recap and I confused how a lusty male character, who had just returned from his honeymoon, could be described as impotent, rather than sterile. I think the same thing goes for illegitimacy referring to any child whose father was not in a committed relationship with the mother of said infant. To me, the worst misuse of language is when Soap Opera Digest editors would refer to an incestuous relationship rather than using the terms sexual assault or molestation. There are numerous historical plot lines which were described using vocabulary that would thankfully be considered out of date today.

One charming story about Ruth Levine from TV Guide 2/23/1980 In case you missed it, here is a recap of what has happened lately to the real-life men and women who labor on ABC’s soap opera The Edge of Night... Henry, the soap-opera writer who secretly wants to do mysteries, dreamed up a new character named Nola, an aging movie star who drinks too much and has a messed-up love life. Nick, Henry’s boss, loved the idea but couldn’t find the right actress for the part. Meanwhile, Ruth, the casting director— unaware of the new character Henry had created—went to a cocktail party where she met Kim, a famous actress with some 40 years’ experience on stage, screen and television. The next day, when Nick told Ruth that Henry needed someone to play Nola, Ruth immediately thought of Kim! At first Kim said no, but eventually she agreed to play not one but three parts: Nola, the aging actress; Hester, a witch; and Mrs. Cory, a woman who drugs her neighbors! Ruth is Ruth Levine, the casting director who quite accidentally met Kim at that cocktail party last spring. And Kim, believe it or not, is Kim Hunter, who won an Academy Award in 1952 as Stella Kowalski in “A Streetcar Named Desire” and went on to a long and illustrious acting career without ever watching a soap opera, let alone appearing in one.

So, I did a little more digging to try to find some google-able answers and didn't find much. The casting director for EON was named Whitney Burnett Voss, who later cast Search for Tomorrow. She died in 2016, and her death announcement on Facebook mentions : She was the daughter of Whit and Hallie Southgate Burnett, renowned literary teachers and mentors to Truman Capote, William Saroyan, and many other noted authors. So, she had a history with famous out gay authors, which then leads one to assume that she knew what it meant when a disco singing actor drove a motorcycle in Manhattan, wearing leather pants and reflective aviator sunglasses. According to the announcement in the New York Times, in 1982 she married Philip Voss Jr., executive vice president and management director of Compton Advertising Inc.. Compton was eventually bought out by famed agency Sachi & Sachi, but they were not associated with P&G, to my knowledge. She left casting to raise her family and engaged in admirable philanthropic work for most of the rest of her life My only hesitation is that Maryanne Alda noted in an interview that she was the first contract role that Voss cast. So, Dennis and Joel predate that casting which means that they were cast by Ruth Levine, who left in 1980. Ms. Levine worked for Benton and Bowles, the ad agency for P&G, and went on to be one of their first female executive. However, there is not as much information about Ms Levine. Ms. Voss was a casting assistant under Ms. Levine, so it would be hard to know who was responsible for thier casting.

No, he did exclusively gay films Check out this really well researched article on him https://www.therialtoreport.com/2019/08/11/dennis-parker/ His lover was Skip St. James, who was part of the Andy Warhol factory set. So, he was very open about his sexuality (unlike Joel, who was engaged to Veleka Gray). While it is easy to assume that P&G executives didn't watch adult films or read the Village Voice, the clues were pretty obvious. One tends to think that even in the pre-internet days, it was a known fact not just because of his disco career, but also because of items like this : Skip St. James (Dennis’ partner in the early 1970s): His favorite bar was The Eagle’s Nest on 22nd St where the West Side Highway is. We went there all the time on his motorcycle. The Eagle on the West Side Highway at 142 11th Ave and 21st St. It was a legendary drinking spot that catered to Manhattan’s leather-clad S&M crowd. - Hence the title of his song Jim French, aka ‘Rip Colt’ (photographer, founder of Target Studio and Colt Studio): By 1975, Dennis had left his day job in the office, and started making his living through his carpentry. He also made money by posing for photo sets for gay-oriented companies like Target Studio and others. It was an open secret that Dennis ran a personal ad, I think, in the Village Voice. I’m not sure of exactly what the ad was for – but it was for services that were sexual in nature. I think it was in the Village Voice, or maybe the East Village Other.

It is a remarkable coincidence that Dennis's "stage name" was Wade Nichols, and the pornographer killed by Winter Austin was named Wade Meacham....

One actor with a past in adult films could easily be explained as a mistake, but two actors cast in two years, that's either a casting director who hung out too much in Times Square, or someone who had zero gay friends or business acquaintances while working in Manhattan, in entertainment, in the early 1980s. Note that there were no female actresses with a similar past (just sayin...)

When Donna was first introduced she mentioned to Peter that one of the Love children was illegitimate, although I have always thought she was referencing Marley. Later in the build up to his murder, there was some speculation that Nicole may have been fathered by Jason. So, I wonder if the synopsis referenced above was more about using Mac as a means for more clues, rather than actually fathering one of the Love kids, which would have to have been a retcon since he didn't arrive in Bay City until after Nicole would have been born.

There's more than one version of the video to that musical masterpiece, so I wonder if the 2nd version (linked above) was meant to capitalize on his EON role? Here's the original