amybrickwallace

Do you guys think this show was better with or without Beverlee?

I asked Susie Bedsow Horgan that question on FB. Here is her answer: "You know I don't remember. Could have been but I really have no idea. Sorry!"

I don't think they would have withstood losing them. They were the heart and soul of the show. Besides, the show didn't really groom any of the secondary characters that well, especially in the last couple of years. When SFT ended, the only actor besides MS and LH with any significant tenure was Marcia McCabe (Sunny), who had been on for 8 years. The final two years had seen the departure of longtime cast members like Rod Arrants, Sherry Mathis, Maree Cheatham and Lisa Peluso (though I believe they all left of their own accord). Most of the cast at the end had only been there for a year or two.

I think that Marie and Palmer stayed until about 1976. I don't know whether or not it was their choice to leave. In a vintage soap magazine interview, Palmer Deane mentioned that the character of Hank was written with no particular actor - black or white - in mind. Hank and Lauri's stories are not racial (though they might be down the line), but problems that any person of any color could face. They have both suffered injuries/losses that threatened their dreams...he was shot trying to rescue Matt from a junkie and lost the use of his arm, critical in his goal to be a neurosurgeon (though he is coming along well in his rehab at this point in the story), and she lost her singing voice and along with it any hope of continuing her singing career. I think anyone watching today could relate to them.

She basically said the same thing...and that watching these episodes over four decades later has brought back a lot of happy memories.

I can't believe it has been nearly two decades already...and I remember when the announcement came down, too. I still miss the goings on of the folks in Bay City.

I don't, either. When you are a brand new soap that hits paydirt with a couple right out of the gate...you fire one half of the couple and replace him with an (admittedly talented) actor who doesn't have even a fraction of chemistry with his leading lady? The Dobsons' logic has always eluded me on that one.

Lori Loughlin started off on EDGE in 1980, and she's barely aged a bit. She still looks fantastic today.

Seriously, Michael Levin and the late Gerald Gordon (Dr. Nick Bellini, The Doctors) have to be the all-time champion yellers in soap opera history!! I know that Jack mellowed somewhat in RH's later years, but I wonder if fans had to turn the volume down whenever Jack was ranting and raving about something. LOL

Amy and Brick were so underrated as a couple. They were of more blue-collar roots (though Brick did come into money later when it was discovered that he was the Lockridge heir), and New Stailand nonsense aside, went through problems that viewers could relate to. The fact that Kerry Sherman (Amy) didn't look like a supermodel, but attractive in an approachable way, made her unique and set her apart. She put a different twist on the soap opera heroine. Dane Witherspoon and Robin Wright had off-the-charts chemistry both on and off camera, and getting rid of him after just three months was a huge mistake. No knock on Mark Arnold, who had recently come off of three and a half years on EDGE as Gavin Wylie, but he just wasn't Joe Perkins. I would have loved to see Dane play out the earthquake scenes, the Carnation Killer story, Joe and Kelly's wedding, etc. If he had stayed on SB, I wonder how things would have turned out for him and Robin in the long run. As it was, he got another chance at soap stardom on Capitol, and it quickly fizzled out. He never acted in daytime again, and shortly thereafter quit show biz altogether and moved to Denver - where he died in 2014. Pam Long said in a podcast interview in 2009 (Brandon's Buzz - which also has an interview with A Martinez from 2013) that she was told that A was going to be sticking around, so she decided to go ahead and accept the HW gig. Shortly thereafter, he decided to leave. She said that had she known he would be leaving, she wouldn't have taken the job. I guess hindsight really is always 20/20!

You know what's really funny? I've connected with Marie Thomas-Foster (Lauri) on FB, and she said even SHE got tired of the song being played ad nauseaum! Had TD and Lauri had continued on into the mid-1980s - can you imagine a possible re-working of the song to coincide with Nancy Reagan's war on drugs? "Just Say No Way"? *shudders* Marie is watching the reruns, and so are her two grown kids - one who was too little to remember much of the show, and the other wasn't even born yet. She says how great it is to see her dear friends Palmer Deane and Sally Gracie, to name a few, every day. Sally was even the godmother to her daughter. They stayed friends for the rest of Sally's life. I haven't watched today's reruns yet, but I can't wait to see what happens. I'm also sorry that this is the tail end of Peter Burnell's work on TD. Sadly, the role stayed so one-dimensional for the five years he played it - yet he never, ever phoned it in. There was such a soulfulness about him that transcended what was on the written page. Believe it or not, he would be turning 75 later on this month (4/29/1942) had he lived.

I was watching a rerun of Facts of Life the other day. Playing one of Blair's many suitors was none other than Tom Eplin. The episode was from 1984 - I wonder if this guest spot got him noticed by NBC, since he was on AW the next year.

@SoapDope, the only good thing about the Mike/Penny thing will be the reactions of Matt, Maggie, Althea, Toni, Hank and Martha when they find out. I see a lot of heads exploding!!!

^ That was a beautiful soap wedding. I liked the outdoor park setting.

I do have an issue of SOD from 1998 that features one of those "through the years" articles with Peter Hansen (Lee Baldwin, GH/PC), who just passed away this past weekend. I will try to find it soon and post the article.

@DRW50, would you please be so kind to re-post some of the interviews you have with Rita McLaughlin Walter (Carol)? I've checked the previous pages of the thread and most of the pictures don't work anymore. Thanks!!

I see. Hopefully it will never, ever be done again on daytime TV!!!

UGGGH...after watching today's Mike/Penny scenes, I'm glad Julia Duffy was of age in real life - though she looked younger and was playing a teenager. Yesterday's reruns had the first mention of Dr. Alan Stewart, Matt's nephew. A pre-"Buck Rogers" Gil Gerard played the role in what was his first TV gig.

At least he was absent from both of yesterday's reruns. Meanwhile, we have the saga of Mike and his spiral into pill-induced oblivion, with Julia Duffy's Penny trying to sink her claws into him. She was very young at this time but she was already so poised. I can see why she went on to such success later on in primetime.

^ I really only find Nick tolerable in small doses, and when he's in scenes with people like Maggie, Martha, Toni or Hank.

Susan Bedsow Horgan is on the FB group for The Doctors, where her husband Patrick Horgan first achieved daytime fame. I could ask her. I believe she was on the writing staff then (and became EP in the spring of 1994).

Thanks for posting those, Carl. Lara Parker had such beautiful hair that it was only natural for her to appear in a shampoo commercial.

That was in 1998, right? What were TIIC thinking?

That is a great picture.

How long was Fred Bartholomew the EP of SFT?