amybrickwallace

Hmmm, we must have just barely missed the temp Liz when Retro TV started airing the reruns of TD.

Yup, the most recent cast crawls have Bill, Ruth, and Danny Winters and (*sob*) Dr. John Rice gone, and the addition of the people Paul Raven mentioned. I don't know what to make of these Anderson people so far. I wonder what Althea and then Matt will do about Lila's serious condition. Finally, Nick Bellini has found a lab assistant with staying power (from what I read, they will be working together for the next several years and become confidantes). Good for Martha for not letting him get to her while still politely standing up for herself. I did have to laugh when he saw the curtains and plants and yelled, "What is this - a botanical garden?" I'm sure the temperature in that clinic was about as cold as it is outside in Ohio right now with that exchange between Maggie and Karen. I love that Maggie isn't even trying to hide her hostility towards Karen anymore. The side eyes are now full (and narrowed) eyes that shoot out laser beams, she speaks in flat monosyllables and lets the occasional catty remark slip through. Althea may be in the market for a new roommate after all - or two. Don't be surprised if a fed up Maggie packs up Greta and shows up at her best friend's doorstep. Totally agreed about Matt. She could lie completely unclad on his office desk and say, "Take me, I'm yours" and he would say, "Karen, of course you can still stay in our house. Maggie was wrong." Too bad Nathan Bunker isn't seeing all this going on. He'd sniff out Karen's motives in less than a second!!

Cool, thanks!!

Scott Jenkins was only on for a handful of episodes in 1987 - and I recall he had several scenes with Nic Coster and Richard Eden. It's hard to tell if he was really that bad, because he was taken off the show so fast and the character vanished until Jack Wagner came on in 1991 (or was that 1992)? I think JAN made the choice to leave the show. I still think it's a shame that the show basically wasted him.

That's interesting - and then he would start on The Doctors a few months later.

Yogurt-throwing incident? That story I haven't heard. Would you please fill me in?

Thanks for posting those tidbits. The more I read and hear about the late James Pritchett, the more I like him. He just seemed like a regular, stand-up family man. As a major fan of my hometown Cleveland Indians, I too relate to the sense of loss whenever baseball season is over. It seems Terry Kiser has come full circle. He was a child actor, and now he runs an acting school in Austin, TX. They have posted on their website a recent photo of him posing with several children/teens enrolled in the classes he teaches. Talk about giving back, huh? Polly Meriweather would be so proud of her "Little Boy Doctor". Yes, Bethel was great. I would love to see if any footage still exists of Ann Williams as Maggie (I'm guessing if there is, probably nobody knows where - or is telling). We can't compare the first two Maggies, but I'm guessing once the Lydia Bruce episodes begin to air, there will be plenty of comparing the last two Maggies.

I heard about that. I should try to find that article sometime - I'd love to read it!!

I say blah. True, SB was on its last legs by the time Rauch/Long came aboard, and Jack Wagner had such success with both GH and his music that it must have been considered a coup to get him. They retconned Warren's paternity and played it like Lionel had known all along that he wasn't Warren's bio dad - which I and many other fans call BS. That never would have flown had John Allen Nelson still have been in the role. He really looked - and sounded - like he could be Nic Coster's son. Even the mannerisms. It was almost eerie. To this day, I don't understand why JAN was so underused on SB. He was good-looking, he had great chemistry with the other Lockridges (including Brick), was charismatic and could actually ACT!!! Same thing with Dane Witherspoon, but then his time on the show (3 months) was microscopic compared to Nelson's (just about two years). But I digress. It really didn't matter who was playing Warren by then because both Marcy Walker and A Martinez left, and left a gaping hole that would never be filled. It was only a matter of time before the ax would fall, and I think the cancellation notice was made public not long after A Martinez's final episode aired in October of 1992.

Ironic, isn't it? Watergate ended up becoming a bigger soap opera than any of the soaps on the air then - combined!!!

You're so right - I had forgotten that 1968 was also a presidential election year. Not to get too far off topic, but I wonder how much havoc the Watergate hearings would cause on daytime TV a few years after that - plus Nixon's resignation, Ford's swearing-in, etc., etc. No wonder people were watching the soaps so much then - romance, fantasy, mystery - when so much horror was going on in real life. Is John Rice really gone for good - at least at this point? We know that Steve will be taking on more responsibility and the new character, Dr. Stark, will also be helping to pick up the slack. But John was only going to be taking a leave of absence. I wonder if he'll be gone for a few weeks, come back and then leave again for good - not unlike Bethel Leslie. I've been checking the Google News Archives with no success.

I know - I was surprised to see that ultra-short, spiky hairdo. She did a great job those last few days - her heart-to-hearts with Jill, Roger, Maeve and Pat were wonderfully acted by all.

Interesting article. Is it true that Jack Wagner took the offer from SB to get away from GH because he and Kristina had broken up (one of the many times they broke up before finally calling it quits for good a few years ago)?

She could definitely play the ice queen when the script called for it. I also liked her return in the last few episodes of RH in 1989, but was shocked that Maeve, with that finely tuned maternal antenna, didn't realize that Faith's young daughter was also Pat's (though Faith never came right out and said it when Pat asked her straight out, the look on her face told the whole story).

I do know from reading articles in the Google archives that Lynn was a preschool teacher before breaking into acting, and she and a friend would put on shows to entertain soldiers (Lynn was also a pretty accomplished singer.). So I'm not surprised that she would have passionate views on the subject. Getting back to the new character of Dr. Ed Stark, not only was 1968 a very dicey year to deal with the war in even a minor way on a soap - but to do it with a character who was black? Not even Agnes Nixon did that. Kudos to Rita Lakin and CP for the idea, and NBC for letting them do it. Along the same lines, we are now coming towards the end of March 1968 in these shows, and MLK was assassinated at the beginning of April so I'm guessing even daytime saw preemptions (even though it was in the evening when the devastating news was first announced because a new episode of Bewitched was interrupted with the important news bulletin). June 1968 saw the assassination of RFK. So I'm sure all three networks at the time suspended regular programming to air their funerals, etc. I don't know for sure, I wasn't around in 1968 and wouldn't be for over another decade, but I do know it was one of the darkest years in American history.

That was great!! Not only were the promos fun to watch, but I got a melancholy sense of nostalgia as I remember when the networks USED to have all those great and some not-so-great made for TV movies. *SIGH* I've said it before, but I never understood why Lorenzo Lamas always got so much attention as the show's heartthrob when I think the show's true "hunk" was Billy Moses. Ironically, Lorenzo was the only cast member in all those years on the air to be in every single FC episode. I think the runner-up was David Selby, though he wasn't on the show in the first season.

Speaking of Lynn Benish/Benesch, she is briefly mentioned in this 1983 article about her then-husband, actor Colby Chester. He has a couple of very famous cousins, one of whom appeared on TD briefly towards the end of its run. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=348&dat=19830109&id=i5skAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1jQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4732,1341563

That's really a shame. As long as you have strong actors and good writing, the rest will fall into place.

Many of you know that Lynn Benish (also spelled Benesch) (Bonnie Evans) went on to play Meredith Lord on OLTL for several years, from 1969-73, and then reprised the role briefly in 1987 when Viki has a vision of her deceased loved ones in heaven. In an interview published just a few months ago in July, original OLTL cast member Niki Flacks (Nurse Karen Martin) recalls the casting change - when fellow original cast member Trish Van Devere, the first one to play Meredith, left the show: "Trish Van Devere was the first Meredith Lord. She was sooooooo difficult to work with. She decided she was a big movie star ordering people around. She was so awful and was fired. We all breathed a sigh of relief. Lynn Benesch took over and she was just lovely–an incredibly generous, beautiful person." If you want to read the interview in its entirety, here it is: http://sixtiescinema.com/2014/07/01/niki-flacks-ex-karen-martin-wolek-remembers-one-life-to-live/

Thank you!! It will be interesting to see a character of a doctor who is also a veteran. Of course, Matt is a veteran as well, having served in WWII after graduating from med school (and James Pritchett himself was a WWII vet IRL). Carl, thanks also for sharing the ATWT clips with James Pritchett. "Adulterous shoe salesman" - for some reason that strikes me as hilarious. Maybe it's because whenever I think of TV shoe salesmen, I think of Al Bundy. LOL!!

OK, I see. Thank you! I know she's taken her lumps on this and other RH boards, but of all the Faiths I liked KMG best. I felt it was one of the few roles the show was successful at recasting - and more than once at that, taking her predecessor Catherine Hicks into consideration.

Wow, I never heard that story. How long did Katherine Justice sub until Karen Morris returned? (She didn't become Karen Morris-Gowdy until later that year - in the summer of 1979, I believe.)

I know!! The famous CPR scene. LOL

Oh, definitely here in Ohio!! Yes!! Another thing I love so much about the vintage soaps is that they were so DIFFERENT from each other. So much variety. One would never confuse RH with Santa Barbara, or Search For Tomorrow with The Doctors, for example.

Good news for A Martinez and fans - Longmire, cancelled by A&E, has been picked up by Netflix: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/netflix-revives-longmire-750548