amybrickwallace

vetsoapfan, would you please upload or transcribe that interview if you can find it? I would love to read it. It seems like everyone had different takes on what went down (and I would especially love to hear what Doug Watson had to say, because from the start he seemed to be the classy gentleman both on and offscreen that would continue until his own passing). Yes, Paul Rauch seemed like a nightmare to work for, especially if you were a woman. But he helped get ratings up, leading to long tenures at both AW (1971-83, I think - didn't he and Lemay begin at AW almost at the same time?) and OLTL (1984-91). Also, does anyone happen to have the 2004 issue of SOW with the letter from Jacquie Courtney, who after years out of the limelight wrote in to refute comments PR had made about her and George Reinholt? I've never read that letter but have heard about it for years. If anyone has it, please post it!! One more thing, Jacquie really did have a very low voice. At times, it sounded even lower than Suzanne Pleshette's!!

Ahhhhh. Complex yet strong male characters - remember them? The people running soaps today sure don't!!

I think it was mentioned in Julie Poll's AW 35th Anniversary book that Liz indeed sold her house and moved into what had been Jim and Mary's home.

L'eggs seemed to have a thing for brunettes with short hair as their spokeswomen - see also Joyce DeWitt!

Yes, and that's a shame. Though to be fair, before he passed away George Reinholt himself admitted that he was a handful at times. It's just somewhat surprising with all his success at AW that Lemay never found another long-running soap writing gig again.

Yes, and I think that she could certainly underplay a scene - both Lemay and Rauch sometimes made it out to seem like she was OTT all the time.

Yes. To get back to Jack Coleman, his opening title scene of him yanking off his tie always cracks me up. He really does look like he is angry - at the tie, at the writers, the producers, etc. LOL

I know - and George Jefferson struck it rich enough to move to that DEEEEEEELUXE apartment in the sky. He should have gotten nicer, more classic furniture, too!!! To get back to the scene, I still don't understand why Harding Lemay and Paul Rauch did not appreciate Jacquie's talents. She was every bit as good as VW - and had been on the show from Day One!!!

Thank you, Carl...it's always nice to know what these folks who aren't quite as visible to the public are up to these days. Is that Michael E. Knight in the Hallmark ad?

Kind of like in the Nick Bellini (TD) mold?

It looks similar, but I don't know. Maybe Eddie D. at the AWHP would know for sure? Anyway, what a tour de force for both Jacquie Courtney and Vicky Wyndham. The Alice/Steve/Rachel triangle had been going on for about 5 or 6 years by this time - so it makes perfect sense that good girl Alice would finally snap. I found it very realistic that she would run after her rival, throwing breakable objects at her while screaming, "I HATE YOU!! I HATE YOU!! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!" Had Liz not restrained her, I think Alice could truly have scratched Rachel's eyes out. LOL Then, when Alice finally bursts into tears and is hyperventilating, your heart truly goes out to her. That was a very physical performance by Jacquie, and I'm sure she must have been exhausted after filming it. One more thing - I LOVE how there is no music whatsoever in this scene. Now, there would be music swelling and drowning out everything else, and objects would be shown being thrown in slow motion... It was the starkness and simplicity of this scene that made it work. The magic was throwing together two dynamite actresses at the top of their games.

Exactly. Actually, he would be almost 57 now had he lived - he was born in November 1957 and passed away in October 1984.

I don't know if they used the house when she came back in 1984. But you're right, it would have looked better with simple, elegant but timeless furniture. After all, Steve was a rich guy. He could afforded nicer furniture!!! LOL

According to Soap Central: Sara McIntyre (Millette Alexander) was treating Lee Gantry (Ray Fulmer), a malaria patient whose deceased wife, Alice Rawlings, had grown up with Meta. Alice's wealthy family had a rambling farm near Springfield where Meta had visited as a child. After a sojourn in England, Lee was now living at Rawlings Farm. Since her "niece" had turned out to be a money-grubbing phony, Sara was more fearful of relationships than ever. Joe Werner (Ed Zimmermann) found that he had feelings for her and proposed, inviting her to join him on a yearlong sabbatical in England. But Sara was unwilling to commit and offered the excuse that she was hesitant to abandon her practice in Springfield. Joe went to England alone. Paul Fletcher (Bernard Grant) was also interested in Sara, but he was still recovering from his tragic marriages to Robin and Anne, and he decided not to pursue her. This paved the way for Lee Gantry. A charming and erudite man, Lee made Sara laugh and brought out her long-dormant spontaneity. But there was nothing impulsive about the way he lifted Sara's wallet--or the way he killed his first wife, Alice. Lee's former housekeeper, Mildred Foss (Jan Sterling), knew how Alice Rawlings Gantry had met her untimely end, and she blackmailed Lee into rehiring her. It wasn't long before Sara's friends were shocked to hear that she'd married the enigmatic Lee. In England, a suspicious Joe investigated his rival and discovered that Lee had fired Mildred Foss when he lived there. Back in Springfield, a sequence of events straight out of the classic film Gaslight ensued. in an effort to drive Sara crazy, Lee and Mildred made strange noises in the attic and doctored Sara's appointment book. One night, when Sara was alone during a thunderstorm, she heard one of those noises in the attic. Frightened, she took a gun and went upstairs, where she spotted a shadowy figure and took a shot at it. The figure fell, and when Sara moved in closer, she saw the lifeless body of Mildred Foss! Fortunately for Sara, the D.A.'s office ruled the death an accident and dismissed all charges. But Lee Gantry was still determined to ice his wealthy wife, and he plotted to make Sara's death look like a suicide. Joe returned to Springfield, and working with Mike, he poked holes in many of Lee's stories. Joe told a disbelieving Sara that "Lee Gantry married you for your money." While searching for evidence against her Bluebeard husband, Sara remembered Meta telling her of the games she'd played with Alice at the farm when they were children. Meta recalled seeing a loose brick in the chimney, and Sara went up into the attic to check it out. Behind the brick, she found Alice Rawlings' diary! At that moment, Lee arrived and tried to murder Sara. Luckily Joe showed up in the nick of time and saved the life of the woman he'd grown to love. Joe and Lee got into a violent fight that ended when Lee fell out of the attic window to his death. Joe and Sara married shortly after.

Wasn't Nick Davis the original "bad boy" of AMC? He sounds like he was a fascinating character.

I wonder exactly what the nature of Althea's relationship was with the hospital chaplain, Sam Schaeffer, that was brought up in her therapy sessions. None of the soap books or any synopsis I've read mentions it at all. I do know he was played by Fred J. Scollay, who went on to play Charley Hobson on AW in the late 70s, father to Clarice and husband to Ada. He also had a recurring role as a judge on L&O back in the early 90s - and I believe his last appearance was him telling Michael Moriarty's EADA Ben Stone not to screw up the case. Last I heard, he is still alive at the age of 91.

Here in the Cleveland area, the Hoolihan & Big Chuck (later Big Chuck & Lil' John) would do sketches that parodied various TV shows. Since Cleveland and its suburbs have such a large population of folks of Polish heritage, their parody of MH, MH was entitled "Mary Hartski, Mary Hartski". Since the program is too complicated for me to explain to people who have never lived in the Cleveland area, here is Wikipedia's accurate article about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Chuck_and_Lil'_John Also, here are a couple of the "Mary Hartski" sketches:

Didn't Jim Pritchett play a patient in the anthology format? Then it turned out the producers liked him so much that they brought him back to play the lead when it went to serial format?

Jackie Schultz would have been on SFT as Patti at that time, from 1985 until its final episode in December 1986.

I don't have the book handy at the moment, but I would recommend that you pick up Robert LaGuardia's Soap World. It was published in 1983 (never updated to my knowledge), and has long been out of print - but you can find it through your library system and/or used book venues like Amazon. TD was among the cancelled soaps given a full synopsis of its entire run. It splits the anthology and serial formats. I believe it gives the airdates, too.

Here is a 1991 feature on Justin Gocke from the Sun-Sentinel in Florida. I think this was only a few months before he left SB. http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1991-10-04/features/9102090394_1_soap-star-sperm-bank-justin-gocke Justin Gocke - A Hollywood Success At 13 October 4, 1991 | By JEREMY MURPHY, Coral Springs High School It`s a hot Thursday afternoon. Waiting at New York City`s famed Rosie O'Grady's Irish restaurant, a redheaded, pint-sized soap star is noticed, five minutes early. He walks up to the table, introduces himself, then sits down and orders a soda. His name is Justin Gocke, and if you don`t recognize him now, you will. Not only is he a soap star, but he`s going to be a movie star. And he has only just become a teen-ager. Justin, at age 13, has gotten farther in his acting career than most actors go in a lifetime. Working steadily since age 7, Gocke is fast becoming one of the biggest child actors in the industry. After all, it is not every day that a 13-year-old has an Emmy award sitting in his bedroom, or flies to Australia to film a feature movie for two months. But for Justin, it`s all in a day's work. Justin is best known for his role on Emmy award-winning soap opera Santa Barbara, where he portrays prodigal son Brandon Capwell, a role that garnered Gocke the Emmy in 1989. "Santa Barbara has been a great experience for me," Justin says. "It has given me a lot of acting experience, experience I plan to use in other things." The road to success started at an early age for Justin, who made his first TV appearance in the acclaimed ABC movie The Burning Bed with Farrah Fawcett. "We were only going to try it for a while," Justin explains, referring to the time when he and his brothers and sister got involved in the entertainment industry. "They didn't really like it. I was the only one who enjoyed it." Soap operas and commercials, however, are taking a back seat to his next project. Justin and his mother traveled to Australia during the spring where Justin filmed the upcoming movie Moonride. "We just got back from filming it," Justin says, proudly. "My character goes to visit my grandfather, and while he`s there, his grandfather dies. He and his friends go to his wake, and then they accidentally resurrect him." Moonride, also starring Al Lewis of The Munsters, is to open this Christmas. However, Justin isn't leaving the soap world behind. He is still featured heavily on Santa Barbara, where his character is caught between his real mother and adoptive mother. Lately, he has been dealing with the fact that his adoptive mother, Gina (Robin Mattson), robbed a sperm bank and impregnated herself with the sperm of her ex-husband. "I can't believe she would rob a sperm bank!" Justin says, laughing. "Brandon is a good guy. If I had to change him, though," the actor says with a mischievous smile, "I'd make him into a little evil kid. Brandon's getting bad. He's been suspended from school a couple of times. I'd like to see him be not such a nice kid anymore." Success hasn't changed the young actor much. Justin lives in a quiet suburb outside of Los Angeles with his parents, an older sister and brother. His other brother resides at West Point Military Academy in New York. Justin mainly enjoys hanging out with his friends, playing soccer and rollerblading. But more than anything, Justin likes just being a kid.

Yeah, and it's a shame DAYS never gave her material to shine.

Had he lived, he'd be nearly 56 now. The accident occurred on October 18, 1984, and he was taken off life support a few days later. It is a missed opportunity that Aaron Spelling didn't cast him on a regular role on one of his shows.

I've always loved the Peabo Bryson-sung version of the theme song. How adorable was the then-10-year-old Erin Torpey here?

I wonder whatever happened to the "dream house" in the long run. OK, this clip was in July 1974 - Doug Watson joined as Mac Cory later in the year, but I'm not exactly sure when.