victorlord75

On 1/18/2019 at 1:22 AM, Paul Raven said:

1981

Lucille Wall returns as Lucille 

Thank you for sharing this wonderful photo.  I think this photo is probably the happiest I've ever seen of the vets of GH all together in the 1980s, so my interpretation is that everyone was really happy to see Lucille.

The thing about both JFP and Guza, Jr. that has me scratching my head to this day is that both of them were involved in one way or another on GH during its heyday, so one would think that both would have had the highest respect and esteem for GH history.  Phelps was there as a music director and Guza, Jr. was part of the writing team during the 80s.  So, I was shocked and really saddened by the horrible Heather Webber return where Heather was out to snag Luke (?) and how Rick Webber came back as an unrecognizable demon, only to get killed off.  I know that some posters here feel that Guza, Jr. was better than the current writers, but I don't agree.  I don't think the current writers have done as much damage, especially with revisionist history, like Guza, Jr. did.  The new writers seem to prefer to create new characters, but that's a subject for a different thread.  

While some people would call it "taking risks" for ratings, the reason why JFP was problematic as a producer was that she didn't make many of her story decisions with thought about long-term consequences to a show or its future.  She made her decisions solely in the moment.  Yes, killing off a long-term character can raise ratings during a sweeps period, such as Alan (GH), Maureen (GL), or Frankie (AW).  She sacrificed heart and soul of her shows for short-term ratings gains during Sweeps Periods, and I think that is the main reason why so many viewers dislike her, even if she did have her strengths in the production area.  I beg some forgiveness for saying what so many posters  have said far better than I have here.

15 hours ago, ironlion said:

Awesome thread.

 

Personally GH as a soap was never "unwatchable". Even in it's worst periods you could still sit through an episode. The show was probably strongest from '78-'82 and again from '93-'00. Even the early Phelps era (01-04; later the Metro Court Crisis ) was still watchable and light years ahead of what we have now. 

 

 

 

I missed most of the early Phelps period, but I'm guessing you're saying the show was still good because, maybe, alot of Quartermaines were still left, as opposed to now?

9 hours ago, titan1978 said:

Watching the classic New Year’s Eve episode on Hulu.  A couple of things stand out-

 

Tony.  This was when I had pretty much decided I hated Tony.  He had never been my favorite, but he was sliding into his insufferable breakdown that dragged on for years.  By the time he was written out I wasn’t upset at all.

 

The playing of all the beats.  Seeing Monica explain the surgery to Jason, make a phone call looking for Alan, Jason talking to an unconscious Carly, Tony and Bobbie speaking about BJ.  It’s the one thing soaps have going for them all of them don’t do anymore, the daily interactions and small moments around the stories.

 

I forgot about Brenda’s breakdown.  A low point for the character.  It wasn’t Vanessa’s high point as an actress on the show either.

 

Billy Warlock is maybe one of the all time miscasts on this show.  Of course, neither Labine or Guza write with a point of view or strong pairing in mind for him.

I likewise caught this episode on Hulu, and I had not seen the episode when it had originally aired.  While I do agree about the episode "playing all the beats", for me, the biggest surprise was how bored I actually was with the episode overall.  Somehow, whenever I thought of Wendy Riche's tenure on the show, I always remembered it as an era filled with great warmth and respect for characters that viewers really wanted to see.  Watching this episode sort of reminded me that in some ways, I have idealized the past much more than I had thought.  However, to be fair, by this time, Labine was gone as HW and Guza, Jr. was in, and I was never a big fan of his storytelling.  The only "big story" he wrote that I can say I really liked was his re-activation of the Luke/Laura rape story, but not much else.

4 hours ago, DRW50 said:

 

Yes.

Thank you for letting me know!  I have never seen the scene on YouTube anywhere, but I remember a wonderful scene where Gail ripped Tracy a new one for goading Lee into taking a drink at The Floating Rib.  It was Jessie who caught the moment and alerted Gail to Tracy's shenanigans.

3 hours ago, Khan said:

"Welp.  I guess SHE got told."

 

Damn, I wish I could see (or hear) more of Marland's GH.  His work never ceases to thrill me.

In my opinion, the Marland era, and the Falken-Smith era before the Ice Princess nonsense began was when GH was at its best under Gloria Monty.

Wow, that Monica/Gail scene was incredible!  I don't remember any of this part of the story between Monica and Gail!  My question about the scene was, was Douglas Marland writing the show by this time?

On 7/7/2018 at 7:35 PM, titan1978 said:

I prefer Falken-Smith on GH.  I think a lot of what I loved on the show came from her and then Monty ran with it.  The high style, the action elements.  His contribution was without question vital.  But I just enjoy her work more.

I liked Falken-Smith's pre-1981 work, but not so much thereafter.  I have heard that the Ice Princess story line was pitched by Associate Head Writer A.J. Russell, against the objections of Falken-Smith.  I noticed in later years that Mr. Russell was a story consultant on GH for a long time.  I have long wondered, given his affinity for the far-fetched, as evidenced by the Ice Princess story line, if he was the brains behind the Casey the Alien mess years later.  

Speaking of unusual outfits, in the early 70s, on GH, Sharon Pinkham drove Lucille nuts by insisting on showing up for work in an orange dress paired with her nurse's cap.  Sharon had become an actress at night and found the white nurse's uniform too drab for her.  I had seen a picture here somewhere of Sharon wearing that get-up.  Does anyone know where the photo is found here?

3 hours ago, j swift said:

Well there were a lot of issues with casting of Jennifer Smith over the years; remember when Roseanne played role?

I remember that casting decision, and it was around the time of Luke and Laura's return in the early 90s.  Though I stand totally alone, I LOVED when Sally Struthers played her.

23 minutes ago, Soaplovers said:

When did the focus move from the hospital to outside of the hospital?  Was it in the late 70s or more in the 80s?  And would you say Marland or Pat Faken Smith started the shift from the hospital to outside of the hospital? 

Even in the earliest days, there were whole episodes that took place outside the hospital, HOWEVER, I think the major shift took place in the early 80s, when it started to become fashionable on most soaps to have spies, secret agents, outlandish returns from the dead, and cartoon villians.

29 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

That medicine room is an iconic set for folks that watched the earliest days of the show.  My grandmother often talked about stories or scenes that involved the medicine room.  Even my dad, who caught a show here or there as a kid but wasn’t really invested used to tease my sister and I about our GH habits and ask if Jesse was still crying in the pill room in the 1980’s when we watched it as kids.

Looking back now, I am wondering if the medicine room went away when Bridget and Jerome Dobson were fired as headwriters.  They went through a series of writers thereafter who tried to create an almost entirely different show and knew nothing about what endeared the show to its loyal audience in the past and apparently, did not care.  The more things change, the more things stay the same.

3 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

 

Hmm.. she seems very apathetic in that scene.  She seemed more controlled then outright crazy or OTT like the other two actresses were in the part.

Maybe so.  I will say this.  Out of all the Heathers, Heather#1 wins for best hair, though it doesn't show in the clip I shared.

1 hour ago, titan1978 said:

All this talk about Mary O’Brien reminds me of this quote from one of Michael Logan’s interviews-

 

Geary: There was this actress on our show named Mary O'Brien — she played Heather before they cast Robin Mattson — and she was having trouble crying in a scene. Gloria came out of the control room and said, "You've got to cry! We need you to cry!" Mary tried it again and Gloria came back out and said, 'You're still faking it! I want real tears!" After another three or four trips to the stage, Gloria finally went ballistic. "You must be the worst actress I've ever hired! I don't know what the hell was wrong with me! The whole scene is hinging on this! You are ruining General Hospital!" And she went on and on until Mary started to cry. Then Gloria said, "Yes! That's it! Shoot it!" And she walked off the set.

Wow, what a story!  However, I would have to disagree with Ms. Monty about Mary O'Brien being her worst actress hire.  Though I will usually try to refrain from being critical to actors and actresses, I will make an exception here and list Gloria Monty's worst actress hire as the one who played Jennifer Smith#1, Lisa Marie.  She was a beautiful lady, but her portrayal did not click at all for me.  

5 hours ago, titan1978 said:

Clips like the one above just remind me how much your perspective sets the norms for being a soap viewer.

 

When I think about GH, so much of the things I remember were from Monty on.  Very little pre her.  Even the nurses station is the round one that I think Monty started.    And those things are so ingrained that it’s hard to imagine the days before.

 

I can’t stand that Rick either. He’s just seems wrong to me.  And I didn’t even see the show before 1983 that I can remember, and didn’t start actively viewing until Frisco pulled that hat off Felicia’s head.  But he is still not Rick to me.

 

I don't think I could have ever accepted Michael Gregory's version of Rick cheating on Lesley with Monica, so the recast of Rick sort of worked in the favor of driving story.

The place I seem to remember most from the pre-Monty GH is the little tiny medicine room right next to that big green window backdrop.  So much drama occurred in that little room!  Sometime after Tom Donovan took over as producer, even though the original 7th floor nurse's station was still being used, the medicine room stopped being used for scenes.  I recall missing that, strange as it sounds.

4 hours ago, Franko said:

I've always thought of Robin as a little bit Bette Davis-ish.

With perhaps, a bit of Veronica Lake thrown in!

11 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

I heard that Heather #2 was given the chance to reprise the role, but that she turned the offer down so Robin Mattson was hired instead.  It does sound like Heather was made less crazy in the early 80s and even left town semi sane.   What was Heather #1 like?  I know that she was Cher's half-sister, but there aren't a lot of scenes available of her playing the role. and she was the one that got the ball rolling with her instant crush on Jeff, plotting to break him and Monica up, etc.

There is a scene with Heather#1 at around 10:05 in the clip above.

2 hours ago, j swift said:

I re-watched from Heather's LSD trip to Alan stalking Rick/Monica on YT last nite and I have some thoughts: (no wedding discussed or shown during those episodes).

 

1.The Heather before Robin Mattson was a totally different person.  A terrible portrayal with All-About-Eve acting; she speaks to Dianna in a high register and then turns around and hisses in low register to her co-conspirator Larry Joe.

 

2. The story is like an afterschool special on LSD.  Heather's trip involves laughing and seeing hallucinations of colors outside the window.  The LSD is in a vile, as I recall it was usually on blotter paper, and Heather knows that it will take 20 minutes for it to take effect.

I recall that the critics were not particularly kind to Mary O'Brien, Heather#2, at the time.  She was regarded as a weak actress, though I enjoyed her portrayal.  I think what happened was, by the time Robin Mattson arrived to play Heather, the really good head writers like Marland and Falken-Smith were either gone or on their way out.  Gloria Monty, it appears, was a big fan of some films of the 40s and 50s and injected some story line into the show from some of the movies she enjoyed  So, Heather got  turned into a film noir-like femme fatale for awhile, and viewers ate it up.  In fact, I remember the writers putting words in Heather's mouth in her interactions with Scotty that originated with the great Tallulah Bankhead (I think, though I may be wrong).  Scotty would tell Heather he'd be waiting in bed for her, and Heather would wryly reply, "If I'm not there, start without me!"

23 hours ago, OldGHFan said:

Well Leslie was supposed to be there but she couldn't make it so Lynn took her place. 

 

Yea, JFP should have NEVER killed off Alan Q!  I'm still mad about that!

20 hours ago, amybrickwallace said:

 

So am I!! 😠😠😠😠😠

Me three!

3 hours ago, titan1978 said:

I liked Julian back then a lot.  I thought he was cute, and I loved his dynamic with Cheryl.  Their dad was fun too.  But Olivia was he most dangerous.  She was just sinister and obsessed.

I liked Julian back then too.  And the love of Julian's life up to his "death" was Cheryl.  And, it seems to me that the writers have dropped the ball letting Lucy come into Charlie's Place and be on friendly terms with Julian.  She was never a friend of the Jeromes.

3 hours ago, OldGHFan said:

I actually couldn't stand Colton Shore.  The actor had no charisma.  I was so thankful when Frisco came back for Felicia.

I liked it when Colton paired up with Olivia Jerome, and how that pissed off just about everyone in town.

22 hours ago, titan1978 said:

There were times when I thought they went too far with Laura in that direction.  She could be dangerous, impulsive and reckless just like Luke, and they tried to make her a little too domestic.  

 

But at least we saw her growing more anxious with the mob.  Lucky was shot, she was kidnapped and shoved down the stairs while pregnant with Lulu, her house was shot up and she killed a man to save Luke all in like a year.

 

It annoyed me as time went on and it became Laura wants to bake cookies and Luke wants adventure.  Which did neither character any justice.

 

One thing I will absolutely give Labine- her Laura was both vulnerable but also incredibly strong.  And Guza wrote her as a basket case.  

 

She had an emotional collapse when Nikolas arrived and had to be sedated.  She almost killed herself on the train tracks after Lucky died.  She went crazy when she thought she killed Rick.  She was just a mess under Guza.

At least Labine knew how to keep Luke and Laura interesting AND married.  Ultimately, it was Guza who decided that the only way to keep Luke and Laura interesting was to break them up.

22 minutes ago, OldGHFan said:

 

Yea, I'm a huge Gloria Monty fan but I was no fan of her second stint.  She lost the midas touch.  However, it's amazing how long ABC will keep  EPs that are much worse than her.  I'd take GM's 2nd stint in a heartbeat over what we've had in the last two decades.

I'm not so sure that GM lost her midas touch, that is her marketing instincts.  What she did lose was the recognition that it's good story that is of prime importance on a soap..  Besides her sister, I think she brought on a HW named John Whelpley, a writer that I had never heard of before then and haven't heard anything about since.  GM's second stint probably saw the greatest number of changes in the writer's room in a year on GH since 1977.  Some names I remember seeing passing through on the writing staff during GM's second run were Arthur Bernard Lewis, Linda Grover,  and Anne Howard Bailey, in addition to John Whelpley, who I had mentioned earlier.

16 hours ago, BetterForgotten said:

I know Wendy Riche's early interviews were not very kind to Monty - I remember Riche going on and on about how there weren't actually any stories going on when she joined the show, at least nothing with any substance..

Even if it wasn't kind, it was true.  As a viewer, I was satisfied with GH as it was right before Gloria Monty's return, and though Ms. Monty did help to save the show from cancellation in the late 70s, her return as EP of GH in the 90s was pretty bad.  The ratings slid quite badly under her watch, and deservedly so.  Rumor had it at the time that she fired Finola Hughes and that was the last straw for ABC.

On 3/2/2018 at 12:38 AM, Paul Raven said:

 

 General Hospital Enters 8th Year

Back on Monday, April 1, 1963, the ABC Television Network's Network's daytime serial "General Hospital" aired its first half- hour episode. On Wednesday, April. 1, 1970, with episode No. 1,797, the five - times - a - week series about the hospital staff and its patients patients began its eighth year on the air.

Of the original cast only John Beradino (Dr. Steve Hardy) and Emily McLaughlin ( Nurse Jessie Brewer) remain. Along the way 250 principal players and. 395 bit performers have come and gone. Behind the scenes, the original producer - director, James Young, is still at the helm and the show's creators and writers, Doris and Frank Hursley, who have turned out a record - breaking 53,885 pages of scripts, are still at their typewriters. Dr. Fran Bauer, dean of the University of Southern California Medical School, who read the first scripts, continues as the series' medical advisor.

Runner-up to John and Emily is Lucille Wall, who joined the show as Lucille March in episode No. 14 and has played the role ever since. The part of Dr. Phil Brewer, which Martin West has played for the past two years, had three other actors in the preceding five years. Roy Thinnes played the role for I6 months, was written out for a time, then came back for another six months. When Roy left to star in ABC's "The Long, Hot Summer," Dr. Brewer was again written out. Ricks Falls then came into the part for a few months when he was injured in a fall and the character was written out again. In February 1966, Robert Hogan put on Dr. Brewer's whites which he wore for almost a year and a half before leaving to play the minister in ABC's ''Peyton Place." And Brewer was sent off on another trip. In March 1968, Martin West, became Dr. Brewer.

Patricia Breslin played Meg Baldwin for four and a half years until she left last summer to marry Art Modell, owner of the Cleveland Browns. The role of Meg is now in the hands of Elizabeth MacRae, who joined the series in August 1969

. Many names familiar to television viewers have appeared appeared in the long-running series. Mark Miller played Randy Washburn for two years, leaving for "Please Don't Eat the Daisies." Leonard Nimoy did a one-shot appearance as a dope pusher preceding "Star Trek," and Liam Sullivan played an addict prior to ABC's "The Monroes." Young Johnnie Whittaker a run while he still had his baby curls before he went on to "Family Affair." Others include Ed Platt of "Get Smart," Greg Morris of "Mission: Impossible'  and Lew Parker of ABC's "That Girl." Simon Scott was a hospital patient, patient, now plays recurring roles in ABC's "The Mod Squad" and "The FBI." Other familiar players who. have appeared during the past seven years are Coleen Gray, Rudy Solari, Jan Shepard, June Vincent, Isabel Randolph and Harry Bash. Former juvenile star Tom Brown recently returned to the show after a two-year absence. Other principals now in "General Hospital" include Peter Peter Hansen, Rachel Ames, Julie Adams, Paul Savior, Shelby Hyatt, Ray Girardin, CraigHuebing and Sharon DeBord.

I remember Ed Platt's character, or I should say, I think I do.  He played a Mr. Chamberlain, if I remember right.  He was the father of a patient Lesley was treating, the wife of a man, a college professor that she had an affair with as a college student.  It fell on lovable Jessie to keep the professor out of the room until Lesley was finished treating his wife and naturally, Jessie failed.  I can still remember the organ fade out when Lesley and the professor's eyes met in his wife's hospital room after he stormed past Jessie.  Simple as the story was, I'd take it over mob stuff any day.

9 hours ago, slick jones said:

I miss Tiffany Hill...

I did too, through the years.  Despite the many good things Claire Labine did, writing out Sean and Tiffany was one of her goofs.

5 hours ago, titan1978 said:

I think Jessie’s time of the frontburner ended before Steve and Audrey’s.

In my opinion, Jessie's last big story was Phil Brewer's murder.  Once the aftermath wrapped up from that, she never really had much to do anymore.

8 hours ago, victoria foxton said:

Thanks Victorlord75 i started watching GH in late 1987. By that time most of the wonderful characters that populated PC in the 60's and early 70's were long gone. I would love to see this stuff.

I'd love to see them all again, too.  They started to purge alot of the characters in 1975, and by 1977, my mother, who was a faithful GH viewer, stopped watching.  She took no interest in the brand new Webber brothers and their sister Terri.  She said, "I don't know all these new people."  She never returned to watching either.  My sister and I continued, off and on through the years.  1987 was actually a good year for GH, in my opinion.  H. Wesley Kenney and Ann Marcus came aboard as EP and HW, and actually, under Ms.Marcus, the vets like Steve, Audrey, and even Jessie had more scenes, but even by then, it could be clearly seen that Emily Maclaughlin was ill.

1 hour ago, amybrickwallace said:

 

I've corresponded with her back and forth for awhile. She's an absolute doll.

You are very blessed to have compared notes with someone from that time of doing a soap.  While we will look at footage from Sharon's era and think that soap stories were simple and basic, they did not have technology on their side back then, thus making their work very, very difficult.

4 hours ago, victoria foxton said:

How was Sharon Pinkham like? 

Sharon was a good person, but a constant thorn in old-school Lucille's side.  She had a gift for saying the wrong thing around Lucille and one funny story toward the end of Sharon's run was when Sharon got bitten by the acting bug and came to work wearing her nurse's cap--and an orange dress, rather than a white one like a traditional nurse.  Wearing the dress was a way for Sharon to express her creative metamorphosis.  The orange dress drove poor Lucille the Stickler nuts.  I have seen a picture of Sharon in that dress in this thread somewhere.  Sharon was funny and pleasant, but without being a cartoon like so many characters are made to be today that have a lighter touch about them.