Xanthe

Recently I have found that whenever I click on a post in search results in order to read the full post in the thread, instead of taking me to that post it takes me to the most recent post in the thread. It used to work so I am not sure what changed.

Alice dated Mark Singleton briefly but those stakes were pretty low. Is there any character from Alice's past who should have been brought back onto the canvas in 1984 in order to make the best use of Alice?

Or didn't like it and was trying to "fix" or reshape it. Was there any transition from one HW to the next that wasn't marked by cast turnover and/or major set renovations?

I had to look up the name of the series but I have very fond memories of watching her and Geoffrey Palmer in Executive Stress. She seemed very elegant.

Thank you! I did not realize that Sally's memory of the flash of light had been extracted so early in the investigation. It was several months later when she recalled that the flash had been the stone in a ring that cast suspicion onto Donna.

Some small bits and pieces, not sure if any are truly new, some are obviously old. I don't recall knowing that Michelle Hurd was the godmother of one of Alicia Coppola's children. It's nice how many actors seem to have fond memories of the elders who mentored them. https://welovesoaps.substack.com/p/youve-taken-away-another-world-memories

I see that you have a credit for Finola Hughes in the bizarre 1980 musical The Apple, but did you know that Catherine Mary Stewart played the lead role of Bibi?

I didn't realise she had been still living. I think of her in Kismet with Howard Keel.

I spend a lot of time frivolously working on my family tree so the algorithm feeds me a lot of genealogy-related items. I was surprised to recognize Lisa Brenner (Maggie Cory) in a clip from a podcast "Unraveling Me" talking about how her own DNA test had inspired her to make the movie One Big Happy Family. https://shows.acast.com/690534bf3906f8011add9159/69d1b2d0d2e95f5131876702 Thanks for the reminder. 27 years!

I am generally oblivious to this kind of thing but I would say that I didn't notice any appreciable difference in quality between AW and other P&G soaps.

They were definitely in character -- my favourite part was Lisa talking about how she had spent too much time making herself small to please Jamie. This was also where Ada recalled her youthful romance with Sid Sugarman who came back into her life for a little while played by Larry Haines. The framing device was that Amanda was working on a piece about video dating and wondered about the POV of the various single women they knew (day 1). Then we got the talking heads of various single characters and little sketches. I have no memory of hot topics like safe sex and date rape but I do go into a bit of a tailspin when I think about how they had tried to present safe sex information when Amanda and Sam were seeing each other while still ensuring that Amanda got pregnant and had to marry Sam. Here's day 1 on YouTube:

Based on the prominence of Robert Kelker Kelly and Sandra Ferguson and the two days of relationship stuff I would guess this is about the Valentine for Singles episodes on Feb 9 & 10, 1989. http://www.anotherworldhomepage.com/special.html

I can imagine that perhaps they felt that Russ and Sharlene had been played out and they wanted a different relationship for Russ -- but revamping Tracy to do it seems odd unless they had a compelling reason for the connection to Iris which does seem like a stretch.

Looking at the timeline originally the character was created by Lemay and was then off the canvas for at least 3.5 years before Tom King/Robert Soderberg brought her back. I wonder why they repurposed that character instead of creating a new one under the circumstances.

Was Tracy a singer when Caroline McWilliams was in the role, or only after Janice Lynde was cast?

Kevin was last seen at Sally's funeral on May 28, 1986, which is on YouTube. Catlin assures Kevin that he won't ever be alone and that he is the best thing Sally shared with him. And then a couple of weeks later he just lets Liz take the kid permanently forever without any attempt to stay in his life. Liz stayed away until Thanksgiving the following year and I don't believe she mentioned Kevin or Catlin or even Sally again. Although as you mention June 10 is not on YouTube, I wound up watching a scene from June 12 that answered a question I had had about Michael's alleged history with Rachel when they were young. He stops by Mary's Place to see Ada and thank her for talking sense to Victoria, and she recognizes him as Rachel's high school friend Michael Garrison. When Rachel had run into Michael previously she had talked as if they were younger and mentioned the Mickey Mouse Club but Ada talks as if they were a little older and Michael mentions the Beatles.

Yes, that is exactly what I would have wanted for Nancy and Amanda. And I would have handled the first adult-ish Amanda's story completely differently because truthfully I don't think there was anything in that that Nancy could resent. But I also wouldn't have had Ada pressure teenage Nancy to marry Dr Chris Chapin.

I agree with this but in fairness 1985 with the Plains Motel drug gang and Lesoleil had been weirdly distracting. The introduction of Victoria and, later, Michael were probably the best things that emerged from that period before Depriest came in, but Nancy was isolated after Perry's death and there didn't seem to be much for Mac and Rachel to do. Sandy and Jamie were gone. Brittany was probably poorly-conceived and definitely mishandled. I get what they were trying to do by making Lesoleil have so many different unrelated connections to Bay City and in some respects I probably prefer that to Depriest's solution of Reginald as one international supervillain having an impact on at least half of the people in town.

Gene Shalit has died at 100. NBC NewsGene Shalit, ‘TODAY’ show movie critic, dies at 100He stood out from the broadcast television crowd with his colorful bowties, puffy hair and movie reviews studded with cheeky puns.

Thanks! I was thinking that Depriest was heavily promoted in 1986 but not so much in 1996. Upon reflection I suspect that might just be that they promoted Depriest as HW in 1986 but in 1996 the driver of change who was going to right the show was Jill Farren Phelps.

Based on the date I expected this to be from Depriest's second stint in 1996 but it must be a typo since the whole Cory/Love/McKinnon focus was from her first stint in 1986. I listened to the Sheri Anderson interview posted in another thread. She doesn't really talk about AW where she was briefly HW after Depriest in 1988, but about 54 minutes in she does mention Brad Pitt and his brief role on AW in 1987. Apparently he had been renting Thom Racina's basement and delivering scripts for Days of Our Lives. She mentions Matt Crane's name which made me wonder whether she was saying Brad had auditioned to play Matthew but it wasn't clear to me.

When she talked about Brad Pitt on AW she also mentioned Matt Crane. Was she suggesting that Brad auditioned for Matthew Cory or did I misunderstand? Brad Pitt was on AW about a year before Matt Crane was cast I think and Daniel Dale was still playing the slightly younger Matthew at that time. I can't think of any other teenager/young man roles that were cast in 1987 on AW except maybe Sam Fowler but that doesn't mean they weren't looking.

This sent me to the ibdb to look at Strudwick's Broadway credits. I had not realised that he played George in the matinee performances of the original production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf in 1962. He also has a couple of other credits during his tenure on AW but obviously performing in NY while remaining on the soap is different from going on tour.

Was Erica also an alcoholic? The daughter refers to getting sober and that could have been something else. I was thinking more generally since the daughter mentions Erica rather than Phoebe. (And forgive me, I don't mean to quiz you as if you must know the answer, I am really just speculating and welcome any insight or speculation.)

I wonder if that had anything to do with timing -- would Liz also have become an alcoholic if Agnes Nixon had known a specific alcoholic when she was writing the storyline? I found this (obviously more about OLTL and AMC): “I did recognize a few things,” says Nixon’s daughter Mary Hiltbrand, today an artist in Gladwyne. “I got sober, and when I got sober, a lot of the characters started getting sober. Erica went to rehab after I did.” “My brother had an illness that she gave to one of her characters,” adds Cathy Chicos, Nixon’s eldest daughter, who also lives in Gladwyne. “I’m sure there were others.” https://www.phillymag.com/news/2007/06/08/legends-the-original-desperate-housewife/