Xanthe

i.e. Brian Linehan.

Thanks, this is great. There is so much to absorb, I long for a fully annotated version! Joe Gallison's portrait is the one that really leaps out at me on the wall.

I had to look it up -- she was the first Courtney Evans, replaced after a few weeks by Stina Nielsen. Based on the synopses Courtney didn't do much while Bellamy was in the rôle and I admit although I remember Stina as Courtney I don't remember Bellamy at all. I wish Courtney had not had such a grim life and a grim end. I would rather she had had Kelsey's opportunities.

David Johansen aka Buster Poindexter has died: https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2025/03/01/david-johansen-death-new-york-dolls-buster-poindexter/80967207007/

Thanks! I haven't been able to find anything concrete myself but it seemed very odd for a current wife not to be mentioned as a survivor, especially when Porter's daughter was.

I was looking at an episode from the summer of 1984 where Cecile goes with Wallingford to meet Bates (who had provided information about the secret baby-selling ring; they find him dead) and was surprised to learn from the AWHP that the actor (Tom Mardirosian) who played Bates is the same one who later played Ralph, the imposter Donna asked to pretend to be Michael so that Marley would stop looking for her father.

I remember coming across some video about it after Nancy Frangione died. Here's a link: https://www.neuroskills.com/about/news-and-events/video-chris-rich-part-1-introduction/

The famous big moments in soap trials that I can think of hinged on testimony under oath that wasn't about guilt or innocence, they were things like baby Matthew's paternity on AW or Karen's prostitution on OLTL. Maybe those are outliers but the serial is a different beast from Law & Order and it seems to me thinking that the audience watches soaps to reach an ultimate end point is a misunderstanding of the genre. It sounds like there is an overall tendency nowadays to tell more linear stories and maybe that undermines trials as a tool for creating conflict and keeping story moving in a serial format.

Based on Gabet's public comment when Marcus Smythe passed away it feels unfair to blame him personally. Smythe was quite tall though and she describes the abuse scenes as rough to play, so it makes sense that the circumstances were stressful.

I believe Thomas Ian Griffith intended to leave at the end of his contract since he and Mary Page Keller wanted to go out to California. He was on the show for 3 years. I seem to recall that Gabet was released from her contract early because she was so miserable. She was on from mid-March 1985 to early January 1987, so not quite 2 years. Based on the AWHP synopses, as early as August 1986 Brittany had a gun to protect herself from Peter. She shot him in mid-November. Did the show really have a plan for her exit in January and drag it out over so many months when Gabet so badly wanted to leave? Or did they have a different vision of the abuse leading to [attempted] murder that they had to throw out the window and rejig? According to the AWHP, this is how the verdict worked: I wish we had one of the advertisements for reference and knew the timing of when those went out.

Thanks! I had tried to see what information was available on the archived sites linked from the AWHP (the Somerset Register and Somerset Online) but had not found anything.

I wonder a lot about what influenced the changes in her character. (Brittany was never an amnesiac -- she was deaf and mute and had believed that both Catlin (whom she had known as Josh) and their baby Evan had died until Peter somehow tracked her down in order to prevent Sally from marrying Catlin.) She was introduced not as a scheming villain but as a stubborn and deprived woman. That lasted during a strike and a prolonged period without a head writer until after Mary Page Keller was replaced as Sally by Taylor Miller. Was it audience feedback or just a new HW that caused Brittany to start transparently lying and scheming to break up Catlin's marriage? That was the Brittany who entrapped Peter into marrying her, and it wasn't until Margaret DePriest came in and brought Reginald into the picture that Peter became abusive to her. Was that because the audience wanted to see Brittany punished (gross!), or was it just in order to turn Brittany into a victim so that she could be rewarded by being reunited with Catlin after Sally was killed off?

I glanced at the 1970 AW synopses and when Rachel meets Gerald Davis he tells her he is divorced from Marsha, Pammy's mother. I also don't see Alice Hirson listed in the AW Actor Guide. I'm not sure how large a role Marsha played in Somerset -- she is listed under minor characters but she was apparently around for a couple of years, even after Pammy left.

For what it's worth, I doubt that Deborah Hobart was still married to Rick Porter when he died because she was not listed as "survived by" in his obituary. Instead there is a reference to his having had two wives during his lifetime. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/richard-porter-obituary

They assumed that bigots would absolutely boycott the show and they would lose viewers while reasonable people wouldn't boycott if they didn't. The most unreasonable people often get this type of stranglehold because of their intransigence. So maddening. I'm not sure how I excited I would have been about Josie and Reuben specifically (I was more invested in the earlier possibility of Thomasina and Hunter Bradshaw) because she was so skittish about everything (and to be honest I had a hard time caring about girls whose career aspiration was to be a model). But in principle I would have had nothing against the concept. Thanks very much for these. I wonder whether the shift occurred after the storyline started airing or just between casting and writing. I think it would have been more effective if the audience had known the truth earlier even if Mary and other characters had misunderstood, rather than letting us believe that Reuben was abusive.

As time went on I found Reuben very appealing as a character, but I did resent the introduction a bit since caring about Pilara seemed to be a bait-and-switch situation. I don't mind red herrings and fakeouts and shaggy dog stories in general but it would have been better not to just discard Pilara altogether once Reuben's introduction was completed.

Michael Park showed up at the end of the latest Elsbeth. https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/how-elsbeth-just-set-up-michael-emerson-s-return-after-van-ness-battle/ar-AA1yzghe

I think he came up in the context of Maura West playing an unpopular character and I wasn't paying enough attention and replied here instead of posting in a more appropriate thread.

Just saw his name pop up in the credits of last night's Elsbeth. His character is not part of the murder of the week which features Alan Ruck but an ongoing thread regarding a past divorce case Elsbeth worked on. No idea if there is any reason why Park's character should be around very much though.

The Aga Khan has died at 88. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/aga-khan-dead-1.7450433

Categorizing Bridget as merely a servant is a bit off since she was of course Victoria's foster mother. But that is probably a disservice that the show did to the character since even after Bridget got herself hired at the Love Mansion as part of the scheme for Vicky to impersonate Marley she remained there in a servant role for several years. Did she stay with Donna after Vicky moved to her own apartment? I can't remember whether she was with Vicky and Jamie in their early married life or if she really only moved in with Vicky later.

I was looking in the book recently and there is a little tiny bit more about how Ford's work on AW tied her to NYC.

If it helps, the AWHP has daily synopses for the period Shanks appeared in 1991 and I see the character Mark Allen mentioned on 4 specific days: April 10 & 16, May 1 & 2. http://www.anotherworldhomepage.com/aw1991d1.html I have not found any video online with those dates but there could be undated or compiled clips.

According to the AWHP, he was on between April 10 and May 2, 1991. http://www.anotherworldhomepage.com/minor1.html I haven't found any episodes online that he is in but I was happy to come across this episode from April 18 since it looks like it has plenty of Kathleen but also the appearance of Ann Harada as Mimi. I don't see any credit for Bill Shanks as Mark Allen in the credits.

Didn't they also introduce some kind of middle-eastern political and/or titled family as part of the transition? There should have been multiple threads on the go based on how they seemed to be setting it up. It kind of makes sense that they wanted to have more than one hook, but maybe they didn't pull it off very well.