Xanthe

In Lemay's book he stresses how vitally important it was to cast a very masculine athletic actor to play Michael for the planned revelation that he was gay. I don't know how Lionel Johnston compares, but here Brown does come across as quite young and therefore rather boyish. Of course on the other hand even Lemay admits his judgement regarding actors might be occasionally wrong -- he mentions firing Eric Roberts as Ted Bancroft because he wasn't pulling his weight against Paul Stevens and Beverlee McKinsey as well as replacing Ariana Muenker (whom he does not name) as not being up to the dramatic scenes required but then concedes that Roberts had been impressive in his subsequent work and Muenker was quickly hired at another soap. Thanks @TheyStartedOnSoaps for the link!

I don't know whether they clarified/corrected the description, but in the setup to Jason's arrival (in the waning days of DePriest's first HW stint, well before the strike), they mention Emma living there. https://boards.soapoperanetwork.com/topic/30343-another-world/?do=findComment&comment=1882614

Michael was in Bay City consistently from early 1986 until he left for Hawaii in 1992; the retcon of his romance with Iris was introduced when she arrived in late 1988. So it was supposed to be before 1986 but I don't know whether there was ever any clear timeline. It makes sense that it would have been post-Texas for Iris and probably post-Nick's as yet unthought of conception for Michael. Iris was out of the picture by the time Nick arrived I believe.

Tamara Tunie announced the recipient of CMU's Excellence in Theatre Education Award at last night's Tony awards.

It seems probable that Lemay influenced the return of Sharlene with her daughter Josie in June 1988. Even if there was a lot of vamping to slow down plot through the strike I think there was some Lemay at play.

Ada on AW lost 3 husbands between 1970 and 1980: Ernie, Gil, Charlie. (Already mentioned, for some reason I scrolled right past it.)

Cool. Any idea when it might be released? Re Kindle, when I select text as if to highlight in the Android app, it displays an option to copy the text.

I copied and pasted directly from the Kindle edition, so all I know is I didn't introduce the error. Looks like the book has it spelled correctly in 36 places and incorrectly as Proctor in only 4 places. Whether that was Lemay's error or some later proofreader I cannot say.

I spent a little bit of time looking over Lemay's version of events in Eight Years in Another World as compared to the AWHP synopses to see if that illuminated the timeline, and the odd thing is he always mentions how they swapped out the gay storyline for the abortion storyline, and yet in terms of what played out onscreen, basically on Johnston's first day as Michael, Marianne appears to start at least hinting or possibly even directly confiding that she might be pregnant. This was September (onscreen) and we get weeks and months of Michael trying to either expose her boyfriend Chris as a two-timing snake or to persuade him to do the right thing for Marianne's sake. Around Christmas Marianne has the abortion. If the abortion was substituted for the reveal that Michael was gay, what had they otherwise expected to do with the pregnancy storyline? In the book of course it isn't always clear when events occurred. Lemay describes getting the go-ahead to make the pitch, then draft the outline and audition actors to play Michael. Christopher J. Brown last aired in early June 1975.

Was that the fight with two men in the water, two men on the shore, and a confused woman in the middle not sure whether or which to try to intervene in? Did Pete Shea die? The AWHP character guide says he left town with Diana. And it had all been wrapped up and Mac and Rachel married in a double wedding with Blaine and Sandy well before the 20th anniversary. It makes me wonder what the audience was for the clips and when they showed it. It felt rather generic, as if they were trying to communicate to people who had never watched the show that it had everything so they should give it a try. I would have wanted both/either more fan service to remind viewers of what they enjoy about the show and/or an emphasis on what is interesting right now and what is about to happen. The 20th anniversary episode was the murder of David Thatcher and the return of Jacqueline Courtney as Alice and none of that was even hinted at!

Thanks. I see the incident in the AWHP synopses for May 1983 -- Alma shot Sandy and then she herself was dead by the end of the week. I made the mistake of checking the AWHP Music page to try to figure out who the singers were but I see they are on the Celebrities instead. I have to confess that I know the name Roberta Flack but I did not recognize her face and probably would not have recognized her by voice. And I remember the name of Barbara Mandrell but did not remember the existence of Louise.

Oh, I think it fits together perfectly with the following year's reveal that Marley is Donna's daughter. (But the HW was Dorothy Ann Purser and would be Richard Culliton/Gary Tomlin when the Marley reveal came out.) Donna's goal is not to antagonize Sally, that is collateral damage. She is protecting Peter and the Love family name from an unsuitable match, which is what she learned from Daddy that you have to do at any cost even if you have to give up your soul mate and stay in a secret cellar room and pretend your baby is your sister. It is a tragic irony that she can be so cruel. Thanks! I think part of the problem with the selection and presentation of the clips was that it felt like they prioritized spectacle over character. If they had framed everything around who the people were it could have cohered better.

Thanks so much for this. The 20th anniversary clip selection feels like it could have been so much better (although I'm sure they probably suffered from some material not being available, I didn't need Janice in the bubble bath twice, and showing Cecile's lovelife out of order seemed odd) but I was grateful to see that one little snippet of Donna telling Sally that Kevin was her son in particular. Some questions: Who was the man who got shot right before the scene with Rachel and Steve in a collapsing building? Who was the singer in the blue dress right after the clip of Leo Mars at the Warehouse? Who was the singer after her in the white dress? Roller disco?!!?? (More of a comment than a question.)

Jacker adapted it from a short story. Reading the Wikipedia page the response was not entirely negative when it was originally released either and some of the negativity was focused on the low production values more than the script. i listened to the opening voiceover and immediately thought "Canadian" but I had to look it up to find out that it was Linda Griffiths who was very well known for her one woman show Maggie and Pierre (about current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's parents). I'd be curious to watch the un-MSTK'd version and of course to assess the differences between the script and the original story. On another topic, I was watching TCM and happened to catch a glimpse of Constance Ford in Rome Adenture, looking fantastic and taking a completely different attitude toward Troy Donahue than in A Summer Place.

I feel like I love Matt Bomer so much in everything I have seen him in (from time to time I just want to shout "Bryce Larkin!" for no reason) and as far as I am concerned he can play straight or gay. On the other hand I hated every second I saw of Brandon Routh's Superman, so if you ask me Bomer was well out of it. (Ooh, White Collar is on Disney+, need to put that on my list.) Some of this discussion is reminding me of Rupert Everett's career. I loved him in Another Country, My Best Friend's Wedding, The Importance of Being Earnest ... He talked a lot about making a movie in which he would play a gay 007-type character but as far as I know it didn't get made.

Lettie the hooker is in this Hallowe'en episode with a lot of heavy-handed dialogue about how much MJ "understands" about prostitution and foreshadowing Lettie's imminent murder. At the end of the episode there is a location segment outside the Love Mansion. Also Reginald really loves Victoria. More outside the Love Mansion on the day of the skeet shoot. Scott and Cheryl enjoy the autumn leaves. Linda was a different prostitute who worked for Chad and was also murdered by the Sin Stalker after spending some time with Peter.

Janis Paige has died at 101. I knew her best from the OBC recording of The Pajama Game. https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/janis-paige-star-hollywood-broadway-dies-101-110793305

Was there likely to be anything contractual at any point such as a "morals clause" that would have prevented actors from being open in the press?

Found it -- Bonnie Broderick, played by Pamela Blair. http://www.anotherworldhomepage.com/minor1.html

She was working as a prostitute when Quinn located her in order to adopt Thomasina. According to the AW synopses for 1983 she was arrested in May and Quinn bailed her out. However it looks like by October she had left prostitution. In 1984 when she started dating Grant Todd she admitted her past to him. He initially said he was OK with it but then dumped her pretty quickly. I wish we had more of 1983 available online.

She was never seen onscreen. There were also a few minor characters that MJ crossed paths with either as part of the Sin Stalker storyline or as Chad's "girls" or both ... I think one was called Letty? Or Linda? I just remembered -- Lily Mason!

I can't speak to storylines on other soaps, but I'm not sure what fans would be upset about, exactly, since prostitution was never recommended -- it was a disgraceful and/or salacious episode from the character's past. I don't remember AW ever really directly addressing sexually transmitted disease head on -- they avoided the issue with virginal Dawn Rollo's AIDS storyline, maybe mentioned safe sex in a throwaway conversation about Amanda's unplanned pregnancy or around Matthew (buying condoms from Judith Barcroft) and Josie (confiding in Kathryn Erbe) thinking about having sex, but overall maybe just seemed to have fewer incidents of casual sex. At least, when I look through the AWHP character guide, it seems like the 70s had all kinds of random hookups listed under "lovers" that were more likely to be "flirtations" in the later 80s and 90s. Let's see -- AW had Sharlene's prostitution storyline, then Sandy's past, and then MJ's along with her ex-boyfriend/pimp. Any others? Was Josie's modeling career supposed to have devolved into prostitution before she returned and became a cop?

Jamie and Lisa's first meeting is so awful. I remembered not liking it but it was even worse than I remembered. The way they chose to show Maisie's murder was very strange -- I thought when they started with the choppy effect that they would just give us some quick cuts and not really show it. But instead they stopped cutting and showed the gloved hand merely touch Maisie's throat and she fell to the ground, hopelessly dead. Meanwhile they spent a lot longer on the brawl with Michael and Donna which was given the freeze frame position at the very end.

Keep in mind that they aged Matthew first in order to give Mitch storyline so Amanda had to be older than that when she showed up. I don't think it was necessarily wrong to age Amanda and Matthew (especially given Jamie's age) but I agree if Nancy and Sally and Thomasina and/or Julia had been around maybe they could have waited a little longer and also integrated Amanda and Matthew and Cory and Jeanne and Maggie and Alex and Kevin Thatcher into young adult stories later. The purges of 1985 and 1986 were really difficult and there were too many random characters with Lesoleil and too much international supervillain with Carl and then Reginald.

Oh, interesting. I wonder how much the song was used for Sam & Amanda prior to this episode and performance as a true theme. Thanks @Matt for posting the episode.The way the song was used was a bit odd as a love theme in that they showed both a loving Sam and Amanda but also Marley with Jamie interspersed with Dennis in a racecar thinking about Marley. Frankly I thought that was clumsily done -- at first I thought that there was something wrong in the broadcast when racetrack noises came in. I am also wondering who the Obvious Seductress who took Dennis back to her motel was. She talked about getting reacquainted and I think he called her Dawn, but I didn't catch any real information about where they knew each other from. Surely she wasn't supposed to be Dawn Marshall from Texas?