Xanthe

I was going through some old AW stuff and found that I had this old sticker of David Oliver. I was always somewhat perplexed by it because although he was very cute as far as I could tell he was not insanely popular or a household name.

I did some searching today using the phrase "LOOKING GOOD" and discovered that Ted McGinley and a lot of other men whose names I do not recognize were part of the same series of photos and you could get a jigsaw puzzle or a calendar. And the origin appears to be a 1983 book called Looking Good: Men of USC. I am not surprised that there was a book of photos of models who may or may not have graduated from USC, really only that they made stickers and puzzles where they were credited with their names.

2 hours ago, amybrickwallace said:

Oh, my goodness. I haven't read Nic's book yet but I assume it's there.

I thought I remembered this incident in the book but when I hunted for it all I found was an incident where a "Napoleonic" producer was bullying Alice Hirson, Coster stood up to him, and that led to Coster's being fired from Somerset and hired at AW.

9 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

Ahh, Paul Rauch, another producer with an atrocious reputation. He fired Coster from AW, too.

Apparently for habitually not bothering to learn his lines.

I would very much like to know the name of the "little twerp of a kiss-ass actor" who remonstrated with Coster for accusing Beverlee McKinsey of being more concerned about the script than the emotions in their performance on the day of the Mac-bust-smashing.

3 hours ago, Nicholas Blair said:

My memory is probably wrong. James Gerald certainly would be reasonable, although Rachel had had no contact with her father for years.

Oh, that's a pity. I was hoping it was another legit variant.

Speaking of variants, I have been sucked a bit too far into the Tanquir rabbithole to see how it varies from soap to soap. Someone has listed it as a "Mediterranean kingdom" on the Wikipedia entry for fictional countries. It's definitely Arab/Muslim for the debut of Texas, but what I have seen on GL so far is much vaguer and chiefly focused on archaeology.
 

1 hour ago, Nicholas Blair said:

By the way, by the 1980s not many AW viewers would have known that Jamie Frame got his name because he was originally named James Russell Matthews, named after his supposed grandfather and his supposed father.

Interesting. The AWHP says  it was originally James Gerald after the two grandfathers and then James Steven in the early 80s. Is James Gerald an error or yet another variation? I do find it as Gerald in the Soaps & Serials novelization "Affairs of the Moment" but I can't lay my hands on the Kate Lowe Kerrigan one to check it. (Not that I expect the novelizations to be completely accurate in any case, but it's interesting to see what they used.)

 I am always fascinated to see the little pieces that the writers considered ephemeral and unimportant so they either weren't documented or future writers didn't bother to look them up and changed them. 

1 minute ago, Joseph said:

Oh would be so nice to see how Cecile lived in Tanquir LOL, they could have created a storyline in which some characters went there and we could actually see it, the best opportunity was when Cecile kidnapped Cass, wouldn't it be easier for her to take him there?

The point of the kidnapping was that she needed to get pregnant to provide her husband with an heir. I think both the king and his people were supposed to believe the baby was the king's so she couldn't very well flaunt Cass all over Tanquir. It probably also saved money on sets and cast not having to have the royal palace. She managed on a shoestring with Ving Rhames and Walt Willey. 

9 minutes ago, j swift said:

Yeah, I don't think they consulted a map because the route from Majorca, Spain to the nearest oil producing country is pretty far...

The very rich are different from you and me. They have jets and yachts and things and can meet their future spouses anywhere in the world (and now, probably, in space). Geography and nationality did not keep Onassis from marrying Jackie. 

1 hour ago, Neil Johnson said:

Tanquir was originally used during a plot for the lead-up to the spin-off, Texas.  It was a Middle-Eastern oil rich country in the desert -- sort of a fictionalized version of Saudi Arabia.  After Texas premiered, the plot continued for a few months with characters in Houston interacting with characters in Tanquir.  A few years later, the name Tanguir was used again on AW -- this time to describe a tropical island nation, nothing like the original version of Tanquir.  It was used mostly for laughs, rather than a serious plot.   It seems lazy writers just used a name they remembered from the past (Tanquir), but really created an entirely new fictional location.  Too bad they weren't creative enough to think of a new name.   

When was Tanquir first described as a tropical island nation? I don't remember any particulars of its geography or economy. I wonder if they confused the island on which Cecile held Cass captive with the nation. 

What was the GL Quint/Nola version of Tanquir like? 

Do we know whether it was the same HW constantly peddling Tanquir from soap to soap, or various writers pulling it out of the P&G grab bag? 

1 hour ago, Marissa Gallant said:

Thank you. I thought that DiD was mostly a soap woman problem and it seems I'm right. 

I don't think amnesiac Mickey Horton dissociated exactly when he called himself Marty Hansen on Days. Similarly amnesia also caused Jake McKinnon on AW to think he was Bunny Eberhart. 

Thanks for the clarification, @Efulton. I was thinking of Cecile's involvement with Tanquir and that she was definitely comic before she ran off and married the King. I was dimly aware that Tanquir had existed in the P&G soap universe -- wasn't it also a feature of some storyline on GL as well? -- but I didn't think that Cecile had had anything to do with it prior to Majorca.

7 minutes ago, amybrickwallace said:

Thanks. I guess I thought it was Tanquir.

Tanquir first came up when Cecile abandoned Cass in Majorca, and of course during the time she subsequently kidnapped him and prevented him from marrying Kathleen. But Cecile indulged in a lot of high comedy before she disappeared from Bay City in 1984 when she was investigating Royal Dunning's murder. I particularly remember the time she and Felicia dressed up as nuns and then told the police it was for a production of The Sound of Music. Oh, and when she went to talk to some witness with Wallingford and hilariously kept overlooking the fact that the witness' corpse was stuffed into his refrigerator. I think there might have been some comedy when she was conspiring with Alma Rudder to drive Blaine crazy in 1983 as well.

3 minutes ago, j swift said:

I was reading an EON recap and I confused how a lusty male character, who had just returned from his honeymoon, could be described as impotent, rather than sterile. 

My friend and I used to laugh about this exact misuse in some romance novel, where the plot was that some man was allegedly unaware that he was impotent and therefore unable to father a child. 

11 minutes ago, j swift said:

I think the same thing goes for illegitimacy referring to any child whose father was not in a committed relationship with the mother of said infant. 

I agree but Donna was supposed to be trapped in an archaic attitude where the family had to behave with (or at least outwardly present) strict propriety. In that context talking as if illegitimacy mattered would be on point. 

3 minutes ago, FrenchBug82 said:

On a less serious side of this euphemism issue, it is funny because I just watched an old Loving episode that was posted today on YT in which Shana wants to be artificially inseminated by Leo and the lengths to which the writers have to go not to explicitly say she is asking him to be her sperm donor ("I need your DNA") made me roll my eyes.

Shana was played by Susan Keith, wasn't she? Was the character similar to Cecile? 

2 hours ago, j swift said:

When Donna was first introduced she mentioned to Peter that one of the Love children was illegitimate, although I have always thought she was referencing Marley.  Later in the build up to his murder, there was some speculation that Nicole may have been fathered by Jason.

So, I wonder if the synopsis referenced above was more about using Mac as a means for more clues, rather than actually fathering one of the Love kids, which would have to have been a retcon since he didn't arrive in Bay City until after Nicole would have been born.

It's hard to say, of course. I think the synopsis said "loved" which seemed to imply an actual romance. And Nicole wasn't around yet, so my mentioning her was more about really not wanting it to be Donna! 

Mac and Mrs Love could have met jet-setting anywhere in the world. I doubt she went to Europe only to pretend to be pregnant. 

Regarding the word illegitimate, it does feel strange to me to use that term for a baby whose mother is married but to someone other than the baby's father. Babies born in wedlock are treated as "legitimate" regardless of who their father really is. It made me think it should be applied only to Donna if the affair was before the Love parents marriage, or to Marley as Donna's child. But they probably weren't being strictly accurate and felt they could make Peter or Nicole part of a scandal. 

I feel extremely resistant to the idea that Donna could have been Mac's daughter and Iris's sister. 

I ran across a synopsis of the week of February 28th 1983 that mentions Donna taking an interest in Mac's past admiration of her mother. Obviously it never came to anything (and I am glad it didn't) but I am slightly curious about what they might have been planning. If they were thinking he could have been the father of one of the Love children I think I would have preferred it to be Nicole. 

About 9 minutes in Donna has a flashback to her youth and the unnamed boy who would eventually turn out to have been Michael. I know later closer to Michael’s introduction they used younger actors to portray young Michael and Donna but here Anna Stuart plays young Donna and Michael is just the back of some guy's head. 

I really adore Anna Stuart in the later scene with Marley (about 13 minutes in) where she is so uncharacteristically soft and happy. Normally we see the snobbish Donna whose life was blighted and who was terrorized into thinking she needed to make sure Marley didn't fall into the same trap. 

It would have been better if Reginald had never returned from the dead. He was more frightening as a spectre from the past. 

8 hours ago, AbcNbc247 said:

AWHP says 1982-1986. I guess it was another thing that got written out in the purge of 86-87 lol

I forget what precisely became of Smiley's but it was essentially replaced by Mary's Place and Maisie went into partnership with Ada and Vince. 

6 minutes ago, Franko said:

That actress playing Mary Lou looks so familiar ... It's not Frances Conroy, is it?

I had that exact thought but I couldn't find any credit for her on AW on IMDB or on the AWHP so I was doubtful. The resemblance is there in face and I think voice though.

1 hour ago, amybrickwallace said:

Thank you. It seemed to be a teen hangout from the scenes I've seen there.

Perry's grand reopening of Smiley's was in July 1984.

I found this -- it's Maisie's first day (as well as Peter's!) and there is some kind of criminal intrigue involving a man who apparently frequents Smiley's. Around 15 minutes in a woman who works at the museum (I guess she must be "Mary Lou" -- not sure who plays her) gives a vivid description of the greasy spoon Smiley's. And about 24 minutes in we meet Smiley's and Maisie.

And then in 1983 Alma worked there as "Nell" and lived in Happy's Motel before her murder.

20 hours ago, Efulton said:

Joe Morton played twins Abel (a doctor) and Leo (a singer).  Roy did not have a twin.  Jackee's appearance were seriously reduced once she got 227. Lily and Quinn both were in interested in Grant Todd who worked at Smiley's were Maisie also worked.  Smiley's was used a central location where a working class group of characters interacted and were friends.

Lily had been a prostitute and when she told Grant about her past he decided he couldn't date her. Even that sounds more dramatic than it played out. Lily worked for Felicia at Tallboys and/or the Northwoods Inn as a hostess, and I believe she co-hosted Felicia's TV show with her as well. 

Lily got Grant a job at Tallboys, a step up from Smiley's, and he was working at the Northwoods Inn when he inhaled the tomb dust that killed him. 

Smiley's was originally pretty seedy. It featured heavily in the Alma Rudder murder mystery. Then Perry took it over and fixed it up and made it popular with the teen set.

Maisie rented out a room at Smiley's and first Catlin and later Jake lived there. 

1 hour ago, amybrickwallace said:

Thanks for clarifying - and great clip.

Jamie talking about his "male ego" makes my heart go pitter-pat. John Hutton's Peter Love was I think too alpha to even consider that type of chatter.

One of the things I loved about AW of this era was that scenes could have idle chitchat that made the characters seem real -- not everything was important to plot mechanics. You need both and I thought AW handled the balance very well.

7 hours ago, amybrickwallace said:

There you go! Who was playing Jamie then?

Richard Bekins was Jamie until early 1983 so only he could have dated Julie Phillips, Jennifer Runyon, or Dawn Benz's Sally. Only Stephen Yates overlapped with Mary Page Keller. 

I'm really all about Stephen Yates and Kathleen Layman. I love him here about 20 minutes in. 

24 minutes ago, j swift said:

Sally could have been pregnant by Phil, Leigh, Denny, or Joey and had consulted with Dr. Dunning off screen.

I absolutely cannot condone murdering Joey Perrini. Not that it makes a difference in the way retcons work, but did Sally at the time succeed in seducing Joey onscreen? I have a vivid recollection of her drugging him and staging a scenario where Eileen caught them apparently in flagrante in the back of a van, but I have been scanning the AWHP synopses for 1979 and 1980 and I don't find any description of Joey and Sally actually having sex even though the character guide does list them as lovers.

David Thatcher made a good murder victim as a villainous outsider nobody cared about who had already murdered Uncle Kevin.

41 minutes ago, j swift said:

I found Kevin to be one of the most obnoxious children in the history of soaps (coming a close second to GH's Mike Webber)

My enjoyment of Kevin boiled down to Sally's clear love for him and a comment that Mary Page Keller made about how much the child actor looked like her as a child. And if he had remained on the canvas he could have been SORASed and interacted with Maggie (and Cory and Jeanne and whoever else) and been integrated with the Matthewses, come to terms with his parentage, and so on. (But I would also have moved Brittany out of Catlin's orbit sooner so that her baby was Zane's or Peter's or Mitch's or Michaud's or whoever's.)

3 minutes ago, j swift said:

That whole era of Sally was such an odd contrast to Sally as an adult.  I know it was due to multiple writers changes, but fans of the Sally/Catlin era would hardly recognize rebellious teen Sally. 

Mary Page Keller's Sally was definitely portrayed as having put her wayward past behind her. If she had been the version that Julie Philips or Jennifer Runyon portrayed Donna's resistance to her might have been more than snobbery. However I remember there was at least one little nod to Sally's past during Majorca when Sally had to hotwire a car or something and when Catlin commented on it she said that Phil had taught her how to do it. When I found out that Gary Tomlin who was headwriter in 1984 had been playing Morgan Simpson around the same time that Sally was mixed up with Phil Higley that cast that reference in a bit of a new light for me. 

I don't think Taylor Miller's Sally behaved as though she had any past whatsoever. She became a pristine princess whom all the Lesoleil boys adored and whose middle class life was so far removed from Catlin's rodeo past that they started to seem fundamentally incompatible. Of course even Catlin's past had been sort of sanitized in 1985 by turning his sort of shady drifter past into a little true love marriage and tragic [presumed] death of his young wife and child.

35 minutes ago, amybrickwallace said:

That I don't know. 

Just double-checked the AWHP. Steve was last onscreen in March 1975 and Sally first appeared in April. Alice got Steve's long-distance approval to adopt orphaned Sally before he died but he was dead by May. So Sally never met Steve really [before he returned from beyond the grave when she was an adult and she sulked that he was all about protecting Diana's virginity and didn't care what sin Sally was living in] and was not raised with Jamie as her brother. That part doesn't bother me. But I did like their quasi-sibling relationship in 1983/1984 and it does seem a pity to blow that up to replace it with a romance, especially given that Catlin and Sally were so successful pre-Brittany. It's only my hatred of Brittany and Lesoleil that made me entertain the hypothesis.

Whose baby is Aunt Liz holding in the September 6 1984 episode? Is it Stacey Winthrop and Mark Singleton's daughter?

4 minutes ago, amybrickwallace said:

The biological son of Steve and the adopted daughter of Steve? Pass!

Didn't Alice adopt Sally after Steve's death?