Xanthe

Thanks. I probably discount all of the longing panting "summer ... is ... so ... hot" Donna and John got up to because I was so disgusted by the handling of the question of whether or not he had raped her when she was a teenager.

The promo suggests that Vicky confirms Donna and John are having an affair but they didn't, did they? I thought Peter planted evidence but nothing actually happened.

Was that where Cass was living after Cecile left in 1984, until she sent an emissary to evict him in early 1985? The AWHP has an address for that place as 30 Meadow Lane. (Not that addresses are mentioned often enough to be sure whether there is accurate continuity.)

I remember reading that some old shows were lost because production reused the same tapes. Not sure about conversion issues. Back when they were making these decisions there were also a lot fewer distribution options. Before home video, cable channels, YouTube, streaming services ... where could they broadcast such a long form? The soap serial form has no real internal start and end points -- and some of the storylines might be too dated to attract a general audience.

It's not that they thought that no one would want to see the episodes as much as the cost to them was much more in the short term than even the long term benefit. We live in a time when data storage is relatively cheap and there are a lot of options. But back then it was significantly more expensive and they would have had to be able to see how to make money from choosing to preserve the shows.

Iris and Elliot were separated when they started on AW, and had been for at least a year I think. I always assumed they were supposed to have been married before Dennis was born, but I don't know how Texas defined the timeline around Dennis' conception and their wedding and whether Iris deceived Elliot into believing the baby was his.

I'll grant you Emily, Fax, and Taylor, but did Royal Dunning practice in Bay City? I thought his super secret baby ring was out of town, possibly in Crystal Lake.

Did Donna put him in the hospital admin role? I recall she was very interested in him around this time. She might not have been evaluating him on his business acumen.

Well Coster refers to both events as "on camera" so it sounds like during taping. On the one hand, the scene is supposed to cohere so the performance of the other actors are not really the outside world -- your pace and tone should be appropriate in reaction to what is going on. I don't know if you have ever seen Noises Off -- it is about actors putting on a farce. There is one character (played by Nicolette Sheridan in the movie) who is completely oblivious to everything going on around her and she just continues to say her lines and follow her blocking so that it looks completely ridiculous when the other actors have missed their cues. On some level I can understand that if Coster felt that there was no give and take in their performance he would be frustrated. But on the other hand if she found him too unreliable and unprofessional and felt she had to ignore him rather than engage I have sympathy for that as well.

And the jokes Coster describes both involve trying to make each other "break" during scenes, and rather lewdly. Considine would stand nearby and make vulgar noises during Coster's love scenes. And one time Coster put pornographic photos in a set of architectural drawings Vic was showing Alice. Oh how they laughed!

I was being a little facetious, but: he felt he was demonstrating that she was oblivious to what was going on around her and performed by rote rather than by reacting to her scene partner. On the day in question she had been annoyed with him for not knowing his lines.

It's out, title Another Whole Afternoon. I haven't found much more behind the scenes stuff than you mention here -- he declines to name Beverlee McKinsey as the costar he didn't like, but describes how he showed her up by coming to rehearsal of the scene where he smashes a bust of her father without any pants on and she didn't notice right away. He goes into more detail about how much he liked the people he worked with on SB and OLTL. No mention of George Reinholt as far as I can tell, but he is good friends with John Considine and mentions him a lot. Is the bust scene with Robert and Iris anywhere online? John Considine also has a memoir (Improvising, My Life and Show Business) in which he does discuss how hectic it was when he started on AW as Reginald -- last minute replacement of another actor and he had to do 5 days of work in one to catch up. He describes how he didn't have time to understand who the characters he was meeting were, and thought perhaps the young blonde who slapped him when they met was an ex-girlfriend or something, but no! She was his granddaughter! And not only that, but played by Anne Heche, future star! That didn't sound quite right -- I remember it was Reginald who brought Rhonda Lewin as Vicky to Jake and Marley's wedding, so Ellen Wheeler must actually have been playing Marley/Vicky when Reginald came back from the dead. And I believe Marley did start by hitting Reginald as soon as she saw him, possibly at Zane's funeral. I'm sure John Considine remembers working with Anne Heche but his memory has misled him here.

This is what I have always heard as well -- although I don't know enough about Jacqueline Susann to have a sense of what aspects really informed the character of Felicia beyond Fabulous Best-Selling Novelist. Was Felicia's evolution so different from Cass'? When he first came on he was portrayed as self-centred and calculating, and then once Cecile was out of the picture he eventually mellowed in order to be worthy of Kathleen. Wallingford joined their friend group around the same time and Felicia was mostly on the side of the angels after that.

Thank you! Most of the other actors stayed for less than 2 years. I think only Henrietta, Thomasina, and Lily were around for more than 2 years and all of the men did less. Not sure whether they were on contract and were released early or if they were only recurring. I don't remember knowing Paul Hecht was the Russian, but I didn't really know of him until 1984 when I saw him in Noises Off on Broadway and then of course he was Allie's ex-husband on Kate & Allie. I am happy for those who enjoyed the Crystal Gayle theme, but although I would hesitate to call it the actual worst I have to say that it didn't do anything for me and I would have preferred to keep the instrumental themes I was used to. I didn't mind the music especially but I found the lyrics dull and generic. Speaking of themes, watching AW videos provoked YouTube to suggest someone playing the earlier 80s theme by Jonathan Segal. I had never paid attention to the composer's name but apparently he has a lot of YouTube videos up.

I was watching a clip from AW dated January 7 1985 and Sara Botsford was there as Wendy with Carl.

I'm sure this can't be April 8 (the possible date listed on YT) because Catlin and Sally's wedding started April 5. If they're talking about the night before the wedding I would guess it must be somewhere between April 2 and 4. (Maybe the 3rd is the most likely based on the daily synopsis on the AWHP? http://www.anotherworldhomepage.com/aw1985d.htm)

I don't think this is quite true. Bridget and Donna tended to stick to Victoria, but in the below videos Jake and Marley and Neal Cory are all saying Vicky. I couldn't find an example but I also could have sworn that Jake called her "Vic" from time to time in 1985. https://youtu.be/XjedejLD2Yo

Thank you!

Were they dubbed or subtitled? Did they air under their English titles or were they translated into Italian titles?

Donna told Peter in 1984 during the Royal Dunning stuff because she needed help making sure her secret was not discovered in Dunning's files. The secret room in the basement was also a huge feature of 1984. At one point Donna hid a wounded and delirious Catlin in the room (presumably after hypnotized Sally shot him). Mother and Donna were supposed to both be abroad together during Donna's pregnancy, but Donna was actually in the cellar room. Since Peter and Nicole were not with Mother they could have believed that she was pregnant. I don't believe there is any terminus post or ante quem in the story that requires Mother to be dead before Marley could have been born, however. She was still alive when Reginald was fooling around with Mary, wasn't she? And Mary didn't get mixed up with him until after Cheryl was born which had to be later than Marley was born.

Sally of that era was very Cory-adjacent. She worked for Mac and had a warm sisterly relationship with Jamie. I think she may have specifically talked about considering Mac and Rachel as second parents after Steve's death around Mac and Rachel's remarriage. And didn't Sally bring Kevin to the Cory stables for riding lessons from Catlin? I know Ada hid him somewhere on the Cory estate when he was missing/presumed dead/on the lam around this time.

Lynda does point out that Sally was out of town for some time. According to the AWHP Julie Phillips left the role in September 1980 and Jennifer Runyon took over in March 1981. That's enough time to have a secret baby if you leave town pregnant, but not to meet David Thatcher and cultivate a relationship first. Regarding Kevin's age, if we decide he would have been born in Feb 1981, he would have been about 2.5 years old by the time the storyline of his birth was revealed. Matthew Cory, by comparison, was born onscreen in December 1980 and was being played by a 3-year-old in the summer of 1983. Not to mention Jamie, born onscreen in 1969 and now charitably in his 20s played by an actor in his 30s. Time is elastic in soaps. I don't believe they were planning the reveal of Kevin Thatcher since 1981 but I don't think making him a 5-year old was really outrageous or anything.

Cecile was missing for basically all of August, September, October 1984 until Cass found her in Majorca in November to wrap up the storyline.

I look forward to finding the time to watch this. Brian Linehan was always famous for how much research he did into the person he was interviewing. This week Kyra Sedgwick was on Ask Me Another and they talked very briefly about her time on AW, playing a clip of Julia on the phone with Aunt Liz in her first scene. I had not realised how young Kyra was at the time -- apparently she was 16 and the contract she negotiated required the show to allow her to attend half a day of school even on taping days.

I finished The Odyssey and The Idiocy and there were no AW cast or crew mentioned (unless disguised by pseudonyms). However if you are interested in Nicolas Coster's early career and his boat it might be worth looking at. Now reading Sometimes You Have to Lie and was surprised to learn that Constance Ford was in a relationship with Louise Fitzhugh (Harriet the Spy)when she was cast on AW. No backstage insight into the show here either but brief mentions of how Connie kept Louise on a more even keel until they broke up.