Xanthe

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.

Absolutely. Everything is through the lens of how she has to fight him for alimony while he's making good money. And to be clear, the "horrible" behavior in the flashbacks of the marriage is generally selfishness and lack of consideration. Coster and his wife were in this Geritol commercial:

Looking for information about Nic Coster's memoir, I discovered his ex-wife's: The Odyssey and The Idiocy, Marriage to an Actor, A Memoir. She is extremely bitter about their relationship and he (under the pseudonym Richard Forest) is portrayed as horrible. So far there haven't been any mentions of Another World backstage or his costars. However there was a chapter about how Jacqueline Kennedy engaged him to teach JFK Jr to scuba dive.

I don't recall any specific source. I think it was supposed to be Old Money. Donna's income seemed to come from investments and property. I believe she owned the hospital, for example.

Speaking of hair, I remember being extremely disappointed in Rachel's makeover in 1986 when the return of Mitch had made her peevish and discontented and she went to a famous hairstylist. I hated that ultra-straight look.

Tastes vary, but I have to say that I thought Alice's style was beautifully modern and appropriate for her as the mature and confident doctor she was. She could however have had a more interesting storyline than her relationship with Mark Singleton.

In what sense? Steve was Jamie's father, so wouldn't he and Mitch be even in that respect? At least Steve never plotted to kill Mac (although I suppose Rachel had an extraordinary capacity to tolerate that in a suitor, all things considered). I never much cared for Mitch and would rather have let Felicia keep Zane, at least until Lorna and Lucas showed up.

Thanks. Did they present Rachel and Steve as if their relationship had been and was now true love or was it a mess of motivations? I was just watching Oct 1 where Mac told Rachel he was engaged to Alice and Rachel was completely ungracious about it. I assumed that we were seeing that Rachel was not perfect and that Mac was right when he said he didn't think Rachel was unbiased about Alice. That seems more interesting than the idea of the perfect love story of Rachel and Steve after years of cruel and unfair separation.

Minor correction: Milly, not Molly.

Thanks. Was it a good idea to resurrect Steve and pair him with Rachel? My recollection of that period is dim, and I just remember feeling more comfortable when Rachel was with Mac.

Frame Harding Construction seemed much smaller than Cory Publishing, but what was Blackhawk? I was under the impression that Steve came back from the dead wealthier than he had been.

Sure -- but they didn't give any of them to Judy Dewey. She seemed to exist only as a supporting character in Sandy's life (with a little bit of supportive sister to Larry and Catlin). She didn't have any personal goals or desires separate from the Corys, as far as I remember. If they liked Judy Dewey as an actress rather than just a tool for keeping Chris Rich on the show they could have given her all kinds of opportunities. Did Laura Malone's Blaine interact with Donna? I remember Donna clinging to Sandy as a protector and Judy Dewey's Blaine seeming peeved about it, but not any other kind of rivalry between Blaine and Donna.

She didn't really have any relationships to other characters or role other than Wife to Sandy.

Nancy Frangione was great but they did a good job replacing her with Julie Osburn as Kathleen. Sometimes replacements are too obviously pale imitations but she fit in with Felicia and Cass without being a Cecile clone. I remember Hunter Bradshaw. I thought although he was superficially someone Donna would think suitable for Marley, there was more potential for something interesting between him and Thomasina. He didn't last long though.

Thanks! I really only saw her in the 80s.

Glad to see that it appears she did continue to work during her marriage after all. I know Alice didn't have any bio-children but Courtney had a daughter. Did she take a mat leave? Sad to hear. I liked her as Maggie.

That was a great reveal because they kind of sort of played it as if it could be Marley uncharacteristically sneaking into Jake's room and took a couple of scenes before they confirmed that it was Marley's hitherto unsuspected sister. Perry's sudden death was also very shocking. I don't recall Marley's twin being hinted at in the press (obviously no casting announcements required) and it wasn't clear what Bridget and Jake were really up to beyond the fact that they were interested in Marley. I liked the fact that they introduced the secret twin before Marley knew Donna was her mother, and that Victoria also had not known the full story but found out about the stableboy before Marley. I understand why they had Marley suddenly get sick and need bone marrow because it forced both Donna and Victoria to make quick decisions with high stakes, but the speed with which they went from Perry's funeral to Marley's illness was staggering.

Joey Perrini and Eileen? I don't think I knew that Gary Tomlin had been an actor. Who was Morgan and what did he do?

The characters appeared on Another World to set up the spinoff; according to the July 1980 synopses on the Another World homepage they were husband and wife.

Sally went out with Gil a few times before she got engaged to Peter. I thought the irony of Donna ruining Peter's engagement to sweet reformed Sally only for her to realize she had matched him with pernicious Cecile was a delicious escalation. If Donna had had anything other than class against Sally I think Cecile and Peter would have been just more of the same. I didn't feel like Mary Page Keller's Sally was a damsel all the time. She had a sense of humour about a lot of things and she did run her own life (even if marrying David was a bad idea).

Frankly that whole scene being an argument about whether it was worse for Michael to lose his unborn son vs for Reginald to lose his unborn grandson and have that as the climactic issue that finally killed Reginald was gross to me. The harm Reginald did Donna is what should have been the focus, followed by the cascade of damage to Victoria, Marley, Peter, Mary, the McKinnon family, and probably a bunch of other people I can't think of (did he kill both Zane and Sally?). "I could have had a son!" should not trump "You damaged your existing children and grandchildren!"

Wasn't her real father Felicia's ex, Louis St George? But even if she came from a good background, she was more likely to marry for money than for love.

In my experience people mingle with other players of various ages in intra-club racquet sports, so I don't think we were supposed to interpret Donna's escort as being a contemporary of Peter's, especially since they didn't include any details about the other lawyer attending school at the same time. I may be misremembering, but I thought that at the end of the previous episode they actually showed Felicia taking the clips out to let down her long hair, and that Linda had actually been growing her hair out (and wearing it up until the dramatic reveal) for the change. But it's possible that I was simply naive about hair extensions and made a lot of assumptions.