JarrodMFiresofLove

Speaking of Lucinda and her family tree. Did we ever see Martin Guest on screen in a flashback? And what about Mr. Walsh?

25 minutes ago, P.J. said:

 

Carolyn Crawford was a big ol' fail. Wouldn't consider Adelaide or Evan fails. Adelaide wasn't meant to be anything other than Kirk's confidant, and clue us in with teases about Kirk's past. Loved Susan Brown in the role.

 

Evan wasn't Lucinda's half brother, she was his step- grandmother, Royce (played by Terry Lester) was. Evan was kind of wasted as the also-ran in the Andy-Courtney romance, and always seemed somewhat in Connor's shadow. It wasn't until his affair with Barbara that he came into his own, and that got cut short by Greg's accident.

Thanks. I guess I need a copy of Lucinda's family tree! Susan Brown is the one I remember in the role of Adelaide Fitzgibbons. Beverly Penberthy is the one who didn't make much of an impression on me.

4 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

 

You're remembering it correctly... in fact, while he was recovering.. the show decided to write his character off, but he did come back to tie things up when he was recovered enough.  It was a shame he was let go.. he and Maura West had chemistry (not romantic.. but more like partner in crime type of chemistry).

 

 

I know people here didn't particular care for the Dobson's version of ATWT (and I think they made the fatal error in trying to update the show too quickly... as opposed to GL where they gradually updated the show during their 4+ year stint).  What would you say was a character they created that had lasting impact on the show?

Someone else mentioned James Stenbeck. What about Dusty Donovan? He was introduced in February 1983 near the end of their run.

Plus they created Margo, introduced back in July 1980.

15 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I never really got gay vibes from Evan.

Me neither. He's been married twice. His first marriage occurred while he was on the show.

I think a lot of these guys were hired and given important roles because Marland had a fondness for certain types. And I wouldn't be surprised if Marland dated and lavished money on several of them who used him to get their careers going. But that doesn't mean they were actually gay. Marland also went out with female actresses on ATWT, for example he was very close to Lisa Brown. So who knows what really went on.

But Greg Watkins was also appearing in Miller beer commercials in the 90s and in my opinon came across more masculine than some of the other pretty boys on the show. Incidentally Watkins has only three acting credits on the IMDb after 1995 when his role ended on ATWT. One credit is a voice over, another one is a short film, and other one is a minor role on some series I never heard of before. He did stunt work on a few episodes of Heroes in the mid-2000s.

4 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

 

Recently, I watched an episode on You Tube where Taylor Baldwin tells Casey something like "You better get used to it Casey because I'm going to be around for a long time" and I thought "No you're not". 

Yeah Taylor did not exactly set the screen on fire. I'd forgotten all about her until I watched an old episode on YouTube. Then I remembered how she tried to snatch Tom during one of the times he was separated from Margo. I think the problem with Taylor, and this also related to her as a third wheel in Casey & Lyla's relationship, is that she was nothing but a plot device. Marland didn't really explain her past or give us anything to make her seem like a real person. And since the actress was so bland, she quickly fizzled and was written out.

3 hours ago, dc11786 said:

I didn't copy the other soaps from Seli Groves' column. 

 

I get your point about the Quinns. The feud between the Quinns and the Catlins is a running thread throughout the series. Due to the drug shipments that Cullen Quinn is making using Catlin ships, the Catlin family lands in financial trouble and either default on a loan or are required to take money to keep the family afloat. Whatever the details, Medger Quinn ends up gaining significant power over the Catlin shipping enterprises. In the later part of the show, T.J. Catlin becomes devoted to regain control of the company with the help of Dirk Stack, his potential son-in-law and protégé. This causes more tension with T.J. and Annabelle because T.J. is choosing to save the company at a time where his marriage is in trouble. I don't know what happened to Catlin Enterprises in the end. In the final episodes I have, the show previews some scenes with T.J. being held hostage on a foreign ship alongside Kay Webber (Barbara Rucker of ATWT and TEXAS). Despite this, I don't think the show saw the Quinns as a major presence on the show. In one of the final stories, Jane Berman's Lucille Crowe ends up cozying up to Medger landing herself a job at the television station where she annoys Stacey Manning. Stacey implies that Lucille is looking to marry Medger in order to achieve some wealth and status. 

 

Overall, the Quinns hold a position not much different than the Coleridge clan on RYAN'S HOPE. They may be a significant family, but they are not the dramatic thrust of the story. 

 

For @slick jones, James was played by Marvin Scott and Cassy was played by Georgia Allen. I believe they are James O'Neil and Cassy O'Neil, but that is a pretty big spec based on what has appeared. The Groves' column did say that Cassy was James' mother and the actors name come from an Atlanta AFTRA newsletter in late 1983 talking about some of the new actors involved in the show (specifically Charles Hill's Woody in this scenario). Because James and Cassy appeared with Woody, I'd imagine James is James O'Neil. In the March 1984 episode I have, James is said to be working at the saw mill, and, in 1985, Woody and Jackie are involved in the material with Monty O'Neil, James' son, and Andrea Smith, Maggie Catlin's legal partner and James' love interest who is looking after Monty in his absence. Based on this, I think the O'Neils were introduced by Sam Smiley. The Atlanta Constitution mentions that there are no black characters on the show in the first episodes, and then James and Cassy appear fairly early on. I think Andrea Smith was introduced by Steve Lehrman, but it's possible she was introduced by another writer. Monty was definitely a late addition as the show seems to be heading towards introducing a younger crowd. 

 

Another cast member in 1983 was Dr. John Nixon, a dentist, who appeared as Isaiah Robertson, who was described as the Catlins' connection to the African American community. 

Great comments. When I asked about Seli Groves' column, what I meant is-- do you have other synopses for more weeks of The Caitlins? Or just this period of time?

9 hours ago, danfling said:

Who are these:  Stuart Blackburn, Kim Revill and Camille Marchetta?  

 

Well, you are these?

Not sure what you are asking. Stuart Blackburn is a writer producer who has worked on several top rated British soaps, mostly recently he's been working on Emmerdale. He has a great way of writing melodrama but adding humorous touches. The comic relief he does is never forced or over the top, and it always gives us insights into the characters. He never neglects any of his characters. When he was executive producer on Coronation Street for three years he used the entire cast and none of them languished in the background. I think he believes each character has a significant life and each life needs to be seen and known by the viewers.

Kim Revill is a feminist writer producer who writes strong women's stories on Irish and British soaps. She specializes in crime stories built around female cops. Her work on the Irish soap Red Rock is unsurpassed. She always surprises me with the way she takes the stories into new unexpected areas. I can never predict the outcomes of her plots which is a rarity since as you know we have a lot of writers in the soap world who rely on old tropes and cliches. I also like following Kim's Twitter page which I don't do for other writers. But I think she lives a very interesting life.

Camille Marchetta wrote Dynasty during the Who Shot J.R. arc, and she was the head writer on Dynasty during its fifth year which was the highest rated. She led Dynasty up to the Moldavian massacre and it's not surprising that when she left, the show had all kinds of problems the following year and started to take a dive in the ratings.

Thanks dc11786. I like how you compared the Catlins & Quinns to the Ewings & Barnes. Makes sense. Though in the case of Dallas, they kept the title more general by relating it to the setting. In the case of The Catlins, they were more specific and gave one family prominence. It's almost like if Romeo & Juliet had been retitled as The Montagues (leaving the Capulets out because Juliet becomes a Montague by marriage).

Do you have all the recaps from Seli Groves' column? It's fun to read these.

11 hours ago, slick jones said:

 Woody  Hutchinson came to town with his son Hutch. Woody was portrayed by Daniel Ziskie, Hutch was Judson Mills

 

 

 

Thanks for the info about Woody. It's funny how this comes flooding back. I hadn't thought about the storyline with Mary-Woody-Hutch-Linc in a long time. If not for Lisby Larson and the impression she made in the role, it would have been mostly forgettable.

*****

Random survey-- so I am curious...which of Marland's characters do people feel did not make much of an impression? A few of his flop characters, at least in my opinion, include:

ADELAIDE FITZGIBBONS -- some businesswoman that Lucinda and Kirk interacted with in the late 80s...the first actress was not very memorable, the recast was slightly more adequate. The only reason I remember this character is because I love the name Adelaide. I think if they had brought someone dynamic and charming in like Patricia Barry or Constance Towers, the character would have worked.

CAROLYN CRAWFORD -- Leslie Denniston was largely wasted in this role. She'd been used so well on Guiding Light in the mid to late 80s. But on this show, she kind of fizzled. I think it's because Marland didn't really flesh the character out. She was mostly just an obstacle for Frannie.

EVAN WALSH -- incredibly dull given he was Lucinda's half-brother, but played by such an attractive actor. During Marland's reign this show hired a lot of hunks that fit the working class mold (like Holden, Caleb, Linc and Hutch). But Evan was a sexy upper class type. However, I don't think Marland knew how to write the upper class as well as he could write the lower class or middle class. So Evan was very one-dimensional. Probably the only reason he lasted as long as he did was because actor Greg Watkins looked like something out of the pages of GQ. Here's a photo of Watkins in his prime:

Going back to the credits at the end of the August 1984 episode, it's easy to get a sense of cast overhauls. Namely because the actors are listed in order of seniority, not alphabetically.

So at the top of the list we have long-time people like Don Hastings, Henderson Forsythe, Patricia Bruder, Larry Bryggman and Kathryn Hays (Eileen Fulton is temporarily off screen but of course would have had special billing at the end.) These are the ones originally hired in the 60s and 70s. Then after Hays we have Frank Runyeon (Steve) who had only first appeared in 1980.

After Runyeon the next person in terms of seniority is Jacques Perreault (Frank Andropoulos) who hasn't been on the show more than a few years. He's followed by Linsday Frost who had only started a year earlier as a recast Betsy in 1983. So a person with only one year on the show is 8th out of 35 cast members. This indicates there must have been a huge cast purge in 83 (probably to make room for the McColls).

Interestingly we have Colleen Zenk listed after Lindsay Frost. I think this is because Zenk took some time off in 82-83 to make the movie "Annie" for John Huston. So she probably lost some of her seniority-- she first appeared in '78 and should really be listed after Kathryn Hays before Frank Runyeon. Following her is Hugo Napier who is soon to depart as Gunnar, then Brian Bloom who also hasn't been on the show very long. After him is Kate McNeil (billed as Kathy McNeil who plays John's current wife Karen) then we have Robert Lipton (Jeff Ward). Lipton started in 1978 so he should also be billed above Runyeon but maybe he took some time off like Zenk. He will soon go on recurring and make sporadic appearances in 1985 and 1986.

After Lipton it's all people who have been hired by Mary-Ellis Bunim in 83 and 84.

14 minutes ago, Soaplovers said:

I think she had a chain of coffee houses/bakeries that Lucinda was interested in buying an interest in.  They even had a coffee house set built and everything.

 

I did notice the farm aspect was scaled back post Marland until 1997.. which I wish had gone away

Thanks. I was thinking there was something called Aunt Mary's apple pies...maybe that's what she was known for selling in her coffee shops and bakeries.

1 minute ago, Soaplovers said:

 

An interesting case... originally she was introduced because Lucinda was trying to woo her.. and had Kirk help woo her.. and the two dated.  Then a curveball was thrown when it was revealed that she was the long lost mother of farm hand Hutch.. and the reason Linc's father left Linc's mother.  I think she ended up leaving town during the cast purge of late 1993

That's right...I remember Hutch turning out to be Linc's half-brother. The actors did resemble each other. I think there may have been someone named Woody...possibly he was the father of both boys, never seen, just mentioned when Mary was revealed as Hutch's mother. It's all a bit vague in my memory. I think these were characters Backus struggled to continue writing for after Marland's death. They most certainly would have lasted longer if Marland hadn't died, since I'm sure he introduced them with long-range plans in mind.

What was Mary's business? Why did Lucinda "want" her?

Random question -- I remember Lisby Larson playing a character named Aunt Mary in the early 90s, near the end of Marland's era. What was her storyline about and what happened to her? I am thinking she was recurring, not a major long-term character. Larson was/is a fantastic actress and always made a memorable impression in all her soap roles.

Speaking of Ellen, after mentioning Patricia Bruder recently I looked her up online. I was surprised to learn she was born in 1936. Meaning she was 47 when Dani Andropolous was born and Ellen became a great-grandmother. Perhaps Bruder was not playing her real age, and Ellen was meant to be older than Bruder actually was?

Equally surprising was the fact that Henderson Forsythe (David Stewart) was born in 1917. So he was 19 years older than Bruder. Does that mean David was supposed to be about 20 years older than Ellen? Were their ages ever addressed on camera? Was the David & Ellen relationship supposed to be a May-December romance? Obviously I didn't watch the show in the 60s and only started watching as a kid in the early 80s. I just never realized the apparent age difference between David and Ellen Stewart. It's kind of fascinating. I am assuming all Ellen's kids and most of her grandkids and great grandkids were born on camera.

Is there a family tree of the Stewarts with the years the characters were born?

6 hours ago, All My Shadows said:

Wasn't the big cliffhanger for that story something about how it was a matter of fact for Lisa and the audience that she was pregnant and going through with the abortion was a huge deal for a soap like ATWT at that time period and then, right at the end of the episode, when the doctor goes in to perform the procedure, he announces that there is no baby, fade to black, cue Charles Paul on the organ.

Yeah, I think that explains why Lisa was supposed to be in the dark and believe she was having a baby, to make the pseudo-abortion more realistic. This story was operating on several levels. Plus it was kind of a spoof that of all people Lisa would be pregnant like the Virgin Mary. So it was classic Irna. Eileen probably didn't understand the goals of the story and was trying to play it "straight" which you can't really do with this kind of material.

Here's the interview Eileen Fulton did in 2005:

https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/eileen-fulton#interview-clips

Just now, SoapDope said:

I'm guessing maybe early 70's. 1970-1972

So was it a story Irna wrote, or someone else? I think the idea is interesting, but I agree that after a point it gets silly. A woman who wasn't really pregnant might think she's pregnant in the beginning but technology would cause the doctor to verify rather quickly there was no baby. What they could get away with in the early 70s they could never get away with now. And it was probably a real stretch for viewers then to accept it. The only way the story might work is if the the woman was held hostage, in some sort of drugged state and led to believe she was pregnant and had given birth. But to play this as a "straight" medical drama is ludicrous.

1 minute ago, SoapDope said:

 I watched that interview several times too and it's great. I laughed at the phantom fetus story and she said a woman from planned parenthood sent her a brochure and said " This is how it happened and now let's get on with it" I also loved the grandma clause story about how she was in the control room during filming of a scene with Barbara Berjer (Claire) and the guys were talking to each other and said " Do you realize she's now a great grandmother ?, We can't have that. We've just gotta kill her". The following week they hit her with a truck.....LOL. Eileen called up Irna and insisted on the grandma clause to prevent that happening to her. 

What year did the phantom fetus storyline occur? Has such a storyline ever been done on any other soap?

24 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

Many people, from all walks of life, stay in jobs hoping that conditions there will eventually improve, or because of economic necessity. As she grew older, other acting opportunities would have been rare, so it makes sense that Fulton would choose to stay and ride out the storm. The baffling part to me has always been why the show kept her at all, and why TPTB did not eliminate Lisa completely during the Sheffer years instead of nominally keep the character around but "using" her in such a minimal and degrading way.

Probably when Bryggman left it saved her neck. They no longer had to pay him and if they were not offering Eileen any substantial guarantees and she was willing to do what they asked her, then I guess she was safe, even though Goutman and the headwriters were no longer committed to telling stories for Lisa. Most of her later years had her as a sounding board for grandson Casey or for Barbara; she wasn't even interacting much with Tom, Margo, Bob and Kim at the end.

12 hours ago, dc11786 said:

There used to be more. I would like to see more pop up, but I think with the decline of VCRs a lot of the material will remain lost or deteriorate soon. 

 

I reached out to Sam Smiley, the show's original headwriter, last fall. He was willing to speak about the show, but he didn't really provide much information. It was 35 years ago so I didn't press him much. He said he still had his computer he wrote the material on and had saved episodes on VHS. I imagine others have materials as well, but, as I said above, it's just in hiding. 

 

I'm pretty sure C.T. McIntyre passed away several years ago. I would loved to have read an interview from him about the series. The Atlanta Constitution profiled him when the series started and to say he was a character was quite an understatement. They had no problem revealing his series of failed (and possibly questionable) business ventures. 

 

For its time, I'm sure the show was probably a disaster, but I adore the material I've come across. Some of it is absolutely awful and some of it is strong especially considering it is from the mid-1980s when soaps are big on Luke and Laura style romantic adventures. Don't be fooled, the show attempts this, but it also features the romantic foibles of Michael Forest and Pamela Burrell as grandparents T.J. and Annabelle Catlin as well as some strong family drama involving the Catlin clan. 

 

There are some scripts available in Atlanta. I believe Mary Nell Santracroce donated them to one of the universities. I imagine it cannot be more than 2 or 3, but who knows. 

Thanks for such a detailed post and for providing more key information. I remember watching a few episodes in the 80s when I was a kid. But the show was on TBS which we seldom watched and it aired at such a strange time. It definitely is a show I'd like to see in its entirety. Like Capitol it is completely defined by the 80s and there aren't a huge number of episodes to go through.

I do love Lisby Larson and the clips I've seen from her on this show look fabulous. Peter Boynton was wonderful as the oily Tonio on ATWT, so I am sure he's just as good on The Catlins, even if he's not playing the same type of character. One thing I am curious about is why the show's title only referenced one core family, when the original concept was focused on two rival families. Was the idea to eventually get rid of the second family or eventually marry them into the Catlins? I am sure there's a reason they picked one family over the other when titling the show. Maybe that's something Sam Smiley could explain for us. Hopefully he's been preserving the episodes he had on tape.

3 minutes ago, Soaplovers said:

I admit I'm more critical of the Marland years.. but he did seem to do well with this show better than he did on GL.  I think due to the fact that GL was a more emotional show while ATWT always seemed to have a more contained, yet beautiful, element to it.  I noticed differences between his GL and ATWT when he was head-writing it (GL seemed to have a little more emotional fire under his pen than ATWT did) so I give him credit for trying to adapt to the DNA of both shows.

 

I think it was Eileen Fulton that said when Marland wrote ATWT, it was like an elegant painting especially around the holidays.  

 

I was rewatching the Emmy live/Paley center (not sure which it was) interview she did years ago. and she was asked to give her thoughts on certain head-writers.  She liked the Dobson's, loved Marland, wouldn't comment on Sheffer at all, and said that Lorraine Broderick was a great person that never got a lot of her ideas approved.. and Fulton said a writer is paid to write and to not interfere with their process (even saying directors also shouldn't be interfered with either.. wonder if that was a subtle dig at Goutman).  So if anything, the theory fans had with interference wasn't a theory at all.

Fulton's full interview (it's over two hours long) is on the EmmyTVLegends website. I just watched it a few days ago and she's very lively, with some great anecdotes. She's extremely candid about several eras of ATWT. I believe the interview was done in 2005 when Sheffer was still in charge. Probably before his departure was announced or she wouldn't have been so careful what she said about him.

In the interview she says her least favorite stories were the phantom fetus one, which she found to be totally preposterous and made Lisa seem stupid. And she did not enjoy the racism story where Lisa disapproved of Duncan and Jessica's marriage, which was done by Marland, wasn't it? She said she struggled with how to play it and how to justify Lisa's narrow-mindedness.

6 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

The whole situation with Fulton is baffling. I remember many years before the show ended, P&G wanted Kathryn Hays and Helen Wagner to agree to cuts in their 2-day-a-week guarantees, and they refused.  Everyone must have worked out a deal because the ladies stayed put, but in later years, particularly starting with Sheffer's reign of terror and moving forward, neither Hays nor Wagner were seen at least twice a week. Fulton must have had a similar guarantee, at some point. Did all the vets quietly allow their guarantees to be eliminated? P&G clearly did not respect or value Fulton any more. The fact that she continued on the show at all, sometimes not appearing for weeks and often showing up to recite a handful of irrelevant lines about other characters' stories, is hard to understand. They continued to give her special billing at the end of the crawl right up until the show went off the air, too. Why did they just not fire her 10-15 years before the show's death? Emily McLaughlin's (Jessie, GH) daughter stated that her mother was being protected by some PTB at ABC, even when the actress was unable to fulfil her guarantees and even when the character of Jessie had became a minor background player who was almost never seen. Maybe Fulton had an ally at the network or P&G, and she did not want to quit on her own, so she remained and languished in the background.

My theory is that Eileen Fulton remained on the show because she loved playing Lisa and hoped that the next headwriter/producer team would value her. She was hanging in there and not wanting to just give up and walk away. But by a certain point (probably 2008) it was clear she was never going to be a relevant part of ATWT anymore. I looked at the cast totals using the link someone provided earlier and there were quite a few months under Sheffer and Passanante where she had 0 appearances or just 1 appearance. There is one month during Passanante's reign that she has 6 appearances which I think is the most she ever had in the whole decade. Six appearances during one month is not even two days a week.

My guess is she got to stay on contract, she was still given special billing and she probably was still paid her usual rate per episode but only when she worked (no guarantees and no salary increases). During 2010, the last eight and a half months of the show, she was only in 12 episodes. She only had one appearance in the show's last month. Lisa was definitely not relevant at the end; and this leads me to think that if the show had continued she would have been taken off contract at some point and been recurring. The only way she would ever have had substantial screen time again would have been if they killed Lisa off and she had a proper exit story.

Larry Bryggman had practically nothing to do under Hogan Sheffer. It didn't surprise me when he left in 2004.

Eileen Fulton definitely disliked Hogan Sheffer. She was very vocal about her lack of screen time during his tenure. I suppose he was unable to kill Lisa off or her send her out of town, so he just used her very sparingly. She took it personally. But since Passanante also didn't write much for her, I wonder if it was really Chris Goutman who was responsible for her lack of screen time.

24 minutes ago, Khan said:

AFAIC, they could have named it Roadkill.

 

 

Not that I'm defending Sheffer, but I think part of that was due to P&G "schooling" him on what they thought made for good soap opera.  Then, of course, I think a certain amount of cynicism, borne out of constant network and sponsor interference, began to creep into his work.

Also a lot of the actors like Tunie were glad that Sheffer was building on things Marland had established. From Backus' exit in '94 to Sheffer's arrival in 2000, the show had gone off track again. They were glad to see Marland's work picked up again by this new guy.

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

That actor looks familiar to me but I can't figure out who he is. He looks like a West Coast soap actor of that era - not a big one.

 

I think it may be Kim's husband, Robert J. Urich. She married him in 1981. Here's what he looks like:

 

Yes, it must have been Kim's husband in the 1984 photo. Or else it was someone who worked behind the scenes, since it was not an actor on the show at that time. I'm going with the "it's her husband" answer.