chrisml

It was so interesting to the Edge actors because they were so much fun. From where I came into the show, Draper has been such a drip so it was nice to see Tony Craig so loose and fun. Joel Crothers has not had much to do in where I am in the show, but he is a great presence.

And Kim Zimmer also gave interviews where she admitted to some of her behavior and she apologized for it. I give her credit for admitting her wrongdoing and taking responsibility because other actresses would not have done that. BTW, I will miss John Payne from your avatar. 🙂 JFP's GL post-1993 may have needed Kim Zimmer to try to salvage the mess that was made of the show (and that turned out to be another disaster), but GL post Zimmer's departure was fantastic. Forbes showed GL didn't need Zimmer as well. I also think Santa Barbara didn't help her ego either since Sydney Penny got the attention, and most SB viewers loathed Zimmer's Jodie character. To be fair, I think a big part of the problem was the writing and the producing, but since Zimmer thinks Rauch is such a genius, that's on her.

In watching the Family Feud episodes, I can't get over how charming and interesting all the EON actors are. Tony Craig was not served by how Draper was written, and I wish he had been given a better character. He's so adorable on FF. From what I've seen on EON, he is never given much of a chance to show that. He should have been a major leading man in soaps based on the way he is on FF.

Kim Zimmer gets a lot of details wrong. Since she gave it to so many people to read (if they actually read it and didn't just blurb it), you would think someone would have pointed out these errors. I don't know if it's just confusion on her part or if it's because she wrote it out of anger. She has admitted she was extremely angry in writing the book. I was not surprised she left out Michelle Forbes because it must have come as a blow to realize that viewers had quickly latched on to another actress. That's probably why she was not always kind to Cynthia Watros (something she admits to). Jeanne Cooper and Victoria Rowell published similar memoirs where they were determined to get even with costars and producers they felt had wronged them. Zimmer is a lot more measured than those two.

To her credit, I don't think Lucci ever demanded that she be front and center the way other lead actresses did. If she did, she wasn't listened to. She also had other side projects and that probably helped out a lot. When Erica was maternal Erica, she added to the show. As time wore on and they were still writing her as if she still in her twenties, it didn't work and it harmed the show. I know Lucci wanted to do the showgirl storyline which was a mess. I've also read (don't know how reliable it is) that a lot of her bad decisions came from her husband's advice. That included her ridiculous choices for Emmy submissions and the terrible t.v. movies. There have been a lot of talented daytime actresses who didn't get their due, and it is rather annoying that Lucci was nominated so often in years when she didn't deserve it and when her material was truly awful.

I had always heard 1985 was a rough year for the show. A shame as we hear so much about bad producers and how they ruin a show. It would have been nice to see a good producer exhibit great results. The 1990 episodes currently uploaded bring back a lot of memories. I really enjoyed the Sharlene/Sharly storyline and Holbrook was fantastic. Another example of someone overlooked for her superlative work although the Emmy voters would later rectify that. I also got a kick out of Taylor Benson and how she tortured Sharlene. I always wanted that story to go on longer than it did. I'm again reminded how the Amanda/Sam/Evan story just collapses when RKK left. I don't know what the writers were building to (if anything) but that storyline is a dud now. Cali Timmins was perfect as Paulina. Seeing her again makes me even madder that she was replaced with Judi Evans.

I have never liked the slapping thing. I don't care who's doing the slapping. I went back to some GL episodes and it does seem like the writers were setting up something for Sonni and Roger in July 1989. I don't remember if anything came of it. A real shame as they had a lot of chemistry, but then both could have chemistry with a block of tofu.

Michelle Forbes really captivated GL viewers so it was smart of Long to take advantage of that. When I looked back at news items and letters to the editors, I found so many letters to the editors/columns upset she was not nominated for Best Actress the year before she was nominated for supporting actress. I read somewhere that they had planned a major storyline with Sonni and Roger but that it never came to pass because Forbes wanted to leave the show. I wonder what they had in mind.

Disgusting how Gilly was written out. I'm glad I was not watching that travesty. Petronia Paley deserved better as well. Interesting to me how so many viewers wanted Annie to succeed--the same way they were so invested in Marian/Brett.

This was a lot of fun and Tony Craig was immensely charming. I wish he got to show this side of him as Draper on the show.

I thought the writers might have rewritten Josh's history (reason for going to Venezuela) and that Zimmer was remembering that. Since I was not watching during Reva's miscarriage story, I was not sure how that played out and I didn't want to say. I just knew Michelle Forbes would not have been on based on the dates of Larry Gates's Emmy win. I also found it odd she didn't mention Forbes since she does mention nearly everyone else she had a major storyline with.

I went back to my ebook copy of Zimmer's book. She never mentions Michelle Forbes by name in her book. She mentions the character of Sonni once in relation to giving a plot summary of Reva's connection to H.B. and how Larry Gates won the Emmy. She says Josh left Reva to go be with Sonni in Venezuela shortly before Reva had her miscarriage because of Vanessa. Michelle Forbes was not even on the show at this point. Is this an example of Zimmer getting her dates mixed up? Or was Josh's past rewritten and Zimmer is just going along with that?

The horrific comments execs and writers make when they justify rape storylines or keeping rapists as love interests is just so icky. I remember Ron Carlivati's comments about the reraping of Marty storyline on OLTL. Made my skin crawl. No matter what you think of her, Susan Lucci could have demanded front burner storylines but she never did. She was happy to be part of an ensemble. I never got that vibe from Zimmer. For me, Reva was just not a character I cared that much about after a certain point no matter how talented Zimmer is/was. I think Zimmer had a keener eye for what made a good storyline, but she was less willing to take a backseat if it meant someone else got to shine. I'm trying to recall if she ever mentions Michelle Forbes in her book--one of the few times the viewers did not care about Reva in a storyline. My sense is if she did, it was probably some backhanded remark about how she had to show Forbes the ropes.

I know this is probably heresy and this isn't the B&B thread, but I think Susan Flannery and Stephanie were highly overrated and that KKL was extremely underrated during the same period.

@alwaysAMCKim Zimmer is also not very reliable when it comes to dates and facts about the show. If you go in what that in mind, it'll be ok. She get things wrong. She was so angry at Ellen Wheeler that the anger comes off the page. She blamed Wheeler for decisions that John Conboy had made. She also thinks Paul Rauch was the show's best producer. As @P.J.points out, Zimmer's acting range far surpasses Lucci's, but it still felt that the writers just kept Reva the same mental age for the rest of the series. Long loved the whole damaged Southern belle routine. Zimmer was still doing the red dress thing although to her credit she was not doing a whole storyline about joining a showgirls troupe the way Lucci did in her late fifties/early sixties (I'm too lazy to do the googling and the math). I believe Zimmer is immensely talented but Reva was never a character that I rewatch much if at all. When I go back and watch GL clips, it's rarely any clips related to Reva. I will rewatch Michelle Forbes's storylines and work for example, but if Zimmer is in some of it, I almost always FF. I just don't care about Reva during these storylines. I'm on Sonni's side even though I know how it turns out. While GL was on, I found the repetitive nature of Reva's storylines annoying even when I didn't watch the show and just read summaries. I think Zimmer deserved better material; I think of her tapes when she won her third Emmy. Stellar work but then it was right back to Josh/Reva. I think of her work on Designing Women, and how she could hit different notes and was so effective.

Reva and Zimmer needed strong adversaries/scene partners. It would dampen the negatives associated with the character and Zimmer's self-admitted excesses. I think that's why she was a bust on SB. I don't know how she did on her return to OLTL because I was not watching at that point. The problem for me with Reva is the same situation with Erica Kane. It ended up being variations of the same storyline year after year. I think if the show had truly broken up Reva and Josh and put them in other viable relationships it would have freed up the characters to have better storylines and character growth. Instead, it's as if the characters were stuck for decades.

I can see why the Sam/Amanda story went downhill so fast. Thomas Gibson was a terrible replacement. I don't remember the circumstances of RKK quitting (if his contract was over or if the departure was more acrimonious), but Gibson just sucks the energy out of every scene. He has no chemistry with anyone.

Larry Hagman writes of his brief time on Edge of Night:

I'm a broken record at this point, but I'm more and more outraged that Ann Williams did not win an Emmy. I actually broke my rule of looking up EDGE actors on IMDB just to see if she had been nominated and/or won. (I avoided looking at her tenure on the show so I wasn't spoiled). Margo's scenes in the aftermath of Eliot's betrayal have been breathtakingly brilliant. Williams was robbed of the Emmy. I had never heard of this actress before I started my watched of EON and that's a shame because she is just superb.

I had forgotten about Jeanne Cooper and Christian LeBlanc showing support for GL. That's a classy thing to do as they did not have to do that. I have no memory of Anthony Addabbo on GL but I always liked him as an actor and thought he was attractive. He was perfect for Red Shoe Diaries and I don't mean that in a dismissive way. I came across some articles that criticized his firing from the show, but I think my only memory of his time on GL is that I knew he was on it.

So George Pilgrim's biggest claim to fame is that he was a side piece AND he was in an episode of Red Shoe Diaries? I'm not knocking the latter as a lot of soap actors did that show, but the delusion is high with this person. Red Shoe Diaries and Skinemax shows were where former/soon-to-be soap performers went when they couldn't get hired on the soaps. And I'll take Anthony Addabbo (RIP) who also did RSD over this Pilgrim person any day.

Was Kathleen meant to be a villain and this quickly changed? I remember finding an article from the early eighties that talked about Iris and Rachel as sisters. If these things were written now, you would accuse the writers of using AI. I imagine some of them were storyline projections the soap columnists got that changed before the stories went to press [obviously not the Iris/Rachel error), but who knows?

Thank you for that. I came into the show at a confusing time for Cliff because he just floats from one story to the next and his job appears to change. I like him even though I know I probably shouldn't since he's such a creep at times. I might have to go back and watch some of the previous stories because I'm missing some important pieces of Deborah and Geraldine's backstories. Thank you for the explanation. I'm not sure I have the patience for that so I think I'll give it a miss. I must have bought it with the idea that it was going to cover her time on the soaps.