Broderick

2 hours ago, FrenchBug82 said:

That's very interesting actually. Didn't know the numbers.

Gonna ask if RM wouldn't wish he was making $350000 a year now, half of what he once earned it might have been.

Yep, he went into great detail about having to sell a house and make withdrawals from his IRA in order to pay his bills.  He asked that his monthly child support payments be reduced as a result.  The judge basically said, "Naw, you should've taken the $400,000 they offered you."   

I can see both sides of it.   Why would he want to continue working the same number of hours as before for about half the earnings?  But on the other hand, how do you go from $700,000 income to $0?   It would be a tough choice for a lot of actors, I guess.  But that seems to be the reality that soap actors have been dealing with for the past ten or fifteen years.  Raises seem pretty nonexistent, and very drastic pay cuts are the reality of the industry.  

On 7/31/2021 at 3:56 PM, FrenchBug82 said:

I don't think it was unreasonable although of course none of us know why and how the talks broke down. There might have been unreasonableness! Who knows? In a show that's not doing well financially - look at the sets - even a reasonable request from her might have been too much. The veterans probably hog a chunk of the performer budget and producers may not have much room to move for most recent arrivals, even a star like MM
But she absolutely was a headliner and they should have tried to hang on to her.
And they definitely shouldn't have killed Hillary off - although "retribution" sounds a step beyond what we know.
Soaps short-sightedly kill off characters all the time.
All of this was a screw-up but there does not need to be anything personal involved.
Who knows?

I think a request for an actual raise on a daytime soap is probably out of the question.   A "raise" on a soap seems to be not taking a deep paycut at the end of a contract cycle.  

There's no big mystery why Ronn Moss left B&B.  When his multi-year contract deal expired in 2012, they bumped his pay from $700,000 to year down to $400,000 per year.   And he was probably at that time the biggest "star" on the show.  His pay was reduced by virtually 50%, and he said, "No thanks!" They replaced him with a non-working actor who was willing to settle for the smaller amount.   (All of that is disclosed in court documents relating to child support obligations).  

If the girl who played Hilary Curtis was offered the same amount as her previous contract, without a 50% decrease, that's probably about as close as a soap performer is gonna get to a raise.  

6 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

In a 1966 Variety ad, Irna Phillips and Bill Bell advertise a soap in development 'The Innocent Years'.

So did Bill just use that title later for Y&R, or did the 1966 proposal have some elements of Y&R ??

 

Good question.  I'm guessing he just recycled the title of a soap that never happened.  His 1972 prep-work on Y&R seemed to happen rather quickly, and in a backwards fashion.  First, he got the greenlight to go ahead with his project, and only then did he begin working on his bible and character outlines, which evidently underwent several major revisions before making it to the screen.  

I bet "Just Plain Bill" hated wasting an entire day with that reporter, though he managed to score a martini and a bloody Mary by early afternoon.   Bill Bell had to be under a lot of pressure in 1973 --- writing breakdowns for Days of Our Lives and the entire 30-minute script for Y&R -- plus he was evidently monitoring several other daytime shows as well.   And then to have a reporter waste such a big chunk of his day.   Bet he ending up spending that entire night on his IBM Selectric having Snapper lay something pretty heavy on Chris.    

12 minutes ago, FrenchBug82 said:

I find this so striking too.

While I preferred GT's version, I can hear the case for luring back an OG when possible but the minute she came back, the character - who had been in front-burner story the entire time GT was playing her - suddenly had nothing to do.
 

Yeah, hopefully they got Stafford at a deeply discounted, fire-sale price, because she's pretty much contributed nothing since she came back.  

2 hours ago, allmc2008 said:

You mean, she should have been EP because she had pretty episodes? Okay! Perfect reason!!!

Most definitely!   She'd been directing the show for seventeen years, and she'd been a line producer for four years.  She knew the show backwards and forwards, how it should flow, how it should sound, how it should look.  And she had a spark of creativity in her episodes that few others seemed to have.  She was passed over for executive producer in favor of someone else who appeared to have never watched the show before.  But such is life!     

Wasn't it Mary Ellis Bunim (former producer of World Turns in the mid-1980s) who created the show, about fifteen years later, where the two heiresses (Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie) go "slumming" for fun?

I'm not diminishing Lily as a character.  As FrenchBug82 explained far more eloquently than I did, it appears that the "poverty tour" was an integral part of Lily's motivation and characterization that simply wasn't addressed other than in the subtext of the scenes.  On the superficial surface, Lily was looking for a warm home full of love, and she felt she'd found that with the Synders.  But she could've found that in a variety of other places (including her own home, with a little more effort on her part).   She seemed to have a pre-"Paris Hilton Complex" where we can spend our days entertaining ourselves in poverty, and then rush home to our trust funds at night.  

5 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Speaking of what writers hope to achieve, where viewer allegiance is concerned, I'm going to say something that may shock some, or at the very least, surprise a few: I don't believe that Lily Walsh was supposed to be regarded as a likeable character, especially as played by Martha Byrne. I have my reasons, and as a writer, it becomes more clear to me as the years pass and I watch episodes from the 80s, in particular. I think that viewers often confuse screen time with favorability. Villains often get a whole lot of screen time and material too, not that Lily was a villain, but she was definitely a self-absorbed, selfish, and often thoughtless, rich girl. In her relationship with Dusty during the 80s, in particular, she did not come out looking good in that instance. I think this was intentional in the writing, the direction as well as the acting choices. In fact, there wasn't much emotional growth from Lily until she had her first child, a lot of stupid and thoughtless choices had been made by her. If you want to discuss a character who had the most growth, who made the transition from ingenue (and sometimes vixen) to heroine in the 80s, I would give that distinction to Meg Snyder.

Lily was pretty dreadful, but psychologically she was fairly interesting simply because she was the first "poverty tourist" I'd ever seen dramatized on a soap.   Back in the 1970s, it wasn't unusual for wealthier people to take "poverty tours" of the Appalachian Mountains and photograph the poor living conditions of the residents of the region, then return to the suburbs and entertain their friends with "poverty tour" pictures.  Now people seem to enjoy taking "ghetto tours" of Detroit and posting You Tube videos of burned-out houses and rundown neighborhoods.  Lily was at the forefront of all that with her "hands-on poverty tour" of the Snyder farm.  ("No need for me to spend another dull summer at the country club or the yacht club; instead, I'll go gawk at the hand-me-down clothes and squeaking doors of the poor, country folk!  I won't offer to help.  I'll simply immerse myself for the moment in their dreary little lives!")  She was kinda like Nellie Oleson on "Little House on the Prairie", who enjoyed observing Half Pint's poverty from a safe distance, and then running back to Oleson's Mercantile in her white dress and bonnet to load-up on peppermints and lemon drops.    

Yep, that's the girl --- Ariana Munker a/k/a Ariana Chase.   Her bio shows that she was born in 1960, so she was only about 17 or 18 when she joined World Turns as Melinda Gray.  She didn't have any "bad" soap habits then; she was just young, extremely cute, and a natural little actress.  What I remember about her is that Beau Spencer (of Spencer Hotel fame) was married to Annie Stewart, who studied all the time (med school).   Beau was bored.  Annie was dull.  That cute little Ariana Munker was tempting Beau to cheat on Annie.  Whenever he'd start thinking about possibly porking Melinda Gray, Chuck Mangione's tune "Feels So Good" would start playing in the background.  He finally did bang Melinda Gray, and then I believe he actually divorced Annie Stewart and married Melinda Gray.   My main recollection is Ariana Munker looked like she'd be a lot more FUN than Annie.   That's probably NOT what the writers were going for (viewer allegiance to Melinda Gray), but that's what they got from little boys in the audience lol.   

1 hour ago, will81 said:

 I think all the talk of Kay being possessive and controlling helped reinforce that Jill was one of Kay's "victims" as well. 

Yes, and Bill Bell even revisited the "paid companion" aspect of Jill's storyline during this Joann Curtis escapade, to remind the audience that if Kay can't "earn" friendship, she's more than willing to purchase affection at fair market value prices.  She "purchased" Jill Foster as a paid companion (which led to disaster), then offered a paid companionship to Joann (not having learned a single thing from her recent experience with Jill).  Bell is clearly laying the groundwork for Kay's ultimate paid companion -- Derek -- for whom she purchases the Golden Comb, and to sweeten the pot, she sets aside $100,000 for Little Phillip, provided Derek will live with her for a solid year without revealing to Jill that he's receiving payment in exchange.   

15 hours ago, Mitch said:

apparently Jackie and Colleen were fighting it out to be the STAR of ATWT and the girl who played Bab's sister got caught in the middle and fired..which was too bad..she would have been a good character for Marland.)

That girl who played Barbara Ryan's sister Melinda Gray -- was her name Ariane Munker? -- was one of the cutest, feistiest young actresses on soaps at the time, and her storyline seemed packed with potential.  It was nuts that she was dumped.  She was the only lively participant in that Dee/Beau Spencer/Annie story in the very late 1970s.   

2 hours ago, will81 said:

Yeah I think Bell probably didn't want to wrap Jill up in story so she would be free for the Derek Thurston 'Shampoo' style story that he wanted to tell. Which makes me think the Joann/Kay lesbian story was never going to go anywhere even if audiences were accepting of it. Bell did say if he had a gay character on the show it would more likely be a woman as he felt audiences would be more accepting of that. Though the 70's wasn't the time it seems.

 

Yeah, I doubt Bell was seriously planning to isolate Kay Chancellor in a long-term lesbian love story.  I believe his goal was to find an edgy, unexpected method to showcase that Kay Chancellor was a very lonely, very controlling, and very determined woman -- which would result in her getting Derek Thurston drunk and popping a wedding ring on his finger.  Without the Joann storyline, that sudden, impulsive gesture might've seen somewhat out of character.  But after watching Kay's manipulation of Joann, we could see Kay's manipulation of Derek coming from a mile away -- buying him a salon, marrying him, bribing him into living with her for a year without revealing to Jill that it was platonic, etc.  

Lela Swift moved from being a secretary to being a director circa 1950, but not sure if she ever directed a soap until 1966, when she began directing Dark Shadows.  (She directed about 50% of the Dark Shadows episodes.)  

58 minutes ago, Soapsuds said:

YR had Heather Hill and Kathryn Foster and Sally McDonald.

 

Y&R also had Betty Rothenberg from about 1985 till about 2000.  (You could usually tell from the very first scene if Kathryn Foster had directed a particular episode, because her episodes were typically prettier and more visually appealing than any of the other directors' work.  Y&R REALLY missed the boat by not naming Kathryn Foster as executive producer, in my opinion.)  

15 hours ago, will81 said:

The Derek Thurston story was supposed to take off in the summer of 76 but backstage drama shelved it for a year. Jeanne was given a story but Brenda remaind supporting during this time. Bell did introduce David Mallory, but I have found few references to him, it seems the character was barely on screen much.

Not sure what happened with Derek. I believe David proposes to Jill and she isn't sure about accepting. Snapper tells her not to rush into things and go see Derek about getting her old job back (I think this is what happens) So maybe Jill quit???

Unfortunately only 4 more from May 77

Seems like we SAW plenty of Brenda Dickson during 1977, but it was mostly about the Foster drama of Bill dying, and everyone's conflicting feelings about Snapper's having allegedly pulled the plug on Bill, and then the revelation that Liz had pulled the plug.  David Mallory's purpose seemed to be "grounding" Jill, making her nicer and more sympathetic again, as she'd gotten pretty wound-up and bitter during the waning months of the Kay Chancellor "see you in court" storyline.  That way, it had more of a dramatic impact when the Derek Thurston triangle came to fruition finally.  

(My own belief was that it was hard to find a suitable Derek -- and they never really did find one, in my opinion -- and Bell evidently decided that a "breather" was in order, to show how LONELY Kay Chancellor was in the Joann storyline and how Jill could go from wicked (Phillip Chancellor's court battles) to sweet (David Mallory) in a heartbeat -- and all of these character traits ultimately came into play in the Derek story.)  

6 hours ago, FrenchFan said:

These scripts are fantastic @will81 ! How many do you have?

I'm enjoying the Y&R scripts and the monthly summaries so much!   Thanks, fellows!   

5 hours ago, Max said:

 

 As another poster here (I cannot recall exactly who) stated, SFT was not a family show the way that ATWT, GL, and AW were. 

I'd have to agree that the lack of "family structure" made SFT difficult to follow for the casual viewer (like me).   Whatever summer I broke my leg in the late 1970s, I saw about a month's worth of it, and it was bewildering to understand who the characters were.   During that time, Travis & Liza Sentell were the "action and adventure centerpieces" of the show, and were apt to be seen sporting around on a location shot in a beautiful  Cadillac Eldorado convertible.  It was easy to gather that the old man (Stu) was Liza's grandfather, and it was also easy to absorb that Travis Sentell had a dead mother named for a piece of steak (Mignon?) whose drawling brother (Martin) was married to the old-timey main star played by Mary Stuart.  But in a solid month of watching, that's about all that I could gather from it.  There was an old guy named Ted who seemed to barely know the others, and there was a character named Stephanie who also wandered in and out with no evident connection.  Liza had a mother, but she mostly interacted with the strangers instead of the core characters.  There were a lot of other "loose ends" -- Renata, Sunny, etal.  I realize that a new viewer who wanted to understand the show could've asked someone who all those people were, but for a channel surfer, there was a definite confusion and disjointedness about it that didn't tend to generate much interest.  Now the same thing was true of "Edge of Night" (no real family structure), but it was EASY to pick-up on, because everyone was clearly a detective, an attorney, a DA, or a criminal, and with that format, it didn't matter whether they had a family unit or not.      

7 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

'Jill, Andy Richards is a fine young man who loves you. Together you can build something special for you and your boy. So don't go go throwin' that all away on some foolish pipe dream of a future with Mr Abbott.'

Thanks for tweaking my script, Jack Smith!  lol. 

To me, Julianna's "pipe dream" lines to Deborah Adair are iconic Y&R moments, right up there with Nikki's frequent "I'll get it, Miguel!", Snapper Foster's, "I've got something real heavy to lay on you, man," Kay Chancellor's regular pleas to Derek Thurston, "Oh dear sweet God, Jerrick!", Dina Mergeron's confidence that she was "making some REAL INROADS with John Abbott", and everyone's line when they barged into Victor's office, "Connie was away from her desk."   All of these were regularly quoted around my house during the most unlikely of circumstances.  lol.  

15 hours ago, FrenchFan said:

FEBRUARY 1977

 

8 hours ago, will81 said:

 

Thankyou so much for the Feb synopsis. Here are the six Feb 77 Y&R script synopsis 

 

 

Folks, thank you both so much for posting these gems!! 

I make fun of David Hasselhoff a lot, because he was such a "non-Snapper" as compared with his predecessor in the role.  But this storyline really endeared him to me, how he was willing to lose his medical career and throw himself under the bus for his mama.  All he had to do was tell the truth, but he wouldn't.  (Guess he didn't wanna Lay Anything Too Heavy on Liz right then, as she was a Very Special Lady in his life.) 

The Kay Chancellor/Joann Curtis storyline was extremely edgy, daring, and bold for February of 1977.  Most impressive is how natural it is, so deeply rooted in the personalities of the two characters -- both hurt terribly by the men in their lives, both vulnerable, one of the characters being young and insecure and needy, the other being older, wiser, more world-weary, wealthy, unhappy and extremely lonely.   You can't help notice the numerous built-in "escape hatches" inherent in the tale:  Joann could suddenly reconcile with Jack or could suddenly decide to attend college full-time out of town; Kay could suddenly become smitten with a handsome young hair stylist; Brock could suddenly swoop in and announce that the relationship is stifling and unhealthy for both women and that the Lord wants them both to walk in a more enlightened pathway.  Gotta say it, kudos to Bill Bell for having the courage and foresight to map this out so cleverly.  

Julianna McCarthy would be a rich lady if she got a quarter every time Liz had to say, "But Jill, Andy Richards LOVES you.  Are you gonna throw all of that away, chasin' after some PIPE DREAM with Mister Abbott?"  

4 minutes ago, will81 said:

Jill seemed like she would have married Andy, had more kids and lived in the Foster home happily ever after.

 

Deborah Adair definitely put her own spin on the character.  Wasn't there a period of time in 1982 when Deborah Adair's Jill went CAMPING & FISHING with Andy Richards?  Can you imagine Brenda Dickson (complete with hats, plumes, veils, and heaving bosom) catching a trout?  lol.  Deborah Adair certainly brought her down to earth, made her more accessible, while still retaining some of the underlying bitchiness.  

7 hours ago, soapfan770 said:

Leslie still being on canvas felt so out of place with the rest of the episode. Was Leslie indeed  to kept on longer or was she dropped as soon as the Laurence family story went bust? 

 

As we can see from the opening credits of this episode, Bill Bell clearly intended that "The Trials & Tribulations of Leslie & Robert" would be his "A-List storyline" for years and years to come.  Leslie and Robert were given the Pole Position in the opening credits, as the show's most important characters.  

When the Lawrence storyline ended, Leslie was shuffled off the canvas almost immediately.  And it happened over the course of one or two episodes.  She had a scene with Stuart Brooks where she said, "Dad!  Maestro has organized a concert tour for me."  Stuart said, "Why Les, that's just wonderful!"  And Leslie responded, "Yes, it is, Dad.  Oh, and by the way, I'm leaving in five minutes.  Love ya.  See ya later!  Bye."  And she was out the door and gone.

We can discern from this episode that Y&R had changed a lot during 1982.  The show had repositioned itself entirely.  The storylines that appealed to the audience by late 1982 and early 1983 were (1) the goings-on in the Abbott house, (2) the goings-on with Nikki and Her Men, and (3) -- although it isn't featured in this particular episode -- the adventures of young detectives Paul and Andy.   Plus there was just the right amount of "crossover" in these three distinct storylines, with Paul being the brother of Patty Abbott and also regularly involving himself in Victor's activities, Kay Chancellor running Nikki's life and also interfering in the marriage of John & Jill Abbott, Lauren tempting Paul and taunting Traci, Amy Lewis being Traci's friend and Paul's right-hand woman, etc.  ALL of this was set-up extremely well, and it shows why Y&R was winning the 1983 Emmy and moving higher in the ratings.  

The situation with Leslie, Robert, and Claire was just simply superfluous to the "real storylines" of Y&R.  It was disjointed and didn't integrate well within the framework of the show.  Claire's coma seemed hokey and old-fashioned, and this grouping of characters seemed to be "leftovers" from a different time and place.  It just wasn't working.  The Brooks family had outlived their usefulness.   The only thing truly WORKING for the Brooks family was what you see here -- Liz Foster Brooks trying to steer Jill in the right direction (and trying to keep Kay Chancellor sober when Jill started dropping bottles of vodka at Kay's house).  

Even though it clearly wasn't his original plan, Bill Bell did the only thing that could work -- dropped all of the Brooks girls one by one off the canvas and retained Liz, who still served a useful purpose in the storyline.   

13 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Yes with Deborah you could believe that John Abbott could fall for her. She could play vulnerable, bitchy, needy etc.

 

Deborah, even when she's being bitchy, seems far more *genuine* than Brenda Dickson.  With Brenda (in the 1980s), it was just such a camp festival.  I could buy Brenda Dickson as the heartless vixen who divorced John and took him to the cleaners, just as I bought Deborah as the vulnerable girl who married him and seemed mostly sincere with her intentions.  The actress switch occurred at just the right time for the story to work.    

3 hours ago, Cat said:

Or the Brooks house entranceway, which was capacious, but where someone steps out of the pitch-black night-time outside into a dimly-lit lobby. It was literally like Dark Shadows in there!

The whole point of the dim lighting and spotlight was to highlight the close-ups and reaction shots which dominated every scene. Weirdly, I never found them OTT or out of place. John Conboy who was EP at the time really used them to great advantage because they fit Bill Bell's writing perfectly. When Wes Kenney came in in 1982 and the budget got bigger, he tended to flood those big sets with light and do more wide-shots sweeping over an office or living room. And Edward J. Scott tt too. Man, what I would give to see a visual genius like Ed Scott back at the helm! He made even the Days sets look lush.

Alternatively (if budgets are low) -- let's get the creepy background music back in and go the extreme-close-up Conboy/EON route. Of course, what Y&R really needs is to zhuzh up the writing to make those reaction shots pop!

Couldn't agree more.  If they can't afford to put up decent sets or to make them look presentable, they need to turn down that garish lighting, which is only highlighting their cheapness.  

2 hours ago, YRfan23 said:

They have such a fun chemistry!  DA is really great at playing manipulative, but it's hilarious how Patty sees through her! 

Deborah Adair makes her scenes interesting.  She's not as "obvious" and "over the top" as Brenda Dickson, and not as comical as Jess Walton.   She really created a 100% believable Jill, albeit a Jill who was far more down to earth than the other Jills.