Broderick

I never bought Miss Dickson's book, but I've flipped through it and read the part about Jeanne Cooper, whom Miss Dickson refers to as "Jean". (The book is FULL of misspellings, errors, and apparent fantasies of Miss Dickson, as you might expect. There are probably kernels of truth here & there, but also embellishments and elaborations.) Brenda Dickson basically says that Jeanne Cooper was a raging alcoholic (which is pretty much public knowledge to most fans of the show, I guess, as Jeanne Cooper openly discussed her alcoholism). Miss Dickson, in her quest to defame Bill Bell and Y&R, claims that Bill Bell "enabled" Jeanne Cooper to be an alcoholic. She implies that Bell and Conboy specifically hired an alcoholic actress (Cooper) to fill the role of an alcoholic character (Kay Chancellor) and sort of enabled/encouraged Jeanne Cooper to remain an alcoholic as long as the storyline called for Kay Chancellor to have bouts of sobriety and drunkenness. THEN, when it was time for Kay Chancellor to become "permanently sober", the Evil Bill Bell told Jeanne Cooper, "Sober up, you old crone, or I'll kick you out the door." None of this was really a "slam" of Jeanne Cooper, but Brenda Dickson, in her crazy book, just "uses" Jeanne Cooper to make Bill Bell sound more horrible and mean than he probably really was. She implies that Bell manipulated and abused Jeanne Cooper's alcoholism, and that Jeanne Cooper was too drunk, stupid and naïve to realize she was being manipulated. Only the Wise Brenda Dickson could see all of this unfolding. That's what Beth Maitland was reacting to when she said that it was low and thoughtless of Brenda to discuss two dead people (Bell and Cooper) who weren't around to defend themselves. If Bell were still alive today, he'd obviously say that he never condoned or encouraged Cooper's drinking, and if Jeanne Cooper were still alive today, she'd obviously say that Bill Bell wasn't the reason she drank.

Yes, one of the soap mags made a comment circa 1986 that "if you'd like to watch a parody of Brenda Dickson, just tune into Y&R weekdays on CBS to see Brenda Dickson doing a parody of Brenda Dickson!" lol. I think there's a lot of truth in that statement. She definitely appeared to have some (untreated) problems with emotional stability, and I'm sure there were those on the set who exploited that particular vulnerability of hers, for their own benefit.

We'll never know for certain how much of her "illness" and "persecution" were real, and how much were merely figments of her imagination, because her concept of "truth" is so murky and vague. (That's based on having read passages from her book, where she can't even accurately relay her own AGE to the reader without embellishing the facts and masking the issue in confusion.) But I agree with Will81, when she turns to the camera at the wrong times, or when she does it for extended periods of time, it completely removes the Jill character from the scene. At home, we're treated basically to a tableau of Brenda Dickson posing, pouting, smirking, mugging and vogueing at the camera, while her co-star ineffectively attempts to deliver a soliloquy to the back of her head. There she is, in her plumed hat with sequined feathers, her spangled shoulder pads, her dramatic veil, with her back turned entirely to her co-star. While those of us at home are getting the benefit of watching her roll her eyes, smirk, wiggle and pout, her co-star may as well be performing opposite a corpse. There's nothing wrong with a little camp -- and heaven knows, she was plenty campy --- but it was just TOO much! It was difficult to understand why the other characters were wasting their time on Jill. If I were Phillip Chancellor III and my mother acted that way, I'd have just stayed at Kay Chancellor's house with no qualms about it. If I were Michael Crawford, I wouldn't have asked for the first date, let alone the second. If I were Brad Carlton, I wouldn't have wanted to associate myself with her men's line project. If I were David Kimball, I would've asked to be transferred to a different department. She just went so far with it at the end that it ruined any sense of reality associated with it. If a character has no redeeming qualities at all and can't even manage to LOOK sympathetic for a second or two, then there's pretty much no reason for the character to exist, as all the human conflict is erased.

Peter Bergman has said in an interview that Eileen Davidson comes into her scenes "fully prepared". She knows exactly "when she's planning to raise her voice, when she's planning to cut you off, when she's planning to interrupt you, when she's planning to sigh at you with exasperation. And that enables her to get under your skin more than anyone else you're working with". (I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it.) And I believe that preparation -- and unpredictability -- is exactly what dragged Brenda Dickson back into her scenes with Eileen. (Plus Brenda Dickson was probably afraid that if she turned her back to Eileen and stared into the camera pouting, posing, and smirking, Eileen would stand behind her and mock her, making the Jill character look especially foolish and inconsequential.) Brenda's habit of staring off-camera was very effective in small doses, especially with Tricia Cast's Nina. I understand what Brenda Dickson was attempting to accomplish in the scenes. "I'm so superior to you, I'm not going to look at you. I'm going to pretend you're not even in my orbit. I'm going to retreat into a world where you don't exist." And yes, I do think it was an effective approach for an experienced gold-digger like Jill to utilize with a novice gold-digger like Nina. But once Brenda Dickson began using that tactic uniformly with Nina, John Abbott, Kay Chancellor, Jack Abbott, Traci Abbott, Mamie Johnson, and even her own SON Phillip, it just became over-the-top and absurd, like an unprepared diva who doesn't know her lines and is reading the cue cards It's never been a becoming characteristic in Eric Braeden either, when it's overused. It might work while Victor is talking to Jack Abbott, but it looks silly & stupid when he's talking with Nicholas and Victoria.

Yes, and sometimes it's difficult to tell when she's "good" and when she's "cringey". Because it's all kind of the same. The problem seems to be that she basically just stripped away all of the character's vulnerability and innocence. She replaced those characteristics with the swiveling hips, the jutting breasts, the rolling eyes, the sighs, the pouts, the hats, and the overblown costumes. Sometimes it works in one scene, and in the next scene, it just looks utterly absurd.

A lot of us on the old Mediadomain board were complaining during the George Kaplan mess about the rewrite of Brad's history. There's a scene from about 1985 where he meets with his mother in a diner --- is that what's included in the clip referenced above? -- and he gives her an envelope of money that he'd saved working for the Abbotts. She mentions that she has several other children, and she wants them all to earn an honest living. Then, when Brad and Traci become engaged, Brad takes his mother's invitation out of the "to be mailed" stack and hides it in his desk drawer at Jabot. Lauren Fenmore finds it, and becomes curious why he doesn't want his mother to attend the wedding. It's a whole little minor storyline that was completely tossed out completely for all that reliquary mess.

In the weeks leading up to it, the duel storyline was presented as being a "very dramatic and serious stand-off", at least from the point of view of Victor and Douglas, who proposed the dueling pistols. But on the day of the duel, it was played more as "dark comedy", which was fitting considering the circumstances. lol

Douglas shot him in the butt. I believe the "witnesses" were Victor & Brock. Victor was serving as Douglas Austin's "second", and Brock was reluctantly serving as Derek's "second". Seems that Derek kept stepping in gopher holes as they walked out to the dueling ground. Kay Chancellor was at home, waiting for the outcome. She heard the shot, and then Derek came in with a butt wound.

I don't remember a trip to the hospital for Lance after the shooting. I was thinking Lorie Brooks just called her brother-in-law, Snapper, who came out to the lake house and treated Lance at the scene. Then Snapper told Lorie and Vanessa, "I'm not sure what happened here, but you'd better look into filing a police report", which they opted not to do. That's the way I remember it. I remember when he came on. It was in very late 1979 or very early 1980. He was a professional thief. Derek Thurston hired him to break into a safe, remove an audio tape, and substitute a new tape in its place. (The story was that Brock had recorded a private conversation between Derek and Jill, during which they professed their love for each other and talked about what a gruesome old bat Derek's wife, Kay Chancellor, was. Brock gave his mother the tape and said, "If you want to know how your husband really feels about you, here's a tape of him and Jill discussing you." Kay didn't want to hear it and put in her safe. Later she decided to listen to it. Derek hired Douglas Austin to swap out the tape with a better version where Derek was babbling about what a wonderful wife Kay Chancellor was.) Shortly after the show expanded to an hour, Douglas's role increased. He stole $50,000 of "ransom money" that Kay Chancellor delivered to Suzanne Lynch to free Derek from a hoax kidnapping. Then Douglas started courting Kay.

It would be difficult to tie-down exactly when Andy arrived. At first he just flitted randomly in and out of stories. One of the first times I remember noticing him, he was eating spaghetti at Nikki's house (maybe he was the bartender at the Bayou then?), and that crazy Edward, who was stalking Nikki, got jealous. Eventually Andy, Paul, and Danny all ended up being waiters at Jonas's club, but that was after Andy and Danny had both been around for a while.

Victor is searching Ashley's room for clues to her whereabouts while she's missing. Brenda Dickson is watching from the doorway. Braeden is very business-like. Miss Dickson primarily just swivels her hips, rolls her eyes, displays her bosom, bats her eyelashes, and pouts.

Probably so. He wasn't much of a substitute though. Robert Parucha wasn't a bad actor by any means, but just completely lacked the chemistry with Nikki and Ashley that Terry Lester had.

I'd forgotten how determined this truck driver (Vince) was about porking Ashley. I don't blame him, she's pretty and all, but he's got a one-track mind. The dialogue from the motel desk clerk, Vince the truck driver, and Lorraine the gum-smacking, fur coat-stealing floozie is just HOWLINGLY bad. "This dame", "This broad", "Yeah, I dig it." Lord.

That's right. Nikki and Peggy Brooks had become acquainted during the "cult" storyline. Shortly after that storyline closed, Nikki went to the Brooks house to see her mother-in-law Liz about something or another, and Peggy was at home. The two girls reconnected, and Peggy offered her a place to stay if she ever needed one. Nikki had already known Chris Brooks for a good while, as they were married to the two Foster brothers. Nikki met Leslie Brooks when either Casey or Victor (can't remember which) arranged for Leslie to give Nikki some piano lessons, to determine whether or not Nikki had any real talent for the piano. And then of course Nikki encountered Lorie Brooks during that period of time when Nikki was married to the earnest but scatter-brained Kevin, And Lorie was trying to take Prentiss Industries away from Victor.

I don't recall there being any mention at all that Rex Sterling resembled Nick Reed. We know that the two men were obviously dead ringers because they were played by the same actor, but I don't think it was ever brought to our attention in the dialogue. Jill found Brian Romalotti/Rex Sterling asleep in a park and decided he was someone she could dress-up and transform into a suitable date for Kay. No mention was ever made that he looked like Nikki's dead father.

Not very often. Nikki and Greg were usually involved in storylines about Nikki modeling lingerie for Rose DeVille's prostitution ring. And Jill was normally caught-up with Derek Thurston and Stuart Brooks. Their paths rarely crossed. Then they both spent most of the 1980s orbiting Kay Chancellor --- Nikki as Kay's best friend, and Jill as Kay's worst enemy. But again, no crossover in the two stories. I don't remember Nikki and Jill dealing with one another much until about 1999, when Nikki and Brad bought into Jabot, and Jill and Nikki had a little sparring match about which of them was the sluttiest.

That does make pretty good sense, except that Peapack was too small to annex anything at all, except maybe a garden plot 😉

I'm not much of a historian lol, but they did tease us for while. We had several "spirited discussions" about it at my house. One of my siblings was sure it was TRACI ("She's already so insecure; she'll probably leave town if Mr. Abbott isn't her father. She'll think that's why she's fat!") Another sibling thought it was JACK ("He's always trying to win Mr. Abbott's approval. What if Mr. Abbott isn't even his father?"). I always said it was Ashley, because she was the strong assertive one (like Lorie Brooks, who'd already lived through pretty much the same story).

Another Foster house sighting in January 1985, for those following its final waning appearances. Brenda Dickson pops in wearing her fur coat, thrusts her breasts around everywhere, vamps and pouts, and begs Liz for $10,000.

"Dismissive vibe" is a very good description of it. Eileen's Ashley often had this impatient "I don't have time for you" attitude. I've always seen it as the defining trait of the Ashley character, but could never describe it except with the word "aloof'.

As badly as it pains me to say this (because I ain't much of a fan of Eric Braeden), he was the only male actor on the show who could hold his own with Eileen Davidson in a believable fashion, aside from Terry Lester, who played her brother. Ashley was given three different love interests between 1982 and 1984, and each of them was a dud. There was the dude in the lab at Jabot (Brian Forbes), Eric Garrison and Marc Mergeron. Eileen Davidson was always "doing something" in her scenes --- rolling her eyes, scratching her head, biting her lip, twirling her hair around, exhaling loudly, rubbing her eyes. Her three love interests just stood there with bewildered looks on their faces like stooges and allowed her to "steal" every scene that she was in. They couldn't keep up with her. They wouldn't try drowning her out. They wouldn't try developing some interesting mannerisms of their own. They just didn't play off her "technique" very well. Terry Lester did, though, because he was full of quirky and bizarre mannerisms, just like Eileen was. And Eric Braeden worked well with her, because he was older and was a more experienced actor. So sadly, Ashley was stuck with him, because he was about the only choice at the time. The ideal love interest for her would honestly have been Terry Lester, but he played her brother. lol.

One of the STRANGEST aspects of Stuart and Liz's "disappearances" was the uncertainty of what happened with their reconciliation, or lack thereof. When Liz reappeared briefly in about 2003 to kick-off the "Jill was adopted" storyline, Julianna McCarthy was listed in the credits once or twice as "Liz Brooks" and once or twice as "Elizabeth Foster', indicating that not even the current head writers (Kay Alden and Jack Smith) remembered what had happened between Stuart and Liz, lol.

Yes, it appears that she recurred sporadically (without a contract) from late summer/early autumn of 1984 to early 1985, and then she just vanished without a trace, without a mention, in a puff of smoke. We found out in 1986 that she'd been living in London with Snapper and Chris during her "missing period".

I think it's the final "60" and "61a".

Oh, my ideas were too juvenile to even discuss. I was heavily influenced by MTV (lol), so I assumed that everyone wanted to see all these quick cutaway shots, stories that began with the conclusion and then worked BACKWARDS to the beginning (I guess I was VERY confident of my ability to maintain day-to-day interest, even after shooting my wad by revealing the conclusion in the first scene), more "stage business" than actual dialogue, and music thumping through every scene. I had NO concept of budget restrictions, so naturally my cast was HUGE, so that my bisexual Harvey Weinstein character could prey on dozens of dumb asses who were too busy singing and dancing to say, "Keep your hands off me, you pervert." It was, in hindsight, pretty innovative, but only in the most childish and amateur manner. Let's just say the concept didn't age very well.