Olive Randolph

On 3/29/2024 at 4:17 PM, Xanthe said:

It sounds splendid but it does make me wonder what percentage of scenes would be set at John and Olive's to make all of that worthwhile. 

It’s where Olive and Evan would plot to kill John - it was a magnificent set - wish there were images

13 hours ago, watson71 said:

Once Rauch left in early 1983, Allen Potter and writers Dorothy Ann Purser and Robert Soderberg cleaned up the mess Rauch left pretty quickly.  Potter continued with Gary Tomlin and Richard Culliton as writers in 1984 and the show was good.  Had Potter not retired at the end of 1984, we would not have had all the nonsense with EP Stephen Schenkel in 1985 - Rachel’s amnesia, Larry and the Miami Vice storyline, La Soliel, the Egyptian treasure, the urn with the poison dust, etc.

Total agreement!

8 hours ago, Jdee43 said:

I was wondering, which is considered the better era, the Agnes Nixon/ Robert Cenedella years (1965-1971) or the Harding Lemay years (1971-1979)?

Always maintain the Harding LeMay "classic years" 1971-1979 best BUT the first period listed I have only seen rare YouTube clips. It was my Mom's show so I assume she was watching then and always mentioned Alice-Steve-Rachel so I know it's another powerful standard soap period. I just feel LeMay and Rauch in the early-to-mid period of their time together brought daytime drama to a new level. 

19 minutes ago, Tonksadora said:

Thank you! That is always the way I felt about Mitch. Suspicious! And, later I was unsure whether he was a worthy suitor for Felicia. But, I definitely questioned "credibility" with Rachel being romantic or sexual with him. And, then we were seemingly stuck with him as a good guy. Of course, Wm. Grey Espy was a good actor, so it wasn't that. It had to be the writing. Do you know what different writers wrote him? I can figure that out, of course, but you might know off the top of your head. 

Here's what I think - I THINK he was conceived by Harding Lemay in 1979 but Tom King and Robert Soderberg developed him as they completed the poisoning storyline and the fallout. I THINK L. Virginia Browne coupled Rachel and Mitch after Rachel shot him and went to jail thinking she killed him with Mitch suffering amnesia traveling across the country. Either she or Corrine Jacker broke Rachel and Mitch up after Rachel refused to move to San Francisco with Mitch after she discovered Steve Frame(recast Canary) was alive. It was DEFINITELY Corrine Jacker that had Mitch return (briefly) tied to the organization that kidnapped children for fathers denied their rights so I think she wrote him off to jail (after kidnapping son Matthew) as well (a plot point to bring Steve to Rachel's side and away from Alice (recast) prior to their being trapped in the building collapse. Margaret DePriest brought him back released from prison as part of the Reginald Love storyline (he was hired off camera to dig for the "trump" Reginald had stashed under the Cory stables with a tunnel to the Love property. AS a cover story he was hired as part of a former convict job story (by Quinn not knowing who he was)) that led him to be hired by Frame-Harding construction to renovate the Cory living room (plot to keep him in Rachel's orbit and again lead to a really weak Rachel-Mac-Mitch triangle) Laughingly, they covered up the living room with plastic but never changed it ... that didn't happen until 1988 when it changed overnight into the last set than ran the rest of the show. DePriest was also responsible for hooking him to Felicia after Rachel realized (ugh) again Mac was her true love. Mitch initially protected Felicia from Reginald after she wrote a series of articles in Brave for Mac called "Anatomy of a Vulture." So in this period Mitch was written by DePriest, Thom Racina, Sheri Anderson (briefly) Harding LeMay (briefly) Donna Swajewski (who broke up Mitch and Felicia in favor of quasi-mobster Lucas. It was either Swajewski or Peggy Sloane who wrote Mitch off for the last time to Africa on some kind of photo shoot. There's a LOT more detail here but that covers the headwriters.)

On 1/13/2023 at 1:19 PM, j swift said:

The comparison to MOD is that both films were being sabotaged by their own production.  In both cases it was an inside job that prevented the films from being completed and released.

Jamie wrote the screenplay with the help of his editor Mark Singleton.  Jamie was dating Stacey, Cass's sister, but his drug use ended that relationship so she started dating Mark.

It terms of the scandal, my vague memory was that it was Pat who was embarrassed by the book, because it had references to her murder trial.  But, it is very likely that I am incorrect and I would appreciate anyone who recalls the specifics of that story.

Ok, I'm not ENTIRELY clear on this either but Jamie (James) wrote the BOOK "A View of the Bay" to handle his anger with the hypocrisy he felt his family and the people he knew in Bay City engaged in. Somehow there was interest in making it a movie with characters introduced overnight to accomplish this storyline. Mark Singleton was not involved in this Jamie storyline. He came in as a senator later with ambitions on running for president with a more motivated wife named Janet. Stacy was involved with Mark as part of her past and was torn between Mark and her budding relationship with Jamie AFTER the move storyline abruptly ended. I think movie producer/financier Milo was wrecking the film for insurance money while dating and trying to milk Liz of her money. Julia was wrapped in as an aspiring actress as the lead. Vic, another producer, was linked to Cecile. Jamie was linked to actress Christine Wylie (they tried to establish a rich family around her for about a week!!) Jason ALSO got into the act in and out of his mob connection. As fast as the movie storyline came in 82 it was gone. Yes, Pat ran from town (quite unbelievably) because her past was lightly exposed in the book ... um, didn't most of the town KNOW about her past from the initial murder trial and the follow-up Greg Barnard trial years later? Her departure was a result of the book not movie ... in fact, her departure scene was Julia's introduction scene (by phone to her adopted Aunt Liz). 

18 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

Most long-term fans will remember that the Frame Farm was originally in Oklahoma.  But when Jason, Rachel, and Sharlene discussed the 1988 farm in Bay City, they said it had been Emma's farm and that Steve had later owned it. And Oklahoma wasn't mentioned, as I recall.  So the Frame farm in Bay City was one of the biggest continuity errors in the history of Another World.  A few years later, writers tried to correct the mistake, by discussing Oklahoma again and saying Emma still lived there.  

Also regarding the 1988 Frames' attitudes toward Janice's death, I believe Jason and Sharlene knew how Janice died.  But they still blamed Rachel, because Rachel actually did kill Janice -- even though it was self defense.  They sort of conveniently ignored the self defense issue, because they didn't like Rachel because of all the trouble she had caused for Steve back in the 1970s.   But they did know how Janice died.   

It was a convoluted period as others mentioned regarding the number of headwriters and the strike ... I BELIEVE the way they referenced the farms was this - (and it was total back-writing) Emma bought the Bay City farm because she missed her home in Oklahoma (totally inconsistent since Emma spent little time in Bay City and while she did, she lived with Alice as did her daughter Molly initially- PLUS Emma was poor, no way she could have managed two farms and her husband was always in Oklahoma. Steve ran from his farm roots (LeMay's backstory) and never wanted to return so that was a miss.) On top of all this was Frankie ... who as Emmas daughter went to high school outside of Bay City? (she attended a high school reunion with Cass on camera at a school outside Bay City.) This is all even further hard to believe since Harding LeMay wrote the initial story and was involved in some way in the Frame family reintroduction. I'm sure some of this helped lead him back out the door shortly after his 1988 return. 

Rachel led him on to find out what Janice was doing with Mac and followed them all to St. Croix ... Mitch ended up having feelings for Rachel and saw how nuts Janice had become. So, Mitch was not a hero, just conflicted ... he SHOULD have been in jail for that way before his jail time for eventually kidnapping their infant son Matthew. In soap items, I guess Rachel being "reformed" was a match for "reforming" Mitch. Never saw it. IMO, Rachel and Mac were so suited ... written and acted in the glory days of 73-79 to perfection ... that no one would be a good match for either. The bigger question is why Rachel would fall for Mitch after the poisoning storyline. It was just not believable that Rachel would be so desperate for Mitch to have Matthew and her as a family (her third child) and EVERYONE in her life was so strongly against it. Bad decision ... bad writing.

2 hours ago, AbcNbc247 said:

^^

From what I've seen, Schenkel's run as EP started off strong, but once Richard Culliton and Gary Tomlin left, the show just seemed to fall apart. 

Absolutely not. Schenkel rode for a few months on former EP and original show producer Allen Potter's set-up and Richard Culliton/Gary Tomlin's outline. It degenerated into a mess with various names holding the head writers spot until it settled on Sam Ratcliffe and Gillian Spencer in April 1985ish. Sam was a long-time show writer and knew the story and was great with humor but was shortly removed and pushed back to breakdown/script writer before leaving for a few years replaced by Sam Hall. That's where the mess really began - favorites were ignored and the Egyptian/Le Soleil/Arizona storyline was started and was a disaster - this was NOT an Another World story. The show looked dark, sets were sub-par, actors TRIED to make sense with what they were given but even they looked confused and that was Schenkel's contribution. It took new head writer Margaret DePriest and new EP John Whitesell to pull it all together but they lost a large amount of the familiar cast and went in a different direction - somewhat hopeful -  but ultimately a Days rip-off. This describes 1985-to late 1987. DePriest and Thom Racina STARTED to get it back on track in late 1987/early 1988 with Victoria Love (Anne Heche) back and some Frame history. The writers strike - insertion of legendary show head writer Harding LeMay's return, Donna Swajeski's scab work and brief use of Sheri Anderson with Racina as head writer was exciting to see play out in early 1988. Ultimately LeMay became head writer, Iris was reintroduced and the story and production under new EP Michael Laibson really came closest to the show's heyday in the early/mid 1970s. Swajeski took ultimate writing control and LeMay was out again and the show was watered down and limped to cancellation in 1999 with some great highlights and hot stories interspersed but not strong enough to build the demo/audience. I would LOVE to know why they blew up the Richard Culliton - Gary Tomlin writing team in 1985 as they really had the show on track and proved themselves with Carolyn Culliton initially as a team on Texas (I even forgive them for stealing parts of Texas' Hitopah story and using that with Sally/Catlin Ceclile/Cass/Felicia/Wallingford in 1984.) They created the FIRST real umbrella story for Another World during that time using all characters including Ada/Liz/Brian/Clarice in the overall plan. I ultimately blame Stephen Schenkel for the real destruction of Another World. Yes, writer Corrine Jacker and producer James A Baffico in 1982 ripped the historical guts from the show but there was time to restart the show and Allen Potter, Dorthy Ann Purser, Robert Soderberg and then the Cullitons and Tomlin started that process. Potter's "retirement" seemed to start the road to destruction but I'm sure P&Gs Ed Trach and others just made some REALLY bad choices.