wonderwoman1951

this is the full listing of irna’s materials held at the wisconsin historical society. scroll down to the part 3 of the collection, box 12. pretty sure the material has not been digitized, so you’ll have to contact them for a copy — not sure of cost. https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=wiarchives;cc=wiarchives;view=text;rgn=main;didno=uw-whs-us0076an

while in her unfinished memoir, ‘all my worlds,’ irna says ‘aggie and i wrote the presentation., when i asked her about her role in the creation of the ‘worlds turns and she downplayed her input — saying that the bible and backstory were largely irna’s vision. in amw, irna described the division of labor for the first 2 years: irna was training bill bell was on gl, aggie was writing all the ‘world turns scripts, getting the breakdowns by mail, or sometimes dictated over the phone. irna goes on to say that ‘writing 5, half-hour scripts a week became increasingly difficult for agnes,’ and she and aggie ‘began to feel the strain’ of working long distance (aggie was in philadelphia, irna in chicago). so irna had bill and aggie trade places, and that aggie welcomed the opportunity to work on the 15-minute gl.

posted this on the soap opera bible page. while it’s about the creation of another world, lots of good info for ‘world turns fans. http://www.anotherworldhomepage.com/creation.htm

posted this on the soap opera bible page. putting it here as well. http://www.anotherworldhomepage.com/creation.htm

sorry— meant to post on atwt page. still, an interesting read. posted this on the soap opera bible page. while it’s about the creation of another world, lots of info re ‘world turns, as well. http://www.anotherworldhomepage.com/creation.htm

true — but ‘luke and laura’ remain the embodiment of the transformation of ‘general hospital,’ and its impact on soaps.

this 2018 post explains a lot about the creation of another world: http://www.anotherworldhomepage.com/creation.htm

wow! not surprised that marland felt that way, and might have said as much privately. kind of shocked that he told the press. although, he was fond enough of john wesley shipp that shipp’s character on ‘world turns, doug cummings, was the only character he would name after himself. (can’t remember where i read that:)

because that’s what he does, though that said, i have to say, this was one of his more revelatory interviews. i mentioned in the jfp interview thread, that like nancy, i love those conversations between characters that contextualize the relationship, but do nothing to move the plot. re maureen: amazing that almost 30 years later, there’s still so much to unpack. i loved nancy’s idea that roger should have rescued maureen, getting her off the canvas alive. great idea, but it could have been even better. i could understand why a focus group might not have found maureen a riveting character — and the fall out from ed and lillian’s affair was nothing if not riveting. but it seemed to me that rather than kill maureen, she could have turned to roger for comfort — maybe an underlying sexual tension, maybe not — either way, it would have been enough to push ed off the wagon into a bottle of scotch. that, combined with ed and maureen dealing with michelle, not to mention the emotional impact on lillian, holly, vanessa, blake… well, you get the idea. but the fact that jfp never considered anything other than killing maureen makes me think that the buzz at the time — that killing maureen freed up parker’s salary so jp had enough money to hire justin deas, who wasn’t going to come cheap (and yes, the pun was intended), was indeed the case. speaking of buzz. they talked about that famous scene of harley not finding buzz’s name on the vietnam memorial (don’t recall frank being there). i already knew from the soap media that deas was coming to gl as buzz, so i knew harley wasn’t going to find her father’s name. but , it was how i knew that took me out of the scene. had it been revealed to the audience that buzz was alive, i would have remained emotionally engaged in the scenes at the wall.

my favorite moments are two people in any gender combination, just talking. so many examples, but three that come immediately to mind: gl: ross and ed talking the morning of ross and blake’s wedding and two from ryan’s hope: maeve talking with siobhan as siobhan realizes that her husband, joe, is in the mob. and a conversation between jack and matthew pearse about pearse’s daughter, rose.

where oh where to start… there’s drw50’s observation in the doug davidson thread: “The likes of Hogan, Guza, JFP, Logan, Hinsey, etc. could never get past their inherent disdain for and shame for soaps, shame that they had to cover or work in the genre. And this shame and self-hatred helped to kill the work of generations of artists.” but it’s more than disdain and shame, not to mention contempt. so much of what jfp said to locher revealed a profound lack of understanding of why many viewers watch soaps. but, i’m only going to mention a couple. she talked about how she liked baby showers and all that, but viewers didn’t care about baby showers unless there was a bomb under the bassinet. well, no… i took ‘baby shower’ as shorthand for the one reason many viewers do watch soaps: to spend time with familiar characters over years, if not decades — characters who develop and grow a bit, who change and age — sharing scenes that don’t necessarily move the story along, but are great moments of character revelation, humor, and yes, sometimes sadness. no bombs necessary. which brings me to her comments equating ‘friends of jill’ with the late steven bochco’s fondness for finding roles for actors he’d worked with when he created new shows. again, a lack of understanding about how fundamental familiarity is to soap fans. not to say shows shouldn’t change. but change doesn’t mean refocusing the show on, for example, the rappaports on oltl, leaving fans angrily wondering what happened to the rest of the characters. who knows — she might have done well creating her own show. but to not understand how what she did differed from bochco…

amazing how, in her own words, jfp explained perfectly the whys of how she inflicted so much damage on the soaps she led, which i’ll post on the dedicated thread. so many issues have been raised on this thread, i’m having trouble keeping track of who said what where. and yet, this is what’s in the works… the tone is a bit, muscular, shall we say. https://www.tuneintomorrow.tv/ i, too, would love an comprehensive consideration of the soaps. the issue creeps into so many discussions, i thinking it might be time for a separate topic to talk about how it could happen — or not — there are a lot of obstacles.

not all together true: soap opera weekly (full disclosure: i was an occasional contributor) was the first publication to treat soaps as an industry. yes, there were the ‘beauty tips from soap stars,’ but there were also serious actor profiles (the best by laura fissinger, who had written for rolling stone), interviews with head writers and executive producers, and insightful commentary by editor-in-chief, mimi torchin (who once wrote something that so irritated ken corday that he denied access to days…). of course, after the magazine was sold (around 2000, as i recall), things devolved. but the early years, they were something.

now this is an interesting idea. i hadn’t watched ‘one life to live’ for years. but in 2008, i started hearing good stuff and finally took a look that june, and what i saw — a return to everything that had made soaps great in the past — knocked me out and i stayed until the bitter end. as i said, i hadn’t watched in a while. but, by all accounts, oltl’s renaissance began when valentini elevated ron carlivati to head writer in 2007, something may well have not happened had barbara bloom still been running abc daytime. yes, i know there were issues with brian frons, but my impression was that he was more concerned with saving ‘all my children’ and ‘general hospital’ — both of which the network considered more viable than the oltl, which some fans referred to as the network’s ‘red-headed stepchild.’ the same thing was going on at cbs, where the bloom and the network saw ‘world turns as more viable and wanted to ‘help,’ leaving gl‘s ellen wheeler largely to her own devices. irony is, of course, that the final year of gl was so much better than ‘world turns. so had valentini come to ‘world turns, it’s likely barbara bloom would have stood in the way of him working his magic.

was he there? i thought alan started at p&g in 1997. according to imdb, both melanie and mary ellen left the show in 1992. but, it is true that when actors who were on the show prior to he arrival want to let it rip, he lets them go — witness rosemary printz. came across thoughts about the roots of her feud with irna phillips — have to scroll down a bit.

Good question..not a clue for an answer. But as much crap as Goutman (rightly) gets..I don't think he was the major problem in the early years..I think MADD was more of the issue in trying to turn both GL and ATWT into ABC soaps era 1980s. i have no clue, either. and am in agreement re MADD. when she replaced ken fitts at pgp, then brought felicia minei behr to replace john valente at ‘world turns, one of minei behr’s first acts was to fire allyson rice taylor and bring on susan batten to play connor walsh. batten has played luna on one life to life. and while i had my issues with hogan schefer as headwriter, i have to give goutman credit for casting scott holryod as paul ryan. but two years later, after former abc exec, barbara bloom, replaced lucy johnson at cbs daytime, holryod is fired and roger howarth — todd on one life to live — takes over. seeing a pattern here? a friend called it ‘the abcafication of as the world turns — a situation that escalated when pgp eliminated madd’s position when she let in 2005 — leaving goutman and ellen wheeler at gl with no one to run interference with the network.

according to marland’s longterm, his original plan was to eventually bring kelly and nola together. would love to know the story behind that change.

They've been asking for her on social media i spent some time on the atwt setin the mid-90s, and got to know marie a bit. she was always up to talk with the media, so i’m surprised, and frankly, a bit concerned, that she hasn’t participated in a reunion. i hope she’s okay. at 80, she’s younger than many who have participated — hastings, hays, coaster, printz — but it’s still possible she’s just not well enough, which is likely the case with eileen fulton.

wanted to note the passing of douglas cramer. a supervising producer in the late 1950 for both ‘world turns (where he work closely with irna phillips) and gl, his is not a name familiar to a lot of soap fans, but it was he, in the early 1960s, who recognized that serials belonged on primetime as well as daytime. this is a link to his obit in the hollywood reporter also check out interview for the television academy’s oral history

wanted to note the passing of douglas cramer. a supervising producer in the late 1950 for both ‘world turns (where he work closely with irna phillips) and gl, his is not a name familiar to a lot of soap fans, but it was he, in the early 1960s, who recognized that serials belonged on primetime as well as daytime. this is a link to his obit in the hollywood reporter also check out interview for the television academy’s oral history

i remember reading somewhere that when richard culliton first pitched the character of carly to then ep, laurie caso, both saw her as the troubled girl who, down the road, could bring reva’s complexity and longevity to ‘world turns. of course, by the time carly arrived in oakdale, caso was gone, replaced by john valente, setting the stage for the show’s final decline.

file this under be careful what you wish for. 20 minutes into an hour-long interview with coster — who’s been on a dozen soaps, starting when they were live and running through web series — and we’ve heard about about how he lives on a boat and teaches scuba diving to the disabled, along with doing plays with laurence olivier and elizabeth taylor — but not ONE freaking word about soap opera. i don’t know if my blood pressure can take listening to the remaining 40 minutes.

in total agreement! there is a scene somewhere between gentry’s ed and his mother bert. watching her defend her husband to her son, who wants to hold his father accountable for his philandering is absolutely riveting. Of course, it has a lot to do with the writing: the conflicting emotions all stem from an emotionally authentic place.

alan has never been a great interviewer, which is a shame since he gets great people. i know there’s still a lot of discussion about the best ed. for me it was mart’s predecessor, robert gentry, who left gl around the same time i started college (prior to gentry assuming the part, was called billy, since he was named after his father). then there were jobs. so in those pre-vcr years, i didn’t get to see a lot of mart’s ed. i did like peter simon’s ed. fran’s peggy i remember very well. when she mentioned having a crush on don scardino (who played her first love interest, johnny fletcher), i giggled, because i, too, had a huge crush. actually got to see him on broadway — forget which show. i’m very much looking forward to hearing from nicholas coster — gl was one of the few soaps he wasn’t on. hope alan lets him talk without too many interruptions.

no need to read the old post. only mentioned it here in relation to the possible relationship with swan.