wonderwoman1951

sad, sad news. the morning of blake and ross’s wedding in 1994, ross and ed had a conversation — just a conversation between two old friends talking about their years of history — that i remember to this day, more than 25 years later . i cannot find it anywhere online. i’ve always suspected that it was part of the reel he submitted for his first emmy, in 1995. i remember reading somewhere that liz kiefer put together his reels. if anyone knows where it is, please post.

ahh — that would be bill bell.

just saw this: tamara tunie’’s in london playing kamala harris in a new play, 47th. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/apr/10/the-47th-review-old-vic-theatre-mike-bartlett-trumpian-satire

i was privileged (and lucky) to meet her twice — at the paley center event in 2010, and in 1996, when i was on the set covering the 40th anniversary episode. we finished the interview. but a bit later, she tracked me down to make sure she had told me about the huge crush she had on don mclaughlin when she join the show, as indeed she had.

just sat this: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bobby-rydell-teen-idol-dead-at-79_n_624cbae2e4b068157f7d6482 the music i grew up with — you can do the math.

in 1996, i looked through marland’s original longterm and can confirm that his original plan was for kelly and nola to end up together. i loved the idea and always wondered why the change — thought it might have come from p&g or cbs since nola was not the typical soap ingenue.

not quite. while their names are similar, gina belafonte is an actor (and the daughter of harry belafonte. ginia bellafante is a journalist and critic at the ny times (and time magazine before that).

nice piece in today’s ny times remembering mary ryan munisteri: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/nyregion/ryans-hope-soap-opera.html

which is exactly why bill bell insisted, and head of cbs daytime, laurie caso, agreed. then caso became ep of ‘world turns in 1988, and had to deal with the consequences.

i posted the following on the critical year discussion: “when b&b premiered in 1987, atwt moved from 1:30 to 2pm, which split the cbs lineup into the bell shows and the p&g shows— stylistically, very different shows. prior to the move, atwt’s rating was 7; three years later, it was 5.8 and continued to drop in subsequent years.” and while killing off maureen is often mentioned as the beginning of the end, when the network-owned flagship affiliate in new york city moved guiding light to 9am, cbs was certainly sending a message

atwt: when b&b premiered in 1987, atwt moved from 1:30 to 2pm, which split the cbs lineup into the bell shows and the p&g shows— stylistically, very different show. prior to the move, atwt’s rating was 7; three years later, it was 5.8 and continued to drop in subsequent years.

in her 1972 new yorker piece on soap opera, renata adler mentions a storyline from ‘the doctors’: “of an educated man so bitter that he kills himself solely to frame another man for murder.“ have no idea who the character in question is. as for claire cassen: from everything i read, she’s hit by a car after running into the street trying to apologize to her grandson, dan. near the end of her unfinished memoir, ‘all my world,’ irna philllips tells the story of her post-heart attack depression in 1960-61. she then goes into great detail about claire’s 1962 depression, noting ‘i don’t believe i realized it at the time, at least nor consciously, that i was having her go through the same kind of depression that i had experienced. i mentioned (2 pages earlier) that i had contemplated suicide but i took it a step beyond contemplation with claire. she took an overdose of sleeping pills…’’

apologies for my delayed response. i mentioned gender because it very much applied to my own situation. when i told my parents that i wanted to major in english, my father responded, ‘you’re a girl. college is a waste. you can be a secretary until you get married.’ my response: i refused to learn how to type. while jessica’s family may not have addressed gender explicitly, i do think it was an issue to some degree, particularly with her brother, lamar. re irna and her obsession with keeping actors tethered to their roles: not so much p&g’s interference (though there was plenty of that), but something the late soap journalist, robert laguardia observed: “it was quite as if for irna, oakdale was a real place — far more real than new york or chicago — and far better.” here’s a link to an article that considers irna’s emotional connection to ‘world turns: https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2013/01/vita-irna-phillips

To continue, please type the characters below: is this a joke?

there are two that come immediately to mind. unfortunately, i can’t give you specific dates, but will describe them as accurately as i can so others might help. not sure i’ve remembered all the details accurately, but i’m pretty sure i’ve got the gist right. the first is an episode of ‘all my children’ from 1997. kevin sheffield and his friend kelsey jefferson are lying outside looking at the stars and talking about life. meanwhile, palmer cortland is ripping kevin’s mother, judith, who is not taking the news of kevin’s coming out well, a new one in front of the country club crowd. can’t remember what the third thread was. amc won best writing and show that year, am i’ve always thought this was the episode they submitted. in both episodes, the plot moves not a millimeter. but the conversations between and among the characters reveal relationships and contextualize back story, which makes things easier for the blue ribbon panels who more often than not are not familiar with the show. the second is an episode of guiding light from the mid-90s. again, a lot of conversation between characters, but virtually no plot movement. my memory of this one is a little fuzzy, but i know bridget has little peter with her, and i believe is talking with roger. vanessa was somewhere in the mix, and there’s still some fall out from nadine’s effort to pass peter off as her own. oh, don’t know how i missed this. but, while i was researching dates, i found out that ben jorgenson, who played kevin, died last yeat, sadly by suicide.

and not just the intersection of race and class, but the intersection of race, class, ethnicity, and gender, as well. listening to those conversations between jessica and her father, it was my father’s voice i heard. it was as though doug marland had bugged my italian-american family’s home.

well, it wasn’t as bad as i feared. however, there were two huge missed opportunities: he never asked if she remembered kasi lemmons from when they were both on ‘world turns. and… when she talked about ‘world turns being “unique among the soaps. the culture was different. the environment was different,” the response of even a modestly competent interviewer would be something along the lines of, “really. how so?” “tell me more.” “that’s interesting. can you elaborate?”

you have to appreciate his timing…

a nytimes piece re ‘santa barbara’ in russia. it’s behind a paywall, but nonsubscribers get a few freebies/month. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/arts/design/santa-barbara-ges-2-moscow-ragnar-kjartansson.html

just saw this on the nytimes website, which is behind a paywall. but nonsubscribers get several freebies/month. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/arts/design/santa-barbara-ges-2-moscow-ragnar-kjartansson.html

sadly (mostly), way too much content out there, way too many $$$ platforms, and too few hours in the day, to even try to keep up with ‘the buzz.’

i did, and loved it; thought the performances were brilliant — not to mention the costume and hair people. not clear why you think anyone would ‘judge’ you for watching it.

sometimes my fingers get ahead of my brain. of course, what i meant to say was that in marland’s original longterm, kelly and nola wound up together.

so many thoughts about lisa brown. nola was perhaps my late mother’s all-time favorite soap character. several years after my mother died, i was doing some research at the madison archives. i cannot say how stunned i was to read in douglas marland’s original longterm for nola-kelly-morgan that his original intention was for kelly to end up with morgan. besides wondering what my mother would have thought, i would also love to know why marland decided to change course. i’ve never heard anything else about it. and i’ve always kicked myself that i didn’t make a copy because marland’s papers are no longer in the madison archives. one more thing about lisa: back in the mid-90s, executive producer laurance caso wanted to have the snyder farm burn to the ground. his plan was to give the entire family a reason to reunite and pull together, and i think, to rebuild. in any case, the story was leaked to soap opera weekly, and caso was so pissed he junked the entire story. heard from a reliable source that it was lisa, fearing the snyders were about to be written off, who leaked the story. would have loved to ask her about that.

on atwt, hilliary b smith’s first pregnancy led to margo’s affair with hal and the birth of adam, who was played as an infant by her real life son.