wonderwoman1951

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.

i know her father, hodding carter, worked in the carter administration, i don’t believe the two families were related — at least a google search didn’t turn up anything. this is the first i’ve heard anything about michael swan and finn carter, though certainly stranger political couplings have occurred. surprised that no ones’s mentioned that her first marriage was to steven weber (kevin gibson), whom she met when both were on atwt.

and the daughter of frances heflin, who played erika kane’s mother, mona, on all my children.

And terrible writing in the last ten-twelve years of the show. Also, P&G didn't want to produce daytime serials anymore. GL had been cancelled the previous year-- before ATWT, AW, a decade earlier. re the time switch: the year preceding year, atwt was at 7.0; the next year it was 6.6and continued to drop until its cancellation. you’re not wrong about p&g, but there’s plenty of blame to lay at the feet of cbs. the decline in writing really began after the 1995 exec producer shuffle instigated by cbs daytime vp, lucy johnson, who, according to the la times, ‘motivated’ p&g by threatened to replace gl with a new bell soap. with laurie caso out and john valente in, cbs president, les moonves, then foisted the writing team of black and stern on atwt with disastrous results. it was all downhill from there.

ATWT was moved to 2pm (EST) because Bill Bell wanted his own block with B&B following Y&R. And while it may seemed “mor organic” to have the P&G shows together, the reality is that ATWT’s ratings took a hit from which they never fully recovered. In retrospect, moving the time slot was the beginning of the end.