wonderwoman1951
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Everything posted by wonderwoman1951
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came across this interesting about the seriality of ‘family.’ https://www.wattpad.com/843593336-beyond-seriality
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oh yes! he started at atwt in february 1995. in may laurie caso was replaced by john valente. would love to hear what that was like.
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don’t know that scott was trying to dictate story — just observing what many fans (myself included) felt. as for actors bring story ideas to writers, it can go either way. actors do know their characters best, and it behooves headwriters to at least listen to actors’ thoughts, especially when it comes to character and story continuity. ‘world turns actors used to complain that they brought doug marland a story idea for their characters, he would use it, but for another character — something i can confirm from first hand experience when a story i suggested for margo and tom went to ellie and kirk. you are not. i noticed it, as have a few people who mentioned it to me.
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and then there’s the barbara bloom factor, who arrived at cbs daytime in 2003 and escalated the ‘abcification’ that madd had begun. i’ve heard from a couple of insiders her arrival coincided with goutman’s decline. and, not for nothing, it’s worth noting that both scott and martha were replaced my abc daytime actors. as for eileen, i agree. she always saw herself as the ‘world turn’s star, even after her star had faded. her marriages all ended in divorce, she had no children. it seems as though her life is made up of ‘world turns and her cabaret act, along with her dogs, which is kind of sad.
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interestingly, in early 1966, just a few months after irna’s appearance on kup’s show, billy dee williams began on ‘guiding light’ as dr. jim fraizer, and james earl jones joined the cast of ‘as the world turns’ as dr. jerry turner. jones left after a few months, according to helen wagner, to workshop ‘the great white hope’ at the arena stage in washington, dc. atwt did not recast the role of jerry turner. when jones returned to ny later in 1966, he replaced williams at gl, and played the role until returning to washington for ‘hope’s opening in december, 1967. regarding p&g’s position on integrating their soaps: the story surrounding the first african-american actor signed to a contract, rex ingram, is revelatory. in august 1962, ‘the brighter day’ (created by irna phillips) signed ingram to a contract role. a year earlier, p&g had turned over production of ‘brighter day to cbs. production of the show moved from new york to los angeles. several actors chose not to move; characters and stories were dropped and so did the ratings. eventually, not too long before signing ingram, ‘brighter day was moved from it’s late afternoon time slot to the morning, and the show lost half its audience and cbs cancelled it a couple of weeks after ingram premiered. what’s significant here is that it was cbs, not p&g, that decided to integrate the show, which explains a lot about why irna was aiming at p&g, but not cbs.
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re irna’s daughter and kathryn hays, that’s a coincidence. however, given what irna told the late robert laguardia about the character of kim, she certainly saw something in the actress that she saw in her self; or far more likely, wished she could have seen in herself. Kim Reynolds is really me, at a much younger age. She's fiercely independent, as I was, and she won't settle for second best. She looks in the mirror and refers to herself as "lady in the mirror." Well, that was her other self, which no one knew about: the true me, the person I always hid from the world. She's having a child out of wedlock, which will only be hers. I adopted two children – Kathy and Tommy – without a husband. We're both the same. And she's going to have that child to prove that a woman can do it alone.
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while irna doesn’t mention it in her unfinished memoir, ‘all my worlds, it certainly seems likely. tom hughes was born in 1961, when irna’s son was 20. what’s even more interesting is another character irna named tom. ‘another world’s’ tom baxter, who would impregnate pat matthews. after a botched abortion that left her sterile, pat shot and killed tom. in all my worlds irna tells an affair with a doctor that left her pregnant — a pregnancy that ended with the baby dying in childbirth and irna sterile. reading tom baxter’s character description in the aw bible, then irna’s description of the doctor who ‘left me with next to nothing,’ the connection is hard to miss. in the memoir, irna is candid about her difficult relationship with both of her adopted children, so you have to ask: how her relationship with her son changed between 1961, when tom hughes was born, and 1963-64, when irna was creating ‘another world.’
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pretty sure headwriters getting royalties for characters is an urban legend. i’ve posed the questions to several headwriters over the years, all of whom said they didn’t. but she’s certainly right about the the exodus of actors after john (the hatchet man) valente replaced laurie caso
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lynne adams was on secret storm in the early ‘70s
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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
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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.
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true — but ‘luke and laura’ remain the embodiment of the transformation of ‘general hospital,’ and its impact on soaps.
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this 2018 post explains a lot about the creation of another world: http://www.anotherworldhomepage.com/creation.htm
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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:)
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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.
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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.
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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…
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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.
