Nicholas Blair

Thanks, robb. I don't recall the haunted house, but wasn't watching the show much then. The big storyline at the end involved artificial insemination. Kevin (David Ackroyd) had become paralyzed, but was excited because his wife Amy (Jada may have returned by then) was pregnant. Unfortunately, Amy lost the baby. She begged her doctor, Dr. Brian Neeves (Jeff Pomerantz) to help her get artificial insemination. Without telling her, Brian used the most available donor: himself. Of course, he was also in love with Amy, much to the chagrin of his rather creepy sister Niele (Betsy von Furstenberg), who seemed unnaturally attached to her brother. Her name was pronounced Nee-ELL. The show ended happily with a no longer paralyzed Kevin making his way across the room to Amy.

I'll have to check out that YouTube channel. Now I didn't see any of that era of SFT, though I did see David Gale terrorize Nancy Karr on EON. It's great when you get to see actors before they were typecast. David Gale was totally believable as an earnest priest, just as Julia Duffy was great as a slinky young vixen on LOL. I had mentioned on another forum that Terry Kiser and Jada Rowland were one of my favorite soap couples, and someone responded with something like "Terry Kiser played a handsome romantic lead???" He had only seen Kiser playing thuggish roles in more recent movies. Until I saw some of those early episodes of TD, I would never have have imagined him playing an innocent and shy young intern. Terry Kiser could really act. Exactly! For us, seeing David Gale as a villain was something of a shock. You and I both remember the plane crash and Jill and Hugh Clayborn being killed. It made good story sense to kill off Hugh Clayborn, which would have put Ken in the middle of a triangle, but none to kill off Jill (Barbara Rodell). I don't know if this was done for the famous CBS double switch when Jada Rowland left the show, Lynne Adams came over from GL to replace her, and Barbara Rodell replaced Lynne Adams on GL. Barbara Rodell is another one who changed types. On AW, TSS, and GL she played sympathetic if emotionally fragile young women. As Joyce Colman on ATWT she got to play a troublemaker who was slightly crazy and more than a little villainous.

Laurie (Stephanie Braxton) had been married to Ken (Joel Crothers), and I don't recall how Ken exited the show. Braxton and Crothers were both excellent in a storyline about two people who really weren't in love but were trying to make the best of their marriage, with it even being possible that they might eventually fall in love. Some subtle writing and acting there. Toward the end of the SS run, a new HW dragged out the old girl-who-falls-for-a-priest storyline. David Gale played the priest, Gary Sandy was his younger brother, and Frances Sternhagen was the woman who had raised them. IIRC, Gary Sandy tries to attack Laurie; it's in a barn, so the priest grabs a pitchfork; Frances Sternhagen rushes in to try to separate the two men and accidentally gets fatally stabbed by the pitchfork. Stephanie Braxton and David Gale played this material well. I believe the couple separated at the end of the show and he went back to being a priest. They also used the priest for the old "I Confess" storyline, as handyman Riley (Joe Ponazecki), previously a good guy and a source of comic relief, kidnaps a baby (? this may not be right) and confesses to the priest, knowing the priest will be obligated not to tell. I was not too fond of the show at this time. Some of the actors who had kept me interested when I first started watching--Terry Kiser, Jada Rowland, Joel Crothers, Barbara Rodell, Judy Lewis, Linden Chiles among them--were gone. Marla Adams as Belle was still making trouble, always a good thing, and I did like new additions to the cast Bernard Barrow, Dan Hamilton, David Ackroyd, Jeff Pomerantz, and Betsy von Furstenberg.

Love all those clippings! Many thanks.

The first Viki, Gillian Spencer, did an outstanding job as Niki, who was not OTT, but a good-time blue-collar gal who fell for Vinnie Wolek (Antony Ponzini). Gillian made both upper-class Viki and lower-class Niki believable, and had chemistry with both Lee Patterson and Antony Ponzini. After Gillian left, and Joanne Dorian wasn't up to the job, I immediately liked Erika Slezak, but in her first years on the show I would always think, "But she couldn't play Niki the way Gillian Spencer did." Little did I know that playing alters is what Erika would be doing for quite a long time! Unpopular opinions: I also liked Manny on GL and thought Joy Lenz was one of the best young actresses I'd ever seen. I also liked Paul Anthony Stewart, an actor who rose above his material on both GL and Loving. The Harding Lemay era on AW was much overrated. Worst of all, I actually like Amelia Heinle on Y&R, but then I saw almost nothing of the other Victorias.

I can see Judy Lewis as Nicole. Susan Sullivan would have been a great Nicole recast.

That would have worked for me, too, though I didn't see much of RH in those days. By the way, I thought Mary Carney was improving as Mary just before they dropped her, and the subsequent Mary recasts were not as good.

Thanks for remembering Paulette Breen. She was a fine young vixen! Lots of good suggestions from everyone. Lisa Cameron (Susan Shearer on AW, Peggy Reagan on ATWT) would have made a fine replacement for Susan Flannery as Laura on DOOL. Gregory Abels (Michael Hathaway on WTHI) would have been an excellent Tom Hughes on ATWT. We had to put up with C. David Colson instead? (Sorry, CDC fans!) Had AW brought back Missy Matthews, Andrea Marcovicci (Dr. Betsy Chernak, LIAMST) would have been a good choice. When AW recast Rachel, they chose an established star, Victoria Wyndham. Instead of going with the unknown Susan Harney as the recast Alice, what if they had chosen a non-blonde proven star? Jada Rowland (Amy, SS; Carolee, TD) immediately comes to mind, as do Sally Stark (Kate, LOL), Andrea Marcovicci, and perhaps even Delphi Harrington (Christine, WTHI). Ron Tomme (Bruce, LOL) and Mart Hulswit (Ed Bauer, GL) would have been good recasts for Robert Delaney on AW, and for Lenore Delaney I would be happy to have Caroline McWilliams (Janet Mason Norris, GL), Delphi Harrington, or Sally Stark. Julia Duffy (Gerry Braylee, LOL) would have been a better Marianne Matthews on AW than any of the several who played the role.

Not having seen the earlier years, I was startled to read in the recaps that Loretta Jardin may have been, at least originally, somewhat mentally challenged. I had the vague impression that she was one of Julian's colleagues at the university, although this may have been an unwarranted assumption. As played by Alice Drummond during the last year, Loretta was quiet, intelligent, and kindly. As RH fans know, Alice Drummond played Susie, the wife of the guy on the cruise who blackmailed Delia into having sex with him because he knew she was faking her injury. This hilarious performance undoubtedly helped her get the opportunity to play other blue-collar New Yorkers, as in HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT and an even larger role in AWAKENINGS. But I'm sorry I didn't get to see Alice play more characters as bright and interesting as she undoubtedly was in real life.

Ain't that the truth! An audience these days will laugh even harder at the lines about CATS.

That's a beautiful description of the difference between the two. The de-aging was jarring, and saying that she went from being a contemporary of Nancy to being a contemporary of April sums it up so well. Maeve has a small but significant role in SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION, where she and her husband are friends of Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland, all of them taken in by the Will Smith character. That character is Maeve's Nicole grown a little older, with all the favorable aspects of being a sophisticated New Yorker.

I missed the climax of the big storyline about Christine (Delphi Harrington) being stalked by someone who felt she ought to be punished because she was an unwed mother. The viewers knew fairly early on that the stalker was Will Watts, a rather mousy middle-aged man played by Robert Symonds. I believe I saw the episode where Will Watts had broken into Christine's house. Then a couple of days later there was an almost offhand reference to "that maniac that Chris killed." There were few if any flashbacks in those days. Of course Chris had a great deal of trauma from the event, and that fueled the next big plot, the custody for Chris' little girl which had been fathered by Hugh Jessup (David Cryer).

Joseph, I thought Maeve McGuire was wonderful as Nicole: smart, sophisticated, chic, warm. She had great chemistry with Donald May, Ann Flood, and all the other characters. I didn't see that much of Jayne Bentzen, who was only sort of OK to me after Maeve.

I remember reading somewhere that OLTL had two actresses (I think specifically actresses, rather than two stars, but maybe not) who wanted very much for the other one to be axed, but the show needed both, so that one would work with a group of actors in the morning and the other in the afternoon and they didn't have to work together. Does this ring any bells? I wondered if this would be Erika Slezak and Judith Light, both necessary to the show at this time. And Paul, I totally agree that poor Larry should have known to avoid women named Karen! The first Karen Wolek was disastrous enough.

I didn't know that Dorothy Blackburn ever played Alma. A good role for her, though I adored Ethel Remey. Dorothy Blackburn had the important continuing role of Louella on AW, whose testimony placed Liz Matthews on the scene for the murder of Wayne Addison and thus creating enough doubt for the jury to acquit Lenore.

I saw the last year or so of WTHI when Labine & Mayer were writing it, and it is one of my favorite soap viewing experiences ever. However appropriate the Love of Life-like title once may have been, it couldn't have been more wrong in tone for the sophisticated storytelling of Labine & Mayer. Tracy Brooks Swope was great, one of my all-time favorites, and I kept waiting for her to turn up on another show--RH, maybe. Liz Rainey at first seemed like a good girlfriend for the nice Michael Hathaway (the excellent Gregory Abels) and then little by little seemed more and more off until she became a seriously disturbed person. Very good writing and acting to match. Why Gregory Abels was never chosen as one of the many Tom Hughes recasts on ATWT remains a mystery to me. Louise Shaffer, smart and funny, was just wonderful, all that a sympathetic semi-villain should be. I was not a big fan of David Cryer as Hugh Jessup (OK, but a bland villain) and, having seen Joel Crothers as the villainous Lt. Nathan Forbes on DS, had the fantasy of Joel Crothers and Louise Shaffer as a trouble-making couple. I was also not a fan of Peter McLean, ditto on SS, and ditto when they briefly brought him onto Somerset. An OK actor, but not to my mind a romantic lead, especially for younger women like Delphi Harrington or (on SS) Barbara Rodell. I'm sorry the lovely, raven-tressed, and very talented Delphi Harrington never got another romantic lead on a soap, although she did get some character parts. As the pregnant Christine she was the main sympathetic female character for the last year. Despo had a good turn as Christine's aunt who had come from Greece to look after her. I think Despo had come to the US to play in the musical ZORBA! I did not see much of the Kate/Steve storyline, but Diana van der Vlis was certainly a fine actress. James Mitchell was as solid as you would expect, and Priscilla Pointer was always interesting as the therapist who seemed sympathetic at first but then with layers of manipulation. As a DS fan I knew Lisa Richards, who was fine, although the notion of a dangerous crazy lady coming back all cured did not ring true.

Thanks for posting this! I did not know that VW originally turned down the role of Rachel.

You're most welcome. I love the work you're doing with the character and actor lists, the ratings, etc. An added note about Julia Duffy: She used her own voice for Gerry (or perhaps lowered it a tad), a very nice alto, not the higher-pitched tone she adopted to make herself sound young enough to play Penny. She also had convincing sex appeal as Gerry, although in a slightly trashy way, as appropriate for the character. A side note: would you believe that some soap actors had listed numbers in the phone book? A friend of mine called Jonathan Moore (Charles Lamont), and even more incredibly, William Gray Espy in the first year or so of Y&R. I'm not sure what they talked about, though I vaguely recall that this friend (a straight man, by the way) talked with Espy about how it could be demanding to work with Trish Stewart.

If you happened to see Julia Duffy as Gerry Braylee on LOL (c. 1972), you would have expected a different kind of career for her. For several months one storyline concerned four teenagers: innocent Stacy Corby, played by Cindy Grover (was Stacy the daughter of one of Van's former husbands? Van once described Stacy as her ward); nice boyfriend Josh (Brian Brownlee); bad boy Todd (Rod Gibbons); and bad girl Gerry. Gerry was the tough, streetwise, old for her years daughter of a trailer trash mother (Rue McClanahan, as a day player) who watched roller derby as Van told her she was concerned about her ward. Mom, yelling things like "Stop her, Donna Jean!", thought Van was talking about a boy named Ward and advised Van to tell Ward to stay away from Gerry. All four young actors were competent. Brian Brownlee was rather like the young Kevin Bacon on GL; oddly, this was his only credit. He would have been good for any lost, sensitive young man roles. Julia Duffy was a predatory young vixen in training, seemingly ready to follow in the footsteps of Robin Strasser's Rachel and Susan Lucci's Erica. Two rather disturbing scenes in this story: the four youngsters got high on drugs and trashed a house. In another scene, Todd and Gerry blackmailed Josh into doing something (don't recall what) with the threat of Gerry saying that Josh had raped her. I don't know if she had let him have sex with her or if this was a complete fabrication. So it was unexpected when Julia next surfaced on TD, as Penny, the bratty, whiny, spoiled daughter of Althea (Ellizabeth Hubbard). Essentially she would play some comic variation of this role for years. Penny did eventually mature some on TD, with a marriage to the oldest Dancy brother (Jonathan Hogan) in a relationship rather like Kelly and Morgan on GL would have in a few years to come.

Amen! This was a high standard for any show.

I apologize if someone else has corrected this long-standing error, but the name of the character played by JoBeth Williams was Brandy Shillitoe, a name possibly inspired by the British novelist Alan Sillitoe. Somehow this name was printed somewhere as Brandy Shillooe, and the error has been picked up in other publications, including a book on GL. Robert LaGuardia's THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF TV SOAP OPERAS was either the source of the mistake or perpetuated the mistake. By the way, LaGuardia's book is now selling for $768. Wonder if I still have my old copy?

Thanks. That explains the drop in quality!

I saw both L&F and FRFP when they were on. Clearly Amy was originally intended to be the bad girl (the Rachel or Erica Kane) trying to come between Austin and his true love, Laurie. However, Christine Jones and Rod Arrants had so much chemistry, and Christine was just so much more interesting than her counterpart, that there was a quick switch, and Austin and Amy were now the couple to root for. Rod Arrants clearly had what it took to be a TV star, and Richard Backus was an excellent villain. Christine Jones had star quality, too. She was a great substitute for Erika Slezak briefly on OLTL and she played the evil Janice Frame on AW, Victoria Thompson having begun as the nicer Janice. I was also a fan of David Abbott, the youngest brother Bentley Saxon, a short, funny, cute guy who didn't get a whole lot of story time. According to imdb, he is now known as Abbott Alexander, an actor and casting director.

Thank you to everyone researching and archiving these topics. Does anyone know what happened to Brian Farrell, who played David Hart on LOL in 1975? His acting credits extend only to 1986, per imdb, which suggests he either got out of the business, or, like so many, succumbed to AIDS. He was a good young actor who played the son of the evil mayor (Charles Baxter). He was part of a young love storyline with Deborah Courtney as his screen partner, but his evil dad tried to rape her (of course) and he had to shoot his dad (of course) and went crazy (of course). I believe this era of LOL, which brought back the character of Meg (played by Tudi Wiggins), as well as bringing in the mayor and his son, began well with Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer as HWs, but went downhill after they left, though I'm not sure exactly when that was. Was Gabrielle Upton the HW who made Arlene (Birgitta Tolksdorff), acceptable as a minor character, and Lloyd Battista, enjoyable as a thuggish type, into the romantic leads of the show, which turned into The Perils of Arlene? This was so dreadful that I stopped watching.

Asa Buchanan was the J.R. Ewing of OLTL. This was one of the more obvious copyings, especially for a show that had been very much urban Northeastern.