Lujack4Ever

Taking a moment to share some thoughts on some things briefly touched on in the last couple pages. First the passing of Renaud White who played William. I would say he was a fairly substantial minor character and was on at least as early as 1985. He even had a brother that found Beth's message in the bottle when she was captive on the Infinity and turned it over to William who gave it to the main characters. After the restaurant was phased out, he accidently sat in a booth already occupied by Holly and they became friends, and she hired him at WSPR. Eventually he faded out but shocked me when many years later he returned for some episodes to be the maitrede for The Towers then run by Cassie. Next Jay Hammer. Years ago one of the in charge people at the GL fan club asked me to write a retrospective on Fletcher for the fan publication The Springfield Journal. I was shocked later to get a thank you card from Jay. It never occurred to me he would read the article let alone bother to send me that card. I think that says a lot.

Yes, that could have worked. That was the approach they took with Hawk and it was much more realistic having him pop (no pun intended) in from time to time right up to the very end. I remember when they brought Bea back for a little while but they just didn't seem to want to commit to the character.

When a character loses their 'anchor' an actor/actress loses their contract. Instead of writing a character off there were times I wish GL had made the effort to develop the character further. Two examples from the '80's come to mind. I.Q aka Martin. As soon as Lujack breathed his last, I knew Jaison Walker was done in the role. To their credit they did bring him back for one episode for the funeral for the first time Beth "died" and even Philip was happy to see him. Still, it would have been great if they could have kept him around and tried to work him into the fabric of Springfield but instead, he got a recording contract for his vocal work on Out In the Streets and was gone. Then you have Miss Sally Gleason played by the awesome Patricia Barry. When both Kyle and Billy left the canvas, her days were numbered. They kill her off and assassinated Alexandra's character by having her drive Sally to a heart attack and basically does nothing to help. Losing Sally was too bad because she kind of kept Kyle alive on the canvas even being seen coming out of his hospital room after his off-camera plane crash. I remember there was one scene she was taking Mindy to the airport, and I thought that was nice that they were playing up her grandmother angle....I feel like they could have developed that and given Mindy a positive role model in her life. If she had been around, I could easily see her being suspicious of the amnesic/reformed Will Jefferies. Plus Dylan would eventually come along as another grandchild and of course Fletcher was raising her grandchild, Ben. Unfortunately, they didn't bother developing any of these ties and killed her off short sightedly.

That last guy to play Alan Michael I don't even consider him the same character....he was so far removed from Hearst's portrayal. Felt the same way about NuMallet. He felt like a completely different character. It didn't help that he came back and didn't mention Julie once. He felt like he had zero ties to anyone.

Alan Michael and Gilly had fantastic chemistry but the show was hellbent/locked into putting him with Lucy that they had to ignore this and stay on course. One of the great missed opportunities over the years.

Wow, what a Christmas gift! I've finally been able to register on a site that I have been enjoying for years! Long ago I made a promise to myself that if I ever got on the very first thing I would do is bow down to the poster called Mitch. I used to think I knew a lot about GL but after reading his posts I am John Snow knowing nothing compared to him. There is one area where we are match for match...the dislike of the character of Buzz Cooper. Not only did he suck the airtime from so many other characters but his unlikely pairings one right after another was laughable and poor Lillian ultimately getting anchored to him The one scene I always wanted to see was Springfield descending in mass on the diner for all the free meals he promised whenever he would rudely kick people out of the diner mid-meal. Anyway, I don't want my whole post to be negative. I loved this show so much and it wasn't easy. Try being a 13-year-old boy in 1981 becoming infatuated with Vanessa and Maeve Kinkaid when I saw her for the first time. She got me watching GL. Being a young male soap was challenging all through high school, college, and beyond all the way until Peapack when I could no longer have the heart to watch daily after what GL had become. The glory years for me was Lujack's two-year reign. Anyway, now that this Lujack fan is part of the community I hope someone can please answer this question that I've wondered about for years. Did Larkin Malloy voluntarily leave the show or did the producers cut him loose to rehash Josh and Reva something the show would do up until the final seconds of GUIDING LIGHT!