DeeVee

That was a total retcon. He never loved Holly. It was Holly who was obsessed with him, since she was a teenager. By the time she married him, she was pretty much over it. She was in love with Ed. Yes, Peggy was Roger's one true love. I wonder if Fran had not left if these stories would have turned out much differently. The only reason they married, really, was because of Christina. Roger wanted to raise her, and since Rita had snapped up Ed, Holly felt it would be good for Christina to grow up with her real father. Very different from Maureen, much softer, I guess you could say. It's kind of miraculous how Maureen got the audience to accept her. I remember seeing her on her first episode and thinking, "Are you kidding me?" But she had great chemistry with both Mart and Michael right away. That definitely helped. She made Holly her own.

The fact that Holly had so much money was one of the reasons Roger was so ambitious and so determined to climb the ladder at Spaulding. She had helped him out with money since they were stepsiblings. She probably also toned down her lifestyle so he would feel more like the breadwinner. Today we can still see a quite a bit of the rape storyline and the aftermath, but not much that shows how conflicted and weak their marriage was, which lead up to it.

I know probably everyone thinks the cliched answer is Karen Wolek testifying on the witness stand on OLTL and revealing to everyone she was a prostitute--and it is an AMAZING scene--but there's another big moment during that trial that beats it by a hair. The trial was about the murder of Marco Dane (Gerald Anthony). So we all saw the dead body. But this is a soap opera, right? The reveal they did here was absolutely brilliant. They just showed the courtroom, they weren't really focusing on anyone in particular, when a man walks in and simply takes a seat. My sister and I were watching this together. We looked at each other, because the guy looked familiar but we couldn't place him. See, Marco Dane had a beard and dressed kind of like a punk. This guy was clean-shaven and was wearing a suit. Little by little, it dawned on us who it was, even though he was just sitting in the courtroom as if he was an anonymous spectator. We started screaming at the TV and each other, "It's Gerald Anthony, it's Gerald Anthony!" Of course, at THIS point, they explained this was Marco's twin, Mario Dane, and for quite some time the audience accepted it--until there was ANOTHER great iconic scene. Karen had been raped by her brother-in-law Brad Vernon, "Mario" figured it out, and he harangued Karen until she admitted it. Then she--and the audience--realizes he's not Mario, he's actually MARCO. The thing that's so great about all of this is you could NEVER get away with these kinds of reveals today because of the internet. From beginning to end, what a great storyline. Sigh. Miss those days a lot.

Damn, yeah, he ruins everything. Revised: IF they had had a decent Alan recast, then I would have liked to see a Holly and Alan pairing. (There are so many characters who slept their ways through entire families, I don't think one more is a big deal).

"a tycoon nobody likes with three wives, a bad reputation, and a ruthless nature." First thing I thought--that could be a description of Alan! Maybe he was Alan's prototype. That description of her father explains a lot about how Holly was when she was young. (I'm going to say it again: I don't understand why it never occurred to anyone over the years to pair her with Alan. Because she sure as heck must have had a ton of daddy issues. Why wouldn't she be attracted to a man like her father?)

It's a shame because the gown and cape are quite nice. But they couldn't stop there. It was the 80s. 😂

I looked up some dates: Will started June 1987. Sonni started July 1987. It says in Wikipedia that Long returned July 1987, but they were still crediting the previous writers in the very few July episodes that I could find. By August, she is credited as head writer. So it seems like it was the previous writers who invented Will and Sonni. Sonni was in SF for a little while before she and Josh "remarried." It had to be autumn, because they got married outside and Josh gave Sonni a beautiful white fur cape to wear for the ceremony. I found a picture, in fact:

The reason this storyline jumped the trolley HAD to be because of the strike. Long was not prone to writing overly-convoluted mystery plots. Even if you didn't care much for her mystery stories, they were pretty straight-forward and understandable. That's true of both the Fishing Trip Mystery and the Barbados Mystery. I'm not even sure that Long created the characters of Sonni and Will. I think Will came on before she returned, maybe Sonni, too? Will and Josh must have talked about her, at least. I believe Long came back just after Josh dumped Reva over Mara's paternity. Literally one of the first things she did when she came back was put Reva in her red dress and cause a scene at the country club, where she caught Alan's attention. So she inherites this story, and then there's a long writers strike. I'm not even sure Will and Sonni were intended to be these dark, almost twisted characters in the beginning. Then when the scabs came in there was so much wacky stuff: Will and Sonni having this weird, sadistic relationship, plotting to kill Josh while Sonni was still jealous of Reva (because, of course), Will once being a priest, Sonni (or was it Solita?) being a porn star in Argentina. Sonni fell off the cliff, no, Solita fell off the cliff, no, Solita was impersonating Sonni, Sonni was caught in bed with Will and whipped almost to death by her father, no, it was Solita, who ended up hanging herself, then Sonni took over Solita's persona, blah, blah, blah... It was pretty insane, and totally not the kind of mystery story Long had written before. As crazy as the story was, the audience did like Forbes and Breen, so Long had to figure out ways to keep them on the show, at least until their contracts ran out. I can't envy her coming back from the strike, because she had to put out a bunch of fires: Bernau was gone, she had to fix the Sonni story, she was told to bring Roger Thorpe back from the dead, which changed whatever direction she originally intended for Blake, etc, etc.

Don't forget, Bev and Marj were playing Alex in two very different decades. The 90s calmed down fashion, even for rich ladies. When they put Bev in that Pepto Bismol pink that was so popular back then I wanted to hurl. Totally wrong for her age, coloring, height...ugh.

Honestly, I can't stand either Rebel Without a Cause or East of Eden, though he is quite fantastic in both. The only reason to see them at this point in time (IMO) is simply to see all of his performances and sigh over what might have been if he hadn't died. I agree about Liz. She was criminally underrated as an actress. I have always loved her work. When she had a good role, she could play the heck out of it. That was one of her iconic performances. I'm certain Miss Ellie on Dallas was based on Leslie in Giant. There was no internet, so stuff didn't get saved forever until much later. Which is likely another reason they did it. Not every soap viewer read every line of every soap mag, so it still would have been a surprise to a big portion of the audience.

Don't forget every James Dean and young Marlon Brando movie for the Lujack storyline. The GWTW obsession was a little much for me. I wonder if Robert Newman hadn't left if we would have found out that Josh actually was more love with a male school friend than with Reva in their Cat on a Hot Tin Roof replay. (Actually, that might have been interesting, LOL). What's gagging me the most about that article is how she came to New York to become an actress in 1980, accomplished that with a major role on a soap, and by 1982 was head writing soap operas! Replacing some of the best in the business at the time! WTF. (There HAS to be some tea about THAT). Yeah, I know Texas was already on its last legs when she wrote it and she had a co-head writer in the beginning at GL. But this isn't like, say, Harding Lemay being plucked from playwriting to write a soap. As far I know, she had zero writing experience before writing Texas. Also, talking about writing from character, the Dreaming Death storyline had nothing at all to do with the characters, it was totally plot-driven nonsense. But I've always assumed it was nonsense she was commanded to write so they could compete with GH. I give her a lot of credit for the good things she did with GL, and soaps probably should have given more newbie soap writers chances, but her backstory for how she got into writing soaps is still wild. Oh, yeah, we knew she was coming and we knew she would be Alan's sister. They made a big thing out of it. I think they did that to get the audience 1) excited about Bev coming on the show and 2) used to the idea that Alan had a sudden sister. It worked.

Come on someone, SPILL THE TEA! 😂

Wow, I had no idea! What a shame (since that TV show flopped, IIRC). I'd always heard he was very upset about being fired, but by 1990 Kobe was gone and he must have been more open to the idea of coming back for a while. It wasn't that Pennock was bland, he just was the wrong type to play Justin. Although Justin was always successful with the ladies, he had a definite intellectual vibe. Pennock kind of looked like an aging surfer dude at this point in his life. Maybe they were trying to make him look more like he could be GA's father?

Yes, I remember thinking at the time, "Now, THAT"S Roger Thorpe's daughter." It's a shame that they didn't build on that.

I hate how they muted Blake's character. Once she was so capable and manipulative she could have Phillip involuntarily committed to the loony bin without breaking a sweat. Now she can't even pick up the phone and call a plumber.

I can't even begin to imagine her in either role. She seems all wrong for both roles, unless they would have changed the characters to suit her better. Jada Rowland was too old to play Faith. Nancy Barrett did not fit the role, either. I could see Kathryn Breech as Faith, though. Ironically, she was replaced by the incredible Judith Light on OLTL, so maybe she should have gotten over her aversion to being a recast. 😂

Yes, it is very strange that they completely dropped a legacy character and she was never seen again. She might have been mentioned, but it became like she never existed. And they didn't have the excuse of her having a rapidly SORASed child, like they did with Hope. They put a lot into the Dylan/Samantha pairing . It just never took off. They were the nice intellectual girl in love with the blue collar bad boy trope but they never clicked with the audience. I think they were hoping they'd be another Phillip/Beth pairing, or more accurately, Lujack/Beth, in popularity. To show how much the show had invested in these characters: they was an article in TV Guide about casting Samantha. That's not something you saw much outside of soap magazines. I always got the impression that Morgan Englund, who played Dylan, felt like he should have broken out and become a star on the show. Maybe that's mostly ego, but they immediately connected him to two major characters: Reva, by making him her son, and to Harley, by making him the father of her daughter. You do that with the anticipation that this character is going to be a big deal on the show. (Nowadays he speaks very positively about his GL experience). As for Justin, they tried recasting him but it was another flop. I adored Christopher Pennock when he was on Dark Shadows, but he was not the right actor to play Justin. Tom O'Rourke, the original Justin, probably would have never come back. He was furious when they fired him. Unfortunately, Douglas Marland never understood the character of Jackie at all, pretty much destroyed the character, and then killed her off before they ever did the reveal about Phillip's parentage. By the time her daughter arrived in SF, Samantha may as well have sprung from Justin's head.

Thanks for posting this, @TheyStartedOnSoaps! Love how Zaslow was giving out BIG SPOILERS. Maybe they didn't mind that in Italy. Interesting that he mentioned Marj joining the show. Now that we know Bev didn't like him, maybe he was glad Marj was coming on board.

Roger singing on GL must have been before my time, but I do know Michael was a very good singer. I saw him in a musical called Onward Victoria not long after he left GL in 1980. There is a clip of the show with him in it on YT, but unfortunately, he's not the one singing in that scene. ☹️ As far as I can remember, Roger was an only child. But who knows, they may have mentioned siblings early on and it just got forgotten over the years.

New season premieres July 3! YAY! I read the omnibus (a compilation of several novellas) that's under the title Wool years ago--it's really a superb adaptation. I just finished a French series on HBO MAX called "Seduction." It's a retelling of Dangerous Liaisons, starting with how Valmont and the young woman who becomes the Marquise de Merteuil first meet. I liked it much more than I expected.

IMO, Alex was introduced as a replacement for Alan, because Bernau was about to exit the show for the first time. In order to keep the Spaulding family in the forefront, Long needed a family head. Unlike the failed attempt to create a new branch of the Bauer family, this worked for a few reasons: Bev. She was part of the main branch of the Spaulding family. They came up with a credible backstory that explained why she wasn't mentioned before. They gave her some strong initial storylines: pushing her brother out of Spaulding, and her search for her son.

Let me try and untangle it for you, because it's a tad messy: When Alan, Elizabeth, and Phillip were introduced by the Dobsons, Alan was from Chicago. They lived with Jackie while Alan kept pushing Elizabeth to find them a house. No mention of Alan having any previous connection to Springfield. He chose Springfield as a good place for business development (I think Jackie recommended it to him so she could be close to Phillip). He did this a lot. Elizabeth mentions they moved around many times for this reason since they were married. When they found a house of their own, they ended up living next door to Ed and Rita. If you think about it, it was a little odd that Ed and Rita could afford to live next door to the Spaulding mansion. In the beginning it was just a big house in an upscale neighborhood. Making it more believable that Ed would end up living next door to the Spauldings. Marland added a little bit to Alan's backstory when he came in. Marland made Henry Alan's business mentor when he was a young man--in Chicago. Henry also knew Lucille Wexler and knew Lucille had been Brandon's mistress. The implication was Alan spent much of his youth in Chicago, although Brandon had connections to people in SF. Pam Long came in and once again retooled the Spaulding family history. She invented a never-before-mentioned sister, Alex. She wrote storylines (The Fishing Trip Mystery and The Barbados Storyline) that included backstory where the Spauldings were a prominent family in Springfield going back at first to the 1960s, and then back to the 1940s, with implications that the family history in SF went back even further. She created Founders Day. That was the day Alan was born--in Springfield, not Chicago. Alex and Alan talked about their childhood as if they had always lived in SF and the mansion. It was really Long who established the Spauldings as a family that had history in SF going back a few generations. From then on, that's how most of the subsequent writers treated them. That's the evolution of the Spaulding family history on GL. Was Alan a playboy? Well, no, at least not when we first meet him because he was already married, but he was a notorious womanizer. Elizabeth claimed he cheated on her during their honeymoon. Did he have daddy issues? Oh, YEAH. The backstory goes that he took Spaulding away from Brandon in revenge because he was such a terrible father. Alan talks to Hope about this when they're on the island, saying he was determined to be a better father than Brandon was to him. He dumped Brandon in a nursing home and refused to see him, even when they told him he was probably dying. Long extrapolated on that, creating more specific details of how he treated his children horribly, i.e. he paid off Alex's lover to take their son away from her. When I said he was like Jack, I don't mean specific relationships or story beats. But they had some similar qualities--both liked to chase women, both were manipulative and ambitious, both had complicated relationships with a sibling and with their father. As far as business, Alan resembled Victor Newman more than Jack, who was often on the losing end of business fights.

I don't think that DP being brought in to write out the character was the original plan. He was definitely a temporary hire. They went to Zaslow and offered him the role of Alan. He refused (because it was a STUPID idea) and instead he offered to come back as Roger. If you work out the timing of Roger's return, it had to be that they asked Zaslow sometime early to mid autumn. That was only a few of months after Bernau left, even though the story in the soap mags was that Bernau was going to eventually return. So from that we can assume they started looking to permanently replace him fairly soon after he left. When Zaslow offered to come back as Roger, it was then that they made the decision to write Alan out. DP stayed way longer than they originally intended once the decision was made to bring back Roger. Otherwise, I would imagine a new, permanent Alan would have taken over early in 1990 if Zaslow had not wanted to return to the show. (YES, I agree, Alan would never have done that. But I give Long a little bit of a break because she must have had to do some really fast retooling of planned storylines to accomodate Zaslow's return).

This does not surprise me AT ALL. He was thrown into a very delicate situation, where TPTB were pretending CB was going to come back at some point. CB was very popular and people were worried about him, and even under the best of circumstances being a replacement for a popular actor is often hell. (Ask Liz Keifer about that). I read in interview with him that he was also doing Ryan's Hope at the time, at least in the beginning. That couldn't have been fun, either. Oh, I feel so bad. One of the things that bothered me about him as Alan was his accent! 😂 Poor guy.

Didn't she do it after her brain tumor was removed and she left with that doctor? I'm warming up to this idea. At first it was, nope, he doesn't physically fit the part. But he does in almost every other way. I don't think they were looking for an Alan recast yet when they brought in Buzz. Anyway, yeah, probably he would not have stuck around, no matter who they cast him as.