DeeVee

Thanks so much for sharing this. Fascinating to read the thoughts of someone who worked BTS and went through so many of the upheavals (and backbiting). Interesting to me was how Kate Mulgrew's aura kind of lingered in the air of the show after she left. Especially since she seems not to care much for that part of her career. I've heard her be rather dismissive of it in interviews. She mostly concentrated on what happened when she got pregnant while doing the show in her memoir. I don't recall her talking much in the book about anyone from the show other than her two close personal friends, Claire Labine and Nancy Addison. Possibly this helps to explain why they did such a bad job finding a replacement for her. If you think she's the greatest thing, ever, then you're setting yourself up for failure when you believe no one else can be as good as she was. (And no wonder she was disliked. If TPTB are telling a 20 year old all the time she's hot sh!t, not only is that going to cause a problem with the rest of the cast and crew, she's going to start believing it, too). Don't get me wrong, I was a big fan back then, but I also really loved the character and never quite accepted the idea that they had no choice but to kill her off. This happened with many soaps at the time. They were chasing GH's popularity. A lot of very young, very green actors were put front and center.

I've often wondered this, too. Never happened with Alan Michael, either. Possibly because of absent core family members? With Alan Michael, they also burned through the character really fast. He was married 4 times by the time he left town. He beat Ross Geller on the divorce meter, LOL.

That's exactly how I remember it. I'm pretty sure they were introduced at the same time, and in this exact dramatic way. Could not agree with this more! He was not good. I suppose he was meant to be a broody hero, but he just seemed to be in a snit all the time. And IIRC, Englund complained that GL did not treat him well. Dude, you're lucky you had that job as long as you did. Not just a bad storyline, it was a dangerous one. Implying that he was cured by prayer or God or whatever was INCREDIBLY irresponsible. To this day, I can't believe CBS and P&G signed off on that story.

I always got the impression that Harley was meant to be a mini-Reva. Desperate to escape her origins, money crazy, eager to climb the social ladder. I remember when she signed the adoption papers for Daisy, she told the Lemays her name was "Fallon," who was a character on Dynasty. The parallels are even more clear when Dylan is introduced, who obviously was supposed to be her "Josh," (he was even a Lewis) though that never actually worked out the way Reva and Josh did. I don't think there was ever a big Harley/Dylan fan base.

I don't think so. It wouldn't be the first time an actor has been misquoted in an interview. Though it also wouldn't be the first time a soap actor remembered a storyline incorrectly.

Thank you both so much for this info--it's SO appreciated!

Ugh. There were so many writers who did not understand these characters at all. I wish they had done a lot more with Henry as Alan and Alex's surrogate parent. Today I was watching an episode with Vanessa and Alan arguing about how he treated her father in a business deal. Alan is protesting "she doesn't really know him." WTF. They've known each other FOR YEARS. They've been friends and business associates for ages (during her younger slutty days, Vanessa would vamp him a little just for the hell of it, much to Hope's chagrin). He even asked her to marry him once! Yet they're treating them like they're virtual strangers. It's such a no-brainer, isn't it? I wasn't a big Don Stewart fan, but he and Bev had a nice spark. If he didn't want to come back, I'm sure they could have found someone good to replace him. (Plus, they needed another lawyer in town. One minute Ross is D.A., then he's a defense attorney...they needed more than one). I have now. Thank you!

On AW and Texas they put her with some nice leading men (including the incredible Donald May). But Iris was very different from Alex. Really, her leading man always was Doug Watson. She loved Daddy more than any other man. I guess that was kind of true on GL, too. Her best leading man was Alan (at least as long as Bernau played the part). Only without the weird incest vibe.

I've said it before: they did Bev dirty. Never a real, sustained romance for Alex (unless you count Roger, but, you know...) with any chance of the audience being truly invested. Everything in her life is a tragedy. She finds her kid, he dies. She finds her other kid, he leaves. She finds an old love, he dies. Putting her with HB was an awful idea that thank goodness doesn't last very long. You're welcome!

He had GL, ATWT, SFT, Capitol, Loving/The City. Maybe also AMC and OLTL? It's hard to remember. I was there mostly for GL and ATWT. Yeah, this is not a good period of GL. 😂 The art theft story is the worst. I get that they're trying to do an umbrella story, but there are zero personal stakes (unless you care about Johnny Bauer saving his shapely ass, which I do not). Was this when KZ went to Hollywood? Her scenes seem pre-taped.

Spauldingfield skipped uploading one day and I was discombobulated the whole day. I need my GL hit! 😩

Spauldingfield YT channel has been posting episodes almost every day for the past few months. They're up to 1987 episodes now. Get over there while you still can. 😥

Cool! Thank you!

So that's Jim Muneco and Blake Marler down within a few weeks. 😭 If they take down Spauldingfield, I will scream. They have stuff that's been on there for almost 20 years, what's the deal? If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would be speculating CBS/P&G are getting ready to either put out more DVDs or are planning a streaming network like SoapNet. We couldn't be THAT lucky, right? Oooh, I'd love to see those. Can you link, or is it private?

LOL, I'm not the only one who noticed that! Mara, Marina, Michelle...like it was coordinated! I've only seen that storyline in bits and pieces. Always wanted to see the flashbacks just to see the actors they picked as their younger versions but still haven't found them.

How lovely! I watched them when they acted together on SFT back in the 70s. So nice to know they are still together.

One of the many, many problems with Mo's death was how there were no other Reardons on the canvas except for the pregnant Bridget who was being hidden by Nadine. Like Bert's memorial, her funeral was a joke. (I think they mention the Reardons all came back and had a separate wake but no one sees it). True, it would have been difficult to get the actors to come back just for that, but YES, when Nola came back they absolutely needed to have her say all the things that needed to be said when it first happened. Finding the letter would have been an amazing scene.

Almost instantly she emailed me back & shared with me that the line she wrote actually was Interesting! (Parker's version is better, LOL). Would you happen to know if Peter and Courtney were still married at the time? It would seem to me JUST a tad awkward if she was writing a breakup scene for him of this magnitude if they were no longer together.

My only objection to this would be Amanda marrying Ed...at least if Ed was still portrayed by Peter Simon. I can't see Cullen and Simon having chemistry. In theory, it's a GREAT idea because Ed and the Bauers are Alan's enemies. If we're shaking up the show, then an Ed recast could have been in order. Before she exited in 1983, Cullen had a couple of scenes with Jordan Clarke. I detected some sparks between the two of them. If Billy was around at this time, that could have been another option, with Amanda captured by the Lewises. (Josh was her partner at LTA, so she's already connected to them through that old friendship). That would also be a problem for the returning Alan. (After I posted this, I looked up Jordan Clarke's time on GL and he was NOT around in 1994, so there goes that idea out the window, LOL). I've always been a proponent of bringing Rita back. With Roger and Holly on the canvas, Alan and possibly Hope returning, she could have shaken a lot of things up.

Um... you know, I like Susan, but I don't think she had the gravitas to play Alex. I think I just proved your point. 😂 Alex had several friendships with young men, especially after Lujack died. Someone mentioned McKinsey was very supportive of the young people in the cast, and it came through in the character as well.

I think so, too. I remember his intensity when he was on Dark Shadows. He played a mute ghost for months and conveyed so much with just his eyes and face. Very underrated actor, IMO. First of all, she was wrong about Penny Fuller. I know this because I have a clear memory of walking around Greenwich Village with my mom in the early '70s. We saw this lovely, elegantly dressed woman surrounded by people who looked like they were fans. My mom said, "Look, that's Penny Fuller! I loved her on Edge of Night!" She knew the demands of daytime because she had already done daytime, JILL. There were HEAPS of actresses who could have played Alex. It would have been so cool to see Ann Flood play against type. The idea there is ever a dearth of excellent actresses in their 50s looking for work is insanely ridiculous. Casting Hope should have not have been as difficult as recasting Alan or Alex. I mean, I really liked Elvera Roussel, but she did not leave an iconic impression on the role like they did. The problem with recasting her is Alan Michael. Ariane Munker was only in her late 20s when she was on GL. They brought back the teenaged AM around the same time she was on or right after she left. (Strangely enough, Elvera was playing younger than her age. She was already in her 30s with she started play Hope, who was supposed to be early 20s, like the Crampton example). I think someone mentioned once that TPTB had no interest in Elvera when they were thinking of bringing back Hope, so that wasn't going to happen. If they had recast Hope around the time Alan returned in 94, by then AM was in his late 20s. Yeah, it's weird when kids are jumped in age, but soap viewers are kind of used to that. I think it would have been stranger to have a much older than expected Hope hit town. If she was suddenly the same age as Alan, you would have lost that older, worldly man/younger, more naive woman vibe between them. Of course, they could have waited to SORAS AM, or they could have sent him away for a time and brought him back deaged a bit. But that would have been a lot of tap dancing for the return of one character. Which maybe is part of the reason they never brought her back.

Yeah, most names I come up with were on other soaps at the time. Like Jim Storm. I think he would have been a good choice, but I'm pretty sure he was on Y&R at the time. Then there's John Gabriel. He ticked a lot of boxes that would have made him a good Alan, IMO. I know he was on Loving after Ryan's Hope, but I'm not sure exactly when.

I remember them from their stints on DOOL. I liked both of them. Of the two, I would say Jed would have been the better choice. He had that charm that Alan needed to temper his dickishness.

Both were kind of young to play Alan, but it wouldn't be the first time they de-aged a character. They did it to Amanda. IMO, Born would have been much more suited to play Roger, but Davies? Yeah, maybe. He's a really good actor.

Ooooh, I'd love to know who that was! Has anyone speculated on his identity? I heard a few times the story that Beverlee pushed for her former Texas co-star Daniel Davis. When I found out who he was (the guy from The Nanny?) I was like, NO FREAKING WAY! But then I watched a few episodes of him on Texas. I kind of could see it. His Eliot Carrington was very urbane, a lot like Alan. It might have worked. But he's lucky it didn't happen because he certainly made a lot more money working on The Nanny. 😁