vetsoapfan

Tony's parents were Victor Lord and Dorothy Randolph, Eugenia's sister, yes. The show had been building a potential story about Victor's illegitimate son for years, and he made his first appearance in 1975. Gwendolyn Lord Abbott was a different character. She was Victor's sister, but had not mentioned before 1978. Neither had Richard been referenced. She lasted about a year in Llanview and after she left in 1979, was never seen again.

Meredith Lord Wolek was Viki's fragile sister, married to Larry Wolek, who died young. Melinda Cramer was Dorian's neurotic sister who had to be placed in a mental hospital when she became unstable. Edwina Lewis was an aggressive newspaper reporter who married Marco Dane. Katrina Karr was a prostitute friend of Karen Wolek's. Karen and Marco switched Katrina's living baby with Jenny's dead one, launching an engrossing, long-term storyline.

Right, Jenny and Brad had lived in a converted office space, attached to the Craig house. Jim once used that as his office.

Right. The show could film a body double for Roseanne from behind, leaving the hospital with Dan after the surgery. Suddenly, she gets hit by a swerving Trump/Pence campaign vehicle. Cut to a scene six months later, with Darlene lamenting the fact that the out-of-control Donald Trump bus was the death of her mom. Voila, the show is ready to continue one without Ms. Barr.

When humor is derived from character, it can be quite effective. Another line that had me giggling was when Asa confronted Viki about her impending divorce from Clint. An indignant Asa: Have you no respect for the SANCTITY of marriage??? A pissed-off Viki: I will not be lectured to by someone who has been married NINE TIMES!!!!! Thanks!

So the lyrics sung in the AMC theme had been created when the musical score was? I don't remember ever hearing vocals used on the show itself. You would think whoever did write those lyrics would have used Agnes Nixon's “The Great and the Least, The Rich and the Poor, The Weak and the Strong, In Joy and Sorrow, In Tragedy and Triumph, You are ALL MY CHILDREN” Anyway, rare finds like this are always a treat.

Thank you so much for posting all these different soap themes. I had no idea these versions existed. We know that the music originated with the shows, but who is credited with writing the lyrics?

Great new pix, folks!

Yep.

Diana De Vegh, the original Ann, did not make much of an impression on me, but Miles was quite good in the role: sweet, charming, likeable. I wonder if she quit on her own, or if AMC hired JB thanks to her immense popularity from AW. In the 1970s, ABC was wont to try boosting their soaps' ratings by hiring beloved stars from other shows.

Yes, that's Ilene Kristen with Fulton. And I miss Lisa too...although I missed her during the last 15 years of the show just as much!

Jenny and Viki were close friends. Larry was Viki's brother-in-law (she continued to refer to him as family long after her sister/Larry's wife passed away), and Jenny was Larry's second cousin. I don't believe Jenny ever lived at the carriage house with Brad Vernon. I think she lived there with her third husband (after Tim Siegel and Brad), Peter Janssen. BTW, when Jenny later married David Renauldi, Dorian said, "What is this, her FOURTH marriage? Pretty racy for an ex-nun!" It was catty but amusing. When Pat Ashley was kidnapped, Dorian was snarky again, "Oh honestly! I don't know what it is about Pat that attracts all these maniacs!" And about aggressive reporter Edwina Lewis, Dorian sniped to Herb Callison: "If there's one thing I cannot stand it's a pushy, manipulate woman!!!" Herb's resulting guffaw was...HILARIOUS! Speaking of hilarious, Marco Dane once asked Edwina Lewis, "Are you going to talk to Echo about this?" A distracted Edwina replied, "Echo who...?" A visibly irritated Marco snapped, "HOW MANY ECHOES DO WE KNOW???" Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Okay, sorry to have floated off onto irrelevant tangents. Yes, Brad looked good in his tennis shorts, but Johnny Drummond looked even better in his tight jeans. There were many hunks in Llanview way back when: Timmy Siegel, Mark Toland, Ed Hall, Paul Kendall, Marco Dane, Johnny Drummond, Drew Ralston...talk about love in the afternoon!

Right. Of all the actors on the show, ATWT clearly had the most contempt for Eileen Fulton, treating Lisa like a glorified and irrelevant day-player for years, but their treatment of Tom Hughes/Scott Holmes was not much better. Marx and HBS were my favorite Tom and Margo, both so charismatic, warm and likeable, but Holmes was capable of much more than being the rigid, loud-mouthed sourpuss that Tom became in the show's later years. Of course, for extended periods, particularly under Sheffer, Kim and Nancy suffered tremendously too. And the way the show dropped Ellen Stewart without explanation was egregious. As a veteran viewer, it was hard for me to endure the side-ling and mistreatment of all these legacy characters and longtime actors. They were the ONLY REASON I stuck with the show until the end. The crappy stories were not the incentive. I could have written better fan fiction on my own.

Jacquie Courtney's contract was up in November and Paul Rauch's reign of terror on OLTL began the following August. I have wondered if ABC was already negotiating with Rauch for future employment, when they terminated Courtney's contract, but 9 months seems like a long interim between her firing and his hiring. Maybe the network did not want to let her character get intertwined in the new, major story with Michael Zaslow, knowing that if Rauch were to finalize a deal with the show, they would have to fire Courtney the next year anyway. Who knows? But it was weird for ABC to axe an enormously popular actress, who was in the early stages of a major plot (setting Courtney and Strasser up as romantic rivals again was genius), with the excuse that they had no more story for her. They were already TELLING a story with her. Anyway, all the networks are wont to make baffling, stupid decisions. (Exhibit A: Genie Francis' recent departure from GH. Among all the characters on the Port Charles canvas, Laura would literally be the LAST one I'd get rid of.)

While no one remembers everything, it amazes me how clear many of my ancient, soap-related memories are. I have no clue about what happened yesterday on Y&R, but I recall seeing Chris and Leslie Brooks for the first time during the show's debut episode in 1973. I don't know whether to be proud or embarrassed!

Her return to AW was a disaster, thanks to TIIC. Courtney deserved better.

The way it played out on-screen, when David Renauldi was introduced, it was very clear that he was intended for Pat. After suffering through her pairings with Chip Lucia's Tony and John Mansfield's Adam, I was thrilled. If Paul Fuccello was not going to return to the show as Paul, at least Courtney and Zaslow had obvious sparks together. Considering she was already being woven into a major story arc with other excellent actors, I never believed ABC's lame excuse that they dropped Courtney from OLTL because, "there is no more story for the character." Pffft. I'm sure something else was going on.

Men can be easily manipulated by women. Surely this is not news to you, LOL. In real life and in reel life, women have pulled men's strings forever! I will say that Reinholt's Tony did not come across as dumb on-screen, but Phillip McHale's version always struck me as a bit dim. Pat hung around Llanview from 1975 to 1983 (until ABC decided to drop her contract under suspicious circumstances). The character of Tony Lord appeared from 1975 to 1979, and then again from 1981 to 1983. I think the multiple, poor recasts did him him. One of them was tepid, another only lasted a few weeks (and under a face-full of bandages, no less), and the final Tony was DREADFULLY miscast; far too laconic and disinterested to spark any chemistry with the other actors. Paul Fuccello was WONDERFUL as Paul Kendall from 1977 to 1979. He was attractive, charming, personable, and sexy as hell, and had strong chemistry with everyone. The show briefly flirted with pairing Pat romantically with millionaire Adam Brewster, but the actor playing Adam, John Mansfield, was just...icky. He was not attractive at all, and came across as skeezy on-screen. The story itself was pushing Adam and Pat together but I knew it would never last, no with Paul around. Adam Brewster came and went quite quickly and was never mentioned again. No big loss. Paul Kendall was just a babe, I wanted Pat to forget all about both Phillip McHale's bland Tony and John Mansfield creepy Adam, and make a bee-line for him. If not, I would have been happy to take him! Tom Fuccello as Paul: yes, please! John Mansfield as Adam: no, thanks. As for Brad and Jenny, I don't remember if either of them took over Pat's house in 1983. I know they had been living in the former office was that attached to Anna and Jim Craig's place.

Well remember, Pat had concocted a lie about Brian's age to throw Tony off the track. So for him, it was initially not hard to accept that Brian was Paul Kendall's son, considering the false information Pat had given him. He trusted Pat, had no reason to doubt her word, and later said it would not have occurred to him that she would lie about something SO IMPORTANT. So I would say that if anything, Tony was too trusting; he believed that the woman he had loved would not deceive him in such a cruel way. I'd say that Cathy Craig came across as perceptive and intelligent when Dorrie Kavanaugh played the role, but when Jennifer Harmon took over, the character was unbalanced and paranoid, fearful that she would lose Tony to Pat, whom Cathy sensed he still loved. It was Cathy's paranoia as much as anything that made her jump to conclusions about Brian's parentage even though Pat tried to throw her off. The Maggie Ashley story was ill-conceived from the get-go. The same writers were around from the pre-Maggie days, but they simply retconned Pat's life and invented a twin. The idea was to get Jacquie Courtney an Emmy nomination but this was NOT the way to go. Maggie had a fabulously fake wig, absurdly thick glasses that kept sliding down her nose, and an English accent that poor Courtney could not pull off. Maggie was a caricature, not a viable character. The story itself was implausible and stupid. I sighed with relief when this awful plot ended.

Oh wait a moment, I was having a senior moment! I totally apologize, it was not Katie Parker I despised. I actually adored her. I responded too quickly, without actually thinking first. A by-product of being ancient, I suppose. Forgive me. In my side-tracked state, I got Katie Parker confused with Lesley Ann Monroe, who came aboard much later. I am sooooo embarrassed. I would erase my initial comment if you had not already replied to it. I am off to walk slowly down the Hall of Shame.

I LOATHED Katie with every ounce of my being, LOL.

It was...weird seeing Amy Ames as Carolee, to be honest. If the original actor/actress is perfect in a part, it's always somewhat jarring to see a replacement, no matter how good the second performer is. I did accept JR on The Doctors as time went by. She's an inherently likeable actress.

How could anyone hate my Lesley and my Audrey???

Yes, she kept quitting (she was bored, she wanted to try other roles, etc.) but kept agreeing to return later on. Thank heavens, because she really was the show's cornerstone. Soooooo many actors came and went in other significant roles. Ames family members seemed to look different year by year. There were seven Susans, six Jerrys, four Peters, six Pauls, etc. It really damaged the show.

That's the point: people do die in real life, and a character passing away on a soap opera can make for a powerful (if devastating story), but TPTB must look at the canvas and choose very carefully whom they wish to eliminate and how they might later fill the void left by that axed character. By 1993, there were very few Bauers left on the canvas, and NO OTHER CHARACTER who could be groomed to fill the void left by killing off Mo. We had no Hope Bauer, no Meta Bauer, no Leslie Bauer, no Trudy Bauer, etc., to stay on the show long-term and compensate. Trying to do TGL without a Bauer matriarch was, to me, like trying to continue Downton Abbey without Maggie Smith or All in the Family without Carroll O'Connor, or Gunsmoke without James Arness. Those shows would lose an essential component and throw the chemistry off balance. TGL got a few weeks of great drama and performances from this ill-advised story, but suffered far more in the long run.