vetsoapfan

True, but it was hard not to feel that Rachel deserved it, LOL.

Do you mean the Soaps & Serials novelizations? I personally thought they were dreadful, and their inaccuracies drove me crazy. If I had been your teacher, I would have banned them too, LOL! I watched AW religiously throughout the Alice/Steven/Rachel triangle. If I missed more than five episodes between 1968 and 1975, I would be surprised. I don't think it ruffles feathers to offer opinions, although I do admit it irks me when someone offers an opinion and states it's a fact which must never be questioned. Actress Joan Bennett was the "name" star of Dark Shadows from 1966 to 1971, and an internet fan once wrote that JB loved her time playing the role of Elizabeth Stoddard; supposedly it had been the highlight of her professional career. Not only was this improbable even on the surface (Bennett had been in several Hollywood motion pictures, and daytime soaps are exhausting work and do not pay very well), but in her own autobiography, Bennett had made it clear she had not enjoyed her time on the show. The fan became livid at being contradicted, and several sarcastic and huffy replies ensued. I tried patiently explaining that his OPINION about Bennett's experience on DS did not override what she had stated IN HER OWN WORDS, but to no avail. That sort of interaction with touchy, obstinate fans is annoying. Offering a different point of view is not. BTW, I was team Russ and Alice all the way. Rachel is lucky that I was not there when she was at her worst, tormenting the Matthews family. She would have been dead meat. Dead meat, I tell you. There were three times in particular when I would have literally smacked her into oblivion, LOL!

ITA. Steven caused so much damage by being ambivalent and playing into both women's insecurities. Rachel had reasons for being the way she was, but some of her actions were immoral and gratuitously vicious. Some of the things she did to Russ and Alice were monstrous. Alice wanted nothing to do with Rachel, and went out of her way to dismiss her after Russ and Rachel divorced, but I did not blame her. I held nothing but scorn for Rachel at the time too.

Earlier in this thread, you wrote, "My first tv memories are of the special 60-minute wedding episode with the crane shot from the roof of Steve's house (that Robert Delany had designed) to the backyard wedding with Alice being upstaged by Iris's organza hat." If your first memories of AW are May 3, 1974, doesn't that mean you came in AFTER the early years of the Alice/Steven/Rachel storyline, which ran from 1968-75? Color me confused.

Sam Groom's Russ was "dull" to you? Or were you referring to David Bailey's tepid interpretation of the character? Alice was a "wimp"? Meaning the character in general, or thge portrayal by some of the weaker actresses in the role?

Even though this vintage material was recorded from a camera pointed at the TV, it is STILL more watchable than anything GH produces today. And I'm not even kidding! So many of my favorite GH characters in one episode, from the show's golden era!!!

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season, and I wish everyone at SON all the best in 2018!

There was similar fury when Paul Rauch and Harding Lemay killed off the characters of Mary Matthews and Steven Frame, then fired JC as Alice. Around the same time, Susan Sullivan quit as Lenore. The network and studio were bombarded with negative mail.

I checked various soap-history books and they do list her debut year on ATWT as 1970. Maybe she auditioned for both soaps around the same time, got hired quickly by ATWT, and then only heard back from AMC again after she had already been cast as Carol? I guess it's impossible to verify if no dates are mentioned in her book.

Unless I am having a senior moment, LOL, I think she only began working on ATWT in 1970, so she could have auditioned for AMC and ATWT the same year.

She killed off Maureen Bauer, the heart and matriarch of TGL. JFP was capable of anything.

OMG, it took them a whopping nine years to release volume three, but this is great news. Like continuing releases of FAMILY and ST. ELSEWHERE, I had given up on seeing new DVD boxsets of PEYTON PLACE. I am thrilled. At a running time of 825 minutes, we should be getting about 33 to 35 episodes, depending on whether they are the full broadcast versions or the edited-for-syndication ones (more likely).

And finally, LOL:

Yes, that is Holland Taylor.

Yep, that's our Charlie Frank (my favorite Jeff Martin), but let's not overlook Linda Gray in the pantyhose commercial at the beginning of the video, and Fran Brill (who was so good on HTSAM) in the Campbells soup ad later on.

Lesley is sorely need on the show, and should be seen regularly, DA's interest and health permitting. I'd rather see her than 99% of the other characters being rammed down our throats.

Let's not abandon our Daily Hotness thread, folks!

Yes, that is definitely him.

Catching up on some hotness!

Nancy was such a pill, and so neurotic, she drove me up the wall. It got to the point where I sympathized more with Jeff than with her. I used to love it when Kate (who always had Nancy's number) would tear her a new one.

No, Nancy took forever to agree to a reconciliation but before their remarriage, she realized that she just could not go through with it, and they broke up for good.

"Jumping the shark now...UGH!" Along with the astonishingly good Family miniature set he produced, the same artist has pictures and videos of many other TV-themed sets on his blog. Happy Days, I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch, Friends, even Y&R are there. Willie was very cute, but truth be told, I always had the hots for bad boy Jeff Maitland.