vetsoapfan

This is pretty cool. I had never seen it before. Thanks.

By that point, she was already off AW and had nothing to lose, I suppose. We know how Rauch treated people on his shows, and JC had years of frustration to purge. Lemay did not seem amused by Courtney's going to the press. He made a snide comment about how she might have gotten someone else to write her stories for her, as if she couldn't handle it herself.

From what I recall (and that interview was 40 years ago...yikes!!!), Simon said that he was interested in Broadway, which meant he had to stay in NY. And he did admit that as much as he knocked the writing on soaps, primetime TV produced a lot of turkeys too.

Yes, I watched the show during the Scott/Kathy period, and the actors had great on-screen chemistry. When the writing was good, the characters were quite engaging. I have a special SFT-themed magazine which included interviews with all the cast members, and even back then Simon complained about the lousy writing on daytime TV and made it clear that the soap was just a job for him. Still, he showed a lot more "oomph" as Scott Phillips than he ever did as Ed Bauer. His version of Ed was always so internal, so morose, so listless (in my opinion), it was hard to care for the character. It was quite a comedown after Mart Hulswit's warm, affable, emotional Ed. Of course, everything is open to personal opinion. I found Simon great as Scotty and listless as Ed, but I know there are viewers who enjoyed his stint on TGL. I personally felt that SFT's last great period was under the pen of Ann Marcus, while other viewers feel that the show's last hurrah was a few years later, under the Corringtons. To each his own, I guess.

Same here. That can be great, when a long-running serialized program finally ends, and you can binge-watch all the episodes on Netflix.

Honestly, I found him to be rather stiff, and not terribly interesting.

Willis and Alice became closer after Steven died, and he admitted to her that she represented an unattainable fantasy for a formerly-poor farm boy like him: the golden girl who always ignored or made fun of him in high school. She protested that she was just like everyone else, but Willis could not get that idealized image of her out of his head. Even Lemay admitted in his autobiography that Alice never regained the popularity she had enjoyed with Courtney in the role. I don't think viewers warmed up completely to Susan Harney, but she was significantly better than some of the other recasts in the role. Yes, Willis and Angie Perrini became romantically involved, but he was such a screw up, that did not work out. The character of Willis was quite glib and abrasive until Leom Russom took over the role, then he softened somewhat and was more tolerable.

I would love that a lot, and I'll bet other posters would appreciate seeing more vintage material as well. Thanks! For me, because I DID watch soaps during their vintage years, seeing these older articles is like going through a long-forgotten family album. Great fun!

DW50, thank you for posting these ancient articles and photos. For some reason, I have had a MASSIVE urge lately to read vintage movie and TV magazines from the 1950s-70s, which is a weird urge to get in the first place, and it's made worse by the fact that they are so hard to find. I've been asking around to see if any friends have any in their attics or basements. I've even been toying with the idea of shopping on eBay, but magazines from that era are sooooo expensive on-line. I'd kill to get all the Daily TV Serials, Afternoon TV, and Daytime TV issues still in existence...not to mention the Rona Barrett trio: Daytimers, Gossip, and Hollywood! Yes, I realize that I have no life.

At the time of her departure from AW, Courtney went to most of the daytime TV magazines and gave them all personal statements about why she had left the show. This article, or very similar ones from other publications, may have popped up from time to time over the decades, but they are rare. Most folks do not have or keep articles this old. Rauch and Lemay had plans for Alice to fall in love with Steven's brother Willis, while he manipulated her and played with the business behind her back. JC quite rightly thought it would make Alice look weak and stupid, and when she expressed her concerns to Rauch, he used that as justification for firing her. Later, she said that Rauch had played her, because the way he had described the proposed story for Alice was not the way it ending up being told on-screen once Susan Harney took over the role. We know now that Lemay did not like JC and wanted her gone, and this is how Rauch made that happen.

OMG, DW50!!!!!!!!!!!! Way to go, unearthing that treasure!

Good job! I was just starting to rack my brain to identify some of these folks, when you stepped up!

Well, JC did not "own" the material. P&G did. She only made personal copies of the scenes and episodes she wanted to keep. The show included other flashbacks with Alice during the anniversary week, and it would not have cost any more to use 1974 flashbacks than it did to use the other ones which TPTB chose to include instead. The 25th anniversary was a celebration of the show, not specifically VW, and showcasing the best-available clips from its history should have been the main goal.

Hot damn! Love that latest picture, YRBB. TGIF...indeed! If I might add....

I believe he had left in 1984. Bernau did return later in 1986, but ver Dorn was the actor who had been with the show continuously, without interruption, the longest.

Jerry ver Dorn (Ross), who had started in 1979. By 1986, all the other veteran actors and characters had been slaughtered.

I agree. No matter how much I prefer legacy characters to be preserved if possible, the idiots in charge destroyed Patty beyond repair, and she is no longer a viable character.

Yes, with the sudden death of DW, the scripts had to be drastically rewritten quickly, so I tend to give the writers some clack, particularly since there was a lot of satisfying stuff offered to veteran viewers during the anniversary week. Since we know that Jacquie Courtney had made copies of and kept many of her most memorable scenes as Alice, I just wish the show had shown vintage Alice/Steven/Rachel flashbacks, particularly that famous scene where Rachel went to the country house and tried to kick Alice out. That would have been the icing on the cake for me.

"Interesting" does not equate to "believable," however.

There was a poster on one "cancelled" soap opera message board who used to post all sorts of absurd, impossible-to-believe nonsense. When cornered, she would simply ignore her disbelievers. Unfortunately, many folks out there in internet land feel the need to elevate themselves by weaving elaborate fantasies about their supposed insider status and knowledge. It's usually pretty easy to spot the fakers.

The first season of ST. E was not remastered well, either, as I recall, and they edited the music, which was annoying. Still, I'd buy the rest if it ever became available. Yes, I was a big fan of early DAYS and GH, and will check out that MS ep. Thanks for the heads up.

Right, because science-fiction material was simply not appropriate for LH, just like it does not work on soaps (IMHO).

I know. I have looked for many years for good copies of FAMILY and ST. ELSEWHERE (other than what has been officially released on DVD), to no avail. They are not the sort of shows that rabid collectors record, keep, and share, and the studios have abandoned their DVD releases, so I'm out of luck. These excellent shows are not available on line or DVD, and I would buy both of them in a heartbeat. I'd also pay for AW from 1964-75, Y&R from 1973 to 79, and so many other soaps.

I cannot tell you how many people have offered me money over the years, to send them vintage soap material. There is definitely a market out there.

LHOTH certainly had its grisly and horrific moments, but it never went full-out sci-fi. There were "faith-based" moments, like when Laura ran away to the mountains after her baby brother died, and it was suggested that God helped reunite her with Charles, but nothing overtly impossible. Mary did not take a space ship to the future to cure her blindness, LOL.