vetsoapfan

Jeff Webber!

The first and better Rick Webber!

In the 1970s, Jeff, Rick, and Scotty Baldwin were all on my "to marry" wishlist!

It sounds like Alice was totally a supporting character, sort of like a greek chorus or a talk-to.. with occasional stories for herself that played like a B or C story.

Do you think had Jacqueline Courtney not been fired, that Alice would have continued to flourish well into the 80s instead of teetering out as the 70s ended? I know her replacement Susan H was a decent replacement and a good actress.. but lacked the charisma that JC had possessed.

The clueless powers that be on so many soaps have decimated their core characters: killing them off or shoving them onto the backburner, over fans' protests, so it's hard to know if Alice would have continued her reign as one of the show's leading heroines.

Susan Harney was adequate, but fans never warmed up to her more matter-of-fact, less emotional version of Alice, and even Harding Lemay admitted that she lacked the star appeal that Courtney exuded. When Courtney returned in 1984, I had high hopes for what the show could do with her, but she was marginalized terribly: kept on the backburner, given little to do, paired with an uninteresting costar, given a dreadful and inappropriate butch haircut, dressed in hideous, mannish clothes...and then fired after a year. The writer, Gary Tomlin, later admitted in an interview that he had not studied the history of the show well enough to understand Alice, and didn't really know the backstory between her and Rachel, which was undoubtedly a principle reason why Courtney's return was a flop.

Is there any video of Susan Trustman playing Pat? I've only seen stills of her. I remember watching in the late seventies when Harding Lemay actually used some of Pat's original story to create a new story with Pat, her daughter Marianne, and the man who came between them, Greg Barnard. Production did a great job of recreating the original story (Pat and Tom Baxter), using Beverly Penberthy and the actor who played Greg.

Yes, I appreciated Lemay's using history in that story, with Pat flashing back to Tom Baxter's death after she had killed Greg Bernard.

There was a continuity error however. In Lemay's story, Pat had supposedly stabbed Tom Baxter to death, but in the original episodes which aired in the 1960s, she had shot him with a gun.

Still, I always appreciate writers mining a show's past for present-day stories.

Summary of a 1974 episode.

Jed Andrews and Laurie Brooks discuss Jed's plans for divorcing his wife, Betty, and the alimony arrangements. After Jed leaves, Brock Reynolds arrives and tells Laurie not to destroy Jed and Betty's marriage. The following events also occur: Stewart Brooks talks to his daughter, Leslie, who is worried about Brad Eliot; Laurie invites Betty over and gives her advice about how to save her marriage with Jed; and Leslie confronts Brad about his deceptive decision to allow others to believe he is dead.

This storyline point was very effective, because it allowed viewers to see that underneath it all, Lorie could actually be sensitive and altruistic...well, to a point, anyway.

Lorie always wanted to be Stuart's good girl and gain his approval, and so she went over to see Betty and tried her best to set the poor, frumpy woman straight. She told Jed's wife that her hairdo and fashion sense were all wrong, and made her look unattractive, and then proceeded to give the woman beauty and fashion advice, and tips on how to be more attractive to her husband. Betty was resistant to change, but Lorie was persistent, LOL.

These were small, character-based scenes, but both effective and memorable.

How I miss the halcyon days of this once-great series!

What interests me is that Alice is basically a supporting character in the first few years..did she do anything of.note pre Rachel's arrival in 1967? Or even after Rachel shows up.but before Steven comes on in 1968?

During the first few years of the series, Alice was indeed a supporting character; the main heroines were Pat and Missy.

When Rachel showed up and married Russ Matthews, however, Alice's role expanded. The newlyweds moved in with Jim and Mary, so Alice and Rachel had a lot of interaction. Rachel grated on Alice's nerves, and Alice could see right through her, so there was a lot of tension in the Matthews home.

I will NEVER forget Rachel manipulating Alice out of her own bedroom (which Rachel wanted for herself because it was bigger than the one Rachel was using.)

I agree with Dan's comment about how disrespectful it was to have that repulsive shoot-out on the show.

The decision to shoot up the Bauer kitchen, an iconic symbol of the series, was inexplicable. It showed how little understanding of the show or its audience TPTB had. Certain decisions would simply infuriate the fans, and alienate them gratuitously.

Imagine DOOL having a Satan-possessed Marlena gleefully masturbating with the Horton family's Christmas ornaments before smashing them into the fireplace.

Or a churlish Sonny being so furious that his mob cannot take over the administration at GH, that he urinates on the picture of Dr. Steve Hardy in the hospital lobby.

UGH!

I had such a long history with The Guiding Light, and loved its storylines and core characters from 1950 to about 1983, and then watched in agony as incompetent, clueless powers that be started dismantling the core and turning the show into a low-brow campfest.

I kept hanging on, but nail by nail, they cemented that coffin shut.

I loathed:

--The 1983/4 cast massacre

--The start of the campy, stupid stories: The Dreaming Death, The Ghost in the Attic, Jonathan Brooks' Talking Computer

--The Grating Reva Show of the 1980s

--The Killing of Maureen Bauer

--The Firing of Michael Zaslow

--History Denied: Brandon Spaulding is Alive! Amanda Wexler is Alan's Sister! Springfield Patriarchs Went Fishing Together!

--The Replacement Beth Raines and her Ill-Defined Characterization

--Cartoon Harley

--The Santos Boobs...er, Mob

--San Cristocrap

--Meva and Crassie, the Shayme Sisters

--Goopy Richard Winslow

--Reva the Ghost

--Reva the Amish Amnesiac

--Reva the San Cristocrapian Queen

--Reva the Clone

--Reva the Illegal-Immigrant Savior

--Reva the Blind

--Reva the Time Traveller

--Reva the Saggy & Bedraggled Object of Every Man's Desire

--Releasing ESSENTIAL Vets like ver Dorn and Garrett

--Peapack

((Sigh))

Unpopular opinion warning:

I agree that killing Maureen was stupid and short-sighted, but I'm so tired of hearing about it like it's the only thing that went wrong in the nineties. In my opinion, GL's wheels didn't come off until sometime between 1994-1996, when the whole thing was handed over to Reva (and to a lesser extent, Phillip and then Harley as well).

There was a lot of great stuff going on before, during, and after Maureen's death. Yes, it was cruel to get rid of her in such a fashion, but I thought some of it (maybe not the events leading up) was heartbreakingly true to life in that we all suffer tragedy and sometimes horrible things happen to people who don't deserve it and the repercussions were played out over the next several years.

But I do agree that Buzz was horrible and if it's true that Maureen was culled to make way for his worthless ass, THAT was the most stupid, unforgivable thing about the whole thing.

Killing off Maureen was far from being the only misstep TGL took in its final decades. The overemphasize on the Reva character, the San Cristocrapian nonsense, the nauseating Santos mob, the reliance on adolescent and cartoon plot devices over character delineation and interpersonal relationships, the destruction of (and contradiction of) history...the list goes on.

However, I have always felt that soap fans will remain loyal to their series, even through periods of bad writing, if the core characters whom they love and want to see remain on-screen. If both the main beloved characters AND the quality of the writing are absent, it's a lose-lose situation, because we have no one left to care for, and the plot mechanics forced upon us by incompetent writers turn us off. That's when the ratings are wont to take a nosedive.

Is this Jacqueline Schultz?

Yes, it is.

Killing off Maureen Bauer was one of the most bone-headed and inexplicable decisions ever made by the powers that be at The Guiding Light.

For YEARS, the fans had been begging for a return to the show's roots, and a return of its core family, the Bauers. Losing Bert was unavoidable, of course, but killing off Bill and Hillary for the sake of a simple-minded short-term story, replacing the affable Mart Hulswit with the more aloof Peter Simon in the role of Ed, and firing Don Stewart and Elvera Roussel as the popular Mike and Hope had a major crippling effect on the show. Ellen Parker's warm, sympathetic portrayal as Maureen allowed her to develop quite nicely into the matriarch role left empty by Charita Bauer's passing, and by killing off Maureen, the show was essentially gutting itself of its heart in order to give us a grating...Buzz. UGH.

I found the Daytime TV Stars article I have on the firing, although it may be the one you already mentioned.

I'll upload it in a little bit.

Who would you have recast Alice with, if you had to choose any actress?

That's a good question.

Courtney was so popular, and so iconic in the role, my first thought would have been NOT to recast the part at all.

If the network or P&G forced me to do so...mmmm.

I have no idea.

What actress would have been your choice?

DRW50!

Thank you so much for finding and sharing those AW articles!

As always, you are amazing.

I have these same articles, but being 100% clueless about how to upload them to the internet, I was frustrated that I could not share them with y'all.

I thought the articles were published in Afternoon TV, but it was actually Daytime TV Stars. (After almost four decades, my memory was fuzzy.)

Do you also have the interview with Jacquie Courtney from LaGuardia's book, or the article with Virginia Dwyer, published after her firing, entitled something like, "I would not die for them!"

I'm also happy to see that magazine cover with Trish Stewart and William Gray Espy. Along with Courtney and a few others, Trish Stewart is one of my absolute favorites. Her Chris Brooks is probably my best-loved Y&R character of all time.

Again, thanks so much for generously sharing your treasures.

What was your view of each of the Alices after Courtney?

Jacqueline Courtney was the definitive Alice, of course, and none of the replacements (whom I always referred to as "the fake Alices") ever really impressed me. Courtney moved over to OLTL on November 12, 1975, and I became a staunch and loyal supporter on that show from that moment on (even though I had already watched and enjoyed it previously).

My rating of the Alices:

Susan Harney: ** (out of four stars)

Wesley Ann Pfenning: BOMB (What was Rauch thinking?!?)

Vana Tribbey: **

Linda Borgeson: *

They might have, although I'm not sure how much fans cared about her Alice.

vetsoapfan, I'm trying to find more of the Reinholt firing stuff I posted, but here's one.

Yes, I had seen that article, but thanks for pointing it out again. Reinholt's ego was out of control, LOL, but he was right to resist Lemay's writing an entirely new and contradictory backstory for Steven Frame, than had originally been played out on screen.

Do you think fans would have been more accepting of it if they had played it out with Susan Harney?

The audience's interest in Alice dwindled significantly after Jacquie Courtney was fired. Even Lemay admitted in his book that despite continued storyline attention paid to the character as played by Susan Harney, Alice was never again a hugely popular character as she had been with Courtney in the role.

So whatever they did with Alice after the replacements started piling on (and most of them were dreadful in the role), the audience wasn't very interested in Alice anymore.

There was talk of George going to The Doctors when all the drama went down at AW.

Imagine if instead of moving to OLTL, George and Jacquie has reteamed at TD and played out a new love story there.

Thinking back to how Lemay moved Rachel in a new direction by giving her the man and lifestyle she had always aspired to in Mac, do posters think it might have been interesting if the same psychology had been applied to Alice? She had always been the good girl who believed in happy endings (despite all her trauma).Maybe seeing Rachel happy with Mac and losing Steve could have damaged her and she became bitter and manipulative.

Do you think JC could have played that? I think with careful writing it might have worked.

Courtney was a much better actress than Lemay gave her credit for; the fans knew it, and the critics and editors of the soap press at the time acknowledged it. I'm sure she could have played out a storyline in which a devastated Alice became bitter about life and all the rocks it had thrown her way. Lemay tried to touch on this a bit when Harney was in the role. Alice was being sarcastic and derogatory at one point, and her cousin Susan remarked, "Alice, it's unlike you to criticize someone gratuitously." Alice replied, "Yeah, well, I've changed." Of course, she really hadn't. The character of Alice was inherently a decent, loving person, and no temporary, half-hearted attempt by Lemay ever made the audience believe otherwise.

Not to mention that he was at the helm of SB when it went off the air, but in that case, I really can't fault him as much. The wheels were already coming off by the time he came on.

Yes, SB had suffered from management woes and atrocious headwriting for a long time, so Raunch only put...the final nail in that coffin, LOL.

vetsoapfan, would you please upload or transcribe that interview if you can find it? I would love to read it. It seems like everyone had different takes on what went down (and I would especially love to hear what Doug Watson had to say, because from the start he seemed to be the classy gentleman both on and offscreen that would continue until his own passing). Yes, Paul Rauch seemed like a nightmare to work for, especially if you were a woman. But he helped get ratings up, leading to long tenures at both AW (1971-83, I think - didn't he and Lemay begin at AW almost at the same time?) and OLTL (1984-91).

Also, does anyone happen to have the 2004 issue of SOW with the letter from Jacquie Courtney, who after years out of the limelight wrote in to refute comments PR had made about her and George Reinholt? I've never read that letter but have heard about it for years. If anyone has it, please post it!!

One more thing, Jacquie really did have a very low voice. At times, it sounded even lower than Suzanne Pleshette's!!

In the 1975 interview, Watson was very diplomatic and did not bash anyone, as I recall.

As for Rauch, I truly believe that most of his work damaged the soaps in the long-run, ratings-wise. When he came onto a new show, already established with a solid core, his attention to fine sets, lighting, directing, etc., could enhance the product, but he had no clue about how to preserve the heart of a soap, no idea about the importance of keeping its core intact.

AW's ratings in 1971-2 were 9.1, and they increased to 9.7 over the next few years, thanks in large part to Lemay's stellar writing FOR THE CORE CHARACTERS already in place. Later, as Lemay's writing started to falter after the series went to an hour, and Rauch started to tamper with the show's core, ratings plummeted, and by 1982-3, they were a dismal 4.8!

OLTL was a solid 8.2 in 1984. Rauch came on board, hacked away at the veteran cast and turned the once-erudite soap into painful, low-brow camp, and by 1991, OLTL's ratings were 5.4.

His TEXAS, LOVERS & FRIENDS, and FOR RICHER FOR POORER were all ratings failures as well.

He boasted about saving THE GUIDING LIGHT from the axe, but when he took over that series, it had a rating of 4.0, which only fell to 3.0 by the 2001-02 season, when he was finally replaced by John Conboy.

That's why so many longtime fans think of him as Paul Raunch, soap killer, killer!

As for Courtney, yes, she did have a deep voice when got lower as the decades went by. Years of smoking, I suppose.

I posted a Daytime TV Stars article on the Reinholt firing a few months back. Did you get to see it?

Um...I'm not sure. Is it posted in this thread?

I am a huge fan of Harding Lemay and his approach to soap opera and basically took his book as the gospel. Then, I realized, that his was but one opinion and was colored by certain biases. We never really heard from all the other players in the saga to get their take on the same events. And I've read other interviews that Lemay gave during the period, and some things contradict some of what is written in his book.

I don't think that Lemay was the only one who was a handful to work with, I think they all were. A lot of egos in one spot, all under the belief that they alone were responsible for the success of the show.

Actually, in 1975, Afternoon TV magazine (I think; I still have it around somewhere) published an issue with an extensive section covering the backstage drama at AW, with interviews featuring Reinholt, Lemay, Rauch, Wyndham, Watson, and others, all of whom gave their take on the situation of how and why Reinholt was fired. There were various contradictions in what everyone said; Lemay tried to downplay that by saying he and Rauch may have seen certain things differently. The interviews were quite interesting; Wyndham acknowledged that Lemay's writing was often not good, but felt it was because of the sheer output of material that he needed to produce. Actor John Considine said that he had never seen Reinholt do anything that merited his dismissal. Noticeably absent in the issue was any interview with Jacqueline Courtney, who kept quiet at the time.

Later, in 1977, author Robert LaGuardia published an updated version of his book The Wonderful World of TV Soap Operas, with reprints of some of the interviews which had been published in the magazine. In LaGuardia's book, however, along with the quotes by Reinolt, Lemay, and Rauch, an interview with Courtney was also included. She spoke about her own dismissal from the show. She said that she had not trusted Rauch from the moment he took over as AW's producer, and when he did, the atmosphere in the studio began to change, with his favoritism towards new, aggressive performers. She spoke of how he manipulated her into admitting that she didn't like a proposed storyline (Alice's romance with Willis), and then used her comments about it as an excuse to fire her. She went away on vacation for a month and was notified that she was being replaced.

The entire work environment sounded toxic, just like on OLTL, when Rauch wreaked havoc over there.

I thought that he had been hired and then the writer's strike hit. Supposedly, Swajeski was head writer during the strike. The strike ended and Lemay's material aired for about 2 months (including the reintroduction of Iris). He was then axed in favor of Swajeski.

Right. Lemay was rehired, and then the writers' strike hit. During the strike, Swajeski worked as a scab, and then later took over full-time. Did she continue to use Lemay's story outlines after the strike ended?

Didn't Lemay briefly return as HW?

Yes, but shortly after he was rehired, there was a writers' strike...after which, he was not asked to return.

Yes, and that's a shame. Though to be fair, before he passed away George Reinholt himself admitted that he was a handful at times. It's just somewhat surprising with all his success at AW that Lemay never found another long-running soap writing gig again.

For all his genius (and I believe AW under Lemay--particulary during his first few years-- was about as good as soaps get), I think Harding Lemay might have been a handful to work with. As low-brow camp took over many soaps in the 1980s, I think his brand of sophisticated, character-driven adult drama was simply not what the networks cared about.

Yes, and I think that she could certainly underplay a scene - both Lemay and Rauch sometimes made it out to seem like she was OTT all the time.

I've noticed that some modern-day soap viewers seem to take Harding Lemay's opinions about the show and its cast and crew as gospel, whereas those of us who were actually watching AW back in the day know that some of his allegations and criticism appear to be borne out of pique.

He would criticize one performer for doing the exact same thing that he praised in another; it was so obvious that personal dislike played into his negative opinions.

I know - and George Jefferson struck it rich enough to move to that DEEEEEEELUXE apartment in the sky. He should have gotten nicer, more classic furniture, too!!!

To get back to the scene, I still don't understand why Harding Lemay and Paul Rauch did not appreciate Jacquie's talents. She was every bit as good as VW - and had been on the show from Day One!!!

Lemay was very open about his disdain for Courtney's talents, inexplicably criticizing her work even though the fans and many critics praised her highly. She won the Daytime TV Best Actress award, the Daily TV Serials Best Actress award, and the Afternoon TV Best Actress in a Single Sequence award for the episode in which Alice and Elliot Carrington run into Steve and Rachel in St. Croix.

At the time of her dismissal in 1975, Rauch was critical of her reluctance to play out a proposed story in which Alice would fall for her brother-in-law Willis, but upon her death decades later, when asked for a comment about her, Rauch at least had the grace to say that Courtney had been a "great gal" who could always be counted on to give good performances.

To his credit, even Lemay, in his book about his tenure as AW's headwriter, admitted that Courtney had star appeal, and that after she moved over to ONE LIFE TO LIVE, her presence there may have been at least partially responsible for that soap's steady rise in the ratings.