vetsoapfan

The original cast of Y&R is not alone in letting their egos or thirst for stardom outside of soaps cloud their judgment. It's a shame that so many actors leave so many different TV series, never to find the fame they desire, particularly when the shows they left had given them such great material to play. Janice Lynde, Trish Stewart, Pamela Peters, Tom Hallick, William Gray Espy, and even Jaime Lyn Bauer have never done ANYTHING ELSE that allowed their talents to shine more than Y&R. The first years of the show were pure gold with that cast!

Janice Lynde had wanted out for a long time before she finally departed the series. In the press, she openly admitted in one interview, "There were times when I justed hated Leslie!" Years later, however, she admitted she had been young and very foolish during her run on Y&R, and that being cast as Leslie had afforded her the opportunity to play out some great material. Her replacement, Victoria Mallory, was beautiful and charming, and had a wonderful voice, but she never attained the level of popularity that Lynde had reached. Critics referred to Mallory's interpretation of Leslie as colorless. Trish Stewart also quit in order to try for primetime TV work. She offered to remain on the show without a contract until a suitable replacement could be found, but TPTB dropped her outright and replaced her as well. The "new" Chris, Lynne Topping, was a capable actress, but just not as popular with the viewers as Stewart had been. Pamela Peters walked off the set in the middle of a scene once, and would disappear from the show for long stretches at a time (including when her character of Peggy was involved in a rape storyline). The show briefly replaced her with Patricia Everly who did not work out, and Peters returned for a bit until the entire Brooks family was phased out. Bill Bell acknowledged in interviews that he would have kept the Brooks family around, until Jaime Lyn Bauer also decided to quit. That was the last straw which made him decide to overhaul the show and eliminate many of the original core characters and replace them with the Abbott and Williams families, Victor Newman, etc., as the new focus. As played by the original actors, the Brooks and Foster families were enormously popular and very beloved by the fans.

Yes, Brooks Prentiss could return as a young business rival of Victor's. Chuckie could be brought back too as Jill's nephew. Both JL and JLB have said they would be open to returning, and it would be such a treat for longtime fans. Soaps keep dumping new, irrelevant, and often short-term characters onto the canvas anyway, why not at least try to entice former viewers into watching again by giving us a few nods to the past?

Yes, there are still ways to weave the show's original roots into the current canvas, but I doubt TPTB are interested. They probably think no one in the current audience cares about the distant past.

As a longtime viewer (I watched from the show's debut in 1973), the Brooks sisters' appearance was what I wanted to see again the most. I stopped watching Y&R on a daily basis after the original Brooks and Foster families were written out.

Over the Christmas holidays, I chatted with a friend who is wont to ask thought-provoking, if silly, questions. Lamenting the lack of good, available men in real life, she asked me what character(s) from television I would choose to have a romantic relationship with, or even marry. I initially scoffed at the question, because of course it's absurd and pointless to fantasize about things which can never actually happen, and yet...since she brought up the subject, I have been asking myself: WHAT CHARACTER(S) FROM MY FAVORITE TV SHOWS WOULD I CONSIDER GOOD BOYFRIEND OR HUSBAND MATERIAL? (Don't judge me; I freely admit I am nuts!) Romance comes much easier to characters on television than it does in real life, and there are many wonderful guys from the TV universe whom I would eagerly put on my fantasy-husband list. The only problem is narrowing it down to a single choice! (Although since this is all fantasy anyway, who says I must be limited to just one, LOL? There ARE seven days in a week!) Now I am dithering over whom to choose from among Wolfgang, Lito, and Will. Like you, I find it impossible to make a decision. I would be thrilled, and very lucky, to land any one of them! I will have to sit myself down and give this more serious thought!

One of the many reasons to watch Sense8 is for the hunky hotness! Who is your favorite? (Here are my top three.)

Tell me about it! I have the vapors! LOL! It's actor-model Matthew Camp, by the way.

Carl, you find some of the most amazing (and obscure) videos. Good job!

Great choices, Slick Jones!

Thank you so much! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, YRBB, and the entire SON community!

If any of these hunky Christmas models were to visit me tonight, I would really be a 'Ho...'Ho...'Ho!

Merry Christmas!

I am curious to know what they would pay an actor for using him in a pre-taped opening, in which he had no lines and did not have to do any additional work. Or when they only showed his face in a still photograph. Surely not the equivalent of a new, first-run episode in which he spoke reams of dialogue. I used to wonder the same thing watching LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE. That show would often have weddings or funerals or other church services, in which several regular actors would appear silently in the background for only a few moments during those group scenes. They might be on camera for thirty seconds, and never speak. Of course they would be paid, but the same salary as in a regular episode when they had 45 pages of dialogue? Pr would there be some sort of pay-scale adjustment?

Seeing this happen to Ashley is quite painful. I wish the show were not eliminating a character who represents a solid moral centerpiece. I would rather say goodbye to a Dingle or two.

Yes, I remember reading that story about Barrow wanting to be paid for appearing in the opening. Still, if I were in charge, I would have simply dropped him and just used everyone else. Or perhaps made a few different openings, only one with Johnny Ryan which could be shown when Barrow was actually going to appear on that day. The "anonymous strangers" were off-putting. James Arness (GUNSMOKE) once said that the extra they used in the initial opening for that show (the man seen in the distance for a brief second before Marshall Dillon shoots him) also demanded additional payment for appearing in the opeing footage, and the show simply replaced him. That's the way to go if TPTB refuse to cough up the extra cash, IMHO. When it premiered, DARK SHADOWS had Alexandra Moltke (Vicki) narrate the beginning of every episode. ("My name is Victoria Winters...."), but when the producers wanted to save money and not pay her for episodes in which she did not actually appear, they simply had other actors, those who WOULD be featured in that particular episode, narrate the prologue instead.

I will never understand the logic behind eliminating the pictures of the show's characters from this RH opening logo, and replacing them with a bunch of anonymous strangers. It's like the "bedsheets in the wind" opening from OLTL, with all its pictures of unknown models who had nothing whatsoever to do with...the show.

First dibs on the cutie in the speedo!

I think he has been overrated on certain shows, but deserved his acclaim on others. His LOVING was tepid asnd his work on THE DOCTORS was off-kilter, but his material on GENERAL HOSPITAL was first-rate and his ATWT was also (mostly) very good. Some writers just "get" certain shows better than others, I guess. On the other hand, there are writers like Jean P and Charles Pratt, who are uniformly horrible no matter what soap they inherit.

Nola's friend Gracie left Springfield to work for Joan Bennett (!!!) as her stylist. It's a shame you did not see more of PFS's work. I followed her from soap to soap. She was always great...except for her peculiar, stilted material on RYAN'S HOPE. It just did not work. Everything felt unnatural and forced, and although there were some good scenes, some good moments, during her tenure, most of what she work was not effective for that particular show. Her DAYS was brilliant, however.

Yes, and...ugh. Marilyn Chris was one of a kind and could not be replaced.

But I have always felt Jed Allan would have been a good Mike. Attractive, affable, strong, a good actor, and popular within the daytime community. He was a weird choice for Edward Quartermaine, but he would have been a good for for Mike Bauer, IMHO. She continued the story with Amanda and Mark Evans as well, and added pathos to it. She had Nola experience one of her movie fantasies, this time based on Mata Hari. She had warm, touching scenes between the characters (Bert and Hillary talked about Bill and their interpersonal relationships, Sara and Mike discussed the value of enduring friendships, Vanessa confessed to Henry about her longstanding insecurities in life). It was all so great, character-driven, and very TGL-y. I do not think Long wrote well for Vanessa or Nola overall. She gave them a few cute scenes now and again but did not seem to know how to handle them in the long run. The actresses said as much in later interviews. But of course, everyone has his own take on what he sees on screen, and what I dislike other viewers may adore. To each his own.

I never said Costner was replaced, but he was let go from the show. Not having your contract renewed is a form of dismissal. In 1983, ABC declined to renew Jacquie Courtney's contract on OLTL, despite her enormous popularity and importance to the program, which iwas a similar situation.

The Julia material was disgusting, and Hunt Block's entire run as Craig was a disaster, IMHO. Scott Bryce simply was Craig. The attempts at replacing him failed. Yes, PFS was excellent at TGL, and immediately hit the ground running with good, literate scripts, a keen understanding of the characters and their relationships, and an obvious knowledge of the show's history. Firing her was a MAJOR gaffe on the part of TPTB, but...we came to expect stupidity from the executives. I remember the Paul Kinkaid business the way that you do, but in all honesty, regardless of whom his father was originally supposed to be, it would not be too much of a stretch for the audience to accept that he was finally proven to be Bill Bauer's son. It would have provided the show's core family with a great deal of solid material to play out.