vetsoapfan

By herself, Karen would not be essential to me, either, but since the Baldwins are the second longest-running family on GH (the first being the Hardys), I'd use her as an already-known, canonic component (along with Serena) to rebuild and replenish the clan. If it were not feasible to rehire Josh Duhon, for whatever reason, I'd forgo Logan. And, of course, I would never dream of resurrecting Roger Howarth, as any character, under any circumstances. I REFUSE to believe that my Scotty could have sired that icky Franco. It just boggles the mind how TPTB willingly slaughtered so many characters from among the Qs. They may not have had a choice in some cases, but much of the gratuitous carnage was ridiculous and unnecessary. I agree. In the modern era, GH has handled the passing of the vets well. It was lovely. I read an interview with Beradino once, from the 1980s, in which he lamented Emily McLaughlin's being so downgraded and marginalized on the show. He acknowledged that we barely saw Jessie at that point, and said, "We at least used to have her on the Christmas show, but not anymore. That troubles me." Mary Ann Anderson, McLaughlin's daughter, told me once that there was always the fear that EM would be fired for good, but when Joseph Hardy took over as producer, he had Jessie appear once a week (albeit in minor bits). Bill Bell, Douglas Marland, Henry Slesar or Agnes Nixon could probably pull a story like this off. Today's GH writers? I doubt it.

Are any details about the backstage issues publicly available? We never even found out what went down between Doug Davidson and Y&R. Of course, the public does not "deserve" to know anything about actors' private lives and issues, but curiosity does rear its ugly head.🤷‍♂️

I do appreciate how GH has been honoring veteran actors who have passed away the last several years, but it will always stick in my craw how when Emily McLaughlin died, the show just dropped the character of Jessie Brewer without a word. She simply ceased to exist and we had no idea what happened to her until years later when in a throwaway line, Steve Hardy mentioned she had died earlier. It was so dismissive and lacked respect.

I had never heard that rumor, but it would be cool. As the longest-running character currently available to GH (he began in 1965 as a child), Scotty Bentley Baldwin deserves a place on the canvas. (So does Doug Davidson's Paul Williams on Y&R, but that is a whole other can of worms.) And Maree Cheatham as Marie Horton deserves to have at least regular cameo appearances on DAYS. She's the only remaining original cast member from 1965. I know: I am dreaming in Technicolor.🤷‍♂️

I hear ya!

Really? That's too bad. I hadn't heard. Still, I'd love to see Scotty, Karen, Logan and Sabrina back in Port Charles. The core families have all been decimated. UGH! That recast Jagger and his pointless reintroduction to the show was insane! What an insult to the character, the show's history, and GH's longtime audience. (I'll always contend that Rick Webber's return as an evil degenerate was the soap's worst retcon/reintroduction of a character ever, however.) Yes, and the show could use a beloved patriarch to provide a moral core. Scribes keep changing, but the swill they dish up all tastes the same, alas. Along with a huge chuck of the pointless characters, Frank needs to get axed.

I admit I no longer watch GH on a regular basis. I peek in from time to time, keep up with its news on the internet, and listen to friends' commentary about it, however. Still, I am curious: someone has told me that the show seems to be starting a story about mad scientists/doctors conducting secret experiments in a hidden lab under the hospital, reanimating the dead. Is this true?!? Now I hear about brain microchips and USB devices in characters' heads, and my own head is spinning. This is not the 1980s with crappy sci-fi nonsense all the rage. Is the show really going there? UGH! (If the show is really going to embarrass itself with back-from-the-dead plots, TPTB should at least try to reanimate important, legacy characters who never should have been killed off in the first place, rather than irrelevant side characters. How about Tony Jones, AJ Quartermaine, Karen Wexler or Logan Hayes Baldwin? I'd love to see a beloved vet take over as chief of staff at GH, and Tony would fit the bit perfectly. The show needs to rebuild the decimated Q family, and AJ could drive a lot of story. The Hardys, the Webbers and the Baldwins could also use a boost. Josh Duhon, who played Scotty's son Logan, was sexy, a good actor, and had a je-ne-sais-quoi that actually reminded me of Kin Shriner. This show has so many minor, irrelevant, side and/or worn-out characters. Clean house and refocus on the core. Where is Tommy Hardy?🤔

Yes, that's how I remember it (I watched GH during its dark years in the 1970s), but I just wanted to acknowledge that another source contradicted my memory. Not to sound too arrogant, LOL, but when reference material contradicts what I watched first-hand and/or recorded at the time, I trust myself over sources which repeatedly prove themselves to be in the wrong about their information. (Exhibit A: SoapCentral.🙄)

Yes, as I just posted above (before seeing this message of yours), Samantha was always a minor, supporting player. She was never terribly well developed (with the poor writing which spanned multiple writing regimes, this was a problem for GH in the mid-1970s). With yet another change of scribes, the show wrote out the entire Baldwin/Chandler family in one fell swoop. Except for Lee (who would later return alone), none of the temporary family left any lasting impact on the show. It's said that GH only started keeping their episodes in 1978/9, so most/all of Samantha's eps would have been wiped long ago. EDITED TO ADD: I just read in a soap-history book (which has proven to be inaccurate in the past), that supposedly Samantha Livingstone Chandler remained on GH until 1979. I don't believe this is right. It would have brought her into the Douglas Marland era. With her entire family having moved to NYC, why would the show have kept around a minor player from a temporary family which never caught on in the first place? Anyway, if this is true, 1979 eps do exist, so the dream of seeing footage of the character could be within the realm of possibility.

Samantha Livingstone Chandler was only around in the mid-1970s, and always a relatively minor supporting character. Like so many others of that time period, she didn't last very long. She was a young nurse who fell in love with, married, and got pregnant by Bobby Chandler, Lee Baldwin's stepson. Bobby was diagnosed with the terminal (fictional) Melenkoff's Disease, but Steve Hardy saved the day by discovering that Bobby had been misdiagnosed. The young man actually had a different (but still fictional) disease called Farrier's Syndrome (I think), which could be cured in New York City. Subsequently, Lee, his new wife Caroline, Bobby and Samantha all packed up and moved away from Port Charles. The show was in turmoil then, with a revolving door of writers and characters. This was GH's way of cleaning house quickly. Lee Baldwin later returned to the show, announced Caroline and Bobby had both passed away, and ended up marrying Gail Adamson. Samantha had apparently survived (she was not mentioned among the deceased), but we never saw nor heard from her again.

The storyline was very poignant and very well handled. I had had to drop OLTL completely in the 1980s (after watching it for 15 years) because of the damage Paul Rauch and the idiotic sci-plots did to the once-fine and respected show, but the Billy Douglas/AIDS quilt storyline pulled me back in. That surprised the heck out of me, but it ended up being a memorable time in Llanview's history. Thank you for sharing this chapter of your life. At their finest soaps can entertain, enlighten AND enrich people's lives. The genre has lost/abandoned real attempts and enlightenment nd enrichment, but daytime TV had a real impact back in the day.

Back in the golden era of the 1960s and 1970s, soaps made mistakes and hired weak writers too. The difference was, those errors in judgement were rectified pretty quickly, and hack scribes did not last for ten freaking YEARS as ratings sunk lower and lower.

It's like the situation with Hogan Sheffer on ATWT. When he came aboard in 2000, he had writers like Carolyn Culliton to keep him grounded, and it seemed lie he might work out. After CC departed, however, and fellow hack Jean Passanante joined Sheffer's team, the show went quickly to hell and never rebounded.

I read a great interview with Bill Bell, way back when, in which he acknowledged that so many stories on soaps echo those on other shows. He said there is only a finite number of plots out there, and the difference comes in how individual writers develop and explore those plots; that even familiar storylines become unique because of the specific characters involved, and their reactions to the events. The horror of watching what DAYS had turned into, and knowing that Passions would end up reinforcing a type of storytelling which I knew was destructive to daytime, precluded me from ever appreciating or even tolerating JER's material. The abject stupidity (IMHO) was too overwhelming, and negated any small moments of "better" storytelling that may have seeped through. I think the team JER was part of on TGL did much better work than Claire Labine did on that series. (I have a feeling JER really only made coffee runs and used the copy machine, bwahahahahaha.) Real writers like Nancy Curlee and Lorraine Broderick created magic there. Claire Labine gave us some sweet moments, but the heavy focus on the Santos mob and all those vile San Cristocrapians running around (probably a mandate from MADD and TPTB) ruined her tenure in Springfield for me. The last straw was the shoot-out in the Bauer kitchen. BLASPHEMY. That being said, Labine was brilliant at Where the Heart Is, Love of Life, Ryan's Hope (mostly) and General Hospital. It's my contention that her tenure on GH, dealing with BJ's heart and Stone's AIDS, was the last time any daytime soap reached the level of greatness.

OMG, yes! Rick Oliver was shot and killed in 1967 and Martha Marceau was accused of the crime. The real killer turned out to be Laura Hillyer. Thank you for refreshing my cloudy memory! Here's a list of The Edge of Night's murder cases: https://community.fortunecity.ws/lavender/casino/403/murders.html

Very possible. In any case, it was pointless all the way around. To me, Sarah was abrasive and irritating, and Lainie was a retcon (i.e. fake) Bauer whose existence did not fit in with the show's canon. At least Barbara was a character with family ties and a long history in Springfield. His bizarre return was fumbled and unnecessary if that's all they were going to do with him. TGL made so many mistakes back then, What a mess.

They did bring back Barbara Berger for a while, and had her interact with her family a bit, but the show did very little with her and then just let her fade into oblivion again. Adam Thorpe returned for Blake's wedding, but mysteriously vanished halfway through the day, and his disappearance was never mentioned or explained. Something must have happened backstage, but it was a clumsy mess.

I agree it was probably just happenstance, but if TPTB had cared about the integrity of the show itself, they would have put in the work necessary to weave important, missing characters back into the fabric of Springfield.

While I don't think SSH would have been right for the role of Alexandra, I was disappointed in Marj Dusay's performance.

Julie was a complicated vixen, with both flaws and virtues. It was what made her fascinating and popular, I believe. The audience could root for her and want to strangle her at the same time. I also think it was a mistake to kill off Addie. The story would have been more complicated and layered if Doug continued to be drawn to Julie, even though he loved Addie and Hope. Seeing Addie grow as a person, realize her value as a human being, and regain her own self-respect, would have been an inspirational story. She could have finally left Doug, not settling for a man who wanted her daughter, resulting in a significant growing experience. And then she could have found a man who loved her for herself. Watching Doug squirm as that man then bonded strongly with Hope? Fireworks!!!

I was watching when Michelle was born, and saw Miner be cast and grow a lot as Michelle. In situations like that, viewers are more likely to become attached to the performer. Jada Rowland grew up on screen as Amy Ames on The Secret Storm and Kimberly McCullough grew up as Robin Scorpio on General Hospital. Replacing them would not be looked upon favorably by the audience, I'd say.

There were so many major, beloved, essential characters whom TGL gratuitously axed in 1983-84. Ignoring them and bring back Miss Sally just annoyed me, to be honest. She was basically irrelevant to the show's history. Patricia Barry was wonderful on DAYS. The idea was always for Doug and Julie to wind up together, but Barry's poignant portrayal of Addie made a lot of fans to root fror Doug to stay with her and forsake Julie. When Bill Bell killed off Addie to facilitate a Julie/Doug reunion, fans were enraged. They called for Bell to be fired, and they protested loudly.

Budig was perfectly adequate as Michelle, but my favorite adult version of the character was Lenz. NSA was by far the weakest. The REAL Michelle, in my eyes, will always be Miner, who was so solemn, so "still waters run deep," so endearing in the role.

IMHO, her best and most poignant work was as Addie Horton on DAYS. The audience loved her fiercely, and rained down hell on Bill Bell and the show when the character was killed off.

Not to add more confusion to this question, but I believe the lists are correct. I kept detailed scrapbooks of several of my favorite soaps in the 1970s (I had no life, obviously, LOL), and I recorded information in them which I had culled from watching the shows live. According to my personal records, Russell Kubeck was Somerset's final writer. Just for what that's worth.🙂