vetsoapfan

On 9/11/2023 at 2:03 PM, DRW50 said:

November 8th-12th 1976 was the week that Edge episode aired. 

I looked under some 1972/1973/1974 synopses for AW but could have missed something.

The "two-hander" (I had never heard of that expression before) episode of Another World was in 1973, when Steve and Alice finally met up and reconciled after their divorce, when he was then married to Rachel. Clips of it are in this youtube video, starting at about 5:16.

The original script had a few other characters set to appear in the episode, but Paul Rauch said he wanted to focus on the Steve/Alice scenes, so they were extended and filled out, and only those two characters appeared on-screen.

Rauch even got P&G to let him move the first set of commercials, so that the day's first act was significantly lengthened and uninterrupted. In a magazine article later on , Jacquie Courtney said that Rauch also made the decision to tape the dress rehearsal, which she appreciated. She said, "I don't think I could have mustered up all that emotion a second time!"

I loathe how Rauch ultimately decimated AW, but even I have to grudgingly give him credit for the wise decisions he made about this specific episode. Watching it live, I was totally mesmerized.

Eddie Drueding is an acknowledged and respected treasure, of course, but he began watching AW long after 1973. If he only had the scripts of that year to rely on, he would have no way to know about the last minute changes to the episode that ended up making it a two-person, special broadcast. 

From The Another World Home Page:

OCTOBER 8, 1973 (EP. #2337)
Alice told Steve she'd heard Rachel say that he was with her the day Alice lost her baby. Steve said he'd never told her that Rachel insisted on being present whenever he saw Jamie because he knew how Alice felt about Rachel. Steve said he married Rachel only to provide a home for Jamie. ***Rachel worried when she phoned from New York and Janice told her Steve wasn't at home. Mary got upset when Russ told her today was the day Steve and Alice were meeting.*** (<<<EDITED OUT OF EPISODE) Alice admitted she couldn't forget what she and Steve had shared together. When she wept that he was married to Rachel, he vowed to free himself. ***Alice thanked Pat for arranging the meeting, feeling hope for the first time in months.*** (<<<EDITED OUT OF EPISODE. AIRED THE FOLLOWING DAY.)

Steve: (To Alice) "I loved you more than anything on earth."

5 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Thanks. I didn't know her well enough to decide. I'll edit that video out.

To be fair, anyone can make an error, but IMHO, that does not look like "our" Sally at all. I'd bet the farm that it is not her.

@DRW50 I am sure that is NOT the Sally Stark from Love of Life.

Thanks for the new link, @DRW50.

17 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

I would call Mary's billing special billing, but certainly not star billing.  And obviously not star billing in the opening, like Prinz, Andrews, and McKenzie received.   

Right. Stuart was always first billed in the closing credits, with her name appearing before anyone else's. An issue later arose, however, when a new set of writers, Frank and Doris Hursley, demanded they be first-billed as the writers, which meant Stuart was then "downgraded" to having her name appearing after theirs. Stuart alleges Doris disliked her and openly vowed to destroy Stuart's position on the show.

Stuart later had conflict with Ann Marcus, when AM took over the show. Tension with head writers must be a nightmare for the star of a soap.

Off topic slightly in a SFT thread, but one weird incident stands out in my head about actors receiving star billing. After Rosemary Prinz left How to Survive a Marriage, the soap obviously dropped her star billing from the opening. For some unfathomable reason, however, in a post-Prinz opening, viewers were suddenly treated to, "How to Survive a Marriage...starring Joan Copeland as Monica Courtland!"

I was like, WTF? Copeland's character was definitely a supporting player. If HTSAM wanted a new star to be touted in the opening, it should have been Jennifer Harmon as Chris Kirby, who was the central heroine and definitely the series' leading character.

Just as strangely, Copeland's special billing quickly disappeared, but I was always baffled as to why it have ever been given to her in the first place, even once.

16 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Is this the first time we've seen the exterior of Henderson House in the surviving episodes? @vetsoapfan @slick jones do you know? Can't remember. The attempt at making up the entryway to the place, with the chairs and "tea dansant" sign, give this a little more life than some of the usual barren soap sets (one of which we see later in the episode).

Even if it's not a very exciting episode, somehow 3 characters in 15 minutes still makes me care more than 20 in the hour episodes of today.

I don't know if the show used that exterior shot of the Henderson House repeatedly, but it would make sense. They went through the trouble of filming and paying for the footage, so they would want to use it again. I do agree that stuff like this added life to vintage, often barren-looking soaps of the time.

And yep: smaller casts of characters with more meaningful conversations is much more captivating than watching hordes of one-dimensional, often unlikeable characters talking about nothing of substance in today's soaps.

5 hours ago, te. said:

 

 

I guess @vetsoapfan

Mary Stuart was always listed first among the actors, of course, but I never saw (nor do I recall at this point) ever seeing her receive special star billing.

11 hours ago, j swift said:

These days, Kevin Bacon does ads for the International House of Pancakes on TikTok, so I don't know that he qualifies as an arbiter of good taste.

 

 

LOL!

On 8/18/2023 at 1:32 AM, Vee said:

Millette Alexander's EON role has always fascinated me from reading up about it on the old EON fan site back in the day. I never saw any of her on GL until much long after. She was a stalwart presence. I don't know if Kevin Bacon has ever talked about her when referencing his time on the show (not that I've ever heard of him talk about it much at all) - didn't he play her ward?

The only comment Kevin Bacon made about TGL which has always stuck in my mind is, "The more I did it, the worse it got."

Pffft.

1 hour ago, Paul Raven said:

Lynn Benesch...I didn't even think of her. When did Lynn replace Trish?

Yes, that is definitely Lynn Benesch in the B&W photograph with Agnes Nixon standing behind the actresses.

Benesch took over the role in 1969.

On 8/3/2023 at 12:54 PM, chrisml said:

I always assumed Jacqueline Courteney was let go because of Paul Rauch and their previous professional relationship. I know when he went onto SB he immediately fired Louise Sorel who he had had an off-set relationship with when she was on OLTL. 

That has been the most widely-believed theory about her dismissal among fans from what I've seen. It was also commented upon in the soap press back in the day.

I suppose we will never know for certain, however. Courtney never commented publicly about the situation, and after she was abruptly dropped from the show, ABC only gave a brief, improbable statement "We had no storyline for the actress."

On 8/7/2023 at 9:33 AM, SoapDope said:

Phillip McHale (Tony # 2) in a commercial for Skin Bracer(1979/1980)

Actually, PH was the third actor to play Tony Harris, following George Reinholt and then (briefly) Jimmy Jontz.

On 1/12/2023 at 10:26 AM, All My Shadows said:

I just finished a rewatch of the first twenty episodes courtesy of Filmrise/Tubi, and I love love love the early days of this soap so much. Tubi also has 300+ episodes from the 90s, but I don’t know if I even want to watch them because I’m just so used to the Farm era.

Wait, what? Tubi has early Emmerdale???

Is it only the first 20 episodes? I'm afraid if I start watching the show again, and get cut off after only 20 eps, I'll be left terribly frustrated.

But it would be nice to see the Sugdens again.

32 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Jacquie did have her hair cut whilst on OLTL as seen in this photo.

Yes, but personally, the only hairdo I've ever seen and heard viewers cringe over was that dreadful abomination on AW in 1984. I thought she had a lovely look on OLTL, throughout her different styles there.

32 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

As for Pat being front burner, I'm sure she was seen regularly as her contract would have stipulated but in terms of story,Pat had no real prominence. .After her marriage to Tony he is sent to Beirut and months later killed off.  I'm going by SOD synopses which I admit don't give a completely accurate picture, but Pat is hardly mentioned for months on end, even after Tony returns,which leads me to believe TPTB were not overly invested.

I think after the third actor in a row did not work out as Tony, the show must have been in a real bind. It was for the best that they killed Tony off and veered Pat off into another direction. The show did continue to use the character, however, and the writers certainly seemed invested, judging from the fun stuff they were starting to do between Pat and David.

32 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Maybe the David Renaldi stuff was a final attempt to bring her back to prominence, but as I said I guess by contract time they thought better of investing in the character for another 3 years.

I think there were other, political reasons at play surrounding her dismissal, and not a lack of interest, since they were already initiating a new romance with a daytime legend for her. But in any case, there's no way any of us can know for sure what happened, four decades later.

On 7/31/2023 at 11:12 AM, dc11786 said:

I may very well be wrong on this, but I do think there was mention of Meta Bauer being in Nova Scotia in 2002. Before Mary Stuart died, Meta was being used in the lighthouse restoration project story with a rivalry brewing with Claire Ramsay. I think Meta's absence was explained as her being in Nova Scotia, but I don't remember if she was visiting Trudy. 

I do know that Mike Bauer was referenced in May, 2004. When Michelle was shipped out of town by Danny at the time of the warehouse explosion story, Michelle and Robbie went to D.C. to visit Mike as they had just written out Ed Bauer around the same time. 

I fully acknowledge that I could not have listened to every line of dialogue in the show's painful last decade, so if they did mention that Meta was in Nova Scotia, I completely missed it. 

I do remember that when Mary Stuart returned to TGL for her final run (after being off-screen for an extended period), the first thing Michelle Bauer said upon seeing her was, "Aunt Meta! WHERE have you BEEN?"

I took this as the writers winking at the audience, since so often older characters just drop off the face of the planet without any on-screen explanation. Would Michelle have asked that in such a shocked tone of voice, if everyone had known where Meta was all along?

I always watch out for references to past or missing characters like a hawk, because I loathe when they just disappear without warning, or when their extended absence (even for weddings and funerals) makes it look like they never existed in the first place. (Hello, Tommy Horton from DAYS!)

When Charita Bauer passed away and TPTB had her leave town to care for Meta who had had a stroke, it was said on-air that Bert and Meta were in Florida. Soap Central incorrectly gave the location as Washington.

Egregious fan fiction is evident in various Soap Central bios, so at this point, I can't trust much of their reporting.

9 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

But Pat's romance with Adam Brewster occurred around 1979, and her relationship with Bo took place several years later -- around 1982-83.  

No, Pat's relationship with Bo was over long before 1982-3. They had fallen in love and gone to Paris in 1980. Adam Brewster was introduced in 1978 and lasted into 1979, but since the character was a dud, TPTB tried out other romantic options for Pat Kendall.

The Buchanan men came along in 1979. Pat and Clint had been tested out first (briefly), but the pairing did not click. They worked better as friends. Clint was traded off to Viki and Pat was partnered with Bo.

After George Reinholt left as Tony Lord, his character was recast with Jimmy Jontz, then Phillip McHale, and finally Chip Lucia. None of these actors set the show on fire. Lucia was a particularly baffling choice for the role. I'll always contend that Courtney's best couplings on OLTL were with Reinholt and Fuccello, and I firmly believe she and Zaslow would have clicked beautifully as well.

8 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Did some checking-when the Adam Brewster romance was squashed, they went with the Pat/Maggie twin story, Clint had some interest in Pat at this time .Then in 1980 they went full steam with Pat/Bo. Asa wasn't happy and tried to break them up. Pat encountered Olympia and went into investigative mode, eventually leading to a break up with Bo, for most of 81 she was investigating Nicole/Olympia and close to Clint but just as friends. Tony Lord returned late 81 so he and Pat were involved and then married.Tony was written up so Pat was in limbo thru 82.

So by the time her contract was up, it seemed pretty clear that there was little interest in Jacquie/Pat. She was not frontburner and probably on big money.

I would disagree, since the show was clearly positioning Pat into David Renauldi's orbit, and the two of them were developing the familiar "antagonistic" interaction that so often later explodes into romance on soaps.

Then TPTB just dropped her.

8 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

With so many changes, they probably decided Viki and Dorian were enough in that age group and Jacquie was dropped.

That butch haircut didn't help...

The potential arrival of Paul Rauch, coupled with budgetary reasons, could have indeed precipitated Courtney's contract being dropped. But, what butch haircut? Her hair was lovely on OLTL. It was on AW in 1984 that it got hack off and slicked with gel. 

4 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

Did Jacquie get that haircut while she was still on OLTL?  I thought she just showed up on AW with that haircut upon her return.   It was certainly not a good look for Alice. 

JC's hair was lovely (IMHO) when she was on OLTL, and even when she first returned to AW in May of 1984, she had a decent-enough hairdo. But then, a while later, someone in the hair department must have been on LSD, because all of a sudden, Alice had a dreadfully-short haircut, and it looked like her hair was matted to her head. It was, as they say, "butch."

Thank God it grew out and softened before she left in  1985, and then in later guest appearances, her hair was nice again.

On 7/30/2023 at 10:28 AM, soapfan770 said:

I wonder about that myself but it seems to happen often on Irma’s soap that one of the core original family members would get discarded and forgotten about. Here on GL we have Trudy, ATWT had Edith Hughes, and AW had Janet Matthews. 
 

Trudy could and should have been brought back at any point in time. Heck Johnny and Lacey could have easily been Trudy’s children. 

Trudy (very rarely) popped up a few times after she and Clyde moved to New York. The couple continued to be referred to into the 1960s when Agnes Nixon was writing the show.  In one script, there's talk about young Mike possibly going to visit Trudy in NY. After Nixon left, however, I don't recall Trudy ever being mentioned again.

On 7/30/2023 at 7:23 PM, Paul Raven said:

Seeing Bo & Pat in that clip brings up memories of that coupling.

Obviously the plan was for them to be a major couple. They got the Paris remote etc but things changed.

How long were they together? Why did they break up?

Did Pat have any other love interests? I can't recall offhand until they brought back Tony and married them off.

Did Jacquie lose her leading lady status post Bo?

I don't now remember why Pat and Bo broke up, but JC did not lose her leading-lady status on the show.

TPTB introduced a character named Adam Brewster and were obviously planning on making him a romantic interest for Pat. Unfortunately, the actor was not attractive or appealing at all, had no chemistry with Courtney, and was dispatched relatively quickly without much fuss.

Courtney had much more success with actor Tom Fuccello, who played Pat's ex-husband Paul Kendall. He was adorable, charismatic, and the actors oozed chemistry. Watching Adam/Pat scenes versus Paul/Pat scenes, it was clear that even the writers were shifting alliances towards Paul.

The year before ABC let her go, Courtney was being tried out on-screen as a love interest for Michael Zaslow as David Renauldi. They sizzled together, too, and would have made a great couple, but ABC put politics before audience favorites, and a while after Courtney was dismissed for alleged "lack of storyline," The Roach descended upon Llanview and (IMHO) crippled the show.

The first thing that came to mind was one of the earliest examples of slapping (or in this case, spanking) which I saw on daytime TV: when a usually stoic and patient Russ Matthews finally lost his cool over his wife Rachel's atrocious behavior, and took her over his knee and spanked her.

The scene would never be allowed to air today, but it was sooooo satisfying.

11 hours ago, FrenchFan said:

I wish I could have seen EON at this time !

The show was engrossing and smartly written in the 1960s and 1970s, when the great Henry Slesar was head writer. There were so many memorable stories and characters.

On this day in 1973 (August 1st), Adam Drake and Nicole Travis finally got married after an eight-month engagement (he had proposed to her at the stroke of midnight, December 31, 1972).

This was one of TEON's most popular couples.

1 hour ago, soapfan770 said:

Thank you as I don’t remember Meta going off to Nova Scotia to be with Trudy at all, similar to Penny Hughes visiting Edith, John, & Marion Hughes in 2000 lol.
 

The strange fabricated that was the Tom Halverson bio still takes the cake for me lmao 

God only knows why "Nova Scotia" (of all places) was woven into the bizarre and inexplicable fantasies fabricated by the Soap Central storytellers, LOL.

Honestly, the need/insistence of some fans to write absurd fiction on the internet, and present it as "fact," suggests certain mental...weaknesses.

6 hours ago, DRW50 said:

@vetsoapfan You mentioned a lot of the Soapcentral bios being fanfic - is that also true for Meta and Bruce being divorced by 1984? I guess that's based on Bert going to help take care of Meta? I'd be surprised if those at GL in 1984 remembered Bruce. 

Yes, that bit arose solely from some contributor's imagination. When Aunt Meta showed up in Springfield, played by the legendary Mary Stuart, Bruce Banning was left completely unmentioned and never referred to at all.

I've noticed repeatedly that on Soap Central, contributors fill in a lack of storyline and character knowledge/information with their own fantasies.

Even more annoyingly, the SC site wove a huge amount of fan fiction about Meta's sister, Trudy Bauer Palmer. None of the following bullcr@p they posted about the character happened at all.

"Trudy was mentioned having been contacted in 1973 when her father, Papa Bauer died. She was also contacted, along with Meta, in 1983 when their brother Bill died after being pushed out a window. In 1984, the Bauers received word that Clyde had died. In 1986, Trudy was contacted when Bert Bauer passed away. Though Trudy never visited her family, in 1999, Meta, living in Springfield again, would visit Trudy for a time."

@slick jones thanks for the shout out.

22 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

No problem. You provide so much for fans, it's the least you deserve. 

I wonder if they ever even mentioned Joey in Meta's last years on the show. (I mean as Ellen Deming)

Thank you for your kind words.

After Joey left, I don't remember him being referred to much, if at all, on the show. Particularly once Aunt Meta became involved with and married Bruce Banning.

When Mary Stuart took over the role of Meta, I really hoped that TPTB would study up on the character's history and reintroduce Joey and his offspring to the show. It would give Meta an expanded family (God knows, the Bauers had mostly been hacked away by then), but when Meta showed up in Springfield, no one even mentioned Bruce Banning or what had happened to him. Yet another dead husband for Meta, I suppose. I doubt TPTB at the time even knew who Joey was.

3 hours ago, soapfan770 said:

Meta’s son Joey, whatever happened to him? Seems he got lost in the shuffle at some point which is disappointing. 

As he grew into his late teens, Joey left for a life in the military, and never returned home.

Thanks @DRW50 for the link. These vintage eps always make me feel like I'm watching old home movies; very comforting.

7 hours ago, DRW50 said:

@vetsoapfan tagging you as Janice Lynde is attending this AW 60th event. 

Such a drab character she had to play, but I'm glad she is still involved. 

I wish much more of Barbara Rodell's time on the show was available. It's forever a shame what was lost. 

Susan Keith was so wonderful as Cecile that it's hard at times to even see Nancy's take as the same character, although Nancy was a wonderful comedienne. 

Thank you, @DRW50. Yes, I had heard Janice Lynde was set to appear at the AW event.

Sadly, both her roles on AW and OLTL were drab and unsuccessful, IMHO, but I blame inept PTB at the time. Given strong material, Lynde can be dynamite (as her reign on Y&R proved so well).