vetsoapfan

I would do it! DAYS just needs to hire me, LOL!

Yes, I know that Wagner did not quite make it to ATWT's very last day, but in my mind, it was close enough. Her absence left a hole in the finale, alas.

Doug also has a biological son named Doug LeClaire, who existence has never been brought up over the last several decades. The show could do something with that angle, if they wished to carry on Doug Williams' legacy. No problem. Glitches happen. It alerted me to your post and allowed me to catch the photo pf Tina Andrews...who looks so different from her time on DAYS!

Like Helen Wagner on ATWT and Mary Stuart on SFT. It would have been wonderful!

Yes. I agree, but at least on the show's tenth anniversary, Mary was given her due. I am so glad I kept the episode, and that it survived for decades until it could be digitized! Out of curiosity, what years did you watch AW during Mary Matthews' time there?

Mary Matthews is indeed on the 10th anniversary episode, and in fact, appears quite prominently. Virginia Dwyer is missing from some of the publicity photos of the wedding, but Mary did attend the ceremony and was in other scenes during the day as well. Check out the entire episode from May 3, 1974 on Eddie Drueding's AW Home Page. http://www.anotherworldhomepage.com/tenthanniversary.html

I don't recall the details, but even at the time I found it curious that Iris would be at Alice's wedding to Steven. I would not have been surprised to see Ada there (she did not attend the ceremony) because of her close relationship with Mary, but Iris? Hmmm.🤔

Not to be contrary, but in May of 1974, I am pretty sure Iris was involved with Kurt Landis, whom she brought as a date to Steve's and Alice's wedding. (The episode is available in its entirety on Eddie Drueding's Another World Home Page.) I know iris and Russ were together in 1975, and she was there to comfort him when Mary Matthews died on Good Friday of that year. I remember she drifted out of the Matthewses' lives and had little/no interaction with most of them as the years went on.

As I recall, Alice and Iris didn't have a lot of interaction in later years, although Iris was invited to Alice's second marriage to Steven. I think she was present when Alice married Ray Gordon as well.

To be fair, I do suppose that if Goutman had been hell-bent on axing the vets, he could have campaigned to fire them outright. As far as we know, anyway, he did not try to do that. Molly, Katie, NuCraig, NuPaul, NuDusty, Henry...there were so many abrasive characters who were shoved down our throats in later years. I found many of the most-featured actors to be unbearable in those final years. But again to be fair, different viewers had different favorites. This has always been the case on soaps. It must be a challenge to balance out the interests and desires of all the different fanbases.

As the years went on, it was clear TPTB on many soaps did not respect their vets as much as they once did. I think savvy veteran performers knew it was in their best interest to be discreet in their public statements. (That comment by Penny was hilarious, and echoed what many viewers were thinking, I'm sure!)

Wagner was very vocal, and made her displeasure about being sidelined quite clear, back in the early 1980s when she was off contract for a few years. During the 2000s, however, I don't recall her making any public comments about how little Nancy was being used. Maybe she felt that her current position on the canvas was tenuous, and she did not not to rock the boat too much. Eileen Fulton, on the other hand, was a different story, and not shy at all about showing her resentment about Lisa's diminished capacity on the show. When being asked in a filmed, one-on-one interview about the various writers on ATWT, she offered a clipped and obviously irritated, "I have nothing to say!" when Sheffer was brought up. In a panel discussion, when Jean Passanante was discussing writing for the soap, Fulton snarked, "You left ME out of it!" Passanante was clearly startled and didn't know how to reply, but the conversation quickly moved on and the tense moment passed. OMG, I had never heard anything like that before. Go, Frances Reid!!!! Woohoo! Give him hell!

Oh, that's interesting. If DvD's character had also been in the Korean war, it would make sense that he had vague feelings about it.

That's definitely not an interview/story I read. In it, Hogan related the story of Wagner asking him to be used more on the show. He was quoted as saying that she may have been the matriarch, but he was going to write the show as he saw fit. My problem is not that he asserted his rights as the writer, per se, but that he revealed to the public a veteran actress had asked for more attention from her own series, and had been turned down by a newbie writer who didn't appear to understand the soap very well. Had I been Wagner, I would have been humiliated. Yep. It was one idiotic decision after another.

Thank you. That was very helpful. It saddens me that the show has killed him off, but at least we know Tommy's fate, now.

A kind poster has just told me that in scenes with Dick Van Dyke on DAYS, Julie Williams brought up her long-unmentioned uncle Tommy Horton, Jr., saying that he had had amnesia long ago and that he has passed away. I was so used to Tommy's living in oblivion, with no mention of his whereabouts or what had ever happened to him. Did Julie give any details about him or his death? (I'm sure the answer will be no, TPTB wouldn't care that much, but I am curious.) Thanks in advance.

I'll even endure Alan Locher to see this!!!

Seriously? I had no idea. At least now we know, after TPTB exiled the character to oblivion for so long, without explanation. Uncle Mickey had amnesia much more recently than Tommy. I wonder why the writers chose to talk about Tommy instead of him. Thanks for letting me know. I don't suppose Julie explained how and when he passed.

I wrote recently that some actors are just irreplaceable, and viewers can tell by instinct who they are. Once Don Hastings took over the role of Bob, he became one of them, but Rosemary Prinz had always been Penny, and the audience had a fierce attachment to her in the part from day one. The actress turned up in 1971 and only stayed part of that year, as I recall. Penny didn't have much to do other than interact with family members. My gut told me that TPTB were trying to slowly make the audience accept her as being part of the Hughes family before giving her any front-burner storyline. But while Dorin was adequate enough in the role, she just wasn't "our" Penny and never felt like a real part of the family. I was relieved when they had the character leave town again. Joe Kane only lasted for a while in 1970, before being replaced by Winifred Wolfe and Warren Swanson, whose work did not impress me. By early 1972, Irna was associated with the show again, whether or not P&G thought she was a pain in the a$$, LOL. When Robert Soderberg and Edith Sommer took over next, the writing was very good, and Oakdale felt like home once more for the next 5+ years.

While I am not a fan of much of what Pamela Long wrote during her original run on the show, I feel she "got" and developed the relationship between Rick and Phillip better than any other writer. (She was also the only one, IMHO, who understood and could write realistic humanity into Reva.) Under Long, Rick and Phillip had a strong emotional bond which couldn't be put into a conventional box. It often felt like Rick had subconscious feelings for Phillip, and that Phillip could not bear to see Rick be closer to anyone else other than him. Pam Long said that O'Leary asked her point blank if Rick were in love with Phillip, because that's how many of their scenes played out. I don't believe Chris Hughes had a relationship with anyone else like Rick Bauer had with Phillip, and to me, Chris' lack of realistic peer relationships kept the character from being fully developed and realized. It was a combination of poor, uncommitted writing and generally weak casting. Did the audience ever truly become emotionally involved with Chris? I think Rick "gelled" better in his earlier years because of the effective relationships he was given with the other Musketeers. But he grew wearisome and ineffective in later years, alas. I don't recall seeing much of a maturation process for Chris. He kept coming and going, and the show didn't seem to follow through with anything while he was younger. The character was not handled well at all. By the time Daniel Cosgrove assumed the role, I didn't feel as if we had seen enough of him growing up and interacting enough with other characters, so I just didn't have any emotional investment in him. That. INFURIATED. Me. We didn't see Penny or Don or Ellen or Andy or Frannie return for Nancy's passing, but we had even more Katie rammed down our throats.😡 So many legacy characters' deaths on soaps were badly bungled and ended up being insulting to the character and the audience. Nancy Hughes on ATWT and Bert Bauer on TGL were just two of the most egregious examples. The days of respectful tributes to vets like Grandpa Hughes, Chris Hughes and Papa Bauer ended long ago. Same here, and that's the problem. As the only male Bauer scion on the canvas, Rick should have been relevant, but he really wasn't. Unfortunately, the endless Manny stuff boxed Michelle into a corner, and Nancy St. Alban was probably the weakest actress in the role (Rachel Miner being the best). And when the show did SORAS Leah, it was ridiculously fast and jarring, only made worse because the show didn't do much with her anyway.

Yes. Sad as it may be admit, Michael O'Leary was not leading-man material, and that only became more apparent as the years went on, and the actor's "mugging" escalated. Both Christopher Hughes and Rick Bauer needed strong, dynamic, charismatic actors to make the roles succeed, and that never came to be.

Not to sound too catty, but it all confirms my belief that many award shows are bogus when it comes to handing out trophies in daytime drama categories. Fans know when certain people's work is not award-worthy. The judges? Not so much. I have a feeling that Sheffer and Carlivati won their awards for being "less bad" than the competition. I think most of us agree: bad casting was a major reason why the character of Chris never blossomed. TPTB never got the right actor for the part, although some were better than others. The Chris/Katie pairing was ridiculous and I cringed at the very thought of Katie joining the Hughes family. We DO! That's a good way to put it. Sheffer's harsh, dark, cynical tone was the polar opposite of the homey, warm, family-based and humane Oakdale we had once known and loved (when the show was number one in the ratings for decades, I might add). Even I have to give him credit for that. Compared to TGL, I almost want to give Goutman an award for keeping our vets with us until the bitter end. I started to see Lily as Oakdale's version of Reva Shayne: overused, spent and in need of retirement.

I appreciate conversations like this, in which posters can hold different beliefs about issues without becoming enraged and flinging ad hominem insults around. We've all seen what social media can be like, LOL. I respectfully disagree about the use of the vets in the 2000s. Back in the day, while Sheffer was writing the show, another message board would post daily cast appearances, and there were times when Lisa went weeks without being seen. Around the same time, Sheffer was asked in an interview why we barely saw Kim, whom viewers missed and clamored to see more often. He gave a reassuring reply that, soon, "We are going to be seeing a lot of Kim." But...we didn't. One thing that grated on my nerves the most is having to endure Helen Wagner's rare cameos on the show being used to prop up Katie. 🤢 Chris Goutman referred to her as "America's Princess," but I could not stand her. I would NEVER refer to folks like Jack and Carly as "vets." I regarded them, like Katie, as over-exposed interlopers. The problem about the new generation of certain families was that so many of the actors were poorly cast and/or did not stick around for long. It was difficult to care about them one way or the other. IMHO, the absolute WORST was Roger Howarth, such a mistake in the role of Paul. I do believe the "vet situation" improved under Jean Passanante, as much as I cringe at having to applaud her for anything, LOL!

All three of The Mod Squad leads seemed to fade away after the series ended, although much later, Peggy Lipton did turn up on Twin Peaks. It surprised me we did not see much of them after TMD left the air. They had been reasonably popular. And ITA about Maree Cheatham. As far as we can surmise, Marie is the only living offspring of Tom and Alice Horton (and Maree Cheatham is the only surviving original cast member). The character and the actress deserve a place on the canvas. And once and for all, I want answers as to whether or not Tommy Horton, Jr. is alive or dead.

I will grudgingly admit that a writer should have the power to write a show as he sees fit, but only to a point. When you take over a long-running series, you simply cannot cut off its roots and drastically alter its tone and style without severely damaging the program. If you assumed the reigns of, say, DALLAS, no one in power would allow you to ignore and marginalize the Ewing family. TPTB of the original Star Trek would not permit you to kill off Spock and write out Kirk and Bones. If you accept the job of writing a beloved franchise, its your obligation to keep essential components of it intact. What i find most offensive about the Sheffer/Wagner interaction is not just that he turned down her request, but that he spoke openly about it in the press. How humiliating for Wagner, a beloved original cast member and lynchpin of the program, to have her participation be undervalued so publicly. Sheffer should have been gracious enough to keep such a private conversation private. Agnes Nixon, Pat Falken Smith, Claire Labine, Douglas Marland, and a few other writers were rightfully applauded for studying the history of each soap they took over from other writers, and using the past effectively. I don't think a lot of scribes even bother. Pamela Long at TGL sure didn't know the history. Unless I am misremembering, I believe Ellen Dolan once said that Hogan Sheffer did not know that John Dixon was Margo's father. When fans of the soaps know more about them than the people writing and producing them, you know there's a problem.