vetsoapfan

Compared to the cramped, flimsy pieces of junk soap fans are now used to seeing, this set is at least "good enough," IMHO. Is anybody recording the scenes with Leslie Brooks? If so, please let me know where they will be uploaded. Thanks!

There's that oft-discussed episode in which Rachel marches over to Alice's house, berates her, and snaps, "Where's the child YOU'VE ever given him (Steve)?" Aunt Liz just sat there meekly. The most she did throughout the entire abusive encounter was murmer, "Rachel, you had better go." She should have showed some real rage, and at least tried to drag Rachel out of there physically.

Gary Tomlin, who was writing AW when Alice returned in 1984 acknowledged in an interview that he had not studied the Alice/Rachel history. It showed. Long-time fans, LOL! Yes, but Rachel's egregious transgressions should never have been swept under the rug in the first place. In real life, nobody in the Matthews family would have forgiven her for what she did to Russ and Alice. And Audra Lindley's version of Aunt Liz would have pulverized her.

James Douglas was reported to have left AW over stalled contract/salary negotiations at that time, so I'm pretty sure it was him.

Alice, Pat, and Aunt Liz all had valid reasons to hold a grudge against Rachel for the heinous actions she had committed against their family, although by the late-1970s, fences were generally mended among them. In a (frankly idiotic) scene, Alice even went over to Ada's house and had lunch with Rachel (who offered her soup) when Susan Harney was playing Alice. Once Pat started to work for Mac, she and Rachel were cordial. Aunt Liz and Rachel even become friends and would spend holidays together (I never accepted that as believable, either.) Lenore left the show in 1975 and really had minimal contact with Rachel after Rachel got together with Mac.

When Rachel was married to Russ Matthews, he finally lost his patience with her atrocious behavior, took her over his knee and spanked her like a disobedient child. That was satisfying too, but when he did it, Russ was stone-faced, methodical and restrained. When Alice went after Rachel physically, she was totally out of control, and might have literally broken Rachel's neck, which...I was kind of hoping to see, LOL.

Yes, videos of Jacquie Courtney as Maggie are on youtube, or at least have been in the past. (As we all know, many things get deleted without warning.) Maybe in the Viki/Clint OLTL playlists; I don't remember where I saw them. BTW, I would say that Justine on AW was even more painful to endure than Maggie on OLTL. The idea that Courtney decided on her own to "improvise" all the verbal conflict with her friends and family, and the physical attack on Rachel, when Lemay had written for Alice to be in a "muted catatonic" state is just ridiculous. When Alice was at her worst, and Lenore found her huddled in the hall closet, did Courtney just run in there by herself, without following any script or directorial advice? 🙄 Of course not. She played the scenes as written, regardless of what Lemay claimed later. I guess the scribe felt when he wrote his book that no one would ever be able to see the vintage episodes again, so no one would ever be able to label his accounts improbable/absurd. Believe me, as a viewer who had waited YEARS for Rachel to get her a$$ kicked, watching Alice finally lunge at her and throw copper pots at her as Rachel fled from the house was enormously, deliciously satisfying. To me, it was one of the most memorable episodes in the show's history.

The problem with Lemay's assertion is, that the way the story and scenes were being written completely validated Courtney's interpretation and performance choices. Alice goes beserk during Rachel's taunting visit, and physically lunges at her? Alice hides herself in the downstairs hall closet when people come to check on her, and then becomes belligerent with them? None of the scenes as written suggested "muted catatonic grief," as Lemay later tried to claim. If he had not wanted Alice to be in the throes of hysterics, he should not have written her that way in the first place. His feeble justification is BS, in my opinion, because he simply loathed the actress personally and he so often looked for any reason to denigrate her. As for Rauch lying, when Courtney passed away, he gave an interview in which he said she was a "great gal," who "always gave first-rate performances on AW." I wouldn't completely trust anything these self-serving men had to say.

ITA that her take on Maggie Ashley was not successful, but I tend to blame the conception of that character and the production end of things for the failure. The clipped British accent, which poor Courtney couldn't pull off...why was that even imposed on her? The awful, fake wig...why? Those frumpy glasses which kept sliding down her nose and made Maggie seem like a caricature rather than an actual character...why? I daresay that a majority of actresses would have failed bringing Maggie successfully to life under those punitive conditions. Ugh. Throughout entertainment history, there have been many actors whose technical skills may have been narrow, but nevertheless, they had a certain something, a certain magic, a certain star appeal that the audience responded to in droves. While I felt they improved as the years went on, I don't think people like Elizabeth Taylor or Marilyn Monroe or Cary Grant were regarded as the world's greatest thespians...but the audience loved them anyway. I thought Courtney was very good, and very powerful, when asked to play a "good girl" and romantic lead. I didn't care if she couldn't pull off inhabiting the role of an evil twin, because that was simply not the function she was meant to serve on either AW or OLTL, anyway. Lemay changed the personalities of many characters he had inherited. Sometimes it worked, made sense and was justified. Sometimes not. He clearly did not understand Mary Matthews, for example, and his take on Aunt Liz was a complete turnabout from how that character had always been presented. Alice had an acute schizophrenic nervous breakdown in 1974 and practically recovered overnight, which was both absurd and irresponsible writing. Yet through it all, the audience adored Jacqueline Courtney. I liked Coster and Robert Delany as well, as his being let go (along with so many other popular stars in the 1970s and early 1980s) surely contributed to AW's decline in popularity. Still, I loved the show from 1964 to 1975 (particularly from 1966 to 1974), so I had quite a long stretch of satisfying entertainment from it. All soaps go through their ups and downs, and I never expect the "good times" to last forever.

What surprised me was that Lemay admitted Courtney was very possibly a reason why OLTL's ratings steadily increased after she was hired on that program. AW's ratings had also risen after her return in 1971 and remained high during her 1970s' tenure there, but started to drift downwards after she left. Certainly I am not implying that JC was the sole reason why a show's numbers would rise or fall (the improved writing on OLTL versus the weakening writing on AW had a significant impact, IMHO), but viewers do loathe losing their favorite on-screen faces. In the earliest days of the show, Alice was quite bubbly, akin to the Hollyood teens of the era; animated and energetic. Then after a few months, she became quieter, more somber on-screen. According to Courtney's recollections many years later, Irna Phillips did not like the "Gidget-esque" version of the character, so JC was asked/told to tone it down. She said to herself that, from then on, she was just not going to move a muscle on her face, LOL. It worked. Irna loved it, and a more introspective, tender Alice Matthews was born. It lowered over the years, and became huskier. Ptrobably due to smoking.

Frankly, I think it's a combination of both. I think Harney might have been more accepted by the audience if she had come aboard as another, new character, but the longtime audience never warmed up to her as Alice. Even Harding Lemay, who vocally derided Jacqueline Courtney at every opportunity, admitted that although he continued to focus on Alice when Harney played the role, her version of the character never gained the popularity that Courtney had engendered. Courtney simply had an indefinable "star quality" that the viewers reacted strongly to. Ahh, Paul Rauch, another producer with an atrocious reputation.🤮 He fired Coster from AW, too.

TPTB often don't understand that the familar, beloved faces we see on our screens for years or decades are a prime reason we tune in.

That's right. The family had to move away, at least for a while, to accomodate Courtney's husband's career. But Lyle B. Hill, the producer at the time, told Courtney that they would hold the role of Alice open for a while, in hopes of her return. During her absence, she made several guest appearance on the program.

Jacqueline Courtney had taken an extended leave of absence and was off AW from June of 1970 to July of 1971, except for a few guest appearances. She was deemed too popular to replace (this was later conclusively proven to be true, when the show tried to do so in the later 1970s and early 1980s), and the Alice/Steve story was put on hold for more than a year. I doubt it would have been backburnered at all, if the show had had any choice. When Courtney returned, the story became the focal point of AW again, and reigned surpreme for the next several years. Corrine Jacker later acknowledged that she disliked writing for the show, and it was evident from her dreadful writing.

Yes, from 1968 to 1975. Lemay's writing started to falter in 1975, but until then, the Alice/Steve/Rachel saga had remained strong, vibrant and compelling. I'd counter that it certainly wasn't played out in 1971 when Lemay arrived. The years 1971-4 were particularly engrossing for both this story and the show in general. On Days, Bill Bell and Pat Falken Smith kept the Bill/Laura/Mickey plot going for a solid decade and it was never boring. Ditto the long-running Roger/Holly business on TGL. the endless Jill/Katherine feud on Y&R, etc. With intriguing actors/characters and solid, imaginative writing, the longer soaps can extend audience-pleasing plots, the better. That being said, later trying to revisit/extend the Alice/Steve/Rachel storyline with different actors and dreadful writing was a major blunder. Since there was no chemistry whatsoever between the bland Linda Borgenson and David Canary, the new versions of Steve and Alice should have been shifted into other orbits in the early 1980s. By then, there was no question that the story was dead and should have remained buried.

When my memory does not fail me! It's strange, though: there are many minute details from 60 years ago which I remember with great clarity, yet specifics from a TV show I watched last Monday have already slipped my mind. Whenever a new season of something arrives on Netflix, I never seem to recall how the previous season ended, and I have to hunt down recaps before watching the new episodes. 🙄

As noted, the 1974 wedding telecast is available on audio over at the excellent Another World Homepage website. Fans can at least listen to it, as if it were a radio play. Allegedly, according to rumor, the color video version of that episode is also floating around out there among private collectors, who refuse to share it publicly. I have never been able to verify this as a fact, although a few folks have claimed to have seen bits of it. I'm glad I was "there" to see both weddings when originally broadcast. The only good thing about being ancient, LOL, is that was around to witness so many memorable historical moments!

Yes, the storyline had been a huge, extremely popular ratings' booster for the show, and upon Jacqueline Courtney's return, P&G wanted the Alice/Steve/Rachel saga to continue. Harding Lemay originally said that he thought it was already "played out," but AW got another four years of mileage out of the plot. Yes, Lemay wrote Alice's and Steve's first wedding in September of 1971 and later their May of 1974 remarriage.

It was definitely James Gerald. He was named after bother his grandfathers: Jim Matthews and Gerald Davis.

Actually, that would have been a good gamble to take. Reinholt was able to project menace, sarcasm, sexiness and charm, and would have been a stronger Alan that either the so-so Ron Raines or the tepid Daniel Pilon. In 1987, when TGL SORASed Alan-Michael to 17, Jacqueline Courtney was 41. Casting her as Hope Bauer would also have been perfect, since (according to Don Stewart, Hope had been about 24 when A-M was born, which aged Hope to 41 in 1987). The show could have used a "star" couple of actors in the 1980s, and having Courtney assume the role of a blood Bauer matriarch would have strengthened TGL's core, and mollified veteran viewers who were still vocally bitter about all the damaging changes Springfield had seen in the 1980s. A few years later, with Maureen Garrett and Michael Zaslow back in the fold, we would have had Jacqueline Courtney, George Reinholt, Beverlee McKinsey, Jerry ver Dorn, Garrett and Zaslow all on the same show...a soap fan's wet dream!!! Ahh, what could have been!

I believe that among long-time viewers, Hulswit has the edge on Simon, but since so many viewers today are too young to have watched the Hulswit era, Simon is the first and principle actor they know in the role, hence their preference for him. Since the Bauers are such a core part of TGL, and since the family had been so stupidly gutted over the years, I suppose I would have taken Simon on screen over NO ONE playing Ed...although that's not singing out his praises too much, LOL.

And both of them became impossible to tolerate, and had no viability as romantic leads whatsoever. Barbara even glancing at Henry was a bastardization of her character.

This is hilariously tragic...and true. Alan will neuter any controversial comments from EF immediately, as he is wont to do.

I was really devastated, and furious at myself for waiting so long to start digitizing my material (well, transferring everything to DVD-Rs, because I had no idea how to save Betamax or VHS material to the computer at that point). Another thing that I deeply regretted was getting rid of all my old soap magazines from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s when I moved into my latest apartment. I did not have the space to keep them all, and I foolishly thought the that soap press would continue to publish new and vibrant stuff for decades, and that I'd always have more and more magazines to buy. Little did I know that most magazines would fold, and the few that survived became too poorly produced to buy. Now, I would KILL to re-read my vintage copies of Daytime TV, Afternoon TV, Daily TV Serials, etc. Thank God I did keep some extra-special issues of those publications, at least. I do eBay search for magazines like Daily TV Serials, but $24.99 for an issue plus another $25.00 for shipping? Nope, not gonna happen. I did consult a few places about trying to salvage the material that had been corrupted on my flashdrives, but the repair guys told me that either it was unlikely the material could be retrieved, or it would be overwhelmingly expensive. I ended up throwing the USB sticks away in frustration, and began the process of replacing everything I had lost. Again, I will be eternally grateful to the friend who had saved all the material that I had copied and sent him years ago. And thanks to his generosity, youtube and the internet archives site, I have recovered most everything that had been really important to me.

OMG, I wish I had known about the existence of these devices years ago. I used to video-trade and collect for decades, and had a huge treasure trove of old soaps on Betamax and VHS (mainly from the 1950s, '60s and '70s). Unfortunately, most of the tapes had deteriorated and turned to dust before I got around to making back-up, durable copies of the episodes of them. I had previously transferred most of my stash to VHS for other collectors, however, and one of them was smart and patient enough to digitize everything important, just for safe-keeping. (He is a GODSEND! I will be eternally grateful that he did all the hard work.) Anyone who has a collection of old tapes, I urge you to digitize them as fast as you can, because from my own experience, videotape just does not last. I'd hate to hear than other SONers also waited too long to convert their material, and found their episodes to be in terrible shape and unwatchable.