vetsoapfan

The wishful and hopeful side of my heart says that yes, our beloved soaps should be rebooted and returned to us. The realistic, cynical side says no, because in the current climate, what we would actually get would be disastrous and disappoint and alienate fans everywhere. Would ANYONE be able to "get it right," and reintroduce a modernized version of one of the shows that would satisfy both the fervent, dedicated fans of yore as well as new viewers? Honestly, I doubt it.

Ellen Holly seems to have developed some emotional issues over the years, but she was a beautiful and talented actress, and an iconic, essential component of OLTL. Damn the odious Paul Rauch for firing her and Lilian Hayman. He decimated OLTL the same way he decimated all the other shows he touched.

Lauren White was (and is, LOL) Caucasian. The character of Blair Cramer on OLTL went from being Eurasian to Caucasian thanks to recasting, and THAT WAS definitely absurd and idiotic and offensive, but MJ on TD was always a white woman.

When JC's popularity really started to soar on Another World (in the late 1960s or so), she was still in her early 20s. When TG inexplicably became popular as the slimy Luke Spencer on General Hospital (late 1970s), he was already in his early 30s. Visually and acting-wise, I think they would have been woefully mismatched on screen, regardless of their ages.

Tony Geary was born in 1947, and Jacquie Courtney in 1946, so they were very close in age, but I honestly cannot picture them having believable romantic chemistry on screen.

Not surprising. An on-line sale for Portrait of a Soap Star: The Emily McLaughlin Story had the book priced at over $700.00 (plus shipping) when I came across it.

Killing off Bill and Laura Horton was not enough.🙄 Actually, if Doug's long-forgotten-about biological son Little Dougy (also known as Charles) or one of his descendants turned up, I wouldn't hate that as much as most other potential stories Ron could inflict upon us.

Ron is completely incapable of writing an Alzheimers story, or anything at all that is socially relevant, sensitive or adult. Will Doug and Julie be possessed by the devil? Cloned? Abducted by extraterrestrials? I'm dreading to see what this story is actually going to be about. Bill and Susan deserve the very best, and with Ron, that is not going to happen, alas.

Is there any indication of what this story will actually be ABOUT? I do not want to see an Alzheimers story for Doug, a plot involving a guaranteed terminal illness, or anything idiotic like devil possession, clones, alien abduction, etc. Knowing Ron, anything socially relevant will be a failure, and anything sci-fi based will just be STOOPID and offensive.

I'd rather give her a chance and see what she could do today, than suffer through any more Griffin or Carlivati. Or Passanante. 🤮 I really didn't want SSM around at all, but if she had to be, I agree that she and Alden should have switched positions. I agree.

The question would have to be posed to Alexander by someone from SON. Most of the people working in today's soap press are way too young, or way too ignorant of history, to ask such a question, sad to say. I can hear it now: Alan Locher, "Denise Alexander started on GH in the 1970s and her character had another lost child? WOW, that's CRAZY!"🙄

Kay Alden, Lorraine Broderick, Nancy Curlee, Patrick Mulcahey doing scripts. There is talent still out there, but the current soaps overlook it and recycle the hacks like Carlivati and Griffin. It was the wrong choice to make SSM the lead headwriter on Y&R a while back, too. I'd rather see the soaps cancelled completely than have Jean Passanante hired anywhere on daytime TV again.

When actually given material to work with, Rachel Ames was an excellent actress.

Gail Baldwin brought up Lesley's other lost child in a conversation she and Lesley had when Pat Falken Smith was writing GH; circa 1980. After that, as far as I know, nothing. So...after 41 years of going unmentioned, Denise Alexander might be the only one left who remembers the child ever existed.

Sadly, I remember neither the name of Lesley's late child nor the family name associated with her first husband.

I have spoken to various fans who lament the omissions in most of the soap coffee-table books. I guess it's to be expected; with so much history to cover, no book can give complete and concise information on every bit of minutia. Right, but after those mentions in the character's early years on the show, the "other child" drifted into forgotten/ignored/unacknowledged history. One of the things I always loved and respected about Pat Falken Smith as a writer is that she knew her stuff, and studied what was under every leaf in the soap towns she wrote for. Douglas Marland and Claire Labine who another two who studied, used, and respected history. The more I think about it, the more I believe Lesley's first child had had diabetes, but succumbed to crib death. I suppose we will never know for sure, alas.

Lesley spoke about her past when she was first introduced to GH, but besides having had Laura, her pre-Port Charles existence was sort of looped off and not referred to. The last mention of her deceased, other child was in 1980 or so, when Lesley and Gail talked about it. I daresay the vast majority of viewers have/had no clue that Lesley had even had a previous child, since the fact hasn't been mentioned in over 40 years. There are a lot of omissions and inaccuracies on Soap Central, but to be fair, very few sources--if any-- sources acknowledge Lesley's other child. I doubt historians from books and magazines and internet sites even know he (I seem to recall the child was a boy) even existed.

I have (very vague) memories of him on the show, but don't remember specific details, and he's not in my 1970s' soap scrapbook archives, alas. Sorry to be so useless, LOL!

Thank you. As I say, I will take her word for it, based on her history of accuracy.

Is that the one written by Bryna Laub? She was always quite accurate, from what I've seen. I have a compilation book of her summaries around here...somewhere. If she is the one who wrote that Lesley's first child died of crib death, I'd accept that, but I swear on the soap gods that I remember Lesley saying the child had had leukemia. Now I wonder if the poor kid had been afflicted with that, but actually died of crib death.

Crib death? I was sure the child had had diabetes. Of course I could be wrong, memories fade after 50 years. Hmmm. Where did that summary come from originally, does anyone know?

Right. If the writing is weak and the storyline poorly thought out, even the most popular actors will not be able to negate that completely, especially when they come onto a new show and are no longer playing the role that made them stars to begin with.

Very few writers (particularly in recent decades) take the time to study their shows' and characters' pasts, so all sorts of important information gets dropped/lost forever. Fans remember, but TPTB don't even know, and don't seem to care that they don't know. More than ever, these days I appreciate and applaud the writers who DID thoroughly study the past when taking over a new show. Yes. He has been completely ignored by all TPTB of the show except the divine Pat Falken Smith, who wrote a scene between Lesley and Gail, explaining that Lesley's fierce overprotectiveness of Laura stemmed from the death of her son. TPTB also totally ignored (or, more likely, never knew in the first place) that Gail Adamson adopted Monica. And on Search for Tomorrow, Jo and Stu both had a widowed parent who married each other, making the longtime friends actual family members/step-siblings. All soaps should have historical consultants, whose job it is to keep track of important details.

Maybe, but honestly, I don't remember. I stopped watching TEON when the divine Henry Slesar was replaced by the dreadful Lee Sheldon. But if a late-morning time change for Edge had been given the green light, it would have killed the show anyway.

I thought Mark Dante was basically a retread of Nick Bellini, but just with a different name, LOL, and less of a temper. I'm sure GH hoped/expected that he would would bring the same kind of magic to Port Charles as he had to The Doctors, but the writing on GH was so bad at the time, the character was unfocused, and the soap didn't get the right romantic pairing down for Gerald Gordon. I felt Terri Webber and Mark Dante would have caught on, given time, but TPTB didn't give that union much of a chance, and the next try-out with Kathryn Corbin was a total dud. It reminded me of when GH "stole" Denise Alexander away from Days, to great fanfare and expected she would help the ratings soar because she was a soap superstar. There again, the writing was weak, the character was unfocused (she had had a son who died of diabetes whom no one except Pat Falken Smith ever remembered or talked about), and was not paired with a romantic lead successfully for years until Rick Webber came along. Neither Alexander nor Gordon helped the ratings rise. Only good writing and dynamic romantic pairings would later do that.