vetsoapfan

OMG, with the original cover art too? This is great news. Way back when, I was never able to collect all the books, and now only have one in my collection. If these are not outrageously expensive, I'll be buying them!

Word. I loathed Luke. And I detested how GH turned from an intelligent, adult drama under Douglas Marland and Pat Falken Smith, to a low-brow cartoon in the 1980s. UGH. The only time I began to tolerate Luke was under Labine's pen. Otherwise, I spent the years wanting him gone. #LauraAndScottyForever

No worries! My own scans have blotches and other defects. We can only do our best with ancient printed material and/or cheap scanners. I just love being able to read these classic pieces!

@DRW50, Henry Slesar is another one of my all-time favorite writers, so I am very happy to see this vintage interview with him. Thank you very much for sharing it!

There are a lot of letters to the editors in these vintage magazines, which prove certain soap viewers lived in a murky world between reality and delusion. It's sad to see the same affliction among audience members today, particularly on social media where they can flaunt their mental issues more openly. Fulton was a pip, and I enjoyed how sassy and saucy she could be. Unfortunately, her columns disappeared suddenly from Rona Barrett's Daytimers without warning or explanation. The mag switched owners and publishing houses, Rona Barrett was no longer involved, and the quality of the publication plunged noticeably. It was a shame, because when it first came out, RBD was a great, juicy read. No, I do NOT have Harding Lemay's 1971 interview from TV Guide. Please feel to post it and ANYTHING ELSE you find worthy of sharing. All vintage articles are welcomed here. I can't wait to see if Lemay was as condescending and bitchy in TV Guide as he was everywhere else, LOL.

To me, the 1970s were the golden era, halcyon years of daytime drama. No other decade has produced a better set of soaps, with so many master writers at the top of their game.

Yes, they could have worded it better, to avoid confusion.

I think what Daily TV Serials meant to write/convey in that recap of the year was that Chris SPONTANEOUSLY aborted her baby; which means that she did not plan to end the pregnancy. It ended on its own.

My memory is not perfect, of course, so I could have forgotten, but I do not remember Chris having an abortion at all. Where did you find such a summary? (In the recap of the Chris/Snapper storyline posted above, from Daily TV Serials, it refers to Chris' miscarriage, not abortion.) I must say, I have read many, many soap reports and summaries over the decades which have played fast and loose with the facts and gotten many things wrong. That being said, I'm happy to hear that you are enjoying the articles.

I loathed all things San Cristo-crap with a passion; as much as I loathed the Santos mob and Meva Shayme. UGH!

Agnes Nixon did not "defect to ABC to create OLTL and AMC" in 1967. She had created AMC years before while on vacation in St. Croix, and then lost the suitcase with the original bible. Harding Lemay was not the "new writer" in 1967. He came aboard years later in 1971. The show's epigram ("We do not live in this world alone....") was long gone by the time Lemay took over the writing reigns, so his allegedly changing that opening statement, which was no longer even being used or referred to on the show, does not make sense. The Alice/Steven/Rachel romance was Agnes Nixon's creation. She launched it and then Robert Cenedella took over when Nixon departed. So Lemay was the third scribe to handle that famous story. (A fourth, Corinne Jacker, tried and failed to reignite it in 1981.) The article purports that Rachel was "no longer vicious and immoral" when Victoria Wyndham assumed the role, but that is simply not true. The character continued to behave in a vile manner for a long time afterwards, being particularly heinous in her treatment of Alice. Rachel only really mellowed in 1975. The Carringtons' housekeeper was not named "Louise Gardner" but rather Louise Goddard. As for Russ Matthews, he did become a doctor pretty quickly, but his parents had mentioned earlier that he was in medical school, so like instant SORASing, it was a familiar plot device soap fans just had to accept.

Along with a few mistakes in spelling and grammar, half of the "facts" presented in this piece are totally inaccurate.

The picture of the woman in the dinner, wearing the red scarf, is Carol Roux, who played Missy Palmer Matthews. To find the AW bible, go to the "Publications" section of the AW Home Page, click on that, then scroll down.

They were all retcon, "fake" Bauers who never actually existed until modern writers with no interest in or knowledge of the show's true history decided to dream them up. None of those characters are canon. Papa Bauer's name was Frederick, not Theo. Theo Goetz was the actor who played the role.

Just as importantly, Pat Falken Smith was fired as head writer, and a stream of hacks took over, initiating all sorts of campy (i.e. STOOPID) plots which started to drive even the most patient viewers away.

She did those Tammy doll ads back in the mid 1960s. As well, she did a commercial for Porcelana in the early 1980s.

Hey, I had never seen that before. Cool! Thanks for sharing!

Chris' name was given on-air as Christen Leigh Brooks. Any fans who contended that the writers made a mistake, when so many of these viewers acknowledged that they weren't even BORN in the 1970s, LOL, are the ones who made the error. On the other hand, yes, Lorie's full first name was indeed Lauralee. Stuart and Jennifer used it occasionally when the character first appeared, but that practice soon petered out and everyone in the family just referred to her thereafter as Lorie. Lynne Topping was a pretty woman and a capable actress, but unfortunately, she just did not have that special "star quality" and screen presence that Trish Stewart had had. Stewart was a great actress, stunningly gorgeous, and quite mesmerizing to watch on screen. Topping was...acceptable. It was difficult to warm up to a replacement actress who lacked the charisma present in the original. As Broderick mentioned, it was the same problem with Victoria Mallory replacing Janice Lynde as Leslie. Mallory was beautiful and sang like an angel, but she lacked the depth, warmth and vulnerability necessary to make Leslie feel like Leslie. As for Patricia Everly, she was not really used long enough or well enough to have made much of an impression. To me, she always felt like a "place filler" until Pamela Peters returned. All these replacements really had a negative impact on the show. Some of the dialogue back then...yikes. What annoyed me most was so many characters putting objects at the beginning of their sentences: "The book, are you going to write it? The concert, are you going to give it? The divorce, I won't agree to it." As opposed to a more natural way of speaking: "Are you going to write the book? Are you going to give the concert? I won't agree to the divorce."

Jill and Chris had also gone job hunting together during the show's early months. They answered an ad for "models" and met with a sleazy photographer played by actor Michael Gregory (the first and better Rick Webber of General Hospital fame). After discovering that the potential photoshoot involved nudity, Chris immediately got up and left, but Jill hung around and implied that she would go through with it, although while she was hesitating the photographer hired someone else and told Jill her services would not be required. Leslie Brooks gave Jill piano lessons as well.

OMG, the entire Brooks family, played by the wonderful original cast, in one episode. AMAZING! Thank you so much!

From Daytimers, June 1982 A "religious" soap opera production; the interviews make it sound like its employees are being indoctrinated into a creepy cult. Yikes. From Daytimer, March 1982

From Daytimers (formerly Rona Barrett's Daytimers), April 1982 From Daytimers, May 1982 The creators/writers of CAPITOL: From Daily TV Serials, November 1975

When Y&R premiered, Bell was still under contract to write DAYS, but fortunately for all concerned, he was shifted to Story Consultant status on that series, with Pat Falken Smith Smith taking over the reigns as head writer. Y&R and DAYS viewers were treated to excellent writing on both shows. Many years later, when B&B debuted, Bell really had to handle two shows at once, but to be brutally frank, I never thought B&B was well written. It came across (to me) as a forced, pale imitation of its sister show, filled with mediocre writing and tepid characters. Without question, William J. Bell was a genius, but there's only so much any one individual can be expected to do. Come to think of it, another master writer who juggled two shows at once was Henry Slesar, who penned The Edge of Night and Somerset at the same time in the early 1970s. I think of all the scribes who did double duty, Slesar actually handled it best.

Lemay claimed that he enjoyed working on different projects at the same time, because it kept him "creatively fresh," but to be realistic, no one can write TWO soaps at the same time and still be expected to turn out quality material. It's hard enough writing a single soap and producing 250+ scripts a year.

The ratings during the Bell/Falken Smith era were stable, with the show usually ranking in the top half of the soap pack. The problem was, during that period, the competition was FIERCE. Unlike today (actually, unlike the last few decades), many soaps were on fire at that time and able to battle quite effectively for the viewers' attention. DAYS only really started to dive-bomb in the ratings after Smith was axed and the revolving door of mediocre writers began. And although two of the soaps' long-running stories (the secret of Mike's paternity and the inability of Doug and Julie to be together) had finally been resolved, I did not take that as an indication the show was in storyline trouble. Brilliant as they were, and as familiar with the characters as they were, I was confident that Bell and Smith would continue to weave more magic. They always had done so on DAYS, and they continued to display their talents on other soaps. DAYS would have been in safer storyline hands with these experienced pros than it ended up being with the hacks who replaced the vet scribes and took a chainsaw to Salem. I would disagree. Popular characters on daytime TV must all face the conclusions of stories during their tenure. That doesn't been the characters are played out. Gifted writers just have to weave them into new situations and plots. The audience would scream bloody murder if their favorites got written out as soon as those characters' latest stories drew to a close. IMHO, most of those stories were poorly written and contrived because the writers responsible for them were weak; not because the characters were played out. Once the audience grows to love soap characters and the veteran actors who have always played them, I don't think physical appearance matters much any more. Viewers understood and embraced them anyway as Charita Bauer gained weight, Macdonald Carey began to tremble on-screen, Ellen Corby of The Waltons showed physical aftereffects of her stroke, Anna Lee ended up confined to her wheelchair, etc. The idea that any of these actors would be replaced or fired for not aging well would make viewers' heads EXPLODE, LOL. Agreed, but poor casting choices damaged those characters, not faulty writing. If the roles had been impeccably recast, viewers might have continued to be engaged in the characters. Agreed. Soaps must always evolve and grow with the times and introduce new blood, but DAYS' overhauls were WAY too severe, done much too quickly, and clumsily inflicted onto the show/audience by temporary and incompetent PTB who were not talented enough to handle the transformations effectively. Had DAYS kept Bell and Smith, the changes might have been as effective as Bell's revamping of Y&R after it went to an hour and the focus shifted away from the Brooks and Fosters in favor of the Williams, Abbotts and (later) Newmans, or as Smith revamping of DAYS when she returned to the show in 1982. Mass carnage by new writers and producers NEVER works. Ugh. I would daytime TV would learn this lesson.