vetsoapfan

Even more significant, the audience is usually much more intelligent that the idiots in charge.

Well, how PFS might have conceived the original story is not how it later turned out. The night in the disco was definitely portrayed as rape (made all the more repugnant because Laura was a minor), but even during the end of PFS' first reign, Luke and Laura were being treated as an end-game romantic duo. Had PFS planned to gradually develop it that way all along? I don't know, but I doubt Luke turning into a hero so definitely and suddenly would have been PFS' choice. Judging from her past work, I think PFS would have had the Luke-Laura-Scotty saga be much more ambiguous and complex, instead of instant-hero Luke and instant-villain Scotty. She understood soaps' traditional stance on morality. Luke would have suffered for years for his crime. But Monty and the network had an agenda (to make the popular Tony Geary and his degenerate character palatable to the audience), so that's how it went. I'd love to know PFS' uncensored thoughts on the sudden switch-around.

Yes, there were complaints from viewers in the soap press, and actors from the show were vocal in their protests. One magazine published an extended criticism: "General Hospital is DEGENERATE!" Pat Falken Smith set the rape story in motion, but (AT FIRST, anyway) she was not treating it as a sexy seduction (Laura was brutalized), and she was not treating Luke as a noble hero, revered by all Port Charles. It was Monty's and ABC's decision to go that route.

Michael Storm and Lillian Hayman on OLTL, Patricia Bruder on ATWT, Ellen Demming on TGL, Teri Keane on TEON...the soap opera landscape is littered with beloved actors and their characters who just "stopped being there" when TPTB decided they were no longer relevant. Fans loathe such disrespect, but our outrage is ignored.

As long as GH was raking in the $$$, I doubt they cared anything at all about social responsibility.

My dream is that if DAYS does get cancelled, Retro TV can start broadcasting the vintage eps, the way that station does with The Doctors.

It was rich and juicy. And INTELLIGENT. Bell and Falken Smith never wrote down to the audience. They gave us complex and sophisticated ADULT drama because we demanded it and they knew we could handle it. How many decades has that kind of respect for the audience been missing from soaps? From 1966 to 1976, DAYS was a masterpiece. Classic soap. Must-see TV.

I have been denouncing the irresponsible treatment of Luke, the degenerate mobster, would-be hitman and rapist who somehow became the idolized hero of Port Charles, for decades. Yuck. A few months ago, watching Laura sing Sonny's praises while they were sitting in the chapel made me retch.

There's NO need to apologize. The situation, as played out on screen, was ambiguous and complicated enough for those of us who watched it. Only having synopses of the history to read makes the situation appear much more cut-and-dry than it actually was. Even Falken Smith, as Bell's assistant, later acknowledged that upon first reading Bell's story projection, she had been skeptical that a story which incorporated a complex, ambiguous and troublesome sexual scene between a drunken man and his brother's wife could ever turn out to be a beautiful love story. But she said she was wrong to have doubted Bill Bell. The daily EXECUTION of his story (the subtle performances by the actors, the directorial choices, carefully-worded dialogue which required viewers to fill in some blanks, ourselves) all contributed to the overall effect, tone, and ambiguity of the drama. I really, really, really miss the days of adult storytelling that required viewers to THINK, ANALYZE, and form our own opinions about controversial subject matter. Kitty, whom the Horton family had been praising for having a lovely singing voice, set up a tape recorder in Tom's den to record herself and listen to her own voice. While she was recording, she heard Alice, who had dropped a bowl in the other room, shriek. Kitty rushed out of the den to make sure Alice had not hurt herself, and while she was in the kitchen, Tom and Laura went into the den, closed the door, and began having a frank discussion about Mike's paternity: Bill, and not his sterile brother Mickey, was the true father of Laura's son Mike. Later, Kitty returned to the empty den and started to play back the song she had recorded. To her shock, she also heard Tom and Laura's discussion about Mike's paternity. Kitty thought Mickey and Mike had a right to know the truth, but of course Bill vehemently disagreed, and they were arguing about this when Kitty had a fatal heart attack. To his credit, Bill tried valiantly to save her (although his life would have been easier--and his secret would have been safe--if he had left her die), but to no avail. He ended up in prison, which is where he met Doug Williams, a con man at the time, who first decided to come to Salem to woo and marry Susan Martin, whom Bill had said was a lonely and very rich widow.

The genius of Bill Bell's writing was that the stories he told and the character motivations he created were often very adult, very ambiguous, very complicated. As a viewer who was watching the show when the Bill-Laura rape/seduction occurred, I'd say that to label it a simple case of straightforward rape doesn't quite capture the complex nuance of the situation. Bill and Laura had been in love first, but when circumstances drove them apart, Laura married Mickey, basically for comfort and security. She never loved Mickey with the same intense fire that she had had for Bill. When Bill came back to Salem, he and Laura were still hugely attracted to each other, longed for each other, but fought to control and suppress their feelings. Bill got drunk, cast his inhibitions aside, and made physical moves on Laura. She resisted, out of a sense of duty to Mickey and social mores, but it had been clear that she really wanted him too. Was it rape? Was it a case of Bill putting Laura in a situation where she had no choice but to give in to her acknowledged-but-socially-unacceptable desires? In the final analysis, Laura did say no, so Bill should have accepted her protests and stopped. Anything that happens after the word NO is not consensual in a clear-cut, right-and-wrong definitive sense. But human beings and human interaction are more ambiguous and complicated than that, and what viewers witnessed on screen left us with many conflicting questions and opinions. Remember in Gone With the Wind, when a drunken Rhett refused to let Scarlett turn him down, and over her protests, swooped her into his arms, carried her up the stairs, and had his way with her? Was that rape? Was it "coerced seduction" of a woman who secretly wanted the act to happen? The audience has never been able to settle on an easy answer. In short, the Bill-Laura business was a complicated mess, but at least William J. Bell made Bill suffer for many YEARS because of his actions. From what I recall, Kitty Horton never tried to blackmail Bill over "rape," she threatened to tell Mickey that he was not Mike's biological father, a secret which neither Bill nor Laura wanted to come out.

Yes, you are correct. The members of the Horton family were all related to other members of the Horton family.

Or a great, complex, mesmerizing, adult and long-arc storyline that kept the audience enthralled, emotionally torn and WATCHING for a decade.

Way back when, soaps used to have a moral compass, and would never let heinous actions like rape or murder go unpunished for long. Master writers like William J. Bell, Pat Falken Smith, etc., knew how to nuance their characters and storytelling, so that characters who committed terrible actions at least suffered for years afterwards. Many shows nowadays, particularly GH, not only ignore egregious transgressions, but they treat degenerate criminals (Sonny, Jason, Franco, etc.) as romantic heroes. It's revolting.

Luke definitely raped Laura, there was no question about that. Even Pat Falken Smith said so. When it was clear that Tony Geary's popularity with the audience was soaring, however, ABC and Gloria Monty tried to back-track and call it a "seduction," but it was not. It was rape. Period. Genie Francis admitted that "it made my blood run cold" the way the network twisted the situation to avoid taking responsibility for glamorizing a rapist. Leslie Charleson lambasted the twist on the Phil Donahue show, saying she was aghast that GH would be so irresponsible as to let Luke off the hook for his crime AND even get rewarded for it by ending up with the girl. (I was surprised she did not get fired or at least reprimanded for her strong, vocal criticism, but I guess that if ABC had tried to do that, all hell would have broken loose and the network would have faced even MORE criticism.) Many, many years later, the show (slightly) redeemed itself by having Luke tearfully, and finally, admit to Lucky that yes, he had indeed raped the boy's mother. Laura even (again, finally) raged at Luke for what he had done. But to me, it was too little, to late (although I was glad GH cleared the air once and for all), because the heinous crime had been ignored, denied and excused for far too long.

Yes, IMHO, that one, single, heinously-stupid story, and its influence on the genre, ended up crippling the soaps.

A youtuber uploaded the entire 514-episode run of the series, only to have it deleted for copyright violation. He uploaded it a second time and the series was taken down AGAIN. I was shocked that he had the patience to try a third (!!!) time, but his did. When he uploaded the series the latest time, he cut every episode in two (ep. 1A and 1B, etc.), and so far the halved episodes have flown under the radar and remained on YT.

I've given up trying to correct obvious misinformation on certain sites as well. It's become too much of a headache.

IMDB is often woefully wrong. Wikipedia and Soap Central too.

No, that's not Faith Catlin, but it is a young Diane Keaton in the Hour After Hour commercial at 1:30. And Dagne Crane from ATWT is in the screen cap.

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.