vetsoapfan

We sure do! And with only a handful of vintage eps available from the 1970s, seeing a rare Y&R gem like this is thrilling! Truth be told, I can't really sit through the present-day broadcasts of this once-fine soap, but I could watch classic (and classy) material from the 1970s until my eyes bled! Many people hoard their rare treasures like this, and never share them with other fans, so once again THANK YOU for being so generous!

OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much!

Paul had left Oakdale, and was therefore off screen, when he died. The character was received well enough, but he never became one of the show's major players or most popular characters.

Actually, there are LOTS of clips included, from the 1970s and early 1980s! Thanks for sharing!

Not at all, sorry.

He did an interview once, years ago, in which he came out and admitted specifically, "To tell you the truth, I didn't much care for her." He did not elaborate as to why, but his negative sentiment made me curious because he did say she had been welcoming and supportive towards him when he first joined the show. After she passed away, he also related some gentle anecdotes about Courtney to the press, including one about how she used to write key words of dialogue onto her fingers in order to help her memorize her scripts. To torment her, Phil Carey (Asa) would wet his hands and then grab and shake JC's palms during taping in order to smear the ink and make her lose her key words. Carey sounded like quite the character, LOL. Right, JC was only 38 when she returned to AW in 1984, and she still looked great. I think P&G and AW were in such a state of disarray by then that continuity and history were not high on their agenda. In their first scene together after JC's return, Alice and Mac hugged each other warmly and it was clear they were supposed to adore each other. Months later, when Rachel had amnesia, Alice told her that she (Alice) had been engaged to Mac during the time when Mac and Rachel were divorced, so by then at least, the writers had done at least some nominal research into the Alice/Rachel dynamic, but it came off as too little too late. There were no leading men on AW at the time who would have been right for Alice. The show would have needed to create one, but they never bothered. I've always wondered if TPTB had reintroduced the character of Steve Frame, played by David Canary, while JC and VW were both there, how it would have worked. Probably better than trying to pair the dynamic Canary with that bland plank of wood, Linda Borgenson. Viewers are thrilled to see their former favorites back on the shows, yes, but as you say, we want them to DO something. You don't bring Susan Lucci back to AMC, Genie Francis and Tony Geary back to GH, Deidre Hall back to DAYS, etc., and have them sit around in the background and offer other characters advice a few times a month. The actors`mere presence is not enough, the writing has to be there too. OMG, yes, the OLTL of the late 1970s shone so brightly with stars! Erika Slezak, Lee Patterson, Ellen Holly, Al Freeman, Jr., Judith Light, Gerald Anthony, Jacquie Courtney, Michael Storm...it was a remarkable cast back then! I loved it.

It must have been degrading.Pat Kendall just did not have much on-screen chemistry with Clint Buchanan; they came across better as friends. There were sparks between Pat and Bo, but Robert Woods has admitted that he did not much care for Jacquie Courtney, and I've always wondered if their characters' very viable romantic storyline was squashed because the actor did not want to work with JC. The actors cast as Adam Brewster and (the final) Tony Lord were both duds, so there were two more potential leading men for Courtney down the drain. (John Mansfield as Adam was particularly awful, both fugly and abrasive on-screen, while Chip Lucia as Tony was so wildly miscast it's a miracle he passed the hiring process.) Ironically, there was chemistry to burn between JC and Tom Fuccello, who played her character's ex-husband Paul Kendall. The two ignited sparks on-screen and through the dialogue, particularly during Pat's tepid, failing romance with Adam Brewster, it started to look like Pat and Paul would rekindle their relationship, but then...nothing. In 1983, the year she was dropped from the show, Pat was still prominent in the story. The plan was to have her get involved with Michael Zaslow's David Renauldi (which would have been wonderful, IMHO, because they looked great on-screen together and their verbal banter really clicked) when all of a sudden, ABC dropped Courtney's contract and announced they "had no more storyline" for the actress. That was bogus, of course, because she was already IN a new, potentially major storyline with a popular and charismatic actor. So why the network really chose to eliminate her from the show, we will never know. When she returned to AW on NBC, TPTB were enthusiastic about how she was going to help raise the ratings again and how Alice was going to have an important impact on Bay City. Headwriter Gary Tomlin, however, later admitted that he knew almost nothing about the character of Alice or her background, and could not/did not write anything for her to do. The show cropped her hair off (at one point she had an ugly Mia Farrow-Rosemary's Baby look) and gave her the most hideous wardrobe. It was painful to watch. As her year back in bay City wore on, there were a few scenes that suggested the writers had finally looked into Alice's history with Rachel, but little was done to capitalize on it. With no leading man, no storyline, and a dreadful, unappealing "look" thanks to unfortunate hair and wardrobe choices, Alice's return to AW was bound to fail, and fail it did. Big time. I blame Tomlin most for this, however. When a major, beloved character/actress returns to the show that made her famous, it's the writer's damned job to research her history. Imagine Susan Lucci returning to AMC after an extended break and new writers waving their hands in a dismissive manner and announcing, "Erica Kane? I know nothing about her; can't think of what I'll do with her. I'll put her in some scenes here or there but won't/can't promise more than that. I want to concentrate on writing for Devon Shepherd!" It was ridiculous. REAL writers like Douglas Marland, Claire Labine, Harding Lemay and Pat Falken Smith always studied the hell out of the shows they took over. That's why they were so often successful. Of course, the hair and wardrobe people should have been shot too, LOL. It was widely said that Stuart wanted his muse, Courtney, to win an Emmy, and he devised the "evil twin" storyline for her in hopes of attaining that goal. In the Jeff Giles book, Slezak admits that Stuart was "very fond of Jacqueline Courtney" (LOL) and "put her front and center," which meant that Slezak had less to do. She says she did not mind at the time because she was okay with having extra days off. As a longtime viewer, I was fine with new character like Pat coming aboard and SHARING the spotlight. I just did not want them to replace the established, popular characters like Viki and Carla. For the most part, Viki continued to hold her place as the show's crown jewel during Courtney's tenure, so I did not mind seeing Pat Kendall having major stories to play as well. My reasoning was, the more hugely-popular characters on a show, the better for the ratings. I was thrilled to have strong female characters like Viki, Carla, Dorian, Pat, and Karen Wolek all in Llanview at the same time. We were treated to some marvelous acting back then! I do agree that the show was on fire during Stuart's reign, even though he made some poor choices as EP. Viki's murder trial is a legendary plot, one of the best in soaps' history. I personally think that JC DID "happen," she was hugely popular on the show, which made the network's dropping her contract all the more baffling. She was let go a while before Paul Rauch arrived as EP, but I always wondered if ABC had already had him in mind as a possible hire when they decided to axe Courtney.

He just seemed so arbitrary, controlling and unpleasant. Not to mention, full of BS. Afternoon TV printed a copy of George Reinholt's dismissal letter when Rauch fired him from AW, and in it, Rauch refers to Reinholt's possible return to the show at a later date. But was there REALLY any plans to bring the actor back, after all the supposed backstage drama that had led to his termination? I doubt it. Rauch also sang a different tune about Jacquie Courtney when he fired her from AW and then years later when she passed away. After she died, Rauch told Soap Opera Weekly (or was it Digest?) that she was a "great gal" who could always be counted on to give great performances. Excuse me? Then why had he fired her from AW in the first place? The only story I have ever heard about Rauch doing something nice was after he axed Courtney from AW, he gave her Alice's wardrobe as a gift. A weird gesture, but one I have always remembered since Courtney mentioned it in an article in Daily TV Serials.

I can understand why Nixon would want Carla and Sadie in Corinth. LOV was not a ratings' success, and having two beloved actresses/characters join the show might have helped improve draw viewers in. Then Holly REALLY could have trumpeted her worth, pointing out thather presence helped a second show rise in prominence. I did not stick with LOV after the first few months, it just did not grab me, but if Carla and Sadie had joined the cast, I would have become a regular viewer, just for them. Yes, Jacquie Courtney had to endure Rauch at AW and then getting unceremoniously dumped by ABC in bizarre circumstances in 1983. Soon after Stuart took over as producer on OLTL, she gave an interview for Afternoon TV magazine (I think it was), and in one of the accompanying pictures, we saw JC in her bedroom with a framed portrait of Joe Stuart beside her bed. Columnist Marlena de LaCroix later acknowledged that the truth about the Courtney/Stuart relationship was exposed at that time, and Courtney was very upset about it. One thing that galled me was that at the show's tenth anniversary party, Stuart asked JC to cut the cake with him. I adored the actress and the character she played on the show, but really! Aside from Stuart's relationship with her, did Courtney really deserve to be cutting the anniversary cake when there were other actors in the cast (Hayman and Holly) who had been there from the beginning and deserved the honor more? If I had been Hayman, Holly, or even Slezak, I would have been insulted. The fact that Courtney had been hired in 1975 with a HUGE salary compared to theirs, the actresses would not have been human if they did not feel some resentment over her special treatment. Since Karen Wolek was the only person in Llanview to know that Talbot Huddleston had killed Pat Kendall's son Brian, it made perfect dramatic sense to me that the truth would be exposed during her testimony in court. The show had to have Pat react to the news, but compared to Karen's breakdown on the witness stand, the Huddleston reveal certainly paled in comparison. (I must say, however, speaking of Courtney, that right after Brian Kendall died, she had a scene at his grave where she grieved over him, and it was one of the best performances JC ever gave, IMHO.) Rauch was vile to many people over the years. When he fired Holly, he callously told her that she just wasn't worth keeping on the show. (An excellent actress and original cast member, who had been the center of the story that had originally put OLTL on the map!) Later, after dumping Hayman without warning, Nixon tried to intervene and save the actress' job. Rauch snarkily replied that he would only keep her for $500.00 a month. What a piece of work. UGH.

These episodes are a treat! Ahhh, when soaps were well-written!

The problem is, AB flubbed his lines and came across on-screen as a slimy pompous ass no matter WHOM he appeared with in scenes. Stuart musdt have had his own personal reasons for dumping the blame on Holly. In his autobiography, writer Harding Lemay blames actress Virginia Dwyer (Mary Matthews) for not memorizing her lines verbatim, which supposedly threw off her on-screen husband Hugh Marlowe (Jim Matthews) and caused him to have trouble getting out his own dialogue. But blaming Dwyer was absurd, because long after she was gone, Marlowe continued to get lost and stumble through parts of his scenes. His difficulties could not be attributed solely to Dwyer, just like AB's lousy performances cannot be laid at EH's feet. Pffft! AB was simply a terrible actor, whom Stuart should not have hired.

Courtney began on November 12, 1975, when Quinlan was in charge. But who knows who made the decision to kick Holly out of her longstanding dressing room in order to give Courtney the space? Was it Quinlan, or the ABC brass? It certainly was a rude, disrespectful, degrading choice. Added to that, Courtney and Reinholt came in making significantly more money than anyone else in the cast, which must have fueled a lot of resentment. (I'm not blaming them for negotiating better salaries, but how insulted the other actors must have felt! If I had been on a show from the beginning, and only had a salary of twenty thousand dollars a year, I'd be livid that a newly-cast duo was coming about with a starting salary of thirty-five!) Still, I place the blame on ABC, who low-balled everyone else. Arthur Burghardt. Gag me. What an awful, icky actor. I could NEVER understand why they had hired him. He just oozed smarminess on screen.

Yes, EH is quite contemptuous towards Slezak and Courtney, but it's not their fault that they negotiated better salaries than Holly received. I'm sure neither actress went into negotiations with the thought, "I'm going to ask for a good salary...just to stick it to Ellen Holly!" Of course, Holly's getting kicked out of her dressing room when Courtney arrived at the show must have been degrading and infuriating, but again, I doubt Courtney marched in and demanded, "Kick Ellen Holly out of that dressing room because I want it!" Would Courtney have even known beforehand that another actress had been removed so that she could get a dressing room?

Keep posting, Faulkner! Good to see you back, YRBB, stranger! I stumbled across these Dear-God-in-heaven-pictures tonight. Even at my age, I still have the heart of a 'ho! (Don't judge me too harshly!)

The show was hard to watch at that point because the writing was so chaotic, and characters were being axed left, right and center. ATWT only became itself again after Irna herself was axed and replaced by the Soderbergs. Those writers revised the character of Kim, who had originally been more independent and...Garbo-esque, into a traditional, long-suffering soap heroine. This was necessary to redeem Kim and Bob, whom the audience found offensive at that point for their illicit affair. (Bob was married to Kim's sister Jennifer). My ancient memory banks are not recalling any living-off-the-land story with Tom and Carol, sorry.

Irna was vicious in how she killed off beloved characters in the most awful ways. We never met Susan Hughes, the daughter of Chris and Nancy on ATWT, but being electrocuted while swimming...yikes! Don't get me started on how she killed poor Chuckie White on TGL! During AW's first year, Irna became vexed with Jacquie for being too bubbly in the role of Alice. The actress played the character more like the typical, over-excited 1960s' teen. Think Gidget on uppers. Irna wanted Alice to be more subdued, more somber. When Jacquie continued to be too bubbly, Irna decided that the young actress was not going to work out in the role, and she told TPTB that she was going to send Alice off to summer camp, where the character would burn to death in a raging fire. Back at the studio, trying to save her job for her, the director kept telling Jacquie to tone it down, to be more demure. She couldn't understand why she was being criticized every day for her performance, so she finally got fed up and said, "Fine! From now on, I'm not going to move a muscle on my face!" She went in and started playing Alice as a much more introspective, reserved girl, which Irna instantly loved. The next time she saw Jacquie, Irna grabbed her and hugged her and gushed, "My Alice!!! Forget the summer camp! Forget the fire! Forget everything!" Courtney's job was saved, Alice became more...Alice, and the rest is history. Bruder was wonderful in the bottle of hope scene, but it was just so...weird. Who really recovers from a near-death experience because someone brings an empty bottle into her hospital room and announces it's filled with hope? If I recall correctly, David brought Ellen to a bar and fed her alcohol before telling her that Paul had died of a brain tumor. That premise was offensive enough, but it became downright STUPID when Ellen simply replied (something like),"Oh well, David, we must carry on even in the face of death." It was like watching a David Lynch production long before anyone even knew who DL was, LOL. Surreal. It looked like Irna was losing her marbles, frankly. I was relieved when she was replaced again as headwriter. She was no longer up for the job.

Knowing what we know now about the show's future, killing off A|lice on AW would have completely altered its course, and not for the better. I'm glad Irna changed her mind. Before Irna Phillips was successful at killing off ATWT's Liz, she had taken another stab at it which was vetoed by P&G. The character was at death's door in the hospital, with the doctors having little hope she would survive, when TPTB stepped in and convinced Irna to reverse her decision. So into the hospital room comes Ellen Stewart, who sits by Liz's bed and announces that she simply cannot die, not with a young daughter and a rich life ahead of her. Ellen pulls out an empty bottle and places it beside Liz's bed, announcing that while the bottle may look empty, it is actually full: full of hope that Liz will defy the odds, prove the doctors wrong, and pull through. Ellen urges Liz to use the hope in that bottle to will herself back to life. Lo and behold, she does. Ellen Stewart, miracle worker!

Irna Phillips on To Tell the Truth.

Rahn struck me as quieter and more reserved as Monica; Charleson brought more overt passion and fire to the role, but I felt Rahn was perfectly fine in the part. Michael Gregory was sexy, charismatic and gregarious, and made Rick quite appealing and warm. After seeing him, I never adjusted or warmed up to Chris Robinson's cold, reserved, aloof interpretation of the role. Yes, Gloria Monty was lucky to have both Marland and Smith; their work was stellar and helped revitalize and save the show. Poor Pat Falken Smith, though. It must have been a nightmare for her to return to GH after the writer's strike and have to deal with the fall-out from the Ice Princess crap. She sure made a point of telling the press that the atrocious writing of that summer was NOT hers.

Irna's autocratic behavior is legendary! I was so annoyed at losing Liz Stewart. I had not really adjusted to the recast actress yet, but thought I probably would over time. Irna's determination to kill the character was just so unnecessary. At least her drive to get rid of Liz gave viewers that memorable, if baffling, "bottle of hope" scene between Ellen Stewart and Liz on her deathbed. Irna had planned for Jacquie Courtney's Alice (AW) to burn to death in a summer camp fire, too. La Phillips was grisly. This is so true. Even as a rabidly devoted, decades-long fan, the shows had become so butchered and unwatchable, that by the time they were finally cancelled, even I saw it as a necessary mercy killing. If they been axed when the shows were still high-quality, recognizable versions of themselves, however, the cancellations would have driven me and other loyal fans postal. As it was, I just didn't care anymore. AW, ATWT and TGL didn't even give me final episodes which I could enjoy.

Yes, no matter WHAT the genre, some fans will simply not tolerate any criticism (no matter how valid or widespread) about their favorite shows, films, actors and characters. I don't get it. Why willingly live in a fantasy world where everything presented on-screen is peachy keen, the epitome of perfection? Or worse, why embrace and defend hot, steaming excrement, just because that's all the networks are offering us now? Why not demand something better, or go elsewhere for your entertainment? Soap fans are lucky in the sense that even with the current, crippled state of American daytime drama, we still have a plethora of excellent, continuing serialized dramas available to us on television. I can no longer stomach to watch old favorites like DAYS, GH, or Y&R on a daily basis, but recently stumbled across a wonderful Australian soap called Offspring, which ran for seven seasons (six of which were great, although the last year tanked IMHO). It provided me with interesting characters, family drama, comedy, romance, and lots of seriously sexy men. Who could ask for anything more? This is Us is another example of a wonderful soap opera, good enough to satiate the cravings of any alienated daytime television viewer. The Fosters and Switched at Birth may not be Shakespeare, but they are engaging popular entertainment, better than anything we get nowadays from the traditional soaps. Soap-like dramas are everywhere now, we do not have to settle for any dreck. And we certainly do not have to pretend that dreck is high art, when...it's obviously not.

I've often received comments from irked viewers along the lines of, "If you were a REAL fan, you would remain loyal to a show and not criticize its failures!" I don't see the point in pretending that the Emperor is dressed to the nines in fine clothes, when he's actually parading around buck naked. To me, real fans respect their favorite shows enough to expect the best from them. Real fans praise the successes and acknowledge the failures. Reading through this thread, one can find praise for the many fine years of acting, writing, and entertainment the show gave us, as well as criticism for the terrible years. That's the way it goes.

True, there are viewers who find entertainment value in low-brow material, but in appropriate venues. Tuning into Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo or Hey Vern, It's Ernst!, viewers know what they are in for. Those who tune into Downtown Abbey do not expect to see the Great Gazoo. Sure, soap fans are still talking about TGL's sci-fi plots today, the same way fans of other genres continue to refer to Manimal, Cop Rock, Plan 9 from Outer Space, etc. Decades-long derision is not necessarily a good thing, or what any producer or writer hopes for.

There's is always value in offering honest critiques of how a producer's failures forever altered (and in this case, damaged) a once-fine show. Well said. Kim Zimmer was quite the sex-bomb when she first joined TGL, but to be brutally honest, as the decades went on, she aged just as we all do. During the Peapack years, with her added girth, often tacky wardrobe, and poor make-up (there were times when her hair looked plastered to her head), the idea that she was still this irresistible love goddess was as dumb as some of her worst sci-fi plots.

Many fans, over the years, have proposed great plots that were significantly better than what the show actually gave us.