Khan

"Tony [Geary] considers himself a loner but hopes to find the right girl and settle down."

No comment. ;-)

Edith Bunker was most certainly not a "thing." She was, perhaps, the most humane character Norman Lear ever created, and one which Jean Stapleton beautifully brought to life; and if Ms. Laub had climbed down from her stridently feminist soapbox for a moment, she would've seen that, too.

I think Faith and Delia - as played by Faith Catlin and IK - are two of the most excruciatingly real portrayals of people that I've seen on soaps. It's just fascinating stuff and frankly I didn't know Ilene Kristen had this in her given the fact that Roxy on OLTL is often limited to broad comedy. Her work here is chilling and riveting, you can't take your eyes off her. I know people like this Delia. And Faith - well, the machinery is always working.

IMO, to follow RYAN'S HOPE at all, you had to have an extraordinary amount of patience, 1) because their characters, although understandable and real, were not always what you'd call "likable"; and 2) they truly emphasized exploring characters and relationships at the expense of traditional, soap-y plots. Of course, in retrospect, it's no surprise that RH was doomed for ultimate failure: it just was too damned good for daytime. However, I'll always applaud Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer for attempting to change the way soaps are written and produced.

Whatever happened to Bruce Martin, btw? Does anyone know?

there's a great YouTube clip in which she berates Carmen Duncan's Iris for doubting Mac's integrity after his death

That clip is great. For me, though, it's marred by the fact that Iris would doubt Mac's integrity at all, given how much she adored him when he was still alive. (Another instance when I would have loved to have seen BM's Iris' take on the circumstances, lol.)

That "Daddy" thing was "pretty sick," edgeofnik -- that was the whole point! (Oh, for the days when characters had complex psychological motivations and shades of grey.)

Exactly! They don't even have those kinds of characters in primetime anymore. Everything is so spoon-fed to us, b/c the networks have this silly idea that our attention spans cannot take the added "stress" of actually thinking about what we're watching.

And the ratings really began freefalling after BM left to do Texas. She was a huge draw -- and deservedly so.

Worse, from everything I have read in the past, they changed Iris so much when they spun her off, viewers bailed out of TEXAS, too. A "lose/lose" situation, if ever there was one.

But I think she said that after they lost DW, she got back in touch with her passion to a degree and began to take the work more seriously.

I think that's b/c she felt the mantle of elder states-person had been passed down to her, and it was therefore her responsibility to set a sort of example for the newer actors coming aboard. Otherwise, if she had continued not to care at all about the show, ANOTHER WORLD would've been gone much sooner.

I was looking through a Digest from mid-1986 and they mention rumors that Judi Evans was going to join her then-fiance, Chris Whitesell, at AW.

Wait, Chris Whitesell? Don't you mean his brother (and onetime ANOTHER WORLD EP), John? Because, last I heard, Chris is gay.

I'm just glad MacDonald Carey didn't say he liked to learn his script in the nude, too. Because, Halloween is scary enough, know what I mean?

Do you think there are any other writers out there who could have done what they did?

Well, the Soderbergs do come to mind. ;-)

Aside from Robert Soderberg & Edith Sommer, though...? Maybe Ralph Ellis & Eugenie Hunt, or Chuck & Patti DiZenzo. Those three teams always seemed to be best at simple, character-driven storytelling that would have drawn an audience.

I do think that a lot of the soaps from the 50s just sort of died slow deaths, but LOL is the one which always confuses me because they had a big comeback for several years only to fade out again for their last few years. So was it that the show had moved beyond its core audience or did they just make some bad decisions?

According to the book "Worlds Without End," LOL's biggest problem was always trying to keep the older, longtime fans happy while simultaneously attracting younger and perhaps more sophisticated viewers. If a particular storyline was more risque than what the older fans were accustomed to, then they tuned out. But, if the story adhered to the hoary, simplistic themes of "good vs. evil," then the younger fans would tune out. (Vanessa's divorce is a perfect example, IMO. At that time, tons of women across the country who were the same age as she were getting divorced after being happily married for years; yet, the idea of "their Van," who virtually walked on water, doing such a thing just seemed so common and crass to the housewives who needed her to remain ever-virtuous and pure.) No matter what they tried to get attention, an overwhelmingly large faction of the audience was bound to be disappointed. Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer's time with the show, however, tended to be more successful than others', because they knew how to straddle that line between those who desired a more contemporary show and those who loved and clung to the original "Van::Good::Meg::Bad" formula.

Their success turned out to be a double-edged sword, however. Without it, there's no way they would have had the opportunity to create RYAN'S HOPE. Yet, leaving to do RH meant LOL's fate was pretty much sealed.

What did you think of Felicia and Marshall? I know it was killed because of fears. Did they have any chemistry?

Personally, I don't think they did. Felicia/Marshall was a bold idea, but it needed an actor who was as dynamic as Linda Dano to make it work. Randy Brooks, IMO, just came across too "weak" of an actor, presence-wise, to make genuine sparks between the two of them.

I do get that feeling, and also that she might not have had any idea the show would be such hard work, or that the ratings would be so difficult to build back up. No wonder she wanted out of soaps after that.

Bear in mind, too, that networks and sponsors tended to be more trusting of their EP's and HW's back then. So, if a show such as LOVE OF LIFE failed to make a comeback, it wasn't because TPTB didn't try everything they could to keep it on the air. Shows like LOL failed b/c their audience just wasn't there anymore.

Now, if only the Pollocks had written the rest of DYNASTY as well as they wrote "Kristin" and Alexis....

Is it just me, or does Cathy Abbi come across in that interview as someone who simply couldn't fathom why her show continued to be in the doldrums, despite trying everything she could think of to boost it?

Thanks, Carl!

I still want to be Joan Collins when I grow up.

Did AMC cast Beverly as Ann when Judith left?

I don't think so. IIRC, AMC waited a few years, then brought back Anne from the sanitarium w/ Chris Pine's real-life mom, Gwynn Gillis, in the part.

Does anyone know whatever happened to Lezlie Dalton? She seems to have virtually disappeared.

Do you think the older fans would have believed that story with Beverlee?

Honestly? No. Longtime fans who'd remembered her Iris might've thought her as "The Chief" to be OTT even for her, lol.

Nevertheless, watching those scenes w/ Douglass Watson and Carmen Duncan's Iris...I don't want to knock Duncan, since I thought she did a good job w/ the character (even if, for all intents and purposes, she was playing a radically different character)...but I feel like BM would've handled the revelation so much differently, less crying and pleading to be understood, and more cunning and playing on Mac's ego ("Now, Daddy, you know I had my reasons (for masterminding the takeover of your company) - but it's all in the past, so let's just pretend it never happened, and you can stop by the apartment later this week to have dinner.")

[Marcy] Walker failed [at GL] for the same reason Genie Francis tanked on Days of our Lives. They were both hired for their fanbase and name recognition, without any consideration regarding the creation of an interesting, viable character.

ICAM. AMC hired Francis, too, to play Ceara because of her name and status w/in the industry - although, to Agnes Nixon's credit, they gave her great material to play while she was there.

Another actress who was hired more for "name recognition" than for anything else was Denise Alexander, who was lured to GH (from DAYS) and to ANOTHER WORLD because her name held a certain cache with longtime soap fans. The difference, though, is that Douglas Marland eventually figured out what to do w/ her Lesley on GH. AW...? Not so much.

Imagine if BM were still Iris when she was unmasked as "The Chief."

Someone (forget who) remarked that Donna Reed fit the image of a strong-willed Texas matriarch a lot better than Barbara Bel Geddes, and I tend to agree. (No disrespect to Ms. Bel Geddes or her fans.) Ironically, though, BBG was the first actress to portray the sultry "Maggie the Cat" in the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," and many say her performance, more than any other's, was definitive.

LOL, the classic "dinner bet" letters! Right up there with all the Playboy letters from men who've had random sexual encounters with amputees.

"Dear Penthouse, I NEVER thought it could happen to me, but..."

:-D

Iris and Vivien definitely came before Kay & Esther. In fact, did anyone come before Iris and Vivien? Because, it seems to me they might've been one of the first, if not THE first, maid-employer relationships of its kind.

"The Days of the Week" was definitely inspired by ANOTHER WORLD and SEARCH FOR TOMORROW. ;-)

I remember when he said he wasn't fond of working with Beverlee and that's all he was going to say.

IIRC, Coster said BM had a photographic memory and was very patronizing toward anyone who didn't. On the one hand, that does sound awful. Yet, on the other hand, many daytime actors (hell, many actors in general) were and are notoriously lazy in regards to studying their scripts. BITD, at least, many believed they could "wing it" w/ cue cards, teleprompters, and even hiding their scripts on the set during tapings. Now, I'm not suggesting Coster was/is a lazy actor, or that he's lying about BM (even she told Michael Logan and other interviewers that she could be difficult to work with, especially if she were feeling overworked), but it is food for thought.

"I know I have a complex personality, but very simple needs and I keep them that way."

Same here. Although I don't consider myself lonely (I have, after all, close family and select friends) I decided long ago to live alone, b/c I know I'd be hell to live with. (Just ask my parents, lol.) All I ask for in return are a place of my own (nothing fancy, mind you, just something that's mine) and a chance to make a living at something I can feel proud about.

And a silver fox coat would be nice, too. ;-)