Khan

Oh, fans would've burned Chris Goutman in effigy for forcing Marland out, lol.

I saw her not too long ago in a "Law & Order" rerun where she portrayed the wife of a closeted gay man, who basically kills his lover, because the husband doesn't have the guts. She was so effective in that part, especially in the scene where she continues with her needlepoint (or whatever) while the authorities nail her with the evidence. It was a real Madame Defarge moment, and she played it chillingly well.

Maybe. I mean, there's a very good chance someone got it wrong - that Paul O'Keefe did not play both Dan Stewart and Tom(my) Hughes - but others kept repeating it all over the Internet until it became accepted fact. Which is why I'm glad we have @slick jones and his Soap Opera Cast Lists, as they seem to be the most accurate statistics I can find for this stuff online. Thank you again, slick!!

Also among the list of previous Toms: Frankie Michaels, who played young Patrick Dennis to Angela Lansbury's Mame; and Paul O'Keefe, who was Patty's brother in "The Patty Duke Show" and who, according to most sources I've come across, also played young Dan Stewart at one point? Now THAT (O'Keefe playing Dan AND Tom at different points in time) is one I can't fathom, lol.

Yep, including none other than John Boy Walton himself, lol!

On the other hand, we all know how...nervous Ken Corday can be. All it takes is for him to hear someone make a passing remark about how boring DAYS is lately while he and his buddies play golf, and BOOM! We get the BREAKING NEWS that Douglas Marland is OUT as DAYS HW!!

Of course, I'm biased. I don't like the Gottlieb/Malone era AT ALL, and I don't think Linda Gottlieb was good for OLTL in the long or short run. So, I tend to believe Agnes (even with the acknowledgment that, yes, she did have memory issues in her later years). But, like I said, I'm biased, lol.

According to Lucci herself, she was trained at Marymount College by graduates from Yale Drama School; and BITD, at least, that was a school that trained its' young theater professionals to check their egos at the door. As a former professor of mine who also graduated from YDS once said, "Watching Meryl Streep work backstage on costumes was a real trip!"

I'd say the same for Hillary Bailey Smith, who managed to do alright with three different Toms when she was on ATWT. (We won't count Jason Kincaid, lol).

Was Mason Capwell the same after Lane Davies' departure? No. But two things helped soften the blow: 1) his successors (Terry Lester and Gordon Thomson) weren't awful actors; and 2) NLG shared chemistry with all three.

Was DALLAS done for the season, or just preempted that week? Every time I see these old ratings reports, and I see how high "Murder, She Wrote" is on the list compared to the rest of CBS' primetime lineup, it just makes me angry all over again knowing how Les Moonves dismissed the show to a night he knew it could not win just to get rid of it.

There was a time when I might've said, "It doesn't." But the writing on TV and in movies has grown very shallow these past 2-3 decades. They've mistaken ponderousness for complexity. Heck, even a lot of plays written and produced aren't as complex as ones by, say, Edward Albee, or Sam Shepard. It's as if these people are afraid of challenging audiences, because, if they do, their brains will implode or something, lol.

Same here. I felt ABCD tried too hard to sell us on a pairing that, to me, were worse than watching paint dry.

I'm not a ST fan, but I feel like a lot of people want a go at Jeri Ryan, lol.

LOL!! One thing about Marland, though: there's no way he would've written Stefano DiMera the way others wrote him. He was like Harding Lemay in that his characters needed a reason for behaving the way they did, and not just because they need to further the plot. He'd also would've fought hard for a stronger focus on economic inequalities, with the introduction of a new, working class family in Salem.

I'd agree, except soaps in the '60's and '70's went far deeper into characters' psychologies than BTG or other soaps do today. Some (like @GLATWT88 ) blame that on how we've been conditioned as TV watchers over the decades. I blame it on the fact that not enough of today's writers actually read books or see plays. What they know, they know from watching television.

I'm afraid it is. Keith Hamilton Cobb has even talked in the past about how much he hated pretending to be in love with Sydney Penny/Julia in scenes and about how that affected him as a gay man.

That's what I miss most about Bill Bell: his inability to be intimidated by anyone who behaved unprofessionally or who tried to pull rank on his show. (He also famously told Jess Walton to "say the line" after she protested). We know there was backstage drama aplenty at Y&R, but at the end of the day, it was Mr. Bell's show, PERIOD.

Dee gets the "and DEIDRE HALL as Dr. Marlena Evans Black," though. Not even Susan Lucci got that on AMC.

To quote Tamar Braxton: "He must have a ding-a-ling of gold." IIRC, Joan Rivers even make a crack about Victoria Principal and/or her lawsuit during her interview with Donna Mills; and Donna's like, "Oh no, don't get me in trouble here," lol.

Yeah, just ask Victoria Wyndham, lol. Beverlee McKinsey was an Okie; and Okies, for the most part, are straight shooters. Whatever our feelings are about anything, we'll let you know, and in no uncertain terms either.

I could see Marland giving an interview to SOD (or some other rag), explaining why he took on DAYS - "It's nice to have this challenge at this late stage of my career" - and reflecting upon how his HW'ing career began and ended at NBC.

LOL!! Yeah, I don't think he would've been as successful at AW as he was elsewhere. For one thing, NBC was gonna NBC, and P&G was gonna P&G. There's no way Douglas Marland would have enjoyed the kind of support there that he had at ATWT or GL. And for another, aside from its' longtime, core audience, I really do believe most of the rest of the industry and viewers had just written off AW, expecting it to be cancelled sooner or later.

Wasn't there also the rumor that Suzanne allegedly had an affair with Deidre's now-ex-husband? If I were Dee, I wouldn't care one whit about that. As long as he was out of MY house, he could have all the cookies he wants, lol.

I'd say the same about Susan Lucci's issues with SMG. In fact, I'd blame two people for that mess: 1) SMG's mother, who allegedly told anyone and everyone that SMG/Kendall was going to be the next Erica Kane; and 2) Christopher Goutman, who, as one of AMC's directors, allegedly encouraged SMG to say or do something in a scene with Lucci that was unscripted and without Lucci's prior knowledge or approval.