dc11786

Excellent to hear. I imagine the original kids is intended to be in honor of the show's anniversary. Very interested in seeing what they talk about this go around. I was looking at that initial promo picture of the four of them and Perry Stephens. Shame Stephens isn't around.

A weird tidbit... In my latest search for information on "A New Day in Eden," I stumbled across a review of the uncut version of "9 1/2 Weeks" featuring Kim Bassinger and Mickey Rourke. Apparently, scenes were used in the film from a script written by Patrick Mulcahey. From what I could tell, it was a small interaction between a man and woman. In the film's credits, Jeff Severson and Kim Michel are credited as "soap opera man" and "soap opera woman." Years ago, I had seen Severson list "A New Day in Eden" on his resume without listing a role. In the brief clip, Severson's character is seen wearing a suit. No clue who he was or how he fit into the show.

Awesome. Now we can update the writer's list: Millee Taggart and Tom King (September 1988 - April 1991) Millee Taggart (April 1991 - August 1991) Mary Ryan Munisteri (August 1991 - January 1992) Addie Walsh (January 1992 - January 1993) [credited until 1/93; may have departed by 7/92] Millee Taggart and Robert Guza (January 1993 - September 1993) Agnes Nixon (September 1993 - at least September 1994) Addie Walsh and Laurie McCarthy (fall 1994 - spring 1995) James Harmon Brown and Barbara Essensten (spring 1995 - November 1995) Interesting. Dinahlee and Flynn are both created by Millee Taggart. Flynn definitely seems to be headed towards Ava, which continues until October when Mary Ryan Munisteri goes Flynn / Carly. That Dinahlee / Gwyn scene is fun. Jessica Collins may have been green, but she is very charismatic. I don't know how the Dinahlee / Jack storyline was initially intended. I know I read that Lauren Marie Taylor went into labor while filming, finished her scenes, and then had her child the next day during an episode of "Loving." The original Rev. Ford. By the fall, its Uncle Frank from the "Home Alone" movies in the role. I have no clue what that hostage / cave story is about with Rocky / Rio / Trucker / Trisha. Interesting that there are several characters referenced who are on the verge of disappearing. Carly has just married Clay and he's about to depart. Rocky and Rio disappear around this time. I didn't even realize they were still around at this point. Fran Sears definitely has a strong idea of what she wants to happen. @Vee Mary Ryan Munisteri did create Giff Bowman. I'm assuming you've seen the episode from October 1, 1991. I believe it is his first episode. Jeremy does replace Giff. It's a bit of a sore point for me because I think Giff, at least as he was initially written, was a much more interesting character. Jeremy tends to have too much soapy baggage in my opinion (the mercenary who was also an artist, the psychic visions). @slick jones Pretty sure that is James Carroll (future Leo Burnell) as the drunk bar patron at Checkers. His voice is pretty recognizable. @j swift You may have seen this. If you haven't, it doesn't necessarily answer your questions. I tried to watch some of it, but this really isn't my kind of story. I like a good imposter story, but the actual execution is a bit much. I think @EricMontreal22 has complained about Ralph Ellis' spy adventures / business storylines. The spy stories seems very boring.

Isabelle was mostly the kindly grandmother type. Originally, Meg Mundy was hired to play the role, but she balked at the salary they were offering and refused to sign the contract. As you know, Mundy had played devious Mona Aldrich for many years. I know the original material described Isabelle as a “Eleanor Roosevelt type” so I imagine the plan was for Mundy’s Isabelle to be more like her role in “Ordinary People” as Mary Tyler Moore’s mother than her scheming role on “The Doctors.” I do think that had Meg Mundy stayed someone would have made her more calculating. Augusta Dabney ends up playing the role on and off until March 1991 when she is let go by Jacqueline Babbin and Tom King / Millee Taggart. This was during a rather large cast purge. When the character returns in the fall of 1991, Fran Sears and Mary Ryan Munisteri are the production team. They really invested some money in Holms bringing in an expensive piano to put in the Alden living room as they hoped the could get her to play on occasion. It is Celeste Holms’ Isabelle who is the first iteration of a stronger Isabelle. Upon her return to Corinth in November, Isabelle, hardened by Cabot’s death earlier in the year, is determined to maintain her husband’s legacy through her own brand of business savvy. Holms’ Isabelle used her knowledge of people to get information from them. It’s a very different interpretation, but it is very much meant to be. As you say, they were looking to replace that Cabot Alden role, the wealthy domineering family head who meddled too much and, in Isabelle’s case, loved too much. In January 1992, Mary Ryan Munisteri leaves and Addie Walsh takes over. Isabelle’s story shifts dramatically. During the crossover between Munisteri and Walsh, Sears had lured Wesley Addy back to appear in sequences as Cabot’s ghost with Celeste Holms’ Isabelle. They were purposely hoping that having husband and wife playing opposite each other would be a draw. In the initial set of scenes, Isabelle and Cabot are loving and affectionate. In the final sequence, Cabot accuses Isabelle of having a secret which she has kept from the family. This is a complete 180. Walsh has Holms’ Isabelle as less business savvy and more meddlesome. Her intention is no longer to preserve Cabot’s legacy but rather ensure that Clay gets the company. Everything is about Clay. Even when Isabelle starts to groom Gwyn to takeover, it is only because she is trying to incite a fire in Clay in order to get him to leave Dinahlee and Pins and return to AE. The bulk of Holms’ Isabelle during the Walsh / Sears period (January – May 1992) is Isabelle trying to keep her secret: she slept with Tim Sullivan, a stablehand, and he, not Cabot, was Clay’s father. When Haidee Granger becomes EP, Holms is fired and stops appearing in June 1992 with Barry immediately picking up the role. Barry’s Isabelle has always come off as cartoonish to me. Too big, too gaudy, too much. I don’t necessarily blame Barry, but the writing leads Barry to some choices in characterization I don’t care for. I don’t remember any version of Isabelle being as classist as Barry’s, which is what made her intent to see low rent Ally Rescott marry her darling nephew Cooper. One of the writers in SOD made the point that Barry saw Ally as a way of rectifying her own past by ensuring that Ally marry her baby’s father, but also ensuring that the child received everything entitled to an Alden. I see Barry’s Isabelle Alden as a sort of poor man’s Phoebe Wallingford. Isabelle appears a lot in the these two sets of episodes (January and May) but I don’t think she appears much in between or afterwards. She is certainly an element to the Cooper / Ally / Casey situation, but more often than not they are talking about Isabelle not to Isabelle. When Nixon takes over in September 1993, there is no story for Isabelle. Pat Barry’s big moment under Nixon is Isabelle blowing up Cooper’s spot to Ally by revealing that the two of them had concocted the claim that Cooper had been disinherited to keep Ally and Casey apart. This was after Isabelle paid off an Alden employee, Ned Delaney, who was threatening Cooper over his involvement in the car burglary that Frankie Hubbard had been involved in. Barry is one of the first, if not the first, actor fired during Nixon’s run. She departs in January 1994 when Isabelle departs to some warmer climate. The only time Pat Barry and Wesley Addy ever appear together is in the portrait hanging over the mantle in the Alden living room. Nixon actually replaces Isabelle with Nancy Addison Altman’s Deborah Brewster who is Steffi’s class conscious bitch mother who is trying to pimp Steffi out to Clay in order for her to secure a financial future through her daughter’s marriage. Altman arrives in December and Barry’s gone within the month. Nixon brings back Dabney in July 1994 while Jozie Emmerich is producing. I haven’t watched much of the return. I’ve seen a bunch of September 1994 and Cabot and Isabelle are rarely used. There is a rather intense scene at the end of the month where Cabot and Isabelle visit Deborah and Clay at the Bistro, which was where Cabot worked during his days as Buddy. Clay goes off on Cabot for icing him out of the company and giving him some lousy restaurant to manage. Cabot claims he thought it would make Clay happy, but Clay goes in on Cabot. Clay goes after Cabot saying that he knows the true reason; Cabot isn’t Clay’s father. Deborah is present for all of this and Isabelle is mortified. After the men leave, Isabelle writes Deborah a check to keep her quiet, not wanting Clay’s paternity to be revealed. My guess is this is the closest we’d ever get to a manipulative Augusta Dabney. Regarding Gottlieb, anything is possible. I would say this is unlikely, but I’ve also been floating the idea that Michael Malone could have consulted. Clay’s gaslighting reminds me of elements of Malone’s second run at “One Life to Live.” Anyway, the show was using popular musical cues since the 1980s. Someone posted a clip from 1987 with Jim Vochek and Ned Bates with the score from a miniseries and the show used the Rocky theme in a rather well remembered catfight between Ann Alden and Gwyn. In 1993, Haidee Granger, a former ABC daytime executive, was EP so its entirely possible she was influenced by Gottlieb and increased the popular music cues. Armand peters out. Michael Gagliardi was hired by Haidee Granger as the lawyer in Trisha’s custody storyline. She simply kept Rosario on and gave him a contract when the trial was over. Rosario and Gwyn get very little story. I think they break up in February or March 1993 when Rosario overhears Gwyn telling Clay that she will always love him. Every new writer comes in during the 1990s and kills whatever romance Gwyn has going at the moment often without having any other story in place. It’s quite unfortunate. Rosario is listed in the credits through the summer (at least early August), but is more often than not talked about rather than seen. When Cooper goes for custody in August, another Alden lawyer is used. I don’t think Armand gets an actual exit, but he might. The show burns through story, but also everything is impacted by the constant change in production. When Jeremy arrives in October 1992, you have Addie Walsh credited as headwriter. Who knows who was actually writing. Paul Anthony Stewart claims the show was without a head writer in the summer of 1992, but Walsh is credited through January 1993. My guess is Granger, who had previously worked for British television, took on a more English approach to the producer role and was dictating story while using pieces of Addie Walsh’s long story. Anyway, it is Granger/Walsh? who pursue Jeremy / Stacey, but Taggart and Guza don’t dump it immediately in 1993 when they arrive. Instead, they let it play out for a bit, but rarely having any big story other than Hannah’s accusation in those May episodes. I think Stacey and Jeremy just realize things aren’t going to work out. Taggart and Guza definitely have Jeremy view Ava as his Corinthian Erica Kane including flashbacks clips from AMC with Erica and Jeremy. Guza and Taggart are committed to the Jeremy / Ava / Leo / Shana story through the summer of 1993 and into the fall. Even when both couples were paired off (Jeremy / Ava and Shana / Leo) there were hints that Ava and Leo would be drawn together because Ava’s insecurity over her intelligence and Leo’s frustration over Shana’s ownership of Burnell’s. Nixon comes on and send everyone in different directions in September 1993 just after Alex Masters returns to town. So the biggest problem is every writer had a different vision. Jack Forbes was killed in July 1992. Jacqueline Babbin fired Perry Stephens in early 1991 and replaced him with Christopher Cass. Stacey and Jack’s last big story as a couple was Dinahlee’s seduction plot in the fall of 1991 which dovetailed into the Dinahlee / Trucker affair. Mary Ryan Munisteri started some tension with Isabelle’s return, but she didn’t stay around long enough to do anything. Jack and Stacey go in separate directions in 1992 (Jack focusing on AE and Stacey on the mystery of the Tides). Haidee Granger dumps Christopher Cass/Jack in the summer of 1992, but brings him back in November during the gaslighting storyline even though they had started using Perry Stephens image as Jack again. Jack wasn’t dead. No body was ever found. Stacey and Clay marry in November. In October, Trucker suffers a head injury after falling from the belfry saving Trisha from Giff Bowman. When he awakes, Trucker thinks he loves Stacey. When that is quickly resolved, we go straight into Stacey and Clay. Clay wants Stacey’s AE assets and Stacey wants someone to protect her. Initially, they do not consummate the marriage, but eventually they do sleep together. Shortly after, Clay locks her away in the hospital. There are credits in the January 1991 episodes. Addie Walsh is credited at the start of the month and Taggart and Guza at the end of the month. Taggart and Guza introduce Steffi, but the prototype to Steffi was introduced by Addie Walsh. Mia appeared in December 1992 and was a dark haired girl who was hanging around Cooper. I don’t know how far those January 1993 episodes go but she can be seen breaking up the fight between Cooper and Casey in Jeremy’s classroom after Casey learns Coop has knocked Ally up. Steffi also appears before the end of January. The Curtis list… Chris Marcantel was OG Curtis from June 1983-June 1985 Then Linden Ashby from August 1985-86 Burke Moses from 1986 until fall 1987 [I think] Chip Albers from March 1989 until March 1991 Patrick T Johnson from February 1993 until May 1993 Michael Lord aired May until September 1993 Then CM returned in November 1993 Augusta Dabney played the chemical burn story when James Horan was there so that was either 1990 or 1991. There is an article on the makeup used for it somewhere in this thread. Beatrice in 1993 is the clerk for the Alden archives. My guess is “town clerk” was just a mistake and that the roles are the same.

Nixon's original plan was to reveal that Johnny Forbes was behind the prostitution ring; his underworld ventures being how he had amassed his wealth. When Johnny was found out, he was to take his own life. Personally, I think there was some value in keeping Johnny around, but they really weren't telling too many stories with characters of that generation. It would have given Roger a sounding board. By the end of the story, Egypt admits she was wrong. I haven't watched the episodes again. Is Egypt's departure in it? I thought it was effective in tying up loose ends and leaving Egypt in a better shape than she arrived. Nixon definitely had Ava and Alex involved in bigger stories which is why we get Egypt faking her death. The video store was around for a bit during Nixon's run. I don't know if its featured, but in most scenes there is a rather prominent display of ABC soap operas on VHS for rental. When Alex returns in 1993, there are a lot of Alex / Dinahlee scenes. I don't know if that was the direction the show was heading or it was simply to create tension for Ava. Anyway, when Ava is recounting the Alex / Clay saga, Ava states that Alex was a con artist who became too involved with the Alden family. I think the backstory was rewritten several times over. Originally, Clay went missing in Paris around the time Gwyn and Trisha arrive in Corinth for Christmas in 1984. When Christopher Marcantel departs in June 1985, Curtis leaves Corinth to find his father who he believes is in Thailand or Singapore. In August 1985, Linden Ashby arrives in Corinth as Curtis and announces that he has found proof that his father is indeed dead. Like so many stories, I think the Clay is Alex plot was written by several writers. Marland, and then Nixon, handled the 1985 initial departure. Then, Ralph Ellis initiated Clay's return to Corinth in the form of Alex. There's a writer's strike in 1988 when the plot is really kicking into high gears (Egypt's arrival) and then Tom King and Millee Taggart do all the spy / POW stuff. I think the outcome is why people liked the story; everyone preferred Alex's Clay to the true Clay. Patrick Johnson starts in those episodes, but Michael Lord is the Curtis by the end of those episodes.

I recently received Marland's story notes from March 1991 which included some of the early plans involving the Carolyn Crawford murder plot. Marland makes it clear that Darryl is going to be the killer, but he also intended for Darryl to get away with the murder. Frannie and Darryl still would have married, and Frannie would have become increasingly terrified by the realization that Darryl was in fact the killer. She even expressed concern over Carolyn's child, which Frannie feared Darryl would. Eventually, the police would be lead to believe that the Chicago mob was involved in Carolyn's death and the proof of Darryl's crime (a page in Carolyn's diary) would go missing. The invitro-fertilization element was supposedly an element introduced very late in the story and the plan was to start the murder story earlier than they did, but the writers had delayed the plot due to Bob Hughes' shooting (I don't think they wanted two dark plots playing at once). Dana was suppose to be a red herring in the story and there was going to be a blackmailer who would call the police and then Darryl in order to throw the audience off. In the original story, it sounds like Darryl had paid someone to kill Carolyn and may have been involved in the death of her father. I don't know much about this period of "As the World Turns," but one of the bigger shocks to me was that Marland introduced Darryl in order to create a dynamic, modern villain. Was Darryl actually portrayed as a villain? Also, the initial long term plan was to repair Larry McDermott and Frannie after Darryl and Frannie's divorce (which the notes suggestion would be in the summer of 1992) after Larry and Susan's affair petered out. Marland's comments implied that Larry had become an audience favorite so they were going to develop him a bit further. The Susan / Larry relationship was suppose to be short term and Marland specifically states they wouldn't be the type of couple to marry.

Ruth's desire to purchase the old Whitmore estate was a story thread from the first episodes. In the opener, Rebecca learns that her old family home is for sale. When she passes the estate, Rebecca witnesses the Hassad family leaving because of a bank foreclosure. When the banker spots Rebecca, he tells her how the home should be owned by "a good old American like you." Rebecca reminds him that he foreclosed on her in that home too. In the second, Ruth, who grew up in the house as the maid's daughter, informed Henry that she wanted to buy the home. Ruth had a desire for social respectability which she associated with the Whitmore name. At one point, I believe Jessica Gardner comments how Ruth has even patterned herself after her white contempory, Laura Whitmore McCallum. in this context, Ruth's desire for a partnership between Marshall Ice Cream and Martin Jackson's company becomes a little more complex. Martin was old money; his father was a doctor and Martin was Ivy League educated. Ruth saw the connection to the Jacksons as a way of elevating her position in society. Ruth didn't get the Whitmore home at first. Rob Donnelly briefly bought it when he married Jessica Gardner. If I remember correctly, Rob and Jessica bought the money with the money from Hugh Gardner's estate when Jessica's son Jason Craig couldn't be located. I believe when Jason appeared the Donnellys were forced to put the house on the market in the fall of 1989. It was at that point that Ruth sold some or all of her shares of Marshall Ice Cream to Martin Jackson in order to put up the money to purchase the home from Rob Donnelly. In the meantime, Ruth had become involved with the Mayor's Art Council, which, again, was an attempt at Ruth developing the presence she had wanted since she was the little girl living with the Whitmore family. In order to become a part of the council, I believe she needed to be sponsored or voted in. At the Art Council, Ruth encountered women like Mary Gardner, who was more of a snob than a comical sociopath at this point, who made sure that everyone knew that it Ruth's mother had cleaned the toilets at the Whitmore home. Laura and Doreen Jackson were both a part of the council. Doreen and Laura both stood up for Ruth. Incidentally, it was at the Art Council meeting where we first meet Helen Mullens, then just a day player played by an unidentified actress. When the Marshalls purchase the estate in December, Helen Mullens return, the Marshalls new neighbor, with her husband, Charles Mullens. Initially, both Helen and Charles were racist and not pleased with the Marshalls moving into the neighborhood. No mention was made of the Hassads, which would have been a nice beat to play. When the Marshalls bought the house, they didn't move in right away. The house was in disrepair and Ruth was determined to restore it to its glory because, in Ruth's eyes, turning the Whitmore home into the Marshall estate would help her to achieve the self worth she was searching for. There was some vandalism during the construction phase and I believe the construction workers were involved with a white supremacist group. It is Ruth and Doreen who arrive at the home to find a nasty racial epithet sprayed on the newly painted walls. By this point, Helen had been softened and claimed that no one from the neighborhood would do such a thing. Doreen just saw Helen for who she was and Ruth was more concerned about getting the word off the wall. Once the work was done, the Marshalls moved in and Ruth was planning the housewarming party. I don't remember if Charles Mullens was behind the white supremacist attacks, but at the very least he was affiliated with the group. There wasn't a bomb scare at the housewarming; the bomb was detonated. Somehow the party guests were alerted there was a bomb (it was brought in by the caterers) and they managed to get it out the window or out of the room before it went off. The scene that followed was heartbreaking. Ruth, completely in shock, trying to find some way to salvage the evening after the horrific events that had just occurred. The racist attacks ended with this, I believe, but the Mullens continued into the Daniel Reubens/Maya Reubens story. Daniel was on the run for an incident involving the death of a security guard at a pharmaceutical company. Daniel had been set up. His wife, Amy, had died after ingesting contaminated cough syrup. I believe the Mullens' daughter, Karen, a teenager at the time, died from the same substance. In the hospital, Helen had bonded with Amy's daughter, Maya. There was an entire thread between March and April 1990 where Maya was trying to determine how she knew Helen Mullens, who was constantly taking Maya's aerobics class at the Hale Hotel. Helen recognized Maya right away because she was a spitting image of her mother (Vivica A. Fox either appeared as Amy in flashbacks or was, at the very least, used in photographs as Amy). Anyway, it turned out Helen briefly had cared for Maya after Amy's death, but she couldn't keep her because of Charles' bigotry. In fact, Charles was involved in Daniel being on the run. When Adam, Daniel, and Rob Donnelly tracked down the guard's widow, Rita Barton, it turned out that she had a married lover supporting her since her husband's death. It turned out that Charles was Rita's sugar daddy who was somehow connected with her husband's death. My episodes end with this part of the story. In the aftermath of the bombing, Ruth just wants to forget the incident and bury the memory of that horrible evening. Her pal Doreen, who is about to give birth to Ruth's grandchild, unbeknownst to Ruth, brings a reporter to speak with Ruth about the bombing and the racism on the North Shore. Ruth was furious; she felt completely betrayed by Doreen. Doreen spoke about the importance of exposing these people, but Ruth was too raw. The bombing had had the potential to figuratively and literally blow up her dreams. I think Ruth and Doreen were able to resume their friendship until it was later revealed that Adam, not Martin, was the father of Doreen's baby. On a side note, Martin was cash strapped after purchasing Ruth's stock so he could have a controlling interest in Marshall's Ice Cream. It was about this time that the IRS audited Martin and he had owed money in back taxes. He arranged for someone to stage a robbery in the Jackson penthouse in order to collect the insurance money and the profit off the sale of the stolen property. It was Brad Russell, Kyle's cop buddy, who handled the burglary case. It was a nice story crossover. Also, during the heist, the robbers grabbed Doreen's mother's wedding ring. Doreen was pretty distraught, and Martin had to get it back. At the time, a lot of the stories really played well off one another. Back to Ruth, I think the desire to attain respect through the Whitmore name becomes even further complicated when you look into the final storyline: Peter Whitmore returns to town and it is revealed that Chantal is in fact Peter's daughter. Henry married Ruth aware that Ruth was pregnant with another man's baby, but he had never known who that man was. Vivian, Ruth's mother, knew, but she had kept her secret. The story also weaved in Doreen and Ruth's friendship with both women vying to sing at the reopening of Peter's nightclub, the Music Box, as well as the fact that Ruth's outrage over Doreen's paternity lie was about to be surpassed by Ruth's own deception involving Chantal's conception. It's a shame we never got to see how that all would have played out. Would Ruth have maintained the Marshall estate, kicked Henry out, and moved Peter in? Peter's departure is the reason the Whitmores had lost their money. There were some interesting plots boiling, but it was never was resolved. The show made a significant mistake in shifting too much of the story to Sam and Kyle, who had immense chemistry and a strong triangle with Jordan Hale, but the show was so much better as a true ensemble where the stories were interconnected. With that said, I stan for Sam and Kyle, but I think Stacey Nelkins' Christy Russell is such a product of the NBC soap culture that I really cannot condone a lot of the story for the couple in mid 1990. There was enough going on with everything going on at the Hale hotel and Jordan's gangster past to keep that story going for quite a while without some generic psycho. I don't know if the Eric Royal murder trial story was a good idea either. I think Eric and Chantal became a very good couple, but it might have been more interesting to have involved Chantal and Eric in a story with Martin Jackson. When Sharon Brown played Chantal, they definitely tested her with Martin, but dropped the ball. I wonder if Sussman could have pulled it together in 1991. It seemed to be heading in that direction, but she struggled with building sustainable story.

Let me see if I can get that one on there. If I do, I'll try to upload a November 1994 episode with it that plays the same reveal but in a different context. I don't think you are wrong regarding Alex's motives. I was commenting that, when I was first watching this, I thought they were pursuing one angle and they didn't. I don't have any real feelings for Egypt so this story doesn't really bother me. Egypt definitely is taken to an extreme, but I do find some of the details of the plot fun. It's not an award winning story but I appreciate the fact that Alex never really doubts Ava, which would have been the obvious angle to play. I'm jumping around 1994 so I don't really know where Nixon ends the Curtis story. I really hate the Curtis causes the plane crash angle. When I first was reading the daily recaps from rats years ago, I thought they should have had Janie Sinclaire marry Curtis as and have him locked in Dunellyn. At one point, scheming Janie convinces Coop and Steffi that she is Clay's mistress. I'm looking forward to those scenes, which I haven't gotten to yet. Regarding Shana, the original Shana / Leo story is remembered mostly for the artificial insemination angle and Shana's desire to have a child. What is often downplayed is that Leo only agrees to father Shana's baby initially because he needs a loan to bail out Burnell's department store. Shana agreed to co-sign the loan in return for Leo's genetic material. This was a rather important story thread that only started to really develop in the last few weeks of Taggert / Guza's run when, after six months, Leo is unable to repay the loan and Shana is given control of Burnell's. This story was clearly intended to be the second round of the Leo / Shana / Ava triangle as the banker asks immediately if Shana has plans to make any personnel changes now that she is in charge, particularly Ava's role as manager. Nixon comes on and never explores that story thread. The developmental issues had been introduced by Taggart and Guza, but Nixon focuses in on those. Trucker and Buck quickly fell into a brotherly relationship. I don't think the original deception angle was ever really explored too deeply. Buck was quickly shifted into Gwyn's hired stud who got drunk one night and ended up the front steps of the Forbes home. Trucker and Buck were similar type of characters, but Buck was more insecure in terms of the class issues. He was constantly trying to make money in order to prove himself. When Buck isn't working at the Rodeo Bar, he was typically employed by Trucker at the bike shop, though he also had a stint as a pilot for AE. The relationship could have been more complicated and it definitely didn't seem like they hadn't grown up together. I wouldn't say it was a deep relationship, but more functional in terms of progressing the story. As has been pointed out, Tudor is more than likely not Beck's age, but casting on most soaps in the 1980s was bizarre when it came to parents of young adults. In the reunion video, Callan White commented she was playing a grandmother at 29. There is no way that James Horan or Christine Tudor Newman were old enough to play the characters they were playing.

I'll be honest. I tend to probably put more into the scenes than are intended at times. Steffi is such a complex character. I think the dynamic between her and Clay is much more richer than is typical described on paper. Clay does come off as pervy when you look at his later choices (Carly, Dinahlee, Tess, Steffi). I apologize if I went into it already but what Nixon does with Steffi / Clay / Deborah / Casey is pretty great and later when they switch out Casey for Coop it maintains that level of fun. Some of the initial Coop / Steffi stuff has a tendency to be a bit juvenile, and I'm sure that is the purpose, but it becomes very heavy handed. I haven't rewatched these. Is this the episode where Deborah makes a big revelation to Steffi? If it isn't let me know and I can try and find those episodes. A lot of the Gwyn and Jeremy stuff is simple character stuff, which is why I think why it works so well. The Curtis in the cage stuff is bizarre as it goes on for a bit. I think the PTSD element had the potential to be different as most kidnapping stories rarely seem to deal with those sort of ramifications. At times, I do think it becomes too much of a crutch at other times I think it makes sense. With that said, I can see how @DRW50 would see it as insensitive and I'm not a fan of the extremes the story takes in the late summer (Curtis rigging the plane) and the fall (Curtis shooting Gwyn thinking she's Dante). There are some episodes later where Curtis saves Trucker from an incident which helps humanize Curtis. I don't think the writing always shows the complexity of certain characters in single scenes but rather over the course of a story. I have little use for Tess, but I don't mind this version of Tess as much as I do a lot of the other versions. I felt that they were playing on Cooper's previous trauma by pairing him with Tess (i.e. the incident with the nanny). I think it may have been intended to make Tess more sympathetic. There's a very strong Tess and Cooper scene sometime in April where Cooper takes Tess to Belden Pond to go skinny dipping. When Cooper starts stripping down, Tess starts to freak out because she doesn't want Cooper to see her naked. During the early stages of the Steffi bulimia story, Tess revealed that she had been anorexic. At the pond, Tess explains to Coop she still deals with body dysmorphia. Given where the show was heading, Coop and Steffi, the Clay / Steffi and Tess / Cooper pairings worked as catalyst for later problems. I do get why the Egypt murder plot is controversial. I will say I had forgotten about how the arrest scene actually plays out. When I first watched it, I thought it was brilliant because I assumed Alex had purposely taken her out of town in order for her to break parole. At the start of the episodes, Alex tells Ava to stay put and she simply won't. I thought he took her out of town because the only way to keep her safe was to have her in jail. Clearly, this isn't how this played out in the actual episode. Shana's evolution as a lawyer is quite wide and varied. Even when she comes back in 1990 as "a champion of victim rights," she often gets pulled into a lot of corporate AE stuff. In the 1991 episodes I have, Shana handles Carly's search for Michael while still working at AE. Isabelle keeps threatening to send Shana to the Hong Kong offices. In early 1992, you still have Shana involved in the Take Off scam where John Schneider seduces her while bilking money from Alden Enterprises. After that, Shana seems more involved in personal drama. So you have her handling Trucker's attempt to gain custody of Christopher. She is involved in some of the work at 35 Maple Street which is definitely less corporate. When Shana is arrested in the summer, something involving Ava, she is being paraded through the courts and it is basically the chance for a bunch of court officers she pissed off getting a chance to sneer at her. Shana also represents Ally in the custody suit against Cooper. I like the Shana / Ava / Alex stuff because Ava / Shana spent so much time the previous year in a triangle and I felt it made sense to kind of show that Shana wasn't going to hold Leo against Ava. I also thought Shana and Alex were close in the late 1980s after it came out that Alex wasn't Clay, but I may be making that up. It's unfortunate that Shana is never treated as much of anything by the Alden, neither close relation or unfriendly animosity. There are only passing references to Shana's involvement with the family to the point you have Isabelle declaring the shocking revelation to Trisha that Cabot cheated. There seemed to be no real sense of Shana's conception.

This is the next episode in that sequence

@EricMontreal22 I'm sure they were trying to bank on Genie Francis' name value. Ceara's story runs perfectly in Corinth. She arrives to accept a public relations job at Alden University and takes residence at the Rescott boarding house. Ceara was running from her impending marriage to Jeremy because she was still dealing with residual effects of the sexual abuse she had suffered at the hands of her father. In Corinth, she connected with Matt, who had only recently been exonerated of raping a young woman who had in fact been raped by his stepfather, Rev. Albert Ford. On AMC, Ceara confronted her mother about the years of abuse that went on noticed. On Loving, Ceara was there to witness a similar interaction between Matt and his mother. Ceara developed a very intense emotional connection to Matt, which Ally interpreted as sexual. I get the sense from Goodall's performance that there may have been a little bit of that there, but Francis made it clear that Ceara's intimate connection with Matt was motherly, not romantic. Ceara was not a true threat to Ally and Matt's relationship. It was actually Ally, jealous of Matt and Ceara's connection, who locked Ceara and Jeremy in the Rescott shed. Through her friendship with Matt, Ceara no longer feared that she could be a mother, which is why she had skirted her marriage plans with Jeremy. Ceara and Jeremy's reconciliation in the shed played out just as Matt was continuing to struggle with his emotions regarding his stepfather's influence on his life. Not only had Albert raped this one girl, there had been countless others. Matt talked about hearing the muffled screams and later being physically assaulted by Albert. This was all before the trial. Matt was listening to Paul Slavinsky's radio show and a caller rang in about Matt's situation. He basically said that Matt had no hope of having a normal life. Paul quickly cuts the caller off and tells him he's wrong, but the damage is done. It's too much for Matt and he ends up doing heroin and overdosing. Goodall performance during the overdose is pretty strong. Ally lets them out of the shed to help with Matt who she has found passed out. I haven't watched much of the Carter Jones stuff, but I have it. It's just not a particularly good time for the show in terms of the build to it. The Carter Jones stuff was definitely bigger, but I don't think of "Loving" as a show that tells those kind of stories well. Jeremy basically replaced Giff Bowman, who had to go crazy at the alter of Trucker and Trisha. It was Jeff Hartman, Part II. Jeremy came with too much baggage that just was bizarre (the mercenary stuff / the psychic visions). Jeremy's initial pairing with Stacey is just bland. I don't know what they thought they were accomplishing with that other than pairing someone from a higher rated show with one of the main heroines of the other. Millee Taggart and Robert Guza, bless their hearts, don't drop it immediately, but slowly pivot Jeremy and Stacey into the Ava / Leo / Shana triangle in a much more successful way than in the story that they were the focus (Hannah's crush on Jeremy leading to the accusation of sexual harassment). The Jeremy problem really continued no matter who the headwriter was. The Faison stuff is lame though the sexual tension between Leclerc and Peluso was exciting. They try to tag Jeremy into a lot of the police stuff which is so weird because he is an artist and that's not the angle they often played. Jeremy as the backer of Tess' ad agency and Gwyn's good-natured boyfriend worked best, but I can't imagine Leclerc was making scale for a role that didn't require him per se. No clue what happened with Munisteri. She may have been interim as I believe Walsh would have been finishing up the French soap "Riviera" when Munisteri stepped in. I don't know Walsh and McCarthy were let go. The statement from ABC was that their contracts were not renewed. Addie Walsh and Laurie McCarthy were the associate headwriters when Nixon was there and it Walsh/McCarthy, not Nixon, who would give the previews to the press. I imagine Nixon was grooming them to takeover. For me, Walsh and McCarthy is a mixed bad slightly better than Walsh on her own even with Fran Sears, but not nearly as good as the beginning half of 1994. They do do one really good story: Clay's hit and run on the night of Steffi's 21st birthday. Honestly, it was hard at that point to mess any of the Steffi / Cooper stuff up or Casey / Ally for that matter. I actually think they did the lead up to Jacob Johnson arriving in Corinth. Not sure when Nixon leaves and Walsh / McCarthy takeover or leave for that matter. @Paul Raven Meg Mundy wanted more money than ABC was offering her so she left. I think Dabney was let go during the Alden purge in the early half of 1991. She may have not renewed her contract, but it's also possible she was fired. Celeste Holms was fired by Haidee Granger. My guess was it was a budget consideration. Also, the version of Isabelle that Munisteri wrote and Walsh wrote were vastly different shades of the same character. Munisteri had made Isabelle savvy and calculating while also sentimental and mournful. Walsh played Holms' Isabelle as more of a heavy. She was manipulative and heartless when it came to protecting her secret from comin out. Sears brought Wesley Addy back for the coup of having husband and wife play husband and wife in scenes where Isabelle chats with Cabot's ghost. Through all but the final sequence, Isabelle and Cabot are loving and affectionate. In the last scene, Cabot lashes out at Isabelle over what she did all those years ago. Not subtle at all. I've read that Holms was pretty shocked by her firing. Pat Barry is basically playin the same type of character but without an ounce of subtly. To be fair, the scripts didn't call for it. Pat Barry's Isabelle would rant and rave about "those Mayberry girls." I can't see any other version of Isabelle going off like that. After Walsh's name is out of the credits, Isabelle appears infrequently. Guza and Taggart rest the character. She's still has her hands in the pot (mostly Ally's pregnancy), but nowhere to the extent she did before. Nixon uses her even less infrequently before shipping Isabelle off. Ironically, it's Nixon who abandons the college campus completely in her return in 1993. Haidee Granger definitely took an ax to by dropping Staige, Kent, and the sorority/frat plotline, but the rest of the gang is still in school. In one of their last stories, Taggart and Guza had Ava take courses at Alden University in order to better herself and spend time with Jeremy. Nixon shifts the stories from the college TO the hospital more than likely due to the arrival of Angie. With the number of issues based stories the show was telling (Curtis' PTSD, Steffi's eating disorder, Angie's HIV scare, Casey's descent into drugs related to mental health issues). the move to the hospital made sense. I hope that more of Ralph Ellis' period shows up. So much of "Loving" doesn't read well in summaries, but seems to play out much better onscreen. The little bit that has shown up is from a show that takes itself very seriously, which is something that was rare afterwards. I love imposter storylines so I really would like to see how the Clay Alden/Alex Masters story started before it went completely off the rails under King and Taggert. I've seen Ellis' work on "Search for Tomorrow" in 1982. It definitely has that drier Proctor and Gamble style with characters talking things over coffee and talk about their emotions rather than talking with their emotions. I think the romance between Cece and Rick looks sweet, but it was truncated. I've always heard good things about Lily's return storyline. It was very sweet seeing some of the end of Lily in that 1988 episode. I have no use for Dan Hollister and I love Susan Keith and Peter Davies seems more than competent, but most of the Shana / Jim stuff bores me. Again, maybe it would play differently than it reads.

My guess is the business venture between Stephanie and Rusty was meant to escalate animosity between Rusty and Martin. At the time, November 1982, Stephanie and Martin maintained a loving friends type relationship. Given the history between Rusty and Martin regarding the Colonel, I imagine the plan was to keep those two characters at each others throats in every which way they could. The TR storyline is great. I didn't realize until recent years that the Kendalls weren't initially brought on to replace the Sentell / Tourneur clan, but provide them with a long standing enemy. The original animosity stemming from Lloyd's father's suicide bleeds right into the revelation that Steve Kendall is Martin's son. So a Tourneur was raised a Kendall. Now, you have TR being found and raised by the Sentells. I don't so much mind the Liza / Lloyd storyline in this context. Also, I think Travis' death was open enough that had the show continued, he would have returned from the dead. It would have been very interesting to see Travis return to a happily little family unit of Lloyd, Liza, TR, and Tourneur. The issue seems to be that when Travis dies, the family dies with him. A member of that generation needed to be present in order for the story to really continue. I think having Lee Sentell return with Roger Lee (say that Cissy has run off) could have created conflict for Liza and Sunny. Cord seems interesting. He definitely isn't a Travis-type, but I think they went too far with the PTSD and couldn't turn back. I think Peter Haskell was a very good Lloyd. He left the show in 1985 to take the role of C.J. Fields on "Rituals" only for that show to fold in six months. Joe Lambie was too young or to young looking to play Lloyd. The little of Robert Reed that has popped up has been unmemorable. The show would have been well off to offer Haskell the chance to return to the show in 1986 when Lambie left. Martin and Jo divorced in the 1981 or 1982 I think. They were definitely divorced by the fall of 1982. Martin and Jo were definitely viewed as endgame in the writers' eyes. Jo's kidnapping by Vargas played a lot on that with the ransom and such. Sunny and Hogan were fairly popular. Forsyth left the show after less than a year though and they never really were able to retell a meaningful story for Hogan and Sunny when Forsyth returned. I enjoy the Liza / Hogan relationship, but it comes at the expense of Sunny, at times.

I like what Fran Sears did. I think she set out to deal with the identity issues by reestablishing the college as a center point for some of the story. I would also she really tries to make "Loving" visually distinct. Boyd Dumrose, the set designer, had been there from the beginning and had done a marvelous job on the sets, but something seems to pop more under Sears. Sears introduces the Tides, the Alden family hunting cabin where Trisha and Trucker live in the final years of their marriage. It seems very symbolic of them as a couple, rustic like Trucker but opulent like Trisha. In the story, Trisha and Trucker are sniping at one another over the differences that seem to have come out more and more as their marriage has progressed. Trisha wants to go out to a French restaurant, while Trucker would rather stay in with a beer and pizza. When Granger comes in, that set is pretty quickly redecorated into a more modern environment. I don't know if I've seen anything that looks like the original Tides on any other soap as a permanent set. I could be wrong. Also, Paul and Ava move into a house outfitted to suit Paul's paralysis. The kitchen set is particularly nice. Even Flynn's studio apartment, which the Bowmans eventually move into, has some neat features. Sears also introduces the bowling alley, Pins, which not only highlights the class difference but is also bright and colorful like so much of Sears run. I just watched the October 7 episode on youtube with Paul in his studio. That bright blue background is very appealing. I think the use of Checkers, the restaurant where the waitresses wear different outfits every ngiht, stands out. I think the casting was pretty strong under Fran Sears. Jessica Collins started under her, but had previously had auditioned for Ally Rescott when Jackie Babbin was still there. Keith Pruitt and Richard Cox were both early hires in Sears' run. She also oversaw the casting the entire college crew (Hannah / Coop / Casey / Kent / Staige). Most of those actors went on to relatively successful in careers in and out of soaps. Casey may have been Haidee Granger. Sears had two headwriters (she may have also been there briefly with Millee Taggert). I like Mary Ryan Munisteri's material. It is often more emotion than plotting, but I feel the stories are pretty complex and winding. Munisteri continues the Ava / Paul / Carly triangle but switches out Clay for Flynn. I really liked the dynamic between Paul and Flynn; Flynn was a physical therapist and helped Paul shortly after he was paralyzed. Paul and Flynn were friends, but Pauls' demons, his lack of self confidence after his paralysis and his linger feelings for Carly, complicated it. It would have been easy to make Flynn an adversary, but Flynn remained pretty aware of Paul's reasons and didn't really bat too much of an eyelash. Munisteri continued the complicated dynamic between Ava and Carly and eventually had Ava make the decision to agree to help Carly find Michael even though she knew it could destroy her future with Paul. I think the Michael story could have gone on at least another year with Michael's presence creating a strong push-pull dynamic between Ava and Paul and Carly. Michael idolized Paul do to his radio show and had the personality of a young Ava. What was going to happen when Michael was slowly pulled into Paul and Ava's world leaving Carly in the dust? And what would have happened to Paul and Ava when Paul learned he has sterile as a result of the accident? Munisteri also pens the Trucker / Dinahlee affair, which I think was problematic. I mostly enjoy it, but it leaves too much of the tension in Trucker and Trisha's marriage strictly to subtext rather than actually calling out the rift that should have come from Trucker keeping secrets about Tommy's adoption. I think Trucker's draw to Dinahlee was practical and the end result is a decent story for Trucker, Trisha, Dinahlee, Jack, and Stacey. Trucker identified with Dinahlee; he was an outsider in the Alden clan. I think that identity worked given Trucker's history with the Aldens. I also think it was bold that Trucker and Dinahlee weren't a one night stand; he went back to Dinahlee a second time. I thought it was different not to alleviate Trucker's culpability by allowing the audience to right it off as an impulsive mistake. I really like how all of it played out even though I could see where the Trucker / Trisha crowd would be livid. I thought they were smart to weave in Giff and Gwyn, who took two very different stances on the affair. Gwyn salivated at the thought that she could finally removing Trucker from her daughter's life, while Giff took a more practical approach reminding Gwyn that people are complicated. There's a nice scene where Giff traps Gwyn in her office at AE overnight because he doesn't want her to squeal to Trisha. Of course, at some point, Gwyn tries to run Dinahlee out of town by offering her cash, which Dinahlee turns around and uses to by Pins. I think it set up Dinahlee nicely as the potential antagonist the Alden clan needed. The last big story that Fran Sears / Mary Ryan Munisteri tell is the Ally / Matt tale. Matt and Ally were introduced under Babbin / Taggert, but it was very late in the game. Matt runs the gambit of emotions in the course of the tail end of the accusation storyline. The drug angle is, at times, a little heavy handed as it is typically on most soaps. After hearing a caller on Paul's radio show comment how messed up his life will be, Matt does heroin and ends up overdosing. The Matt / Ally story was pretty well remembered by those who saw it. I would love to know the circumstances of Eric Goodall's departure in early 1992. I hope Sears fought for him. Of course, also weaved into the tale of Matt and Ally was Ceara Connors, who rented a room at Kate's and briefly worked at AU. Francis fit in well in Corinth. The tender motherly relationship that developed between Ceara and Matt was wonderful and progressed both Ceara and Matt's stories. I think Jeremy's interloping in the Trucker / Trisha story wasn't as exciting. The last thing to consider with Munisteri and Sears is that they were the ones to introduce Celeste Holms as Isabelle. I think the initial arrival is well done. The writing is strong enough to make this version of Isabelle captivating while heavy handed enough to let the audience know, "Yes, this is a very different version of Isabelle, but we think you'll like it." I know I've referenced this scene several times already, but I enjoy nothing more than watching Isabelle having Bethel Ford, Matt's mother who is applying to be Isabelle's secretary, call Shana so she can listen in while Shana talks crap about Isabelle. Delightful. Mary Ryan Munisteri leaves in early January 1992 and things are less delightful. It all shifts pretty quickly. Addie Walsh wasn't as interested in the emotional complexity of the characters, in my opinion. She seemed very adept at moving the story forward, but it didn't explore the motivation and reaction as much as Munisteri did. A bulk of Walsh's story revolves around the return of Clay Alden, his attempts to repair his relationship with Trisha, and his relationship with Dinahlee. Walsh plans a pretty windy story about the mystery room at the Tides that turns out to Isabelle and Tim Sullivan's love nest all to get us to the revelation that Clay wasn't an Alden but rather the product of an affair between Isabelle and a stablehand. I don't think the ends justify the means. A lot of the end of Sears and Walsh is really unmemorable excluding the arrival of all the young characters in the course of several days. The sorority / fraternity story ends pretty quickly under Granger so it's hard to see the full potential, but often it plays out like older people educating younger people about what life in college is like in the Greek system. Others may have a different opinion of Walsh, but I found her work the hardest to get into during both runs. The 1994 / 1995 run at least has some really good Steffi / Cooper and Casey / Ally material, but everything else under Walsh and McCarthy's run is of little interest to me.

Stephanie and Rusty Sentell bought the TV station when Suzy, Warren, and Brian’s plane crashed in South America. I believe she wanted to send Sunny down there and the station manager wouldn’t so she bought it. Initially, it was a story point under Ralph Ellis and Eugenia Hunt in their final days. David Cherrill really had Stephanie working at the station. When Rusty was murdered, Travis inherited the station. Liza handled that asset for him under Joanna Lee/Gary Tomlin. I enjoyed the friendly rivalry between those two.

That's Augusta Dabney as Isabelle. Mundy was only in the pilot. She had wanted more money than "Loving" was willing to give her so she bowed out. @EricMontreal22 that is the one I'm referring to (welcome back, btw). That seems to be the second half of the first episode. I believe it pretty much matches up with what John O'Connor wrote about in his review for the New York Times. Here is the first part and the part of the second episode (in Italian): As we've been talking about ownership and creation of "Loving," I do enjoy the speculating. I think there are definitely issues that Nixon and Marland were both interested in exploring as a lot of those concepts would be later revisited in their work on "As the World Turns" (for Marland) and "All My Children" and "Loving" (for Nixon). I think this may be why they were able to work together. I'm completely speculating here, but I saw a comment in I believe the "Guiding Light" thread about Marland thanking Nixon at the Daytime Emmys or something around the time of his departure from "Guiding Light." Since Marland was vocal about his disappointment in not being able to finish the Carrie Marler story, I wonder if Nixon used the chance to finish telling that story (the multiple personality plotline) on "Loving" with Lily Slater. Granted, the storylines are significantly different, but this type of story is something that both seemed interested in. I have 9 of the last 10 of Marland's "A New Day in Eden" scripts. The first of the lot (which features the exit of the Garth Slater equivalent Emmett Claybourne, was set to be filmed around Thanksgiving 1982). Marland was already doing a similar plotline as the Lily Slater storyline. I imagine that Nixon and Marland were able to find enough common ground to initially make it work. The Lily story fascinates me because of the duality of the story, not just in terms of Lily and her alter Trista, but in the two boyfriends. Cousins Curtis and Jack are complete opposites of one another. Curtis tends to be more dark than light and Jack more light than dark. In an early sequence, there is again more of the dual natures portrayed with Curtis impersonating Jack when he is seducing Rita Mae Bristow. Jack, of course, has his dual parentage: Roger Forbes / Ann Alden and Dane Hammond / Linda Henderson. As the story progresses past Lily, it is Curtis who quietly rejects Stacey Donovan's advances in the spring of 1984 when she is acting out due to Tony Perilli's marriage to Lorna. Yet, it is Jack who beds down with Ava Rescott and gets her pregnant when he can't handle that his family enemy Dane Hammond is his biological father. Lily seems to be the jumping off point for a lot of this. One can only imagine what the original plan was. It's a shame there isn't a bible for "Loving" floating around somewhere.

I believe "The Guiding Light" (1947) is legally a spinoff of "The Guiding Light" (1937). Irna Phillips lost creative ownership of the original in a court battle in 1946, which I've read was the reason why the network cancelled it. Reading the Wikipedia reason, I wonder if both were contributing factors to cancellation. For the first reason I've given, @EricMontreal22 is right that there isn't much connection character wise. In his book "The Fan Who Knew Too Much," Anthony Heilburt goes into some detail about the transition from one show to another. If you are interested radio soaps, the book is worth a read. He definitely exerts some energy on explaining different personalities behind the stage while also delving into some of the gay subtext of different writers work. I can't find my copy of the book at the moment, but I think it may have a preview on Google Books. "The Guiding Light" (1947) was originally about Ray Brandon, a man who had been wrongfully convicted for embezzlement many years before. He came out of jail and learned that his wife, Julie, had remarried and raised their son without really acknowledging his true paternity. The son was in love with the daughter of Martin McClure, who was Ray's former employer who had set him up for murder. I believe one of the ministers from "The Guiding Light" (1937) dropped off Reverend Ruthledge's lamp to Rev. Richard Gaylord, the main minister on the new series. I believe the only real crossover storyline involved Claire Lawrence, a war pilot's widow with a young son. Her storyline may have only been a year or two. I know it had something to do with her late husband's brother coming back into the picture. I'd suggest using SoapCentral, but given the recent analysis of the Stanley Norris biography, I would look at it in a broader sense rather than at specific details. I don't think Lee Philip and Irna Phillips were related though it would be really cool if that was the case. Imagine what those family dinners would have been like? A brief search of the census records on Ancestry.com suggest they were not related. I think the confusion arises in the origin story of William Bell meeting Irna Phillips. In one article, he states he had originally tried out to work for her in the late 1940s, but nothing happened. Later, he ran into Irna Phillips' niece and was able to convince her to talk to Irna because Irna knew of Lee Phillip, his wife and popular television personality. I don't think they were actually related. With that said, Bell's work is definitely influenced by Phillips. I hadn't considered the Dickie Martin case being similar to the Chuckie White case. Didn't Rose Kransky's kid also perish? That Heilburt book I referenced goes into some of the psychology of those storylines. Anyway, shortly after Phillips dies, Bell replicated a story written on "The Road of Life," which was another Phillips' serial. On "Days of our Lives," Mickey had amnesia, saw his belt buckle said MH, and stumbled onto a farm where he called himself Marty Brent where he fell in love with a beautiful crippled woman, Maggie Simmons. On "The Road of Life," Dr. Jim Brent was on his way to John Hopkins, suffered amnesia, arrived on a farm with a widow and her crippled sister-in-law, and fell for the widow. I don't know if Bell submitted scripts for this show and reused the ideas later or if he was simply a fan of the show and replayed the storyline. I wouldn't be surprised if William Bell was a Charles Gusman fan. Gussman wrote a large chunk of the last year of "The Road of Life" and was involved in the creation of "Days of our Lives" I believe. Gussman brought very upper class families like the Overtons and the Malloys who I think could easily have survived in the Genoa City social scene.

The first episode is online in Italian. It’s under the Italian name Quando Si AMA. It’s in two parts. I don’t think I’ve ever watched all of it just skimmed

Chris Marcantel said he was planning to edit it and clean it up. Given that he runs a production company, I think he probably took it down until they can put the more polished version up. It was really great to see all of the actresses. A nice pop in from Linden Ashby and talks of an all Curtis reunion (that would be amazing). It was really great to hear that this seems like the start of a recurring thing. I honestly expected maybe one or two more (the Men of Loving and maybe one more). I hope that Marcantel is able to get it back up because it was a pretty candid conversation that became pretty centered around Joe Stuart's atrocious behavior and treatment of a large number of young actresses working on the show. I'm still processing all that these women talked about. I think the woman who's story I found most impactful was Jennifer Ashe, who spoke about what a profound role that playing the father-daughter incest story had on her life. She spoke about how once it became clear what was happening to Lily, a number of young women came up to her and shared their stories with her. She spoke about a neighbor who told her she was happy she had had a son because she was afraid she would look differently at her husband. It was very powerful. Ashe seemed pretty hurt that the story had been curtailed in order to promote a TV movie of the week, and in a very real sense of loss rather than just losing a job. Susan Walters talking about the terrible things that Joe Stuart would say to her (she was only 19 when she started) was particularly painful especially given how self aware of herself she seems to be. I chuckled when she talked about checking her hair while James Kiberd was crawling on the floor preparing to play Mike suffering from PTSD. It was interesting to hear her talk about how she started out as this young model who had never acted before and became a pretty popular character. It wasn't facetious. From what I can tell, Lorna quickly became a pretty layered character. It was she who got a lot of the Erica Kane treatment under Marland (getting pregnant by Tony Perilli and aborting her baby so she could sign a modeling contract with Burnells). I would love to see the scene where Tony and Lorna had sex after Tony left her. Lorna finally thought that she had got Tony back and he callously told her it was just sex and it meant nothing. It's a shame that she wasn't brought back. I know she had a bit of a career, but I really think she would have done well as an older jaded Lorna, a divorcee who comes to town to fight with Tess for control of the ad agency while setting out to seduce Buck. Patty Lotz shared a pretty graphic story about her audition. She revealed that the audition script was very crude and very sexual. I actually think another actress who tried out for Ava has posted her screen test featuring this script. I seem to recall we all mentioned then how racy it was. Her firing was pretty awful; she was too nice. It was interesting to hear her talk about how the character of Ava was originally envisioned, Corinth's answer to Jennifer Beale in "Flashdance." Pamela Bowen shared a rather amusing story about asking James Kiberd to kiss her so that she didn't have to have her first screen kiss during her screentest; she was auditioning for Shana at the time. Her character, Colby, was created for her. I wonder how the story would have played out if Colby hadn't been there. I believe Bowen also implied that Joe Stuart was terrible. Noelle Beck was pretty quiet. She did tell a pretty shocking story about how her hiring initially contingent on a nose job and that they planned on writing it into the story. Gwyn was suppose to find Trisha in her boarding school, realize she didn't look WASPy enough, and get her daughter a nose job. Beck refused the nose job, but still managed to get the job. Elizabeth Burr talked about Joe Stuart berating her during her audition, which she joked helped her during her run as Noreen because the character cried every day. Burr originally auditioned for Sheree, who was Ava's trashy sister with a southern accent. That character definitely mellowed. The ladies who escaped Joe's reign of terror were Lauren Marie Taylor and Christine Tudor Newman. Taylor implied that Joe understood her Bronx demeanor and Newman implied she was too old for Joe. Newman gave a great story about telling Joe Stuart off during her audition only to later learn that he was the producer. When she apologized, Stuart said she had responded exactly as Gwyn would have. I'm sure there are more things people will share. Callan White seemed very proud of the work she did during the Mike Donovan VIetnam Wall episodes (which happened right at the start of her run). I was impressed how she stood up to someone about holding someone's baby while drunk claiming Ann would never do that. She wasn't sure who's kid it was, but thought it was Stacey's. I think it might have been Jack and Ava's "baby," but I could be wrong. Jennifer Ashe talked about auditioning for Lorna before being offered Lily. Lauren Marie Taylor said that Linda Gottlieb was involved in the production at the end. She specifically mentioned the teaser material for episodes. There was definitely a Gottlieb influence in those Loving murder promos. Her firing story was a bit cruel too. She figured it out because they approved her vacation, which they never did. Newman talked about being told she was the killer and how she had been asking for a beefy storyline for years. She knew she wasn't going to the city ("they're taking all the kids under 30"). She seemed pretty disappointed that she hadn't gotten any story in those last few years. I really hope it is put online. I haven't attended any of the other soap reunions, but this seemed much heavier than the other reunions I've heard about.

Thanks for sharing. I think it was in Gloria Monty’s contract with ABC that she get a prime time series while working on General Hospital. I also think they did the typical “it’s a miniseries but if it’s good we will pick it up” marketing. Did they implicate Peter in Penny’s murder? I know books have said it ended with that or at least I thought it did. Maybe they did change the ending

Colby was Rita Mae's niece. I think she comes in late spring or early summer 1984. She's pretty much Curtis next big romantic interest after Lily Slater leaves town. She worked as a buyer at Burnell's department store around the time that Curtis became involved in that division of Alden Enterprises. I believe later she became involved with one of John O'Hurley's characters. I'm thinking it was Keith Lane, the Amourelle chemist who was bedding down with Gwyneth. Super stoked to see this group's interview. Interesting to see both Susan Walters and Jennifer Ashe featured in the promotional picture. I know Marcantel has kept in touch through Facebook. Because Marcantel's production company is involved, we are seeing people that he has kept in contact with. I'm not really surprised by anyone he's landed so far based on his previous social media, but it is surprising that they all seem to have maintained friendships nearly 30+ years later. The only person I'm surprised is NOT listed is Susan Keith. I know her and Trevor Kiberd seem to pop up a bit in the Marcantel has posted.

@te. Thanks for sharing. That clip of the opening has such a low budget "Dynasty" feel that I can't help but adore it. Funny, I also look for the breaks in material for compilations. I did the same thing when I watched the "Romance Theatre" videos, which were mostly awful. This looks like cheap fun. I do think they filmed on Long Island so it would make sense that the locations might be similar to the ones on "Revenge." Your comments made me realize that Besch and Dezina do look lot a like. The story with Cheryl and David seems like filler. Were they well incorporated into this? Thanks for sharing these. The "Freshman Dorm" opening was also a treat.

Very interesting. I know some of the failed soap shows have been repackaged internationally. The syndicated anthology series “Romance Theatre” was cut and shown as movie containing the individual stories. In the US, the Romance Theatre movies were also released on VHS. The 1960s flop “The Survivors” was sold as “The Last of the Power Seekers” or something along those lines. In the case of “Power Seekers,” I believe the film included material from the unused pilots. The Hamptons was short. Monty or whoever the distributor was probably hopes to make some money off it.

Wow! This is really great to hear. Marcantel is one of the few have been there at the beginning and at the end. He has remained in recent contact with a lot of the cast from the first few years when he was there. This picture is from last year:

Great find! Some of this material was up before. The previous upload included material from no earlier than May 1985 when the surrogate/tumor storyline was beginning to play out. This material appears to cover Mary Beth Evans’ entire run as Koty. but I did find the playlist and saw that there was also some unlisted material included. If this person was the one who uploaded it before, there may have been material I missed. One of the most interesting things was seeing the station indent on some of the material. Is Channel 7 an Australian broadcaster? I recognize this from the “Generations” material that popped up a year or two ago. If this is the case, I’m curious if the original source material has complete episodes of the entire series. At one point, I had found someone on ioffer who claimed to have Kyle and Sam edits as well as complete episodes of “Generations.” If this is the same source, I wonder if they have the entire run of “Rituals” as well. I’ve only watched a little bit, but the early stuff I believe is from November/December 1984 right when Mary Beth Evans first took over. TV Guide listed who would appear in the daily episodes. It’s around Thanksgiving that Mary Beth Evans name first appears. The surgery being successful and Brady proposing seems to be the end of the show from September 1985. I was hoping the person would have included/taped the ending narration where Christina said the fate of the different characters, including Koty. In that material from the surgery, I see a resemblance between Mary Beth Evans and Allison Sweeney. That 1984 material is a bit slow and creaky. I do think some of the material has the possibility to be interesting (Koty’s nude scenes and Jeff’s drug problem), but it isn’t really being delivered in the most exciting manner. I think this was when Gene Palumbo was still headwriter. This seems potential fresh in terms of content matter (Koty’s nude scenes and Jeff’s drug problem) but it’s still presented without much energy. I did really like Brady’s rationale for claiming the drugs were his. I wouldn’t matter a frank discussion about either issue. This all seems to be rehashing exposition rather than using the material to delve deeper into either character. Koty’s ending is rather nice. She’s going to live, she’s keeping the baby, and she and Brady are going to live happily ever after. I believe all of this was originally filmed as a cliffhanger hoping for a reprieve and having something exciting to jump start a new season with (Sara's shooting). I would imagine had this happened, Koty and Brady’s relationship would eventually be threatened by a recast Mike Gallagher returning to town wanting to claim his child.

@cassadine1991 I think Marina is the missing female. I think the boys in the bottom right corner are Kevin and Jason Marler. I think Shayne has one of Buzz's boys (Coop?). I think Holly is holding Rocky, but it may be Matt and Vanessa's daughter Maureen.