Cat

I remember reading about Bill and Tess. What was so great about these young couples from the 60s and 70s (another that comes to mind that I've read about is Amy Ames and Kip Rysdale on Secret Storm, also Jeff and Penny on ATWT) was that they didn't dominate their shows and that they were allowed to be just another part of the ensemble. I don't think the idea of supercouples dominating their shows has done daytime any favors over the years. I love Gloria Monty, but the super couple trend she started has done more harm than good IMO.

Gloria Monty introduced some great things to GH -- including suspense and mystery -- and many of her pairings were so chemistry-filled and swoony that I can forgive her a lot.

But I agree that her constant frontburnering of popular couples is directly contributing to the demise of the genre we see today.

Prentiss is SUCH a 70s soapy name. In the late 70s, Y&R had brothers Lance and Lucas Prentiss (Lance was played by B&B's John McCook), and also Vanessa Prentiss. The original DAYS announcer (the one who did the "like sands..." for the first year) was named Ed Prentiss.

Y&R's Prentisses were actually popular enough that one of my older cousins named his son Prentiss lol

LOL. I once met some a girl called Eden -- named after the Santa Barbara heroine.

Bill Prentissssssssssssssssssssss. Oooo. I love that last name. And why does that remind me of early Y&R for some reason?

LOL, not to move off-topic from AMC... but does anybody know if they have episodes posted of Where the Heart Is?

If not, does anybody have use of a time machine that could transport me to the early 1970s where I could switch over from the Watergate hearings to catch Love of Life, WTHI, Love is a Many Splendored Thing (Donna Mills as a crazy ex-nun? Sign me up!), Search and early Y&R?

Kay Alden's favourite soap.

LOL, really? I never knew that.

And Tudi Wiggins was to LoL in the 1970s what Susan Flannery was/is to B&B. A force of nature. That YouTube episode where she snaps in frustration about Cal "This time she called me a murderess." I don't know how to describe it but she said it so right. I suspect Cal may have been onto something, but Tudi Wiggins's delivery made me believe Meg was the wronged party.

I've read up on the history of Roy Winsor's "Love of Life" (1951-1980) via Wikipedia and ols WoST. The premise of the two sisters -- Vanessa and Meg -- and the people around them really appealed. Especially since one was "the good one" and the other, the scheming manipulator!

I am most interested in 1970s LoL, in particular when Paul Avila Mayer and Claire Labine reinvigorated the show. They brought back manipulative Meg (played by the stunningly intense and queen-like Tudi Wiggins) along with her emotionally fragile daughter Cal and son Ben (played by a young Christopher Reeve).

I've only ever seen one episode of the show (on YouTube) from this period, but I have fallen in love with its stunning opening credits (featuring roses -- referring to the fictional town of Rosehill, NY, where it was set) and theme tune. And the show seemed imbued with sweetness and tension and suspense and longing. It was only a half-hour program!

I also read up some SOD recaps which recreated the atmosphere of the show alongside recounting "what happened."

Anyhoo... thoughts, commentary, information. I'd be grateful to hear any of your stories with regards to Love of Life.

^ ITA. Sable Colby was my favorite character. She carried "The Colbys," too.

Stephanie Beacham and that pipsqueak Maxwell Caulfield are SO made for soaps. They should be on Primetime. Or B&B!

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Randy Spelling. He was soooooooooo bad.

TGAS (The Great Aaron Spelling -- and that's not me being snarky, he really was the Master) tried to shoehorn poor Randy on a bunch of his teen soaps. I remember him on Malibu Shores having far too much screentime. I think they even tried to suggest that the lovely Charisma Carpenter's character had an unspoken attraction to Pipsqueak's character. Ridic!

And then was the Summer o' 90210. While Brenda was in Paris and Kelly & Dylan were having an affair (Team Brenda!), Randy Spelling showed up interacting with Brandon who was a lifeguard at the Country Club.

And then he landed SuBe. As Gregory and Olivia's son. Only without the cunning or the looks of either.

And don't get me wrong, I actually liked Tori Spelling as Donna on 90210, especially when she got to play comedy. Plus "Donna Martin Graduates" will live in my memory forever. Aaaron Spelling = GENIUS.

And whoever mentioned Gabi's trial -- you are so right on. Priscilla Garita was robbed a nomination for her work during that storyline. I got chills when she broke down on the stand. Thereafter, Gabi became my favorite character. Wonder what PG is doing now?

I don't see how this show could've lasted, first of all, NBC affiliates barely gave the show any clearance. In some markets, it aired as early as 3:00 AM in the morning, who the hell was up to watch then? I also think it didn't even air in some markets.

Also, on the quality side, the show was overwhelmingly inconsistent. Some times it was campy goodness, and other times it was just bad and tried too hard to be "different."

In all seriousness, Santa Barbara did what SuBe tried to do a million times better, but that's a whole other thread.

I loved both Santa Barbara and Sunset Beach and, while there were some similarities in terms of Guza having worked on both shows, the SB thing and the fact that they shot on the same NBC studio space, that was where the similarities ended, IMO. I always found both shows different and judged them as such. SuBe had the Spelling imprint all over it!

^^ Do tell.

Are you close to California?

Hardly! Try the opposite side of the country. LOL, and I was being facetious about hanging out with the Big B. I was but a gleam in my father's eye when Y&R first went on-air.

Bill Bell's bible outlined what his characters were doing before the Y&R story began. Only 1/3 of it, or less, was about future storylines.

Oh, OK. I never hung out with the master himself and so never glimpsed the bible. And I've only seen snippets of the early episodes, so...

Also SuBe was an hour-long soap from the get-go with a fairly large cast of characters. Not only that, but it had a number of back-stories when it first started... Ben's Mr. Rochester-esque "dead" wife and the whole mystery there. The legendary Armando Deschanel and his descendants and their impact on a host of characters. Del Douglas. Annie's Poor Little Rich Girl background. I could go on. But I won't!

In contrast, Bill Bell was starting up a half-hour, slow-paced soap with far fewer characters and not as much back story.

The mystery to me will always be why SuBe didn't catch on in the US. And why (sorry, Passions fans) they got rid of SuBe *and* AW and kept Passions. I'm thinking timeslots and behind-the-scenes politics played a part. But it is amazing to think that, 10 years later, people are still talking about it, watching it on YouTube and DVDs of its early episodes are being released in Europe. That show had amazing reach.

Awwww, Aaron Spelling. Charlie's Angels, Hart to Hart and Dynasty were like mother's milk to me when I was small. There will never be another producer like him.

Lucky Germans!

This show absolutely deserved to still be on air. It had a great sense of humor but was still, fundamentally, a soap. And why is Sarah Buxton not working in Daytime?! She was a breakout star thanks to SuBe and is made for the genre.

Interesting. I cannot spot either Ben or Meg in the cover of the DVD. And their story opened (and closed) SuBe's run.

Dynasty was absolutely my favorite Primetime soap ever. And The Colbys, because of Stephanie Beacham.

One mini-series I remember (along with Lace -- I remember reading the book with my schoolfriends when I was little. It was full of rude bits!) was Judith Krantz's Princess Daisy. Pretty much most of Judith Krantz's books were made into mini-series, weren't they? Mistral's Daughter... PD... I'll Take Manhattan... Scruples. I think her hubby Exec Produced them all.