teplin

I've never seen that tribute to Mary Stuart before. Very nice.

I loved Anna Holbrook and Sharlene, and Anna richly deserved her Emmy (even though the storyline she won it for was horrible).

Speaking of red carpets, Anna Stuart was at the Independent Spirit Awards last night. I swore that was her at Harvey Weinstein's table, but the camera never lingered long enough for me to be sure. Turns out, she was there -- looking as beautiful as ever -- and judging by this photo, it may have been as James Cromwells' date:

http://www.contactmusic.com/photo/anna-stuart-and-james-cromwell-27th-annual-independent-spirit-awards_3751167

I liked Susan Keith's Cecile a lot, but Nancy Frangione made her into a completely different, much more entertaining character. NF's Cecile was just a classic soap character -- I almost wrote villainess, but she was much more than that. Beautiful, bitchy, selfish, poignant and most of all, funny -- "As God is my witness, I will never tell the truth again."

She wasn't written terribly well when she returned to Bay City to steal from her SORAS-ed daughter Maggie -- too much of a stereotypical shrew -- but it was a treat to see NF again.

By the way, I'm enjoying Carl's repostings of 1999 AW more than I did the original run. The Jordan Stark story is still ridiculous and I have no love for Cameron (dull), Sergei (the worst) or even the then-popular Lila (though I've always liked Lisa Peluso), but it's good to see Rachel, Felicia and the rest again. And though AW always looked cheaper than any other soap on the year in its later years, it looks positively lush compared to today's soaps.

Cruz & Eden are not my favorite soap couple, but I've always held them up as the most romantic -- such incredibly chemistry between A and Marcy. I wonder if I'd feel differently if I'd rewatch them.

That was quite a monologue for James Pritchett! He was always one of my favorites from the show, though they tended to make his character too much of a prig in later years.

Julie and Marlena were friendly, but Marlena and Maggie had the closest bond, I thought -- they were married to law partners and best friends (Don and Mickey), and interacted more than Julie and Marlena. Marlena's friendships with both Julie and Maggie were pretty much jettisoned once Marlena was thrown into story with Roman and became an action-adventure heroine. At the same time, the show made the really, really, terrible decision to turn Doug and Julie into nothing more than roadblocks for Bo and the newly aged Hope. Over the years, the show (and Deidre Hall) took great pains to maintain Marlena as a contemporary and vital romantic heroine who played about 20 years younger than her real-life contemporaries, Susan Hayes and Suzanne Rogers.

I love that photo, jam6242!

Charles Keating was indeed a big ham, but I think it made him very watchable in low-key Bay City. Like Melroser, I much preferred him as a villain. I never really bought him and Rachel together, though both actors gave it their all. The show took great pains to establish that Rachel saved Carl from himself just as Mac had saved Rachel -- but Rachel's "crimes" were not unforgivable, Carl's were.

It is amazing how much better the show looks in retrospect. AW barely had a production budget in the '90s, yet YouTube clips from that era make it look positively luxurious compared to soaps today. I'm shocked by the number of extras running around every time there's a scene at the hospital!

I remembered my favorite triangle, bar none: Rachel-Mac-Iris. Not the traditional romantic triangle, but it was a doozy!

I agree that the show handled Kathleen's return badly, but longtime viewers had such an affection for Kathleen and Julie Osburn that it overcame the obviously stacked deck against her. Like Melroser, I was a fan of both women and both pairings -- though Cass and Kathleen are one of may all-time favorite couples.

The classic AW triangle, the one that really set the tone for all soap triangles after it, was Alice-Steve-Rachel.

Paulina-Jake-Vicky wasn't really played as a triangle but it was in my mind because I could never accept that Jake and Paulina stopped loving each other.

I loved Cruz-Julia scenes. A Martinez and Nancy Lee Grahn had as much chemistry with each other as they did with, respectively, Marcy Walker and Lane Davies, it just wasn't sexual. And how nice to see a soap scene again that advances the plot while providing intelligent dialogue and real character insight.

She wasn't a great actress but she had undeniable charisma. I believe her '80s return would have been successful if she had received any kind of writing support. But they gave her nothing worthwhile. I'm still mystified by it all these years later.

From this week's TV Guide: Constructing the new multimillion-dollar studio for NBC's upcoming newsmagazine show Rock Center with Brian Williams has been a TV version of an archaeological dig. "We've found a piece of the set from the soap opera The Doctors," says Williams.

How long did Carole Shelley temp as Iris? I only remember her in a few scenes -- but I don't think I was watching every day at the time.

Genovese was spot-on with this review. The mishandling of David Canary's Steve Frame is almost a big a mystery to me as the botched return of Jacquie Courtney's Alice a few years later. An actor like Canary in a role like Steve Frame, opposite such other powerhouses as Vicky Wyndham and Douglass Watson, should have been a soap sensation. And as Genovese writes, it would have been the perfect vehicle for rebuilding the Matthews/Frame families. But it was an utter failure on both counts. Bad writing, bad producing, bad decisions all around. And I still consider the firing of Beverly Penberthy to be the end of classic AW. The introduction of Cass, Felicia and the Loves began an upswing, but I thought the show suffered greatly from the loss of Pat Randolph.

Thanks for that "trucker" clip, Carl. One of my greatest soap regrets is that I didn't watch more of Beverlee on GL after loving every minute of her on AW. I don't know what I was watching/taping instead of GL at that point -- maybe Santa Barbara? I'm so glad that so much of Bev's GL stint continues to surface on YouTube.

On the subject of Zimmer's book, I was surprised at how lightly she tread after much of the pre-launch hype centered on how open and honest she is an actress and a person. I suspect, as so often happens, she started the book with designs to settle some scores -- but passing time, her writing partner and her management team dissuaded her from actually doing so. Too bad, just once I'd like to read a real no-holds-barred account from a soap insider. I was really hoping that James Reilly would tell his story, but that was not to be.

I remember reading in the soap press that Zimmer didn't want Josh and Reva back together again in those later years, but that's not the impression she leaves in the book.

SB was way too focused on too few primary characters and didn't do a great job with balancing storylines. If you weren't invested in a primary character (like Cruz and/or Eden), the show could be infuriating.

I hadn't thought about it that way, but you're right. Secondary characters were actually pretty dull and lifeless, and seemed to exist just to fill time in between Cruz-Eden-Kelly-Mason-Julia-CC-Sophia-Augusta-Lionel-Gina-Keith scenes. Of course, those characters, their portrayers, and the writing for them were so freaking fabulous I didn't mind in the least.

I thought Cass-Nicole was a horrible pairing. Especially compared to the way Cass and Kathleen had lit up the screen, Cass and Nicole were just really boring. Since every other woman who's ever been paired with Stephen Schnetzer had chemistry with him, I blame Anne Howard.

I remember being very excited when Sharon Gabet came to AW. She was a force of nature as Raven on EON, but the writers completely let her down as Brittany Peterson. It was a complete bust.

I didn't remember AW had toyed with Mitch-Alice!

AWHP lists Groom's replacement as Robert Hover. I don't remember him at all, but he appeared from July '71 to December '72.

I never warmed to David Bailey as Russ. He had some powerhouse actresses to play against -- Vicky Wyndham, Beverlee McKinsey, Laurie Heineman, Anna Holbrook, for instance -- and I thought he was hopelessly outclassed by all of them. He did become a little more palatable to me when they brought on his two teenage daughters, Josie and Olivia, but I think the writing let him down then.

Of course, I was very partial to Sam Grooms' Russ -- even though I was just a kid at the time. I can't remember anything concrete about him all these years later, but I can remember I liked him a lot.

I was bored by the Russ-Tracy-Warren story.

I think Louise (and Brooks the chauffeur) were casualties of the transition from LeMay's sophisticated drawing-room drama to a more traditional, 80s-style soap. There was no more room for idiosyncratic characters who didn't command center stage or move the plot along. Pity, they added such flavor.

And I agree that Vivien didn't fit at the Corys. She was just as wonderful with Iris as Louise had been, in a completely different way. But she just didn't work in the Cory household.

I've always heard that Laura Malone was fired because she was gaining weight, or didn't lose weight quickly enough after a pregnancy or something ...

Kevin Conroy was great as Jerry, his replacement was a snooze. I can't believe they would have fired Conroy, but there were some pretty horrendous casting decisions being made at that time, so who knows.

Sven was one of the creepiest, scariest characters ever to appear on soaps, thanks to actor Roberts Blossom. I can still remember when Dennis and Jamie discovered the dismembered body of Rocky, the Cory chauffeur, underneath the floorboards of the Cory boathouse. Not only did Sven terrorize the Corys, he was brutal to his cousin Helga (played by the recently deceased, Tony-nominated and Obie Award-winning Helen Stenborg) and his niece Regina (Barbara Eda-Young, who had earlier played the female lead opposite Al Pacino in "Serpico"). Just a great story with great acting all around.

I completely agree with most of the comments here about Kathleen Layman (loved her, didn't like Sally Spencer) and Philece Sampler (loved her as Renee DiMera, couldn't bear her as Donna Love). Larry and Clarice were two supporting characters that I took for granted, as juniorz1 aptly described earlier. I thought they were pretty ho-hum when they were around, but I really missed them when they were gone. I dimly remember something about Larry going undercover as a male stripper, but no details, so I may be wrong.

I thought Laura Malone's Blaine was a terrific villainess, I was so sad that they de-fanged her. And I didn't like the actress that replaced her AT ALL.

And Louise was fantastic, especially in her interactions with Iris.

Soap Opera Digest has an excerpt from Carolyn Hinsey's new book in the current issue. It focuses on the Ellen Wheeler-Peapack debacle:

"I remember we had a special airing of the first episode in the studio," recalls an actor. "They called everybody in and brought in lunch. We all sat there and watched this horrible episode. There was no storyline, they just placed people in different sets, like Josh and Billy on a work site with Remy. Everyone politely clapped and then we all filed out going, 'Oh, my God, what garbage.' Ellen was furious; it was like hell had frozen over. We found out later she wrote the episode herself."

Another source says that, "(Ellen) loved all the technical stuff. She was more interested in that than the actual storyline and characters on the show, which of course was the problem. Her attitude was, 'How dare they not buy into my vision?"

Love that pic -- if ATWT had featured these characters a lot more prominently I would have been a regular viewer.

I could buy that Peter Love and A Martinez were brothers ... it's in the jeans.

Thanks for the clips of the Hayes', Carl. I wonder if that was filmed in their home? I can't believe Bill turned 86 this week!