teplin

I think SOD misspelled Luz' name here -- it's supposed to be Franc with a "c" not a "k." I remember him and Valerie Mahaffey very well in their Emmy-nominated roles. Mahaffey, especially, was amazing and I'm not at all surprised that she went on to enjoy some prime-time success (as did Franc to a lesser degree). I'm completely drawing a blank on the third Emmy nominee of that year, however. Does Elaine Lee as Mildred Trumball ring a bell with anyone else?

Todd McKee and Lane Davies apparently got along real well off screen, too. I remember the soap mags covering the "world tour" the two of them took after they were off SB -- IIRC, they spent half a year or so traveling together to Europe and Africa. Make of that what you will.

I don't know if I can describe why I liked Linda Gibboney's performance, exactly. I think part of it was that angelic face of hers, with the big blue eyes, beaming at the awful things she was doing. There seemed to be an innocence to her at the same time she took great glee in manipulating the people around her. Robin Mattson was much harsher, I thought, though she was a better overall actress and had more chemistry with her screen partners. Don't get me wrong, I think Robin was great in the part. I don't know for sure whether Gibboney left or was fired, but I'd suspect the latter, given that Mattson was a much bigger soap name, with a much bigger fan following, from a show that aired directly opposite SB in most of the country.

I remember wishing Ada was still around at the beginning of the Carl-Rachel courtship, just so we could hear her read Rachel the riot act for even considering a romance with Carl. That would have been fun.

I was disappointed when Linda Gibboney left the role of Gina; I thought she was absolutely fantastic in it. However, Robin Mattson certainly made it her own. I also think Jed Allan was sheer perfection as CC, and his contributions to the show were and are greatly underrated. As is his past importance to DAYS, IMO.

I've been rewatching some old AWs after reading this thread the past few days. I used to dig the old-style P&G soap crawl with the credits rolling over some of the day's actors moving about a set -- but boy, did I come to love AW's freeze-frame close!

I hadn't heard that Judi and Tom didn't get along; in fact, I've read interviews in which Judi gushed about him. However, that could very well be PR puffery. I have heard that Tom could be "difficult" -- whatever that means -- and that Jensen Buchanan knew how to "handle" him. I also think JFP saw Jensen as a more traditional soap heroine than Judi, and I can't deny that. As SFK noted, Judi does come across as "middle class" -- which I very much appreciated on a show that was once grounded so much in class differences. Judi didn't have the typical soap actress body type, either, I'm sure JFP had problems with that. Cali T. does look and act like the princess that Mac would have raised -- but he didn't raise Paulina, he didn't know anything about her. I will say that there's no way Judi and Dack Rambo would have worked.

I'm not a fan of Timmins' Paulina, either. I liked her on Ryan's Hope, but she didn't work for me on AW. Any chemistry she shared with Tom Eplin was lost on me. Obviously, other people disagree! I adored Judi Evans as Paulina and thought she and Eplin were all kinds of hot together, much more so than he and Buchanan's Vicky, which the show promoted as its star couple in the latter days. I think Evans' combination of toughness and warmth also made Paulina a better complement to Rachel and a better foil to Iris.

The only thing I didn't like about the anniversary shows -- aside from Mac's absence -- was a completely out-of-character Gwen Frame. Gwen was a sophisticated businesswoman in her first incarnation on the show and all of a sudden she was behaving like a drunken Opal Gardner. I remember hearing that another character was slated to be the one that instigated Rachel's "reunion" with Steve Frame, but that fell through, so they used Gwen instead. I don't recall who the first choice was. All in all, though, it was a great week of shows, and I especially enjoyed seeing the Matthews again -- Pat, Liz, Alice and Russ -- as well as Robert Delaney. I absolutely loved Cass and Kathleen, one of my favorite soap couples ever. And I was initially very resistant to Frankie, but she ended up winning me over. So much so, that I didn't know who to root for when Kathleen came back -- though the show kind of stacked the deck by writing Kathleen as rather morose and whiny. Understandable, given what she'd been through, but so different than the strong spitfire she was when Cass fell in love with her. Ann Heche had chemistry with everyone -- but she sizzled with both Paul Michael Valley and Tom Eplin.

I always thought Schnetzer was a terribly underrated leading man. He could do drama, he could do comedy, he could do romance, and he wasn't bad on the eyes, either. (Remember his speedo scenes on the beach with Cecile?) Plus, that voice! I think he did get an Emmy nomination during the time Cass struggled with manic depression, but he never did get much publicity.

Some posters on a particularly salacious gossip board maintain that Vicky Wyndham had affairs with both Doug Watson and Carl Keating. Then again, others at the site contend that both men were gay and involved in sham marriages. I tend not to believe any of it, though it's clear Wyndham was very close to both men. The impending demise of ATWT is making me remember the end of AW and how sad it was. Even though it was far from the show I fell in love with, I still watched every day for the actors and their characters. I guess it's rather pathetic how much I still miss Rachel, Felicia, Cass, Donna and Jake, among others. My heart goes out to ATWT fans.

I would love to see that Bekins interview, CarlD2. I've been loving the archival stuff you've been posting lately. Thanks so much for making the effort!

Did anyone else catch Richard Bekins (the best Jamie Frame) on "Rescue Me" the past few weeks? He's older, of course, but he still looks very much like he did 30 years ago.

The show was just terrible in the early '80s, IMO. Corinne Jacker's stuff was virtually unwatchable, even though Rauch brought in some very talented actors to play her material. It got better in the mid-80s with Sally & Catlin and Cass & Kathleen catching fire. I thought Swajeski's work was serviceable, but as someone else said, there were no high points, nothing spectacular, it was just steady. I do think Doug Watson's death was a major blow for the show. For me, at least, it was the characters (and their actors) that kept me watching then and into the '90s, which were pretty dull. I loved Wyndham's Rachel (though I didn't like the "mannered, faux Shakespearean stuff" -- that is a perfect description) and Dano's Felicia and Eplin's Jake and Schnetzer's Cass ... really, all of the vets. I continue to think Doug Watson's death was a major blow for the show. Seems a lot of people didn't care for Buchanan, but she was very popular with most viewers (as measured by focus groups and TVQ ratings). So much so, that the producers went to ridiculous (and costly) lengths to keep her. Personally, I liked her, but I never "bought" her as either Vicky or Marley. (I felt pretty much the same about Carmen Duncan's Iris ... I liked the actress, I appreciated the function she served on screen, but there was no way in hell she was the same character immortalized by Beverlee McKinsey.) Anne Heche was just such a force of nature as Vicky that she couldn't really be replaced. Love the clip of Vicky up above ... it's somewhat of a shock to see such a round face on Heche; she's been skin and bones for decades.

I thought all three Nolas were fantastic, each in her own way. Kathryn Harrold was so beautiful, Kathleen Turner was sex on a stick and Kim Zimmer was a force of nature. It's no surprise that each went on to greater success.

"Espy was so gorgeous." And such a terrible, terrible actor. It often felt like he was in a completely different scene than his fellow actors -- one in which he was reading his dialogue for the first time from cue cards. I always felt sorry for Vicky Wyndham having to work opposite Espy after the electric chemistry she shared with Doug Watson. In theory, it should have worked - Wyndham's fiery intensity against Espy's passive iciness. It did work in the short St. Croix sequence. But after they returned to Bay City, it fell flat, just as did Espy's later pairing with Linda Dano. But yes, he was gorgeous, and maybe that lessened the strain of the herculean effort both actresses had to exert to make their scenes interesting. Don't get me wrong -- I was riveted by the Rachel-Mac-Mitch story, but it due to the first two actors and the writing. (OK, and a little bit of Espy's cheekbones.)

I remember those two Russian characters, but I don't remember their story at all. That was such a horrible period for AW. Things did pick up a bit with the introduction of Alma Rudder, though.

For my money, there has never been a more adult, more literate soap than Harding LeMay's Another World. It really was more like theater than television – sophisticated dialogue, psychological subtext, individual character "voices," a deep understanding of class differences, magnificently drawn scenes that would last as long as 10 minutes. And, of course, the incomparable acting team of Beverlee McKinsey, Vicky Wyndham and Doug Watson. I wish every SON member could have experienced it.