Paul Raven

Lois Smith As The World Turns 'standby role ' - she was paid but never appeared 1968 As The World Turns ??? 1970

The problem lies with the writers/producers who keep marrying characters for short term story ignoring the long term damage. characters falling in love and marrying, claiming to be madly in love and everyone pretending they haven'tsaid and done this multiple times is insulting to viewers. As you said it works for some characters, but overall it's lazy. Characters can still have story and not be married. Look at Abby on Y&R . No sooner than she married Stitch, they divorced. Then another short lived marriage to Chance. At this rate, she'll catch up to her mother's marriage total in no time. The Stitch/Abby marriage never needed to happen. They could have been involved and the problems that drove them apart could have been the impetus for one or both to decide not to commit. Then if Chance and Abby did marry they could have played their problems a lot longer w/o heading straight to the divorce court. But the writers seem more interested into rushing them into marriage and just as quickly breaking them up.

Senator Alfred Preston...Don Gantry...Nov 1971-72 Sam Dutcher Paul Sparer Jan 68 - ? 68 Nikki Cabot..July 68 - Feb1969...Jody Locker Sam Watson...James Burge Nov 71- Jan 28 72 Mark Elliott Sam Wade...1968 David Birney..June 1968-70 .Michael Hawkins...1970-71 Laura Donnelly Elliott... (Formerly Sister Celeste) Donna Mills... Sept 1967-70 Veleka Gray...Sept 28 1970- Jan 26 71 Jean Hurley.Garrison...Jane Manning 1968- Jan 31 72 March 73 Dr. Robert Ellis...Robert Drew 1969 1971- Jan 28 72 Dr,. Doug Preston........Gene Lindsey Sept 1971 -?71 Marian ______Hiller...Constance Towers April 1971-72 Dr. Sanford Hiller...Peter White ? - Sept 1971 ...Stephen Joyce...Sept 1971-72 Mia Elliott...Nancy Hsueh...Sept 1967- March 68

@Broderick thanks for clearing that up. From those numbers, if Camryn is on contract, it is with a 1 ep a week guarantee. I wonder if contracts still work on 13 week cycles ie with a once a week contract she wouldn't necessarily have to be on screen once each week but total 13 appearances over 13 weeks.

In a Feb 68 Variety article Irna Phillips talked about the importance of mentoring other writers to carry on the soap writing tradition. Mention was made of Agnes (now at AW) Bill Bell (Days) and David Lesan (SFT) all who started with Irna. It mentioned her current proteges John Boruff and Warren Swanson. In looking at those names of course Agnes and Bill are legends. But the others did not become prominent writers so the torch was not really passed on. Irna's daughter Katherine did not continue. Bell mentored Kay Alden and Sally Sussman but neither could live up to his legacy. Sally got to create Generations but it struggled. Did Agnes really mentor anyone who went out on their own? Megan Mc Tavish? I think it was hard for later writers to wield the sort of power those Big 3 had. TV had changed too much.

In the Feb 68 Variety article, Irna says she quit because she differed with CBS execs about how it should progress. They were anxious for it to become a fast hit and she insisted that was no way to develop a serial. No mentions of the 'controversial' stories there. it looks like Irna wanted to delve into character and CBS wanted more action. I can see both sides. CBS made the change to boost ratings in that slot and knew Irna's approach might not deliver for months. They had NBC and ABC breathing down their necks,whereas in the past with ATWT it was a different scenario and the network could afford to wait, which they did for over ayear as ATWT began to climb. Meanwhile Irna continued to receive a royalty as a creator of the show.

EDIT I went back to my files and found the copy of the Variety article from Feb 68. It states that Irna had returned to GL recently so your dates of Dec 67 is correct. It states that when Irna quit LIAMST in October 67 she was asked by P&G to return to GL.

GH L&L wedding week 13.8/43 a massive achievement for the times. But going back to the 60's ATWT was also scoring amazing numbers. The worth of a rating point may have differed back then but ATWT was scoring phenomenal numbers back then w/o the publicity and hype of GH. January 1969 ATWT CBS 14.4 Lets Make a Deal ABC 10.5 Hidden Faces NBC 4.4 2 weeks Sept 29-Oct 10. 1969 1. As The World Turns 13.7/50 ATWT March 66 16.9 rating

@FrenchFanThis is what was stated in Variety. Agnes continued writing TGL when she took over AW. John Boruff was now assisting at TGL as of Jan 66 Ted and Mathilde Ferro began May 67 Irna returned as headwriter Feb 68 Are the Averys,Funt/Lesan mentioned in scripts you've seen? I see their names in Soap World but maybe they were just scriptwriters under Irna. She was headwriter of ATWT at that time so maybe just doing long term story. Also GL went to half an hour in 68 so extra writers might have been brought in.

Y&R Nikki? B&B Brooke?

i wouldn't be surprised if Irna quit that early if she got feedback that CBS didn't want to go ahead or wanted to modify her two plots-Laura the nun and the mixed race romance. She was definitely gone by Jan 68 as Variety reported that LIAMST had won its timeslot and stated Irna had departed earlier. Splendored 10.0/32 Newlywed 9.5/30 Days 7.2/?

Barbara Rush TV Guide article Nov 68. NO TEARS FOR MISS RUSH The ebullient, strong-willed actress cheerfully refuses to knuckle under to her ‘long-suffering’ role in ‘Peyton Place’ By Dick Hobson What happens when a resolutely cheerful actress is cast in the part of a sobracked mother-figure? Something’s got to give. Will it be the cheerful actress? Or will it be the sob-racked part? Tune in to your local ABC outlet every Monday and Wednesday evening for the continuing drama of ebullient Barbara Rush vs. long-suffering ‘Marsha Russell” of Peyton Place. As of this date Miss Rush thinks she’s ahead: “They wanted to make me long-suffering, but I’ve never suffered long about anything. I’m too practical to go around suffering my life away. | wouldn’t meet problems in my own life with tears and moaning, so why should | do it on the show?” At lunch recently at the 20th Century-Fox commissary, Tippy Walker, 21, the wispy little blonde who plays Marsha’s teen-age daughter, Carolyn, approached Barbara’s table and whispered something in her ear. Barbara replied: “Don't worry about it. We'll work it out. We'll fix it.” When the girl left, Barbara explained: ‘| mother her, you see. Tippy’s worried about the scene we're shooting this afternoon. She feels that our dialogue is too ‘alienating,’ that the girl wouldn’t reject her mother so openly. We’ll take care of it.” When the scene is being blocked out by director Ted Post on Stage 9 after lunch, Marsha enters Carolyn’s bedroom and sits on her bed for a little bedtime chat. Tippy delivers the line she found so “alienating”: “‘I’d better not kiss you good night, Mother. I might give you my cold.” Barbara interrupts. “Teddy, that line seems awfully strong to me.” Tippy adds, “A silence is just as alienating.” Barbara pleads, “Couldn’t she just say, ‘I’m sorry, Mother, have to go to sleep now’?” Post shrugs, ‘‘So, OK, it’s better. It's got more flow.” This sort of thing is not uncommon with Barbara. She refashions the dialogue up to the moment of shooting. Her first crack at it had come when she received the week’s script on the preceding Friday. She always reads scripts promptly and phones associate producer Nina Laemmle with her reactions. ‘I've found one thing about Peyton Place. You are very much in control of what you do,” Barbara says. “l'm proud of my work and they welcome my contribution. I’m not just being pushy. There is a lot more of me in the Marsha Russell character than I ever thought there would be. My character is finally getting ‘up’ because I am an ‘up person.’ ” Miss Laemmle seems not unreceptive. “If actors have troubles with the characterizations, they’re probably right. Barbara wants to project an appealing image. She wants to be portrayed as an intelligent, modern woman, whereas Marsha is, well . . . Marsha.” Sometimes producer Everett Chambers has to get into the act: “We have to sit down with her for an hour and explain, ‘You want it all to be you, Barbara, but Marsha is not you. You say your children don’t talk to you this way, but this child is not your child.’” One of the first of Barbara’s objections was over the fact that the daughter doesn’t know that her mother’s divorce could have been obtained on the grounds of adultery, and the mother tries to keep her from learning the truth. ‘We had a long talk about that,” Barbara says. “I don’t believe in lying to solve problems. People are very cruel to each other on the daytime soaps because of the lying. I cannot compromise, in that I have to stand by what I do. I want to help make Peyton Place into a document of human behavior.” Barbara Rush Hunter Cowan, 40, formerly married to actor Jeff Hunter,currently the wife of one of the most publicized of Hollywood press agents, Warren Cowan, mother of two (one by each husband), stepmother of Cowan's two, charity worker, political activist, and one of the most energetic hostesses in Beverly Hills, is nothing if not the intelligent, modern woman. Sobracked she’s not. There’s too much going on in her life. Yet back when she was a glamorous movie star, Barbara Rush was known for her ability to cry on cue. “A lot of actresses really have to suffer a great deal before they can cry. It's terribly difficult and upsetting for them, but all I have to do is think to myself ‘cry’ and I cry. I never cry in life. I got cried out at Paramount and Warners.” Earlier in her career, if it can be believed, this svelte creature of 118 pounds “used to be quite plump, the wholesome chubby type,’ as remembered by Louella Parsons. When she _ slimmed herself down she won romantic leads opposite only the topmost stars: Hudson, Newman, Brando, Sinatra, Martin, Burton, Curtis,Kirk Douglas. Today she _ plays opposite Very Big Stars only at the dinner table as part of her role of the public relations wife—along with the cocktail parties, the screenings, the premieres, and all the social services that PR entails. “You can't imagine what it’s like for an actress to be married to someone in the service business,” she confides, referring to the deference expected in the presence of Big Names. ‘It was hardest with Warren’s women clients. lf I had to defer to them,I used to get up-tight. I’ve been known to get in a taxi and go home.” “Marriage is a difficult thing at best,” admits Cowan. “We've had many problems, but we both try. If anything is wrong with Barbara, it’s her low boiling point.” Barbara readily agrees: ‘We both have fierce tempers. I am a very strong person. I don't think in terms of husband and wife. I'm not a wife. I’m a person. I’m me. I don’t know if we have the best marriage in the world. It can be maddening; but it’s never boring. Sometimes I think there’s no future to my life, let alone my life with Warren. Then he does something totally surprising and redeems himself. Our whole marriage is due to his creative genius at keeping me entertained.” This is how an enterprising press agent woos, wins and keeps a glamorous movie star for his own: he takes her to dinner at Trader Vic’s, where her fortune cookie reads: “You might as well face it, there’s a press agent in your future.” He sees her off on a plane and 45 minutes later she spots him reading a magazine in a near-by seat. Their wedding reception features, in Cowan’s phraseology, ‘‘an above thetitles turnout.” On their anniversary he lures Barbara to the Presidential Suite of the Beverly Hills Hotel on the pretext of conferring with a client. Surprise!—her personal cosmetics case lies open on the dressing table. Her shocking-red chiffon negligee is laid out across the bed. Waiters wheel in supper on a cart. Live violinists play softly. At the birth of Claudia, now 5, La Scala caters a dinner in Barbara’s hospital room with captain, two waiters, and a violinist playing ‘‘Fascination.” Where young people are concerned, Barbara Rush is all warmth. “I’m a toucher, you know. Tippy isn't. (’m always touching her hair, putting my arms around her, hugging her. Now my son Chris, who's 16, is not to be touched in any way, shape or form. To him, running your fingers through his hair is like fingernails on a blackboard. But all my children are very dear, very affectionate. “The young ones here on Peyton Place come to me in a Dear Abby way: because they think | have a sense of logic, a sense of purpose. “I have. Acting for me has been a passport to all strata of society. I’ve done a lot of things I’ve always wanted to do. I've found my solutions.” Barbara is still with us aged 96! The marriage to Warren Cowan ended in 1969. Guess all his showy 'romancing' was not enough. 20

Nice tribute here http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2023/08/farrell-can-finally-rest-in-peace.html?m=0

No. All of those actors were announced as recurring and are shown in the credits after the contract cast. Looking at her episode count I'm wondering if Camryn Grimes isn't recurring also.

The 45 min format was unique but ABC figured if you were watching OLTL then you's stay with GH because AW was already started. Mmmm....not sure how convinced I am but ABC stuck with it till the 60 min expansion. it would be interesting to see how the ratings were at that time.

The thing was The Doctors was still in good shape. You had the hospital setting and strong family connections. Nola/Mona was a strong rivalry that could be played for years a la Jill/Katherine. Greta/Billy was a link b/w the two families. Greta was positioned to be the young heroine and Billy the boy we love to hate. But the revolving door of writers made dumb decisions.

@DramatistDreamer you are completelly right about Nate. I get having him as a doctor was limiting but his path to big business was poorly written. The show is being written like it is still the 80's and the intrigues of big business are a must see, despite having no sets and extras to support it and piss poor writing. They needed to be scaling things back as much as possible. Broken record but make Jabot the focus with lots of characters working there. And the whole Phyllis debacle ends with a slap on the wrist like we knew it would.

Not only was GL's new production model something to get used to, everything looked so drab and unappealing. In 1983 Gloria Monty produced The Hamptons for ABC primetime on location on alow budget. Although it was only once a week for 6 weeks, it looked a hell of a lot better than GL. And that was over 20 years earlier. There must have been big advancements in production techniques over that time. Yet GL looked dismal.

They had a template to copy in General Hospital. One thing that helped GH was the revamping of the hospital set. It was a big step up. I was watching The Doctors ep recently posted about a hostage situation and there were a few cast members huddled together on a tiny set, which took away from the drama. ABC seemed prepared to invest $$$ into their shows whereas, for example,The Doctors didn't have its first location shoot till 1980.

Some of NBC's issues over the years. Failing to establish a successful soap beyond Days,AW and TD. For whatever reason they couldn't get that 4th soap to work. The best time was late 60's when they were winning 2-3.30 timeslot. But Bright Promise couldn't build an audience. If they had another strong show then it would have given them more flexilbility. Then Somerset, RTPP, HTSAM , L&F/FRFP all failed. Was it the shows themselves ? Revamping Days in 1980.The show had stagnated with too many older characters. But to then bring in another bunch of older, dull characters was madness. Allowing AW to become a revolving door of characters that really only left Mac and Rachel . The Doctors did not introduce one successful new doctor character to infuse new life into the hospital setting. A strong young woman doctor when Althea left was a no brainer. Or a sexy male doctor. One of the Dancys could have been a doctor.

Thanks. Wonder how it was rating...

Laryssa Lauret article from TV Guide. It was quite a coup for Laryssa/The Doctors to have this published as TV Guide seldom dealt with soaps. PORTRAIT OF A HUSBAND STEALER By Edith Efron They stand there, studying the house on a tree-lined street in Forest Hills, Long Island—the old real-estate agent and his cool brunette client. “The garden. .. . It’s just a patch . . not big enough for two children,” says the brunette. She has a subtle, unidentifiable accent. She looks slightly French. “The house has hollow-tile construction,” parries the agent. We eavesdrop on the negotiations interestedly. We are spending the morning with the brunette—one Laryssa Lauret, a character actress who’s made a smashing impact, this year, on daytime TV. As Dr. Karen Werner in NBC’s The Doctors, she’s a Mysterious Alien Female, a foreign Home-Wrecker and Husband-Stealer, whose morals have been denounced by domestic militants from Coast to Coast. It’s a little strange to find the Home-Wrecker house-hunting on her day off. It’s even stranger to study her out of role. Off screen the slender, thirtyish Laryssa is also a Mysterious Alien Female. The mystery seems to come from an unusual combination of opposites—charm and coolness, sensibility and aloofness. Her face is framed by casual curls and tousled bangs— but the face itself is guarded. The house-hunting session is terminating in futility. The agent departs, murmurous. “Sweet old man,” whispers Laryssa, “he’s disappointed. . . . Well, let’s find a cozy place and drink coffee and chat.” En route to coziness Laryssa doesn’t talk much. “I’m not really brunette,” she comments, as she drives. “This is my Karen Werner wig. I wore it for TV Guide. Under it, I’m blonde.” We talk idly about her Karen role. She sums it up, first person, with quiet irony. “I’m immoral,” she says. “J tried to break up Dr. Matt’s marriage. I was really after him. Then I got pregnant by another man. I’ve tried to commit suicide. I was drunk, you see, and he raped me.” She chuckles softly. “Oh, yes. Immoral, unstable. But a very good doctor.” We arrive .at a coffee shop, settle down at the counter. Laryssa thoughtfully sips coffee and talks. And gradually the story of her life—and of her “mysteriousness”—comes out. “I'm from Poland. Warsaw. I came here when I was 11. My father was a portrait painter. He was in a concentration camp. Then we fled from the Communists. . . .’” For a moment, the grave unsmiling eyes look off into the past. “We were D.P.’s. . . . displaced persons. . . . That’s our story.” Why did they flee? “We wanted freedom. We just wanted to be free. We fled the way everyone else was fleeing.” For many years she worked for the U.S. Government, beaming broadcasts behind the Iron Curtain, first for Voice of America, then for Radio Liberty. The flight from the Communists is still a reality. “It’s such a horror. . .” She shudders. “My hair stands on end, when I think of it. . . . I get goose flesh talking about it.” We pay for the coffee and leave. Now we are en route to her home. We switch to a happier subject—her career. A Lee Strasberg trainee, she’s been on Broadway (“Night of the Iguana”), on TV (The Catholic Hour, The U.S. Steel Hour), and has been playing the Karen Werner role for almost a year. A Doctors director, Hugh McPhillips, declares, “She gets more response than any other character on the show. She’s a brilliant, sensitive, rare actress. . Everything she does is remarkable.” “I've always gotten acting jobs effortlessly,’ she says. “They’ve just come. I sort of expect it, now. You know, I believe the right things will occur if you live the right way.” What’s “the right way”? “Living by my highest sense of the good,” she says gravely. “Did you ever read Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography? He kept a notebook. He made points in it, trying to correct his character. I was so impressed by him. I copied him. I kept a little notebook. I had a check list, honesty, integrity .. . all the virtues. I wrote in it every night. I tried to erase my flaws.” Suddenly, TV’s Home-Wrecker and Husband-Stealer swerves into the driveway of a solid stone house in Jamaica. We enter a plant-and-sculpture-filled living room. In front of an old-fashioned upright piano stands a baby carriage. Laryssa dives toward it and scoops up a baby. “My sweet little angel!” she cries. The baby girl suddenly howls in distress. Rapidly, Laryssa investigates. Hunger? Thirst? Diapers? “Oh,” she cries, “I know what it is!” She rips off her wig. The baby takes a fast look, and calms down. “Of course, of course,” Laryssa croons. “That wasn’t me, was it. That was Dr. Karen Werner.” We too take a fast look, and feel slightly like the alienated baby, in reverse. Without her wig, Laryssa is fantastically transformed. Her hair is the color of flax. Pulled back tightly, it stresses the high brow and wide cheekbones. The French look is gone. We are staring at a beautiful, regallooking Slav. A slender, dark-haired man with a sensitive foreign look appears in the doorway. He is carrying suitcases. He nods politely, and disappears again. It is Laryssa’s husband, a business agent for a union, who doesn’t wish to be interviewed. He, too, has a guarded face and unsmiling eyes. A three-year-old named Ulana appears, crawls onto a chair, hangs upside down like a peach suspended from a branch, and makes a cheery speech in some unknown tongue. “She’s' talking Ukrainian,” explains Laryssa. “My husband is from the Ukraine. Ula also speaks Polish. We’re trying to keep both languages up with the children.” It is suddenly quite real that this is a family of escapees from the Soviet world—that the two sets of grave, unsmiling eyes are carriers of unforgotten pain—that we are not just sitting in a simple living room, but in a political haven. The family is leaving for the weekend. The preparations are rapid, quiet and sober. The presence of a reporter in the living room provokes no automatic social display or small-talk. The adults murmur to each other, caressing the children casually as they pass back and forth. The tranquil preparations come to an end. They are ready to leave. Laryssa scoops up both children, we follow her into the street and watch them all enter the car. The silent Ukrainian husband lifts his hand in . farewell. The infant, encradled by blondeness, purrs. Laryssa’s adieus are revealing. “Let's meet again, and really talk politics,’ she says. We wait as the big car slowly angles into the street. As it turns, the beautiful Slav, who loves Ben Franklin and political freedom, gradually disappears from view. After an instant, all we can see of TV’s Mysterious Alien Female is a slender figure, covered with American babies. .. . Then the gentle family is absorbed into the stream of U.S. traffic.

It's a sad state of affairs when we are surprised to see that set. Once upon a time it would be taken for granted that we would see a courtroom , hospital etc What continues to puzzle me is the random nature of the use of these sets. Jack and Diane get a bedroom and we see a judge's chambers but no bedrooms or offices or living rooms for other characters. Doug Davidson, Kristoff, Kate and Christian were always listed in the contract cast despite recurring status. Didn't Doug explain that he was offered recurring but no statement would be made and he would stay in the credits as contract-ostensibly out of respect to the actors but actually to avoid backlash.

Edge was getter better ratings than all of NBC soaps at one point. That was with only 81% coverage as compared to Days for example that had 99%. I remember reading that in a lot of cities where Edge aired at 4pm it was doing well. But getting stations to carry it was the ongoing problem. Did it air in NY at 4pm up until cancellation?

Although General Hospital grabbed #1 spot and got most of the attention, ABC also had All My Children and One Life to Live in good shape storywise. So the overall afternoon line up was strong, and the contributions of those other two shows should not be underestimated. Whereas, later when Days of Our Lives was getting a lot of hype in the mid 80's with Bo/Hope and Patch/Kayla neither Another World or Santa Barbara were in strong shape ratings or story wise to support Days.