Paul Raven

CBS has been playing movies on Tues,Wed and Sat on and off since the late 70's. Every so often they would attempt series on those nights and invariably they would fail and movies would be used as replacements or fill-ins. Occasionally those movies would score big ratings and win the timeslot, usually a big name or exploitable theme but mostly counter programming. With Sunday series failing, they finally realized that with the big MSW lead in these TV movies would do better on Sunday and they were proved right.

The Post-Star Glens Falls, New York • Sat, Jul 18, 1981 Writer turns actor at age 65 Why would an established and successful writer decide to turn actor at the age of 65? Robert Cenedella. now starring in the Lake George Dinner Theater production of "The Gin Game," had a special love of acting but in his early career, seemed better suited to writing. Now the career roles are reversed, and he is pleased to be playing the role of Weller Martin. the cantankerous rebel of the retirement set. Cenedella remembers,"The first time I saw the play in New York City starring Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn, I knew I wanted to play that part. I found a part of Weller Martin in myself; there may be a little of him in all of us. Although spending the majority of his nearly 70 years as a writer ,Cenedella has always been dedicated to acting, serving as president of the Drama Club at Colgate University and teaching high school in his hometown of Milford,Mass. He later became principal of the junior high there, continuing his interest in drama as he directed several student performances at the school. At the same time, he developed his natural writing ability with several short stories and radio scripts. With the introduction of TV, Cenedella made the transition into the world of TV, becoming head writer for such soap operas as "Another World." "The Doctors." and "The Guiding Light." In the early 1960s,he completed his first full-length novel "A Little to the East" acclaimed by The New York Times as one of the outstanding books of the year. After decades of writing, Cenedella decided it was time to try acting despite his age.He appeared in numerous off-off-Broadway productions. including "Passion of Dracula" and "Conflict of Interest." He also has played in films, notably in "First Deadly Sin" with Sophia Loren and Frank Sinatra, soap operas and commercials, but he but says the stage is his favorite, with "The Gin Game" being his first experience in dinner theater.

She wrote for GH in 1972. Another thing is that any announcement I have read states that Laemmle is replacing Elizabeth Harrower. Never any mention of Flippen.

Kandy Muse is definitely favored. The judges always praise her to the heavens. Jimbo is a clear winner to me, apart from the Lip synch fails. A part of me wonders if he deliberately sabotages them so as not to have to eliminate anyone and draw the wrath of the fandom and the other girls. His tearful frustration bit about not winning lip synchs seemed a little fake to me as Jimbo doesn't seem to invest in that Ru psycho babble stuff. Kandy voting off Jaymes was strategy as Kahanna is obviously weaker and was pretty much out the door the previous week. Kandy did well in the Rusical but got the killer number. I would have liked Jaymes to stay although his Joan was disappointing (why the baby voice?) and the Grace Jones runway was frumpy. Kahanna did well in the Rusical but there was nothing about her performance that suggested Joan Crawford. And her Grace Jones was the same. So Jimbo for the win.

That whole headwriter situation at the time was odd. Maybe there were some contract or other BTS happenings that meant Laemmle's official start was delayed. Ruth Brooks Flippen was an experienced writer who had been in the biz for years and had written for GH so knew her way around a soap script. I can only guess she was brought in to implement Laemmle's template and write off a lot of those characters.

As discussed before they burned through a lot of story in the self contained episodes. A lot of those plots could have been multi ep arcs.

The lack of rehearsal time is apparent in 'action' sequences when there is no time to block out moves and maybe tape a few times and edit later. Also on a day to day basis things are pretty static. Actors pretty much stay in the same place throughout the scenes. To think BITD directors complained of not having enough to time to work on scenes. Nowadays its pretty much say your lines, do your best and move on. It must be hard on newer actors who are given poorly defined characters and left to their own devices.

It's a pity the Williams family got lost during the 80's and was reduced to Paul and Mary. Steve could have returned, maybe in a version of the Steve Lassiter character played by rod Arrants. marrying Ashley. There would have been another Williams/Abbott hook up. Imagine Patty returning for the wedding! The Carl amnesia story was disappointing. Firstly it was a complete rewrite of what had (hadn't) happened on screen only a few years before. and once it was done, everybody else got amnesia and Carl was never mentioned again. To me the story would have worked better had they set up that Carl had become distant. Maybe Mary mentions he constantly going off to a fishing cabin for weekends and breaks. Then Chris spots him at the airport with another woman. It all comes out that he was living a double life with Ruth. It would have been believable that he would have tired of Mary and her narrow minded views. So much drama to be mined from that without the corny amnesia aspect.

No idea that ATWT was back at #1 that late in 78. Wonder what caused that jump?

Allen Fawcett He was given a holding contract at Y&R while Doug Davidson was negotiating. This was when Y&R was going to an hour. So almost became Paul Williams.

Re Days the beginning of Nina Laemmle's run as headwriter. Characters were disappearing and newbies taking center stage. That 4.8/19 would have been the lowest in years. TUNE IN TOMORROW WEEKLY RECAP: 4/28/80-5/2/80: A slew of Salem newcomers included Jessica Blake, a scholarship student sent by the nuns to work with Marie; Kellam Chandler, who was running for governor and courting Don's favor; Kellam's stepdaughter, jetting setting Liz; Kellam's roustabout son Todd; mysterious Josh Fallon, caretaker of the mansion Doug bought to convert into a casino if gambling were legalized; Flora Chisholm, ailing ex-owner of the mansion; and Leslie James, Chris' new executive assistant. Chris and Alex argued about the ad campaigns for the solar energy device. Alex secretly arranged for government man Harold Rankin to force Leslie on Chris. Mickey approved of Doug's investment, but Don was working against legalizing gambling.

Mark La Mura All My Children...Eric Kane June 77 (one day appearance-probably a flashback)This was the month Mark was revealed to be Erica's half brother.

Noted that it was established early on that Jessie had a brother (although he never appeared) so setting up the arrival of Jessie's niece and nephew in the future. BTW Martin West who was portraying Phil at this time was widowed in June 1971 when his wife Carol died of Hodgkins Disease aged 29.

Dee Hoty Guiding Light... Mrs Crown Capitol ...Andrea Ryan's Hope... ???

The limited number of sets available has had a detrimental effect. No offices, characters without homes and no room or money for one off or short term spaces. It just makes already weak stories all the more unpalatable.

Classy move from Victoria. It would be great if she participated but her choice not to be involved.

Great scenes and performances but then Dru's parents left town and that was that. I hate when there is no follow up.

As opposed to today when couples are given their happy ending way too soon and then writers tie themselves in knots trying to come up with some believable conflicts (and usually fail).

Why did ATWT lose its status? A number of factors I think. Looking at the story synopses and 1979 episodes posted the show was looking pretty dull and tired story and production wise. There were a lot of older characters and the younger cast acted the same as their elders and were conservatively dressed and made up. The scenes were slow and long. Meanwhile ABC were offering up faster pacing and better production values. AMC had successfully introduced Cliff and Nina as their new front burner couple-two brand new young characters that younger viewers could hook onto in a larger than life story. Gloria Monty had introduced tape editing so there were no more traditional longer scenes at GH. How long was it before the other ABC soaps followed suit? ABC began heavy promotion and hype. Even though the big 3 ABC soaps had all been around for years they had modernized and seemed 'new'. CBS made a change with the Dobsons moving to ATWT which seemed a good idea but the stories never really gelled. Then there was a timeslot change and for the first time ATWT was not slotted at 1.30 pm .that would have upset some viewer patterns.

Y&R had the advantage of Bill Bell's writing which was very stylised , a good timeslot and unlike it's competition had the advantage of being new. There were no characters that had been around for years, married and divorced multiple times, on trial for murder etc. They were mostly fresh young people and we viewers were there with them as they experienced all this for the first time. When Y&R expanded AMC had a lavish masquerade ball where Palmer discovered Daisy was in Pine valley, Nina and Cliff announced their engagement etc

To think that was it for AW. Apart from a brief spike with the conclusion of the Rachel/Mac/Janice story it sat in the bottom half for almost 20 years. Remarkable really that it wasn't axed sooner. In response to those falling ratings ATWT changed writers, but Ralph Ellis/Eugenie Hunt didn't do much either for the story or the ratings. Guess there must have been a lot of resistance to changing what had been working for years. ATWT had let the characters age out and not really managed to nurture the next generation. SORASing Tom and Dan had those characters already burn through a lot of story .They killed off Chuck, forgot about Don's stepdaughters etc Meanwhile AW's answer to falling ratings was to go 90 mins, constantly make cast changes and then weaken the show to incorporate Texas characters.

Wow- never knew days hit #2! From the summary it seems Don and Marlena were the reason for that. Pity they couldn't keep up the momentum, plunging back to the bottom the following week. AW and ATWT still hanging in the Top 5 with OLTL,RH and Y&R all making an appearance. Interesting that at this point OLTL is regularly ahead of GH yet ultimately became perennial runner up to its sister soap. Knowing what's to come makes this an even more fascinating read. Thanks so much Jason for your efforts.

I wonder if in previous Summers the ratings fluctuated to reflect that? This was the first year GH and OLTL were 60 mins and both shows story wise were more engaging. So AMC viewers had more of a reason to stay tuned. Was this the time that the 'Love in the Afternoon' promos began? I wonder if Jackie Smith at ABC had been working towards a big Summer promo blitz and ensuring the stories were there,knowing that those younger viewers would be available. Not sure why Days would have that spike ... Reading various things over the years I know that the ratings data was much anticipated each week. I'm sure at Days there would have been much jubilation and congrats to Ann Marcus and a feeling they were on the right track, only to be disappointed in coming weeks when the numbers dropped. Search was looking weak. Henry Slesar was writing but the Corringtons were on the way.

So June saw a lot of changes OLTL jumping to #3 Days to #4 ATWT dropping to #6 So interesting. What was happening on those shows to cause the jumps? Or was there nothing story wise that could account for it?

Somerset Steve Lasky ??? union organizer murdered by Virgil Paris 1972