Paul Raven

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.

CLB hasn't been on contract for years. He was unavailable for some reason. Or maybe Vail is cheaper.

@depboy definitely would like you to continue!

I didn't know that actress Sharon Laughlin was cast as Victoria Lord but replaced by Gillian Spencer before the show began.

TV Guide article July 68 A VAMPIRE FOR ALL SEASONS By Robert Higgins Jonathan Frid's fang mail proves his appeal as the Nation's most lovable ghoul The fang club mail cascades in at the rate of 1500 letters a week. From Newark, Ill, a smitten matron air-mailed: “I wish you’d bite me on the neck. I get so excited watching you I could smoke a whole pack of cigarets.” In New York, a teeny-bopper penned: “I just sit there drooling over you.” In San Francisco, meanwhile, an otherwise level-headed housewife pledged to beef up her iron-poor plasma with Geritol if the neck-nipper would drop by for a cup of corpuscles. The cause of all this commotion is a 175-year-old vampire named Barnabas Collins, who is chief ghoul around ABC’s weekday Dark Shadows, TV’s first spook soap. Shadows, set in a Gothic mansion on the storm-lashed Maine coast, comes complete with a gaggle of flesh-and-blood characters (a reclusive mistress of the manse, dozens of bosomy cousins, “teched” medicos) along with gore galore, madness, the supernatural (ghosts are as plentiful as pockmarks were in the 13th Century) and, you can imagine, lots of worried-looking actors. With hemoglobin-happy Barnabas around, who wouldn’t be worried? So far he’s bitten to death nine AFTRA card holders. But they didn’t all go from a nip on the neck. One luckless lady expired from fright when she accidentally caught Barnabas climbing out of his coffin after a day’s nap. Yet Barnabas’s ghastly carryings-on haven’t bothered the estimated 15,000,000 weekly viewers—with nine times as many teen-agers as adults tuned in—one iota. Far from it.They’ve catapulted Barnabas TV’s hottest cadaver. No cadaver is Jonathan Frid, the 44-year-old Canadian actor who has ridden to daytime television’s stellar heights on Barnabas Collins’ coattails. Without the fangs and the Raggedy Ann bangs he sports as Barnabas, Frid is a gangling, organ-voiced man who, before slipping into Barnabas’s coffin, split his time between jobs as a Shakespearean actor (the American and Toronto Shakespearean Festivals); TV (shows like Look Up and Live and As the World Turns); and the unemployment line. Thanks to Barnabas, however, Frid has kissed both the Bard and unemployment insurance bye-bye. “I’m so busy,” he gulps between sips on a martini in his bachelor quarters, “I haven’t time to pick up my laundry. I find myself wearing bathing suits for underwear.” Days were when the only biting Frid got to do probably came at mealtimes. As a relatively obscure actor, he stumbled onto the part of Barnabas after auditioning with a dozen villainous “look-alikes,” and, he says, “harbored little hope” of getting the part. “I’d been turned down for roles so often,” Frid continues, “I just assumed I wouldn’t get it.” It didn’t matter much to him, though, because, back then he was seriously toying with the idea of teaching. “The middle-class security of a shady campus,” he says, “was appealing.” The shady campus was forgotten when Frid found himself riding high as Barnabas Collins. And today, a year after landing the role, Frid is grappling with his new-found celebrity status as soap-opera spook, complete with fan clubs, public appearance ballyhoo (“ABC wanted me to be paraded through town in a hearse,” Frid reports. “But you have to draw the line somewhere”); and an upcropping of Barnabas Collins jokes (Question: Do you know how Barnabas Collins will finally get caught? Answer:: He’ll be overdrawn at the blood bank). It’s all notoriety, of course, if a bit on the pop plane. And in a lot of ways, the circusy trappings surrounding his popularity bother Frid. Born into a well-to-do Hamilton, Ontario, family (his father was in the construction business), Frid enjoys telling how his parents always considered the theater “the dramatic arts—something associated with- Yale Drama School (Frid has a master’s degree from Yale) and fraternities.” “That part of the theater was fine,” Frid continues, “only keep it off Broadway.” Frid learned that, for an actor who likes to eat, Broadway was the theater. But he still shares some of his folks’ hightoned views of the acting profession. To say nothing of the proper behavior of fans. Appalled, he says, “Teenagers come up to me and kiss Barnabas’s ring.” Ring-kissing kids aside, Frid nonetheless admits to enjoying “all the attention,” adding, “after all, no one wants to be alone in the world.” Actually, Frid hasn’t had all that much thinking time to devote to his recent good fortunes. “I’ve had problems with Barnabas,” Frid says. “But at least they’ve been unusual problems.” Théy’ve been that. The problems started the day the weak-rated Dark Shadows—then a Gothic melodrama with supernatural undertones—decided (as Dan Curtis, Shadows creator, puts it) “to go all the way with the spook stuff.” First spook out of the ghoul bag was Barnabas. Why a vampire? “They had always scared me,” Curtis explains. “They still do!” But Curtis wasn’t sure Barnabas would scare Mrs, America. Preparations were made to bump Barnabas off, if necessary. It would have been a dandy demise, too. The plan: Cut off his head, stuff his mouth with garlic and burn him on a funeral pyre. Happily for the New York Fire Department, Shadows’ sagging ratings started to climb soon after Barnabas cracked open his coffin. To satisfy the viewers’ craving for the vampire, Shadows spent five months showing how Barnabas had been made into a blood user by a sultry witch back in 1795. The ratings soared, Which was swell for Shadows but “hell on earth” for Frid. Unaccustomed to the rigors of five-days a-week soap acting, he became a self-described “total nervous wreck.” Part of the trouble had to do with what Frid calls Shadows’ “incredibly complicated script.” “There are times,” he confesses, “when I have absolutely no idea what’s going on!” Frid feels Shadows’ tangled dramaturgy accounts in part for his popularity. “I’m sure,” he says, “people get together to speculate on what the show is all about.” Frid’s jangled nerves have since been semistabilized. Explains Frid: “There are vast inconsistencies in Barnabas’s character. Being an involuntary vampire (are there any voluntary vampires?), Barnabas murders one minute and, in the next,he’s joining the family to pass judgment on someone else’s behavior. He is rather presumptuous. I play him as a combination Macbeth and Richard III. When he’s guilty he’s Macbeth and when he’s cunning and ruthless he’s Richard. It works out splendidly.” At any rate, Barnabas Collins has now settled down to his reign as prince of daytime TV players. And although Jonathan Frid has found the path to popularity taxing at times, he says he’s prepared for an even rougher tomorrow. “I can’t help thinking,” he says, “‘When is all this going to end?’” If it does end, Frid won't feel too bad about it. “The show’s been fun,” he concludes. “It’s high-brow soap opera. Instead of the house down the street, it’s the scary mansion off the coast of Maine. And Barnabas has an incredible range. He’s a lover, a murderer, a neck biter ...I love him!” Bloody well said.

According to a 1968 TV Guide article Diana Hyland got the biggest deal anyone ever got from Peyton Place. She got a solid year’s guarantee and the same pay check as Dorothy Malone got after several years. And if her second-year option is picked up, she’ll be the highest paid actress in the show’s history.

The day The Newlywed Game went on the air, July 11 1966, CBS pre-empted its popular game show Password to carry a speech by Defence Secretary McNamara. Dedicated game watchers promptly switched their dials to ABC. Thus, The Newlywed Game had a much larger audience than it otherwise would have commanded. Many viewers stayed with it as the weeks went by. For the first time, CBS’s long-time leadership in the daytime ratings was threatened. Finally, in July,1967, The Newlywed Game passed Password. Shortly after,CBS canceled Password for Love Is A Many Splendored Thing. That pre-emption probably helped Days as well. And it was just at the time that Bill Bell had begun, CBS unwittingly handed a gift to the opposition at just the right moment.

I would most surprised if KZ didn't take a pay cut on her next contract. It seems absurd that she would be asked to take one and then later re-sign w/o lower pay. It would just vindicate her original stance. An actor might,to save face, agree to the same rate per episode but cut down on their guarantee. That way they can say they are still being paid the same.

Am I correct in saying that Kim was prepared to take a cut in her next contract but simply wanted the current contract honored? Just as the opposite would be true. If an actor decided they wanted to work fewer days when they were in the midst of a hot story the answer would be NO - they need to honor their contract. Kim continued on the show till the end so obviously did take a pay cut and CBS held on to her, despite the earlier situation. showing they considered her to valuable to drop.

Thanks for the post @GymnastGuy very interesting. But could it be moved to The Doctors thread? Things will get very cluttered if posted individually. Do you have any other Daytime TV articles you could post?

Irna was the creator and probably outlined the weekly scripts while the Averys wrote the day to day episodes. How that worked in practice? Did Irna collaborate and was open to ideas and tweaks from the Averys? She was also plotting ATWT at the same time.

Love of Life got a raw deal being shunted to 11.30 to make way for Where The Heart Is. Soaps had never worked before noon. NBC had tried a few years before with Paradise Bay/Morningstar and CBS with Brighter Day/Clear Horizon. Maybe CBS thought a familiar, stronger show would make a difference. A few years earlier when CBS showed an interest in All My Children, American Home Products, owner of LOL were not pleased that CBS wanted the noon slot for AMC and kicked up a fuss. Things must have changed a few years later. With a full schedule I wonder why CBS were so enthused about Where The Heart Is. I guess they realized their established soaps were growing older in audience appeal and hoped new soaps would get younger viewers.

Wasn't Althea a mess due to the death of daughter Penny? That was another idiotic move by the show. Althea had already lost one child and there was no long term reason to kill her daughter. In fact, bringing back Penny would have made more sense. Althea was now a middle age woman , which at the time was not the best age to be in soaps. Giving Althea a daughter to play against opened more story possibilities and would have placed a younger legacy character on the canvas. And we saw from Lucinda how Elizabeth could play the mother of a troubled daughter. Then the casting of Jerry with a good actor but not someone who's going to make the cover of the mags. While other shows were pushing older characters to the backburner, TD is giving Matt and Maggie an impotence story. They really needed to read the room at that point.

Wondering why this is even an issue to be raised? Has Ron given any indication that he has a problem with a woman as boss?

As The World Turns Gloria ______ Carson....?????? wife Oliver 1976 vists Carol to thank her for Jay agreeing to extend her husbands loan, thus restoring Carol's faith in Jay Dr Larry Granger ??? Jan 76 Colleague of Dan Stewart, unable to attend conference in Bolivia so Dan took his place. Tina Richards Toni Bull Bua Feb/March-76 came to Oakdale to get money owing to her by Norman Garrison, argued with him in hospital inadvertently causing his death,which Bob Hughes was blamed for. Testified at a hearing, exonerating Bob. Dr. Daniel "Dan" Stewart John Colenback 1966-73; March 1976- Sept 79 John Reilly 1974- Jan 76

In July 63 CBS moved Edge from 4.30 following Secret Storm to 3.30 now leading in to SS. it swapped places with Millionaire reruns. I think this was in preparation for the CBS Evening News to expand to half an hour. That happened in Sept 63 and in return for taking the expanded telecast CBS offered affiliates the 4.30 timeslot for local programming. Rather than move both secret Storm and Edge up half an hour they elected to move Edge only to become the lead in for SS. It worked as Edge and SS continued with high ratings for several years.

I guess you are right. Although Somerset was on its last legs at that point anyway. NBC could have said we'll take Edge to replace Somerset or just cancel Somerset . Maybe Somerset could have moved to 12.30 to accommodate Edge but that would not have helped Somerset to be up against 2 other soaps.

The networks aren't spending any $$$ in SOD-at least the print edition. I think its more a case of access to actors for those 'what was the kookiest thing that ever happened to you on vacation?' items.

Just thinking that when CBS dropped EON, would things have been different had NBC picked it up and placed it at 4pm instead of Somerset? it would have had a strong lead in from AW (although that didn't help Somerset)and be in a slot already held by a soap -at ABC it replaced a game show. Who knows?

If CBS had held on to Edge when ATWT expanded, where could they have placed it? 4pm would be a good fit but the show would have been isolated from other CBS soaps. 3.30 would have benefited from the All in the Family lead in but Match Game was doing well in that slot I believe.

CBS owned daytime throughout the 50s and especially the 60's where the mix of reruns in the morning, soaps/game shows/variety in the afternoon dominated every timeslot. Meanwhile ABC and NBC were constantly juggling their lineups trying to break through. Finally in the late 60's NBC made headway as Days/Doctors and AW began winning their timeslots forcing CBS to make changes. Then GH asserted itself and the 70's saw all 3 networks battling for domination. CBS made a lot of changes in the 70's. Introducing Y&R was no doubt their best move. Let's discuss CBS Daytime over the years.

@DRW50 thanks. So for Cass' first five or so years on the show there was no mention of a brother. On another note why would NBC want Jake to rape Marley??