Paul Raven

Barbara Luddy Story of Mary Marlin 1941 Days of Our Lives Mrs Davis 1966 Mrs Ryan , juror at Susan Martin's trial 1967 Martin Blaine Lorenzo Jones 1949 Nona from Nowhere 1950 Days of Our Lives Dr Joe Hendricks 1967

Antonia 'Toni' Gilman Days of Our Lives Nurse Adams 1971 Lenore Kingston Days of Our Lives Ethel 1969 Dan Ferrone Days of Our Lives Lou 1968 Paul Carr Days of Our Lives Dr Forbes 1968 Phyllis Hill Days of Our Lives Mrs Williams 1968 Judith McConnell Days of Our Lives Nurse Evans 1968

Y&R struck gold with Terry and Eileen. Although she was a 'good' character Eileen brought in that sarcasm and cynicism that gave her an edge. She still has it till this day, which is why I still enjoy watching her even in lousy stories. But once Peter was entrenched as Jack, the character changed. Seeing Jack mooning over Diane -there's no way Terry's Jack even all these years later would be playing it that way.

She looks great, but that background...

Judson Laire/Diana Douglas

The final cast below but first 1966

A 1965 TV Guide blurb lists Bill as being played by Curtis Taylor. There are a couple of actors named Curtis Taylor but none seems to match that actor.

Glad you're enjoying it-really a special show. In one of the interviews that I think is posted in the thread Paul Monash(?) said they learnt from the Shusters that new characters should be apart of the community eg the Chernaks, Ann Howard etc -either living there (but unseen) or returning. It just gave those characters more connectedness to the show. BTW the whole series is on YouTube. I still haven't got back into it.

In 1988 Jerry Douglas and Herb Gross, a former CBS programming VP formed Jovra Productions 'to package teleseries, telefilms and features'. Don't recall anything coming of this but it seems every second LA citizen had a production company at one time or another. Probably a tax dodge as much as anything else. Was that around the time that Jerry was written out for a year or so?

The 87/88 season was the first time that CBS had ever finished in 3rd place. Early in the season longtime CBS programmer Bud Grant was axed and Kim Le Masters took over. Going into the season CBS had had new shows everynight at 8pm. (bar Sunday) Mon Frank's Place, Tues Houston Knights (new to the timeslot) Wed Oldest Rookie, Thurs Tour of Duty, Fri Beauty and the Beast, Sat My Sister Sam. They had 2 new hours Tuesday Jake & Fatman/Law & Harry McGraw, Wiseguy Thurs and Legwork (CBS second attempt at giving Margaret Colin a series) Sat. Nothing worked and they began shuffling series around and decided to introduce a comedy block on Tues 8-10 which bombed- Trial& Error/My Sister Sam/Coming of Age/Frank's Place Magnum was ending as was Cagney & Lacey and the soaps were another year older. The Monday night schedule didn't take off once football ended as had been the case. NBC held on to 1st place but had only 2 hits My 2 Dads and Different World, both of which were reagarded as timeslot hits. In the Heat of the Night boosted Tuesdays following Matlock and taking advantaged of Moonlighting's production troubles. They introduced the concept of 'designated hitters' 3 series that would air individual episodes scatttered around the schedule. The feeling was that it was a gimmick to get some publicity for shows that would otherwise bomb if they were conventionally scheduled. They were 'Mama's Boy' which never went beyond 4 episodes and Beverly Hills Buntz and Bronx Zoo which both flopped once they played as regular series. ABC secured 2nd place thanks to world Series/Superbowl and Winter Olympics. They had some success with Hooperman and thirtysomething but everything else flopped until later in the season when Wonder Years,China Beach and Heartbeat were introduced. Moving Growing Pains to Wed and Perfect Strangers to Fri boosted those nights. Dolly was the big failure of the season . Going into 88/89 ... Would NBC manage to coast at #1 or introduce some new hits? Would ABC be able to build on their late season surge? Would CBS get out of 3rd and rebuild a tattered schedule? Stay tuned...

Feb 1-5 1988 ABC 6.4/21 CBS 6.1/21 NBC 5.3/18 1. GH 9.2/28 2. Y&R 8.4/28 3. OLTL 8.3/26 4. AMC 8.0/25 Home new ABC show at 11.30 last in daytime ratings 2.6/10

I get the feeling that the cast might have been given a few readily available clips to choose from as their 'favorites'

Dolly is such a talent but those sitcoms sounded awful. From what I saw of the variety show I recall the Dixie's Diner sketches were simply not funny and they tried a little bit of everything when a less is more approach might have worked. 2 decades earlier Judy Garland had the same issues with her weekly show-too much interference and change of direction. All the blame was laid at Judy of course. The 87-88 season was the first to use the Neilsen Peoplemeters and the immediate change was lower ratings all round. So comparing- say Dallas' ratings from the previous season wasn't exact as a different system was in use. Variety published a list of primetime shows and their rankings in households, women and men 18-34/18/49. Most shows ranked similarly but there were some interesting deviations Murder She Wrote #10 in households #47 W 18-34 #33 W 18-49 #49 M 18-34 #33 M18-49 Dallas #18 in households #26 W18-34 #33 W 18-49 #47 M 18-34 #45 M 18-49 Falcon Crest #33 in households #36 W 18-34 #35 W 18-49 #61 M18-34 #60 M 18-49 thirtysomething #36 in households #10 W 18-34 #13 W 18-49 #18 M18-34 #22 M 18-49 I can supply other figures if anyone is interested.

Thanks for that. Glad she left on her own terms.

I wonder if. like so many other vets. Marilyn was offered a contract that consisted of fewer episodes guaranteed so basically a lot less money- so her decision to leave was really being pushed out.

In addition to Beantown, CBS tried The Four Seasons and Suzanne Pleshette as Maggie Briggs on Sun to no avail. They decided to drop comedy 8-9 for Murder She Wrote. Moving back to 87/88 ABC poured a lot of money into Dolly only to see it fail pretty quickly. Has there ever been a post mortem on the show from Dolly herself or anyone else? The show opened big so people were interested. I think the content was a problem. They tried to present Dolly in a way that didn't seem genuine . To me another problem was the timeslot. Going up against movies on the other 2 networks was a big ask for Dolly. Inevitably CBS and NBC would be scheduling big theatrical premieres, mini series debuts and their best TV movies. Maybe 8pm would have been better with movies @9? Although Dolly would have to face MSW and Family Ties. ABC wasted their movies on Thurs night where they got thrashed by Cheers/Night Court/LA Law. And the lead in was Spencer for Hire, a low rated show that didn't warrant being placed in the important Sun @8 slot. It provided no lead in for Dolly and didn't seem compatible. And then to place Buck James @10 as lead out. If Dolly was to play at 9pm maybe Hotel would have worked better instead of being dumped on Saturday night. So either Disney 7pm Dolly 8pm Sunday Movie 9pm or Disney 7pm (2 hr as in previous seasons) Dolly 9pm Hotel 10pm

That's terrific. Using established characters and their history to propel new stories, Bravo!

The Salem Strangler was really a coup for Days. It was the first time a soap had tried this type of story and the suspense was there. It was played seriously and there were several suspects and potential victims. Much better than GH's Ice Princess in terms of expanding the type of stories being told. Unfortunately instead of letting it stand alone, by the next year there was the Salem Slasher, complete with eccentric characters, evil lookalikes, masks etc

That Sunday line up was invincible for several seasons. But anytime they moved a show eg Alice to Wed or Archie Bunker to Mon they tanked. Those shows worked together as they were all products of the same era. When CBS tried freshening things up eg Goodnight Beantown, it didn't work as it just seemed an odd fit.

My computer is playing up and I couldn't add to the quote above. Anyway... The soaps had been enormously successful and had runs beyond most primetime hits. By 87/88 the decline had set in. Creatively it was harder each year to come up with compelling stories as viewers expected to see JR scheming, Blake/Krystal/Alexis etc .Unlike daytime, where there was more flexibility in making casting/story changes, the primetime shows were more restricted.JR couldn't be backburnered for 6 episodes for example. FC/KL had a little more flexibilty in that regard. Ratings wise the numbers were falling but they were all performing OK. ABC saw the writing on the wall and moved Dynasty back to 10pm, where it won its timeslot. However it was an expensive show and I'm sure ABC realized they could probably get similar numbers from a cheaper show. CBS kept Dallas/FC in the same slots and they were winning their timeslots. CBS had other nights to worry about but I wonder if they should have bitten the bullet and moved Dallas back to 10pm with maybe Simon& Simon/Magnum as leadins? Or something else at 9pm. Freshening up 9pm while viewers were still accustomed to watching CBS at that time rather than waiting for a new show to come along on ABC or NBC that might crush Dallas. Falcon Crest could be used as a 10 pm show on Tues for example to provide some familiarity as the rebuilt that night. Knots was the only Thurs show on CBS providing any competition so it earned its keep. As for Hotel ABC seemed to want to be rid of it. I think in that final year the big name guest stars were out. I would have slotted it Thurs at 9 and kept 20/20 at 10 . Placing/wasting movies there seemed foolish. Both ABC/CBS made some weird scheduling moves that season.But that's for another post.

OK so March is looking a little dull, but after everything that went on in Feb sweeps, we need to take a breather....

Some radio updates Helen Claire Aunt Jenny 1939 Front Page Farrell 1951 My True Story Mary Thomas 2/26/54 Tom Collins Romance of Helen Trent Barclay Bailey 1952 Front Page Farrell 'Case of The Invisible Man' Ned Corbett 1951 Kitty Keene Stella Dallas Inspector Malloy Backstage Wife Lorenzo Jones Right to Happiness My True Story Whispering Streets

Secret Storm Aggie Clemens Parsons...Jane Rose.. August 18 69-71...aunt, Belle Judge Sam Stevens...Terry O'Sullivan...September 68-69...old friend, Valerie Jerry Ames....Stephen Bolster May 68-69 Paul Britton...Nicholas Coster...64, April 68-69.College Professor, married Terri, Amy,& Belle Martha Norris Novotny(Warren)...Gretchen Walther...Beginning Aug 68...reporter fired by Charlie

Ok Thanks. Maybe they'll go to the Tuscan Villa!