Paul Raven

I thought the opening episode was a little shaky. Most jokes didn't land and that conflict b/w Darlene and Dan was contrived. John Goodman is the Eric Braeden of primetime with that lack of eye contact and line readings.

Still too many characters for 20 or so minutes.

31 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

So, GH is missing here?

Obviously. Probably ranked #11.

Hence all the BTS changes.

I have never seen any evidence that Edge of Night aired in overseas territories.

Certainly not in Australia where other P&G shows (AW,SFT, ATWT) aired in the 70's.

Did EON air in Hawaii? How did that work in the 60's/70's? before satellite transmission?

Yes I believe Y&Rs rating for those weeks  were never topped again.

ATWT 

Melinda Grey Kim's niece, Frannie's half sister. She drowned in a boating accident in June 1980. Brad was suspected of being responsible for her death. Instead she is in a coma, regains consciousness and clears Brad (or maybe not) Perhaps she has a memory block at first and isn't sure. Anyway, she could hang around or leave town and perhaps return a few years later, giving Kim/the Hughes another character to deal with.

As The World Turns

Lincoln "Linc" Lafferty   James Wleck     90-92    half brother of Hutch   R

                                       Lonnie McCullough ? -  Nov 19 93    killed by Ned Simon

Ned Simon       Frank Converse      1992-March 22 94

David (Allen)  Stenbeck Chris Browning   ? 97 - April 30 1997

                                          Danny Markel    May 6 1997-98

Emmett    that was involved with Molly  Tom Ligon   August 13 - ?1997 

Frannie Hughes Crawford Julianne Moore  April 1985-88; April 3 2010

Marie Kovac     Mady Kaplan   April   85  ex-fiancee of Kevin, murdered by Douc Cummings   

Suz ____  Becker   Betsy Palmer Feb 10 - ?  82    friend, Ellen Stewart while David was presumed dead 

Melinda Grey Spencer   Ariana Muenker     August 77- June 80

29 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

But to me, soaps are in danger BECAUSE they are so poorly done nowadays

Bingo.

Y&R as an example. Day after day storyline decisions are made that further chip away at any remaining credibility.

Billionaires wander around cafes/restaurants running businesses and mounting takeovers.

A supposedly dead child is alive because her (never mentioned) crazy aunt somehow stole her from a hospital and raised her to hate her birth family (why?)

An alcoholic woman with the resources to check into the best rehab facility in the country instead sneaks around boozing from a flask.

The head of an international chain of department stores agrees to become an assistant to an alcoholic woman.

An alpha billionaire is slumped in a chair reading his lines off a menu/phone etc

Literally every plot Josh comes up with is ludicrous/ill conceived/poorly executed.

Why didn't Katherine just leave a letter for Jill?

I think Katherine and Jill's relationship had progressed beyond this type of game playing at that point.

And besides I distinctly remember a scene where out of the blue Katherine acknowledged face to face that Phillip loved Jill more and she was at peace with that.

Richard Kiley

Radio

The Guiding Light

Ma Perkins

Golden Gate was a pilot for a primetime soap.

1 hour ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

Absolutely correct! 

Yes that's why I posted it.

I'm sure Gottlieb learned a lot  that changed her perspective about revolutionalizing daytime.

Bottom line is that you have to get one episode in the can a day and there is just so much you can accomplish.

Like others eg Rauch, what Gottlieb was like as a person could be far away from what she was like as  a producer.

Erika was not a Gottlieb fan.

A lot of this comes down I'm sure to personality clashes. Maybe Linda didn't give Erika the respect she thought she deserved. Who knows?

Did other actors talk about various producers? Would be interesting to read different perspectives.

I'm pretty sure Clint Ritchie was also down on Gottlieb.

Maybe other actors loved her...

18 minutes ago, denzo30 said:

I always thought I read and heard she was the one who bought Y&R to the number 1 ratings

I think Bill Bell might have something to say about that.

53 minutes ago, Lye-C said:

I liked the mystery hunt that Katherine sent Jill on after her death over at Y&R.

What exactly did that lead to?

34 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

That would be a 4th soap for him: AMC, AW, OLTL & GH, in order. 

 Laurence Lau also appeared on ATWT as Brian.

Those mystery from the past storylines (a music box, piece of jewelry) etc that supposedly lead to some major story seldom ever amount to anything.

We've often seen actresses IRL present very differently from onscreen.

So let's critique characters hair and wardrobe as that is what we see. Whether they look like that offscreen is a different story.

Cass came on in July 82 when Corinne Jacker was headwriter

Felicia and Donna appeared Jan 83 the Robert Soderberg/Dorothy Ann Purser era.

MARCUS LOVETT

AS THE WORLD TURNS  Larry McDermott   temp Aug 9, 10 and 11 1994

MICHAEL GALARDI

AS THE WORLD TURNS     Damian Grimaldi ( One day Temporary)1994

Robert Parucha - another miscast. As Victor's brother he should have been a major player and it seemed like that was the intent - an Ashley/Matt/Nikki/Victor quad fermenting.

But Matt was so bland that nothing solid ever eventuated and then he was dropped and forgotten. He should have been rested then recast.

Chicago Tribune June 20 1971

The first thing you notice about Jane House, who plays the stripper wife of Lenny Bruce in the Broadway play "Lenny," is that she is wearing only pasties and a G-string. Then, if you are familiar with television soap operas, the second thing you think is "My God, that's Liz Stewart up there!" Liz Stewart, the sweet English girl who invaded the small community of Oakdale two and a half years ago, got pregnant by one young man, married his brother, and just recently h a d a miscarriage, a nervous breakdown, and then, two days, after opening in "Lenny,'' lost her steady, lucrative television job. That's As the World Turns, folks.

Jane, who got good reviews for "Lenny," probably won't go hungry because the producers of As the World Turns decided to end her contract. The official explanation, Jane says, was that they were having a story conference and wanted to let the character of Liz go for a while. That's all she knows. "Maybe they had some misgivings," she said in her dressing room recently. "What this play says is very different from what a soap opera says." As a matter of fact, "Lenny" and his bring-it-all-out-in-the-open attitude is light years away from As the World Turns.

And there is Jane's image to consider. With her long, strawberry blonde hair, blue-gray eyes, and country girl freckles, she , epitomized sweetness, motherhood even if it was her brother in law's baby she suffered from pangs of guilt constantly and gentility. Rusty, the character she portrays in "Lenny," is not like that. Her language is almost as uninhibited as Lenny's, she takes drugs, and she is far from virginal. And even; though a stripper should be wearing a G-string and pasties, what would the fans of Liz Stewart think?

Once, when Jane was being considered for a role in "Coming Apart," she told a fan magazine that she would appear in the nude in the film., "I got some very negative letters. ' People out there respond very negatively to nudity. I don't know what they do at night." No matter what they do at night; they won't be watching Jane in the afternoons any more. Liz was taken away to an institution in another city, according' to the story line. 

 Jane has mixed feelings about leaving the soap. The money was, she admits, "fantastic," and she may have to give up her apartment because the difference in salary is enormous. But she loves the role of Rusty and says, "The play has really gotten to me. I love it." But things seem to get to 25-year-old Jane very easily. "I got too much into Liz," she says; "I was really close to her for awhile. .There were a lot of things about her that I understand, - like her guilt. And I also have felt her kind of craziness.

But I didn't associate well 'to her house-wifeliness. I'm not really a homebody." But she disapproved of some of the things Liz did. For instance, Liz and Paul Stewart lived, together for three months without going to bed together. Paul was very accepting instead of having a talk with his wife about it. "I guess people do things like that but I don't want that to be real for myself." There's a lot of unreality in soap operas, Jane thinks.

"They're so restricted in what they can suggest because they're afraid of shocking people. Everything's glossed over." Nothing is glossed over in "Lenny." And the hardest scene for Jane is a very intimate love-making scene between Jane and Cliff Gorman, who plays Lenny Bruce. First of all, it's because of what she's wearing. "Sometimes I've felt a lot of terror being nude up there." Then, in the middle of the scene, Gorman talks to the audience, leaving Jane just lying there. "I feel very rejected then," she says.

'But "it's the kind of role I've been working towards." Jane majored in speech and drama at Stanford University. She worked a short time in off-off-Broadway plays before landing her As the World Turns job. She got that because Irna Phillips, creator of the soap, wanted an English girl on the show, Jane says. Jane has lived in this country since 1956. Her father is a member of the British Foreign Service.

Jane's parents met in New York, were married in Mexico, and Jane was born in Panama. When she was 2, the family moved to Bulgaria, then to Africa and, Switzerland. For a time Jane studied in a convent in Switzerland and wanted to be a nun. Now she wants to be in the movies. I can't resist -  that's how the world turns..

In the movie version of Lenny, Valerie Perrine played the role of Honey. Years later she was on ATWT as Dolores Snyder.

with Marco St John as Paul

@OpportunisticSlut that's as good (or better) than anything Brad has been serving up.

9 minutes ago, dc11786 said:

I wish they had just revisited the Donovan family in full,

It happened over and over on just about every show.

Rather than look back to the original concept and rebuild from there, each new team introduce new characters and families which then are mostly dropped by the next team and the shows become a disjointed patchwork representing various regimes.

On paper the De Priest/Whitesell team had an opportunity to settle the show but the execution fell short and initial plans were derailed.

Rather than bringing in a load of new characters and families, they planned to focus on The Loves, Corys and McKinnons and the interactions b/w the established Corys, the Loves with many skeletons in their past and the working class McKinnons.

That seemed sound.

Mitch Blake was to return to shake up Rachel/Mac and Cecile was back to cause trouble for Cass/Kathleen.

The McKinnons/Loves would be shaken by the return of Mary & Reginald.

But things went awry. 

Reg never came off as an effective villain, the new Nicole and new Vicky were quickly dropped. Peter turned into a villain and Anna Stuart left. Philece Sampler was miscast.

Vince had to be recast, MJ was recast, Ben never returned,Cheryl was bland and then dropped. Cass and Kathleen left as did Jake and Marley.

Nancy left, Jamie was poorly recast with Larry Lau

And so on...

Harding Lemay was the  best bet with the return of Iris, the Frames etc but he quicklyleft and Donna Swajeski didn't have the skills to really deliver.

So Lemay gets my vote based on what he achieved in a short time.