Paul Raven

I agree, suggestions that Bill and Kate hooked up after Laura was committed makes more sense on a number of levels and doesn't alienate long term viewers. So frustrating when writers sabotage the story... Getting back to Harrower's tenure so far. As mentioned earlier she took over and faced the same issues that Marcus had encountered with the three couples happily settled. Harrower realized they needed shaking up so her approach was 1. Bill/Laura. She looked into Laura's past (her mother's mental issues) and used that to delve into Laura having issues of her own. From reading synopses it seems a rather sledgehammer approach with Laura acting way out of character and family and colleagues not noticing until it was too late.Maybe the day to day treatment was more nuanced? It seems from the outset the story would culminate in Laura being committed and Rosemary Forsyth dropped. So I guess the feeling was that Laura had run her course and Forsyth was expendable. Seems a sad ending for such an important and well loved character. And where did this leave Bill? Judging from the episode counts for the second half of 79, Bill was averaging one or two days a week and there didn't seem to be much interest in him dealing with the loss of his wife and struggles as a single father. So maybe the long term plan was to drop Bill (as happened later). Maybe it would have been better to kill off Laura, rather than Bill being in limbo. Had he been given another love interest the writing would have to have been strong for him to garner audience support for a new romance while his wife was stashed away. At least as a widower that would have cleared the way for a new romance. Bill could have just as easily got involved with Liz Chandler as Neil. 2. Mickey/Maggie Harrower's approach here was to backburner them and give them little conflict. So not much to say here. 3.Doug/Julie The big story here was Julie's scarring and turning away from Doug. It kept them front burner and lead to divorce but the motivations seem muddled. Doug and Julie had been impetuous before in their actions eg Doug marrying Addie,Julie marrying Bob but that was years before as obstacles to get together. Doing the same thing once they were happily married never works as well. Doug's motivation for marrying Lee also seemed half baked. Of course it's easy to look back and judge. Do others agree or feel Harrower did what needed to be done?

Donald Briggs Ellen Randolph Donald Meade 1941 Wheatena Playhouse 'The Rains Came' Tom Ransome 1941 Young Dr Malone Dr Holton Stella Dallas 1946 Strange Romance of Evelyn Winters 1952 Aunt Jenny 'Moon Madness' 15 eps 1956 Viola Berwick Lonely Women Mary Collins Effie Palmer Jane Arden Mrs Lavender

Amazing list! I'm going to add to your workload with some more additions later and these requests. Florida Friebus Tom Tully Klock Ryder Angeline Orr Julian Noa Jeanne Juvelier Inge Adams Brian Farrell James C Burge Michael Jeter Jordan Williams Ron Parady

NIELSEN- RATING' TOP RADIO PROGRAMS Week, Nov. 16 -22, 1952 WEEKDAY (Average For All Programs) I Romance of Helen Trent (CBS) 7.8 2 Our Gal, Sunday (CBS) 7.8 3 Guiding Light (CBS) 7.7 4 This Is Nora Drake (Seeman) (CBS) 7.7 5 Ma Perkins (CBS) 7.6 6 Aunt Jenny (CBS) 7.5 7 Wendy Warren and the News (CBS) 7.2 8 Perry Mason (CBS) 7.0 9 This Is Nora Drake (Toni) (CBS) 6.7 10 Big Sister (CBS) 6.6

The initial scenario is months if not years of painful surgeries with no guarantee of success thus causing Julie untold angst and then for story purposes presto Julie is back to normal with no after effects. Bit of an insult to real burn victims and complete turnaround of what had been previously established.

The Julie story was pretty much savaged at the time .I think it was John Kelly Genovese in Afternoon TV that said it was a story that could have demonstrated Doug's devotion to Julie and her needing and gaining strength from his love but instead it was used to split them up with unconvincing motives.

Sidney Ellstrom Masquerade Mr Wendell Joan Blaine Stories America Loves 'So Big' Selena Peake 1942 Alan Bunce David Harum Dr Kenneth Stuart Doc Barclays Daughters Billy Van Cleve Sarajane Wells Dr Paul 1950

Well that was a triangle that was (initially) written to provide weight to each coupling, whereas any 3rd party in a supercouple was merely an interloper to be defeated. Poor Ma Henderson, never receiving a visit or even a mention from those uncaring Fosters. I wonder if Ma was in the original bible or a strike creation (Conboy?) Maybe for BTS reasons Bill ignored her after that...

Ethel Intropidi Lorenzo Jones Birdie Van Dine

There was an Angela Mason played by Ruth Rau around this time so I assume this is the Angie Manno character.

Speaking of Love of Life, Lincoln Kilpatrick was on first in 1962 as a garage mechanic I believe (will try and track down this newspaper item to confirm his occupation)

Bill Bell didn't do 'super couples' because they are limiting story wise. Victor and Nikki split a few years after their uber wedding and it worked because it was character based.

Looking again at Jason's summary this is the tally for Bill once Laura institutionalized 6/25/79-6/29/79: Bill finally accepted it that Laura has to be institutionalized. Bill 4 7/2/79-7/6/79: Bill 0 7/9/79-7/13/79: Bill 1 7/16/79-7/20/79: Bill 2 7/23/79-7/27/79 Bill 0 7/30/79-8/3/79 Bill 2 8/6/79-8/10/79 Bill 1 8/13/79-8/17/79 Bill 1 8/20/79-8/24/79 Bill 0 8/27/79-8/31/79 Bill 2 9/3/79-9/7/79: Bill 1 9/10/79-9/14/79 Bill 1 9/17/79-9/21/79 Bill 1 9/24/79-9/28/79 Bill 2 10/1/79-10/5/79 Bill 3 10/8/79-10/12/79: Bill 0 10/15/79-10/19/79 Bill 1 10/22/79-10/26/79 Bill 1 10/29/79-11/2/79 Bill 1 11/5/79-11/9/79 Bill 0 11/12/79-11/16/79 Bill 1 11/19/79-11/23/79 Bill 0 11/26/79-11/30/79 Bill 1 12/3/79-12/7/79 Bill 2 12/10/79-12/14/79 Bill 1 12/17/79-12/21/79 Bill 1 12/24/79-12/28/79 Bill 3 So the writing was on the wall for Ed Mallory/Bill

Never seen this photo before.Mitchell Dru,Pat Matthews and John Randolph prepare for her trial.

i envisaged a scene b/w Rachel and Alice leading to Alice imagining Steve declaring his love and them sharing a romantic reunion. Don't bring back old characters for an anniversary and then discount the whole thing by not dwelling on the past... I'm sure this has been discussed before but wasn't it supposed to be Leon Russum as Willis who originally had the lines given to Dorothy Lyman? Either Russom couldn't commit or they decided there was more value in having Lyman return and there was a last minute switch.

Yes it is a bit of a mystery as there was mucho publicity about Nina L and the changes she was bringing to Days but no mention of Flippen when she took over. She only wrote Days for a month so it seems she was some sort of placeholder. Interesting that it was Flippen who killed off Bob, and wrote off Bill, Samantha, Donna,Cathy and Robert -all moves that are associated with Laemmle. It seems that Flippen may have been preparing for Laemmles stint. Reading back over Jasons daily summaries I see that Harrower actually wrote out Linda,killed off Stephanie and introduced Tony Kingman,Julie's new beau (in her final week)

Ann Marcus had worked in daytime previously so that probably was a big factor. I think they made a mistake in marrying off Mike and sticking him with a doomed Margo. Wesley Eure was the closest thing they had to a teen idol and he should have been hot and heavy in a teen triangle rather than being married off to a sickly woman. They had spent years getting both Bill/Laura and Doug/Julie together and should have applied that formula to Mike. Marie did return but Kate Woodville didn't seem to make much impression and she really wasn't written for. Sandy Horton was waiting in the wings and they went with Marlena. Bob/Phyllis/Mary and Brooke/Stephanie had provided a lot of drama through the 70's but maybe it was time to introduce a new secondary family to provide drama going forward.

And Marlena's father attended the wedding but no brother. Looking back on Ann Marcus' run a few observations. Coming in she had the challenge of dealing with coming up with story for Bill/Laura,Doug/Julie and Mickey/Maggie - all popular couples who had fought the good fight for wedded bliss with the pressure of keeping them front burner. For Doug/Julie she went with the Larry Atwood murder (agree that Jeri should have been the killer-more dramatically resonant and also a way of cutting down the large cast and getting rid of an older character) Then when that was resolved there was the arrival of Steve who manipulated a trusting Julie. Bill/Laura got the professional pressure story leading to the Kate/Bill attraction. Mickey/Maggie dealt with the wife beating story followed by the Janice /alcoholism story. The problem to me was that those stories,whilst achieving the aim of keeping those couples front burner -when concluded - left those couples exactly where they were at the beginning. Julie's rape ,which could have devastated her and had long term repercussions was brushed over. Bill didn't cheat on Laura and they reconciled. Maggie stopped drinking and after a brief crisis got over the loss of Janice. So pretty much Harrower had the same issues facing her with those couples -the path she took at least with two of them were much more drastic with long term fall out. Also worth noting was that Marcus only introduced one successful character in Chris Looking forward to others' opinions.

Re Marlena's brother-maybe that was a misprint and should have said father? As for Harrower over Marcus, how often have we seen new writers come in and make immediate improvements as they settle in before spiralling downwards once their own stories take shape?

Well the amnesia is an old trick that can stop the story and delay the inevitable. Flannery was a hard act to follow and by the time Forsyth was cast Laura and Bill were settled so she didn't have much to do and there was nothing for viewers to invest as they would have had Susan F still been there. Wait till Julie's burn story...

Nancy Douglass The Guiding Light Daisybelle Portia faces Life Arline Harrison Young Dr Malone 1947 My True Story 1947 Stories America Loves 'The Virginian' Molly Stark Jean Gillespie Front Page Farrell Addie Cartwell 1945 Adelaide Klein By Kathleen Norris 'The Black Fleming' Margaret the Housekeeper Just Plain Bill 1940 Lorenzo Jones Belle Jones temp replacement for Betty Garde Valiant Lady Mrs Gross Elmira Roessler Romance of Helen Trent Frances Scott Ma Perkins 1941 Caroline's Golden Store Estelle Proposed soap 'Barbara' title role

I hope Maree talks about why she has never come back to Days esp for the 50th.

Myron McCormick Johns Other Wife Roy Cuddy

Parker Fenelly Editors daughter 1938 Ellen Randolph Skipper Johns Other wife Brenda Curtis

i believe they did so Dylan should have come from that relationship if they had to give Paul another child.Maybe Cindy could have returned and flashbacks used. Instead they rewote stuff for the ridiculous Paul/Nikki/Dylan story. Y&R has all that history available and they fluck it up.