Paul Raven

Ongina self destructed and went home. That feathered gown needed an elaborate headdress to give Ongina more presence and height. India's runway skin theme looked messy compared to the others and Mayhem's was also outclassed. Shea was clear winner this week. Mz Cracker getting the villian edit is annoying to me as I have found her quite likeable.

Thought that this ill fated primetime soap deserved its own thread, rather than being buried in the primetime soaps thread. Some background from the book The Business Behind the Box Paris 7000 was the other ABC Thursday night entry, a hasty foreign intrigue series which was created in the first place because ABC was under firm contract to Universal Television to produce a full season of The Survivors, the 1969-70 season's one real fiasco. The case history of that is worth a digression. The Survivors began on bravado. It was one of those announcements for the future—when ABC was at a particularly low point in the standings—that seemed to say: don't lose heart in ABC, great things are ahead, the network is on the move with a spectacular sure-fire idea for the season after next. Why the long delay to bring it off? Because it is such a perfect idea involving such an enormous investment that it must not be rushed. The pieces have to be put together carefully. The idea was born in a meeting between ABC corporate president Leonard Goldenson and one of the most commercially successful writers of trash fiction in this century, Harold Robbins. An operator of theaters before he came into broadcasting, Goldenson was convinced that motion pictures were the most reliable barometer of public taste in mass entertainment, and he was determined to give the ABC television network the benefit of the ABC theater chain's experience with the paying public. The movies based on the novels of Harold Robbins were nearly always powerful at the box office, so it seemed to follow that a television series written by Robbins could not help but be a hit. The project was trumpeted as the first television novel, each chapter to be a complete TV drama in itself but at the same time advancing the continuing central story. Robbins would write the pilot episode and outline the remaining chapters for the first season, and those would be scripted by Hollywood writers. Ostensibly he was to oversee the development of the basic story. Robbins was the first sure-fire element; the second was money—it would be about wealthy and powerful jet-setters. The third was glamour and foreign locales, almost all of it to be shot on location, and the fourth stars—Lana Turner and George Hamilton, with Ralph Bellamy playing a temporary role as their father, who would die in one of the early episodes. Fifth, it would have the time slot that launched Peyton Place a few seasons earlier on the network, Monday night at nine, perfect for the target audience, which was women. And finally, the most important element of all, implied in the involvement of Robbins: sex. Sex, money, glamour, exotic scenery, big stars, Robbins' name, proven time slot—ABC executives confided they did not see how it could possibly fail. No less confident was Universal Television, which agreed to produce it, although that would involve deficit financing of $50,000 per show. The Survivors premiered as ABC's great expectation of the season in September 1969 and never drew enough audience to have the faintest hope of succeeding. For all the supposedly sure-fire elements, the public gave it a massive rejection. Possibly the cynicism behind its creation showed. The series was in trouble before it left the author's head. Robbins had prepared a story about the spoiled and headstrong progeny of an American business tycoon, who disliked each other and their father, and were sure to be disliked in turn by the audience. There were three protagonists, none of them sympathetic. The only sure-fire thing in that, for a simple-minded melodrama, is noninterest. If as a star of yesteryear Lana Turner epitomized glamour, the series received precious few benefits from her beyond that. There was clearly the miscalculation that she was a strong draw. Further, in the production of the series, there was the discovery that she had not lost the star temperament that was indulged in the picture business during the thirties 40 A Sprig of Hollywood and forties but was an embarrassing anachronism in television of the sixties. It drove three producers off the project. The next blow to the series was Senator John O. Pastore of Rhode Island, who, as head of the Senate Communications Subcommittee, had been conducting hearings on television violence. The networks were quickly reforming at his behest, clearing their schedules of programs that depended on acts of brutality and ordering scripts about mental conflicts rather than physical. Then without warning, triggered apparently by the Noxzema "take it off" shaving commercial, Senator Pastore extended his war from violence to sex and violence, holding over the broadcast industry a bill he proposed to introduce which would safeguard their station licenses against challengers promising to do better programing for the community. Nearly every station operator in the country was anxious for the bill to be passed, so the networks were forced to comply with the Senator's wishes for all-round cleaner television. Sex had to go, and The Survivors went in for a rewrite. The series lost one of its selling points. During the summer of 1969, while the series was in production, word of strife on the set of The Survivors spread throughout the business. It began with Miss Turner's refusal to wear paste jewelry. She couldn't get into the mood of her part, as a person of enormous wealth, unless she wore the real symbols of opulence. The diamonds had to be rented from a jewelry dealer in the south of France, with guards hired to move them back and forth. Then it developed she would not wear the same jewelry in any two scenes, and so the logistics of the jewelry was added to a production that was otherwise not going well. For assorted reasons, the producers left, one after another. After the premiere show, Bellamy could not wait to be written out of the story. By December Miss Turner was out of it, too, the story drastically changed, and all that remained of the original scheme was the title and George Hamilton. The dying enterprise was costing Universal Television A Sprig of Hollywood 41 $50,000 an episode, and there was clearly no point in continuing it. But Hamilton had a firm twenty-five-week contract that had to be honored, and so a new and far less costly series, Paris 7000, was devised for him. On January 23, it became Dean Martin's new competition on Thursday night. The series was not really expected to run beyond the duration of Hamilton's contract, but there was always the chance that it might be a sleeper. Although hastily produced on a modest budget, it was at least an improvement on The Survivors.

Paul Picerni Peggy McCayScott Scott Graham Floy Dean Floy Dean

Executive Suite

Re Mercedes McCambridge Add Big Sister - Ruth Evans 1945 TV broadcast

Re Brad and Lauren. I like the idea of those 2 pairing up as a devious twosome who would never fully commit to each other. They could have got years out of them coming together and splitting up - kind of an anti-love story. As for the Nikki/Jack/Victor/Ashley /Matt story Bill Bell was always able to write things in such a way that characters could do a complete 180 and it would still come across as (mostly) believable and certainly compelling. Back to Vanessa.Can anyone establish when she had surgery.It seems to be sometime in 78. There is amention in SOD synopses of the possibility and that it would be along and painful procedure. Then The Lorie/Lance/Leslie/Lucas story continues with nary a mention of Van or surgery and then she is mentioned again and I assume she now was without a veil. What happened??? EDIT I read on and it is revealed that Vanessa indeed did have surgery but continued to wear a veil. I get the feeling Vanessa was off the show for a while (maybe Summer 78) and the surgery was done then., contradicting the 5 years of surgeries needed mentioned previously.

Leslie with OG Laura (Stacey Baldwin) and Barbara Vining (Judy Lewis)

Some more Never Too Young promo pics David Watson John Lupton Jaclyn Carmichael

Ann Sheridan in her Hollywood heyday 1946 and NBC press release foe AW 1965

Promo pic for the anti smoking storyline from 1982

She is 75 years old! Yes, looking good.

Agree re Brad. Sometimes characters have to go after along stint to make room for newbies. Y&R held on to way too many characters past their use by date - I'm looking at you Phyllis! and Kevin and Michael ... One story they held off on was exploring his past. When he was marrying Traci something came up about his family and he was all vague. Didn't he destroy wedding invitations to them? Then unfortunately when they did explore that the story was ridiculous. Killing him off was a bit drastic (maybe he could have just got a job out of town) but it was dramatic and dealt with the character once and for all - rather than him being never mentioned or coming up with lame excuses as to why he never returned(because the actor was unavailable or they were too lazy to bring him back) But then killing off his daughter was a step too far. Traci should have taken in a troubled teen and all the drama that goes with it. Re-ignite Traci v Lauren by having Fen get involved with her.

This has been discussed many times but I believe Search's demise was hastened by the constant turnover of writers/producers, each with a different vision. instead of constantly adding new characters they needed to fix the core.There were viable characters who were forgotten, Gary Walton, Laine Adamson, Danny Walton.Tom Bergman SORAS Patti's kids as new teens. Have new characters interact with them. By 1986 apart from Jo and Stu from the 50's only Liza and Sunny had been around longer than a few years.

I know Danfling is unhappy that Leslie Bauer was killed off Guiding Light. I believe Lynne Adams wanted to leave so the Dobsons saw it as a chance to free up Mike for further romance. Danfling, were you a fan of Adams particularly or the Leslie character in general? Had they decided to recast, who do you think would have worked in the role? Barbara Rodell and Kathryn Hays had both played Leslie but were contracted to As The World Turns.

Re Secret Storm The priest storyline got some press attention but it was too late by then. One Life to Live was leading at 3.30. Nov 1972 1. GH 10.6 2. ATWT 10.2 3. DOOL 9.8 4. DRS 9.5 5. AW 9.1 6. OLTL 8.8 7.AMC 8.3 8.GL 8.0 9.SFT 8.0 10.EON 7.5

Janet is Liza's mother and Stu's daughter. She was Janet Bergman Gardner Walton Collins. Liza and Gary and Danny are her children by Dan Walton.

After Ted Adamson suddenly proposed (he needed money and Janet was wealthy) Janet wasn't sure she was ready to marry again, so she decided to take Danny to San Francisco to visit her son Gary and do some thinking. She never returned. This was mid 82 when Henderson was invaded by Warren, Kristin, Jenny, Keith etc.

Schemering's book mentions that Edith would return for Christmas visits for years. I wish we had more info on that. Edith left in 1960 and definitely returned for Pa's 70th in 63 (?) and by 66 Ruth was working on Peyton Place in Hollywood.So there were only a few years when Ruth was available.

Re Clear Horizon Add Victoria Loughran 1962

Re Scott Palmer He was also on Love of Life. Re Alice Drummond She had an earlier role on As The World Turns pre 1973

Re Mary Linda Rapeleye (Maggie Crawford Andropolous) SPW April 1999. According to Rapeleye, Robert Calhoun exec producer was full of praise for her work, telling her that Maggie was the best character on the show and she would be front burner for the next 18 months. "All of a sudden, a new writing team , headed by Doug Marland was hired", she says . "We were told he thought we had the best cast in daytime and that no changes were planned. Two weeks later, I was called in and Robert told me 'Kid, we're letting you go'. I was shocked."