Paul Raven
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I remember another article discussing this and Pat Falken Smith discussed that they were very carefully plotting the Val/David story in light of the fact that there was a lot of resistance from viewers and execs.
She was furious when Val and David kissed at Doug and Julie's wedding as that had not been scripted and this was going to be a top rated episode and get a lot of attention.
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Valerie helped David when he was on the run and they touched on their past.Val was involved with Abe,who was much more bull headed then and she felt torn as Abe was looking for David. Danny Grant was also reintroduced.
Pat Falken Smith did a remarkable job in turning Days around in a matter of weeks.
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Carmen Duncan (Iris AW, temp Lisa ATWT) in an Australian production of Agatha Christie's 'A Murder is Announced'.
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When Pat Falken Smith returned in 81, Valerie was one of the first characters she brought back.
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Looking at those 1979 episodes it points out the problem ATWT was facing.Just about everybody was over 40. Tom was the only Hughes grandchild and he had already been married twice.Don and Penny had no children (apart from her adopted Asian daughter Amy)and I don't think the audience was ready to embrace an Asian lead heroine at that time.Chuck had been killed off. Maybe this was the time a new family should have been introduced to mix it up with the Hughes and Stewarts.Rick Ryan should also have returned.
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Excerpt from a May 24, 1977 Los Angeles Times article by by William K. Knoedelseder:
The latest from NBC’s “Days of Our Lives” is that the chaste, year-long engagement of David Banning and Valerie Grant, daytime’s only interracial couple, is kaput. According to the script, the reason for the rift is David’s infidelity. But according to the actors, the reason is real-life racism.“They’re breaking us up because the storyline is unpopular,” said actor Richard Guthrie (David). “The studio has been getting a lot of hate mail from people threatening to stop watching the show.” “When they get enough of those letters, they respond,” said actress Tina Andrews (Valerie). “One letter said: ‘I hope you’re not going to let that ****** marry that white boy.’ Apparently, they are not. I’m being canned.”Andrews pointed out that her television parents, Ketty Lester and Lawrence Cook, already have been written out of the script. With both the black storyline and the interracial romance ended, she said, Valerie is expendable.Spokesmen for NBC in Burbank and the show’s co-executive producer, Wes Kenney, confirmed the couple’s imminent breakup but denied the split was a reaction to unfavorable mail. Kenney said that although mail is read, analyzed, studied for trends in viewer response and discussed with the show’s writers, public reaction has not affected the long-term plans for the romance. “This breakup has been planned from the very beginning. There has been change of direction.”Kenney said that while “Days” Nielsen ratings have fallen in the last year, from its perennial position in the top three to a current number 7 in a field of 14, the mail reflects a 50/50 split on the subject of David and Valerie.Guthrie said his personal fan mail ran 50/50 during the “just friends” stage but grew increasingly negative as the relationship warmed up. Currently, he said, his fans are 70% opposed to the romance continuing.“There’s a logic to the whole thing,” said Kenney. The logic, according to Andrews, is that Salem loses its last black character, daytime TV loses its only major black storyline and interracial romance, and she loses her job. She says she doesn’t need the soap financially. Her main complaint is the way David and Valerie’s story has been presented. What others have called a “delicate and tasteful” handling of the romance, she calls racism, written into the script and practiced on the set.Six months after the couple became engaged, Andrews asked a writer why David could not kiss Valerie. “I was told it was some kind of policy. I went home that night and thought to myself ‘Kissing can’t be the problem. All the other couples in love on the show kiss. And David had kissed other female characters. What’s wrong with Valerie that would cause such a policy to be put into effect.”“The problem is that Valerie is black. Well, so is Tina Andrews, black all the time, on screen and off. When you say Davod can’t kiss Valerie because she’s black, you’re saying Richard can’t kiss Tina for the same reason. That’s an insult to everyone concerned.”“The kissing became a big thing on the set”, Guthrie said. “I remember the day Wes Kenney came back from a meeting with NBC and announced ‘You can kiss!’ It was like the earth shook.” The new permissiveness didn’t last long (three or four kisses over a period of a few months). Both Guthrie and Andrews said the mail was overwhelmingly negative and kissing quickly disappeared from the script.“After that, we weren’t even allowed to touch,” said Guthrie. “Whenever we inadvertently worked it in, we were told to stop from the control booth. It was ridiculous.” Andrews said: “They would always say ‘Richard, don’t touch her’, never the other way around. Pretty soon we started getting scripts with stage directions like ‘They look at each other warmly, but they do not touch’, underlined five times so we wouldn’t miss it. That offended me as an actress, as a woman, and as a black person.”Kenney admits the physical aspects of the relationship had been played down in the past, but said the couple had again been allowed to kiss in more recent episodes. Referring to the “no touching” remonstratives, he said if he had seen such directions in the script, he would have taken them out. As co-executive producer, Kenney often edits the scripts before they are given to the actors.Former head writer Pat Falken Smith, the creator of the interracial romance, disagreed with the young actors’ assessment of the situation. The kissing and touching was played down as a matter of storytelling. “In daytime programming, the drama is much stronger when you don’t show intimate love scenes. If Richard and Tina thought it was unrealistic that a young engaged couple didn’t kiss, that’s tough. It was my story and gratuitous kissing was not part of it. And no actor re-writes me on the set, ever.”0 -
I read somewhere that it was the Ed Sullivan Theater in NY.
Regarding Annie and Dee,Marcia McLain was the first adult Dee and according to a John Colenbeck interview in SOD she was fired for not losing weight.I think Dee was offscreen for a while until Jacquie Shultz took over. She and Larry Bryggman were married for a time. Then Vicky Dawson took over and that was it for Dee.
It's a pity Doug Marland wasn't interested in bringing Dee back. She only had one marriage under her belt and her relationship with John could have been explored as well as mixing her in with the new characters that were around late 80's/early 90's.
As for Annie, that character had pretty much played out after 3 marriages and being saddled with quads but again it would have been nice to see her kids brought in in the 90's as the new teens( not necessarily all at the same time).
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I thought they did a good job presenting the theatre/backstage etc with only a few extras.
Colleen Zenk was a real find as she had an individual look at the time that still holds up today.
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Annie looked so matronly.
I guess the slow pace is due to the live to tape process, where each scene was commercial to commercial.
GH was the first to start editing scenes. When did P&G follow suit?
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I also recall Mike dated Trish ,Lillian and Helena.
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Variety May 30th 1979
Fred Silverman,then programming chief at NBC announced plans to have soaps running 11.30 am till 4 pm each day, with gameshows from 10.00 till 11.30 am.
As a part of that plan The Doctors would expand to 60 mins and move to the 11.30 timeslot.
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Variety Oct 11th 1972
A notably weak half hour for CBS is with the "Family Affair" sitcom reruns, giving the web its lowest audience levels ever at 4 p.m. with a 4.3 rating to NBC's 7.1 for the soap opera "Somerset," and ABC a 6.0 for "Love American Style."
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For the 79/80 sesaon the daytime Emmy's had an outstanding cameo category. Among the nominees was Kathryn Harrow as Pat Ryerson on The Doctors.
Can anyone shed any light on the story for this character?
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Please post more.
I do read and enjoy all your post and the fascinating responses from posters like saynot and DC, but have been lazy/busy of late and don't always respond.
Anyway, Doris Frankel was the writer of the proposed 1957 CBS soap 'The Will to Dream'.
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Doris Frankel wrote SFT in the mid 60's with Leonard Kantor and was apart of the AMC writing team in 77/78. I recall her name from the proposed soap thread and will go back and check.
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The writing was on the wall for 'The Doctors' for several years.
The ratings were dropping and then the show was moved out of its longtime timeslot. All of NBC daytime was tanking so it would have taken a top notch writing/producing team to make any headway.
I remember an Afternoon TV critique of the show saying that Marlands stories moved away from the hospital and that the show was no longer reflective of its title.
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I have never seen Doris Frankel listed as co headwriter with Don Arpel. Did Somerset set a record for most headwriters in a year?
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Going back to the Jack/Ashley/Claudia story,I think one of the problems was that all the characters in the story were new to the canvas so viewers didn't have any great interest or attachment.
I guess in a way this was intentional as the show was trying to get away from Matt/Maggie and Steve and Carolee to bring freshness but maybe if a core character had been a part of it - if Jack were Mike Powers or something like that it would have blended old and new.
Anyway,all those characters were soon gone.
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Thanks for that info.
Those short term,supporting characters often remain a mystery.
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Someone please explain Val Dufour's outfit!!
Never seen Ruth Hunt,Virginia Martin or Robert Maxwell in cast lists before.
I think Connie was a love interest for Stu.
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Looking at a clip of credits from 81 on We Love Soaps and saw Patrick Tovatt listed in a dayplayer role. 4 years later he was back on contract as Zane Lindquist.
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I still maintain that with a little bit of rewriting the character of Marlena could have been Sandy instead, which would have breathed new life into the Hortons.
And the SORASED David Banning should have been Julie's brother Steve in the story rather than saddle Julie with a grown son and then a grandson when she was barely 30 years old.
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An overview of Kathleen Murray's brief career
http://classictvhistory.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/the-candy-fudge-sundae-girl/
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George Petrie was the actor. He played in many primetime shows, most noticeably as Harve Smithfield on Dallas.
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Y&R: Old Articles
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