Paul Raven

After Sam disappeared,presumed dead,Jo got involved with Tony,who had his own complications-Marcy,the wife faking paralysis to hold onto him.They divorced finally and Jo and Tony were due to be married when Sam returned -his personality affected by his ordeal in Africa..Jo broke up with Sam and planned to marry Sam,but her earlier blindness returned,this time a psychosomatic illness caused by her conflict over the two men.

On the wedding day,Jo could not go through with it and a deranged Sam took her to a cabin.Everyone assumed they had been married and were on their honeymoon.Two hippies arrived (one played by Susan Satrandon) and shot Sam.Jo escaped.She was found unconscious and her sight returned.Tony and Jo wed.

AW's ratings woes began before the 90 min expansion.The move to 90 min was a misguided ploy to boost sagging ratings.Against a resurgent GH under Monty/Marland and the expanded GL,AW began to drop in 78.

The P&G clash of shows began when EON moved to ABC and was up against Somerset.

Bev was asked to return to AW in 84 but decided against it for several reasons,one being the daily trip to Brooklyn was too draining for her.

A 1973 Variety article states that Mary Grover was part of the original Y&R cast.Does anyone know anything of this? Was she replaced by another actress?

I just found out that Wynne Miller (Jessica Buchanan) was the niece og legendary band leader Glenn Miller.

I found this review on imdb.The most detail I have seen on the shows storylines.

I followed this short-lived serial for most of its 6-month run on ABC back in 1970 - and it's amazing how TV soap watchers from that era still remember it as fondly and curiously some 40 years later. I recall "The Best Of Everything" being preempted or cut into a few times so local ABC news affiliates could update viewers on such life-changing events taking place in the real world (Vietnam War, Kent State shooting), not just an alternate world in Manhattan we watched through the eyes of this show's ingénues: Linda Warren (former child actress Patty McCormack), April Morrison (Julie Mannix) and Kim Jordan (Katherine Glass). Patty McCormack was Oscar-nominated for her dead-right portrayal of cold-blooded pig-tailed murderess Rhoda in "The Bad Seed" in the mid-50s. But as career girl Linda on TBOE, the producers saddled the young actress with a hackneyed love triangle that went nowhere. It kept Patty's alter ego too low-key and forgettable, rather than letting Linda be written as a soap vixen variation of devious Rhoda, all grown up and taking New York and its men by storm. Married Mike Carter (Jean-Pierre Stewart) had fallen for Linda, but was obligated to his needy, bitter wife Anne (Diane Kagan), who had some rare, incurable disease and/or was wheelchair bound (yet may have been faking it to keep Mike and Linda apart). Linda was often featured in the office scenes at the Key Publishing Company with her fellow stenographers: blonde, perennially rattled April and cool, upbeat Ginnie Curtis (Gwen Mitchell), an attractive young black woman who lent a sympathetic ear to her troubled co-workers. I don't recollect her having a storyline of her own, but she always wore groovy hair pieces and miniskirts. The company's steno pool was supervised by a tense older gal, Kate Farrow (Me'l Dowd), who was often at odds with the other women - since they brought their ongoing personal baggage to the office daily, getting little work done. April was having a shameful fling with playboy Dexter Key (James Davidson), son (or was he the orphaned grandson?) of wealthy, imperious Amanda (Gale Sondergaard, movie actress who won the first Best Supporting Actress Academy Award given - she was 71 when TBOE aired). April became pregnant, but no marriage proposal from Dexter followed - just panic. I remember finding April's character a bit strident, but maybe it was just Julie Mannix's tight hair bands and overbite that distracted me. And I suspect April lost the baby after a car accident, or perhaps after a confrontation with Dexter's nasty mommy. Details are sketchy on that one - the same set-up of sorts was used in the 1959 movie "The Best Of Everything" (also based on the novel by Rona Jaffe), where in the film version, April impulsively jumped from a speeding car and subsequently miscarried her love child fathered by Dexter. Several characters lived and intersected in the same apartment building owned and managed by kindly Violet Jordan (veteran movie actress Geraldine Fitzgerald) and her husband Joshua, while their young daughter Kim was either in college or grad school. She had a crush on tenant Eddie Perrone (Victor Arnold), a doctor at the hospital with whom she shared space in a basement room, which they had converted into a small laboratory. Eddie thought Kim was a nice kid, but he had eyes for wispy April, while April was headed for hard times with callous Dexter. Dexter had a free-spirited and outspoken sister, Joanna (Bonnie Bee Buzzard), who was usually at odds with the rest of her ruthless, pretentious kinfolk. Also in the Jordan's building lived an unhappily-ever-after married couple, Barbara and Ken Lamont (Rochelle Oliver and Barry Ford) and their young son Johnny. Barbara sank into a severe depression as her rocky marriage fell apart, though neighbors in the building tried to rally her sullen spirits, with little success. Ken eventually moved out and planned to divorce Barbara and seek custody of son Johnny since Barbara could barely function with her persistent melancholia. It was here where the story gets moving: Kim moves on from her infatuation with doctor Eddie, and begins dating a guy from the wrong side of the tracks, blonde motorcycle-riding tough guy Randy Wilson (Ted LePlat, a dancer on "Where The Action Is" a few years prior). At first the easy-going Jordans are nervous for their only daughter, but Kim's warmth and optimism turns Randy around, and he opts to leave his old street gang behind. Enter the unforgettable villain Squirrel (effectively realized by Gregory Rozakis, who portrayed a similarly sinister role in the Charles Bronson film "Death Wish"), a sadistic punk who vows vengeance against the Jordan family, blaming Kim for Randy's defecting from his gang, a dangerous group of dope peddlers and thugs. Inside the Jordan's apartment building one day, Squirrel slips into the basement laboratory and plants a box of chocolates laced with LSD. Unfortunately, little Johnny Lamont stumbles upon and consumes the drugged candy, has a horrible reaction and is hospitalized, sending frazzled mother Barbara further off the deep end. Meanwhile, the police suspect Kim is responsible for making the illegal drugs and for causing Johnny's condition. Randy confronts Squirrel and vows to rat him out to the police to save Kim from blame. But then Randy dies in an accident while riding off on his motorcycle to incriminate Squirrel (or did Squirrel's thugs run him off the road, or rig the brakes on his bike?). Kim finally realizes Squirrel's true colors and crimes, but is beaten up, stabbed, and left for dead outside a deserted storefront by Squirrel and his henchmen before she can expose his reign of terror, clear her name, and avenge Randy's death. Whew! So much for living in Manhattan in 1970. Memorable show and great cast. It deserved a happier ending.

Antoinette Byron is Australian.She was on Neighbours and Home and Away also.

SOD reported that Cynthia Bostick ,who had been on FRFP,temped for Cindy Pickett as Jackie on GL,before her role as Marcia on ATWT.

Michael Corbett was Warren Carter. As far back as RH,he was putting his earnings into real estate(renovating and flipping) while other soap stars were putting theirs up their noses and partying. Smart gay boy!

He has written books on property and hosted and guested on TV on the subject.

iIonly saw Ratray as Scott.The Corringtons wrote off the couple.Whether they had no interest or Courtneyt wanted to leave and forced their hand,I don't know.

I don't remember Scott being killed.I thought that when Kathy came back they had divorced and he was in jail for drunk driving. Maybe I am imagining that? What happened to her son Doug?

Hendersonite,I looked through old cast lists to see if there was anybody else with the name Parker,but nothing came up.

The later stories were such a mish mash.

Regarding Kathy,was her family ever mentioned or brought into play? Maybe Hendersonite could help here.

Natalie Schafer,of Gilligans Island fame played Wade and Clay's mother Helen.Brett Halsey,the first John Abbott on Y&R was Clay.

Doris Ramsay was played by Gwyda Donhowe who later played Ilsa on AW.She had previously played Dr Lee Sanderson on SFT in 72.

In 1988 she was stabbed to death by her husband Norman Kean in their apartment. He then went to the roof of the building and jumped to his death.

Margaret Hamilton,best remembered from The Wizard of Oz,recounts that her role on Storm was one of her favorites

I did a whole stack of Studio One live dramas and I did all the series of the time like Phil Silvers. My best TV time was on "The Secret Storm," the afternoon CBS soaper for four years (1953-57) as the maid. My employer was Marjorie Gateson, that great old timer from my Hollywood era. We’d acted together in "Stablemates" (1938) and here we were on live afternoon TV!

Full interview here

http://thecolumnists...n/bawden64.html

Hendersonite,thank you for your responses.

The missing page is my fault as I skipped it while scanning .I will add it in.

Carl,I'm glad you are interested. Interesting to see from your article that ABC and particularly AMC went backwards from this only to rebound

.I photocopied and printed lots of stuff from Variety and other mags ,stuff I owned (and threw out!!!),from libraries and from the net years ago.

MMM was one of Lin Bolens big ideas to boost NBC.Apparently it was quite complicated with an expensive set and didn't set the ratings on fire.

A heavily hyped replacement for Blank Check, MMM premiered against a new Goodson-Todman entry, Showoffs, on ABC and The Young and The Restless on CBS. This was one of the biggest "larger than life" games developed by Heatter & Quigley, who were responsible for three games on the NBC lineup. Pinball was enjoying a renaissance in the mid-‘70s (video games, with the exception of Pong, hadn’t yet been developed), and the premiere was eagerly anticipated. Art James, fresh off Blank Check’s flop, was chosen as host.

A Wobbly Kind of Machine: What Heatter and Quigley didn’t realize, one suspects, is pinball is fun to play, but not nearly as interesting to watch. The opening game was boring, had zero to do with pinball, and took up way too much time. The machine itself was criticized in some areas as lame-looking and sounding as well (it wasn’t, really – but it wasn’t as interesting as a genuine arcade pinball machine), and watching middle-aged celebrities such as Roddy McDowall and Joan Rivers grapple with the machine looked, well, faintly ridiculous. Virtually every NBC game show host appeared on the show at one point or another (all except Geoff Edwards and Dick Enberg, as far as I can tell), as well as a bunch of other celebrities, but the ratings remained low. MMM was switched to 12:30 p.m. to allow for Wheel of Fortune’s expansion, then actually went off the air in early 1976 to make room for Kelly Lange’s brief daytime gabfest Take My Advice. It returned two weeks later, however, reappearing in the noon slot after Wheel shrank back to a half-hour.

To save their floundering brainchild, Heatter-Quigley made the decision to go with all celebrities, who played for members of the studio audience. Adding extra celebrities has never helped a show (R.I.P. Password All-Stars, Celebrity Whew!, Celebrity Bullseye, and Celebrity Hot Potato), and it didn’t here either. The ratings stayed low (even though ABC was now running the fast-fading Let’s Make a Deal in the 12 noon slot), and NBC finally pulled the plug in April 1976 in favor of Bobby Van’s game-variety hybrid The Fun Factory. Due to a technicians’ strike, however, the network reran 13 weeks worth of Magnificent Marble Machines until The Fun Factory could start taping. June 11,1976 marked the final airing of this curious failure, save for a clip shown in the 1979 film The China Syndrome.

The quads got some publicity at the time but there was no long term plan-typical of soaps at that time.

From August 75.

Execs talked about NBC's successful expansion of DOOL and AW to 60 min.NBC said that the cost of producing these shows is more than double as all contracts had to be renegotiated.CBS said that they were examining expanding some shows but only if it strengthened the half hour the show would expand to. ABC said the week of AMC 1 hr shows was horrendous to tape,taking 8-9 days to complete.

10.00 NBC Celebrity Sweepstakes 5.3 28 (moved in Jan to improve ratings in that slot and succeeded,forcing CBS to cancel Jokers Wild)

CBS Spin Off 4.4 24 (cancelled due to be replaced by Give and Take in Sept)

10.30 NBC Wheel of Fortune 6.5 33

CBS Gambit 6.3 32 (To be replaced by TPIR)

11.00 NBC High Rollers 6.8 33

CBS Tattletales 6.2 30 (to be replaced by Gambit)

11.30 NBC Hollywood Squares 8.4 26

CBS Love of Life 7.0 28 (leading in W18-49 in that timeslot)

ABC Brady Bunch 7.2 30 (put on air over Summer when Blankety Blank tanked-large number of children under 11 in those numbers-to be replaced by Happy Days,as BB goes into syndication,ABC considered stripping Mary Tyler Moore but CBS weren't interested.

12.00 CBS Y&R 8.5 33

NBC Magnificent Marble Machine 7.7 30 (ist week on air,replacing Jackpot)

ABC Show Offs 6.4 25 ( 2nd week on air,replacing Password)

12.30 ABC AMC 10.3 38 (1st week in that timeslot)

CBS SFT 9.4 35

NBC Jackpot 6.7 25 (1st week in that timeslot 90 per cent clearance, replacing Blank Check)

1.00 ABC RH 25 share after 3 weeks.Some CBS stations show 4.00 gameshow Musical Chairs and more NBC stations play Somerset,which has only 90 per cent clearance at 4.00

1.30 CBS ATWT 10.6 37

NBC DOOL 8.2 31

ABC LMAD 7.9 28

2.00 NBC DOOL 8.2 31 (1 hr average,wins this half hour)

CBS GL 8.3 29

ABC $10.00- Pyramid 7.9 28

2.30 NBC DRS 8.7 32

CBS EON 7.4 27 (way down in demos)

ABC Rhyme or Reason 31 share after 3 weeks (replacing Big Showdown)

3.00 NBC AW 9.7 31

ABC GH 8.2 26

CBS TPIR 8.9 29 (moving to 10.30 to be replaced by Match Game)

3.30 CBS Match Game 11.3 35

NBC AW 9.7 31 (1 hr average)

ABC OLTL 7.1 22

4.00 NBC Somerset 6.2 19

CBS Musical Chairs ?

ABC The Money Maze?

Amazing to think that a year or so later GH would be rocketing to the top. No other soap before or after made such a comeback.Same for AW,such a dramatic drop.

It would be so interesting to read more about GH's rise and AW's fall during that time.

Was DA Sam Hunter any relation to the earlier character of Dr Nick Hunter? Soap vet Stephen Joyce played the role.

Yes Kathy aborted Scott's child.

Len was also shot during those years by Hal Conrad,who had murdered Doug Martin and Jo too was shot. (by criminals after her latest beau Chris Delon)

I still recall being annoyed by the contrived' Brad is going blind but wants to spare Leslie story'

Robin was a hooker on the run from the mob.Tony Vincente died due to his efforts to save her and Kathy Phillips was in danger for the same reason.

ABC went after the young demo in primetime( by default to some extent),even as far back as the early 60's when they had their first hits with 77 Sunset Strip,Surfside Six and similar show. Then thru the 60's there was Bandstand,Never Too Young,Mod Squad etc.

July 73 Season to date 72-73 season

10.00 CBS Joker is Wild 5.6 29

NBC Dinah's Place 4.9 25

10.30 CBS $10,000 Pyramid 6.6 35

NBC Baffle 4.8 25

11.00 CBS Gambit 7.5 34

NBC Sale of The Century 6.9 31

CBS had recently gone to game shows rather than sitcom reruns in these time periods as the sitcoms demos were too geared towards kids.ABC affiliates were also showing kid appeal shows so they decided to go up against NBC gameshows.NBC was planning to revamp Dinah and introduce Wizard of Odds at 11.00,hoping for better demos.

11.30 NBC Hollywood Squares 10.0 40

CBS Love of Life 6.9 31

ABC Bewitched ? (to be replaced by Brady Bunch)

Love of Life was doing better in 18-34 demo than NBC.

12.00 NBC Jeopardy 9.0 32

ABC Password 7.2 26

CBS Y&R 5.2 21 (Lowest clearance on network 78per cent)

12.30 CBS SFT 8.5 30

ABC Split Second 8.4 29

NBC Who What Where Game 7.3 26

1.00 ABC AMC 8.1 28 (only 89 per cent clearance but excellent 18-49 demos)

1.30 CBS ATWT 10.6 35

ABC LMAD 9.2 30

NBC 3 on a Match 6.5 21(NBC's worst clearance 89 percent)

ABC stealing Lets Make a Deal from NBC was the breakthrough in giving them a presence in daytime.They had to agree to a nightime version and agree to buy pilots from the producers and give Monty Hall some specials to host.

2.00 NBC DOOL 9.9 32

ABC Newlywed Game 9.2 31

CBS GL 8.3 28

2.30 NBC DRS 9.2 32

CBS EON 8.0 28

ABC Dating Game 7.3 26 (soon to be replaced by Girl in My Life)

3.00 NBC AW 9.8 33

ABC GH 9.6 31

CBS TPIR 7.2 26

3.30 ABC OLTL 8.1 26

NBC PTPP 7.2 24

CBS Match Game ?

4.00 NBC Somerset 6.8 21

CBS Secret Storm 6.5 21

ABC Love American Style 6.3 19

ABC said that CBS let its soaps stagnate and Lin Bolen from NBC said CBS was back in 1958,saying that on RTPP Eliot and Connie talked about sexual issues in their bedroom whereas CBS still had people in the kitchen chatting about such things.She said CBS were still relying on 'old fashioned' controversies like rape and incest(!!) while NBC were dealing with natural childbirth,the ecology,abortion and women who were acheivment orientated-1973 issues.

There was also talk of whether 90 min daytime specials had any future.