Paul Raven

Bill Bell was official headwriter on Days until May 75. After that he was listed as story consultant and Pat Falken Smith became headwriter, Even when Ann Marcus became headwriter Bell was still listed as consultant until April 78.

How that all worked in practice is another story.

Interesting story on the writing process circa 81

Cheryl Tiegs guest starred in the midst of the Erica/Silver story

In 1977,Julie became involved with the Duvalls ,Karl and Sharon (Sally Stark and Alejandro Rey) that led to the short lived lesbian story where Sharon professed her love for Julie. The whole thing was quickly dropped.

Julian Funt and David Lesan preceded the Ferro's.Funt and Lesan had replaced Agnes Nixon.Agnes left in late 65/early 66 when she took over AW.Did she write both shows concurrently for a while?

GL went through a ton of writers in the mid to late 60's.I wonder why there was such instability?It also expanded to 30 min and moved timeslots for the first time after 16 years,which may have affected the ratings.

Re Velekka/Lyla.

Was it Velekka who stated in an interview that there was a clash with Don Hastings and he wanted his wife Leslie for the part?

This was early in the Dobson's run,where they were wrapping up old stories Doug/Marcia,Ian and Dee and moving into their own-burning down the bookstore,intro of Nick,return of Joyce etc

Do we know who played Claudia and Raymond?

Just did some checking and found that Tom Everett and Mary McDonnell played Raymond and Claudia Colfax.Both have long resumes and are still working today.

SOD synopsis Sept 1980

Yes,Lois was on Edge before Somerset.Somewhere the wires got crossed.I agree re Timmy.Just have him away at school or camp then recast.It's not like that had never been done before.

With such a high turnover of characters,i wonder why they didn't make better use of history and bring back former characters or their children eg Judy Marceau,Cookie Pollack etc

They did that with Jody and Kelly.

SOD synopsis from Sept 80.The Dobsons were now in full swing.

Sorry for the multiple posts but I'm doing my best!!! (trying to get my luddite head around scanning etc)

I can understand that Days needed to 'modernize' and the ratings were way down.They had Hope,Melissa,Jennifer etc to take over and relate to Tom and Alice but the original children were pretty much ignored.

Had they brought them in at Xmas,or for short term stints it would have kept them alive in viewers minds.

Of course,it was the Hayes decision to leave and I think Lanna Saunders was already affected by MS when she went,so some things out of their control,to some extent.

But so many were forgotten.And aging Scotty was a mistake.maybe David should have returned when Julie did in 1990.

Alice gets news that Jessica has had a child etc

More guest spots and news of missing family members should have been a priority.

Don stayed around till 85.He was still in the forefront through the Don/Marlena break up,his marriage to Liz and new involvement with Gwen etc.Once Pat Falken Smith was gone and her story projections were worked through,Don became a glorified extra.

I believe Jed Allan was offered recurring,but declined.There was an article in Afternoon Tv,I believe that dealt with all the vets leaving.A Days spokesperson painted recurring as a fabulous thing for an actor as they would still be used but have the freedom to pursue other projects.

I'm surprised that Donna/Tracey Bregman was dropped in the 'bloodbath'.Here was a young character who could have provided story for Don and Marlena and was the kind of character that could be good/bad ,thus providing a lot of conflict. And as Bregman showed on Y&R,she had staying power.

Looking at 1979,almost every member of the Hortons was onscreen at the time.Then the decimation began,Between 80 and 85,they all went.By that time,only Tom,Alice,Mickey,Melissa and Hope remained.

That definitely changed the theme of the show,along with the swiych to supercouples and adventure.

It was deliberate and in a way understandable as the original children were in their 40's and SORASING meant that David and Mike were already veteran characters,

I think the show should have been a little more kind to the Hortons.Sandy was a character with potential but her introduction was half hearted.If Tom Jr had have been around to usher her in,maybe the character would have been more successful.

Steve was another one,but Schnetzer was miscast.

I still think that the stories given to David in the 70's could have gone to Steven,with Guthrie in the role.Julie could have functioned as worried big sis rather than mother,leavind David younger.

Sandy could have been Marlena and one of the biggest characters/stars of the show would have been part of the core family.

That's interesting.I had read that Lakin came on in 66,but earlier someone (maybe you Carl) that Orin Torov was still writing at that time.I know Lakin introduced Nick and possibly Steve and ratings took off.Unfortunately,she never wrote another daytime show.

Rhonda Lewin has been totally forgotten as Vicky. She was on for 4 months Sept - Dec 86.

By the end of 86,only Rachel.Ada,Nancy,Mac,Felicia,Wally and MJ survived from the year before.,Catlin,Brittany,Quinn,Peter,Maisie were all about to be dropped.The rest of the cast (mostly newbies) had come on in 86.Not really a formula for stability.

An article about Marley/Vicky.

An actress puts her reputation on the line when she signs on to play twins Vicky and Marley on ANOTHER WORLD. Not only does the dual role demand a high level of technical expertise and the ability to make swift emotional transitions, it also can make or break an actress's career. The first two actresses to play Vicky and Marley, Ellen Wheeler and Anne Heche, made their names playing the twins: They both won an Emmy for their popular and critically acclaimed performances. Both performers attest to the toll that playing Vicky and Marley took on their lives. In the seven years since the characters appeared together, Vicky/Marley has become the most concentrated dual role on daytime — and arguably the most difficult role to play.

Former AW writer Gary Tomlin, who created the role with Gillian Spencer, says Ellen Wheeler was already playing the more sympathetic Marley when the dual role was conceived in 1985. Tomlin says NBC was opposed to developing a twin story on the show. "There were so many twin stories at the time, it scared them off," Tomlin, who is now writing for SANTA BARBARA, notes. We defended the character, and they came around."

Ellen Wheeler reveals that the impetus for Vicky came from an observation Gillian Spencer made when she caught Wheeler unawares on the set. "She told me that something in the look of my eye made her think that they weren't tapping something inside of me," Wheeler says. Up until that time, Wheeler's colleagues at the studio generally regarded her as an innocent girl I'm Utah whose ears were too pure for ribald backstage banter. "I was really this nice sweet girl," Wheeler remembers. "People would apologize if they swore or told dirty jokes in front of me." That all changed the afternoon she made her entrance as Vicky — in a tank top, tight jeans and cowboy boots. "All of a sudden, it wasn't a big deal to swear in front of me. Men said things to me in the afternoon [when she taped Vicky's scenes] that they wouldn't have said in the morning [when she taped Marley's scenes]. It was a greatt study in human nature."

It was also the beginning of a two-year period when Wheeler would work harder than she ever had in her life, marry her leading man, Tom Epiin (Jake), and bring ANOTHER WORLD much notoriety. Wheeler's basic working schedule for one year consisted of sixteen to eighteen-hour days, four days a week. On weekends, Wheeler and Epiin made public appearances. While she loved the creative challenge of performing both roles (especially when Vicky pretended to be an ill Marley), Wheeler confesses that the media storm took her by surprise. "I didn't realize how much attention I was getting," she says. "Things like getting the Emmy never really crossed my mind. It took me a long time to realize that I was actually on TV."

The implications of fame did come crashing in when Wheeler won the Emmy for Outstanding Ingenue in 1986. Wheeler was unprepared for what she calls the "folderol" that came with it. "It took a few months for it to sink in that I won. I was a newlywed; it was all pretty overwhelming."

Eventually the role took its toll on the star, in more ways than one. Sixty pages out of a ninety-page script contained dialogue for Vicky or Marley, and Wheeler went to the writers to ask for a break. "I loved what I did so much that it didn't dawn on me that I would wear out," she says. "Had I been smarter, I would have said something. By the time I realized I was exhausted, I couldn't handle it and needed a rest." A three-week leave of absence didn't help; Wheeler and Epiin filmed a pilot. The couple was overbooked — they spent their first Christmas together doing interviews — and Wheeler finally left the role in 1986. Though she says on-the-job stress was not a factor, Wheeler's marriage to Epiin broke up soon after. She went into self-imposed exile and did not return to TV until she accepted another Emmy-winning role on ALL MY CHILDREN as AIDS-afflicted Cindy.

Aside from her professional accomplishments as Vicky and Marley, Wheeler established an important precedent for other actors playing dual roles on daytime: better pay. A union spokesperson reveals that, with the rise of dual roles on soaps in the 1980s, the American Federation of Television and Recording Artists had to enforce what they call a doubling provision that guarantees a performer another program fee when he or she appears as two characters in one episode.

Wheeler's mastery of the split-screen technique also enabled AW to push the characters into the forefront of the story. "We would tape one side of the scene and whatever space I had left for the lines I had to fill exactly, to the second," she says. "I loved doing them. It's great fun to overlap [the characters' dialogue].

Wheeler's successor in the role, Anne Heche, also excelled at her use of the split screen. And she shared an unusual, almost telepathic, relationship with her double, Debbon Ayer. "Our minds were so tuned into the way the other was thinking," says Heche. "We knew all the technical things so well." Ayer was Heche's double for a year and a half. "That was just a blessing," Heche says. "That was the key to doing it because you can't act by yourself."

Heche played the twins longer than anybody else, 1987-1991, and reveals that, in the beginning, "It took a long time for everyone to get used to me — the cast and the audience. I never had a problem thinking people hated me; you're fed to an audience every day. Eventually they got used to me, but it took two years." The most intense period of her tenure as the twins began in 1989, when the writers sent Marley away for six months and she had time to work on the twins as two complete, separate characters, which allowed for the reintroduction of, Heche says, "a new Marley, not the buttoned-up-to-the-top woman. The new Marley was a complete person, not just the opposite of Vicky."

Heche's hard work paid off with a 1991 Emmy for Outstanding Juvenile Actress. Heche had already left the show and heard herself named the winner in a hotel room in Lincoln, Nebraska, while she was working on the TV movie version of Willa Gather's 0, Pioneers!"I was shocked. It was very nice," Heche says. "I was alone in my room, but then all the people from 0, Pioneers! came knocking on the door and had a party for me in a little hick bar."

The vacancy left by Heche was keenly felt by AW producers and Head Writer Donna Swajeski. "Anne Heche was the show, and that was dangerous," says Swajeski. "What taught us a lesson was when we were faced with losing her. We knew we were going to take a hit in the ratings." Recasting the roles proved controversial, as Ellen Wheeler auditioned for the part and did not get it. Wheeler's past with Epiin might have directly affected the decision not to recast. "Ellen is so identified with Tom Epiin, and we're building a romance with Jamie (Russell Todd)," Donna Swajeski said in the October 15, 1991, issue of SOD. Swajeski was grooming Jensen Buchanan (ex-Sarah, OLTL) to be her new Vicky/Marley. "The glamour [we had with Heche] also befits Jensen," says Swajeski. "We keep her visually exciting and made her a lot more volatile."

To avoid any more actor burn-out, the writer says that AW has cut back on the amount of air time the characters receive. "We can only write Jensen a few times a week, three days. We've reduced the amount of scenes Vicky and Marley have together. We're at a point in our budget where we've been told to pull back.

TWINS' PEAKS

The dual role is a patented path to the Daytime Emmy Award. The winners were:

•Erika Slezak, 1984, 1986 Best Actress, Viki/Niki.OLTL

•David Canary, 1986,1988,1989 Best Actor, Adam/Stuart, AMC

•Ellen Wheeler, 1986 Outstanding Ingenue, Vicky/Marley, AW

•Julianne Moore, 1988 Outstanding Supporting Actress, Frannie/Sabrina, ATWT

•Anne Heche, 1991 Outstanding Juvenile Female, Vicky/Marley, AW

•Nominated in 1987 as Outstanding Guest Performer was Celeste Holm for Clara/Lydia Woodhouse on LOVING

The recession may be a blessing in disguise for Jensen Buchanan. She attests to the difficulty of trying to live up to the legacy left by Wheeler and Heche. "The hardest thing was to follow someone [Heche] who was so loved and play this kind of ballsy smarty-pants," Buchanan says. "It's hard to come in to a new group and put on that persona. Part of the reason that I took the roles is that I saw them as a really challenging way of becoming a better actress."

When she arrived at AW's Brooklyn studio, Buchanan says everyone told her that "Vicky's the fun one, Marley's boring," and since then she's "struggled" to make Marley more colorful. Criticism for her interpretation of Vicky initially upset her. "Nobody thought I could do it. I had some really long nights dealing with that," she admits. "Now I feel pretty comfortable out here at the studio. It's not nearly as difficult." Swajeski agrees that Buchanan has gracefully "delineated" the two characters. "She was always the Marley type. Now we put a lot of the heart into Vicky."

Speaking from her dressing room on a day when she is playing both sisters, Buchanan reveals that her double is pregnant and unavailable. She's looking forward to a twelve to thirteen-hour day, the kind that makes her "sense of humor deteriorate to zero. I'm changing hair, clothes, makeup, lines, mentality and blocking." To combat the stress these roles generate, Buchanan has moved with her husband, Gray O'Brien, to Brooklyn, where AW tapes. Tomorrow she's going on vacation. Does she get more vacation time because she plays two roles? "No," Buchanan blurts out, "but that will be a big renegotiation point!"

The continuing appeal of this good twin/ bad twin combo is clear — for the audience and performer. "It has a lot to do with women seeing the good and bad sides of themselves," says Gary Tomlin. "It's a role an actress can hide behind and go to extremes," says Donna Swajeski. "They can put on masks and stretch themselves as performers."

Since Vicky and Marley are so arduous to play, has ANOTHER WORLD ever considered hiring two actresses to play each of the sisters? Swajeski said it would certainly make life easier with the scheduling of vacations, but she said the show would only contemplate such a plan if "it proves to be that hard on Jensen. Then we would consider it."

Ellen Wheeler doesn't think that would ever work. "I know it's very hard and costly," she says. "But the rewards far outweigh the costs. I think the audience really loves watching one person pull off the personalities. It might actually be harder to find two people than to have one who is performing two sides of one person. I'm not sure two people could have that connection." Unless, of course, they were twins.

One of the problems with Jamie was the SORASing,with Bekins being 25 in 79,when Jamie should have been about 10.Then as the years go by,Jamie can't age too much as Rachel will start to look too old,so the character gets stuck in limbo.Recasting with Yates, Lau and Todd didn't help as Jamie lost the edge that Bekins brought to the role.

Also,after 10 years the character had been married 3 times,so story possibilities were more limited (particularly with soap writers obsession with marriage.)

Lau seemed like a totally different character.Making Jamie a doctor was another change for the character.Having him work at Cory Publishing would be more true to the character.Was it ever mentioned that he had written a novel etc when Lau came on as a doctor? - after about a year offscreen.

Interesting point Eric.When Bell went to Days he re-invented it with heavy melodrama and psychologically based storytelling.As you say,the very things AW needed.

The ratings for that TV movie were poor,so NBC wouldn't have been encouraged to proceed.

Miss Crawford sounds a little soused (or is that just the influence of having seen Mommie Dearest).

The whole thing must have been completely surreal.The video would be priceless!!

Even back in 75,affiliates were playing around with Edge's timeslot