Paul Raven

Anne seems a very grounded and sweet person. I think she was miscast as Nicole. I know recasts often mean a change in character but I didn't feel any connection to the previous Nicoles. Philece Sampler would have made a better Nicole rather than Donna. Nicole should have returned a few years down the track. She was part of a core family and would have provided instant story for Cass, Donna, Felicia etc It would have been interesting seeing her trying to fit in to Bay City.Would she try and rekindle a romance with Cass? How would family and friends react? Instead AW kept bringing on new characters.

Daytime ratings week ending Oct 28th 1983 ABC 6.6 23 CBS 6.8 25 NBC 4.5 17

Anna Stuart tested for Felicia on AW, and a few weeks later was offered the recurring role of Donna. Hillary B Smith tested for Becky Lee on OLTL in 79.

That quadrangle kept the show at #1 but by 78 it was over as Judith Chapman and C David Colson left.Also,Kim/Dan/John/Susan had been resolved at this point . Is that one of the reasons the ratings dropped as there was nothing as strong to play out ? Interestingly, most resources have Judith Chapman on from 75-78 but French Fan's summaries mention Natalie in July 74.

Jay,Carol,Tom and Natalie.

The woman in the front row is Franny Brennan(Toni Darnay),the Stewart housekeeper that Ellen killed. Next to Bob are the Holmes,Ann and Bill played by Augusta Dabney and William Prince. They were parents to Amanda. To Bob's left is Fred Collins,played by George Sampson. I have no idea how that character played in the storyline ,as I have never seen mention of him.

Christmas 65 photo. In the front row are Connie Scott as Susan and Jeff Rowland as Dan. I didn't realise the Susan/Dan story had started that early with them being so young. I thought it didn't get underway until John Colenback became Dan. Also the elusive Judy English is included,Claire's niece and Ellen's cousin.She's next to Rosemary Prinz

Here's Dagne in her ATWT days. This is the first photo I've seen of her parents Martha and Carl,played by Anna Minot and Martin Rudy

Eileen Fulton with Dane Crane (Sandy Wilson Hughes) in 2006 at the 50th Anniversary celebration

A lot of well known daytime and primetime performers appeared on The Doctors when it was a daily and then weekly anthology.I'm sure a complete list would reveal some interesting names.

If they hadn't already done the whole stolen baby thing with Sabrina, it could have been revealed that Chuckie and another child were switched at birth ,either accidentally or part of some nefarious scheme. Then the new character could go by his own name rather than have to deal with what to call the returned Chuckie.

I remember Ellen talking about bringing back past characters in the final weeks 'because that's what the fans want'. If that was the case , why not bring them back before the show was cancelled??

Reading through old summaries, I discovered that shortly after arriving in GC, Victor meet Casey and was attracted to her.Of course, that went nowhere as Bill Bell was playing around with new characters and relationships. By the time Victor met Nikki, Casey had left town. I wonder if that connection was referred to by Victor when he and Nikki got involved or Victor didn't realize who Casey was eg Nikki referred to 'my sister'. Was the connection mentioned when Casey and Victor met again? Also, was Suzanne given an official good bye or was it assumed she left town after failing to win over Derek?

Friday Dec 1st 67 After receiving a call from Lisa, who sounds very sick, Bob prepares to go to her apartment and check on her. He convinces Chris not to mention anything to Nancy because it is probably nothing and Bob doesn't want Nancy worrying. Arriving at Lisa's apartment, Bob is perplexed by her serious cough and does a routine examination on her which indicates she has pneumonia. Bob says it is imperative that Lisa get to the hospital for a thorough examination but she refuses to leave the apartment. He can't understand why she refuses to go to the hospital, but the reason becomes clear when Lisa tells him she is pregnant. Meanwhile, Chris and Pa talk about the mystery behind Sandy's disappearance and whether she will show up for the holiday season. Bob is shocked by Lisa's news and can't understand why she would let herself become pregnant again. Bob arranges for Lisa to have a private room at the hospital and she reluctantly agrees. Monday Nov 1st 1965 The Cassens and the Hughes learn that Ellen has agreed to marry David. When Ellen tells Claire, Doug, and Judge Lowell about her engagement, they are shocked because they had been certain that she would marry Donald. Doug even confronts David, accusing him of taking advantage of Ellen's love for her son, Dan. The Hughes also had been certain that Donald would marry Ellen, until he shared the news of the broken engagement at Grandpa Hughes's birthday celebration. Ultimately, Ellen and David are the only ones who seem pleased with the turn of events. Friday Oct 7th 1966 Claire Cassen lies wideawake in the middle of the night waiting for her husband, Dr. Doug Cassen, to arrive home from a house call to Mrs. Rogers. When Doug returns home, he's very distraught because his patient has suddenly died of heart failure. The next day, Ted Rogers visits Doug's office to find out exactly what happened to his wife. Doug doesn't know what to tell Ted, and the grieving husband demands that an autopsy be done. Doug then reveals some past medical information about Mrs. Rogers which shocks Ted. In a rage, Ted pushes Doug away and the doctor trips over a chair and hits his head on the floor.

Irna Phillip's return to ATWT. A lot has been written about Irna's last stint on the show, which saw her fired from her own creation. My impression from what is written is that she came in and made drastic changes that immediately alienated viewers. However, looking more closely , it seems that at first her changes were not that startling and may have returned the show to it's former quality. Irna returned in January 1972 and left in mid 73 so was there for quite a period of time.The controversial deaths of Liz and Paul Stewart didn't happen for almost a year after her return. Here's what I can gather from research Gillian Spencer was brought in to replace Geraldine Court as Jennifer in March 72 Recasting of Liz Stewart. Barbara Ryan character dropped and Carol Demming returned(April 72). Tom and Carol married in July 72. Don and Lisa's romance and her phantom pregnancy.Don's departure Introduction of Wally Matthews and Peter Burton (father and son) October 72 Wally was a love interest for Lisa. Bob and Jennifer's marriage and arrival of Kim (Oct 72) Dan and Liz's marriage and her subsequent death (Feb 73) Introduction of Bruce Baxter and his marriage to Susan (late 72) Death of Paul Stewart (Nov 1972) Arrival of Amy Hughes (April 73) Writing off Dan and Susan Stewart as well as Betsy and Emmy.March 73 Departure of Bruce Baxter March 73 If there are any mistakes or more information to be added that would be much appreciated.

Delphi Harrington played Sally Mitchell in the late 70's. As previously noted Mary Mitchell was around in the early 60's.

Just guessing but I think it was Gillian's choice to leave, based on the fact that on OLTL, she quit as Viki and did the same later on AMC. I recall some mag articles where she intimated that she didn't want long running soap gigs.

Edge was on at 4.30 from its debut in April 1956 until June of 1963 when it moved to 3.30.

Television Magazine August 1967 Tom Donnelly, writing in the Washington Daily News of a news conference with Macdonald Carey,who plays Dr Tom Horton on an afternoon soap opera for NBC "Days of Our Life" quotes him as saying: "For a time we tried attacking social problems on our show. We talked about cancer and abortions and were going to do something on water pollution. But those things just didn't grab our audience. Anyway, in doing research we found that a great source of water pollution is detergents and that is why we decided to forget about water pollution"

Television Magazine reported in August 1960 that Edge of Night was daytime's #1 program, airing 4.30 -5.00. This was the last time that ATWT was not #1 on a weekly basis until 1971 when DOOL took the crown..

Pamela King was the original Lisa recast. Eileen mentions that Don was dating Jennifer.I have never heard of that before.Was it a major thing or just a few dates? She also states that Bob had never remarried when in fact he had married Sandy. Maybe she meant he wasn't married at that time. I'm surprised that Bob and Lisa never got back together, even briefly in all those years. It could have been an interesting story.

I have read that ABC lured Denise to GH quickly and that the Dobsons were forced to come up with a character and story on the fly and that Leslie wasn't a very interesting character at first.

I guess that those two characters were already cast and written for by that April and they weren't too bothered about tying up all loose ends.

Marcus was going to be the love interest for Melissa Anderson. I wish someone (Carl??) could locate the Afternoon TV story which dealt with Pat Falken Smith's plans for the show.

Was it Brian Frons? We need to get a list of the various daytime heads over the years and see what influence they had on the shows. Re Doug and Julie. While it was nice to see them play comedy the storylines went nowhere and a little of it went a long way.SSH is soap opera and needed better material. The Hayes said that NBC told them research showed that Days core fans would stick with the show no matter what so to attract new fans it was felt that new (younger) characters were the key. They were happy to keep the vets around either on recurring or contracts that offered them fewer appearances and limited story. I noticed that when Pat Falken Smith left DePriest and Anderson didn't follow through on the stories she had launched. Marcus Brady and Vanessa Di Mera never arrived nor did Bill Horton return. Stefano was not interested in Julie etc Val was quickly written off I wonder whether this was intentional and TPTB did not want to face another lawsuit from PFS about using her characters and story projections What we got from DePriest/Anderson didn't follow through on PFS set up.