Paul Raven

Shari's brother Dwayne works in production and is involved with Mad Men.When I saw the name on the credits,I wondered if there was aconnection.Now seeing this had me check it out. Thanks Carl.

How interesting. I wonder how listeners at the time reacted to being able to put a face to the voices they heard daily. Did that story of Connie play out on air or did it happen off-air ? Was Connie written out ,then returned after all this occurred? Maybe not,as radio could have stories happening all over the place.TV writers must have felt very limited by having to have their stories play out on a few sets.

Great article,thank you. Did they continue to use location shots? I remmeber Texas and Capitol both promising to use lots of location footage but that hardly happened. Do posters think the focus was too narrow? I applaud their attempts but have read that the first few months at least had precious little story but a lot of pseudo-psychiatric dialogue.

In March 1980,Variety reported that Y&R was casting a new Snapper. I recall some contract issues with David Haselhoff around this time.Obviously they were resolved and he continued for a few more years. Search is being con ducted for this CBS soaper by Mike Hanks for role of Snapper Foster, 26-28, 6'2-3", all-Ameri can type, Clint Eastwood proto-type, personable, charismatic, continuing role.

November 68 - Lou Scofield joins John Hess as headwriter.

Interesting that they state RTPP was increasing in the ratings.i wonder how much truth there was to that? Maybe Lin Bolen was determined to get her own soap creation on air and RTPP,being the weakest of the NBC soaps, was most vulnerable despite better ratings.

The number of deaths,marriages and divorces shows how soap writing changed in the 80's and 90's.With people dying all the time and marrying/divorcing so often,those events,so central to soaps lost their currency. Of course,there were now more characters,but still... Compare to these years 1956 1957 Deaths: Jim Lowell Marriage(s): Janice Turner to Carl Whipple 1958 Birth(s): Jimmy Lowell (later Dan Stewart) Deaths: Al James, ATWT's first murder victim Marriage(s): Penny Hughes to Jeff Baker (annulled) Claire Lowell to Dr. Douglas Cassen. 1959 Marriage(s): Penny Hughes to Jeff Baker-Christmas. 1960 Marriage(s): Lisa Miller to Bob Hughes-Week of August 22-26--The two eloped in Gary, Indiana. Edith Hughes to Dr. George Frye Ellen Lowell to Dr. Tim Cole Divorces: Louise and Tim Cole Death(s): Dr. Tim Cole 1961 Birth(s): Thomas Christopher (Tom) Hughes 1962 Marriage(s): Janice Turner Whipple to Donald Hughes. Deaths: Carl Whipple Betty Stewart, leukemia Mr. Rice. Edna Rice and her grown offspring filed a malpractice suit against Dr. Doug Cassen over Mr. Rice's death. Jeff Baker, auto accident-Aug. 23. 1963 Marriages Penny Hughes Baker to Neil Wade Divorces Lisa and Bob Hughes 1964 Death(s): Helene Suker, kidney ailment. 1965 Death(s): Henry Miller Janice Hughes Marriage(s): Lisa Hughes to John Eldridge Judith Wade to Dr. Jerry Stevens 1966 Birth(s): Jimmy McGuire, who was born in prison. Death(s): Franny Brennan, bludgeoning. Marriages: Ellen Lowell to David Stewart-June 3. Sandy Wilson McGuire to Bob Hughes Sylvia Hill to Al Suker Divorce(s): Martha and Al Suker 1967 Marriages: Claire Cassen to Michael Shea--Aug. Penny Hughes Wade to Roy McGuire (annulled) Susan Burke to Dan Stewart Births: Carol Ann (Annie) Stewart Charles (Chuck) Shea Deaths: Neil Wade, embolism Doug Cassen, head injury Joan Rogers Sara Fuller, injuries from fall down stairs-circa April Bill Holmes Divorce Lisa and John Eldridge 1968 Death [*]Mother Steiner Divorces [*]Sandy and Bob Hughes [*]Claire and Michael Shea 1969 Births: [*]Dawn (Dee) Stewart Marriages: [*]Elizabeth Talbot to Paul Stewart [*]Lisa Eldridge to Michael Shea Divorces: 1970 Births: [*]Betsy Stewart Deaths: [*]Dr. Michael Shea, murdered 1971 Deaths: [*]Claire Shea [*]Chuck Ryan [*]Miss Peterson 1972 Marriages: [*]Carol Demming to Tom Hughes-July 26 [*]Jennifer Sullivan Ryan to Bob Hughes [*]Susan Stewart to Bruce Baxter Divorces: [*]Elizabeth and Paul Stewart [*]Dan and Susan Stewart Deaths: [*]Paul Stewart--November [*]Maria Marino, following gall bladder surgery--November Births: [*]Emily Stewart 1973 Births: [*]Frances Jennifer (Frannie) Hughes-Christmas Deaths: [*]Elizabeth Talbot Stewart, from internal injuries suffered in a fall on the stairs--February Marriages: [*]Elizabeth Talbot Stewart to Dan Stewart [*]Kim Sullivan Reynolds to John Dixon [*]Marian Graham to Peter Burton Divorces: [*]Susan Stewart and Bruce Baxter (annulment)--March 1974 Divorces: [*]Grant and Joyce Colman Deaths: [*]Gil Stallings, hit by truck--March 1975 Marriages: [*]Natalie Bannon to Tom Hughes. [*]Will (Grandpa) Hughes to Irma Kopecki [*]Sandy Wilson to Norman Garrison [*]Carol Hughes to Jay Stallings [*]Lisa Shea to Grant Colman Divorces: [*]Tom and Carol Hughes--April Deaths: [*]Jennifer Hughes, auto accident-October [*]Norman Garrison, heart attack-Dec. 10 1976 Deaths: [*]Will (Grandpa) Hughes-June [*]Brian Ellison, farming accident--April. Divorce: [*]Kim and John Dixon Birth: [*]Andrew (Andy) Dixon-Week of Oct. 25-29.

1958 Harry Junkin was headwriter,John Taylor script editor.

Was there an onscreen explanation of why the Cory 'mansion' was completely different from about 88 onwards?

September 69 Ann Marcus takes over as headwriter.

Found the quote WE LOVE SOAPS TV: Did you keep in touch with anyone from DAYS after you left? Wesley Eure: It was an odd time. Patty Weaver, who was on DAYS OF OUR LIVES [as Trish], used to hang out with me and my friends and had a lot of gay friends, then she moved over to her show [THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS] and married an older man who was a writer, Bill Bell's good friend, and suddenly she cut all the gay men out of her life. [she] actually told us she was cutting us out of her life because she was not allowed to have that lifestyle anymore. I lost my friend Patty Weaver. She literally made her bed. Homophobia effects us in a lot of different ways, professionally and personally. Certain things are different but they are nowhere closed to being resolved.

Patty was great on the show,as she said she believed in what the character was doing and that worked onscreen. When MAB first came on,I think we saw Gina a couple of times.I think Patty had health problems. I remember the Wesley Eure interview where he said his friendship with Patty was curtailed once she hooked up with Jerry Birn.Seems he was very conservative and didn't like Patty hanging out with the gays.

Ted Doniger was one of the directors on PP.He also worked on many primetime shows throughout the 50's,60's and 70's.The above shots illustrate his mastery. . Here is an extract from an article dealing with his time on the show. Then came Peyton Place, the 1964 megahit prime-time serial. Doniger directed the series’ second pilot, after an initial hour (directed with Irvin Kershner, and with some significant differences in the cast) was rejected by ABC. The series ran twice a week, and Doniger split the directing duties with a far less flashy director named Ted Post. In his episodes, Doniger crafted a consistent aesthetic based around deep-focus compositions and lengthy dolly shots. This technique required the actors and camera crew, accustomed to the bite-sized, shot-reverse shot approach that was common in television, to master longer sections of script at a time and to hit their marks with absolute precision. Doniger drove everyone crazy on Peyton Place. Producer Everett Chambers briefly fired him after an on-set blow-up between Doniger and actress Gena Rowlands, and Chambers’s predecessor, Richard DeRoy, sniffed that Doniger “would give me fourteen pages of notes on a half-hour script and I’d . . . put it in my drawer and forget it.” But Doniger knew that he had a protector in executive producer Paul Monash, and he used that impunity to get away with some of the most daring shots ever executed on television. “I could try anything because I knew they wouldn’t fire me,” Doniger told me in a 2004 interview. In one episode, for instance, Doniger staged a three-and-a-half-minute party scene, with dialogue divided among almost the entire principal cast, in an unbroken shot that had the camera circling through the Peyton mansion set several times. In another, Doniger placed the camera in a fixed position on a crane overlooking the town square. After the crane had descended, the operator removed the camera from its mount, stepped off the crane, and followed an actor onto a bus that drove off the backlot. (Doniger’s cinematographer on Peyton Place, Robert B. Hauser, was also a genius, who had helped to establish the newsreel-influenced, handheld-camera aesthetic of Combat.) In a show that maintained a dangerously disproportionate talk-to-action ratio, Doniger’s imagery created a formal density, a cinematic quality, that distinguished Peyton Place from the corps of superficially similar daytime soap operas. Taken as a whole, Doniger’s episodes of Peyton Place comprise a suite of some of the most elegant compositions and camera movements ever executed on television. Below I have assembled a small gallery of “Doniger shots” – a term that he used proudly in our interview, although I can’t remember whether it was Walter or I who introduced it – but of course they can illustrate only Doniger’s eye for framing and lighting. To see his camera in motion, you’ll have to track down the thing itself. (Only the first sixty episodes of Peyton Place, one of the four or five great masterpieces of sixties television, have been released on video; tragically, Shout Factory appears to have abandoned the series due to poor sales.)

Reading over Beverlee's interview in LIAMST thread,she mentions playing an analyst on LOL and that she was totally unsuited for the role.

June 68 Variety reported that Joe Hardy and Don Ettlinger were now on the show as producer and writer and that CBS was planning a promotional push as big as the launch promo.The new team planned to introduce a dozen new characters, including the Garrison family, in a topical storyline. It said that Ettlinger and Hardy had taken Love of Life to #2 in 1963.

Turner said that she would get scripts which had Nola speaking 'slangy' one day and eloquently the next.

Skimming thru Kathleen turner's book.She briefly mentions TD.She says that the character initially made no sense to her as each script seemed to portray a different character.She says the only way to make sense of it was to have Nola be a drunk.She took the suggestion to the producers and they went with it. When the producer (Chuck Weiss?) departed Turner saw it as her chance to leave 18 months into a 2 year contract.The producers said no and they would take her to court.Turner responded that it would mean the character would be in limbo while things were resolved and she had made Nola popular.They relented and she got out. She states that soap acting could be dangerous as you have to go with your first acting choice rather than dig deeper.However,she said it was good training for TV.

Martha Greenhouse replaced Sasha Von Scherler on LIAMST in Feb 71.

Laraine Day,40's actress was reported as up for a role in Peyton Place (perhaps Ruth Warrick's part as Hannah Cord)

Dec 65 Melissa Murphy replaces Patricia Harty as Patti Tate.Harty got a pilot in Hollywood,probably Occasional Wife which debuted Sept 66 Gretchen Walther was probably a fill in between Harty and Murphy. April 67 Trish Vandervere takes on the role.

1964 Ossie Davis appeared in 6 episodes. Would he have been the first black performer on the show?

In a 1964 Variety article ,writer Jack Paritz recalls being brought on to Love of Life after another writer,caught up in a backstage feud,wrote the soap into a corner and Paritz had 'four weeks of impossible work' to get the show back on track.

Variety reports that the October 24 and 25th 1961 episodes of TBD will feature 4 blind actors,employed as part of a storyline dealing with a woman who shied away from marriage due to her need to devote herself to her blind mother. The idea to use real life blind actors came from a fan letter in which the writer stated she had seen a blind performer on a local show.and wondered if the show could use them. Does anyone know what character that was?

Cynthia was the estranged wife of Dr Doug Campbell.Doug and Cynthia were introduced by Ellis/Hunt in 78/79..Wasn't Doug a love interest for Annie?