Paul Raven

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?

I wonder what life had in store for these two after their soap stints ended. Funny how some actors kept working in soaps through the 80's and 90's and others disappeared.

Was that the end of John and Ashley? I'm blanking out on how many of the characters were written out-Brad,Jack,Darcy,Viveca.I think some of these had potential and it was damaging for them all to be dropped when the audience may have been getting interested. Variety over the years would note cast comings and goings (not everything unfortunately)Some of them were unknown to me.Maybe Carl or others might know more. 1965 March Sindee Richards (Penny Davis) March Ann Williams out (Maggie) June Jacqueline Bertell ? 1966 May Harry Packwood (Mike) August Morgen Stone (Keith) 1968 April Conrad Roberts (Dr Simon Harris) September Peter Burnell (Mike) 1969 June Jim Shannon August Mel Winkler (?) October Virginia Vestoff (Althea) Ginger Gerlach (Julie) 1970 March Frances Sternhagen (?) Robert Silvio (?) October Elizabeth Hubbard returns (Althea) 1971 May Palmer Deane (Hank) July Nancy Barrett (Kathy) 1972 July Holly Peters (Kathy) 1973 January Julia Duffy (Penny) Marie Thomas ( 1974 Michael Landrum (Mike) 1977 July Chuck Weiss becomes exec producer 1978 May Peggy Cass (Sweeny) August Carla Dragoni (MJ) 1979 May James Storm (Mike) July Doris Quinlan becomes exec producer October Ben Thomas (Jack) 1981 November Ashby Adams (Mike) Amy Ingersoll (MJ)

In later years,it seems Robin's beauty tips could be narrowed down to one sage piece of advice 'get some good work done'

July 74 Ann Marcus named headwriter.

Gillian Houghton became new headwriter in June 1969. She also was known as Gabrielle Upton.

As well as Susan and Barbara Vining,Judy worked behind the scenes on Texas as a producer.

August 1960,NBC announces that Roots will remain on air due to viewer feedback-thousands of letters were sent once word got out about the imminent cancellation.

Will try and find out about Stadd's departure. In May 1960,NBC announced that FTR would be cancelled in October to make way for repeats of the Danny Thomas show.They shelled out $7,000,000.Variety said that FTR was close to cancellation before ,but the acquiring of Thomas reruns sounded it's death knell.NBC had been experiencing success with Loretta Young reruns,so was willing to take the chance with Thomas. Anyway,that didn't happen and FTR was granted a reprieve.Thomas was put up against ATWT at 1.30

In September 1960,Pickard and Provo quit the show due to 'unwillingness to write under editorial supervision'.Guess this means that NBC wanted more say now they owned the show.That's when Stadd took over.

Jan 63 1. ATWT 12.8 2.House Party 11.2 3. Password 10.8 4. TGL 9.9 5. SFT 8.7 6. TEON 9.2 7. To Tell The Truth 8.5 8. LOL 8.2 9. SS 8.2 10. Millionaire (reruns) 8.1 CBS had every show in the Top 10.

That drop by AW from 8.6 in 77/78 to 7.5 in 78/79 saw the show drop from equal 1st to 8th place which is pretty drastic. Meanwhile GH went from a 7.0 to an 8.7 and from 8th to 2nd. That first drop was merely a taste of things to come.I think it was the 90 min format,which posters in the AW thread are all agreeing was a lot of filler,the cast changes,Lemay's departure and the resurgence of GH all combining to damage AW.