Contessa Donatella

WOW! Thanks, dude!

1. The SON Community would have a dark or color display option. 2. Every topic would have a button to Jump to the last post. I can only come up with 2 suggestions so it must be pretty damned perfect.

Correct me if I'm wrong but this is when Claire asked to be freed because she told Wendy Riche she was totally exhausted & just bone tired, right? Have you ever heard, or did you read in the Digest GH60 Special Edition how Steve Nichols got cast as Stefan? I totally love it. MBE was already playing Katherine Bell & there was a fan event & SN went with MBE to it. And, in no time at all Wendy Riche came over & started chatting him up & she began talking about this dude Stefan. And, from that he was cast.

I thought Eden looked quite different. Like a grown up now!! Eden just seemed so close & so alert & just so there for Susan. I thought that was really great of Eden. Personally I thought it was perfection that they had Shemar present.

Uh, no highlight. The highlighted sentence is the reason why you and I will never agree on this subject. Oh, there it is! I disagree there, too. Most do. But I also disagree with .... see new bold. As if! My favorite all time soaps in order are: AW, GL, Santa Barbara.

Very good point. The list I keep has both daytime & primetime. Although as it happens it is about 85% daytime, at least. Thanks for pointing that out. I was ouching particularly over David Jacobs & now I can let that go free!

I am not sure who you refer to. In case it's me. I do not hate James Reilly. I am totally in thrall, in love with the story of Kristen & Susan Banks & her siblings. I am not cherry picking & I am certainly not lying. But, James Reilly has not yet ever been under my skin. I do not even count him as a #SoapKiller. And they are the ones who I could maybe be thought to hate, although I really don't cotton to hating. And, the only time DAYS has been #1 was 1988 for the wedding & honeymoon of Patch & Kayla. Facts, you see.

I can change my plans & begin on a eulogy any time!

GH News & Views also the Emmys but I'd rather post here than that thread! Greys Anatomy tapes next to GH. Last week Greys had to shut down because of COVID-19. Last week at GH was heavy taping with everyone. Friday morning Finola tested positive for Covid. Now everyone is pretty much waiting to see if the ax falls on them. What was wrong with Frank at the Emmys? Frank was totally exhausted from work for the past 2 weeks. They were looking for something for Kristina to wear & they found the last dress Jackie Zeman ever wore, the last thing they all saw her in. Kristina wore it Friday night. Very very special. See below. They were working with a designer on a dress for Brooke Kerr & the designer's asst screwed up & sent it to J Lo. Offered many more dresses & loved one! See below. Is Robert Gossett related to the famous Gossetts? YES. Now, about Lesley Charleson, Monica, WOW, she looked so good & sounded so strong & just like herself. I had been told she appeared both at her desk & in a wheelchair. Apparently they could cut the wheelchair scene. She is at home & being well taken care of. GH people worked very hard to get her back onscreen for us the fans & because it was the right thing to do! Congratulations to all the GH winners from Friday night & also to Mark Teschner since Casting won at the Creatives yesterday!

Be a damn sight better than having the world revolve around him!

YES! I RISE IN SUPPORT OF KRISTA ALLEN

Well, I am a 72 yr old woman who sees well with her own eyes & Lauren Koslow is quite beautiful, also natural, and talented & this is boring, while she is not. And, furthermore she is not GONE. She was just moved from contract to recurring. On DAYS that's the equivalent of the sun coming up.

I do not understand this. How could he be 'upsot about the teased coupling of Brooke with Taylor?!!! He did it. He created it. He wrote the scenes! They chose the promos. They had non-watchers watching B&B for a few weeks to see if they were really about to do a beautiful, amazing, classic lesbian love story between 2 women who chose each other instead of Ridge. They got pissed at what he had wrought?!! Are they that crazy?! And, I know this to be true because I watched B&B for those weeks to see JUST IN CASE. KKL and KA were a gorgeous couple. It would've been Dynasty meets the L Word! Thank you for that clarification.

You should be just as unhappy with Leo then as are the rest of us because they most definitely do not write him as you say you want him. I've been behind. Things have been crazy. Now I have finally finished watching last week. I am amazed, overcome, completely overtaken once again by Ari & Dan. I mean, when he went into the DiMera room downstairs & we saw Nicole sitting there with her baby the pathos was as much as I've ever experienced dramatically from one of my soaps. So right for her to have that baby. So wrong for her to be caught. If only there really were a secret room where she could hide out for 18 or so years. I cannot imagine how this is going to play out. Once again, I want to say that I am appreciating the differences in the scab writing. Kudos to Sheri Anderson & to whomever else is there with her. Bring it on! Next week better be something good!

I hope this is not duplicating. I was just able to get my copy of Ellen Holly's book out of storage yesterday, so started poking around & I went looking around for something Holly said close to the time of cancellation. Original web address doesn't exist but I found it reclaimed & reposted in a broadway location. Here is that article. Actress Ellen Holly Speaks Out Against 'One Life to Live' As viewers and television historians prepare to say good-bye to the landmark daytime soap opera One Life to Live on January 13, Ellen Holly, one of the show's original cast members, hopes to expose what she believes were duplicitous behind-the-scenes happenings of the iconic daytime drama and the show's true place in television history. Holly's new website, www.blackstarimploding.com, makes explosive allegations about the show that was hailed by television critics as the first daytime soap to cast a black actress (herself) as a central character. Behind the scenes, Holly alleges, the treatment she and some of her fellow black cast mates received from producers and from the show's creator, Agnes Nixon, was much more sinister and worthy of the outrageous story lines that color the daytime television landscape today. Holly, a former theater and television actress, was cast in the trailblazing role of Carla Benari Gray (later Carla Gray Hall Scott) on One Life to Live, playing the character from the show's beginning in 1968 until what she claims was her unceremonious dismissal in 1985. Her saga began after she penned a letter to the editor of the Arts & Leisure section of the New York Times on the plight of the light-skinned black actor in America. Agnes Nixon (then developing a new soap opera for the ABC network that would become One Life to Live) saw the piece and cast the actress as the character of Carla. The role of Carla, a black actress struggling for work and fighting against discrimination, would mark a major shift for soap operas. Against the backdrop of the turbulent and racially divisive 1960s, a story line focused on a black character not only reflected a changing American reality but was also a first for daytime TV. The media attention was immediate, and Holly and the show quickly garnered coverage in mainstream publications such as Newsweek, TV Guide and the New York Times. The actress asserts that the tale of Carla, her attempt to come to terms with her racial identity and her love triangle with two doctors-one white, the other black-enthralled viewers and helped make the fledgling soap a ratings gold mine. With a cast that featured other black actors in prominent roles, including LillIan Hayman in the role of Carla's mother, One Life to Live quickly developed a large black fan base (one that would come to comprise one quarter of the soap opera's total viewership). Hoping to echo the success of One Life to Live, ABC developed another program with Nixon, All My Children, which also featured a black story line, as did the ABC soap opera General Hospital. The black audience that was so loyal to the "Carla" story line on One Life to Live quickly expanded to the other soaps and helped make ABC the dominant player in daytime drama for the next two decades. By the fifteenth anniversary of One Life to Live, Holly and Hayman were the only stars from the original cast. Holly alleges that, even as she and LillIan Hayman were honored as such at the gala celebration for the occasion, corporate decisions were being made to terminate them so that whites could be repositioned to become the show's veteran stars. As detailed in her autobiography, ONE LIFE: The Autobiography of an African American Actress, though aware of her decreased role on the show, and of being consistently denied a salary commensurate with her white peers, Holly had expected to be as welcome on the show throughout its lifetime as were the original stars on All My Children and General Hospital. However, this was not to be. After suffering months of what she perceived as overt hostility from a producer, on the eve of her contract renewal, Holly alleges she was informed that she "was not worth keeping" and would no longer be on the show. Likewise, Holly alleges that her coworker Hayman was soon told, in the studio's parking lot, by a messenger for the show's management team, that she had just completed her last day of work for the show. "While I realize that nothing can be done now to rectify the treatment we received, as the show comes to an end I want to thank longtime fans of the show for caring about the characters Lillian and I played and to let them know we did not desert them by choice," said Holly. Though she remains grateful for the sincere support she received from the cast and crew after she was terminated, Holly is now on a mission to make it known how she believes the production team, management and series creator really treated the black talent that helped make the show a trailblazing hit and iconic part of American television history. On her website, Holly says that although Agnes Nixon continued to claim the creation of Carla Gray as one of the crowning moments of her career and singled Holly and Susan Lucci out as her most treasured stars, Holly and the character of Carla Gray were quickly relegated to the back pages of television's history books. Carla Gray became a buried footnote in the canon of One Life to Live, and Holly spent the remainder of her working life as a library clerk following her dismissal at the age of fifty-four from her role as Carla. On her website Holly also decries what she alleges was the "dirtying up" of her character by the show once she left: "Nixon herself no longer describes Carla to the press as a black actress struggling against discrimination but 'a light-skinned black woman who masqueraded as a white woman to win acceptance from the citizens of Llanview.'" She is disappointed that the sullied version has already made its way into the history books. Holly hopes that soap opera historians will research the true history of the Carla character, as the other is one she would never have agreed to play. Holly is hopeful that as viewers and critics mark the close of the show's legendary run, they will also take time to acknowledge some of the darker aspects of the show's history, and to appreciate the early African-American talents who were crucial players in the show's development. Additionally, the thespian hopes to spur dialogue about the devastating obstacles fair-skinned black actors face in being cast by Hollywood.

More than happy to issue the early warning advisory. Me, I just had no idea what was about to happen & nearly gagged.

Oh, they went on & on & on about it! They're at a table in a restaurant the next morning & just skip the whole scene. You have been warned!

Good point, Paul. The people who left in droves were dyed-in-the-wool totally wrapped up in DAYS, those fans who were described as being SO loyal & so fanatical who were positive that no other soap was even close to how great DAYS was! Like my family, where the Hortons were discussed as if they were the neighbors two streets over. What Alice had done that day or whether Julie & Doug had a secret getaway weekend planned was talked about along with, "Please pass the Bread & Butter pickles."!!! I stayed. I stuck it out. I was that unhappy, too. But so many friends left & most went to GH, some to AMC & they never looked back. Carly Buried Alive had offended them. Then, this. they were not going there with Marlena, who they did not at all like being evil.

It's important to understand that Demonic Possession 1.0 lost the show tons of fans. Of course it gained them tons of new younger fans, too, so net is a gain. They also were undisciplined & self-indulgent & ran the story an awful long period of time beyond their original plan & many people think it would have been improved if they'd stuck with their original plan. However since Demonic Possession 2.0 has come & gone, it's important to note that everyone played it straight, which was right, rather than trying be be campy. Camp comes if it's played genuine.

And WHY did they list Andrea as only Rebecca, Passions?!! No, Tina, OLTL! Geeze.

RIP Jack Axelrod died Nov. 28, 2023 of natural causes at 93. He played mob boss Victor Jerome for 3 yrs on GH. https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/jack-axelrod-general-hospital-and-greys-anatomy-actor-dies-at-93/ar-AA1lBNb7

Early on she tweeted that she had just been involved in taking the cast photo when she first heard the "news" that they weren't picking up the rest of her contract. It's offensive in the same way it was when CBS informed GL that they were canceled on April Fool's Day because that was the last day where they had to either order more episodes or issue the cancel order, like no one thought to do it on the day before!

Okay, this sounds like just adding BTS folk into the "other version" of the IM segment. https://soaphub.com/days-of-our-lives/news-days/secrets-behind-the-50th-annual-daytime-emmys-preview “One of the most difficult aspects of the production is [deciding] who gets into the telecast [In Memoriam] and who doesn’t,” Sharp somberly says. “How do you value a life? The telecast montage will be particularly heavy on those iconic names and faces of people we know. We’ll be putting extra content into the Creative Arts [ceremony] for people behind the scenes.”

Okay, this sounds like just adding BTS folk into the "other version" of the IM segment. https://soaphub.com/days-of-our-lives/news-days/secrets-behind-the-50th-annual-daytime-emmys-preview “One of the most difficult aspects of the production is [deciding] who gets into the telecast [In Memoriam] and who doesn’t,” Sharp somberly says. “How do you value a life? The telecast montage will be particularly heavy on those iconic names and faces of people we know. We’ll be putting extra content into the Creative Arts [ceremony] for people behind the scenes.”