Contessa Donatella

DAYS 58 yrs & counting AW 35 yrs. DOC 19 yrs SB 9 yrs PSSN 8 yrs Yes, literally true that it is 5th of 5 in this list. I don't see any point to it besides making a list. OH! Wimbledon, of course. Not the Olympics. My point remains the same. I'm sure she wanted to debut the new soap the Monday after the break, is all. Funny. 😧🤬🤣

Personally I think that Susan D. Lee was thinking about the timing of what would be on the Monday after the Olympic break when she moved up the date to announce plans for AW & for BEACH. And I don't see anyone being unreal.

I'm very distressed by the lack of Hortons. I'm similarly distressed at what I can only imagine they are paying Steve Burton. I wish Alarr had never hired him. I love TB but I would rather not have her than have this storyline that I put in spoiler turf.

That's just fantastic! On a DAYS question, wasn't Friday's episode the longest we've ever had? 52 minutes?

Is there a story to go with the discovery?!! I admit I am fascinated with your process. Finding 6 previously missing weeks from 44 years in the past is so freaking amazing!

Seriously, do we really need Ava back? The show already has enough "super villains" as it is. I have a feeling that this will turn out to be Al Alarr's last creative decision. Spoiler It was his idea to bring TB back to romantically pair with Steve Burton. Crazy! Stupid? She was Carly to his Jason 18 freaking years ago!

Great tip! Thanks!

Yeah, that was such an interesting call that I believe Susan D. Lee made with it being the lower rated soap of the two. I heard that she made a deal with Spelling for them to do that last 6 months cheaper than their regular license fee & of course the fact that NBC half-owned would have been a deciding factor no doubt.

Not sure about Texas but Jon-Michael Reed announced mid October that The Doctors cast had been given notice and the show would likely go off air in December. Schemering, 80: 12-31-82 last broadcast Schemering, 225: 12-31-82 last broadcast Nothing make up for biggest problem - poor time slots ... Ran third in the afternoon, so tried it in morning & only 84% of the affiliates took it at new time, before noon. (We know that to be the kiss of death.) Wyatt , 427 but no date of decision

https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/poll-support-wga-sag-aftra-1235699337/ 67% in favor of

Oh, good one. I decided to return here & bed more clear. The daily scriptwriter for last Friday was one of the new writers, Sonja Alarr, Al's wife & it seems like an odd assignment because so much was history. I would've given it to either Culliton or to David Kreizman. And we should remember that what the day is about is not determined in any way by the scriptwriter. And more about the day. DAYS Friday was the longest episode ever: 52 minutes long! Jason47 said, "I subtracted the Suzanne Rogers tribute at the end, which wasn't technically part of the episode, but even with that, at 49:57, yes it is the longest episode." So, what did anyone notice about the day? It reminded me so much of what I would call "old timey" soaps because all it was, was people talking to each other except for flashbacks!! Loved it, great episode. I did really miss Alice Horton! She & Maggie were so close for so many years. Of course it was great that we had none of the foolishness with Stephanie & her two Dweebs or with Gwen & the Cheating Hearts.

The last they had was Jan Spears & Christian & that extra baby. It was hideous.

Now I find it impossible. Just have to guess wildly or follow certain usernames. Unless, ... do you have a method?

I've been working to try to correct the inaccurate info that Bev McKinsey was the first to get star billing on a US soap. I published this blog today. It sets out in chronological order the known instances of star billing, describes them & provides a YouTube link. http://shallotpeelblog.org/2023/08/19/blog-249-v-2-star-billing-in-us-soap-operas/ 1. 1965 DAYS MacDonald Carey 2. 1969 Bright Promise Dana Andrews 3. 1970 AMC Rosemary Prinz 4. 1974 How To Survive a Marriage Rosemary Prinz 5. 1980 Texas Beverlee McKinsey You might know this already: GL: Pam Long had someone specific in mind for Reva Shayne, not KZ, a redhead, who was it? The answer: Carla Borelli played Reena on TEXAS & she turned Reva down because she was too much like Reena. I don't know if you've seen Beverlee's Canadian "City Lights" interview. Sorry this is such a long handle URL. https://www.facebook.com/scottmckinsey/videos/10224621908925295/?__cft__[0]=AZWqSjjWbMb7qaofRN2s_-v72IB6CAHMSAVc3CZoFwkFgRgLiOwJUAUpRX83xXjtYmVNv8NzD3krdt1vRqqvhQ7KWXHrna-9SJLCnMOPIH7JqW8SBSVnwnn2-raop2hzOFroiKA0I-jEC1IZnzMWbhrlGuWHfUffMsNYfetnLy21mvzJJqUJTGqrfl4borCCl8E0avpobYk1ZemSFHzdvf-0&__tn__=-UK-R This is considered by her son Scott to be her best & most candid interview & I concur. She's very clear that whomever it was planning to spin Texas off of AW, that they just assumed she'd do it & went pretty far in planning before bringing her into the loop. I believe that is part of the reason she was in such a good negotiating position! They needed her so very much more than she even wanted them. Patrick Mulcahey told me that the team that had been hired to initially write Texas had nothing to do so they put them to work writing on AW. I believe he said for a few months, which seems long. And, he has no writing credits for AW! He expressed great frustration with that & also with the state of both his IMDb & wikipedia pages. Said they were so wrong & he'd tried to correct them & finally just told one of them to take it down & just ignored them ever since. I'm running a fan campaign right now to try to get a Posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award for Beverlee & I would dearly appreciate it if you would go sign the petition!! Thanks! https://chng.it/JBsh8Y9tkk Oh, yeah, something else you might know. Beverlee had a photographic memory. She learned her lines & all of the punctuation & every one else's lines. On the weekend she'd reverse the order of her scripts for the next week & learn first Friday & last Monday & that would be what she'd do the next day. She said that in preparing she'd try to imagine everything & anything a director might ask her to do so she'd be 100% prepared. She was not known to suffer fools easily & also was perhaps not very tolerant of anyone who had trouble getting their lines or heaven forbid didn't care to try to get their lines. Supposedly Nic Coster went to set one day for taping without any trousers on, just his shirt tail hanging down over part of his boxers -- and he said that Beverlee didn't notice. Only KZ threw her & Kim began to worry when Bev kept going off her lines with her & only her. So she just asked why & Bev said it was that her eyes were so blue. She kept gettting lost in them. Just found out that IMDb will accept the correction!!

Sure. Will do! Just found out that the IMDb page's correction has been approved!

I will just note for the record that I posted the link to that article way upthread. That article was how I got interested in him in the first place. And, I'm ready to concede. No one I reached out to remembers David Oliver being the object of a purge, although everyone does remember that there were purges. So, I was wrong. Sorry. My sincere apologies. And, if any of you were interested in the star billing issue, that correction is now published & the link to it is available & I am waiting to hear if the IMDb is going to accept my 3rd submission to correct Beverlee's page. And the 80s, I lost so many friends. So many of us did.

All told I think they were great DAYS! But, I missed Bo & Phillip & Melissa (Lisa) in the flesh. And, in flashback I really missed Alice & Neil would have been nice. I think we needed another day. And, I also think the worst daily script writer was writing for SZ's 50th. She cannot possibly know enough show history. It should have been written by Carolyn Culliton or David Kreizman.

Yes, when we talk about "so-and-so saved such-and-such" a soap, well, in the literal truth of the matter Agnes saved Another World! People say Pete saved it but what he did was really usher in a golden time. It did not last long enough to call it an era. But, if Agnes had not thrown out the useless nonsense that came from Jame Lipton who was great at Inside The Actor's Studio but never even once great as a soap writer & created the Alice-Steve-Rachel triangle & further defined both Rachel & Ada, well, AW would have been canceled before the P&G men in suits got Pete & plopped him down to be another student of Irna's! Excellent! Same page.

For any of you who were interested in the correction of inaccurate information about the first star billing instance in soaps, this has been published today. https://shallotpeelblog.org/2023/08/19/blog-249-v-2-star-billing-in-us-soap-operas/ I want to say a word about research. I love it. I also love the writing once the research is done. I find research to be tidy when you begin with an idea & tidy at the end when you've done all that can be dug up & you write it up but very messy in the middle. You've got lots of notes & people are throwing ideas or facts or both at you, which you are glad of, and some things seem to contradict each other often & then it comes together. Like the A-Team I like it when a plan comes together. Thank you for your attention & for those of you who helped me get the Mary Stuart-Donald May-Jonathan Frid "groupies" off my tail, extra thanks!

And, Agnes owed her career to Irna. And, Agnes was lauded & praised by every entity that existed. Irna is lauded only by the most devoted soap fans. And, as far as "success" goes, do you honestly think anyone was more successful at the creation of soap operas than Irna Phillips?

Missy has made that an impossibility for me.

And, it seems to me that each of them is friends with SSH & she could be a bridge!

Yes, I knew about her Hollywood experiment. I just mistook it for the fictional location, sorry. @danfling Peter Anthony Andrews. Sorry this is IMDb. So, it does seem that there is an imminently quotable producer called Peter Andrews.

I kid you not, it makes me laugh so hard I'm afraid I'm going to hurt myself & the look on Nicole's face as he nears!!!