Contessa Donatella

It was also said that he was in talks to write for Jane Elliot again.

Yeah, I saw that later. I just bet that's what I got mixed up! I think she's great!

I did not know that he was a chain smoker. AW's Doug Watson was also a chain smoker.

And that's all that it is, a disagreement. Nothing anyone brings to the table makes what they're saying fact. We're all putting forward opinions, fan opinions. I think it's nice when we can acknowledge that these are paid professionals doing their best, because we're still going to be viewing them through subjective lenses of our own personal likes & dislikes. I recognize that I complain a lot about the show & I'm pleased for once to be praising instead of complaining.

I'm so pleased that I think Cady did such an excellent job! I thought Matt could've done better. But, I think the level of near hysteria is suitable to the loss. Again, when DOOL gets around to doing straight acting they please me. I still think the part should have been recast but this is one of those times when I can go on the ride they ask me to take.

Well said! We all have our likes & our dislikes but some people are just too talented to be "terrible".

It doesn't sound strange. Characters that have good relatability are as much like our friends & family as our actual friends & family are to us. That's why I say if there's dying going on there'd better be crying going on. It is true that we invite these people into our homes 5 days a week.

I loved Kati Mac & had had two of her CDs for several years before GL began to use her. I thought with Alex & Alan, things were just forgiven & forgotten easily, regularly. It seemed to me that they drove each other crazy & that it didn't matter to them. The way her grief hit her when Alan died, really touched me.

Just an anecdote out of her memoir, her name was Caty McClain & there was someone else with that same name, so she changed hers to Cady for work purposes.

Thanks for the correction. I read that she had been in production there.

For heaven's sake all 3 people you're talking about can all act.

Well, I have looked at them now. Not sure what to think. First off, I guess I think, what is this delayed sweeps? And, then I think here's one's 15 minutes of fame announcing spoilers! The facial expressions are certainly expressive! I agree with this post 100%.

Well, I thought she was very good, made good on every beat, went to just the right place of some hysteria, leaving plenty of room for Matt. I also thought the writing for both of them was top notch & I cannot think when I've said *that* in Salem. I took my emotional cues from Jenn & I felt just like I wanted to. Next up, how they handle the kids & what the suspect list looks like.

I don't know about calling out for Emmy nods this far ahead of time so I won't. But this is #2 day of weeping & wailing in Salem. The other day with the end of the devil & Tripp's death & Angel Bo & now with Abigail's murder & reactions galore. What's true to me is that everyone's done well. It's not usual that I find myself giving kudos to all of Salem but I think they've been deserved both times. I'm just saying, "Well done."

I liked their holding up a mirror to L&L as much as I like Marland quitting over making it a seduction & PFS objecting even if she didn't quit. But, SB the year of Eden's rape was just so hard. So hard to watch, just gotta get through it. Soon enough!

During an earlier low point in Bay City someone brilliantly came up with the idea for The Redemption of Carl & the Romance of Rachel. About 18 months of classical beat by beat where Carl & Rachel went from total antagonists to rapprochement and then on to classic romance. It was so well done that it became iconic. I can go back & do their Poet's Walk in the city again & again.

That's right, that devastating strike!

GL End Times was the two major love stories - Jami & Otalia. Dinah was good, Bill Lewis was good, Shayne was good, Jonathan was good with Sarah, so for the people who didn't like those driving stories (Jami & Otalia) they at least had good characterizations to be watching. AW End Times were just really rough. At least Carl was back for the very end. Someone made a huge blunder firing Keating the year before the end. I'd love to know who, supposedly someone characterized him as "an ugly old man", whoever that was just didn't get Carl & Rachel at all! They had a very sexy, high romance s/l. People didn't really want the late-in-life twins but once they were on the drawing board there was nothing to do but be supportive. Michael Malone's tenure was terrible, just awful. He just pulled out the bible of the N'Awlins show that didn't get greenlit & smeared it around town a bit but mostly just wrote it by making Bobby Reno Shane Roberts and Lisa Peluso the fragile Southern belle, Lila Roberts, complete with her terror over storms. Frankie fans, still in shock over the gruesome death had to watch them press Cass into a new romance much too soon, with miss Lila. I'm not doing a very good job of saying what saving grace there was! Sorry. It's so bleak. Lumina was the big story & it was awful. The Secret Garden wasn't great but it at least gave Sandy Ferguson something to do. And, the only real saving grace at that time was the Lumina Ball and it, and the costumes, and the big 'do of a major ball was terriffic. A hugh hooray for Shawn Reeves & his Costume people! I glean more of this & that as time goes by & my latest gleaning is a bit more about one of my favorite subjects, Beverlee McKenzie, I had wondered where her frame of mind was when the show was ending and also how her health was. A long time ago I heard that she had told a fan that she was not up to appearing on camera anymore & the fan had tried to pooh pooh that away but not been successful. I'm pretty sure her frame of mind & her looks & how she felt about them & her health were impediments to any idea about appearing in front of the camera. Our loss, eh? But, we knew that.

That's very interesting to me that JE was in Production at LOVING and then repeated a year as a Producer at CITY. I love it when smart cookie actors crossover into writing and/or production. And, JE is definitely one smart cookie, very savvy. I heard that before his sudden death Doug Marland was working out something to bring JE to whatever show he was HWing at the time. That would have been a blast! I'm still angry at Allen M. Potter for firing JE & ending the 3 Carries s/l prematurely at GL. I enjoyed Rae best at GH although I liked the odds of her daughter being Eve on PC. And, I'd have liked the whole shebang better if Shapiro had parked Rae at either GH or PC & just left her there in ONE SPOT! I found the travel from show to show to be torture for the fans, the actors, & I imagine the writers.

Yes, Lane is fun to watch. He used to try to get roles in as many pilots as he could manage where the show would have a high probability of NOT getting picked up. Then, he had banked some major bucks for 13 episodes of pilot but was also free to do what he loved, which was theatre. And, we fans enjoyed watching the pilots, usually sitcoms. But, yeah, the rapist is really something. If you don't know who it is yet, you're gonna die! Have you had that scene yet where Eden tells Cruz about this rape storyline with characters named Linc & Linda? With a producer named Bonty? One big dig at L&L/GH!

They seemed like they could do those scenes forever! I was just lucky that I was so fond of Lane Davies. I lived in Dalton, GA & he was from there. And, he was definitely a most favored native son.

I always felt that AW & OLTL both did good jobs of dealing with different classes of people. At some points AW was known for its use of humor, from the highjinks of Samuel D. Ratcliffe including Felicia & Wally & Cass & Carolyn the gorilla, and going to Vivian's physical humor, and plants with classical names. I always like it when soaps do friendships. AW was usually good at that but then so were many soaps. Today GH makes good use of friendships although I find it less than credible that Ava & Nina would be friends after what Nina did to Ava. PC had an actor in a wheel chair who was the best I ever saw at being both an actor & confined to a chair.

A Fan Review of Murdering My Youth: a Memoir by Cady McClain ©April 15, 2014 271 pages For a fan of Cady McClain's like me this book is hard to read. Cady truly had a terrible childhood. Her family of origin was nightmarish. It was her parents, her older sister and herself. Her mother and father were alcoholics who had no decent boundaries. They were as random as people with undiagnosed mental problems can be. Everything was high drama with them. They paraded around naked and both took showers with the two girls when they were much too old for that. They fought and made up until they finally divorced. I found myself worrying about 'poor little Cady'. Even after the divorce her mother Dana was obsessed with everything bad about her father. And, money, well, they rarely had enough. Cady was a child actor and began doing commercials, TV shows and plays at a young age and she just never stopped; [she's still a wonderful actress today, playing Jennifer Horton Deveraux on DAYS OF OUR LIVES.] She took tap and acting lessons. Her mother was regularly playing the role of the child forcing Cady and Annie to behave as the adults. Cady's father molested her. People in show business did, too. And, they spent her money on themselves which is against the law! At least Cady knew they were spending it instead of letting it be an investment for her future in a special account for it. People who had their parents do that in secret don't find out that the money is gone until it's time for them to tap into it to go to college. Well, that is one example of how it could've been worse, I guess. When she was 18 she told her agent that she wanted to do a soap. GUIDING LIGHT was an audition that she did not book. [Another child actor, Beth Ehlers got the part of Harley Cooper.] Cady was better and more prepared for the next audition, the part of Dixie on ALL MY CHILDREN. And, she got that one and signed a two-year contract and became an Emmy-winning actress on the show. She was the breadwinner yet again but this time with a steady gig. Her mother reacted to her newfound success by becoming a SHOPPER. Her need for McClain's money knew no limits. Eventually, Cady rented a house in Connecticut for her mother to live in with her visiting instead of living with her mother, while Cady lived in a studio apartment very near the AMC studio in Manhattan. McClain adored Michael E. Knight and loved the romance between her as Dixie and him as Tad the Cad. She had a terrible experience with an extreme haircut taking her from her long wavy tresses to a super short 'do that made her not recognize herself! Eventually, she got into therapy after finding a therapist where she could talk and talk and talk, scream and cry, etc. She tried out multiple 12-step programs which all made her feel like she finally fit in somewhere besides just at work. She was drinking too much and misusing alcohol. She had an eating disorder that involved laxatives and enemas to keep her thin. She was the Adult Child of an Alcoholic including having hypervigilance where she was constantly uber-aware of what might be about to happen when the [!@#$%^&*] would regularly hit the fan. She decided she was one quarter alcoholic since her mother had started her drinking tequila at 11 or 12; one quarter ACOA; one quarter food abuser; and one quarter drug abuser (with laxatives as her drug of choice.) She also had a totally screwed up sex life and attitude toward love and attraction. In AA she found many people who like her had been brought up around madness. Cady had trouble with self-esteem since the treatment she had received during most of her life pushed her to think that she didn't deserve any better. And, more than once she thought about suicide. At 24, with a year and a half left on her contract, she thought about leaving the show even though the only places she felt she truly belonged were at work and at her 12-step meetings. At that point she tried to talk to her mother about her burnout. Her mother's solution was for her to stay with the show and buy her mother a house, Doing that was followed by SHOPPING again and redecorating madly. Of late her mother had been battling cancer. She was hospitalized again and the cancer had progressed throughout most of her body. They took her home. She always had said she was dying and apparently she really was. At the show Cady was working five days a week. The producer she had turned to thought she was doing her a favor providing her livelihood and some place to fit in and be away from the domestic issues. “Finally. Finally she is going to die and the nightmare will stop. Please, God, please let her die soon. Yes, that is what Cady thought at the time. And, then, Dana did die, with her two daughters on each side of her hospital bed that they had gotten to put into her house. Cady was only 25 and totally unprepared to face the grief she had. Dana had so totally dominated her life that he dying left a hole, a void instead of presenting the freedom she had longed for and expected. Annie and Cady saw their father and the woman he was married to after a 14 year total absence. The reunion did not go well. Later, when his new wife threw him out, he contacted Cady, apparently out of the blue, and asked her for money. She refused him and cut him out of her life completely. He has since died, too. The last of her book deals with her trying to define freedom and self-worth. She's made so much progress and she is apparently deliriously happy and fulfilled with her husband [Jon Lindstrom] and their two dogs. She's glad that she wrote the book and doing so helped her on her own continuous journey. I can highly recommend this book, complete with happy ending, to any fan of Cady's and any fan of memoirs, in general.

Is this acceptable to post here? If not, can it be removed with my apologies?

I noticed that when she gave an interview to Michael Fairman about Emmy reels, the last thing she said was like a tag added on, which was, And, yes, she does do Thrift Stores. I figured there might be a reason she'd say so. 😂