SFK

I liked it when Syddy asked Jack if he was still with "What's-her-name". Hearing Erica Kane referred to as "What's-Her-Name" was definitely new and unexpected. Michael Logan did a cover article on Morgan back then, he seemed pretty convinced that there was a new diva in town, that Morgan rolled into ABC Daytime and got the Lucci treatment (if not better) right off the bat.

I'm surprised that we haven't seen Amy Van Horne on another soap, just as I was wondering where the hell Lisa LoCicero was until I was surprised to see her on GH. They both are perfect GH mob material.

Did you pull out your tapes for that? :-P All this CITY talk made me put a tape on.

That scene's on YouTube, the sound's pretty poor though. I have some eps on tape, I gotta figure this YouTube thing out. I have a scene where Uncle Gino meets Tracy and calls her "Ms. Quarterhorse".

Oops! I meant Kate! The one who was blackmailing Sam!

I remember reading somewhere online that Richard Egan (Sam Clegg) was very ill at the time of Capitol's cancellation and had the show continued he would have soon retired. Sam would have been murdered, and there'd be a murder mystery s/l with Myrna, Leanne, et al the likely suspects.

Yes, Bill Beyers and a few other cast members have passed. Just think, had Capitol continued we'd probably have never seen Marj Dusay in her many other soap roles, or Catherine Hickland on Loving/The City and OLTL, and perhaps most notable seeing as how it's the #1 show, Jess Walton as Jill on Y&R. Who would have been our Jill for the last 20 years!? I can hardly believe it's been that long.

I agree, the show was very "vanilla" for having taken place in the DC area. It would have been interesting to see the biracial storyline in the original bible, or another interracial dating storyline play out.

I don't remember the Cleggs having even been in the original bible. There was a Clegg-like family with a different last name (Renselier or something like that). Also, Clarissa seemed to have some Myrna-like qualities in the original bible, in that she was written as a social climber.

IIRC, in the original bible Trey (referred to as Sam) is written as a satellite character and Sam and Myrna get a passing reference. In the revised bible, the Cleggs are descibed as "new money" with an ostentatious home, Myrna adorned with gold, silk, reptile, and Blackglama. I'm assuming it's the network who pushed the Romeo (Tyler) and Juliet (Julie) thing, the Montagues (McCandlesses) vs. the Capulets (Cleggs). That's a perfectly acceptable beginning, but unlike a primetime series, a soap has 52 weeks a year to try everything under the sun... the show really should have fleshed out and explored more.

For example, D.C. has a huge black population and I'm sure a lot of people not familiar with the area associate that with the high drug/murder rate of the Southeast quadrant that the city has become infamous for. Georgetown (where Trey and Sloane lived in a townhouse) is in Northwest, along with all of the other affluent neighborhoods. But D.C. also has a high (it's suburbs in Prince George's County, MD have the highest in the country) concentration of wealthy blacks. The 16th street cooridor in NW is nicknamed "the Gold Coast" for being synonymous with rich blacks. To me, Capitol could have had two more families at odds, perhaps two brothers or two sisters and their families, one stuck in SE, the other prosperous in NW. I could sit here and list several potential storylines/plot points on that simple concept alone, there are so many stories in the black community that have yet to be told. Conboy could have beat Bell to the Winterses, and NBC to the families on Generations. I know social relevance was never really his thing, but black folk can be glamorous too. Especially on Sunday morning in D.C.

Apparently, the lack of chocolate in Chocolate City was an issue raised during the show's tenure. What's crazy is that in the original story bible, the young female lead was a biracial Halle Berry/Randi on AMC-type named Merle. This (among several other things) was scrapped, and the Cleggs vs. the McCandlesses took center stage. The Cleggs seemed pretty peripheral in the bible, but of course an '80s glamour soap needs an Alexis Colby, and the role of Myrna Clegg got beefed up. Capitol would eventually get its own Dominique Deveraux in the form of Lola Falana as Charity Blake. Beah Richards also guest starred as a voodoo priestess. I think Falana was the only black actor ever on contract.

The pilot movie was taped, but it looks quite good and has held up rather well. There are a lot of outdoor scenes that look better/more realistic than the interior scenes. I think the fact that it was so cold and wintery helped greatly with the look of the telefilm, it lends a darker, more realistic tone. Had it been a bunch of bright sunny days, I think it would have looked a lot cheesier. Sloane and Mark riding their horses along the C&O canal is a very nice sequence, the setting, the witty banter, it's very primetime. Trey's limo almost mowing down Clarissa in the VA burbs, and Myrna in fox hat and muff marching up the Capitol steps are also great outdoor sequences.

The earlier daytime eps of Capitol have a more filmic look. I don't know exactly what process Conboy was using, but there is a film-like graininess, akin to the look The City and more recently AMC adopted. Of course, a more primitive version of this, but nonetheless, later eps look typically Y&R/B&B.

I just assumed it was Aaron Spelling's juggernaut mansion (complete with movie theatre, bowling alley and gift-wrapping room, apparently).

Both Dynasty and The Colbys had stunning exteriors. I will always remember when Alexis and Crystal had that fight in the Carrington fountain/lake feature. Bet that was filmed on somebody's gorgeous Hills estate.

Yeah, that was filmed at a home in Pasadena that doubled for the Carrington mansion, aka Filoli, in the bay area.

Does anyone happen to know the real life name of the estate used in THE COLBYS as the main family's Bel Air mansion? I've seen the home used in various other movies and TV shows through the years, but I can't seem to find any info on the property...

It's the Hilton (yes, as in Paris and co.) estate.

Just web searched for more info. and learned that it was designed by a prominent black architect, Paul Williams.

From Wikipedia:

One notable home he designed was later used for exterior scenes of the Colby mansion on television's "The Colbys" (1060 Brooklawn Dr. Bel Air, Los Angeles, California|Bel Air) This is currently the home of Barron Hilton.

When I first read about working title: LOV<3NYC (that thing in the middle's supposed to be a heart) starring Morgan Fairchild in SOW, I was like, "WHAAAA????" It seemed like such a drastic and incredibly bold yet terribly intriguing idea. Such potential. To this day, I'm so so sorry that it didn't work out. If GL is still on the air, a show like The City deserves to be too. It appealed to that *certain demographic*, and though there were many days where it felt like nothing really happened, The City did "nothing really happened" a lot better (and prettier) than GL does it every day.

Sedrick, I had a similar experience. I remember the "dunh-dunh-dunh" (Ca-pi-tol) as my grandmother watched it on a small black and white TV in the kitchen while she let me watch cartoons on the big TV in the living room. I remember the first day I realized the "dunh-dunh-dunh" was gone, replaced by that blaring elephant of a saxophone in the B&B opening.

There were also promos where a male chorus would sing "CA-PI-TOL!" I'm from Washington so the show sparked a special interest in me. I remember our local CBS news anchor diva J.C. Hayward (sort of a black Linda Dano?) making a special appearance on the show. I was also into The Addams Family at that age, and I recall my mother saying that Carolyn Jones was "on one of mama's stories." It's funny how the young mind works, because I imagined Morticia slinking around Oakdale in her tight black "octopuss" dress complete with long black wig. It wasn't until I was a teen that I realized Carolyn was on Capitol, looking VERY differently.

I've become much more familiar with the show over the last ten years, and I have quite a few eps on tape. If I ever get technologically astute, I'll upload them to YouTube. I'd really like to see more of the earlier eps though. They really did have an interesting grainy filmic look, and there were very interesting shots. The show eventually looked more traditionally soapy, still luxe, but now it looked just like Y&R.

Yeah, CPW played more like a miniseries, and I guess I was in denial, but they really didn't try to hide that fact. The promos pretty much stated that it was a special 8 episode summer series, but we were really hoping it would come back in the fall after that Dianna (Alexis) and Adam (Cecil) death mid-coitus scene.

CPW was so good! The first season was more fresh, the second season got real Dynasty which was cool by me 2.

I remember being kind of bored, actually, to be more accurate I guess I was a smidge ADD watching the first few episodes as a high schooler. I remember Kylie Travis' character's debut for some reason, a shot of her leopard pumps as she stepped out of her cab/limo (?). Once it got axed and came back revamped as CPW, we watched EVERY episode (I want to say that they aired during the summer). It was must-see TV for us, and I still have some eps on VHS. We really enjoyed it and lamented the death of the primetime soap when it, Savannah, The Monroes, Pacific Palisades, Pasadena et al bit it and faded into oblivion.

I mentioned that I was in high school at the time, well in my media class my teacher cited Central Park West as an epic fail for CBS (of course we weren't using the term "epic fail" in 1995). He talked about how it was promo'd to death only to be bumped off the schedule. It was a major hit for the Tiffany Network as they were trying so hard to capture that certain demo. I of course chimed in with my SOD provided info that the show was coming back as CPW with Gerald, Raquel, and Noelle. "Ohhh, wow, it's being reVAMPED!" I remember my teacher emphatically saying.

Another memory, SOW did a little piece on CPW with a picture of Raquel and Lauren after their catfight in the fountain... they said how sorry they were to see the show go, and on the same page they said that Morgan Fairchild's (she was on her way out of The City) Sydney Chase could have benefitted from the camp factor Raquel's Dianna provided. Morgan was dead set on this idea of a '90s soap diva, she had all the trappings of the '80s soap divas, but was rather austere in terms of her delivery. She felt that we all wanted to get away from that '80s OTT campy soap bitch. Personally, I don't think we ever really get tired of that which explains why Tiffany "New York" Pollard and her chupacabra of a mother have 5 reality shows under their belts.

Raquel LOOKED great on CPW (though my mom said she looked like a witch, especially in this opera cloak she wore one ep), the clothes (the hats!) were VERY Alexis. After all, she was in the running to play Alexis pre-Joan Collins. My gripe with her is that she seems incapable of delivering an organic performance. I know I know, this type of soap lends itself to a certain "style", it's rather British actually with an emphasis on the lips, the teeth, the tongue. It's all style, no substance, and for me, Raquel comes across as very studied, TOO studied. She knows exactly how she's going to deliver every line, and she's missing that confident, naturally clever, *wink* to the audience quality Joan had that made Alexis such magic. Raquel's trying too hard to be perfect, to get it "right".

Roya's Ava was like they put Erica Kane and Tina Lord DNA in a test tube and shook it up. As far as "definitive", I think we have a Robin Strasser/Victoria Wyndham kinda thing going on.

All My Isabelles, I remember my mom quipping about how they'd repainted that portrait damn near four times.