This may be a dumb question if the answer is "no" but does anyone know if James Lipton from Inside the Actor's Studio is the same James Lipton that was a daytime writer? There was a James Lipton back in the day that almost got Another World cancelled (I believe Agnes Nixon took over from him and saved the show but my memory is fuzzy on that).

If it is the same guy was Another World the only soap he wrote for? Any other info/comments about Lipton are appreciated.

Thanks.

Yes it is the same man. He also wrote and acted for Guiding light, he wrote for The Edge of Night , Return to Peyton Place, Captiol and he wrote and created the soap The Best of Everything!

From what I've read, he was a pretty awful writer. I hear his stuff on Capitol was particularly laughable. Now he gets all of this praise on that prententious show. I wonder if he ever mentions his soap past.

He played Dick Grant on 'Guiding Light' from 1955-1962. Dick was involved for the bulk of his storyline with Kathy Holden, Meta Bauer's step-daughter would could be a whole mess of trouble. Kathy's the one who ended up paralyzed and had her wheel chair knocked into the street by some playing kids causing her to be struck by a car, killing her. Gotta love Irna's twisted thought processes.

I wonder if he ever mentions his soap past.

I'm pretty sure he does. I think its only through his mentioning his soap past that I'd have known about it otherwise. When he's doing an Inside the Actors' Studio interview, he seems to relish talking about the soap pasts of the actors who've done them (Sarandon, Julianne Moore, etc.).

The only time James Lipton is watchable is when Will Ferrell played him on SNL. Hilarious.

I've heard he actually likes to try to act like his soap writing nev er hapened. I can't stand the man and ya he was known as a particularly bad writer (the fact he got SOO many chances to write awful stories for soaps shows that reusing bad writer sins't a new pheniomena

Wasn't he responsible for the invasion of a certain family in Bay City and a resulting disastrous shift of focus? I believe I read one of Agnes Nixons first remedies for saving AW was to kill that family off in a plane crash.

Yep. Lipton replaced Irna Phillips as HW of AW in 1965. He backburned core family the Matthewses and introduced new core family the Gregorys. One of the Gregorys was played by Ellen Weston who was the previous HW of GL before the current one. The Gregorys tanked and when Agnes Nixon took over in 1966, she brought the Matthews family to the front and killed off the bulk of the Gregorys in a plane crash and sent the rest of his characters out of town. Lipton as created the short-lived soap opera 'The Best of Everything' (1970) which was an adaptation of a 1950s feature film of the same name starring Joan Crawford.

Wow I can't believe what a wealth of information this place is! Thank you to everyone for your responses.

So it is the same guy.....I'd forgotten about the infamous plane crash and the Gregorys...

Maybe I don't "get" his interviewing style but I can't believe he has his own show. I've never seen such lifeless interviews.

I can't imagine him as an actor. Normally one requires a personality for that.

Maybe I don't "get" his interviewing style but I can't believe he has his own show. I've never seen such lifeless interviews.

I can't imagine him as an actor. Normally one requires a personality for that.

Some of the people he has to interview really don't belong on a show called "Inside The Actor's Studio"

Some of the people he has to interview really don't belong on a show called "Inside The Actor's Studio"

I know. Martin Lawrence? Dave Chappelle? Teri Hatcher? I don't consider them good material for that show.

I don't mind having lesser actors on his show because he's clearly a hack when it comes to writing, so who is he to judge all these people? I've always found his show to be extremely pretentious.