Primetime Soaps

[te.]

It was Alexis's plastic surgeon, looking for an extra pay day after fixing Steven's face. 

[DRW50]

Not sure if this was posted before, but a few years ago someone uploaded a brief clip from The Survivors (with plenty of Lana Turner Eye Acting).

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There's a preview for the show in the first few minutes of this - the same as a clip that has been on Youtube for years, but timestamp aside this is better quality.

 

[Paul Raven]

Desert Sun, 13 April 1985

ABC’s 'Dark Mansions’ Loretta Young quits movie

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Loretta Young, citing “creative differences,” has withdrawn from her role as the family matriarch in “Dark Mansions,” an ABC movie and projected series, a spokesman for the actress said. The Academy Award-winning actress had been due to come out of retirement to begin work on the two-hour movie on April 22.

The movie goes into production on Monday. “Loretta Young will not be rendering services because of creative differences over the story,” her agent, Norman Brokaw of the William Morris Agency said in a statement. “The parting between Miss Young and Aaron Spelling was amiable despite the story differences,” the statement said. Miss Young had been scheduled to play the role of Margaret Drake, the matriarch of a Seattle shipping family in “Dark Mansions,” a contemporary Gothic drama.

There was no immediate word from either Aaron Spelling Productions or ABC who would replace Miss Young in the role. “It’s true that we had creative differences over the way her character was developing,” Spelling said in a statement released by a spokesman, David Horowitz. “She's a great star and a great friend and I hope she always remains both.” Miss Young won an Academy Award as best actress in 1948 for “The Farmer’s Daughter.” She was the star of 94 motion pictures and was the creator, producer and star of “The Loretta Young Show” during television’s so-called Golden

Age Miss Young had been scheduled to work eight days out of the four week shooting schedule. The movie, a pilot for an ABC prime-time soap opera, also stars Michael York, who would make his series debut, Linda Purl, Paul Shenar, Melissa Sue Anderson, Raymond St. Jacques and Dan O’Herlihy. Miss Young s last film was “It Happens Every Thursday” in 1953. She then took the unprecedented step of retiring from films to produce and star in "The Loretta Young Show" on television. She won three Emmy awards as best dramatic actress in 1954, 1956 and 1958. She was also nominated five other times. The anthology show ran on NBC from 1953 to 1961. In the 1962-63 season she starred on NBC in a dramatic show called “The New Loretta Young Show.”

As we know Joan Fontaine took on the role 

[Paul Raven]

Santa Cruz Sentinel, 5 November 1981

What is Mel Ferrer doing in a late-night soap opera? Having fun, he insists. If Elizabeth Taylor can make a guest appearance on "General Hospital," why can't Ferrer star in "Behind the Screen"? He's doing just that each Friday on CBS's answer to Johnny Carson.

"Behind the Screen" may be the ultimate in the peculiar art that has spread from the daylight hours into prime time ("Dallas," "Flamingo Road") and now into the insomnia period. The new once-a-week half-hour is a soap opera about a soap opera. The cast: Ferrer, a powerful Hollywood promoter; Janine Turner, star of the serial "Generations" and victim of Ferrer's manipulation; Joanne Linville, her crippled, ambitious mother; Michael Sabatino, a serious actor slumming in "Generations;" Joshua Bryant, his father and producer of the series; and more.

"When they sent me the script," said Ferrer, "I was immediately interested because David Jacobs' name was on it. David created 'Dallas,' and I am a mad 'Dallas' fan. I think Larry Hagman has made a creative and inventive character out of J R. and I have an eye for Sue Ellen (Linda Evans)." Ferrer discovered that taping a halfhour weekly show is no easy chore. The "Behind the Screen" cast rehearses at CBS Television center on Friday, tapes on Saturday and Sunday. Reason for the weekend taping: "Behind the Screen" uses the stage occupied by "Archie Bunker's Place" during the week.

The series came along at just the right time for him, Ferrer said. "I had been living in Switzerland and making three pictures a year Italian, Spanish, French, German, English," he explained. "Production in Europe has become very tight, except in Germany. In Italy there is very little money to finance films. "So it seemed like a good time to resurface here. I have an avocado and lemon ranch in Carpinteria (80 miles northwest) that I wanted to look after. And I'm developing 'Peter Pan' at Paramount."

Ferrer has long held the film rights to the James Barrie classic, once planned it for his then-wife Audrey Hepburn. For a time Mia Farrow was to star. Now producer Ferrer has a revolutionary idea: Peter Pan will be played by a boy. "But not Ricky Schroeder," he added. "I have already talked to Ricky, but he is already too old to play Peter. "I have seen all the Peters in recent times Jean Arthur, Mary Martin, Sandy Duncan. While they are wonderful, they are not what Barrie intended. Our film will be done from the original play, not as a musical comedy."

[I Am A Swede]

^^

To think that "Falcon Crest" was just a month away for him when that was published!   

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[te.]

It was sort of an interesting idea, but I think too many viewers would've been confused with it airing an half hour once a week. It seems quite random when everything else was airing Mon-Fri in the late night line-up. 

[DRW50]

I keep hoping something of Behind the Screen will show up.

Thanks again @Paul Raven.

[Bright Eyes]

Was that Peter Pan ever made?

[DRW50]

I dumped a ton of links in each thread but may as well post the link here to the Archive channel - there are a number of audio recordings of interviews with primetime soap actors of the early '80s.

Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Texts, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

Edited 17 hours ago by DRW50