Primetime Soaps

[DRW50]

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Oliver Hudson, Anson Mount, Tara Thompson, Penn Badgley, Johann Urb, Mitch Pileggi, Barbara Hershey, Alana De La Garza Directed by David Barrett After his grandfather's death, a young man returns to the family business of running a popular ski resort, and he soon faces off against the rest of his estranged family over running the resort.

[Contessa Donatella]

On Christmas Day we had the Endiversary of one of my favorite short-lived primetime soaps. On ABC, 14 episodes, of Paper Dolls! Fashion industry, two young women introduced - Nicolette Sheridan & Terry Farrell. Morgan Fairchild played the lead Racine who was seeing a character played by Roscoe Born. Brenda Vaccaro was a fabulous addition as Nicolette's character's mother. And, I loved the opening theme. 

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Edited December 26, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges

[DRW50]

Some very rare footage via promos of A New Day in Eden and Loving Friends Perfect Couples. The second video is just a few seconds long.

I should warn one of the promos (not for the shows) has a shot of someone's ass crack. 

(there's also a promo for a Broadway play featuring Andrew Stevens and Maxwell Caulfield - I assume that audience was very gay male heavy...)

@Vee @vetsoapfan @dc11786 @Khan @Paul Raven @Donna L. Bridges @Soapsuds @soapfan770 @Soaplovers @Franko @te. @Chris B @SFK @Bright Eyes @Broderick @j swift @Joseph @slick jones

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[Contessa Donatella]

Thanks so much for finding this & sharing it! And, for the tag, too! WTG! 

[Khan]

"This is Miramax, reminding you not to get into your love box."

Maybe it's the material, but I find Paul Hecht oddly sexy, lol.

And I recognized that one blonde-haired dude in ANDIE as the guy who also played Kimberly's racist boyfriend, Roger, on "Diff'rent Strokes" AND Blair's childhood friend, Harrison Andrews, who tried to make it with Jo at a country club dance on "The Facts of Life."

Thanks, @DRW50!

Edited January 2, 2024 by Khan

[vetsoapfan]

As always, I appreciate the heads up.

 

Good find!

 

Thanks, @DRW50!

[j swift]

The only ANDE trivia that I recall is that Steve Carlson (the guy on the phone) is the IRL husband of Gail Ramsey aka Susan Moore on GH

[Paul Raven]

Thanks @DRW50 I wonder if ANDIE tapes still exist?

[DRW50]

Clearly he well-loved by those casting people...

I wonder if there's a listing for just how many soap people were on FoL.

[Franko]

There's a rainy day activity just waiting to happen.

P.S. Thank you for the tag! I'm always delighted when I remember how much plays and musicals performances were a part of this era of the cable networks. It seems to have died out once they were more into making their own TV movies.

[dc11786]

@DRW50 Thanks. It´s always great when anything ¨A New Day in Eden¨ pops up. 

The blonde man is Grant Wilson (who played the role of Biff Lewis on ¨Eden.¨) Biff was suppose to be the young antagonist who bedded all the women in Eden. In the scripts I have, Biff is typically the source of the R-rated material. In this preview, I believe his female blonde companion is one of the murder victims (Penny Landis maybe).

The creepy guy offering to show the woman around Eden was Emmett Claybourne (Jeff Severson). He was the controlling, manipulative lawyer who worked for the Lewis clan (the central family) and was also sexually assaulting his college age daughter.  The woman he is offering to show around Eden is Gail Lee (Victoria Tan), who worked for AURIC, the government agency funding part of Eden´s revitalization project which had ties to Lewis Electronics. Emmett will attempt to rape Gail in a future episode. 

I was a bit surprised to see a big deal was made out of Miranda Stevens´ (Maggie Sullivan) past with Clint Masterson (Jack Wagner) so early in the show. This was a detail that was reiterated later in the show. Melvyn Masteron was the name of Clint´s father and Miranda´s former fiance. 

I´m still amused that the show used a picture of actors Grant Wilson (Biff) and Wendy Barry (Shelley Novack) to promote the show. By the end of the show, Biff is in love with Francie Richardson (Dana Halsted) and Shelley has been off in the hospital for months (the downside of the show was that the scripts were written as if it was aired daily so Shelley is in an explosion in March and is still in a hospital room in August as the show wraps up). From what I can gather, Shelley was initially the poor working class schemer, but the decision was made to declaw Shelley and have her softened. Part of me wonders if they blew Lori up so they could recast. The above mentioned Emmett Clayborne was written out and the setup in scripts suggest he would be recast (it states that his daughter Cynthia will look at his picture but they are not to show the actual picture). Though the fact that Shelley´s cousin Lori Novack arrives in the final days of ¨Eden¨ and it looks like she might be taking over Shelley´s mantle now that Shelley was in love with one of the Sowolsky boys. So maybe they would have kept Wendy Barry. 

[DRW50]

@Franko I think A&E used to run plays too, and Bravo. I know none of these channels could have kept this content and survived, but the difference in quality compared to so much trash to come makes you sad. 

@dc11786 I am always so grateful for the time you take fleshing the stories of these shows out via scripts and synopses. I knew pretty much nothing about these clips so it is even more appreciated than usual. I often think these summaries and wondering what might have been is more interesting than seeing the missing episodes would be, but I still hope more pops up. 

@Khan I forgot to say that yes, I also find Paul Hecht attractive in the clips of that show. I guess this was his reward for having to later put up with Rosanna, Mike Kasnoff, and Edwina.

Edited January 3, 2024 by DRW50

[Khan]

By any chance, does anyone who wrote ANDIE with Douglas Marland?  Did he write all the episodes himself, or did he have help?

[dc11786]

On the topic of short lived cable soaps from the 1980s, I've come across a couple of clips in my search

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This has a little under 6 minutes of "33 Brompton Place." This was a Canadian production that aired on Showtime in the States. It was technically aired under the umbrella of "Romance," the soapy anthology series that pre-dated "A New Day in Eden" and "Loving Friends and Perfect Couples" by a few months. There were probably 5 or six stories. "Brompton Place" aired in June-July in place of one of the usual "Romance" stories. 

A young Roberta Weiss has a pretty substantial part in this clip. 

I also learned that Marilyn Chambers' soap/anthology "Love Ya' Florence Nightgale" about a sex surrogate Kelly Carson was cut and sold as a soft core film several years after the production ended. It was renamed as "My Therapist." If you look the title up on YouTube, you can easily find the film. I'm choosing not to link because it is basically porn with a bit more plot. David Winn (Steve Williams, "Young and the Restless") plays her boyfriend and they have some romantic scenes. Winn's butt appears at one point. 

 

 

[DRW50]

Thanks @dc11786 I think a few other movies in that ;romance' vein, including Callan White on...full display, are floating around.