Victoria Wyndham Interview

[stenbeck212]

By David Shankbone @ Wikinews

December 13, 2007

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Victoria_Wyndh...nd_another_life

Excerpt -

The politics behind the demise of Another World

DSWhen you’re known so well for one particular role--Rachel Cory in Another World--yet you are multi-dimensional, how do you handle the frustration that must breed inside yourself?

VW: I didn’t find it frustrating because I was always doing so many other things. On top of that, my big job was raising my children. I’m very proud of that and I was a very hands-on parent so that was my number one job. The soap was my way to finance that, since I was a single parent. Then the off-Broadway gigs came. I knew I wasn’t going to do a Broadway play or anything that demanded a long run because that would keep me away from my family too much. But when those would be offered to me, if I felt that they were good enough, I would do them. They were always limited runs. Then I had the sculpture. I had a one-woman show and The Smithsonian, which led to commissions.

DSBut it doesn’t bother you to just be recognized for one role?

VW: It does when it means that now when I go online the only credit is Another World. That bothers me because all of the people that follow my career, the fan base, know that I do an awful lot more than that. So do the people who know me. While I was doing Rachel, I was never frustrated doing her. She was a fascinating character. I had a wonderful gig on that show and they let me do pretty much anything. I was able to explore all sorts of wacky things and playing the twin was really wacky.

DSYou weren’t particularly happy with that story line though. At first you didn’t mind, but then after …

VW: Oh my God, you have done your research haven’t you? Yeah. It was fun at first and then what a lot of people don’t know is there was internecine warfare between NBC and Procter & Gamble at that point. So there was a lot of push and pull. I now know that NBC was doing an awful lot of sabotaging of the show and that particular character. They had, for many many years, tried to get me off the show, tried to separate me from the show.

DSWhy?

VW: They wanted to take it off the air.

DSAnd you were one of the main draws on the show? So if they got rid of you ….

VW: And, of course, Procter & Gamble understood what they were trying to do and were supporting me. NBC never let me know that. This became clear, as it came to a head, before they finally yanked us.

DSWhy did they not want the show anymore?

VW: Because they couldn’t own all of it. If Procter & Gamble had sold it to them, they undoubtedly would have gotten rid of me and made it a young, stupid show, the way they did with Passions, and it would have…….

DSFlopped, like Passions did. They were throwing midgets out there--

VW: Right. They weren’t really smart. I don’t know where that mandate was coming from, but I guess they were insisting and insisting and at some point I had a distinct feeling that NBC didn’t want to have soaps anymore. Brandon Tartikoff was the last programmer and he was certainly not daytime programming, but he was the last bit honcho at NBC who was honest with me. He was a huge fan of mine, which was just so adorable. He didn’t have time to watch the soaps, but he had said at one point when I ran into him and was introduced, “Oh my God, you’re the only reason we keep that show on the air.” I’m like ‘Wow. You are my favorite head of networks now!’

DSHow do you not let that go to your head? How do you keep calm after something like that?

VW: Easy, because you know that he’s the only person in the whole network that feels that way.

DSIt’s tenuous, like a tooth hanging by a thread.

VW: And he was dead shortly after that, so it didn’t help me very much. I don’t think it was anything personal. It was just business.

DSNBC wanted all the profits.

VW: Yeah, they didn’t want to share with Procter & Gamble. This was business and if Miss Wyndham wasn’t on the show, they could do what they wanted, and tank it or take it off the air or whatever. But Procter & Gamble wouldn’t let it go and believed in the show. They knew that I was an integral part and so they kept it.

[DaytimeFan]

VERY interesting interview.

So it WAS NBC all along...how pathetic. This is why I've never thought that P&G was the enemy in all of this. Certainly, they have contributed to the mediocrity of daytime, but with the upcoming cosmetic rejuvenations of ATWT and GL it stands to reason that P&G is invested in their soaps.

I don't think the future of DAYS on NBC looks good at all. Wyndham flat out said that NBC is not interested in keeping soaps on that network. But perhaps the executives at NBC will be overhauled and DAYS will survive. Wait and see.

[TC]

The whole interview is worth the read. Thank you for posting this.

[Max]

This is very interesting.

I never knew that NBC wanted complete ownership of the show so that they could morph AW into a stupid show like Passions. Also, I can now be 100% sure that all of the bad storylines in the 90's--such as Justine and Jordan Stark/Lumina--were the ideas of NBC (and not those of P&G), whose sole aim was to sabatoge the show.

In the past, I had blamed P&G almost as much as NBC for AW's demise. However, after reading this interview, it was obvious that it was not in P&G's interest to cancel this show. Nevertheless, I still wish P&G had fought harder to save AW.

Finally, I want to say how glad I am over the fact that NBC's youth-oriented, dumbed-down Passions strategy completely blew up in their faces.

[stenbeck212]

ONLY NOW will I believe that P&G probably has their soaps' best interest at heart, so perhaps it's CBS getting in the way of Luke and Noah's development on ATWT. Wyndham's idea of product placement in the show is SUCH a great idea, and I know I've seen it attempted on GL before. As long as nobody breaks into a full-on discussion of their favorite detergent, what's the big deal?

[jfung79]

I just came across this interview and it really was a fascinating, informative read. I'm surprised and amazed that she had pitched an idea to get rid of commercials with product placement in the show, and to get rid of the fourth wall, and that she wrote a 500-page story because they wanted her to be head writer.

I'm glad she seems content in her life now.

[Paul Raven]

I thought that Wyndham came off as quite egotistical in the interview.

Brandon Tartikoff was a fan-she was the only reason he kept the show on,she had the idea for product placement,the producers would come to her for story ,that if Rachel was written off,the show would die etc etc

Anyone else get that vibe??

[EastMA2]

She comes across as delusional! Sorry, but she is not the end all and be all of Another World. I'm not impressed and actually I've never liked her work.

[DeliaIrisFan]

I don't. She admitted that Tartikoff didn't actually watch the soaps, so it wasn't like he personally thought she was all the show had going for it. She was the mainstay that longtime viewers could identify - after Constance Ford died, wasn't she the last member of the cast left who had been around prior to the '80s? (And it only went off the air in 1999.) It would have been like Search for Tomorrow without Mary Stuart. VW is not only a great actress but knows a lot about the business - clearly someone should have listened to her some more. I don't doubt her opinion about NBC vs. P&G's culpability, but I do wonder if P&G had more clout that they chose not to use. Passions or any other soap could not have lasted without P&G advertising on it. They could have threatened to take their business elsewhere if NBC messed with AW. But VW was there, not me. Perhaps she just meant that the people directly involved in soaps at P&G cared - with Hulu and that attempt at a P&G channel on AOL video it certainly seems like someone at P&G cares about soaps more than I thought - but they did not have the kind of backup they would have needed from the corporate higher ups to do any kind of power play involving advertising with NBC.

Incidentally, her son Christian Camargo is a very talented actor as well - he was great on Dexter.

[NorrthCafe]

I believe her. NBC seemed to do all it could to get rid of AW especially when it's own show, Passions, was set to air. I've always wished AW could somehow return to daytime. I don't know why NBC refused to add Passions and keep AW on air.

[SFK]

I almost auditioned for a production of Hamlet he was starring in. To think, I would have gone through the entire rehearsal and performance process of a show I've already done and am not all that thrilled about doing again just for the *chance* to talk to Victoria Wyndham at the opening night party.

[SteveFrame]

NBC has always had a bad reputation with soaps so I believe what she said.

They start out with a network executive in the 50's and early 60's who did all he could to stop soaps from prospering on his network. He didn't even give them a chance and when he finally got 2 (Young Dr. Malone and From These Roots) that got decent ratings he did all the could to mess with their productions and finally cancelled them.

then finally in the mid 60's they realized that nothing was going to go against powerhouse CBS unless they had successful soaps and they worked to get them finally.

ANd then they went out of their way to really hurt what they had by messing with the schedule moving The Doctors out of it's slot between Days and AW which was the start of the death knell for it. Then allowing AW to expand to 90 minutes.

And then the mandates to their shows that forced them into constant regime changes because the ratings were not going up to match ABC. The constant threats of cancellation that loomed over all of them.

There was only a brief period of time when NBC actually stood behind their soaps - the rest of the time they have proven to care less.

[Mitch]

Yes, most of the problems with ATWT and GL are coming from CBS in the form of our beloved Bloomie. She is the one who is constantly tinkering with storylines and trying to get the young demos up.....(as a matter of fact, on another board somoene alluded to the fact that they destroyed the Bauer kitchen, the mainstay of the show, in an attempt to "contemporize," the show.)

[juniorz1]

That's simple- they wanted Passions to have the plum post-DAYS timeslot that AW occupied in most areas of the country. SUN was scheduled at all times of the day by the affiliates so replacing it with a new soap would have been foolish. NBC never had any intention of keeping AW over SUN- believe that.

Then again, they never had any intention of keeping SUN on much longer either.

[SFK]

I read this interview months back when someone posted it on Snark's site so I'm a little foggy, but does anyone understand what she was getting at in terms of product placement? IIRC, she was talking about breaking the fourth wall therefore cutting the need for commercial breaks, which kind of scares me actually. Do you think she meant Louise turning to the camera mid-scene and waxing poetic about Spic and Span??