Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[victoria foxton]

On the French SB fan site. Perl's last appearance was April 22, 1988. 

Edited March 15, 2021 by victoria foxton

[DRW50]

Thanks.

[Faulkner]

 

[Wendy]

I really liked Henry Darrow. And Rafael. 

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May Mr. Darrow rest in peace.

[DRW50]

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[amybrickwallace]

 

Same. RIP. ❤

[FrenchBug82]

Was there ever a big-picture analysis or speculation as to why SB was unusually plagued by recasts, re-recasts, re-re-recasts from almost the get-go?

I am not talking about things like Kelly or Mason recasts because the performer chose to leave; that's par for the course.

But I mean firing some of your OG actors to recast a few months into a show is unheard of. Having such a revolving door in the first 18 months of a show is certainly sign something is going seriously wrong.
Was it an issue with the Dobsons? The work environment?
Why was Santa Barbara casting so bizarrely handled?

Edited April 18, 2021 by FrenchBug82

[Efulton]

I just started watching Santa Barbara from the beginning on YouTube for the first time since it originally aired. I really like the majority of the original cast and do not understand why so many were fired.  Ava Lazar (Santana #!1) in particular had star potential.  I suspect Mary-Ellis Bunim coming onboard a few months after the show premiered had a a lot to do with the cast changes.  She left every show worse off than she found it.

[j swift]

I think the closest we get to an answer comes the reporting of the time that was recently uploaded to The Soaps of Yesterday Tumblr.  SB debuted just as ABC was broadcasting the very popular 1984 Summer Olympics and CBS had seen great success that summer in the expansion of The Price is Right to an hour, which in turn boosted the ratings for Y&R.  As a result, SB was a ratings bust right out of gate.  Coupled with the fact that it premiered as an hour soap, and NBC had gone so far as to build another sound stage for its production, they were hemorrhaging money.  So, the network panicked and did what networks always did to solve a problem, they fired producers, writers, and actors. 

 

Casting was an issue from the beginning with Lloyd Bochner dropping out a week before the premiere (I never knew that Peter Marc Richman had to be edited into the pilot later due to Bochner's health).  Marcy Walker was hired away from AMC without her character being in the original bible.  Dame Judith Anderson as Minx was publicized in the original announcement for the show, but Nick Coster and Louise Sorel were last minute hires.  So, planning was not a strong suit.

 

As we know from retrospective interviews, network interference drove the Dobson's to be more and more resistant to consultation, and eventually they were locked out, sued the network, won a settlement, returned, got fired again, and finally NBC cancelled when another production company pitched a set of game shows that would cost less money.

Edited April 19, 2021 by j swift

[Efulton]

From an interview with Ava Lazar on the great Santa Barbara site.

 

http://santabarbara-online.com/index2.htm

 

You left the show before the end of 1984. What were the reasons of your departure ? With time, did you have any regret about it ?

When the producers on the original show were all fired and new producers came in from New York they maintained primarily those actors they had worked with in New York. It was really not up to me to stay. Sadly I wish I could have remained on the show. By that point it was becoming fun again.

[Chris B]

I started watching last year and I too fell in love with the original Santana. Not only is she a strong actress, but so beautiful. Its insane to me that she was fired when she could;ve been a major player for them long term. In terms of casting, I wonder if that's part of why I struggle so much with the series. I'm almost to Nancy Lee Grahn's arrival and I still am not in love with the show. I take breaks all the time. It seems like they can't maintain the momentum and the show has long periods of being dull. I have heard such good things, but I feel like I'm still waiting for that golden period everybody speaks of.

[victoria foxton]

I would say 1986/87 is the golden period. Everyone speaks of. Anne Bailey Howard continued what the Dobson's set in motion. While at the same time sabotaging it. Which lead to real life BTS soapiness. 

Edited April 19, 2021 by victoria foxton

[FrenchBug82]

 

Funnily enough that is EXACTLY what prompted my question. I am watching the first episodes and thinking that Joe Perkins #1 was hot and doing fine, Santana was striking, is-that-supposed-to-be-CC-wait-Jed-Allen-was-number-4, etc.
Some of the recasts were wonderful too - I mean, who can argue with Robin Mattson - but I didn't see anything wrong with the OGs. And recasting so many so early really set a bad tone IMO. 
 

I am curious about this. Eden is mentioned briefly in the first episode (Kelly says she and Eden used to fight for the right to dance with their dad) so did they include that line last-minute because they had already decided to create her but scripts were already written for the first few months of the show so they didn't introduce her properly until they had managed to snag Walker?

 

 

I have been watching those Television Academy interviews and while there are a handful of soap ones, the interviewer clearly is not intimately familiar with the shows and it stay superficial.
I wish someone would take the time to do similar in-depts interviews for an oral history of the shows, SB in particular. Would be fascinating for those of us who were too young for the BTS shenanigans in real-time

Edited April 19, 2021 by FrenchBug82

[Sapounopera]

Ava Lazar was amazing as Santana. I wouldn't have recast Gina either. 

[Chris 2]

Some of the recasts I understood. Peter Mark Richman was always playing these kind of sour business associates on various nighttime shows, and he was never going to be the right person to play a charismatic character like CC. Paul Burke was a primetime actor, so I suppose that was his appeal, but he was limited in range. Casting dull Charles Bateman was a head scratcher.

 

The first Joe, while a good looking man, was a pretty green actor (I still remember after all these years the weird way he said “Kelly”). And they worked him hard. The second Joe was played by a more experienced actor, but it was jarring because he wasn’t pretty like the first Joe. The whole Joe and Kelly undying-love story seemed a little forced to me.

 

The actress who originally played Laken was awful. She mumbled her lines and had no pep - just kind of low energy for someone who was one half of a couple that you were supposed to root for. Maybe they were going for someone to balance out eager-beaver Ted, but I think they could have gotten someone who seemed grounded without being a total dud.

 

I recall that Sophia was quickly recast, as was Pamela.

 

Ava Lazar was fine as Santana, and very striking to boot. Her successors paled in comparison.