Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

[Efulton]

From interviews on the French Santa Barbara site:

 

Ismael Carlo does say why he left but it is apparent why he did not last long...

In her high petulant way she (Bridget Dobson) commenced to tell me how all her South American workers were beholding to her. How she treated them, "like children". I said to her, "I'm not a child". She got upset and started to cry. I told her that if she did not want me on the show, all she had to do was break the contract and pay me. It never happened. The Dobsons, who were the producers, where a pair of what you would call in your country aristocrats in their minds. I almost quit just before I started. But like any actor at the time I stuck it out all because of the work. 

 

Ava Lazar

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

[j swift]

To quote Casablanca, "it's still same old story" - actors fired for cost then trying to find some causal meaning when interviewed by the press...

 

Maybe the Dobsons were short sighted jerks, despite years in the business, or maybe they spent too much money making the floors in the Capwell atrium look like tile to afford such a large cast, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

Edited May 11, 2021 by j swift

[FrenchBug82]

To be entirely fair, spending that much money on decor without budgeting for said large cast and the potential that ratings may be slow to come would make them "short-sighted, despite years in the business".

So technically both versions of the story are perfectly compatible. Obviously individual actors are going to see the story at their level, which is individual, even when larger factors must be taken into account.

But firing *them* over others certainly was a choice that had to come down to something, even if the fact they had to make a choice in the first place was about larger issues. So they explain what that something was from their interpretation/experience.

I will put it out there that based on my current re-viewing of the early months, Santana would emphatically not been who I would have fired/written out.

The irony of course being that the Capwell mansion set changed later on anyway so it wasn't even necessary - although it was beautiful and what I will definitely give them kudos for is that it felt very Santa Barbara. The sense of place was spot-on throughout the sets but it shouldn't have been at the expense of writing and keeping a good cast.

[robbwolff]

It doesn’t give the source of her 1987 interview, but here’s where I saw her talking about leaving SB:

 

http://pierin26santabarbara.blogspot.com/2012/08/where-are-they-now-ava-lazar.html?m=1

[Soaplovers]

It seemed like the Dobson's seemed to kill off any story that had potential that weren't Cruz/Eden.

 

Santana was an interesting character...she was the maids daughter, determined to attain status on the same level as the Capwells.

 

Ava L was sensual and tortured with a strong backbone.  While Santana #2 was a decent actress that handled the Channing is gay story well....I wonder how Ava would have played it.

 

And I don't think the Santana being drugged and sent to a mental hospital would have occurred had ava played the role (though she did want to kill someone in the early episodes so Santana was certainly passionate.

 

One of the few positives of Long's stint was wrapping up Santana's arc..with the character leaving to start a new life..and reclaimed her identity...and meeting the handsome guy on the plane was a nice end to the character 

[j swift]

I understand why it feels this way, but here's an interesting tidbit from the same article about Ms. Lazar's firing

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For better or for worse, it is a reminder that Cruz and Eden emerged out of audience support.  It is further evidence that whatever the original plans/bible were for SB were re-written and re-thought.  Which may be why re-watching the first year feels like a mess, with tangents, huge events with no consequences, and dropped storylines all over the place.

Edited May 11, 2021 by j swift

[rlj]

My bad, if its been posted already, there were 2 other Andrade kids, Gabrielle and Olivia!

[Chris 2]

Wearing lots of lip gloss, no doubt.

[Wendy]

 

That is exactly why Mason/Julia came to be, too. Originally, Julia and her Baby Contract with Mason were to be the spoilers for Mason/Tori. But the audience responded to Mason/Julia, so the script was flipped and Tori became THEIR spoiler.

[Carlos Abad]

Do you have the full article of Ava's firing? Maybe you posted and I missed it. 

[Chris 2]

Here’s a link to the full interview

 

Ava Lazar interview

 

What were they thinking? She was the best of all the Santanas.

[Carlos Abad]

Thanks for the link. 

[Sapounopera]

AL's Santana would not end up like a pathetic victim. I can see her having some of Gina's stories. 

[Liberty City]

It irks me how horribly Pamela was handled from the getgo.
She was continually mentioned, and had some great material at the beginning.
And while Shirley Anne Field did quite well, I do understand Bridget Dobson's desire to hire Marj Dusay for the role, and the idea of making Pamela a Lucinda Walsh-esque character could have been amazing.

 

The character assassination of Santana Andrade, brought on by multiple misrecasts, is one of the worst things to happen to Santa Barbara.
That first year a lot of mistakes were made, casting and story wise.

 

 

Her response is kind of funny, because Bridget & Jerome Dobson were executive producers during her entire run.
Only the co-executive producer changed, twice, during her duration in the role.
When Lazar joined, Jeffrey Hayden was co-executive producer.
When she left, Mary-Ellis Bunim was the co-executive producer.

 

I think the fact they dyed her hair darker was another mistake, and it was clear they were trying to re-paint Santana into an anti-Eden and Kelly looking character (a.k.a. blonde).

 

 

I feel like TPTB kept teasing pairings for Julia, and they just did not commit to any of them.

 

 

Lazar was perfectly cast as Santana Andrade.
Margaret Michaels got off rough, but, by the conclusion of her run she was beginning to embody the role.. and her fashion slowly began getting better.

 

But, with recast, the role kept being destroyed.

 

 

I could have seen Santana becoming somewhat of a Phyllis Summers-type character, where Brandon was concerned, and truly pushing her interior design company, which is only storyline I felt like was dropped.

[FrenchBug82]

I think the racial undertones of that should not be ignored.
I firmly believe some of the subtext of what happened is that she didn't look or sound like a "sterotypical" Latina and that became a problem in the minds of TPTB because the cliches they wanted to rely on (see her "fire" leading her to bring a gun to Joe's return in the first episodes) weren't clicking with her more subtle performance and non-daughter-of-the-Latina-maid appearance.