Ryan's Hope Discussion Thread

[j swift]

Was Robin or Randall's debut timed to coincide with the opening of the Crystal Palace?

 

Also, did RH ever have a Studio 54-esque disco, because they all felt a bit too young to hang out at a Rainbow Room-esque establishment?

[gimmetoo]

 

Randall was Delia for the Crystal Palace.  Don't remember a disco...when RH introduced the younger set, they were centered around the Greenberg Deli.  

[Sean]

 

As @gimmetoo mentioned, the Crystal Palace opened in May 1980 when Randall was in the role - she'd been on the show for over a year at that point. It closed around February 1983, at which point Ilene had been back on the show for nearly a year.

 

Your post did remind me of the great scene when Delia shared the dancefloor at the Crystal Palace with Michael Pavel at the New Year's Eve 1981 celebration, with frequent cutaways to both Kim and Rae watching and stewing:

 

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He was fine from what I've seen, but Steve Latham wasn't an especially interesting or complex character. He was mostly there to share love scenes with Robin Mattson's Delia and to try to convince her to leave her husband; we were never really presented with any sense of him outside his role in her story. It sounds like he became more explicitly nefarious at the end of his run with the revelation that Steve had a long history of seducing rich married women and then blackmailing them, but that happened within his last week or two on the show.

[DRW50]

That is the only good scene Michael ever had on the show - aside from when he was plugged full of lead.

 

Randall Edwards was very special as Delia. It's a shame RH never understood or appreciated this, instead pushing a series of failed new characters like MJ and poor, tired characters like Faith who tanked everything they touched. 

Edited June 4, 2020 by DRW50

[John]

Did Robin Mattson quit at the last minute cause her exit seemed like it came outta nowhere

[gimmetoo]

Love seeing Michael and Delia disco to Red Light (from the Fame soundtrack).  Randall was the quintessential shiksa goddess...

 

And I know lots of folks hate on Kelli Maroney, but she stews brilliantly in this scene.  I actually liked her a lot -- especially her scenes w/ Louise Shaffer.  The Woodards provided a welcome divergence from the sanctimonious Ryans.  

Edited June 5, 2020 by gimmetoo

[j swift]

OMG, I totally forgot that Roscoe and Randall were married until I read it in the 1991 SOD on that thread.

Edited June 5, 2020 by j swift

[John]

I liked kelli here. She was bad as Tina at OLTL and she once Lobbied to return in the 2000's

[Khan]

 

Now that you've mentioned it, I don't recall seeing such an establishment on RH -- which is odd, because RH was set in NYC, and discos were fairly common in NYC at that time.  But, on the other hand, maybe Labine & Mayer avoided it on purpose, because it seemed like every other soap on the air was trying to incorporate disco (and failing).

 

 

Yes, Kelli Maroney was VERY green on RH and needed a ton of guidance.  However, she also breathed some life into a show that was beginning to get stale with all the Ryan/Coleridge/Reid hookups.  I'm sorry she didn't stay on RH for very long, as she probably might've developed into a good, if not great, actress.  Then again, if she had stayed, there probably wouldn't have been a Maggie Shelby, as I found her and Kimberly to be very similar.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Khan

[DRW50]

Karen Morris Gowdy at the start of this.

 

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[safe]

. 

Thanks, Carl!

Edited November 4, 2023 by safe

[amybrickwallace]

From February 1984: The Ryans (Bernie Barrow, Marg Helgenberger, Michael Levin, Nancy Addison Altman and Geoffrey Pierson) compete against the Buchanans and Quartermaines on the Daytime Dynasties Week of Family Feud:

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[danfling]

 

Who was the casting director for the show's premiere in 1975.   I think the casting director did an wonderful job - especially with Malcolm Groome, Michael Levin, Justin Dees, and Helen Gallagher.

[John]

Shirley Rich

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0723714/

[Sean]

I got lost down a Google wormhole recently, and I was surprised to come across this blurb about a possible Kim recast in a Jon-Michael Reed column from March 1982:

 

JOINING “RYAN’S HOPE” as money mogul Hollis Kirkland is actor Peter Haskell, who enjoyed a short-lived success in the nighttime soap, “Bracken’s World,” several years ago. Kelli Maroney returns to the role she originated, Kim Beaulac, on the same show. Kelli was dropped from the cast last summer. Since then ABC has auditioned a score of actresses with “more maturity” than acting neophyte Maroney. Obviously, none of them was considered as acceptable as the original performer. There may be something to be learned from this “return of events,” however bizarre it seems.

 

Given her popularity during the Rae/Michael/Kim/Seneca storyline, and keeping in mind that the show also recast Pat, Siobhan, and Delia during this same timeframe, it makes sense they stuck with a tried-and-tested quantity like Kelli Maroney. It's fascinating to think what they could have done with the character and the Kim/Rae dynamic if they'd brought in someone new who was a little less green and more versatile, though.

 

Considering how much pressure the show was under from ABC during this time, it's head-scratching that they would go out of their way to dump first Michael Corbett and then Kelli Maroney. Neither of them were ever the reasons I wanted to watch the show (though I did enjoy Kim's torturing of Rae), but it's clear ABC thought of them as major draws - both figure heavily in promos from the show during this time, and they appeared on (separate) covers of People. Their departures bookended the writers strike, so I'm curious if they were primarily instigated by producer Ellen Barrett, who at least in Michael Corbett's telling did not seem to like him very much. (For what it's worth, she's also the same producer who supposedly fired Sarah Felder after pressuring her to cut her hair.)