Thanks @safe

Nancy was beautiful but she was not passing as late twenties (especially as this was before so many women that age started looking 40 at a young age due to fillers and other bad plastic surgery). I wonder if she may have been lying about Jill being intended as older due to the age lie. I could see Jill originally planned as a few years older just because the age gap with Jack and Frank would not have been so noticeable.

I remember Nancy wearing a lot of her own pieces on air around this time.

On 5/5/2026 at 5:49 PM, DRW50 said:

Thanks @safe

Nancy was beautiful but she was not passing as late twenties (especially as this was before so many women that age started looking 40 at a young age due to fillers and other bad plastic surgery). I wonder if she may have been lying about Jill being intended as older due to the age lie. I could see Jill originally planned as a few years older just because the age gap with Jack and Frank would not have been so noticeable.

I recalled an earlier article that already had her in her 30's. Back then, it wasn't unusual for actors to present themselves as younger to be open for younger roles. This certainly wasn't anything scandalous like Kelli Maroney saying she was only 13 when she was hired to play Kim.

The 1980's more glamourous makeup made women look older than they were, too.

Early Malcolm Groome (Pat #1) from his college days at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill as part of the Carolina Playmakers Repertory Company. Playing Sgt. Bouncer in the musical farce Cox and Box

Not the clearest quality

approx. 4:30, 22:15, 37:12, 39:15 (taking a bow)

Edited Friday at 08:43 PM5 days by safe

Soap BUFFALO COURIER-EXPRESS, Sunday, December 23, 1979 Jon Micheal Reed

Recent serial screen deaths caught viewers by surprise. But the departures reflect a philosophy about soap opera writing.

Mary Ryan was bumped off this month, just as her sister Siobhan married the mysterious Joe Novak. Before Siobhan met Joe she had almost fallen into the arms of Mary's husband, Jack. To complicate things, Mary's murder was at the hands of underworld thugs who may be connected to Joe "Actually, we had been building up to Mary's death for some time," says "RH" cocreator and co-headwriter Claire Labine.

"WHEN YOU have a happily married couple like Jack and Mary, you lose plot flexibility. We couldn't separate them romantically. The audience wouldn't have accepted it. And frankly, as writers, Paul Mayer and ! were unecqual to the task of keeping them married and still providing a viable front-burner story for Jack, who has maintained incredible appeal to the audience.

Implicit in Labine's statement is the fact that the writers have never been able to recover from the loss of actress Kate Mulgrew, the original Mary. Mulgrew went on to a night show as Kate Columbo, while "RH" went through a series of actresses who never quite captured the vibrancy that Miss Mulgrew brought to the role. In all fairness to Nicolette Goulet, the most recent Mary, the writers were negligent in "pick up on" her special acting qualities. Not that she is crying about her axing- immediately she signed a contract with "Search For Tomorow" to portray Kathy Philips, a role she'll assume within the next two weeks

INCIDENTALLY, the tragedy of Mary's death and the solemnity of Sobhan's wed ding was. comicaliy relieved with a fantastic dream sequence in which Delia fanta sized she was being romanced by an oil sheik, complete with a scorched desert, a wind blown tent and a woebegone camel .Only "RH" could get away with that.