Ryan's Hope Discussion Thread

[SFK]

Who says animal lovers can't be fur lovers too?

I looked up that Crawdaddy restaurant to see if it was still in the city. I guess it's long gone. It was on 45th & Vanderbilt, right by Grand Central, live jazz. Must have been nice.

[DRW50]

That was something Digest did for a number of years, having a random soap star go to a local restaurant. The last I remember was Frances Fisher. I do wonder how many of those are still around.

It's weird to see Nancy that way mostly because I can't see Jill ever allowing herself to enjoy such a display, although she did wear fur. (Deborah would have luxuriated in it though). It makes me laugh because Delia, Jill's arch-rival, had the story where she was obsessed with a fur coat and wore it all the time, even during the spring. I can imagine her reaction to this.

I never knew her father ran a fur store. I never knew Liz Hubbard's husband did either. She modeled "furs for pregnant women" in some old Daytime TV. I think Lucinda was one of the last soap characters to wear them, and from what ATWT said to SOD around the late 80/early 90s, they were real.

[SFK]

Yeah, I never knew that her dad ran a fur salon either, or about Liz's husband until you posted that article a while back. Furs for pregnant women?? Now that's hilarious. Talk about an extravagance. No offense to NAA's dad, but those aren't exactly "fine furs." Most of them are pieced/sections coats, heads, paws, sides, and whatnot, that's why a lot of them look like they'd been in a catfight.

AMC got word from the higher ups that there were to be no more furs on the show after some viewer complaints. Erica and Mona wear mink coats in the 20th anniversary special (Erica's is a bright red sheared mink jacket like the kind Sally Field wears in Soapdish, there was a trend for real furs to mimic fakes with the rise in animal rights activism) and I think that's about the last time I saw real coats on the show. GL (Vanessa, Amanda) and OLTL (Viki, Dorian, Alex, Blair) were the last soaps I remember seeing furs on a regular basis. I remember Lucinda in a mink too in the late '90s, but I think they may have been giving her faux by then, like you said, she'd worn several real ones in years prior.

[DRW50]

Someone said JFP got rid of furs on OLTL. I'm not sure if they were real by then or not.

To me it doesn't seem quite right for Viki - old old money - and Dorian - pretender to old money - to not wear fur. I think both actresses suited it for some reason.

That's fascinating about the coats - the poor quality. I did think a few looked tacky and cheap, like they belonged in that Sean Connery movie, Zardoz, or Outland, or whatever.

I think I showed you that clip from ATWT 1986 with the fur fashion show. It was a bit surreal. I can never quite get my head around Kim wearing a fur, for some reason. It seems to wear her.

You learn such fascinating things in these magazines. I never knew that Liz Hubbard wanted to leave acting to become a news broadcaster. I'm glad she didn't - my formative years would have not been the same.

[SFK]

That's interesting, I never knew that either but I can see that. It's funny you should mention that though, I was reading something about the Today Show just a few days ago and I was surprised to learn that Estelle Parsons and Shirley Jones and maybe some other names I'm forgetting right now started out on morning news shows like that. They went on to successful acting careers, but it reminds you of what the actor's life is like, how when you're broke and wanting to work, you sometimes take jobs that aren't ideally what you'd want to be doing but they pay the bills and can lead you down a totally different career track.

Yeah, JFP yanked the furs which was around the time RS was having real-life moral issues with fur. She'd just bought a mink coat herself then saw that documentary "The Witness" and ended up donating her new mink. She's since reconsidered and bought vintage mink. I've seen pictures of ES and HBS wearing real fur in SOD/SOW. Christie Brothers provided OLTL's furs, it really did add an elegant visual dimension to the show during the early '90s. When Viki and Dorian wear fake furs these days it looks so cheap and clownish like they're playing make pretend dress-up rich people.

[DRW50]

From the 1975 Afternoon TV Special.

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From the November 1975 Daytime TV.

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From the September 2, 1980 Digest.

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December 1976 Daytime TV.

[safe]

Great picture of Ty McConnell.

Carl, do you know if the actors' dates, on the character profiles, over at Soap Central are reliable? I'm asking because when I was looking up Frank Latimore on Guiding Light it said that he began his recurring role over there on April 5, 1976. He was killed off RH on March 29th and I was surprised that only 7 days later made his Guiding Light debut. Talk was that he liked playing that warmer father role more than playing cold Ed Coleridge.

Who's Who in Springfield/Dr. Emmet Scott

Edited March 15, 2011 by safe

[DRW50]

I'm not sure. It's tough to know how accurate the dates are with something like that as this was before the daily synopses and people are just going on memory sometimes.

Do you know if he was fired or did he choose to leave RH? I think that killing Ed off was a mistake in the long-term. I also think it's odd that he felt Ed was cold, as, although they referenced his coldness a few times, generally onscreen he was warm and at the most, stern.

Soapnet aired the episodes last night where Ed died and it doesn't get any less cheesy or awkward, in terms of the stunt, but it has some beautiful performances. I think that and Nell's death were big turning points for the show.

[safe]

I don't know what prompted his leaving.

I'm about a week behind in my viewing, but I think killing off two characters, within a month of each other, seems like a odd thing for a new show to do when they're still trying find a audience.

[DRW50]

I think they planned to kill Nell off at this time all along but the killing of Ed did seem very random, and rushed, and had little followup, so I wonder what happened there.

I'd still love to see what the show would have been if they'd killed Frank off as they had initially planned.

[LoyaltoAMC]

With the plan to kill off Frank, who did Labine and Mayer have in mind to be their main hero? Seneca? If so, I wonder if John Gabriel's role was somehow truncated with the 11th hour decision to keep Frank.