Ryan's Hope Discussion Thread

[DeliaIrisFan]

That's a fair point with Pat, although I do think Groome isn't totally wrong that some initial aspects of the character got dropped when Frank survived.  The fact that Pat made a strong impression that first year when he was in story limbo was probably largely due to Groome.

As far as Kate Mulgrew/Mary, though, I really do think they found just about the only actress who could embody everything the writers wrote for that character.  With each recast, they seemed to go with someone who, at her best, could come close to approximating one or more aspects of what Kate brought to the role (some much closer than others).  Nevertheless, some other essential element of Mary always suffered. 

I actually think Siobhan was similar: Sarah Felder, especially in her first year, played an original, three-dimensional character that nobody ever replicated.  That Siobhan is probably my favorite soap heroine ever.  Alas, Joe and Siobhan became the show's de facto supercouple after Luke and Laura took off, and Siobhan had to become a different character to keep that going.  It so happened Marg Helgenberger was really talented and had great chemistry with her co-stars, and became popular playing a character type more in the vein of Margo Hughes/Deborah Saxon or a prototype of '90s Harley Cooper.

Edited November 5, 2023 by DeliaIrisFan

[gimmetoo]

Just finished the book…

Bravo to Tom Lisanti…Not only for a well written read and for tracking down so many cast members, but for getting published a thoroughly researched 400-page hardback history of a TV series that aired its last original episode 35 years ago…not to mention the series was a soap opera that never achieved huge commercial success ?!  Amazed by his tenacity !  And thankful to have this era in entertainment history so well documented…

A few observations:

- Clearly Claire Labine was the beating heart of the series.  She is well represented and praised throughout.  But it's disappointing that her children declined to participate in documenting their mother's legacy — especially considering two eventually became writers on the show.  Paul Avila Mayer’s daughters provide candid and valuable insights into the show, their father and Claire.

- The enormous importance of casting is wholly evident as you look back.  Both the brilliant:  Helen and Bernie, Kate, Ilene, Nancy, Roscoe, etc.  And the blundered:  the revolving door of Ryans, Geoff Pierson’s firing, not realizing that Roscoe and Kate were irreplaceable, etc.

- I missed hearing from the show’s heroines — Nancy (RIP), Marg, Yasmine — but I don’t miss Kate.  Her shadow loomed large over the show even after she left — oftentimes to the show’s detriment.  Her impact on the show is referenced throughout.

- Wish we would have gotten more insights into the BTS romances.  It is a soap opera after all…Minor references are made to Randall and Roscoe's relationship, but I wanted to hear from Geoff and Cali about their romance that evolved into a decades-long marriage.  One actor commented that Geoff’s firing was especially difficult for Cali.  No one spoke about Yasmine and Grant’s relationship…only that their on-screen pairing didn’t work, which was odd since they sparked off-screen.

- So brilliant to hear from the writers, producers, crew, etc.  They were all very candid and shed light on the BTS machinations, especially the battles with the network.

 

Edited November 5, 2023 by gimmetoo

[DeliaIrisFan]

Eleanor Labine declined to be interviewed, but Matt Labine actually died not long after his mother.  It was very shocking to read at the time.  As far as I know, her only other son, John, never worked for RH or any other soap.

I agree the Mayer sisters really helped contextualize the book, and Eleanor's voice has been the biggest absence so far.  I can only imagine she might not have been ready to revisit all of that, which had to be difficult to disentangle from the loss of her mother and brother.  I think I said it earlier in the chain that I really hope she tells or writes her family's story one day.  John Labine, too, depending on what he remembers - he was a bit younger, right?  But I can respect that this was not the right time for them.

Edited November 5, 2023 by DeliaIrisFan

[safe]

 Faith Catlin wasn't happy with her storyline on the show.

 

Daily TV Serials Magazine  - August 1976

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Newspaper interview May 21, 1981

Full interview

 

Edited November 6, 2023 by safe

[dc11786]

I was surprised in 2002/2003 when Soap Opera Digest covered the Michael / Kim / Rae story with a featured article giving the same impression that this was a very big story for the show. In retrospect, it is more likely that it was considered a big story because Michael was murdered during the summer of 1981 when ABC daytime was exploding because of Luke and Laura and ¨General Hospital¨ in general. Personally, I enjoy Kim´s stories because things happen when she was on. Her moral code is very different than most of the other characters which makes her more intersting to me. I also think the Kim / Seneca / Rae / Michael story is a bit of a variation on both the Mary / Julian / Liz / Michael story Labine & Mayer wrote on ¨Where the Heart Is¨ and the Meg / Rick / Cal story from ¨Love of Life."

I´m not sure Michael had the potential to be a longterm character. That whole grouping (Rae / Kim / Michael / Seneca) plays in such a bubble that the whole lot seemed to be limited in their story opportunities.  

Corbett ends up at ¨Search for Tomorrow¨ in late spring/early summer 1982. So there was more than enough time from his departure from ¨Ryan´s Hope¨ and his arrival on SFT to bring him back. Kelli Maroney gets a quick September, 1981, departure at the end of the Writer´s Strike upon Labine and Mayer´s return and she´s back by March, 1982, probably at ABC´s insistence. 

I think there may have been more issues about the existence of Arley in the mind of Labine and Mayer because it forced them to play that story and they probably didn´t want to or at least not explore that at that time. 

I think the show´s peak ratings were in August, 1981, when Kim gave into labor on the houseboat after either shooting the drunk vagrant (who I think was played by Robert Pasorelli) or being shot by him. 

I believe the source of this information was a poster on danfling´s board who claimed she had interned for Claire Labine on ¨Ryan´s Hope" in the early 1980s or late 1970s. She also claimed that Rae´s surname was originally Whitney, but that ABC had insisted on a change because of the Whitney clan on ¨Edge of Night." Several yars later, I remember SoapNet´s online episode summary listed Rae as Rae Whitney in the episode summaries, which I suspected might have been based on scripts. Or it was just a wild coincidence. 

In thinking of the origin of ¨Ryan´s  Hope," one of the things thhat I haven´t really seen discussed much is the impact of the original ABC idea for the series: a show set in a hospital. While dismissing the original Frank dies story was a problem, I think the adherence to the hospital based drama was also ineffective because there just doesn´t seem an intense interest from Labine and Mayer to tell that kind of show, which is interesting when you consider Labine´s 1990s run on ¨General Hospital.¨ The medical group was easily the group that faded into the woodwork in terms of the original cast and story with Ramona being the first one dropped, Clem never having a story of his own (his shining moment seems to be the hospital strike), Bucky becomes a supporting part after Reenie is dropped, and Nell and Ed die. I would have been interested to see how the show would have been shaped if there hadn´t been an insistence on a hopsital drama element. 

Bibles do not necessarily translate into what happens onscreen. Also, there may be versions of a a bible. I know that Labine had stated that the ¨Ryan´s Hope¨ bible included 100 years of the Ryan family history prior to what played out onscreen. As the show evolved, there may have been a bible for ¨A Rage to Love¨ and one for ¨Ryan´s Hope" even though they ultimately are the same thing. Onscreen, Jack and Jill had shared a romantic past prior to July, 1975. This wasn´t addressed much, but it did seem like that the show would consider pairing Jack and Jill again at some point. There was also the abandoned Roger / Mary pairing that seemed to be in the stages early on. 

It may not have been the kind of shows they had wanted to write, but it is the kind of stories that got them hired. Labine and Mayer´s earlier work on ¨Where the Heart Is" and ¨Love of Life¨ sounds much more energized and much more creative than the material in the early years of ¨Ryan´s Hope.¨ I don´t think that ABC thought they would be buying a show where an entire flashback would be spent with a drunken Michael Hawkins explaining to Helen Gallagher about how he bought her lineloum. The early days of the RH still maintain a bit of the psycho-sexual undertones that the writers had embedded into their earlier work. I find the first six months fascinating as it goes in such a different direction than the next couple years with Pat advising Bucky to avoid Faith because she was frigid, to Faith recalling a distrastous affair with her older professor (this may have been the revision to the Faith/Jack romance), and Maeve telling Jill she would never accept her as Frank´s wife because Frank had married Delia first.

The first few years is definitely strong writing, but it´s just not my favorite period. I enjoyed Nell´s right to live her final days on her terms. I thought that was beautiful especially when Maeve bluntly told Johnny, who had been disparaging Seneca for removing Nell from life support, that she hoped he would do the same for her. I think Delia´s Chinese cooking lessons affair with Roger and her later faking her pregnancy with Pat was fun. Nothing is more enjoyable for me as Ilene Kristen as Delia calling Alicia Nieves and doing her best Mary Ryan impression trying to get details out of Alicia about how to fake a her miscarriage by asking how to prove someone was faking. Another gem is Frances Foster (I think she was in the role at that point) as Miriam telling Jack that she hits Ryan because Miriam and Maeve have determined Jack is Ryan´s pal at the park in hopes that Jack will go to Mary and reveal he does care. 

As disjointed as the early 1980s can be, I do appreciate that the show doesn´t seem as tied to the slice of life material that had dominated. There is nothing wrong with it, but I found it made any attempts to try anything outside the box stand out, and not always in a good way.  The narrow focus in the early years almost seems out of place given the nature of the setting. For a show set in New York City, it often felt small. 

[Soaplovers]

I grew up in Chicago.. and in a lot of ways Chicago was similar to New York City in terms of their being various neighborhoods within the city.  You tend to stay in your neighborhood for various things such as shopping, bars, and sometimes even places of employment.

So I could buy Ryan's Hope being so narrow in focus because the family had immigrated to America, open their bar, and had regulars that had coming into Ryan's Bar for decades.  That is how urban areas.. or were at that time.

[DeliaIrisFan]

Agreed, especially before gentrification and the erosion of small businesses.  I can even buy the homogeneity of most of the (original) main characters.  Although there was a missed opportunity to make the show more multicultural over time, especially when the cast turnover started and they eventually gave up the ghost on recasting some core Ryans for years at a time.

I posted the other day about Ana Alicia's (and others') recollections in the book.  While she deserved a more fulfilling role, for me the saddest part of what she had to say was the part about how they wanted her to "do" an accent when she first debuted and she pushed back, to no avail.  I know they were never going to have Alicia supplant Mary as the main heroine, but I wish they would have tried to give even a supporting character the dignity she deserved—and the realism that the show could be so good at in so many other aspects.  Not to mention, that they'd trusted the actor and her lived experience (or, in this case, her self-awareness about what she might not be able to represent).

I still love RH, and I actually think the writers made a great deal of progress in this area in their later careers.  But I appreciate that the book documented everything that was available about the history of the show: good and bad.

Edited November 5, 2023 by DeliaIrisFan

[Khan]

I agree that the show's focus could be too narrow, especially in its' earliest years, but probably not in the same way you thought it was. 

For me, the issue had nothing to do with the setting, but more with the fact that Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer just seemed so reluctant to stretch the canvas even a little bit so that it didn't feel as if every Ryan sibling was always hooking up with another Coleridge sibling, and vice-versa.  I mean, you expect every soap to be incestuous to some degree, but my God!

That's why I welcomed new additions to the cast like Rae and Kim, Michael Pavel, the Kirklands, Bess and Maggie, the Greenbergs, even Joe and Max Dubujak; because, at the very least, their arrivals potentially meant new story opportunities for the core characters.

[Paul Raven]

The half hour format, although ideal in many ways could be restrictive as there isn't room to bring in much needed new characters. And to continually focus on the same characters year after year inevitably leads to problems especially when there is recasting.

Don't know why Labine/Mayer wouldn't have welcomed the chance to drop some characters for a while b/w recasts and bring them back months/years later to a new set of story opportunities.

[Sallyinlondon]

I loved the Nell storyline, i hadnt realised she left when the actress became unwell.  She was so fresh and unique in the way they portrayed a middle aged woman at the time.  Shes actually my second favourite character.

I agree the coleridges and ryans seemed too intertwined but i do like the early years "smallness" feel, it gives a sort of claustrophobic intensity that you see the younger ones want to break from.

I wish the Szabos had come back again, especially Nick as they are gloriously corrupt, I know Reenie went onto a different show but she was great.

I feel like they were testing different pairings at the beginning, Mary goes on a few dates and even seems like they are trying her with Clem at one point (which I would have loved to see) and the Jill and Jack relationship doesnt seem to be mentioned much after 1976.  I was expecting Jill to be a bigger character after reading what Kate had to say about her in her book, but she seemed a bit on the side in thr years ive seen (up until 78)

[DRW50]

I see what you mean, especially about Siobhan. That first year, before they made her so generic, was a wonderful mix of actress and writing. 

Mary never quite worked for me as a character, even with Kate, but I can see where Kate helped translate the writing. 

(I think one of the other problems with Mary was it felt like her story reached a natural conclusion after she and Jack reconciled)

[safe]

Some Ebony Magazine comments from  RH producer Robert Costello and Hannibal Penney and  from March 1978

Blacks in the 'Soaps'

Robert Costello, producer of ABC's Ryan's Hope, says, "The reason there aren't more Blacks or interracial relationships is not due to prejudice. It's just that Blacks must be able to be integrated into story lines. Ryan's Hope revolves around an Irish Catholic family, and by the time we finish with the stories about all of the family members, everyone else's part is peripheral. And we can't bring in a Black brother-in-law to one of the Ryan's."

The lone Black actor on Ryan's Hope is Hannibal Penney Jr., who portrays Dr. Clem Moultrie, the chief resident neurosurgeon at New York's Riverside Hospital. Penney is also a contract player. "I have had a story line as director of a strike by overworked hospital doctors at Riverside, but I don't have a love interest" says Penney. "Daytime TV is all about romance, and when an actor gets a full story with a love interest, then he can discern his following and how much audience appeal he has." Penney has been with Ryan's Hope for three years.

Edited November 6, 2023 by safe

[Soaplovers]

What I didn't understand was why didn't the show revist Jack/Jill during the time when Frank was off the canvas between fall 1981 to early 1983.  Jill barely did anything during the time Frank was off the show.

My mom was a hug Jill fan.. how she was a lawyer, independent, etc... so when I watched the reruns.. I said 'how can you admire a character that settled for being the other woman, and waiting for Frank to get his ass in gear'.  My mom said 'well I just loved the actress.'.

At least Faith was given different stories during the times when Pat was off screen.

[Chris 2]

I thought they missed the boat to expand beyond the Ryans and Coleridges with Clem and Bucky. They were played by two charismatic actors who were never properly utilized.

[safe]

John Sanderford (Frank #5) passed away on September 22.

 

https://obituaries.forestlawn.com/obituaries/john-sanderford

 

John Sanderford, a beloved actor known for his long and storied career in television, film, and commercials, has passed away at the age of 71. He was born on February 6, 1952, in Orlando, FL and departed from this world on September 22, 2023, in Burbank, CA.

From an early age, it was evident that John had a passion for drama. He honed his craft by studying drama at the renowned North Carolina School of the Arts.

Throughout his life, John found immense joy in the success of those he loved. A great storyteller with an infectious enthusiasm, he had a knack for captivating his listeners with tales that brought laughter and tears in equal measure. As a husband, father and grandfather, John's love knew no bounds. His dedication to his family was unwavering, and he cherished every moment spent with them.

He will be remembered as a prayer warrior for everyone, always ready to offer support and kind words to those in need. John possessed a loving and generous spirit that made everyone around him feel valued and appreciated. His caring nature created a warm and safe environment where people could open up.

 John enjoyed immersing himself in literature through reading- finding solace in the written word. Sports also held a special place in his heart; he loved playing tennis and pickleball whenever he could. But his dedication to his faith in Jesus was truly inspiring. He never stopped learning and growing, and becoming the man God designed him to be. 

John faced many challenges throughout his life but approached them with unwavering determination, resilience, and faith. He fought hard until the end, demonstrating his strength and inspiring those around him, while never ceasing to praise the Lord through it all. 

His proudest accomplishments were the ones closest to his heart – his cherished family, the profound impact of God on his life, and his commitment to supporting those in need. John's legacy will endure through the lives he touched and the love he shared.

John is survived by his loving wife of 42 years, Judi, whose unwavering support was a constant source of strength for him. Their partnership and marriage was one of incredible love and devotion. His children, Austin and Jordan, brought immeasurable joy to his life, as did his son-in-law Jeff. He adored his grandchildren, who each held a special place in his heart. He loved being the Captain to them. His mother Barbara, who is 93 years old, shares in the grief of this loss alongside John's siblings: Dave, Rick, Julia, Mary, and numerous nieces and nephews.

A Funeral Service will be held on November 25th, 2023 at Forest Lawn - Glendale - Church of the Recessional in Glendale, CA. The service will begin at 2:30 PM local time to celebrate the life of this extraordinary man who touched so many hearts throughout his journey. This event will be livestreamed.  

https://forestlawn.livecontrol.tv/c06f1cc3?pwd=c2FuZGVyZm9yZA%3D%3D

John Sanderford leaves behind a legacy that will forever be etched in our hearts. As we bid farewell to this remarkable soul taken too soon from us, let us remember him for his unwavering faith, loving nature, immense talent and indomitable spirit. We find solace in the fact that he is now and forever covered by eternal peace in the warm embrace of God Almighty. 
 

Edited November 8, 2023 by safe