Ryan's Hope Discussion Thread

[OldSchoolSoapFan]

Glad you like them. I found Geoff Pierson to be very HOT and SENSUAL. I loved it when he would get angry; he had that agressiveness about him that drove me crazy!! He has beautiful pecs and a yummy chest; not over-the-top bodybuildish like David Sederholm. Actually I prefer naturally hunky chests like Geoff's.

[OldSchoolSoapFan]

I feel that the Tom King/Millee Taggart period of RH is overlooked in many ways, and I think that the latter 1986 episodes when Ilene Kristen returned to the show were terrific!! There was one scene which still cracks me up--it was when Maggie confronted Delia about hocking a valuable Coleridge necklace. Delia said to her (paraphrasing)--"What would know about having a child. And I suggest you don't have one because when you lose your waistline honey, you're gonna lose your husband!" (a reference to Roger) A catfight was in the beginning stages before it was halted by Mr. Dowd (the Coleridge butler), who carried Maggie out of the room!

Edited June 22, 2010 by OldSchoolSoapFan

[OldSchoolSoapFan]

More chest shots of Geoffrey Pierson:

[DRW50]

Yeah, I know what you mean, the overly developed stuff doesn't do a lot for me either.

Considering how many times they recast Frank, most of them were pretty good. Aside from the first...

I remember reading about some line Delia had on her return where she said she was now going to just be known by Delia, like Madonna, or Cher.

After the crappy way ABC treated her in 1983 I'm glad she got to have a triumph in the show's last few years.

[OldSchoolSoapFan]

Ugh...I didn't like the way Ilene was misused in 1983. As was John Gabriel (Seneca). I liked 1983 but the way Kristen and Gabriel were backburnered it wasn't really good. At least 1983 ended with a bang--we got to see the dapper and handsome Daniel Pilon as Max Dubujak!

[OldSchoolSoapFan]

Oh snap--my pics got deleted. Damn Photobucket...

GEOFFREY PIERSON:

DAVID SEDERHOLM:

GEOFFREY PIERSON:

KELLI MARONEY:

LOUISE SHAFFER:

Edited June 22, 2010 by OldSchoolSoapFan

[DRW50]

I check out mentally any time a story goes back to Delia scheming to win Frank. I think Delia moved on from that. I have heard the Delia stuff in the last few years was good, so I'm happy about that, as I don't think they did Randall or Ilene any favors in the early 80s.

[OldSchoolSoapFan]

Just out of curiosity, what years of RH did you watch when it was on the air?

[DRW50]

I've mostly just seen 1975-1981, from Soapnet. Then a few other episodes here and there.

[DRW50]

OSSF do you think you could repost the RH magazine stuff that isn't showing up now?

[OldSchoolSoapFan]

[OldSchoolSoapFan]

A Jon-Michael Reed article from November 1977 about RH filming in Ireland.

[OldSchoolSoapFan]

From WHO'S WHO IN DAYTIME--1982

[safe]

These interviews and articles were posted over at the Soapnet forum by a long time poster who was nice enough to type them up. I was hoping to find a place to move them so they won't be lost when Soapnet goes off the air in 2012.

Soap Opera Digest - September 13, 1983

Nancy Addison's Controversial Decision by Andrea Payne

“I've alway said to whomever I've been with, 'the career is the career, '” Nancy Addison says firmly as she pounds her fist into her hand. “I've spent time, my heart and my guts – money - all of that. I've put into my work and my being, That's my life's work, my acting. Just because I fall in love I'm not going to give that up. It's the thing that makes me - I can't explain it to you - it's the thing that makes me feel alive.”

Nancy Addison sits like a giant red lollipop in her pink and pretty living room in the apartment she shares with her husband Daniel Goldfarb, a producer for the news magazine “20/20”. She's dressed in blazing jumpsuit, which she calls her “grubbies” and is seated in a room that is decisively feminine. The walls are pink, the chairs are pink, the couch is pink, the curtains have pink in them. Huge stuffed dolls propped up in chairs look as though they are waiting for the tea party to begin. Says Nancy,” I still go shopping but I'm very careful about what I buy now, because as you can see, there's no place to put anything.” That's an understatement. Almost every inch of the place seems to be taken up there's the piano, the antique table and a dining set. A Tiffany-style lamp radiates a soft, soothing yellow glow. It's a warm room, with a confortable lived-in feel.

Nancy's talking about what would happen if she got a part that took her away from her husband of one year. “He'll die and I'll die, but I don't think I'd have much choice... that would be brutal, really brutal....I think it would be a real test, but I think it would also create excitement. We have our whole lives together, so I think that working on any project that comes along , is something we've got to do because we've got all the time together and if it's (the marriage) what it is, then time away is not going to change the dynamics of that. If it's not what it is and I go away for a while and something happens, then we don't have much to begin with.”

Because Nancy's career is so important to her, the actress admits that she's “too selfish” to have children. “I've sort of made the decision not to have them” she says in a firm voice. “I've always said that I never wanted any but all my friends now are having children. They're either having them or adopting them and every once in a while I'll think, 'Oh, no am I going to turn around when I'm 40 and say I should have had them? But I don't know if there is any room for me to have children right now. I really don't. I'm not sure if I could handle career and children, I don't think I could. Or else the child would have to be extreme flexible and how do you tell a kid to be flexible.”

Daniel Gladfarb is a tall, dark-complexioned man with piercing blue eyes and an extremely relaxed manner. Walking into the room, he sits down next to Nancy and instictivley puts his arm around her shoudler. The warmth between them is apparent as Nancy makes point to include her husband in the conversation. They are confortable together, close but not clinging. Asked if he goes along with Nancy's decision to not have children, Daniel smiles mischievously and with a straight face says only, “ We'll live forever in Soap Opera Digest rather than reproduce ourselves.” If Nancy went away he wouldn't like it but simply “I'd buy a ticket”. Nancy interjects rather proudly. “That's what I said. He would come and visit." If Nancy decided she wanted children, Daniel would go along with that also. But that's not likely to happen. As Nancy remarks, “I've got my dogs, and I've got my career, and I've got Daniel. We have nice life, a really nice life and the world is crazy place today.”

Nancy and Daniel met at a party a friend was giving and had encouraged her to attend because there was someone he wanted her to meet. Right away, Nancy knew that Daniel was the man her friend was talking about and she was right. The romance progressed. ”One night we were walking down the street and I got really down because I thought that the relationship was going nowhere...I made up my mind that I was going to marry this guy, but one night, I was walking down the street with him and I thought, 'What's going on in his mind.' And it was very bizarre because we went to get a drink and he said to me,' You know I love you' and I said, 'Yeah, I know'. He said, 'No, I love you enough to marry you.'” Laughing Addison remembers that she broke out in cold sweat. “I just couldn't believe it. I was shocked because I didn't think it would come that soon, that he would be asking that soon.”

Still not believing it was happening, Addison and Goldfarb made plans to marry on Valentine's Day, and exclaims Nancy, sounding a bit surprised “That's what happened, we did it.” Since then life has been “really good” and Nancy attributes part of that to the fact that both are happy doing what they do. “Dan has a very interesting career background,” says Nancy, who then proeceeds to recount it. He's been a policeman, a lawyer, an investigative reporter's, and now he's producer. This sounds vaguely familiar, Frank Ryan (Geoffrey Pierson) Nancy's on air love interest for the part eight year was a cop turned lawyer, but instead of going the way of the fourth estate Frank chose to be a politician.

“Politicians,” Nancy says disdainfully, “personally, I despise them. While Jill stumps the campaign trail in her bid for a senatorial seat in Washington, Nancy Addison sits in her living room and tells why she dislikes politician, Nancy not only has an aversion for politicians, they leave a bad taste in her mouth. “ I think that most of them are corrupt and power-hungry, greedy, so it is a very bizarre position for me to be in because what I abhor I have to play now.” Nancy claims that she's “honest to a fault” which sometimes gets her in trouble. And so, to avoid problems, and the set the record straight Addison is quick to add, with a laugh, “Now I'm not saying that they are all like that, you know,. You write this article and they'll come after me with guns. There were the Kennedy's , and Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X so there have been great historians and great politicians. I haven't seen any of them recently, I really haven't,” she says candidly. But despite Nancy's strong feelings, she admits that when Jillian Coleridge got on the table to make the acceptance speech for her candidacy. “I really got into it. Afterwards, I said ' Now all I have to do is come up with my Bella Abzug hats and put on 50 pounds.”

For over eight years, Nancy has played one-half of star-crossed couple on “Ryan's Hope” Frank Ryan being the other half, and now she thinks it's time for SOMETHING to happen. “They've got to get these people married or the audience isn't going to take it any more. They're either going to have to get them together and have a big bang-up wedding or separate them. I believe that very strongly.” Through thick and thin, and there's been a lot of both, Frank and Jill have somehow found their way back to each other. “They're intellectual soul mates and their spirits are so linked that no matter what happens, they are together,” Nancy says by the way of explaining Frank and Jill's unshakable bond.

Jillian Coleridge is a woman Nancy used to love, but in the last few years she feels her character hasn't been given anything to do and she's become less than ecstatic about playing the part. With the new storyline, however, Addison is cautiously excited by the possibility. “It could be so good if they write it well,” says Addison, who envisions Tracy and Hepburn scenes between Frank and Jill if she wins the election.

In the eight years while Jill has married, divorced, given birth,watched her child die, been in and out of love, Addison, as native New Yorker, has worked to keep her interest in the show, she says, by doing other things. She appeared in a six-hour televison misnseries for televison, “The Dain Curse,” with James Corbun, was on Broadway in ”Talent for Murder” with Claudette Colbert, and recently fisinhed a starring role in the cable movie titled ”Somewhere Tomorow.” But despite all of her success, in both personal and professional lives, Addison confesses that she doesn't always appreciate them. “My basic personality is depressed. I am very moody. I'm trying to get to a point where I know that that's the way life is... Who says it's gonna be pie in the sky and roses and stars and all that? It's not. It's life. It's all part of it. It's a journey, some of it is dark ad some of it is light and it's unforutanate because I'd like to feel terrific all the time, but I don't. I mean I'm very moody and there are lots of clouds running around in my head and it takes an awful lot to make me feel terrific.”

As I am taking this in, I think this must be one of Nancy's good days. This a woman with one of those laughs that starts way down deep and then explodes the air. She is in constant motion and has a crystalline, forceful voice that reinforces Nancy's strong opinions. The fresh flowers sitting it the bright pots in the room, the oversized dolls, a dog that persists in barking into the tape recorder until he gets the cookies he's after, speaks of an energetic woman, not someone who is constantly depressed. But for someone who is dedicated to her career as Nancy is, it's not difficult to discern just what it is that makes those clouds park inside her head. She wants to be star, yet she feels that stardom has passed her by. “And if it hasn't passed me by, I don't think my talent is of that caliber. Nor that I might not have had that caliber, but I don't think that I have nurtured it properly. I believe that you get as much as you put in and then I think that God has blessed certain people with greatness, with uniqueness. I don't think that's me.”

However, in the face of those doubts and yearnings for what might have been, Nancy Addison plays on. After all, acting, Nancy says is serious magic.

[safe]

Soap Opera Digest – December 15, 1987

Having Portrayed RYAN'S HOPE'S Jillian Ryan For Over a Decade, Nancy Addison Says Good-Bye By Ellen Byron

As long as there's been RYANS HOPE, there's been Jillian Coleridge Beaulac Ryan. Brainy, bright, beleaguered, she's the archetypal soap heroine. Only one actress has ever played her – Nancy Addison. But after 12 years of enduring every tragedy known to daytime drama, Addison has made the difficult decision to move on and try her luck in prime time and films.

In Nancy's view, the writers have done all they can with Jllian at this point. “I'm definitely frustrated with the role,” she admits as she brews a pot of tea and sets out a plate of muffins on the antique coffee table in her cozy Manhattan apartment. “I really haven't had anything to do for a good year and a half and I swore if that ever happened again, I might as well take a shot at something else.” Nancy is, of course, referring to the long stretch of idleness she had to endure prior to the amnesia storyline (in which Jill became a waitress named Sarah Jane, who fell in love with Dakotah Smith, her husband's half-brother). Unfortunately, Addison and John Sanderford, have been in limbo ever since Jill regained her memory. “ I understand that characters have to be on the backburner, everyone knowss that about a soap. But a year and a half is a long time without a story.” Nancy doesn't blame the writers or the producers for the lack of activity. “There's very little they can do, “ she says matter-of-factly. “When Jillian regained her memory and she decided she didn't want to go back to Frank, the audience went crazy. They want Frank and Jill.” More than frustration with her character is promptingNancys departure, however. It's easy for an actor to become accustomed to the security that working on a soap provides, and although Nancy has taken breaks to do a film, a Broadway play, and a TV mini-series, she hasn't done anything besides RYAN'S HOPE for three years. “I've spent a lot of that time pondering what my next move was going to be,” she says. Married six years ago to 20/20 segment producers Daniel Goldfarb, she was reluctant to do plays because weekend performances would cut into what little free time the couple had. But she finally realized that if she was ever going to try something else, the time was now.

Nancy really admits she'll miss the RYAN'S HOPE family, which has grown extremely over the years. “There are only six or seven original actors left on the show, and we've been together for twelve years,” she reminisces. “ I love Helen (Gallagher, Maeve). I'm very close with Bernie (Barrow, Johnny) outside the studio. Ron Hale (Roger) who plays my brother, is like a brother to me. Malcolm (Pat) and Ilene (Delia) and I have known each other for fifteen or sixteen years. It's nice to wake up in the morning and know you'll have a place to go that's work and social and pleasant. I think I'll miss that the most. I have an emotional coonnection to the show and to the people, but my emotional connection to Jillian has really be severed in the last year.”

As to the show, Nancy is happy to see the emphasis has shifted back to the Coleridges and the Ryans – the two families that are the roots of RYAN'S HOPE. For a long time, both families had been relegated to the backburner while new, unrelated characters took center stage. The rating plummeted - causing pain to the entire cast, but particularly for the vets like Nancy. “You have to remember that we came from an Emmy Award winning show, so it really hit us.” she declares. “It's not fun to be on a show where your ratings are low, you have a lousy time slot, and you're losing affiliates all over the country. It's hurt everybody a lot. But if the show is making money and has an audience, I don't think they'd cancel it.”

Her favorite moments on the soap have been Jill's bout with amnesia and the story line in which she became addicted to morphine while trying to cope with the death of her young son. It was Nancy's work during this period which led to her two Emmy nominations. Ironically, Nancy's least favorite moments on the show have been Jill's (a lawyer) trial scenes. “I never liked them that much,” she admits. I think the audience gets bored with trials on soap. And if they're bored, I'm bored. “

Nancy will take up temporary residence in Los Angeles while her husband stays in New York. Luckily, RYAN'S HOPE has left the door open for her possible return to the show.”They'll always need Jill,” says Nancy. “She and Frank are like the next Maeve and Johnny. Who knows? I may comes back and play her again. Part of me is a little scared because I've been so settled for the last twelve years and another part looks on it like an adventure. It's time to go.”Nancy Addison says quietly, “ I need to open up my path – no matter what it brings.”