The only Mary recast that may have had a chance (if she had lasted long enough) was Mary Carney. She had some of the same vocal inflections and mannerisms as Kate, and she also bore a striking resemblance to her screen mom Helen Gallagher.

I just don't think there was anything left of Mary by the time of the recast. She was an impossible character made somewhat palatable by Kate Mulgrew.

Yes, there are those characters that can really only be played by one actor. Some roles can be recast successfully and others can't. There are some actors who can be the only ones to truly do justice to a role. Gerald Gordon as The Doctors' Nick Bellini is another example.

Kathleen Tolan might have done a decent job of Nick...

Take this with a huge grain of salt, but I read somewhere that Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer really wanted Stephanie Braxton to be the next Mary Ryan (that is, after ABC had talked them out of killing her off with Mulgrew still in the role -- which had been their original plan). Braxton was slated to leave her role as Tara on AMC; however, because Agnes Nixon had heard about Labine and Mayer's plans, she allegedly reversed course and kept Braxton a little longer on her show, thereby forcing Labine and Mayer to hire someone else.

Again, though, take the rumor for what it is.

Kathleen Tolan might have done a decent job of Nick...

Kathleen Tolan: good playwright, lousy actress.

I thought Karen Gorney was playing Tara during Kate's last year on RH.

Yeah, I thought so, too. Either this was happening during the post-Mulgrew period of revolving Mary's, and they were looking to replace either Carney or Tolan with Braxton...or the story is a complete fabrication.

Edited March 12, 201510 yr by Khan

Do you remember where you read that, khan? Interesting story.

IIRC, I read that story on one of the other message boards -- danfling's, maybe? But I'm not sure.

OK - how do you think things would have worked out in the story had ABC taken the advice of Labine/Mayer and killed off Mary when KM left?

I don't recall hearing that Stephanie Braxton was wanted as a new Mary. I don't think that she would have been good in the role, unless the writers were going to change the character of Mary.

I did hear that Pamela Toll (The Doctors, Somerset) had read for the role and was wonderful. I think that the reason that she was not hired was the issue of money.

Also, Ryan's Hope wanted Frances Fisher (The Edge of Night, Guiding Light) to play Shiobhan when Marg Helgenburger left the role.

I think that Stephanie Braxton was good as Tara Martin on All My Children, but I did not care for her at all as the recast Winter Austin on The Edge of Night. Lori Cardille was, in my opinion, unreplaceable in the role of Winter.

I also did not like the character that Ms. Braxton played on The Secret Storm. I also preferred the original Laurie (Linda DeCoff) in the role. Laurie was "the other woman" who broke up the marriage of Ken and Jill. She was a neurotic concert pianist who rebelled against her father. Then, the writers changed Laurie - and I usually do not like it when that happens.

I also did not like it when the All My Children writers changed Brooke into a sympathetic character.

'

I could imagine Stephanie Braxton as a Janet Bergman on Search for Tomorrow.

Do you think Mary might have had a chance if the character had been recast with an actress already established in soaps (like Pamela Toll) as opposed to virtual unknowns (as Carney, Tolan and Goulet all were at the time)? Or was it a lost cause no matter what since KM was so established in the role?

I think it was a lost cause. Mulgrew WAS Mary. No one else could fill her shoes, and the subsequent choices proved it. I didn't care for Goulet in anything she was in. Her Meredith Reade just stunk it up on GL, and I never saw her on SfT or ATWT, but I just wasn't a fan. The others didn't work for me either, when I used to watch Soapnet. Just my opinion, though...Then again, I always thought she (Mary) should have been torn between Jack and Bob Reid, but that's just my idea as well.

I disagree with Slick. I think that the show SHOULD have tried other actresses in the role. I happened to have liked Mary Carney as Mary. She had a different personality than Ms. Mulgrew; perhaps too different to be accepted. My favorite Mary was Kathleen Tolan. I adored her in the role. I did not like Nicholette Goulet, however.

Although there are some performers in roles that I think are not replaceable, these, in my opinion, are very few. One role that I thought no one could play other than Philip Carey was Asa Buchanan on One Life to Live. Yet, one day, a replacement was needed. I thought that the replacement was excellent.

I observe the problem that Ryan's Hope had in casting replacements. Many of these were good. (John Blazo for example) Sometimes the recasts on Ryan's Hope were not cast in the correct role, in my opinion. For example, Alexandra Neil would have been a better replacement for Nancy Feldman, in my opinion, than Nana Tucker.

This just occurred to me. I cannot imangine why the role that Irving Allen Lee (Dr, Evan Cooper) played could not have been a recast Dr. Clem Moltrie.