Loving/The City Discussion Thread

[VanessaReardon]

Lauren-Marie Taylors son has had his issues. 

[Franko]

Michael Lindsay-Hogg had directed Geraldine on Broadway in Agnes of God the year before. I don't know if either's involvement clinched the deal for the other, or if it was just a coincidence.

 

And by all means, YES.

[EricMontreal22]

I realize this is an old post, but I haven't seen a reply.  ABC did not own Loving (or The City) strangely.  It was owned by the company Agnes set up with her husband Dramatic Creations (always given the copyright credit at the end--and not to be confused with the first company Agnes and her husband set up for AMC and OLTL before ABC bought them--Creative Horizons).

[EricMontreal22]

I've said it before but will say it again--the final six months of The City were *great*.  It had really come into its own and was the soap I looked forward to the most.  I think the writing was already on the wall by then (ABC still didn't own the show and it was apparently very expensive to shoot) but the ratings were actually going up IIRC--unlike the other ABC soaps at the time which were all starting to have issues.  VERY slowly, but they were. 

ABC was into Aussie hunks at the time.  Was it around the time Ingo joined GH?  AMC also had around 1997 Tanner Jordan, played by another ex Heartbreak High actor Vince Poletto on as Tanner Jordan, Matteo's friend who tries to rape Hayley (a rather disastrous storyline--perhaps the worst in the mostly strong Broderick era).

[Taoboi]

Well, I watched it here or there, I did try to pay more attention to THE CITY when Tracy Quartermaine showed up. I love they brought her back over at GH to be part of the ELQ Jax Takeover and saw her get banished for it only to turn up there. I had gotten a taste of JE...and never seeing anything like her...I wanted more. I was sad to see it end since I loved Tracy vs Carla though I hyped and stories were real from what I had heard and How JE acted...Carla was dealing with the wrong one.

 

Welcome back, Eric.

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[EricMontreal22]

From my years of being obsessed/fascinated with Loving and talking a bit to various people involved etc, Nixon was actually much more involved early on than many seem to credit her as being--I'm pretty certain of this.

The basic set up was done by Nixon and Wakefield -- Marland only really tweaking things, it seems.  Nixon was keen on focusing from the start on three social issues--incest, Vietnam PTSD and AIDS.  Those were her ideas (or she sure took credit for them, anyway).  Patrick Mulcahey, who co-scripted with Marland the pilot to Nixon's story, has also said that that first year at Loving was frustrating.  In one interview he says he likes to be able to craft his scripts with little interference, and that Nixon would daily give ENDLESS notes on every script he was responsible for and for that reason he wasn't sorry to move on (not sure exactly when that happened).  I get the feeling Marland also felt Nixon should have left him alone more.  (Although Marland--as several have said--was very annoyed about the incest story being cut short by ABC, so obviously that story, even if instigated by Nixon, meant a lot to him). 

Nixon doesn't seem to be credited as HW on any episodes until her mostly wonderful 1993-94 run (her last run on any soap as credited HW--she was co-HW, mostly involved in the Bianca story, on AMC of course from 1999-2001).  However, it seems that when Marland left she was the de facto headwriter on Loving for the next couple of years (and pulled back from AMC which suffered a bit)--noticeably those episodes never list a headwriter in their credits for the writing team.  (I want to say that Nixon introduced Ava right after Marland left but I think I may have the dates wrong).

Thanks for the shout out Vee!  I dunno why I haven't wasted, err, spent any of my quarantine days on this forum, but here I am, back (and have just spent hours catching up on this great thread). 

I loved the reunion--much better than the other ones I have seen, and I'm glad there's talk of doing more.  I did repeatedly try to get the host's attention to ask about Agnes/Doug (since they were comfortable gossiying about other behind the scenes figures) and the host WAS about to ask when something interrupted her.  Maybe next time?

As for Linda Gottlieb, I had heard that she stuck around ABC for a bit as a consultant (maybe she was still on contract after leaving OLTL?)   Nice to see confirmation of that.

The stories of Joe Stuart were awful but not remotely surprising after all we've heard about his time at OLTL.  Of course he was given a stake in Loving (which does make me question Agnes Nixon a bit--and did she think actually asking a young actress to get a nose job for the sake of a story was a good idea?  This isn't the same as an actress who already was planning to have a facelift--ie Margo Flax on AMC).

 

[EricMontreal22]

I have no idea if this link will work, but an Italian member of the Loving FB page posted an episode from June 1983--*yes* the very first week of Loving!  Unfortunately... it's in Italian.  But still fascinating to watch.  https://www.facebook.com/christiangilles.collet/videos/1338972776141981/

Thank you!  Nice to be back!!

The City was actually my intro to JE--and it was love at first sight (I actually had seen the classic episode of her witholding her father's heart medication on GH before, but that was all).  I think for some reason she really tied the show together--maybe it's because, as odd as this sounds, she did have a slightly more maternal element (or matriarchal anyway) that Sydney lacked. 

Early The City was a bit of a mess (understandable really given that they were trying something new--one of the last times ABC seemed reallywilling to invest and experiment in their soaps).  The filming style was *too* hectic.  The stories were all somewhat short term.  The issue storylines didn't work (the racism story, the transgender story which was a first but had the trans character and her boyfriend written out right after the reveal) and the Masquerade mystery, while it had fun elements, was simply a bad idea...  It was the Loving Murders but with *zero* stakes since we never cared about any of the victims or even all that much about most of the potential victims.  But those final 6-8 months especially once Tracy came on were mostly gold I felt.  My ABC had started airing the soap at 11:35 PM I believe by then, and it played particularly well as a late night soap for me--something to watch while I was getting ready for bed (hey, I was 16-17).  Which does make me wonder once again about the Gottlieb/Malone/Griffith supernatural soap 13 Bourbon Street which Fox around the same time had wanted as a late night 30 minute soap and Logan couldn't shut up about how wonderful the pilot was (surely that should leak--c'mon) *but I digress*

[dc11786]

The first episode is online in Italian. It’s under the Italian name Quando Si AMA. It’s in two parts. I don’t think I’ve ever watched all of it just skimmed

[DRW50]

 

I'd love to see any of those. 

 

 

@EricMontreal22 it's good to see you back again. 

[Efulton]

Technical issues aside I really enjoyed this one.  The ladies obviously like each other and were surprisingly honestly about their experience on the show and especially Joe Stuart.

[EricMontreal22]

Is this it? 

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[Forever8]

I will be more than interested in the heaps of 1992 and 1993 episodes of Loving. Thanks @AdelaideCate007

[EricMontreal22]

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The October/November 1992 All My Children/Loving cross over (advertised in joint promos as Corinth/Pine Valley: Fatal Connection) involving Carter Jones was what hooked me on Loving.  I didn't even know there was a soap called Loving until it aired so, while the crossover didn't do much for Loving's ratings in general, it did work on me.

There used to be at least one episode of the climax of the story which took place over a week on Loving with Trevor, Jackson and Jeremy tracking Carter to Corinth, I can no longer find it.  But there are a number of AMC episodes from the weeks before when Dinah Lee and Hannah were staying at Myrtle's boarding house (she'd later attend Hannah's wedding, IIRC).  Here's on.

Edited May 16, 2020 by EricMontreal22

[John]

Is that still Meg Mundy as Isabelle? How long did she last?

[dc11786]

That's Augusta Dabney as Isabelle. Mundy was only in the pilot. She had wanted more money than "Loving" was willing to give her so she bowed out.

 

@EricMontreal22 that is the one I'm referring to (welcome back, btw). That seems to be the second half of the first episode. I believe it pretty much matches up with what John O'Connor wrote about in his review for the New York Times. Here is the first part and the part of the second episode (in Italian):

 

 

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As we've been talking about ownership and creation of "Loving," I do enjoy the speculating. I think there are definitely issues that Nixon and Marland were both interested in exploring as a lot of those concepts would be later revisited in their work on "As the World Turns" (for Marland) and "All My Children" and "Loving" (for Nixon). I think this may be why they were able to work together. I'm completely speculating here, but I saw a comment in I believe the "Guiding Light" thread about Marland thanking Nixon at the Daytime Emmys or something around the time of his departure from "Guiding Light." Since Marland was vocal about his disappointment in not being able to finish the Carrie Marler story, I wonder if Nixon used the chance to finish telling that story (the multiple personality plotline) on "Loving" with Lily Slater. Granted, the storylines are significantly different, but this type of story is something that both seemed interested in. I have 9 of the last 10 of Marland's "A New Day in Eden" scripts. The first of the lot (which features the exit of the Garth Slater equivalent Emmett Claybourne, was set to be filmed around Thanksgiving 1982). Marland was already doing a similar plotline as the Lily Slater storyline. I imagine that Nixon and Marland were able to find enough common ground to initially make it work. 

 

The Lily story fascinates me because of the duality of the story, not just in terms of Lily and her alter Trista, but in the two boyfriends. Cousins Curtis and Jack are complete opposites of one another. Curtis tends to be more dark than light and Jack more light than dark. In an early sequence, there is again more of the dual natures portrayed with Curtis impersonating Jack when he is seducing Rita Mae Bristow. Jack, of course, has his dual parentage: Roger Forbes / Ann Alden and Dane Hammond / Linda Henderson. As the story progresses past Lily, it is Curtis who quietly rejects Stacey Donovan's advances in the spring of 1984 when she is acting out due to Tony Perilli's marriage to Lorna. Yet, it is Jack who beds down with Ava Rescott and gets her pregnant when he can't handle that his family enemy Dane Hammond is his biological father. Lily seems to be the jumping off point for a lot of this. One can only imagine what the original plan was. It's a shame there isn't a bible for "Loving" floating around somewhere.