Loving/The City Discussion Thread

[EricMontreal22]

HAHA i love her. Yeah even most fansof the series didn't seem to think the pilot movie was all that good.

[SFK]

It's too bad that she was only around for the movie before being carted off to the loony bin. Can you imagine a Geraldine Page, or a Kim Stanley, a Sandy Dennis on a soap? ErikaSlezakEmmy who??

Carl, I remember Neal, I had totally forgotten that part about being Gwyn's dad though! That reminds me of Myrtle and Rae for some reason. I remember him romancing Kate, kinda like Bernie Barrow's character with the Alzheimer's had earlier. I just got tickled picturing all of Larry Haines' little grunts, stammers, and other actorly behaviours he'd always work into a line reading. Is the actress who played Kate still living? Christine Tudor could (and should) be playing all of those roles the usual suspects like Louise Sorel and Anna Stuart get plugged into. I think she's perfect for OLTL, the type to be mixing it up with Dorian and Viki during that too-short mayoral race.

[DRW50]

IMDB doesn't list Nada Rowland as being gone. I'm not sure if she still acts, or does her cabaret routine.

I'd love to have seen Sandy Dennis on a soap. Her acting was perfect for soaps, so emotional and twitchy and neurotic. Her work in Four Seasons was something out of a good Ryan's Hope monologue.

It always bugged me that Christine Tudor got no work after Loving. She gave such a bravura performance, yet it seemed like, because she was on a show which wasn't well known and she wasn't a thin woman, and she wasn't a young woman, that was it for her.

The thing with Neal and Gwyn was so short, unfortunately. I'd love to have seen more.

[Paul Raven]

Funnily enough,Sandy Dennis did have a role on Guiding Light(Alice Holden)in 1956 but was dropped after a few weeks in the role.

[EricMontreal22]

Do we know Tudor didn't leave the business on her own?

I was gonna say we did get Kim Stanley on a soap but I was actually thinking of Kim Hunter In hindsight maybe it was a mistake to have thePilot movie focus on characters missing from the show (its storyline didn't even really set up all that much on the show)

Edited December 31, 2009 by EricMontreal22

[SFK]

No, I seem to remember SOD/SOW exit interviews where it was clear that she was stepping away from the business for a while to spend more time with her family after Loving folded. I think she may have even moved to New England or back to her native Baltimore. The old, "I would definitely do another soap if the right role came along yadda yadda" type thing. I don't know that she's even attempted any sort of comeback. But it would be *nice* if someone like Frank Valentini thought of her and invited her in to do a little something-something, you know?

In Kim Stanley's case, something like the Loving movie would have been perfect as she was too unreliable for a full-on soap schedule given her alcoholism. We talked about this at WoST on the subject of Carole Shelley temping for Beverlee McKinsey when she broke her collar bone, but I would have loved to see Sandy Dennis tackle Iris. It would be interesting to see Sandy all glammed up, bringing her own bag of blonde neuroses to the role (and Beverlee also played Honey in Virginia Woolf). She is brilliant in The Four Seasons, and in Another Woman: http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index.jsp?cid=253693

[EricMontreal22]

For anyone with a LOT of time on their hands, some fan has made over 100 clip collections of Casey's story on Loving from 92 on.

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[DRW50]

I watched the first two or three of those, but haven't seen the rest yet. It's odd to think that the guy in the scene with Casey, who seems very nice and reasonable, later becomes a psycho. I guess that show had so many writing changes.

The bit where his dead mother is watching is nicely done.

[JackPeyton]

please, for the love of soaps, somebody MUST upload all of the loving murders storyline!

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah I saw your comments Carl so thought you found them--I don't remember that character pre psycho to be honest, lol. I liked Casey but wasn't a huge fan, still I'll try to get through the scenes but I could see it taking a year...

JackP I think right now there's just the 5 part edit posted of the murders... The actual story took several months of course--I have most of it (and nearly all of The City) on video and soon have to digitize them and then plan on uploading them...

[EricMontreal22]

Another random 1994 clip (by the same person who has the five Murder clips) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7Qe6qNf89M

Did the actor who played Jack Forbes pass on?

[DRW50]

He passed away in 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Stephens

Here's a 1989 episode he was in.

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I've watched some of those 1994 clips; the show has a very strong vibe and energy. It's a shame the ratings didn't go up.

All that with Steffi and Cooper/Clay always seems a bit odd to me. And then she left The City with Cooper, and he was her husband in real life.

I'm so used to him for his NCIS role it's always a bit strange seeing him as Cooper.

[EricMontreal22]

He was still quite young--sad.

Yeah as I've said way too much on here I really enjoyed the show in 94 prob all the way till the end. I know the Cooper actor has a big following cuz of his primetime stuff but while I had a crush way back on him as Cooper, I've never seen any of his primetime shows. I did like how he and Steffi bonded over their childhood traumas

I wish there was some online material of Egypt--either her 80s run or 94 return. I don't think Agnes wrote for her in the 80s though she did in '94--but it was always interesting to me that, similar to how Ava in many ways was a retread of the Erica Kane character (who was a retread of Rachel), Egypt was VERY very much like Lyman's original Opal Gardner.

Edited January 5, 2010 by EricMontreal22

[DRW50]

I've never seen Egypt, only heard about her. It's interesting that she was like Opal.

One thing I like on the lesser-rated soaps is they often have more room for eccentricity. I don't mean AMC, of course, but I mean stuff like Cass/Cecile/Felicia/Wallingford on AW (who ended up being a family in a soap which by that time had no real core family), or on Loving, Ava, and Deborah, and so on.

I've never seen any of the Jeremy/Gilbert stuff either. Is it as bad as I've heard? Or just dull? Or not too bad? Jean LeClerc is such a distinctive actor, putting him in a dual role seems odd to me. The only time I saw Gilbert was at Jeremy's funeral. At the time I swore they were hinting he wasn't really Gilbert, that it might have been Jeremy. Or I might have imagined that. I think they also tried to throw some suspicion on him for the murders.

I can't believe we're up to 11 pages. I guess Loving really was the little show that could

Edited January 5, 2010 by CarlD2

[SFK]

Egypt was a fun character, sort of the missing link between DL's Opal and IK's Roxie. The actress was on OLTL a little while back and I didn't even recognize her. Eric, you probably remember, what was the name of Egypt's no-nonsense black older lady friend? Maybelle, LillyBelle or something? LOL, for those who didn't catch it, imagine Opal and Mrs. Valentine picked up and moved to a new town. At my grandparents' house, Loving was more like a "warm up" soap while my grandmother made lunch, and this may sound weird, but in hindsight I appreciate how my mom watched it with the same attention she gave the rest of the ABC lineup.