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Loving/The City Discussion Thread


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I was watching a clip of when they started to find out about Cabot being alive (imagine an ABC soap today using actors who were over 70 -- Brian Frons would keel over), and it's so much better than most of what is on now. I never understood why Loving was seen as a bad soap. I guess the constant turnover didn't help with reputation. I also remember how much I liked Steffi. I'm sorry Ameila Heinle has not ever been able to make an impression in a role since then.

Who was the casting director during 1993-1994? So many of those actors have gone on to long careers.

I was also going to ask about some of the other stories I heard they had, like a woman addicted to cough syrup, and a trip back to the Old West. Did those stories happen? Were they any good?

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I believe "Loving" got a bad rap because it was widely inconsistent for such a duration of its run. Characters came and went, while others changed dramatically. Also, the first five years was dominated by uninspiring couples, mainly Jack and Stacey, Trisha and Steve, and Shana and Jim. While these couples took center stage, none of them seemed to gain the following that a soap like "Loving" needed. I think Alex and Ava were the show's first big couple. This worked because of Alex's ties to the Aldens family. Later, Trisha and Trucker gained a similar following.

Yet, even the story you mention highlights the major problems with "Loving." The return of Cabot Alden really wasn't possible. Cabot died on screen of a heart attack. His granddaughter, well not his biological granddaughter, Trisha watched as he flatlined. Jack Forbes would have made more sense given the scenario and really shaken things up. Anyway, the big reveal during the storyline threatened to shake the show to its core: the Solowsky partriarch had created the product which the Aldens used to create their fortune. A guilt ridden Cabot turned over AE to Kate and Ava. This would have really affected everyone on the canvas. Yet, the storyline was swept under the rug in the end.

Steffi was a wonderful character because she was allowed to play a character who was a complete mess. Heinle made that work, but I don't think she gives off the confidence needed for a character like Victoria Newman. I don't think Heinle's material on "All My Children" was all that great, and this as a person who enjoyed Mia and Edmund's romance. Anyway, Heinle seems casted as a traditional ingenue, which doesn't work.

I've never heard of a cough syrup storyline. Only one I've heard of is Dru on Y&R being delusional from cough syrup and sleeping with Malcolm.

"Loving" never went to the Old West, but they did do a past lives story ala "One Life to Live's" Buchanan City storyline. Trisha began having dreams of a wealthy family in the 1800s. The family servant (Robert Tyler) was accused of stealing something from the home. James Horan played the man who had set him up. Reading old RATS board messages, the plot involved a stolen puzzle box which contained the deed to some land. Thaddeus was the actual culprit, but Mr. Robinson was blamed. Tessa was determined to prove Robinson's innonence and got help from a maid (played by Marisol Massey) and the black sheep of the family, played by whichever actor was playing Jack at the time. This all happened in the spring of 1990.

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In early 1995, the Aldens learned Trisha was really alive. This was actually Gwyn Alden's motivation for slaughtering the Alden family in the show's final storyline. I don't remember why, but Trucker decided to exhume Trisha's body in January 1995. In February 1995, Trucker had tracked Trisha down to Rome and learned of her existance. Trisha, now calling herself Crystal Hartman, wrote a letter to the Aldens claiming she had no memory of them and didn't want to disrupt her life in Rome. Later, when Trisha's family and friends were being murdered, Jeff Hartman was contacted. He revealed that Trisha/Crystal had suffered a miscarriage and had lost her sanity. In the final weeks of "Loving," Trisha returned to Corinth and was being sheltered by Gwyn, but Trisha managed to escape again.

Trisha's close friend and psuedo family member Shana almost ran into her Rome in June 1994. Shana and Leo married in Rome and relocated there, departing "Loving." Shana ran into Jeff Hartman there who was worried about Shana discovering he was living in Rome with Trisha.

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Ahh thanks I knew Beck and Trisha came back at some point but I didn't really ever follow the Loving murder mystery regularly. But I was always just an occasional Loving watcher to begin with. I do remember when Jeff found Trisha and tried calling them about finding her but no one was home because they were at her funeral! I do remember Leo and Shana running into Jeff and seeing the back of Trisha or something like that.

By the way who played Jeff in the 90s? Was Richard Steinmetz still playing him, I can't remember.

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Does anyone know what went down between Roscoe Born and Morgan Fairchild when they were on The City? I found an old Soap Opera Magazine from 1996 and it had the following blind item that I'm sure is about them:

This big-name East Coast actor had no intention of returning to daytime until his good friend,a big-name actress, convinced him to join her show. Now, many month later, these two refuse to be paired as a couple- or even be in the same storyline. They are both counting the days until she leaves the show

In the beginning it seemed like Nick and Sydney were supposed to be the big pairing on the show, but it promptly ended and they went with Sydney & Danny (until Morgan left) and Nick & Lorraine. I had always suspected that something happened between the actors, and when I saw that blind item it confirmed it.

Once the Nick/Sydney thing fizzled Roscoe was really wasted on the show. Esensten & Brown said that they tried to play 2.5 stories per episode, and usually that extra .5 was irrelevant banter between Nick and Jacob at the bar.

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I was just watching some clips of Casey and Ally. Laura Wright and PAS had such great chemistry together (and it was nice to see Laura before she became so cold as an actress). I wish GL hadn't chickened out in their plans to put them together -- they still had good chemistry even as Danny and Cassie.

I hope PAS can get a good soap job soon.

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Ugh. I hated Danny and Cassie together almost as much as I hated Danny and Marina together. I know most people absolutely loved Millee Taggert, but she and Lucky Gold wrote some pretty degrading stuff for the women on "Guiding Light." Cassie stripping for Danny as payment for the loan was by no means the start of romance. I guess the intention was to play on Cassie's past by showing how far she was willing to go for her family, but Stewart just brought nothing to the scene. Danny worked better as a town pariah after the warehouse bombing, which was the last sweeps storyline "Guiding Light" did that I enjoyed.

I love what I've read about the quad between Ally/Casey/Steffi/Cooper. I was shocked by how much chemistry Stewart had with Amelia Heinle as well. I cannot say enough how strong that younger set became. It's too bad Weatherly and Stewart left when they did.

I know I'm in the minority, but I think Laura Wright is a talented actress. I thought she and Stephanie Gatschet had wonderful mother-daughter chemistry. Also, Tognoni worked really well with Wright and Dinah never really worked for me after Wright (and ver Dorn) left.

There are a lot of Casey/Ally clips up on youtube covering most of their love story. I think the last set of clips are from their wedding.

Edited by dc11786
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I agree with you about the degrading writing for women on GL at that time. I still get angry at the memory of Marah ripping off her clothes and daring Tony to go through with his rape attempt. I hated the Cassie money problems story, I thought it was contrived, as was the feud with Reva, but I did think she and PAS had good chemistry.

So Casey and Steffi were involved? I didn't know that.

What do you think has happened to Amelia Heinle over the years? Didn't she seem better on Loving? Or was she just fresher?

Can you tell me more about Casey's father, Gifford? I don't know that much about him. Did he come back when Casey was killed?

Do you think the show did a very good job of adding new characters in the late 80s, or were most of them not that good?

Edited by CarlD2
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Cassie's money woes was a stretch. Richard was the prince of an island nation. Were her assets all tied up in the Beacon?

Casey and Steffi were together around late 1993. I believe Coop and Ally were engaged at the time because of Tyler. Heinle played Steffi as this hot mess of a character and it worked. I think there is this haunted quality to Heinle's performances that worked for Steffi, but hasn't worked for her other roles. I loved Mia after she had been dumped by Edmund and Jake returned engaged to Carolyn.

Gifford was introduced by Mary Ryan-Munisteri as a love interest for Gwyn Alden. He worked at the university as an art professor and was a part of the early stages of the Alden U revamp in 1992, even though he was introduced in late 1991. Giff eventually became involved with Trisha Alden when Trucker slept with nanny Dinahlee. A few months later, Addie Walsh was the headwriter and she introduced Casey, Giff's son by Alise Casey. Giff and Casey were reunited at Alise's grave and Giff talked about his time in a commune. Then Walsh fought with new producer Haidee Granger. Granger was defacto headwriter and had Giff go insane. Giff kidnapped Christopher from Trisha when she was shopping at Burnell's and gave the baby up for adoption. When it all came out, Giff kidnapped Trisha and held her in the belfry at Alden U. He ended up falling from the belfry and died. Giff did appear after his death when Casey was doing drugs and was haunted by his father.

"Loving" struggled introducing characters because it had no focus. For a while, the show focused on youth storylines featuring future stars Teri Polo and Luke Perry. The only new characters that worked were Alex, Clay, and Egypt. Other characters came and went with ease and were forgotten. This continued into the early 1990s. Characters like Rocky, Rio, Todd, Norma, Armando, Kent, and Abril came and went without being remembered. f

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How long were Teri and Luke on the show? I didn't think Luke was aroudn that long. Were they any good?

It's a shame they made Gifford a lunatic. I thought he was a great character in those clips he had when Casey arrived. Do you think they made the right decision?

I had no idea Mary Ryan Munisteri wrote for the show. I take it she wasn't around long? She wrote for RH for years. I think her headwriting stint there wasn't a success.

So this Granger woman wasn't any good?

I agree with you about Laura Wright. I always liked her as Ally, when I watched Loving/The City, and I liked her on her GL run, most of the time. I think what I miss in her later work is that she used to have vulnerability along with the toughness, and some warmth. Most of that is gone now, it's just the toughness.

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Just so its clear, my information comes from weekly columns written by people like Lynda Hirsch and Selig Seligman (spelling?). The only video I've seen was online. I also read second hand accounts from 1992-1995 on RATS.

No one was around much in the 1980s. They would be on contract for about one storyline and then they would be written off. Post-Marland, there doesn't seem to be much focus on characterization. Teri Polo was on for at least six months. She was brought on as the spoiler to the April/Ned relationship. Teri Polo's Kristen was a classmate of theirs who was in love with Ned and learned April was prostituting. Ned learned the truth and abandoned April for Kristen. Ned ended up joining his sister Lotty and her husband Curtis in Germany. I think Ned was on for at least a year while Teri Polo was on about six months to a year.

I found Casey's introduction scenes odd. The dialogue was a bit hookey in my opinion. I just didn't buy into the scenario and some of the commune stuff seemed a bit much. Also, Casey's real name was Revel or something. Gifford was ultimately replaced with Jeremy Hunter as the central AU figure. I don't think it made much a difference. I think Giff's death was a defining moment for Casey and allowed him to deal with abandonment issues that helped shape him.

Mary Ryan Munisteri wrote around late 1991 til early 1992. She replaced Taggert and King and was followed by Addie Walsh. I think she was the one who reestablished the Alden family after they had been written off early in 1991. Unfortunately, I think her vision clashed with Fran Sears. Sears wanted to establish the college as the central focus and had Addie Walsh spend time researching modern univeristy life including the Greek system and spending a lot of time casting generation X. Yet, someone in the upper echleons most have not liked it cause Sears was replaced with Granger either before or in the early stages of the material hitting the air. Granger's wikipedia page talks about her stint on "Loving." I suspect Granger may have written it herself.

The AMC rejects weren't incorporated very well into the "Loving" cavas. Angie was brought on as Shana's obstetrician and then was paired with newcomer Charles Harrison, the partner of the recently returned Alex Masters.

I haven't seen Wright much on "General Hospital," but I never could accept Nicole Forrester as Cassie.

As defacto headwriter, her summer was rough. The college story petered out without much plot. There was a ghost story plot and the revelation that a preteen Cooper had seduced his nanny. Jack Forbes 'died' during his honeymoon after finally reuniting with his love Stacey. There was the blink and you miss it reunion between Gwyn and Clay before Gwyn slept with lawyer Armando Rosario. Ava found work at Burnell's only to become involved in a drug ring and have her secret boss turn out to be Leo Burnell, an old high school classmate. Originally, Curtis Alden seemed the likely secret admirer. The mysterious boss of Burnell's seemed to care for Ava. Ava had been married to Curtis and Burnell's was an Alden Enterprises company in the 1980s.

Granger did manage to hire Amelia Heinle and I believe one of her final moves was to hire Dennis Partalo as temp Clay Alden. Casting wise her run was pretty successful. Hiring Millee Taggert and Robert Guza should have been a good move given Taggert's history with the show ( she had written "Loving" with Tom King from September 1988 until sometime in 1991). Taggert and Guza won a Writer's Guild award for their work, but their storytelling was weak. The Curtis/Tess/Buck storyline was bad. Trucker's dad faking an illness was bad. The Ava/Jeremy pairing wasn't very exciting. What I did like was the quad focusing on Ally's pregnancy and Shana's insemination leading to her love for Leo.

OT: Munisteri's stint on "Ryan's Hope" wasn't as bad as people make it out to be. It wasn't Labine & Mayer, but it was hardly "Kirkland's Hope." THe only person really involved with the show to call it that was Ron Hale, who was backburnered during Munisteri's run. Most of the other major players had major story from Jack to Siobhan to Pat to Seneca to Delia. The final months of Munisteri's tenure were definitely Kirkland overload, but Munisteri was probably out by then.

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