Loving/The City Discussion Thread

[John]

Does anyone know the history of the actors who played Curtis? Who Quit? Who was fired? Some of those recasts seemed out of left field.

[Efulton]

I am curious about this too.  Christopher Marcantel was a good actor.  I am interested in knowing why he was not brought back to the role sooner.

[EricMontreal22]

I have a 100 page "Love" bible copyrighted to Agnes Nixon in 1982 scanned from her Northwestern archives if that counts

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(The town has a different name, the characters don't...)

[mikelyons]

If you wouldn't mind sharing it, I know I'd be grateful! When I went to the archive back in 2015, they weren't allowing scans or photos. Thank goodness they've changed their policies!

[EricMontreal22]

Send me a PM--I have to find and upload it but of course I will as soon as I eventually can

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Yeah--if I recall correctly they only allowed so much scanning per visit (and some things couldn't be scanned at all, albeit not much that interested me) though I also snuck a few phone pics...  I wonder why they changed the policy?  I did mention that it was for research purposed (which was true, more or less )

At any rate, it goes up to the 1984 Olympics and obviously was written before Marland came on--and, from all I can tell, is largely what the first year ended up being, so I think Agnes Nixon's involvement was much closer than some seem to think.

[mikelyons]

Brilliant! I'd love to see what Agnes' original intention was the for the show. Once Marland left LOVING, they removed his name as co-creator of the series. It's amazing the WGA (and Marland's agent) would allow Dramatic Creations to strip him of a co-creator credit. There's still so much that's never be told about LOVING!

[BetterForgotten]

Joe Stuart is still alive, right? Someone should do an interview with him about his time on The Doctors, OLTL, and Loving.

[EricMontreal22]

I have a feeling that maybe Marland himself wanted his name removed...

[BetterForgotten]

I believe this was Loving's only Emmy win in a major category - Bernard Barrow wins Supporting Actor in 1991. 21:25 in.

 

I know he died a little over two years after this. How much of this was because of him being known from Ryan's Hope, or was it well-deserved at the time? 

 

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[DRW50]

 

Little of that is around, but he was in a cancer story that received some praise I think. 

[Aback]

This Italian FB page has posted plenty of Loving scenes on their wall. Obviously they're dubbed

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  But if you're curious, search for "Quando si Ama"

 

https://www.facebook.com/Il-Club-delle-Soap-e-delle-Telenovelas-860647507401645

 

I remember the show was huge in Italy. My Uncle, who's an accountant, would literally take a break from meetings to watch it. 

[mikelyons]

Yep! Loving and Capitol were huge in Italy (probably bigger than B&B). My Italian ex was in love with Myrna on Capitol. I showed him a few Italian episodes of both shows and he was giddy!

[Aback]

 

Hahahah yeah, Santa Barbara and GL were pretty popular too. I wonder what makes certain shows appealing to International audiences and what does not. Certainly the schedule plays a part. The International title too. But who knows, really.

AW, AMC, ATWT, DAYS, SFT, GH, OLTL, PC were all broadcast in Italy but they were canceled after very few years. Y&R survived the longest but only due to the tie with B&B. Of course foreign countries are not as big as the US, hence they can only absorb so many dramas. But I digress...

[BetterForgotten]

The ABC soaps never caught on well worldwide, so Loving’s success in Italy is a bit of an anomaly. I guess that was largely due to Nixon owning it and Freemantle  distributing it in select countries.

Edited May 17, 2020 by BetterForgotten

[EricMontreal22]

I know this has been discussed before but Loving was so popular in South Africa that I believe they somehow made a deal to have two of its characters appear on a South African soap (in character--not as new characters).  Anyone remember the details about this?  I had an ex from S Africa who mentioned it initially to me, but unfortunately he passed away in a horrible accident a few years back--otherwise I'd ask him

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It is interesting what plays well where.  Sunset Beach was a big cult hit in UK.  I mentioned to a UK friend how it was funny that the UK seemed to like their American soaps (including primetime soaps like Dynasty) to be as campy and over the top as possible--less campy soaps like AMC never take there--and yet their homegrown soaps, at least on the surface, are far less campy than American soaps. 

Santa Barbara and Santa Barbara have a glam and camp element that I could see appealing to continental Europe--but Loving, overall, doesn't.  So it is odd that it was so popular. 

France as well -- and as I mentioned above, South Africa.  You have a point about the fact that it wasn't owned by ABC playing a part (foreign markets also seem more welcoming to 30 minute soaps).

The Italian dub of Loving has all new music--which isn't unusual for dubbed tv shows (I only know this because until very very recently every dubbed anime program would have a new score--I think partly because it made it easier to make edits).  But the French dub didn't...

There's It's claimed here that Loving is the number one show in Italy (I know it won the Italian Emmy equivalent that year) even above Dallas... (of course by this time Dallas wasn't all that big in the US, but...)