Edge of Night (EON) (No spoilers please)

[SFK]

Whoa, I was waiting for the picture of "the other guy", yes, they totally look alike.

[DRW50]

I was looking through some old Digests, and one from March 77 had a short piece on why Dixie Carter was leaving EON. She didn't say much, but basically said she left because she didn't like what the show had done to her character. The article then went on to editorialize about how poorly Brandy had been treated by other characters on the show for "breaking up a marriage" (Adam and Nicole) and basically said they had taken away her dignity. The article also said that Dixie was looking for more soap work.

While I'm glad that Dixie went on to have her big break in primetime, I wonder what might have happened if she'd stayed in soaps. A lot of her performances in primetime still had that soap flair. I also wonder what might have been if EON hadn't shunted her aside from the Adam/Nicole stuff, given that within a year of this Adam would be dead and Nicole would be de-aged. The idea of Dixie Carter fussing and snapping with Sharon Gabet is great fun.

At least we know Dixie wasn't one of those screw soaps I'm going to Hollywood! types of people.

[SFK]

Yeah, and when she did go to Hollywood, she went fairly "late", in her late 30s, mother of two. She talked about it on The Bonnie Hunt Show, how she thought it would be so romantic to take her girls cross country by rail with all of her friends at Penn Station seeing her off like, "What the HELL are you thinking..." The trip was a nightmare, but what a great reward waiting for her on the other side.

ITA that she brought an undeniable soapiness to her primetime work, and I think she like Marj Dusay really soars when that soap divatude is employed in comedy. She was so good in Filthy Rich. It's very interesting that she subbed for Dorian in the Pinkerton years because it's easy to imagine how fabulous she would have been temping for the Strasser version of the character.

[DRW50]

I'd love to have seen her work replacing Robin, if that had ever happened. Imagine Paul Rauch saying "What a relief" and then he has to deal with her!

Nancy was more low-key so I guess Dixie probably played Dorian the same way. I guess some actresses feel more free to let go in their performances as they age.

Dixie had such star quality and like all true stars there was no one like her. She was probably smart not to go too young to Hollywood, as they would have blanded her out, the way a lot of young starlets who grew up in Hollywood were blanded out.

[DRW50]

From the April 13, 1982 SOD -- a dream date with Allen Fawcett. Network Publishing Co

Edited November 22, 2010 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

From the September 1, 1981 Soap Opera Digest Network Publishing Co

Edited November 22, 2010 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

From the July 2, 1985 SOD. Ernie Townsend talks about life after soaps. Ernie played Cliff, who was such fantastic (and kind of hot) comic relief. Until I read this I hadn't even known he was on ATWT.

GOING THROUGH THE RINSE CYCLE

An Actor Details the Pain and Loneliness of Leaving the Soaps Behind

By Ernie Townsend (ex-Cliff, EDGE OF NIGHT and ex-Kent, AS THE WORLD TURNS)

AS THE WORLD TURNS was changing producers, firing writers, hiring directors, auditioning online assistants, pruning established stars, and grooming inexperienced ones while cast and crew were working eight hours shifts with up to three hours wasted for set change-turnarounds because of the small studio. The workday started a 7 a.m. and ended at midnight, or later. Some actors worked six days a week.

I felt as if I were running to the set to shoot the next scene before the next five-minute crew break was due. I was supposed to be in love with a girl that I saw only on the set just before shooting. No one rehearsed. I was hired to kill a character that was then given a two-year contract extension. When I asked the producer why I was doing something, the answer was "because the set is up." One director gave me a note not to react to Steve Andropolus not strangling my girlfriend and protege because "you can't touch the star." I thought he was paraphrasing the old theater joke that springs from the worst summer stock experience but he was serious - in fact, no one ever laughed at the studio.

Fortunately for my friends still involved with the show, the problems have been corrected. However, I was there when the script was hitting the fan...or maybe it wasn't that bad. Perhaps my resistance had been worn down by seven years on three daytime shows. I felt it was time to get out of the soap cycle, so ATWT and I parted amicably and I entered the rinse cycle. I never expected the pain such a simple choice could cause.

My thought, and yours I'm sure, was that the biggest adjustment would be the loss of a paycheck. Wrong. Money was not the problem. There is always enough money left over in delayed checks, tax refunds, investments or property sold. And you can live off your great credit rating. Then there is always unemployment insurance, if you didn't have a corporation, or pension plans and expense accounts if you did.

The adjustment for me and other rinsers was in life-style. Having a check every week for the next 26 weeks means that you can walk down any street in New York, turn into any store, and buy anything in sight. That feeling comes only with television. Broadway pays too little, film pays too infrequently. Yet not eating out every night, not going to Europe, not buying a new wardrobe is not a sacrifice when compared to the average breadwinner's struggle to pay rent or the average actor's struggle to eat.

Leaving daytime did mean starting over in my business. But we rinsers start over with the experience of having performed in many television shows (over 1,700 in my case). Not to mention the experience of performing in meetings with countless producers, network execs, agents, and interviewers. We all have wonderful scenes on tape. We have fame that comes only through the intimate exposure of daytime. I was finally available for all those projects that couldn't work around my soap schedule.

My problem was time. Every article about soap stars lists his/her workday. Therefore, all of you who faithfully read the magazines know that a daytime show rules your life. You plan around your workdays - workdays that are learned only two weeks in advance. Then there were always inserts; those quick fixes because of sickness, vacation, or lack of studio space. In my case, though, studio time was only 25 hours a week, homework was twice that time. This didn't count charity ball games, auctions, talk shows, interviews, discos, and shopping mall appearances that are the icing of TV exposure. When all that stops, nothing can take its place. I missed the day-to-day contact with creative people who tried to make art out of a new script. I missed the resulting thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.

And I did not die. I merely left a job. I was still doing auditions, rehearsing scenes for plays, and shooting commercials...but I was bored.

I felt lost. I was still asked to do charity events, but I usually declined because I felt that I was cheating the fans who paid to see a daytime star since I was no longer on daytime, nor a star. Stars are made, not born. The next daytime sex symbol will be the next actor given the sexy storyline on the number one rated show. If enough of your fellow characters call you sex, and enough storylines repeat this fact...your character becomes sexy. If enough magazines repeat this, you become sexy. The image of a star is exactly that, an image.

Perhaps daytime teaches the fickleness of fate best. If you were a daytime star and you are not on daytime, you are not a star. This is not true in film or Broadway where you remain a star as long as there is an old film still in syndication or an old producer who saw you tread the boards.

Fellow rinse-cyclers take part-time jobs to pass the time. It is a jolt to go from a four figure salary per week to a two figure one. The job market is small. The job you need must allow you to be free to pursue acting work and it must be fun and profitable enough to enjoy. Yet it can't be so fun and profitable that you give up acting. There are only so many bartending jobs around.

Most of my daytime friends disappeared. I suppose this is because the greatest fear of those in the soap-cycle is the rinse cycle. That may be understandable, but it still hurt. Not many of my friends were interested in the pain of someone who was experiencing the very thing that they feared most. The loss I felt and still feel is like depositing money in the back and then going to withdraw it to find nothing there. No doors were slammed. They were just not opened as quickly. The fact that my retirement was semi-voluntary was even more threatening. I am not talking about press, Procter & Gamble, or network people. I mean I had no one to go to dinner with, no one to talk to. The rinse cycle is more introspective and lethargic. There is more time for gut-level exploring of emotions - and more freedom to express those feelings. I really was a different person than the one in the mercurial soap cycle...maybe that seriousness was too much for my friends.

So I left town.

I went to a new coast - a new start, a new set of people. A new life for a while - at least two years. I guess I chose that time period because that was the time I gave myself when I went from Ohio to New York at the beginning of my career. I like symmetry.

It feels good to get back to basics after the sugar-rush of soap success, but there is fear. Fear that grows when you write checks without writing deposit slips. No income and dwindling savings. I was poor coming out of Ohio and I find that not even television salaries can wash those painful memories away.

There are different people on this coast, many of whom cannot understand why I would leave the safety and security of daytime. The rules are different in this ball park. I went back to acting classes to rinse away the bad habits formed by having to create a product in six hours or less from scenes that had little purpose other than to fill up airtime. I have not tasted this side of the menu. I don't even know if I'll like it, nor do I know if my experience on Broadway or in daytime will translate. These fears are complicated by my being split 3000 miles apart. I am trying to create a life in California without liquidating my life in New York. Indeed, I may return when I feel the spin-cycle kick in.

I am comforted by the strength of the friendships that still remain, by the knowledge that I have done all this before. By the courage that I have chosen to create new dreams and by the excitement that I get to try to live them. I didn't die, I just changed jobs.

Edited October 18, 2010 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

From the April 1, 1980 Digest. S.O.D. Publishing Inc

Edited November 22, 2010 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

Also from this issue.

[quartermainefan]

I have been in the Player's Club, and it is a great building. I loved Lois Kibbee. She was so perfect on this show and OLTL.

[DRW50]

I usually think of the Telly Savalas ads.

I love Lois too. I have an interview with her from around these years that I'll post.

[SFK]

Once upon a time, I worked in a college's acting program admissions office. IAL had worked there years before, I sat at his old desk. Some how or another, my boss and I got to talking about soaps one day and he mentioned IAL whose name I did not recognize at the time. This was the late '90s and I'm not sure that we even had Google yet, it was a couple of years before I thought back and searched the name online. At any rate, my boss told me that he was a great guy and had to quit when he fell ill. He was so vain, my boss half-joked, that he wouldn't let anyone see him as he'd lost so much weight and wasn't looking or feeling his best. When he passed, his partner and his family all got together and threw him one hell of a homegoing, if there had been any friction in the past, it was all put aside. So it's nice to know that through the pain of illness and death, he had a lovely final chapter.

[DRW50]

Late 90s probably would have just been Yahoo type search engines, or IMDB.

That's a nice story.

All the soaps have had actors who passed away from AIDS complications but when you see Joel Crothers, Dennis Parker, and Irving Lee in the same photos it kind of hits you even harder. And Joel and Irving probably could have gone on in daytime for many years. So much potential and talent wiped out and it's awful when you wonder how many forget...

[edgeofnik]

And don't forget JC's stint on Dark Shadows. If you've ever seen any of the episodes, he was drop dead handsome. Such a shame. Anyway, back to EON, it's amazing watching the episodes that are out there, they had such a solid cast. To me, it was the perfect 30 min show. The only time it slipped was the Jody-centric stuff or the dance sequences. Otherwise, pretty consistent with Slesar's ability to weave incredibly intricate stories. Once he was gone, it was over.

[quartermainefan]

well for people who are really interested, Larkin Malloy teaches acting every Wed Night on west 43rd street just off 8th avenue.

Edited October 26, 2010 by quartermainefan