Edge of Night (EON) (No spoilers please)

[DRW50]

It does seem very last minute, as they have April suddenly, and very aggressively, planning to sue Logan for custody of Jamey. It doesn't seem in character for her.

[Paul Raven]

In 65,there was a possibility of Edge going primetime.Variety reported that CBS and P&G were thinking along these lines after the success of Peyton Place.The report stated they had decided to put a hold on those plans to see how Peyton fared over the long run.

Imagine if Edge had been given that chance...

[DRW50]

Beautiful monologue from Geraldine here around 8 minutes in. I can't get enough of Geraldine, or Margo, or Nola. Slesar seemed to have a knack for these older, damaged, struggling female characters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2aGfsQxSUc&feature=autoplay&list=ULc4g0BpXtp28&lf=mfu_in_order&playnext=1

[DRW50]

11/73 Daytime TV

[DRW50]

[DRW50]

July 1971 TV Radio Show

[DRW50]

with the escapist fare he enjoyed in his youth. Currently, as Dr. Jim Fields, he plays the role of a psychiatrist on The Edge Of Night but as he says: "The story line deals more with my personal life than with my work."

Originally, Alan auditioned for a very different type of role. Six months before he joined the serial on a regular basis, he read for the part of a hippie. The producer liked his reading but felt he didn't look the character. He lost that job but four months later, they called him in for one day's work as a jet-setter ("a high-class hippie") and were so impressed with his charisma on camera that they offered him the up-coming role of the psychiatrist. On July 23, 1969, Laurence Feinstein made his debut as Dr. Jim Fields.

Did I say Laurence Feinstein? Yes, because that's the name Alan was using at the time. Born Alan Laurence Feinstein in New York on September 8, 1941, he decided some twenty years later that it was necessary to adopt a stage name to succeed as an actor. After all, didn't Bernard Schwarz achieve great fame as Tony Curtis, and Issur Danilovitch as Kirk Douglas?

Following their example, Alan Feinstein took the alias of Yorke. And as Alan Yorke, he broke into television, played a number of seasons in stock, and appeared on Broadway. But the name began to eat away at him subconsciously. Was he denying his background, his heritage - was he masquerading as someone else? Alan Yorke became a hated stranger so he was killed off in January of 979 and Laurence Feinstein emerged - almost triumphantly. "Almost triumphantly" because a year later, Laurence decided he didn't like being called Larry and went back to his original first name, Alan.

"Times have changed," he explains. "People don't seem to resent ethnic names anymore - and even if they did, I'd still use Alan Feinstein. It's me. It's my identity. After years of analysis, I've discovered I can be myself. I don't have to be Alan Yorke!"

Still under analysis, Alan told me he finds it a natural part of his routine. "I just go to my analyst for an occasional check-up now. It's like going to have your teeth checked." He continued: "Not every psychological problem is of major proportions. The problem can be as simple as a cavity. But it must be treated. If you have a cavity, it won't get smaller. The same is true of a mental block.

"I had a personality problem. I was very unhappy and pessimistic about the future I desired a more optimistic view. But I knew I'd never have it until I became a more productive person, and I didn't know how to set about becoming one.

"My insecurity dates back to my early years. I have many unresolved feelings about my childhood." Understandably so, because Alan had a most unsettling childhood. He was the only child of Paul and Esther Feinstein who were divorced when he was eight. He was raised by his mother but his father had visitation rights. Though Alan was well-loved and he loved in return, the broken home left its mark. The isolated youngster underwent a series of mixed emotions and mixed loyalties.

"I've always been friendly with both my father and my mother," said Alan, "also with my step-mother (my father remarried about ten years ago). I must say, my parents didn't quite understand my choice of a career - acting is not the most secure profession in the world and no one in my family had ever been in show business before (my father is a dress buyer for a chain of stores) but they went along with my decision to act.

"I started to get involved with shows when I was a senior in high school. But I didn't do any acting in the two years I attended Bronx Community College. I was a liberal arts major and studied psychology and sociology. It was interesting but not interesting enough to keep me away from acting. After two years I quit college to get a job in the entertainment field.

"I got a job in the field almost immediately - but it was not the kind of job I'd had in mind. i worked in the budgeting department for film publicity at Columbia Pictures for half a year. It was such a bore. I left to become a short-order cook in a bar.

"I became expert at making sandwiches, hamburgers and French fries. I'm still a good cook. I make simple things - like sandwiches, hamburgers and French fries." He laughed. "Seriously, I am a pretty good cook. I stick to the basic dishes - you know, crown roast, sea food, coq au vin."

He returned to reminisces of his pre-theatrical experience. "I didn't remain a short-order cook for long. iI filled in with other jobs - driving a truck, selling boys' clothing in Bloomingdale's. After more than a year of this, I earned my first buck as an actor - I was an extra on a segment of TV's Naked City."

Extra work was all Alan could find for the next six months. But after that, things started to open up for him. He got small roles on the Jackie Gleason and Jonathan Winters shows and landed the lead in an Armstrong Circle theatre presentation. That was in 1963, the same year he first appeared in summer stock, touring with Mr. Roberts in the part of Mannion and as understudy for Hugh O'Brian in the title role.

Since then, Alan has played leading roles in a number of shows in both summer and winter stock - Any Wednesday (with Vivian Blaine, Dyan Cannon and Robert Alda), Barefoot in the Park (with Lynn Bari) and Tarzan Doesn't Live Here Anymore (with Gardner McKay), to mention a few.

In 1966, he made his Broadway debut in Edward Albee's Malcolm. It only ran five performances and his next Broadway show, Zelda, didn't last any longer. But he fared better with his first off-Broadway show, Shoot Anything With Hair That Moves. It had a three-week run early in 1969, and introduced Laurence Feinstein (that was the first time Alan used his real surname) to the theatrical world.

Many daytime TV fans undoubtedly remember Alan from Love of Life. Hie created the role of Mickey Krakauer in 1965, and played it for two and a half years. "Now they say I was Tess' brother but she didn't come into the show until I'd been on it a couple of years so in the beginning, she was Mickey's sister." (Tess, played by Toni Bull Bua, the TV and real-life wife of Gene Bua, is one of soap operas' best-loved young ingenues.)

Alan left Love of Life to go back to stage work. He played a season of winter stock in Mineola, N.Y., appearing with Barbara Bell Geddes and Arthur Hill in productions of Come Back Little Sheba and Light Up The Sky. A deal was pending for him to spend a year at the Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis but unfortunately, it fell through. That didn't slow him down for long however. He was soon back in shows and on TV.

One of daytime drama's most attractive bachelors, Alan has somehow managed to elude marriage so far. It was only natural to ask him if, as a result of his parents' divorce, he was opposed to the institution on principle.

"Not at all," he assured me. "It's not a question of wanting or not wanting to get married though. It's just something that will happen when the time is right. And I don't know when that will be. I'm going with only one girl now, but marriage isn't imminent."

For the past six months, he's dated no one but Thiea Palmer whom he met over two years ago, when they stood on the same line at the unemployment insurance office. Though not in show business, tall slim Thiea, a secretary, is lovely enough to be Alan's leading lady on TV as well as off. She's a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, and this past September, Alan accompanied her down South to meet her folks (perhaps that marriage is more imminent than he'll admit). While attending a football game there, the popular daytimer was mobbed by a score of teenaged autograph hunters.

A veritable romantic idol - this Alan Feinstein. And why not? He's 6'2'' tall, carries 183 well-distributed pounds on an athletic frame, has curly brown hair, blue eyes and a bright smile that reveals an unexpected dimple lurking in his right cheek.

Admittedly a frustrated cowboy, actor Alan almost got to be one - in 1967, he made a pilot film for a soap opera set on a ranch but the series never sold. No matter, he shrugs. He's looking to the future. His ambition is to work in all the media. But he's particularly anxious to make films, any kind of films, as long as they're Westerns. Here's one city slicker who feels more at home on the range!

[Khan]

I still remember Alan Feinstein as Diane Keaton's married professor lover in "Looking for Mr. Goodbar."

[DRW50]

I didn't realize he was only 30 at the time of this interview. He looks older. He has quite a different build compared to daytime men of that era - huge chest, shoulders, very developed.

It seems like he did go on to a solid career. I don't remember him in Goodbar but then I only remember random, horrifying moments (her medical problems, the ending...some scene with Levar Burton on a playground).

[Paul Raven]

Feinstein returned to daytime soaps in 88 on GH as a love interest for Bobbie.He was a senator,I think, named Gregory Howard.Diane McBain (Foxy,Days) was his wife Clare.

I recall that this was a character and story created during the writers strike and quickly dropped once the strike was over.

[DRW50]

October 1976 TV Mirror.

[DRW50]

Edge, that's where I'll be.

"It's going to be good - a worthwhile enterprise, i think. Fishkill is where I worked ten years ago when I first came to New York. Now, ten years later, I can say that I'm going home. When I first got to New York, I performed in two off-Broadway shows and did four Armstrong Circle Theaters. Things were looking great for me. Then everything went bad. I was broke and on unemployment. I didn't know how to begin looking for work. So, I made up my mind to give it all up and go home.

"Then a friend called me and asked me to come downtown to help him hang lights in an off-Broadway theater. He figured it would bring me a few dollars. Well, it turned out that the entire technical crew was from Philadelphia so we all hit it off fine. Then a man named John Benson asked me what I was doing for the summer. I told him that I was going back home. He asked me to audition for a stock theater named the Cecilwood in Fishkill. He said that he was the director there and I should sign on as a carpenter, and give it a try.

"Well, to make a long story short - I did go up there and wound up doing Bells are Ringing, A View from the Bridge, Gypsy, Enter Laughing and a review. I was also a carpenter. But my faith in myself was renewed. Now I'm going back to do this play with John Benson directing. So, it's kind of a rebirth for me. This is a real effort, a real challenge. The meat is on the table and once I jump this hurdle - feel that feeling again - the sparks will be coming out of my ears. You need a short every now and then and even though it's a lot of work, it's worth all of it.

"Ed Binns will be directing Championship Season. He was on Edge years ago and he's done a million voice-overs on TV commercials. He's teaching at Penn State now. I have chased the role of Phil Romano for over five years. When the play first opened downtown, before it got to Broadway, Paul Sorvino played the role. Then he got a movie and I came within that much," he gestures, "of getting it. I still have the script right here. Then it came up again a few years later - no good, then again and I couldn't do it. But this time I said I was going to do it no matter what. I felt that if I didn't do it this time, I'd kill myself for the rest of my life. Now, it's a lovely working situation in the repertory theater with a good rehearsal period. The surroundings are just great - perfect."

So, it seems like LaGioia is one the right track and all the changes that he's made in his life over the past year, are finally reaping dividends.

"I really beat my head in getting this apartment in shape," he continues. "Everything kind of stopped for me around Christmas last year. I let it all go for a while. There were a few things I had to figure out on my own and now changes have happened for me and I think there's a nice fresh wind blowing for me - John LaGioia. There have been some changes in my mind about a lot of things - questions about self-identity - and even some personal and private things - some adjustments. Everybody comes to a point in their lives when they really reassess what they've been doing, kind of add things up and determine why they may be frustrated in their attempt to achieve certain things. I looked at myself as an object and tried to think of what I've been doing that wasn't as productive as I wanted it to be.

"Oh, yes, there have been a lot of changes. I've changed agents. I moved to this apartment. Now I'm doing the two plays. I knocked off a few commercials last week and it looks like there will be a few Kojaks and Ball Fours in the offing. This is the year for Italians for me. One commercial is in Italian, Milo in Sleuth is half-Italian and Phil Romano in Champoionship Season is certainly. So, it just seems to be falling into place nicely and the new agents have made a big difference.

"Things hadn't been going to my satisfaction for a long time. So, there was the period of introspection which lasted until February or March. I just wasn't feeling right about things. Now, the sun is shining - there's brightness. I realized that whatever business you're in, it's important to keep a certain flexibility. You can't put yourself in one specific spot and stay there because if you do - ultimately, that's where you'll stay.

"It isn't a question of doing one thing - it's the ability to do is all - the commercials, the soap, a play - keep the ball rolling. It's important because your brain gets gray. Your whole frame of reference becomes on color and that's what was happening. Now, it's a new roll of the dice all the way around.

"I feel revitalized and when I get back. I'm going to feel even better. Everything is going to be a lot richer. Years ago, I never was home - I was on the road all the time. Actually, what has been unusual is doing a regular job over a period of time - Edge.

"Doing a daytime serial, especially Edge, always proves to be a challenge, because I don't think there's any serial that allows individual actors such freedom of expression and gives them the space to really contribute to their role personally as our show does. Lou Criscuolo (Danny Micelli) and I are perfect examples of that because we have made very personal statements about our roles. The atmosphere allows it and that's what makes the show so much fun to do. The entire show is a team effort. We are all allowed to contribute to it. So, Edge still continues to be good for me and working with Lou, its's probably a lot better than it ever has been.

"I'm more positive now - I don't think too heavily as I used to. I take it a lot easier. Things aren't as oppressive. There's not so much pressure and I'm able to handle a lot more, it seems. I'm used to our new studio now and the new network so I can say that all is working out now.

"I'm glad nice things are happening to me now - things are kicking off. It's been a long-dark tunnel but now the light. Call it a rebirth."

And, that's exactly what we'll call it because it was just wonderful seeing John in such high spirits about everything - even though it meant a summer of hard work.

[DRW50]

July 1973 TV Radio Mirror

[DRW50]

turned up a happy and contented 30-year old woman who's obviously in possession of inner peace.

Alberta attributes this very enviable inner peace - at least partially - to the balance she has always maintained between her career and her personal life. Although her life story would perhaps read more dramatically if a tremendous inner struggle were involved in achieving this balance, hardly a smidgen of that kind of get-ahead-at-any-cost drive so common in actresses can be found in Alberta. Says she very undramatically: "Acting is how I earn my living. I happen to love to act, but it's a joblike any other job. I don't need ti to feed my ego.

"I've always felt that there is something about this profession which is incompatible with my needs as a woman. I've always been apprehensive about that. Fighting to get ahead in this field would seem to me to involve fighting against some of my other needs. I'm not saying the acing profession is easy on a man, but I think it's particularly hard on women. I believe our needs are different.

"But I would be too specific if I just pointed to my need for loving relationships and the time and energy to nurture them to explain my lack of zeal in looking for work. I simply have a need for a very full life. If I didn't feel that way, I'd be planning to spend my entire summer vacation during stock, rather than spending most of the time loafing out at the beach house I just rented on Long Island. But enjoying that house is just as important to me as anything I could do to further my career. Therefore, I'll probably do stock for a couple of weeks and then head out to the beach."

Alberta's career really began when she was 5. Her mother, a somewhat frustrated housewife who yearned for a career as a dancer, enrolled the little girl in ballet school. Before too long Alberta showed so much promise - though not much enthusiasm ("I took lessons because I was told to take lessons. At such a young age one doesn't choose to study ballet.") - that it was time to switch from the local ballet school in her home town of Elizabeth, New Jersey, to the prestigious School of American Ballet across the bridge in Manhattan. By the age of ten she was starring as Clara in the New York City Ballet's production of The Nutcracker.

"I was living in two completely different worlds and feeling not completely comfortable in either," Alberta remembers. "Back home in Elizabeth I felt different from all the other kids and experienced a great sense of alienation. And of course, there were always two conflicting forces at work - to practice or to play. To practice meant further alienating myself from the kids, but to play meant not meeting the challenge of my career; by the time I was ten I'd become very wrapped up in it, although probably due to all the attention and publicity."

Failure at 12?

Albert's ballet career came to a rather abrupt halt when she turned 12 and was deemed too old to portray Clara. Suddenly no flashbulbs were popping and no pint-sized ballet fans were running after Alberta with autograph books in hand. At the tender age of 12 she was all washed up, a has-been - or at least that's how she felt. "To be a failure at 12 is quite devastating, and that's exactly the way I regarded myself," Alberta recalls. "Looking back on that time of my life, I can understand only too well why most child actors had it so difficult once they found they were no longer cute little kids."

Instead of grabbing this golden opportunity to blend into a more ordinary tableau, Alberta continued her ballet studies, eventually enrolled at New York's Professional Children's School, and waited for the day when the applause would start again. A performer for almost as long as she could remember, Alberta could not imagine a life as anything else. But there's also no denying that she'd come to love the sound of applause - and perhaps to need it, as well. When faced with the choice of leaving for college or going on tour with the national company of Bye Bye Birdie, Alberta chose the latter. She's been acting ever since and for the last six years has played Liz on The Edge of Night.

Alberta's journey into herself on her 30th birthday revealed a woman who had not only found the right balance between career and personal life, but a person who had learned one of life's most important lessons - adjusting to being alone. Married at 18 and divorced at 24, Alberta had gone from the family nest into the secure arms of a husband, and in so doing never quite discovered her own inner resources. "I had to learn how to create a home within myself in order to be truly happy and at peace," says Alberta. "The marriage ultimately didn't work out because we literally grew up together and discovered six years after the marriage that we were no longer the people we'd married. It was a lovely marriage for as long as it lasted, and when it ended I cold not imagine being really happy if I were not married. Thanks to a couple of years of psychotherapy, however, that's changed now.

"I've grown so much since my divorce. And ironically, the more I grow as an individual capable of standing on my own two feet and feeling good about it, the better suited I am to having a healthy, loving relationship with another person. What I'm saying is simply that old cliche that one has to love oneself before one can truly love another. I can honestly say that for the first time in my life, I can be happy alone. Although I acknowledge that it's always nicer not to be, my attitude is that if it happens - it happens. I'm not manic about searching for someone who can offer me marriage. At the moment I'm going with somebody, an actor, whom I've been seeing for six months. We just take the relationship day by day. I'm not at all claustrophobic about the institution of marriage, but on the other hand, I no longer feel i must have the security it represents in order to survive."

- LINDA ROSENBAUM

[DRW50]

I just watched the episode where the commissioner tells Calvin that Bill Marceau, who had gone on vacation, had taken his 30 year retirement before going on vacation. I have a few questions.

#1 Was Beverlee McKinsey an EON fan?

#2 Did Mandel Kramer know he was being written out when he filmed the last scene with Steve (he gave Steve his badge back)?

#3 Why couldn't they bring Kramer back just for one last scene with his colleagues and friends? It's kind of sad he never had a goodbye scene.