The Original Cast of Soaps

[EricMontreal22]

"For Agnes to say that the past sometimes has to be ignored so as not to confuse viewers bothers me, in that it is often more confusing and annoying that past characters do not return or are not mentioned.

AMC was only 5 yrs old when she made that statement."

Have you read the book? I could find and type out that part of it if you haven't. I think what she says makes sense--Ann Tyler was engaged to an aristocrat pre-show but to bring it up always in her present relationship just makes for clumsy dialogue. I think it's been handled much worse lately though.

[King of Pine Valley]

Here's a list of characters who were part of the original cast of "One Life to Live," when it debuted on July 15, 1968:

Victor Lord

Victoria Lord

Meredith Lord

Larry Wolek

Vince Wolek

Anna Wolek

Joe Riley

Eileen Siegel

Dave Siegel

Sadie Gray

Carla Gray

Jim Craig

Price Trainor

Karen Martin

Marcus Polk

Jack Neal

Can anyone tell me how many characters from OLTL's very first year are still on the show today?

[Sylph]

How many more lists are we going to have?

[dm.]

Syph, this is the same person that asked the same questions during the last year on TV.com. Sadly, now the person found SON and will ask those questions for every single soap.

[All My Shadows]

Ann was engaged to an aristocrat before the show started? That must have been when she was in NYC then, right? And that must also be why sometimes I see St. Cyr listed as one of her married names...

[All My Shadows]

Wasn't Chris and Edith's brother John also on the show at the very beginning? I believe he lived in another town and was known to be a shady, in-and-out of prison type of guy. I always thought it would have been interesting if somewhere along the way, one of his children or grandchildren came to Oakdale with the intent of seriously [!@#$%^&*] with the Chris Hughes clan.

[SteveFrame]

Yes John was around. I know that his wife's name was Marian and he was very unlike Chris. He was played by Laurence Hugo and Walter Burke at various times. Everything I have always read just said he was in and out of the show - sort of like a recurring character.

[David_Vickers]

I like these history threads and I wish some people would quit bitching about them.

[dc11786]

I read that Lincoln moved to Seattle for a while after he married Sydney Scott in the synopsis section of "The Wonderful World of Television Soaps".

[EricMontreal22]

Seattle--AGnes Nixon's fave place to send off canvas characters lol

[Paul Raven]

Agnes seemed to lose interest in a lot of the core characters in the late 70's/early 80's.

eg

Linc & Kelly left in 80.

Ann was killed off in 81.

Phil was killed off in 79.

Tara was quickly remarried and written off in 80.

Jeff was written out in 79.

Frank Grant died in 82

Paul Martin hung around a few more years,but wasn't given much to do.

Nina/Cliff/Palmer/Daisy became the new focus.Cliff was originally going to be a Jeff recast.

Maybe Agnes felt that the show needed to be restructured, but it did leave a gap.Perhaps those characters did need to be rested,but killing them off was final and the others,save Jeff,never returned.

Maybe Ann's first husband could have turned up and stayed in town as a Palmer/Adam type character. Amy Tyler suddenly returns.

For a show with children in the title,there weren't many around to continue the legacy.

Ann & Paul's daughter was killed,as was Donna's.Jeff never had a child,nor did Paul.

Only Charlie and Joey(Jake)were born and survived in the 70's.

Kelly should have been pregnant,when she left and the child a boy,so the Tyler name could live on.

The show did bring on Kelsey,Tara's child but not long term.

Another trait of Agnes' writing is that chracters are married and divorced too quickly.

Jeff was already married 3 times in 10 years,as were Erica and Tara, Ann, Paul and Linc.

[EricMontreal22]

I would love it if they built back up the Tyler's although I suppose theCortlands kinda took over that role.

[All My Shadows]

I hate the fact that Agnes cleaned up AMC so much during the late 1970s and early 1980s. There was definitely a restructuring that went on, I think, but to be completely honest, most of the soaps on the air did similar things in that time period.

[SteveFrame]

To me the biggest mistake Agnes made was letting Pine Valley get too big. As many have said in this thread alone one of the selling points of AMC was it's hometown feel in the 70's. When Erica became a big model, moved to New York and then Pine Valley became this big metropolitan area and the whole feel of the show changed.

Along with that all the familiar characters were gone and with all those familiar characters that Agnes got rid of, she replaced all of them with at least 1 new character.

I know many disagree with me but I just see that as a big mistake Agnes made esp. in regards to the future of the show. I don't think making Erica the larger than life character she became was a good idea at all. She almost became bigger than the show. I preferred her when she was part of Pine Valley and part of the stories as a whole there.

I have always felt the demise of the Tyler/English family was a big mistake. And not taking advantage of Erica trying to get control of the Tyler mansion when Phoebe died was a big mistake too. That would have been a wonderful story as Erica would have felt she had finally arrived in Pine Valley society to own the big mansion on the hill. Plus she would have finally stuck it to Phoebe who kept Mona and Charles apart all those years.

[SFK]

Yeah, like Y&R.

'70s AMC is a world I only know about through history books and my mother's memories. I don't know what that era of AMC "felt" like, but seeing as how I enjoyed AMC so much growing up in the '80s, I commend AN on her restructuring of the show.

As for the Cortlandts, has AN ever said in print that they were a spin on OLTL's Lords? I know the fans have made that connection. I think it's cool that the original Viki, Gillian Spencer, was in the Eugenia role this go round... a much different Eugenia, mind you.