Any Capitol Fans Here?

[DRW50]

From the August 30, 1983 Digest.

[SFK]

"We musn't raise our voices. We should have music!" Camptastic. This article definitely jives with other accounts of CAP that I've read. I still wish I could see more of the early days, the later stuff is what's survived in tape trade for the most part. I would like to know how long (if long at all) it was before a. we saw Paula beyond being referred to/hearing her playing, and b. before she removed her veil. Reminds me of that lady on Y&R.

[CT_Helena_Fan]

I did get to see the pilot episode and I remember Clarissa urging Tyler to stay away from politics, and her slapping him when he insisted on running for Congress. She was so afraid that what happened to her father at the hands of the Clegg family would happen to Tyler as well. I also remember in that episode how Sloane was after Tyler and how Julie saw her kiss Tyler when he landed at the air force base.

CarlD2, I like how the reviewer in that article you posted said that Constance played the role with "grace and perfection". I couldn't agree more!

[SFK]

She was a very lovely soap matriarch. Strong, elegant, graceful, cool but not cold. It's funny, I was asking a friend if he remembered Capitol and he was like, "Ohhhh yeahhh, with Carissa, and you know Carissa is Stephanie now on The Bold and the Beautiful." Isn't that funny how our minds work?

There was of course a lot of on-location stuff in the pilot movie, but I also liked the more grainier filmic look of the in studio scenes in the early episodes. I guess you could say Y&R had a similar look at the time, before soaps took on the brighter, sharper soapy look we're most familiar with. WoST had an ep from '82 where Julie was despondent over something involving Tyler and there was a lengthy on-location sequence of her crying in her Porsche driving around the streets surrounding the Capitol. Most soaps would have put her in a car rocked by stage hands in front of a blue screen, but to fly her and a crew out just for that? It isn't hard to imagine how Conboy spent money like water.

[CT_Helena_Fan]

It looks like he got Constance mixed up with Susan Flannery. LOL They don't look all that much alike now, but maybe they did back then.

[DRW50]

From the November 19, 1985 Digest.

[CT_Helena_Fan]

CarlD2, thanks for posting the promo for Mark and Clarissa's wedding and the pic of Constance and Marj by the sandcastle. That's a great picture of the two of them.

[DRW50]

I'm glad that people enjoy them. That was a piece on unforgettable characters in SOD's 10 year history. It's kind of funny seeing the character names first, as it leaves the impression Myrna and Clarissa were building sand castles together.

Who was shot at their wedding?

Edited February 16, 2011 by CarlD2

[CT_Helena_Fan]

Mark was shot in his office and never made it to the church for the wedding. At first, the investigation focused on Jarrett Morgan, who turned out to be Baxter McCandless, Clarissa's presumed-dead husband. Mark found out that Jarrett was Baxter on the morning of the wedding and there was a scene where he confronted Jarrett/Baxter and threatened to call off the wedding. However, it was not Baxter who shot Mark. When Mark came out of his coma, he asked "Why did she do it?" The "she" he was referring to was Julie. From where he was standing when he was shot, he could see a woman who looked like Julie with a gun in her hand. It turns out that it wasn't Julie, but Jenny Markham, the daughter of former crime boss Victor Markham. Jenny mistook Mark for another man, Senator Josh Harrington. Harrington was found to be connected with the mob and Jenny believed he was responsible for nearly killing her the night of her wedding to Zed Diamond (a.k.a. Jimmy Desmond) three years before. Jenny and Julie looked like they could be twins, and were both played by Catherine Hickland.

Mark survived the shooting only to be killed a year later when he was discovered to be a traitor, in a bizarre plot twist. Capitol had several characters who were either presumed dead or near death, then found alive or surviving the illness or injury that threatened their life, only to die later on in the series. Both Victor Markham and his daughter Jenny were presumed to be dead, turned up alive, then died not too long after. Victor was killed by the mob and Jenny died when her attempt to poison Sloane backfired. Leanne Foster, who was involved with Jordy Clegg, survived cancer only to die falling down the stairs of the Clegg mansion while arguing with her sister. Baxter seemed to escape this "survivor curse" since he had been presumed dead for 10 years, but was alive at the end of the show.

[DRW50]

Thanks. That sounds interesting. So they advertised a wedding and never had one. I wonder how that went down.

Do you think Cat Hickland was good in the dual role? Did she ever have scenes where both characters interacted?

[SFK]

I have a pic of Clarissa and Mark in a church and she's holding a bouquet, but come to think of it, maybe they were attending somebody else's wedding.

[CT_Helena_Fan]

I think Cat Hickland did a great job in the dual role. There were a couple of scenes where Julie and Jenny interacted. I don't believe it was ever explained why Julie and Jenny looked so much alike for two people who were supposedly not related.

Julie, to me, always seemed more like Clarissa's daughter than Myrna's. She and Clarissa were close and I think maybe Julie saw Clarissa as a second mother. Brenda also felt like she could confide in Clarissa. Sloane and Clarissa were not as close, since Sloane's loyalties were divided between her mother and her father. During the early years of the show, Sloane saw Clarissa as the woman who broke up her parents' marriage. She grew more accepting of Clarissa as the show went on, but was very hurt when Clarissa chose Baxter over Mark. This was after Mark had recovered from his gunshot wound and Clarissa found out Jarrett was Baxter. When she couldn't make up her mind about which man she loved, Baxter got tired of waiting and told her he was getting out of her life for good. He was about to move out to California so he wouldn't have to watch his wife marry another man. Clarissa agreed to marry Mark, but as she was telling Baxter goodbye and wishing him luck in California, she had a change of heart. She decided she couldn't let Baxter go, and that she still loved him. Mark was devastated and Sloane was very angry at Clarissa for breaking his heart.

I think I've seen that pic. She's wearing a white dress but it's not the same one she wore for the wedding that never took place.

[SFK]

So CT, help me to put the pieces together, didn't Paula kidnap Mark when Jenny shot him, or was that another injury? I have an ep where Paula recreated a hospital set in her basement and kept Mark there unawares of the fact that he was in a fake hospital (she wouldn't let him see a newspaper and he wondered why Sloane wasn't visiting).

[CT_Helena_Fan]

Yes, she did. After she overheard Clarissa mentioning to Baxter that she was planning on Mark recovering at her house, Paula had him drugged, then snuck him out of the hospital. She hired a male nurse to hypnotize him into staying put in his "hospital" bed, write a letter to Clarissa, and even into believing that Paula was Clarissa. In his more lucid moments, he started to get suspicious when he kept hearing the same announcements over the "hospital P.A. system" and he could predict when he would hear those announcements. Also, the nurse and Paula kept mentioning this "Dr. Greenspan" and Mark began wondering why he never saw this doctor in person. Paula's plan ultimately came apart when Mark managed to get out of bed and into the basement hallway. Sloane heard him and demanded to know what was going on. Mark was taken back to University Hospital. When Clarissa visited him back at the real hospital, she mentioned the letter that Mark had written while under hypnosis. Mark was confused, not having remembered writing that letter. Clarissa showed it to him and he recognized his handwriting and said that the sentiments in the letter match his own feelings exactly: He wanted Clarissa to take the time to get to know Baxter and decide who it was she really loved.

Paula was so desperate to win Mark back that she stopped at nothing--she even tried to kill Clarissa. She believed she was still in love with Mark and that if she could just get rid of the woman that was coming between them, she would get him back. For Mark, it was too late. Her years of faked agoraphobia put a strain on their marriage and he found himself falling in love with Clarissa. Mark had been friends with the McCandless family for decades. Tyler saw him as a mentor who could guide him as he builds a career for himself in politics. Baxter and Mark were once very good friends. Mark was there for Clarissa after Baxter's plane went down. While Baxter stayed away from the family after he regained his memory, fearing that he would be a burden, Mark became a father figure to Clarissa and Baxter's boys and he and Clarissa fell in love. I really felt badly for Mark when Clarissa chose Baxter. While I liked the idea of the family being together again, I felt Baxter kept too many secrets from Clarissa and Mark, maybe, was a little more deserving of her love. The traitor thing was completely out of character for Mark. I have a hard time believing that he was a traitor all along.

[SFK]

Thank you so much for coloring in the rest of the picture for me! Yeah, I liked Mark and what they did to him was one of daytime's most glaring examples of character assassination.

It's amazing how Paula (as far as I know) managed to avoid jail time. Those scenes of her with Mark in the fake hospital are really a trip, the lengths to which this woman would go. Do you remember if Mark took an apartment somewhere because I'm pretty sure he wasn't living with Clarissa. In the beginning, I believe they still shared the house, just maintaining separate quarters.