Another World Discussion Thread

[Xanthe]

Thank you! That seems pretty clear that Kerrigan is credited as author of the books and Lemay was overreacting. Based on his description of the event which he jealously attended the fans only cared about the actors anyway. 

[Liberty City]

Based on the clips I've seen, Linda Borgeson is the worst in the role. She didn't carry the depth of emotion required for a soap opera in the 1980s, especially for the role of Alice Matthews Frame.

For me, Vaughn Taylor (a.k.a. Vana Tribbey) would've better suited the role of Iris had Carmen Duncan not been cast. Borgeson is definitely the weakest in the role of Alice.

[vetsoapfan]

If any advertisement about the books falsely claimed that Kerrigan was "the author of the serial," that would have been egregious and Lemay's ire would have been totally understandable. She did not write for the TV serial. BUT! The ads I have seen made it very clear that the party was to launch the Ballantine books. They referred to Kerrigan as the "author of AW I and II." Those were obviously the novels, not the broadcast program itself.

Besides clearly stating that KLK was the author of Another World I and II, the Ballantine novelizations, what else could P&G, Ballantine, or the creators of the advertisements do? Perhaps add a note that the books were based on the TV serial which was written by Agnes Nixon, Robert Cenedella and Harding Lemay. But even without that, I don't believe most reasonable people would jump to the conclusion that KLK had been the headwriter for the show. That had not been claimed anywhere. I think the prickly and easily-vexed Lemay jumped to annoyance for little cause.

That is a great find; thank you. I have seen a couple of advertisements about the novelizations, and this is one of them. There is no doubt that they are talking about two books and their author, not the material as seen on TV broadcasts.

[AbcNbc247]

I’m so glad I was able to buy those books when I did.

They’re so hard to find now, and when you finally do, they’re really expensive 

[vetsoapfan]

Emily McLaughlin's daughter, Mary Ann Cooper, wrote a book about her mother once. It was a soft-cover trade paperback called Portrait of a Soap Star. It only remained in print a short while. When I ordered it, the book was about $15.00. A few years later, I saw it on sale on the internet for over $700.00. Surreal!

 

Most people seem to agree. The choice to cast Borgenson in the role is as baffling as the decision to cast Susan Batten as Connor Walsh on ATWT, Charity Rahmer as Belle Black on DAYS, Jayne Bentzen as Nicole Drake on TEON and Jason Kinkaid as Tom Hughes on ATWT. It's like someone deciding that Danny DeVito would be a good choice to take over the role of Rhett Butler in a remake or sequel to Gone With the Wind. Egads!!!

Edited August 18, 2021 by vetsoapfan

[amybrickwallace]

SHHH...someone may be listening.

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[Liberty City]

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[amybrickwallace]

How many soaps had tie-in novels? The Doctors had one. AW had at least two. I got nothing else.

[vetsoapfan]

TPTB don't need my suggestions to make horrid and baffling decisions, unfortunately.

Going back decades: General Hospital, Search for Tomorrow, The Edge of Night, The Doctors, Dark Shadows, Another World, Love of Life, All My Children and The Young and the Restless. Those are the ones I can think of off-hand, from the top of my head. There were also those awful Soaps & Serials novelizations of many other soaps.

I've read many of them, and the Kate Lowe Kerrigan Another World books were the most satisfying to me as someone who had watched the TV versions of the shows. The S&S  books were poorly researched and often inaccurate and hard to tolerate, IMHO.

[DRW50]

Lemay was a wonderful writer -  8 Years in Another World was truly engrossing - so since he was happy to take the spotlight, while  Rauch was a less wordy figure (his grudge-holding and  malice were rarely spoken of in his own voice), he is more likely to get the blame. I also think some of the  blame comes from AW falling apart at the end of his tenure and never really  recovering, although he and Rauch were  probably something of an anomaly in terms of stability (there's a thread  buried on here  with a title like - "AW - longest transition ever?") 

I think the other problem is that many fans took  his  word as gospel, because so little footage of his era is available. What he said about the cast, especially Courtney, became fact.

The most revealing anecdote about his biases is probably when he takes  time to eviscerate Val Dufour for stealing the spotlight from Susan Sullivan by being too hammy in the confession  scenes that he wrote to showcase her. Dufour had been fired, and those were his last scenes. Sullivan was  one of the show's leading ladies, and had plenty of story ahead. Yet  the thrust of the story is that he was selfish, in the wrong. 

I am sorry he never got to  make  much of an impact in daytime after that, and that his second headwriting run, which was excellent  from the little we saw of it, was quickly ended. 

Speaking of his ATWT consulting, he had a TV Guide interview a year or  two after his second consultancy (which  had been around 1994 or 1995 I think). I mainly remember it for his criticizing ATWT for becoming too out of touch with reality - he said during his time there he pointed out to them that three different characters had private jets. 

Edited August 18, 2021 by DRW50

[Paul Raven]

It's interesting to me that Rauch and Lemay got credit for AW Golden years, which pretty much fell apart once Lemay left even though Rauch stayed on through several headwriters.

Which leaves me to believe that possibly without Rauch, Lemay would have flourished any way.

Rauch, I think tried to make lightning strike twice when he hired Corinne Jacker, thinking that a playwright new to the soap genre would shake things up. He certainly seemed to give her free rein.

I guess Rauch had to be credited with allowing his writers some freedom, even when the results were less than ideal.

Or was what we saw onscreen the result of Rauch insisting on certain story decisions.

Guess we'll never know, unless people from that era decide to talk freely.

[DRW50]

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[amybrickwallace]

Were Lemay/Rauch the longest-running HW/EP tandem in soaps, or was that Slesar/Nicholson of EDGE?

Edited August 18, 2021 by amybrickwallace

[DRW50]

I'd think there may have been some longer teams on  ATWT or GL in the '50s or '60s. 

[amybrickwallace]

That sounds right. Thanks!!