In honor of AW's 45th anniversary,I thought I'd start this thread and perhaps all future posts concerning this show could be in one place.at present there are several threads.

Here's a description from Irna Phillips at the time of debut.

"What I want to say is that none of us can face reality 24 hours a day. We must have private 'worlds', made up of our down dreams and pleasures and emotions, into which to retreat. Otherwise, it would be simply too much!"

The story follows the lives of the families of two brothers, William and James Matthews, in a suburban university town. It opens with the death of William, then shows how the sad events affects the widow and their children and the other brother and his family. Grandma Matthews gets into the action, to. The writer promises to relate to contemporary problems; two of them she mentioned are school dropouts and illegitimacy.

20 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

The original Matthews girls. Susan Trustman as Pat and Liza Chapman as Janet were frontburner for the first two or so years. Jacquie as Alice was supporting.

Janet wasn't the same generation as Pat and Alice, was she? 

8 minutes ago, Xanthe said:

Janet wasn't the same generation as Pat and Alice, was she? 

No she was the younger sister of Jim and William Matthews. 

21 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

The original Matthews girls. Susan Trustman as Pat and Liza Chapman as Janet were frontburner for the first two or so years. Jacquie as Alice was supporting.

Susan left show business after AW and Liza died in a car crash after leaving the show. Rare to see a photo of all three

 

My and I thought I knew things about this soap, I never heard of "Janet"

10 hours ago, AbcNbc247 said:

The story was that Liza Chapman became pregnant. And since Janet couldn’t have children, she was let go. But I think that they intended to bring her back. But not long after she had the baby, she was killed in a car accident

Lisa had moved on to secret Storm and only played her new role for a short time before the accident.

i think Janet was dropped once Agnes Nixon took over.

Janet was another of Irna Phillips older single gals who entered into doomed affairs with married men - see Edith Hughes and Kim Reynolds.

7 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Lisa had moved on to secret Storm and only played her new role for a short time before the accident.

i think Janet was dropped once Agnes Nixon took over.

Janet was another of Irna Phillips older single gals who entered into doomed affairs with married men - see Edith Hughes and Kim Reynolds.

Thanks for The Info, Makes Sense as Agnes was always about Youth, while I'm now sad to discover this new story on Liza/Janet, at least she had the chance to have her baby before passing

1 hour ago, Paul Raven said:

Lisa had moved on to secret Storm and only played her new role for a short time before the accident.

i think Janet was dropped once Agnes Nixon took over.

Janet was another of Irna Phillips older single gals who entered into doomed affairs with married men - see Edith Hughes and Kim Reynolds.

I've always been a little surprised that Harding Lemay did not choose to bring Janet Matthews back to the show.  Janet seems like the kind of internally conflicted character Lemay would have enjoyed writing for.  Plus, she could have provided motherly advice to Pat, Russ, and Alice after Mary Matthews died.  And Janet most certainly would have had conflicts with her sister in law, Liz.   

1 hour ago, Neil Johnson said:

I've always been a little surprised that Harding Lemay did not choose to bring Janet Matthews back to the show.  Janet seems like the kind of internally conflicted character Lemay would have enjoyed writing for.  Plus, she could have provided motherly advice to Pat, Russ, and Alice after Mary Matthews died.  And Janet most certainly would have had conflicts with her sister in law, Liz.   

I like to think they let her off Canvas over Respect for the actress, if not who could've play her

2 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

I've always been a little surprised that Harding Lemay did not choose to bring Janet Matthews back to the show.  Janet seems like the kind of internally conflicted character Lemay would have enjoyed writing for.  Plus, she could have provided motherly advice to Pat, Russ, and Alice after Mary Matthews died.  And Janet most certainly would have had conflicts with her sister in law, Liz.   

He probably had no idea Janet existed. 
 

It was a fan who actually told him about Pat’s abortion and murder trial. He wasn’t given backgrounds on most of the characters. 
 

I think he only knew who Liz was because Nancy Wickwire had so recently departed the show. Possibly the character was still mentioned. 
 

Aunt Janet and Grandma? Who dem?

Edited July 27, 20223 yr by antmunoz
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There were so many characters they could have brought back from the late 60s: Sam, Lahoma, Missy, Bill. The first three went to Somerset; were they played out so much on there that they couldn't be brought back? Is the Somerset spin-off one of the reasons Another World lost its history by the late 70s, 80s? Some of its late 60s history went to that show, never to be heard of again. Also I'm sure the writers and producers being ignorant of that history was another important factor. 

7 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Janet was another of Irna Phillips older single gals who entered into doomed affairs with married men - see Edith Hughes and Kim Reynolds.

Yep. That seemed to be Irna's thing: the good, wholesome family with the scandalous aunt either having an affair with a married man or having an out of wedlock baby.

2 hours ago, victoria foxton said:

 

  

Still can't believe Al Bundy shot Mac 😂🤣

1 hour ago, Jdee43 said:

 Also I'm sure the writers and producers being ignorant of that history was another important factor. 

I tend to believe that this is the reason. There was so much turnaround behind the scenes post Rauch/Lemay and with the Internet not existing yet, probably no one wanted to take the effort to learn the history and they just decided to do their own things. 

An article about Chapman’s death. 

4 hours ago, Jdee43 said:

There were so many characters they could have brought back from the late 60s: Sam, Lahoma, Missy, Bill. The first three went to Somerset; were they played out so much on there that they couldn't be brought back? Is the Somerset spin-off one of the reasons Another World lost its history by the late 70s, 80s? Some of its late 60s history went to that show, never to be heard of again. Also I'm sure the writers and producers being ignorant of that history was another important factor. 

I agree, there was a lot of history to be continued on AW with many of those characters.  But to his credit, Harding Lemay did bring back Sam Lucas for about a year around 1973-74.   

2 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

I agree, there was a lot of history to be continued on AW with many of those characters.  But to his credit, Harding Lemay did bring back Sam Lucas for about a year around 1973-74.   

He did, and somewhat regretted it.  Mr. Lemay was not a fan. 

The uploader who posted most of this episode 5 years ago has found the ending and the credits.