Another World Discussion Thread

[Toups]

Closed for now.  Will re-open sometime later this week. 

[Xanthe]

I mentioned it over in Soap Hoppers as well -- I caught some of Solomon Northup's Odyssey on TCM this morning and noticed that Petronia Paley was playing Solomon's wife Anne and John Saxon (AW's Edward Gerard, who was the one who renamed Fanny Grady as Felicia Gallant) playing Epps (the character portrayed by Michael Fassbender in the movie 12 Years a Slave).

[Errol]

Glad to see this thread back open. I can't fathom how a thread about a show that's been off the air for nearly 25 years could incite such whatever that was. Let's try not to have this happen again. There's absolutely no reason for it.

Happy posting, Another World fans!

[Maxim]

Thank you! 

And thank you! 

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[Contessa Donatella]

This is an Aussie soap & I am told that this clip shows the final part of the final episode of "A Country Practice" on Channel 7. There was another series of it on Channel 10 but true fans don't consider that part of the series. So, whatever that means. The reason I'm posting it here is that at 1:14 Carmen Duncan is seen very briefly. Blink & you will miss her! Other than that I am bowled over at what a good idea this was to end the finale with this montage. Do any of you know if there is an Aussie Soap thread or "A Country Practice" thread? Have not found said so far. 

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[Franko]

Speaking of Carmen Duncan, I was just thinking about how well she and Victoria Wyndham played this scene.

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[Contessa Donatella]

That really takes me back. It feels like the first time. Thanks for sharing. 

[Contessa Donatella]

This is part of a WLS interview with RKK. This is about AW first go round, as Sam. 

WE LOVE SOAPS: I remember the summer of '87 well , because of the Oliver North hearings on TV - they kept interrupting daytime soaps...  Anne Heche started a month before you, made her first appearance, and then - the show was off the air for two weeks.
ROBERT KELKER-KELLY: Anne Heche was brilliant, but she was nuts.

WE LOVE SOAPS: When you came on, Sam and Amanda (Sandra Ferguson) were instantly on the front burner. Were you working all the time? And how did you deal with that?
ROBERT KELKER-KELLY: It was a lot of work to process. Sandy, God bless her, had no acting training at all, and I had a whole bunch of theater training, which really didn't matter all that much in soaps. It may have helped a little bit. They just threw us to the wolves. It was a lot of work and a lot of location shooting in New York. It was a ton of fun, but I remember the stress at the time being pretty high.
 

ANOTHER WORLD stars Victoria Wyndham, Douglass
Watson, Kale Browne, Anna Stuart, Robert Kelker-Kelly
and Sandra Ferguson.

WE LOVE SOAPS: My favorite actor growing up was Douglass Watson [who played Mac Cory]. Do you remember anything about working with him, or what he was like?
ROBERT KELKER-KELLY: I'm going to be kind of gooey and effusive about these people right now, Doug Watson and Constance Ford (who played Ada). Doug was a great. He was an awesome human being. It was the 1980s so you could still smoke in the studios and I smoked cigarettes back then; I don't anymore, thank God. We would sit back behind the Cory mansion set waiting for cues between scenes and smoke cigarettes together and play "Stump The Actor" together. He would pick from one Shakespearean play and throw it out and I would have to figure out out what the play was and what the character was. Then I'd do the same thing with him. I don't remember ever working so hard with Shakespeare even when I was doing it.

Later on after he passed away I went and took a look at this career and found Doug Watson was brilliant. He was known was the American Olivier in the 1950s. His acting was so good in Julius Caesar specifically, Marlon Brando had the scene that Doug did with him cut from the film because he wiped the floor with him. Doug played Octavius, and there's a scene in the play where Octavius comes to see Marc Antony and it’s the presage of things to come. It was Shakespeare's way of saying that Marc Antony is on top right now but he's about to get his ass kicked by this kid. Apparently Doug Watson nailed it so much that Brando saw the footage and said it's got to go, "If you don't get rid of these scenes, I'm walking."

Do you know about the history of the old studio in Brooklyn?

WE LOVE SOAPS: Yes. It's such an historic building. You guys were shooting right across from THE COSBY SHOW at the time you were first on ANOTHER WORLD.
ROBERT KELKER-KELLY: THE COSBY SHOW was in the new section, and we were in the old section that was originally built for the New York Philharmonic in the 1910s. In the 1930s they actually put a pool in and did those pool movies with Esther Williams. I'm a big history buff, and it's such a cool slice of history.

WE LOVE SOAPS: After ANOTHER WORLD went off the air, AS THE WORLD TURNS moved in and stayed until 2010. Since then, they've shot some movies and other things there, but it's not occupied full-time like it was for so many decades.
ROBERT KELKER-KELLY: If I had the money I would buy that place and turn it into a museum. The Three Stooges worked in that house. It's just amazing stuff.

Anyway, my first day at work at ANOTHER WORLD I was on the third floor, and was nervous and scared, and wanted to just get a sense of theater again. When I'm in the theater, before a play I would go behind the blacks and just pace and find a way into the emotional life of the character, which didn't really work in soaps because we didn't have that kind of luxury or time. But I was looking for that so I went through this door thinking it was going to go onto one of the stages and it turned out it was one of the catwalks above the studio, one of the light walks where they would hang lights and you have a bird's eye view of the soap set.

When you look down from the top, it's incredibly busy. On one side there's a line of four or five sets and on the other side there's a line of these different sets and then there's the area between the two of them where they have the cameras and lighting and all that stuff. They shot the scenes much more in order at that time; at least that's how I remember it.

So I go onto the catwalk and light a cigarette and I hear on the far side of the studio where they were lighting a scene a crash and a scream, "Props!! I need more [!@#$%^&*] props!"

It was Connie Ford. She worked from a standpoint of being a trained actress from the neighborhood playhouse. She believed that he character's life came forth when she was doing business. She had to have things to do, props to play with - and she scared the [!@#$%^&*] out of me when I heard that scream!

She was a great actress. She worked with James Dean...

And  here is the URL if you want to read a bunch more about DAYS & GH & also his second go round as Bobby/Shane. 

https://www.welovesoaps.net/2013/09/robert-kelker-kelly-interview.html

Well, Errol, It's pretty simple. Some people who are not regularly here came in with the aim of making trouble. So, if you come & say this, well, that is the elephant in the room. Totally agree that the's never any reason for it. And, as an AW fan, yes, I am happy to have the forum unlocked. I have been checking since Friday as that is the earliest one could consider end of the week. 

Thanks for stopping by & thanks for the good wishes! 

[Xanthe]

I feel very confused about Mac's timeline and where his various business dealings and love children fit in. I suppose "after the war" can cover a long period but the AWHP suggests that Mac's first marriage was dissolved in the 1930s which seems like it would put Iris' birth before WWII. I know time in soaps is elastic and this scene is before the arrival of Paulina whose story obviously involves much later shenanigans. It's also kind of too bad that they didn't think to bring Sandy back in some form trying to resolve the mystery of Mac's past. I'm not sure whether Iris ever acknowledged Sandy's existence. She had gone to Texas before he surfaced and he had moved away before the Chief turned up. 

[Contessa Donatella]

They seemed to deal with Mac's "others" one at a time!

[Xanthe]

And I am not even looking for actual real dates to tie the timeline to -- I just want a sequence of events that remains in the same order even if some events get squished closely together as the retcons pile up. 

[Mona Kane Croft]

This scene more-or-less revises Mac's original orign story.  This dialogue implies Mac was a self-made businessman, when in his original history, Mac had inherited Cory Publishing and the Cory fortune was, even then, two or three generations old.  Donna Swajeski didn't seem to have much respect for what previous writers had brought to the show.  

[robbwolff]

I just watched the scene. It's absurd that Rachel had no idea that Mac had gone to Northwestern University for graduate school.

[Contessa Donatella]

It seemed so odd, as if they never talked! 

[Xanthe]

I thought from some of the other dialogue around that time that the issue was that Mac had told her that he had gone to Northwestern but evidence had come up that he had not. I will see if I can find it but I remember Matthew being upset (Matt Crane did some nice work around his grief after Mac's death).