Is anyone old enough to remember Aunt Janet Matthews on Another World? And if so, were Aunt Janet and Aunt Liz similar in any way? I am aware Janet was Jim and Will's sister, so she was a Matthews by blood -- while Liz had been married to Will, so she was actually an in-law of the Matthews clan. Were the two characters similar, or very different? Did they have many scenes together? Any idea when Aunt Janet was last mentioned on the show? I believe Agnes Nixon was the head-writer who wrote-off Janet. And Robert Cenedella later wrote-off Liz around 1971. Harding Lemay brought Aunt Liz back around 1974, but Aunt Janet was seldom (if ever) mentioned after her exit.

I don't believe Janet was anything like Liz.

She was an Edith Hughes type character that Irna liked to write. The older single working woman involved with a married man-Ken Baxter. Then she got involved with Ernest Gregory under James Lipton before Agnes wrote her out.

It's a pity she was forgotten. She was unable to have children but could have come back with an adopted child.

Weren't both Pat and Alice unable to have children also?

And of course the actress Liza Chapman was killed in a car accident just as she started a role on Secret Storm.

22 hours ago, robbwolff said:

Multiple episodes throughout 1981 show Vera Moore as a contract player. A quick Interwebs search showed that this was a topic of conversation here back in 2020, and people were perplexed then that she appeared amongst the contract cast.

HA!

That just goes to show that if a mystery remains unsolved, questions about it will reapper eventually.

8 hours ago, Tisy-Lish said:

Is anyone old enough to remember Aunt Janet Matthews on Another World? And if so, were Aunt Janet and Aunt Liz similar in any way? I am aware Janet was Jim and Will's sister, so she was a Matthews by blood -- while Liz had been married to Will, so she was actually an in-law of the Matthews clan. Were the two characters similar, or very different? Did they have many scenes together? Any idea when Aunt Janet was last mentioned on the show? I believe Agnes Nixon was the head-writer who wrote-off Janet. And Robert Cenedella later wrote-off Liz around 1971. Harding Lemay brought Aunt Liz back around 1974, but Aunt Janet was seldom (if ever) mentioned after her exit.

Yes, I remember Janet from the earliest days of the show. I think she only appeared for a few seasons before being written out when she left Bay City for a job opportunity. As @Paul Raven mentioned, she was briefly engaged to Ernest Gregory, played by Mark Lenard (later of Star Trek fame, where he played Spock's father). I don't recall Janet being anything like Liz. Aunt Liz was a shrew back in the 1960s!

If Janet was ever referred to after she left, I missed it. She and Granny both seemed to disappear into oblivion.

(Although, after Uncle Dru was written out, he was mentioned as having sent a postcard to Jim and Mary.)

29 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Weren't both Pat and Alice unable to have children also?

And of course the actress Liza Chapman was killed in a car accident just as she started a role on Secret Storm.

Pat was believed sterile after her abortion, but surgery corrected the problem and she successfully bore the twins, Michael and Marianne.

Alice had been pregnant and miscarried, but doctors assured her she would still be able to conceive. A few years later, she withdrew from Steve because her of inability to have children. This glaring inconsistency was never explained. Why was she suddenly barren? Jacqueline Courtney said that the question drove her crazy, but her husband (a doctor) was able to come up with a plausible explanation which allowed her to justify the situation in her mind.