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.

I remember reading that Aunt Janet was very close to one of the Matthews girls and thought that she might be revealed to be her birth mother at some point.

39 minutes ago, Sapounopera said:

I remember reading that Aunt Janet was very close to one of the Matthews girls and thought that she might be revealed to be her birth mother at some point.

A few years back I read the first year recaps. Janet and Susan were very close and it made Liz jealous.

On 3/2/2026 at 5:52 PM, Tisy-Lish said:

I believe Ms Moore was not on contract during her final few years on AW. When Linda Metcalf first joined the show, she came on as the sister of Peggy Nolan. Peggy was a popular, fairly long-running character, and Harding Lemay wanted to build a family around her. So Lemay created Linda and the mother of both sisters, Gloria -- all contract characters, I assume. I believe Gloria and Linda lived together in an apartment, which became one of the sets on the show. Fairly soon, Linda started dating a young man (Zac Richards) who, if I remember correctly, had recently gotten out of prison or jail. This caused Gloria some concern and it seemed to be a developing story. Unfortunately about six months after Linda and Gloria were introduced, Micki Grant (who played Peggy) left the show. Grant's absence seemed to take the wind out of any plans Rauch and Lemay had for the Metcalf family, probably because Peggy was the most important of the three characters. Gloria stopped appearing, then Zac stopped appearing, although Linda would sometimes mention him, or Alice would ask about him. No plots were written for Linda, and she became little more than a colleague and friend of Alice, and a nurse when the show needed a nurse. So I'm assuming Ms Moore was taken off contract by 1974-ish, and then appeared rather infrequently, and usually in scenes at the hospital.

She is listed as being on the show I think since 1972 but look over cast credits over the years and she is hardly in them. Look at when Irene Daily returned as Liz in 1987. She was only listed in ending credits on the days she actually played on that day. She was always at the end of credits just like a guest star on the show. Non contract players aren't listed by seniority. IDK, could be wrong but Moore had a re-occurring role on non contract and when she appeared she was in the credits. Days they showed credits and she was not on the show she was not listed?

On 3/2/2026 at 6:56 PM, Efulton said:

Vera Moore was on contract in 1981. She is quite far down the cast list so she must have been recurring for quite some time.

1 hour ago, denzo30 said:

She is listed as being on the show I think since 1972 but look over cast credits over the years and she is hardly in them. Look at when Irene Daily returned as Liz in 1987. She was only listed in ending credits on the days she actually played on that day. She was always at the end of credits just like a guest star on the show. Non contract players aren't listed by seniority. IDK, could be wrong but Moore had a re-occurring role on non contract and when she appeared she was in the credits. Days they showed credits and she was not on the show she was not listed?

If she was recurring in this episode she would have appeared after the contract cast not before some of them.