5 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Thank you so much! I thought she might have appeared but wasn't sure.

I also couldn't remember for sure because there was definitely a certain amount of Amelie-speaking-through-Amanda but by checking the AWHP synopses I picked a date that sounded like it had a flashback and got lucky.

I think it's so peculiar that Amanda got not one but two storylines where she so strongly resembled a man's wife that he tried to force her to do what he wanted. Granted, Dustin Trent just wanted her to impersonate his wife Julia in order to get control of a large amount of money while 200-year-old disfigured creep Jordan Stark wanted his true love Amelie to inhabit her body so they could be together again, which I admit are two different kinds of obsession.

I just spent more time than I really wanted to watching the scenes where Dustin coached Amanda on how to mimic Julia well enough to convince her father it was Julia. It made sense really that Amanda didn't find it easy to do -- Dustin had chosen her based on the physical resemblance and not on her ability to act like a different person -- but a more gifted actor could have made a compelling distinction between Julia herself, Amanda, and Amanda struggling to impersonate Julia.

10 hours ago, Tisy-Lish said:

And Barbara Berjer appeared on AW for several years using a Scottish accent.

I wasn't familiar with Berjer and never gave Bridget's accent a second thought, although I don't think they ever had her mention her life in Scotland at any point.

2 hours ago, Xanthe said:

I wasn't familiar with Berjer and never gave Bridget's accent a second thought, although I don't think they ever had her mention her life in Scotland at any point.

Bridget's Scottish heritage was probably mentioned in a throw-away line or two, but I truly do not remember.

Eight Years in Another World: The Inside Story of a Soap Opera by Harding Lemay. Atheneum Press. Non-fiction. 245 pages; $10.95

When radio was king the daytime serials, more familiarly known as soap operas" or even as "soapers," were a durable success. In trying to assess fee pulling power of this entertainment , phenomenon CBS conducted a huge survey that discovered that overwhelming the radio listeners loved their 'soaps" because they, were so "true to life." This despite the fact that villains in soap opera tend to be 100 percent vile and the good people almost 100 percent good. What is the story today now that soap opera is still a durable success, but on television instead of radio? The answer is: No change: Evil characters are irredeemably evil and the good are tiresomely good. As in radio, the action moves with glacial slowness. You can miss several episodes and find that nothing significant has happened in your absence. As in the past, there are so many characters that no one should watch a show without a cast list of characters oh hand to know what is going on.

In this marvelously entertaining book written by the headwriter of 'Another World', long a leader of the soapers, we find out that writing a successful daytime serial takes a particular type of talent.— perhaps it can be called genius. To turn out a daily show—now an hour instead of the one-time half-hour — requires that the writer juggle about 50 characters in and out of the plot, keep the tortuous convolutions of the action straight, and adjust to the constant departure of the actors who leave for Hollywood, or the legitimate stage. Lemay, dragged unwillingly into soap opera writing, found that other trials of his job included maintaining harmonious relationships with Proctor & Gamble, the sponsor, with producers, with actors, with the sub-writers, and with the general public so often outraged when he killed off a popular character or had the character do something that the viewers thought was out of keeping with the behavioral patterns of the character. Possibly the most striking parts of the book concern the intensely emotional reaction of the viewers to what happens on the show. Viewers phoning the writer in tears because a character has been killed. Viewers wearing wedding dresses in their living rooms as they watch a wedding on the show. Viewers threatening violence because they feel the writer is demeaning a much loved

Another striking discovery of the author was the universal appeal of the soap opera despite a tendency for people deny that they watch such entertainment. Actually, all income, social, and intellectual levels find escape in the soaps. Ask people in a group if they watch and they'll deny it even though that every afternoon they were transfixed as Mac Cory tries to win back the much-married Rachel. What makes this book especially appealing, in addition to its fascinating back of the scenes picture of the putting together of a soap opera, is the author's revelation of his personal and family life and his 'utterly frank' comments about everyone who touched his career, the producer, the actors,, the network people, his friends, and other writers. All this material is written in an engaging manner This is a book you'll long remember and that you'll enjoy discussing with soap opera buffs. PHILLIP WARD BURTON

From an interview with Christina Pickles when she was on St Elsewhere. I had not realised that she was brought up in Yorkshire.

Jim Bawden, Toronto Star, February 1986.

Pickles has done TV before, but in New York on daytime soaps Guiding Light and Another World. "The second was a piece of cake. I'd stand on a designated corner and be picked up in a limousine and scooted off to a Brooklyn studio. A few rehearsals and we taped it almost as a live show.

"I played Countess Elena de Poulignac who was on the prowl for younger men. The lead's son grew up one weekend. Friday he was an adenoidal teenager. On Monday he was a 20-year-old hunk I seduced. Eric Roberts was around then. He got fired because the producer said he couldn't act. Nancy Marchand had a wonderful death scene singing Bye, Bye Blackbird.

"We never took it seriously until the red light went on. One story line had the character Iris donating her eyes to Rachel for a corneal transplant. Iris had little piggy eyes, Rachel, great staring bulbs. The wonderful actor, Douglass Watson kept laughing hysterically and saying 'They won't fit!" It was that kind of work day."

Iris donating her eyes?? WTF??

2 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Iris donating her eyes?? WTF??

Exactly. Somebody has a big imagination. It never happened. And wouldn't Iris need to be dead in order to donate her corneas?

I guess Christina must have been referring to some jokes they were making in rehearsal.

3 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

I guess Christina must have been referring to some jokes they were making in rehearsal.

I knew Rachel had been blind after Steve's death in 1983 (leading to Mac's pretending to be English and clean-shaven) and had had vision problems after some Carl-related incident later.

I had not known or remembered that Rachel needed surgery on her eyes in 1978 after being kidnapped by Sven. Presumably this was the storyline that provoked the joke. Maybe they were imagining a scenario in which Iris died for the donation to happen. Or else they were just being ridiculously silly.

Edited August 30Aug 30 by Xanthe

I was surprised to learn that Kale Browne and Paul Michael Valley had performed together.

From November 1991 in Lilana Novakovich's column in Starweek:

"I have a scoop for Another World fans. Kale Browne, who has played Michael Hudson since 1986, has decided to leave the show when his contract expires in December. He will miss his castmates and his years on AW, but feels it's time to go on to other things

"Kale and his actress wife Karen Allen (Raiders Of The Lost Ark, The Glass Menagerie) and 13-month-old son Nicholas will now divide their time between their homes in Los Angeles and New York. His last public appearance for a while is a singing engagement with Paul Michael Valley (Ryan on AW) at the Arcadian Court Room in Toronto on Saturday, Nov. 23. The two shows are at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m and tickets are still available by calling 861-6611."

Edited September 1Sep 1 by Xanthe

January 1995 NBC Days of Our Lives/Another World promo

Lifetime Minutes interstitial w/Linda Dano, 1990

Edited September 12Sep 12 by DRW50

On 9/1/2026 at 9:03 AM, Xanthe said:

I was surprised to learn that Kale Browne and Paul Michael Valley had performed together.

From November 1991 in Lilana Novakovich's column in Starweek:

"I have a scoop for Another World fans. Kale Browne, who has played Michael Hudson since 1986, has decided to leave the show when his contract expires in December. He will miss his castmates and his years on AW, but feels it's time to go on to other things

"Kale and his actress wife Karen Allen (Raiders Of The Lost Ark, The Glass Menagerie) and 13-month-old son Nicholas will now divide their time between their homes in Los Angeles and New York. His last public appearance for a while is a singing engagement with Paul Michael Valley (Ryan on AW) at the Arcadian Court Room in Toronto on Saturday, Nov. 23. The two shows are at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m and tickets are still available by calling 861-6611."

If you come across plays in the 70's and 80's in NY so many soap actors worked together in different shows, some while in the same soap and other times appearing on the same soap but having worked together in theater previously.

A post in the GL thread had me thinking about what made me cut ties with AW. Unlike GL, I always hoped to go back to AW. I had more of a fondness for it. For me, four things kept me from truly loving AW: Jensen Buchanan as Marley/Vicky (or mainly Vicky after a while), keeping Jake on after he brutally raped Marley, firing Carmen Duncan, and then killing Frankie. I'm not a loyal to the end viewer. You annoy me and I'm gone. When Heche and Holbrook left, I just felt the show went south, and I lost interest. I never bought Buchanan in the role. I almost put Judi Evans as Paulina because I never got over that recasting either.

I slowly returned, and the show got so much better (92/93) and then I don't know what happened (another EP change I imagine) but the show went downhill again. Carmen Duncan was fired and boy I didn't care about anything. JFP came on and it was drama for drama's sake. Killing off one of the only characters I did care about (Frankie) was it for me. I never watched consistently after. I'd forgotten until someone else mentioned it that Felicia ended up with a Russian ballet dancer I believe. I have no memory of this.

Edited 52 minutes ago52 min by chrisml

5 hours ago, chrisml said:

I never watched consistently after. I'd forgotten until someone else mentioned it that Felicia ended up with a Russian ballet dancer I believe. I have no memory of this.

Yeah.

In the final months, she married Sergei to keep him from getting deported but ended up falling in love with him.

I remember when Leah Laiman patted herself on the back for that storyline - "I love Linda Dano/Felicia so much, and it's just my way of saying, 'Here's your chocolate!'" - and thinking how absurd it was for Felicia to find love with a glorified rent boy.