Another World Discussion Thread

[Paul Raven]

Alice was at first a supporting character to her sister Pat who carried the main story.She was given a boyfriend Tony Douglas in the second half of 65.Lee had her eye on Tony and Pat felt she was trying to come between Tony and Alice to get back at Pat. Tony and alice continued off an on throughout 66 when Agnes Nixon was headwriter. Alice became a student nurse in early 67 when Russ returned as an intern.

Alice stayed supporting until Steve arrived in mid 68.

[DRW50]

I think there's some low quality video on AWHP.

[DRW50]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alStO-KTYLk

[vetsoapfan]

Yes, I appreciated Lemay's using history in that story, with Pat flashing back to Tom Baxter's death after she had killed Greg Bernard.

There was a continuity error however. In Lemay's story, Pat had supposedly stabbed Tom Baxter to death, but in the original episodes which aired in the 1960s, she had shot him with a gun.

Still, I always appreciate writers mining a show's past for present-day stories.

[amybrickwallace]

I think there still might be a promo of the entire NBC daytime drama lineup of 1965 (including the short-lived Moment of Truth - which starred AW's future Mac Cory, Doug Watson) with Susan Trustman's Pat behind bars on either YT or Dailymotion.

[NothinButAttitude]

I always loved these type of marginalized closing credits. The font was big enough to actually see the cast and production list. We still got the closing theme. We still got the voiceover to come in and advertise other shows and last but not least, we still got the legendary AW freeze frame.

[Soaplovers]

It sounds like Alice was totally a supporting character, sort of like a greek chorus or a talk-to.. with occasional stories for herself that played like a B or C story.

Do you think had Jacqueline Courtney not been fired, that Alice would have continued to flourish well into the 80s instead of teetering out as the 70s ended? I know her replacement Susan H was a decent replacement and a good actress.. but lacked the charisma that JC had possessed.

[amybrickwallace]

I'm not sure - it seems that the crown of lead heroine had been handed to Vicky Wyndham, and it seems that the AW brass at the time didn't feel there was room for two to share it. Maybe if they had been under a different EP than Paul Rauch, things may have been different.

[vetsoapfan]

The clueless powers that be on so many soaps have decimated their core characters: killing them off or shoving them onto the backburner, over fans' protests, so it's hard to know if Alice would have continued her reign as one of the show's leading heroines.

Susan Harney was adequate, but fans never warmed up to her more matter-of-fact, less emotional version of Alice, and even Harding Lemay admitted that she lacked the star appeal that Courtney exuded. When Courtney returned in 1984, I had high hopes for what the show could do with her, but she was marginalized terribly: kept on the backburner, given little to do, paired with an uninteresting costar, given a dreadful and inappropriate butch haircut, dressed in hideous, mannish clothes...and then fired after a year. The writer, Gary Tomlin, later admitted in an interview that he had not studied the history of the show well enough to understand Alice, and didn't really know the backstory between her and Rachel, which was undoubtedly a principle reason why Courtney's return was a flop.

[NothinButAttitude]

The story of his life. Seems like he is repeating the same thing at DAYS with many characters, which is why it is so lackluster as of late.

[amybrickwallace]

What a shame. Jacquie (and her fans) deserved much better.

[vetsoapfan]

Yep.

Yep, again.

[amybrickwallace]

Once again - the soap regimes never learn.

[Soaplovers]

It sounds like Gary Tomlin needed a strong co head writer to help him study the history of the show like Pam Long had with Nancy Curlee over at GL.

Alice was a huge character in the 60s and 70s, and having the original actress come back right at the 20th anniversary of the show should have perhaps tipped Tomlin off that this character was important. In fact, wasn't her return one the main reasons the show had a decent increase in ratings during that era? I'm going to guess that her and Rachel didn't really interact all that much during that year long stint except for the one scene of Rachel having amnesia with Alice tearfully saying that she couldn't disclose to Rachel parts of their history due to it being painful to her still.

[BetterForgotten]

Did Alice (regardless of who was playing her) and Rachel interact much after Rachel got intertwined with Mac and Iris? It seemed like there was an intention on reinventing Rachel as a character after her involvement with the Cory's, so many of her prior relationships were not emphasized as much after that.