Another World Discussion Thread

[vetsoapfan]

The only person whom I have heard say he "didn't much care for her" was Robert Woods (Bo, OLTL), but he never explained why.

[amybrickwallace]

I read that he and Phil Carey often played pranks on her at OLTL (getting their hands wet and shaking hers, causing lines she had written on her hands to be washed away). Maybe she and RSW just didn't connect, especially since he seemed to get along fine with most of his other leading ladies.

I wonder if Jacquie remained in touch with Virginia Dwyer after both had left AW, since they seemed to be very close. I've exchanged a couple of emails in the past with Jennifer Desiderio, the daughter of Jacquie and Carl. Jennifer says the only time she met George Reinholt as an adult was at that "50 Years of Soaps" special where "Alice" and "Steve" were reunited on stage. It was the first time they had seen each other since she was a little kid.

[vetsoapfan]

Phil Carey seemed like a handle to work with, for some women. Julie Montgomery (the first Samantha Vernon) also had issues with him. Yes, I remember the story about Phil Carey and his wet hands, LOL. He admitted to finding such pranks hilarious, although I find them childish and mean-spirited.

[DRW50]

There were also rumors about RSW having issues with HBS. I think RSW may have had a certain "type" (young hottie or what have you) and struggled otherwise.

[vetsoapfan]

I did appreciate, however, that after Jacqueline Courtney passed away, Woods was respectful in his interviews about her, and related some amusing anecdotes. I can't really blame actors for not having chemistry with every single performer they are paired with, as long as they don't get into gratuitously petty or vindictive public catfights about it. Some folks just don't get along, and that's fine. I find Ellen Holly's continuing to badmouth Courtney, decades after they worked together, to reflect more negatively on Holly than Courtney.

[amybrickwallace]

Yes, I remember that RSW said some kind things about Jacquie in the SOD cover story on her passing. I've never seen Ellen Holly's work but it seemed she had an ax to grind with everyone. What a shame.

[vetsoapfan]

Ellen Holly was an excellent actress, and her character of Carla brought so much integrity and interest to OLTL for many years. I was furious when Paul Rauch fired her, and in such a spiteful manner, too. Her comments about so many people over the years, however, tend to suggest certain unresolved...issues she needs to deal with. That being said, I would love to see her pop up on another show.

[amybrickwallace]

Didn't Agnes Nixon offer her the chance to reprise Carla on Loving?

[vetsoapfan]

Hmmm.

I remember hearing that story, but I don't remember if it was true, or just an internet rumor. Maybe someone else can tell us.

[LoyaltoAMC]

Yes, I think Holly confirmed the Loving thing. Holly is a great actress and I do believe some of her claims, especially the one that Agnes used her to garner publicity for her new show and then sort of relegated her to back burner status after mission accomplished. However by 69/70 Agnes was concentrating on the launch of AMC, so who knows how much the producers or network were to blame for her being backburnered. And of course, the way that Rauch and the network treated her and Lillian Haymen years later was beyond appalling. Some of her claims are just incredulous, however, such as Slezak's allegedly "racist" comments at a cast party. If Slezak did make comments, I'm sure that Holly misconstrued them and that Slezak was actually bemoaning the lack of the diversity in the show at that point.

[vetsoapfan]

As you say, by 1970, Nixon was concentrating on AMC, so Holly's storylines on OLTL throughout the next decade cannot really be blamed solely on Nixon. I was watching way back then, and contrary to Holly's complaints, she did continue to have storylines centered on her. Perhaps she was not the central heroine, but any soap is a repertory company, and actors have to accept seeing their characters sliding in and out of the spotlight.

I do believe many of Holly's complaints about mistreatment were true, and the way she and Haymen were fired is heinous. But it seems at times that Holly is primed to take offense, and leaps to negative judgment where it may be unwarranted (as with the Slezak quote).

[amybrickwallace]

I read an old article that after George Reinholt was let go from AW in 1975, Lin Bolen offered him a role on The Doctors. That same year, on that show, Gerald Gordon (Dr. Nick Bellini) was leaving to head West - though he did reprise the role briefly in 1976. Do you think that NBC would have cast GR as sort of a Nick replacement or basically Steve Frame as a doctor? Of course, all that became moot at GR signed with OLTL on ABC.

[vetsoapfan]

Reinholt referred to THE DOCTORS in an interview once, and acknowledged there had been some talk about his possibly joining that series, but he he preferred to make the break from NBC and go over to OLTL because the writing was better ("It's ethnic!") and he felt his contributions would bemore appreciated. Ironically, not long after, he was b*tching about how awful the writing on OLTL was, and how the writers should be fired. He claimed that Harding Lemay's scripts read like "a Chinese menu," but the OLTL scripts were...worse.

I was a devoted viewer back in the day, and while I agree there were some weaknesses in the writing for a while in the mid 1970s, Gordon Russell and Sam Hall were able to pull it all together and give us many brilliant storylines over the next few years. Erika Slezak has admitted that Reinholt was a handful to work with on OLTL, and that when he left, he went ranting down the halls, so I doubt he would have been happy at any show, under any writer. I think they should have killed off his character when he left. Trying to replace him was a disaster. The last Tony Lord, Chip Lucia, was so woefully miscast, you'd think the network was TRYING to turn off the Pat & Tony devotees.

[watson71]

Was there any talk of moving Reinholt and Courtney to Somerset at all? Somerset could have certainly benefitted from their star power, and Somerset producer Lyle Hill was their EP at Another World at one time. It just makes sense all around, I wonder if P & G and NBC ever considered it? Or was it nixed because Somerset filmed in the same studio as AW?

[vetsoapfan]

That probably would have been an excellent idea, but if there had been any talk of moving both actors to SOMERSET, it was not reported in the press.