Another World Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

Did Wynne Miller want to stay then? I wondered as there was no credits for her post-Somerset.

 

Is this Dolph Sweet at 42 minutes? It sounds like him but I don't remember him being this slim.

 

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(I should warn if you watch the video there is a photo of massacred women and children near the start)

[amybrickwallace]

 

OK, that makes sense. Thanks.

[teplin]

 

I don't believe that's him, no, and he's not listed in the cast on IMDB. However, Leon Russom (Willis #2, AW) is in the movie, titled "Judgement: The Court Martial of Lieutenant William Calley.

[DRW50]

 

I meant the commercial - sorry. 

 

Thanks for finding an AW actor though.

[teplin]

Oops, sorry. That is definitely Dolph's voice -- but it is indeed not his body. They must have dubbed it in for some reason.

[vetsoapfan]

 

The magazines at the time did not clarify if Miller wanted to leave on her own, but I doubt NC wanted to quit, as he so quickly agreed to continue his role over at AW.

 

OMG, yes that is Dolph Sweet. I had never seen him this slim before. I'm almost tempted to say they used a body double in a few close-up body shots, but they would not have gone to such trouble and expense for a commercial. Good catch.

[John]

What were thoughts of Mac #1, Robert Emhardt? I didnt realize he was on a year

[vetsoapfan]

 

Emhardt was a character actor, often cast as greasy villains, and that's how he played Mac Cory. Under Emhardt, Mac was portly and unpleasant, not romantic-lead material at all. Harding Lemay must not have originally intended the character to be a benevolent patriarch and leading man, but once the writer's plans for the character changed, the show needed a warmer, more attractive and appealing actor in the role. Emhardy's Mac would NEVER have worked in a romance with Rachel or Alice. That would be like pairing Elmer Fudd with Sleeping Beauty.

[amybrickwallace]

 

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[j swift]

so here's what's weird about this

 

In Lemay's book Eight Years in Another World he mentions seeing Doug Watson on Broadway and thinking that he would be perfect as Mac.  I remembered it specifically because it lead me to researching Watson's theatrical career.  Lemay never mentions the original Mac.  However, he noted the roles that Rachel, Liz, and Iris would eventually play were part of his initial pitch for the character.  The original conception of Mac was that he would change the character of Rachel into a romantic heroine.  He created the character once he was free of having to consult with Irna Phillips, who wanted to maintain Rachel as a villain.  Thus, if Emhardy came across as an unlikely partner for Rachel that is probably why he was axed.

 

It's been discussed elsewhere that part of the fun of that memoir is the author's open disdain for many of the actors.  His stories about the older actors on the show and their reliance on cue cards is legendary.  His anachronistic envy of Henry Slesar's two mimeograph machines and arguing with Irna Phillips about modern values still makes me laugh.  He wrote about how P&G asked him to watch the show to see if he wanted to write for AW and he was appalled, (from a playwright's perspective) at Pat Randolph's plot.  Pat was being poisoned by her jealous maid and Lemay was gauled to learn that her father and brother were both doctors but Pat had not contacted them nor had they commented on her symptoms.  His dilemma was whether or not to tell P&G that he thought the plot line was dumb.   When I read that story I was hooked on his writing.  It would have made a great series a few years ago when every network was knocking off Mad Men because most of the drama comes from him having to pitch stories both to the network and the ad executives/producers; as well as the sheer number of scripts that had to be written every week.

[teplin]

 

The TV-movie that commercial is inserted into is from 1975. Here's Dolph in 1974. I think they just dubbed him in for the commercial actor.

 

https://closerthanbrothers.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/screenshot5.png?w=656

[vetsoapfan]

 

Emhardt's Mac  originally appeared to be a one-shot character, someone who was not listed among the contract players in the credits; used briefly and then not again for some time. Perhaps later, when Lemay decided to bring Mac Cory on full-time and was planning story for him, that is when the writer actually developed the character fully and decided to turn him into a potential love interest for Bay City ladies like Aunt Liz. Emhardt might have been cute with her, in an amusing curmudgeon-meets-older-loved-starved-widow sort of way, but when the character arrived in Bay City as a contract player, DW had been cast as the new Mac.  NO ONE in the world would have cast Emhardt in the role if Mac had been considered as a romantic pairing for Rachel right from the start. As I recall, Lemay wrote in his book that he only decided to pair Mac and Rachel after after he saw sparks between DW and VW on screen.

 

Robert Cenedella's writing was not great, and his story about housekeeper Caroline Johnson poisoning Pat's soup was just dumb. Jim Matthews was an accountant, not a doctor, but Pat's sister was a nurse and her brother was a doctor, so really...she looked like a bit of an imbecile, suffering severe cramps week after week, and not consulting Alice or Russ about her condition.

 

Irna Phillips certainly knew what she was doing, herself, but it was pointless of her to expect Lemay would follow her personal creative dogma and style. No decent writer can write using the paint-by-number system. As it turned out, Lemay was one of the two best writers AW ever had. He and Agnes Nixon both had more success on the show than even Irna had had.

 

Except...that's his face too. Check out the eyebrows.

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[denzo30]

As the other user mentioned, Michael Ryan was on the show from 1964-79 which at that time the longest running actor on the show from the beginning.  The show started in 1964 and he was there from the beginning so he would have to have played during both actress's playing the role

[amybrickwallace]

He wasn't on at the very beginning, but joined a few months into the show's run when Pat needed a lawyer. But he was definitely the show's longest-running performer by the time his final episode aired in March 1979.

[katie_9918]

I was just watching the episode when John died and I have a question.

 

Were John and Pat becoming close again leading up to his death? It looks as if (from the AWHP, anyway) they both had horrendously bad luck with romantic involvements that weren’t each other.

 

I wish there was more footage of John available. By the time he died, he seemed like a pretty great guy, from what little I’ve seen of him anyway.