Another World Discussion Thread

[denzo30]

Ironically, if you look at the ratings of AW in 1979 late winter, early spring, when Harding Lemay was still writing, the ratings began to dip very rapidly.  This is before Texas, Before moving Bev or changing any time slots.  It makes me wonder,  did Harding LeMay start to lose his touch with the audiience and he saw the writing on the wall and he decided to quit?  I found the writing and production to be the same as the previous year but maybe his burnout was starting to show and the audience started to move on.  I know this is when GH began to become a big attraction.  If anything, I think changes Rauch made were due to AW's decline.  It is odd to see how the show was like #2 and just a few months later it moved to the back of the pack and never regained that top status again..  

[RavenWhitney]

Just today on the Locher stream with GL actors, Maeve Kincaid who played Angie on AW and Vanessa on GL made a veiled reference to the toxic AW environment. When asked if she recalled day one on GL set she remembered the actress who played Hope Bauer telling her that the GL set was nothing like that other show.....

[Efulton]

Here is a great interview with Linda Dano, Anna Stuart and Victoria Wyndham.  VW comes across as tough but very human.  Everything we have been saying in this thread about her frustration with the behind the scenes drama seems to be accurate. 

 

http://www.anotherworldhomepage.com/chat26.html

 

Edited April 22, 2020 by Efulton

[watson71]

 

Maeve Kinkead had a bad experience behind the scenes at AW with Paul Rauch- no doubt she was probably a victim of sexual harassment.  Paul Rauch probably would have lost his job nowadays with the MeToo Movement.  P&G gave her the part of Vanessa on GL probably to avoid any lawsuits.  Not long after Rauch took over at GL in the 90s, Kinkead had left GL.

[Mona Kane Croft]

 

I can't remember.  It was well known at the time, which actress took the role on DOOL, but I just don't remember now.  Maybe somebody else will.   I remember one of David Forsythe's lines on the DOOL episode was extremely insulting to AW fans.  It was all very indirect, of course.  But the end of his line was something like, "Why don't they just get over it?"   

 

It was the beginning of the 90-minute episodes when the ratings took severe plunge.  From #2 in the ratings all the way to #8, I believe.   The 90-minute transition was a fiasco, even with Lemay writing.  Lemay didn't lose his touch, but the 90-minute thing just didn't work.  Shortly after Lemay left in April 1979, the ratings fell further to #9 and then never got above #9 for the final 20 years of the show.   

Edited April 22, 2020 by Neil Johnson

[DRW50]

 

Lesley Anne Down replaced her.

[Khan]

 

IIRC, Victoria Wyndham was supposed to appear on DAYS as some sort of quasi-European nobility for Greta Von Amburg's coronation.  Sheraton Kalouria, who was then in charge of NBC Daytime, made a big to-do in the soap press about getting a bunch of soap vets to appear as a favor to his mother, a lifelong soap fan.

 

However, as others have stated, VW dropped out once she realized the role was little more than a cameo.  I'm not sure, but I THINK they replaced her with Dorothy Lyman (as the "Countess DiLyman," or some such ridiculousness).

 

 

Ah, okay.  Thanks, @DRW50!  Like I said, I wasn't sure.  Maybe Dorothy Lyman was there from the beginning?  Frankly, I wasn't watching DAYS anymore at that point, so I don't know how it all played out on-screen.

Edited April 22, 2020 by Khan

[AbcNbc247]

Thanks!

 

And you're right about Dorothy Lyman. Idk if they're still there, but there were clips on YouTube of her scenes at the coronation. In one of them, she had a brief conversation with Tyler Christopher who played Signor Cristofero, or something like that

I think the ratings had already plummeted before that, around 1978 after the Sven storyline ended. That was around the time that Monty and Marland revitalized GH and it soared. I wonder what Lemay thought after that happened; his friend and protégé was now his competition 

[DRW50]

 

The only reason I knew was because Google said which character Victoria was meant to play. So it was time no one should be wasting, really...

 

It says a lot about roles for older women in the industry that LAD would have come in for such a thankless role (no criticism of her on my part).

[KMan101]

 

Agreed on the roles for older women in the industry, but to be fair LAD booked B&B a few years later and was on there for several years until Brad got bored.

[Khan]

 

Well, if Harding Lemay felt angry or jealous about Douglas Marland's success at GH, he certainly didn't let his emotions keep him from working later as one of Marland's script writers at GL, lol.

 

But seriously.  Given how much pressure he was under (from NBC as well as from P&G) to keep the ratings up, Lemay was bound to burn out at AW.  By his own admission, he resorted to the kind of sensational plots (murder, kidnapping, fires, etc.) he had fought to avoid earlier in his tenure.  Plus, Lemay was writing most, if not all, of the daily scripts; and while I do think smaller writing staffs are better all-around, writing up to five 60-minute scripts per week had to have been the ultimate strain.  Under those circumstances, it's no wonder Lemay bailed soon after Rauch had expanded AW to 90 minutes per day.

[AbcNbc247]

It was like all the problems seemed to pile on Lemay all at once in his final years on AW, both personal and professional. In retrospect, people behind the scenes and Lemay himself probably were thinking that it was time for him to go.

[watson71]

Did AW get a ratings bump in March 1980 during the Rachel/Mac/Janice story culmination in St. Croix during the 90 minute episodes?  Clearly if the show did get a ratings bump it was not able to sustain it in the long term.

[Khan]

 

Claire Labine once suggested that when she and Paul Avila Mayer had sold RYAN'S HOPE to ABC, they should have asked the network to let them have a year off to recharge their creative batteries.  Maybe a similar solution could have done wonders for AW and Lemay?  He could've taken a sabbatical of sorts and let Tom King, who might not have been as good of a writer but who definitely knew the show, head-write for a year or so; and in the meantime, he could have remained in an unofficial consulting capacity, offering guidance whenever needed.

[AbcNbc247]

That might’ve worked but the big mystery is that would Lemay and King have been able change their style and adhere to that action/adventure, youth oriented type of storytelling? In his book, Lemay even said he didn’t like writing for the younger actors and characters except for Ray Liotta’s Joey.

 

Lemay also said he wanted Tom King to succeed him but he criticized a lot of things that Tom King had written. He didn’t like that Mac and Rachel were divorced and that Mac took Amanda from Rachel and gave her to Janice, he didn’t like the Kirk Laverty murder mystery and he hated that Janice tried to poison Mac. It was too melodramatic for him apparently.