Another World Discussion Thread

[j swift]

I totally misread this as being about the statue of Mac not wearing pants and Beverly didn't notice it, but now it makes more sense...

[Xanthe]

 

I was being a little facetious, but: he felt he was demonstrating that she was oblivious to what was going on around her and performed by rote rather than by reacting to her scene partner. On the day in question she had been annoyed with him for not knowing his lines. 

[Xanthe]

 

And the jokes Coster describes both involve trying to make each other 

"break" during scenes, and rather lewdly.  Considine would stand nearby and make vulgar noises during Coster's love scenes. And one time Coster put pornographic photos in a set of architectural drawings Vic was showing Alice. Oh how they laughed! 

[Paul Raven]

I guess there is a place for playfulness on the set, especially in the high pressure environment of live to tape soaps, but I wonder how much is too much?

We've seen evidence of how performers would camp up their line readings in rehearsal to let off steam but were Coster's/Considine's 'pranks' during actual tapings? Hopefully not.

[FrenchBug82]

OK I understand the explanation.
I guess someone who is focused, professional and blindering out the outside world when trying to be in character is more my jam so his line of thinking didn't really occur to me.
I am not a big fan of pranksters at work either and I don't think it makes us stick in the mud or rote. Just there is a time and place for everything.
But those are the wonders of different personalities...

 

As mentioned above I agree with this.
And I also suspect there was a frat boy aspect to their antics that might have felt particularly uncomfortable for a woman to be around. So not only must it have been annoying, but from the descriptions above, I am pretty sure they must have crossed a line or two here and there that wasn't just about clashing personalities.
You read this and you know who that guy is; and the fact all these years later he doesn't seem to have reflected on it at all tells me that, yep, I know *exactly* the type, I have met him and every woman on this board will have too.
 

Edited April 15, 2021 by FrenchBug82

[ScottyBman]

...and it also depends if you genuinely like the person the pranks are fun.

 

Conversely, pranks and antics by someone you already have a predisposition to and it is extra annoying.  

 

Sounds like Ms. Bev demanded a sense of professionalism around her, although in his Locker Room interview on You Tube John Bolger mentioned his first scene with her and was quite gracious and funny, so I think it just depends.  

 

(I can say in real life some people find me very difficult and demanding and others find me funny, goofy and amusing.)  And they are all me.

[FrenchBug82]

Ultimately it sounds like we have the same take.
And I mean, being professional and respectful and focused is not mutually exclusive from being gracious and friendly and funny. 
There are times and places for shenanigans. But you are right that she was probably even less tolerant of shenanigans like his if she didn't like him. And as I said, I get a strong whiff of overgrown frat boy in his stories so I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't.

But it is always worth remembering when people tell stories about costars or people they have worked with: one person's experience is down to their own personality as much as the person they are talking about. It is all subjective so unless we have specific documented anecdotes to base our judgement on or a pattern of anecdotes from various people, we should rarely take one person's judgement at face value.
Case in point: Bev and Michael Zaslow were both giants of acting and of soaps and both have/had an excellent reputation with plenty of people singing their praises as human beings and as professionals and, yet, by all accounts, they really didn't like working with each other on GL.
Goes to show...

[Xanthe]

 

Well Coster refers to both events as "on camera" so it sounds like during taping.

 

 

On the one hand, the scene is supposed to cohere so the performance of the other actors are not really the outside world -- your pace and tone should be appropriate in reaction to what is going on. I don't know if you have ever seen Noises Off -- it is about actors putting on a farce. There is one character (played by Nicolette Sheridan in the movie) who is completely oblivious to everything going on around her and she just continues to say her lines and follow her blocking so that it looks completely ridiculous when the other actors have missed their cues. On some level I can understand that if Coster felt that there was no give and take in their performance he would be frustrated. But on the other hand if she found him too unreliable and unprofessional and felt she had to ignore him rather than engage I have sympathy for that as well.

 

[j swift]

From Feb 1985

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Who would let Sandy the gigolo-turned-jounalist become a hospital administrator?  Did he slash the budget by suggesting the doctors perform surgery shirtless? This guy wasn't smart enough to figure out who fathered his own daughter, how was he going to manage a medical center?

[Xanthe]

 

Did Donna put him in the hospital admin role? I recall she was very interested in him around this time. She might not have been evaluating him on his business acumen. 

[Efulton]

I believe that you are correct.  Blaine was very concerned about Donna's interest in Sandy.

[j swift]

From Nurse Emily Benson to Dr Royal Dunning, and from Dr Fax Newman to Dr Taylor Benson, Bay City University Hospital had more than its share of crooks and psychopaths.

[Xanthe]

 

I'll grant you Emily, Fax, and Taylor, but did Royal Dunning practice in Bay City? I thought his super secret baby ring was out of town, possibly in Crystal Lake. 

[j swift]

After reading the latest post from the 1975 thread, I started to think that Dr. Dave Gilchrist was kind of a jerk.  He broke confidentiality by telling Michael Randolph that his twin sister Marianne was pregnant.  Then, he told Rachel to acquiesce to Mac and tamper down her art career because she wasn't paying enough attention to her husband (later, he tried date Rachel when they divorced) .  What do others remember about good ol' Dr. Dave?

 

Also, Olive Gordon Randolph seemed to go from schemer to psycho in five minutes flat.  One minute she's blackmailing half the town and the next she is burning down cabins.  Was the turn as sudden as it reads? Was this contemporaneous with Lemay's departure as headwriter?

 

Furthermore, I don't quite get the connection to Sally. Were Ray and Olive Sally's aunt and uncle because Ray's sister was Sally's mother?  Was Ray's brother Charles also a character or was he only around for Beatrice's introduction as an overbearing mother? On the AW Homepage it mentions that Beatrice left Bay City to care for Ray's two other kids, but who was raising the boys when Ray and Olive were in town? 

 

It is ironic that Sally grew so close to Mac and Rachel, considering that Rachel was using to Beatrice to f%^& with Alice over Sally adoption, but I guess all is forgiven after a SORAS and a retconned baby.

Edited April 19, 2021 by j swift

[Mona Kane Croft]

 

Yes, Dave Gilchrist was kind of a jerk, but he wasn't a villain.  He was nice to Alice, and I think dated Pat briefly during one of her break-ups from John.  He was played as a romantic character with an edge, but he didn't really have any long-running romances.

 

Ray and Olive were Sally's biological uncle and aunt (aunt by marriage).  Olive's slide into lunacy made sense in real time, because of all the rejection she faced, and because most of her schemes didn't work.  But writing her into a corner and making her an unredeemable psycho was a huge mistake on Lemay's part.  The show was in desperate need of another permanent villainess.  AW was transitioning to 90-minutes, Rachel was almost totally reformed, and Iris would be leaving the show completely in 1980.  By the time Olive left the show, she had connections/interactions with all corners of the canvas.  So she could have caused trouble for years to come.  What a mistake, writing her off.   

 

Adult Sally's closeness to Mac and Rachel was nothing more than a device to give her parental figures, and connect her to the Cory family.  Since Alice and nearly all the Matthews family were gone, and Sally had become the show's young romantic lead, she had to be more connected to the other stars of the show (Mac and Rachel).  None of this would have happened, had the Matthews family still be strong, and had Alice remained in town.   

 

Edited April 19, 2021 by Neil Johnson