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The thing about early 1986 Another World was... well, it was just there.

The late 1985-early 1986 period was just lackluster. Sam Hall was the headwriter and he didn't have a clue how to write the show. The stories wandered aimlessly and really didn't have a point to them. (Amphora dust? Puuuuuuhhhhhlllleeeeez.) There were a lot of characters whose usefulness was winding down. As much as I liked Larry and Clarice, there was just nothing more you could do with them.

I really loved Margaret DePriest's first run. The story with Donna and Michael was excellent, the Sin Stalker mystery made sense and was integrated well into the show, and the new characters that came on brought some life back into the program. At the time, Victoria Wyndham (who was not afraid to criticize things if they weren't going right) remarked that the current writers appeared to know what they were doing.

AW needed a shot in the you-know-what back then and it happened.

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I mentioned somewhere that I thought Another World was all over the place in the mid '80s. I didn't even watch very long and it was a different show than when I started. Around '84, the Love and McKinnon families were just getting established, Mac and Rachel were still the tentpole couple, Amanda & Matthew were still children who were rarely seen, the Ewings were still a presence as were the Frames, although in a smaller capacity than in prior years. There were also quite a few non-core family characters like Cecile, Cass, and Felicia. In retrospect, the cast was pretty large but that was common at that time. All of the storylines intrigued me and off the top of my head, I can't think of any characters I out-and-out disliked. But the next 3 years had all kinds of turmoil with characters coming and going, several recasts that didn't work, storylines that came out of left field and died (as Sungrey mentioned, that awful amorphous dust debacle), and some rather bizarre character changes that had no basis of reality. Peter Love went from nice guy to wife-rapist, Brittany Peterson from conniver to victim, Donna Love from strong and snobbish to weak and victim... It was a very different show when I finally gave up after the Sin Stalker story. Many viewers like sungrey mention the stability that Margaret DePriest brought but since I wasn't familiar with the classic Another World from the Lemay era, it seemed mostly a mess to me and elements and characters that drew me in were gone. The Love and McKinnon families bore little resemblance to the 1984 version, the teens (yes, I was a teen then) had all been written out -- mostly by death.

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Actually, according to AWHP, Clarice was at both Mac and Ada's funerals, while Larry was indeed only at Mac's. Speaking of Larry, wasn't there some storyline where he went undercover as a male stripper? Or is that just something else Rick Porter's done that I'm thinking of?

Either way, Larry was FINE and when Kathleen Layman played MJ and they were flirting with a Larry/MJ romance, I was all for it. They had TONS of chemistry. But my mom always told me then and when we've discussed Larry/Clarice well after they were gone that Larry would never have cheated on Clarice, no matter how much chemistry he shared with the "other woman."

That's too bad about Kathleen Layman. Did you ever get to see her in the role Carl? It seems like you haven't or at least not much of her because if you had, I don't think you could have had even the slightest soft spot for Sally Spencer's version. She was just all kinds of miscast as the MJ I knew and loved, but then again, she was no longer written as RealMJ. I never will understand to this day why they recast and why they changed MJ's character so drastically. She was actually one of my favorite characters when Kathleen Layman played her.

Awww, me too as you already know. We seem to have similar tastes in AW characters and actresses. Like, for example, we both really liked Cali Timmins as Paulina and preferred her to Evans.

Agreed. It was a major turnoff in the beginning, though my mom and I still watched. We basically had to FF her and Philiece Sampler's NotDonna. Blech.

I agree about Sharlene- I liked her sometimes, found her annoying at others. I liked her best when Sharlene was a strong, proud woman, and least where she was a weak hot mess.

I LOVED me some Adam Cory (Ed Fry) though. I think he also started with Kathleen Layman's MJ and they had FAR more chemistry than he did with Sally Spencer's version.

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You're right about Clarice at Mac's funeral. AWHP was down at the time I posted and I was going off her line to Amanda (remembering her when she was in braces, or whatever), which was odd to say if she'd seen her at Mac's funeral.

I don't think Larry ever stripped on the show. For some reason I thought he did cheat on Clarice, but I might be wrong.

I suppose the actors may have found it insulting but I think the show should have kept Clarice and Larry on recurring status, as a familiar couple for viewers who were seeing so many characters leave. Dumping so many women in this age range meant that you had awkwardness like that PSDonna/Felicia friendship. Quinn would have been a more believable sounding board to PSDonna. There was no reason to kill that character off.

I saw a bit of Leyman, not much. I did read that they did a number on the character when they recast her, including demoting her on the force because of some paperwork error.

The PSDonna/John/Michael stuff was weak. The only part I enjoyed of it was Donna's conflict with "Mother Hudson." My favorite part was when she yelled at the old woman and this led to a collapse. I don't think it was supposed to be funny but it was.

I also never understood why they treated the character of Peter so shabbily. The way he disappeared just as Reginald's story was winding down made no sense.

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:lol: I remember the exact Mother Hudson sequence you're describing and it was hilarious. And yes, the PSDonna/Felicia friendship was not only awkward but wrong. Anna Stuart's Donna had no friends. I remember a flustered and frustrated Michael going off on Donna when she said she didn't care for Felicia, saying that "everybody likes Felicia!" It was SO funny because it was SO true- Donna was just such a snob and disliked her for no reason, which I thought was HILARIOUS.

In fact, one of my favorite Donna sequences EVER was a couple weeks either in the 80s or shortly after Stuart's return when, in order to win back Michael, he challenged her to make friends with Rachel and Felicia. I remember her showing up to the Cory mansion making nice-nice with Rachel and I think inviting Rachel over to breakfast at the Love mansion. I remember Vicky Wyndham's reactions were PRICELESS, as she couldn't figure out what the hell Donna was doing. Donna did the same thing with Felicia and Dano had the same reaction that Wyndham/Rachel did.

I agree with you on Larry & Clarice- I really liked them, especially Larry, and thought they should have been kept around in a recurring capacity at the very least. I think they could have easily blended in with the late 80s/early 90s cast, including characters like John, Sharlene, Mitch, Frankie, Nicole, etc...

I didn't know that the show killed off Quinn- I liked her and could never figure out what happened to her. Was she murdered by the Sin Stalker?

LOL- I know AWHP was down at the time of your post because I was trying to look up the very same thing!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol: Great minds....

And finally, the show did a TOTAL number on MJ. She was a completely different character. As I said, under Layman, she was one of my favorite characters on the show during that period. In fact, MJ & Kathleen were my 2 favorite heroines on AW during those years.

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Quinn was murdered by the Sin Stalker. She started a love/hate relationship with Zak Harding and they eventually moved in together. The Sin Stalker deemed her immoral, and murdered her in the BCPD parking lot. Or BCGH. What a lovely message that the only two main female characters who were killed off for their slutty ways were middle-aged.

It made no sense to me to kill off Quinn. Petronia Paley is a charismatic actress with a droll sense of humor that fit in perfectly at AW. Her death also meant the talented James Pickens Jr. spent the next 3 years on the blackburner, along with several other talented actors (Ronnie and Reuben, for instance). She also fit in perfectly with the characters of that timeframe and later on. I can see her sparring with Iris, and if they'd done a triangle with Donna/Michael/Quinn instead of Stacey/Michael/Donna, it might have had more believability and spark, whereas Michael being with the woman who aggressively sought to take away his child was, IMO, disgusting, and helped make me despise Michael, along with Stacey.

The only friendship Donna ever had was with Cecile, which was more like a bitching society. That ended very fast when Cecile got Peter :lol:

Did you ever see Louise? She's such a wonderful tonic to the hotter heads at the Cory mansion. I love her scenes with children too. I don't know if the actress wanted to leave or if they fired her but if they fired her it was an awful mistake.

I had mixed feelings about the frequent absence of Mother Hudson. John and Michael never really needed a mother figure, but it still seemed strange to me that she was so rarely seen when she was supposed to be living around Bay City. Did she even appear when Sharlene "died"?

Edited by CarlD2
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It's because Quinn was one of those supporting characters that fans take for granted- we love them but we're not overly enthralled with them and don't realize how much we love them and need them there until they're gone. I really liked her.

If Louise was the Cory maid, then yes, I do believe I remember some of her stuff, although I was very young in those days. Then again, I was only 5 when Kathleen Layman's MJ was around and I distinctly remember her!

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It's those types of characters who made soaps special, and who really were an integral part of AW. AW stopped being about core families in the 70's. After that it was about sophisticated friends and their loved ones, with a mixture of some lower classes and grifters. Quinn should have been part of that fabric.

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Does anyone else remember the character of Sven Peterson, played by Roberts Blossom? He was one of the creepiest villains ever on soaps. Iris had hired him to be Mac & Rachel's butler, to cause further trouble between them. Sven dismembered Mac's chauffeur! I remember the only time my dad ever got interested in a soap was when Sven was on the scene. This must have been late 70s.

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None of this story seems to be available, but I've certainly read about it. It's the last time AW had a huge ratings surge, and moments like Rocky being found buried under the floorboards were much talked about. Sven had a big plan with his wife Helga to make it look like Mac had had sex with their daughter. Then she would say she was pregnant.

It's interesting to me that this didn't break Rachel and Mac up, but her scheming over Jamie's marriage with Blaine did.

Did you like Blaine better as a bad girl or as a heroine?

I have an article somewhere on the Sven story. When I find it I'll post it.

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I really wish AW did crossovers with other P&G soaps back in the 80's & 90's. (The only pre-cancellation AW crossovers occurred in the 60's.)

And it was beyond stupid for AW and ATWT to have shared the same time slot from 1987-99. Why on earth did executives at CBS, NBC, and P&G agree to this? (This is especially puzzling when you consider that P&G once forbid its soaps on opposite networks to compete against each other.)

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I agree that killing off Quinn was a mistake as she was one of the few characters with any longevity.She hadn't even been married once in her 6 or so years on the show so there was plenty of story potential.I was fine with Clarice and Larry going as they were played out.

However,the show was overloaded with females in that age bracket-Rachel,Felicia,Donna,Maisie and Mary

.The show was very damaged from all the changes since Lemay left.In principle,refashioning the show around the Cory,Love and McKinnons was a good move but the execution was poor.At the time Whitesell/DePriest said the show needed a proper revamp but their ideas were poorly executed and after a few months it was back to dropping characters and bringing in newbies.

I would have tied Maisie into the McKinnons by having her involved with Vince and Vince and Maisie become the new core working class couple after Vince and Mary realized their time had passed Maisie could have some secrets in her past..MJ as the strong police officer daughter and Ben as the hot younger son.Explore his history with Marley and attraction to Vicky for a Ben/Marley/Jake/Vicky quadrangle with lots of twists and turns.

Have Nancy get involved with Scott and eliminate Cheryl.No Adam Cory as that branch of the family never rang true to me.

Jamie back (not as adoctor,but working at Cory) and you have Jamie/MJ/Nicole as a ready made triangle as Jamie had previous involvements with both at different times.The MJ prostitution story was way better suited to Nicole considering her past as cocaine addict.Have her ex lover/pimp/whatever return and intimidate her.Maybe he makes a play for Vicky to taunt Nicole who is unable to say much for fear her past will be exposed and she'll lose Jamie.MJ gets involved with her new partner,who is in a troubled marriage.

Oh,and bring back the Matthews with Mike Randolph,a daughter for Russ.Have LIz,Russ,Pat etc as recurring players.

Iris and Dennis should have come back earlier. Maybe Iris and Reg?

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Sven was one of the creepiest, scariest characters ever to appear on soaps, thanks to actor Roberts Blossom. I can still remember when Dennis and Jamie discovered the dismembered body of Rocky, the Cory chauffeur, underneath the floorboards of the Cory boathouse. Not only did Sven terrorize the Corys, he was brutal to his cousin Helga (played by the recently deceased, Tony-nominated and Obie Award-winning Helen Stenborg) and his niece Regina (Barbara Eda-Young, who had earlier played the female lead opposite Al Pacino in "Serpico"). Just a great story with great acting all around.

I completely agree with most of the comments here about Kathleen Layman (loved her, didn't like Sally Spencer) and Philece Sampler (loved her as Renee DiMera, couldn't bear her as Donna Love). Larry and Clarice were two supporting characters that I took for granted, as juniorz1 aptly described earlier. I thought they were pretty ho-hum when they were around, but I really missed them when they were gone. I dimly remember something about Larry going undercover as a male stripper, but no details, so I may be wrong.

I thought Laura Malone's Blaine was a terrific villainess, I was so sad that they de-fanged her. And I didn't like the actress that replaced her AT ALL.

And Louise was fantastic, especially in her interactions with Iris.

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How soon into Blaine's run did they make her sympathetic? It seems like it was pretty early to me but I don't know. What did she do right after the breakup with Jamie? Was she given a rape by redemption story? I think she was raped by someone when she was with Sandy, wasn't she? One of those "save my man with sex" things? Hate those.

Did the actress who played Louise want to leave or did they fire her?

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After cocreating ANOTHER WORLD with Phillips, he went on to found with his wife Lee Phillip Bell two of the most successful soaps of recent years, THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS and, later, THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL.     Also in 1943, at near the same age her mother was when she herself was born, Phillips, unmarried and a career woman, adopted a child, Thomas Dirk. A year and a half later, Phillips adopted Katherine Louise.(47)     Throughout the 1940s Irna Phillips reigned as the undisputed queen of the radio soap opera. By the end of the decade a new medium was on the horizon and it would be that medium that Phillips (somewhat reluctantly) would conquer next.      By all accounts Irna Phillips was not anxious to move her shows from radio to television. With television, a fog horn could no longer substitute for the deck of a ship, and actors could no longer be brought in and replaced so easily. So reluctant was she to give up radio that after THE GUIDING LIGHT debuted on television on July 30, 1952, the scripts were rebroadcast that same day on radio. The two GUIDING LIGHTS ran concurrently on the two media for several years until finally the incredible success of the television version made the radio outlet obsolete.(48)     Around this time Proctor and Gamble [sic: My Note: This book spelled Procter and Gamble wrong over & over.], the soap manufacturer and a longtime force in soap opera broadcasting, began its long association with Phillips. Phillips sold the ownership of her current TV dramas to Proctor and Gamble Productions. Between the two of them (Phillips and P&G) they formed the biggest, toughest alliance daytime television had ever seen.(49)     In 1956 Phillips, in association with Proctor and Gamble, stormed onto television with what was to become her most popular (and some say, personal favorite) creation, AS THE WORLD TURNS. The continuing story of the Hughes and Lowell clans of Oakdale, Illinois, began on April 2, 1956, as TV's first half-hour soap. It was produced live until 1975 when it was lengthened to a hour. The show revolutionized daytime drama by gaining more viewers than ever before in the history of the genre (sometimes as high as a fifty percent share of the audience), and it launched soapdom's first all-out lying, scheming villainess, Lisa Miller (later, after marriage/s, Lisa Hughes, then Coleman, then Mitchell, then others). She was played by actress Eileen Fulton, who continues on the show to this day. Fulton's and the show's fame were so intense in the mid-1960s that CBS created a nighttime spin-off titled OUR PRIVATE WORLD. It, however, would only last a few  months.(50)     Irna Phillips's actual writing for her series, radio and television, was rather unusual. Every day at  nine in the morning Phillips sat down at a rickety, brown card table - the same one she had used for years - and began to devise that day's scripts from projected story lines often set down months in advance. From there she would dictate dialogue to her secretary and close friend, Rose Cooperman. "I really don't think I write," she said "I act."(51) Occasionally sitting still and occasionally moving around the room, moving as the character would, Phillips assumed all the characters in the scene - male, female, adult, child - changing her voice to indicate a change in speaker.(52) This process worked so well for Phillips it was later adopted by many of her proteges, including William Bell.(53)     As Phillips would talk, "Rosie," her secretary, would take down every word, following the various characters by following changes in Irna's voice and gestures. Rosie filled in the punctuation along the way. Both women became so involved with the story line they were creating that they found themselves in tears.(54)     The average time for Irna Phillips to dictate a half-hour script was about an hour and forty-five minutes. It usually took longer to type the finished manuscript than it did for Phillips to dream it up.(55) During Phillips's "writing" she seldom lost her place or became confused.  If she did, she could always consult one of her various genealogical charts she created for each show. They consisted of squares containing characters' names with solid lines connecting relatives, dotted lines connecting in-laws, and "X"'s over names of dead or missing family members.(56)     After the writing was finished Phillips would sit down and watch not only her shows but those of her competitors as well. While viewing her own shows, if she found something she did not like in script, performance, or production, it was switched immediately. This often meant a phone call to New York and a list of demands. A few times actors found themselves jobless after a phone call from Phillips. Not surprisingly, many actors, writers, and crew members feared Phillips's wrath. Once, when an actor playing what many thought an indispensable character asked for a raise in salary, Phillips refused and solved the whole problem by simply killing off the character. The show went on without him.(57) Don Hastings, who has played Dr. Bob Hughes on AS THE WORLD TURNS since 1960 (and wrote for the show for many years under the name J.J. Mathews), remembers Phillips as a tough but fair mother lion, ferocious in protecting her creation: "She was very tough on her writers but would protect them if the network or the producers criticized them. She always said that if she okayed a script it was as good as her writing it herself."(58)     Though Irna Phillips could be difficult, and a great many lived in constant fear of her, nobody would deny her skill. Don Hastings remembers a time when AS THE WORLD TURNS ratings had slipped. Owners Proctor and Gamble asked Phillips - then at work on another Proctor and Gamble show - to return and help WORLD. "Can you bring us up to a thirty share by the end of the year?" they asked. Phillips delivered the thirty share in thirteen weeks.(59)     Additionally, Phillips was not as difficult on a personal level as she might first appear. Throughout her career she was instrumental in starting other writers in their careers. Agnes Nixon, Bill Bell, and many other names benefitted from her support and guidance. Phillips was also known to take many young actors under her wing, sheltering and encouraging them.     In her life in Chicago, Phillips had a small but tight-knit group of friends and a fiercely devoted household staff. They admired and respected her enough to overlook her dramatic nature and her many pseudo-illnesses. Producer Lee Bell, who with her husband Bill created THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS and THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, was a friend and coworker of Irna's for many years; she remembers an eccentric but likable person. "She was a genius," Bell said, "A brilliant, intelligent woman. You wanted to be around her. Whatever eccentricities [she had] didn't matter."(60)      In 1964 Phillips formulated a new series for NBC titled ANOTHER WORLD. The title referred to the separate "psychological worlds" of its characters and the two separate economic worlds of the show's two major families. Not accidently, it also drew comparison with the previous Phillips creation AS THE WORLD TURNS.(61)     ANOTHER WORLD was the first daytime soap to run one hour. It was also the first daytime show to address the topic of abortion.(62) Phillips invited controversy again in 1967 when she attempted to introduce an interracial story line into LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING, a show she was also writing at the time. When the network bosses balked at the idea, Phillips walked out. She abandoned the show, and it was canceled in 1973.(63)     Despite Phillips forward thinking, however, she did not always approve of the direction daytime shows were taking. She said in 1972: "The daytime serial is destroying itself, eating itself up with rape, abortion, illegitimacy, men falling in love with other men's wives, all of which is often topped by a murder, followed by a long, drawn-out murder trial.(64)     In 1964 ABC-TV put Irna Phillips, at age 63, on the payroll as a special consultant for its primetime soaper PEYTON PLACE, the serialized twice-weekly program based on the book by Grace Metalious. By taking the PEYTON PLACE job, Phillips achieved a rare triple play: she now had her hand in, and was receiving paychecks from, shows running on all three major networks.(65)     In 1965 Phillips cocreated DAYS OF OUR LIVES and composed what has since become arguably the most famous opening line for any show in television's history: "Like sands through the hour glass ..."(66)     All did not always flow smoothly, however. The early years of ANOTHER WORLD were filled with complications: major characters were thrown out with little explanation, and actors were replacedal,ost weekly. Frustrated, Phillips left ANOTHER WORLD to concentrate on a show for ABC that she was cocreating with her daughter (and was based on Irna's own life). That show would only air for a few months when it premiered. Agnes Nixon was later brought into ANOTHER WORLD as head writer to whip the show into shape.(67)     Since Irna Phillips had almost single-handedly created soap operas as a dramatic form years ago in radio, they had begun to change. The incedible success of her own AS THE WORLD TURNS made daytime soap operas an important, highly profitable part of the network schedule. To gain viewers and therefore money, soaps became more and more sensational. Gradually they became more scandalous, sexual, and action-oriented; Irna Phillips's stories of women sitting around the breakfast table were becoming passe. Phillips found herself being left behind by the genre she had created. Allen Potter, who worked on ANOTHER WORLD with Phillips during its difficult years, summed up the problem: "She was from a different era. [She was] still writing kids going down to the malt shop."(68)     Phillips was asked to rejoin AS THE WORLD TURNS in 1972.(69) She simplified some of the plots but failed to turn the recent ratings dip around. Proctor and Gamble, the show's producer, fired Phillips in 1973. Back in Chicago she began work on an autobiography, but nothing was ever published.(70)     On December 23, 1973, Irna Phillips died in her sleep at her home in Chicago. She was seventy-two. In accordance with her wishes news of her death was kept from the press for several weeks.(71)     What made Phillips a success - the Queen of the Soaps, as she was often called - is somewhat difficult to answer. Helen Wagner recently explained it this way: "We [AS THE WORLD TURNS] premiered the same day as EDGE OF NIGHT [a now defunct mystery-based soap on ABC]. What was important on that show was the story. For AS THE WORLD TURNS what was important was the character.(72) Phillips realized early in her career that the success of serialized stories depended on her audience becoming involved and knowledgeable about the characters on the show. She told BROADCASTING in 1972: "Characters have to be multidimensional. The story has to come from the characters, to the point where your viewers will get to know a character so well they can predict his or her behavior in a given dramatic situation."(73)     Phillips believes there were several reasons for her success, not the least of which was her self-described limited vocabulary ("my greatest asset"), which, she believed, made her programs universal. She also attempted in her writing to appeal to the basic instincts of self-preservation, sex, and family.(74)     Perhaps Phillips's greatest personal achievement, however, was creating a world. fully and believably, that she did not really know herself. Though she never married; nor did she give birth; nor did she ever own a  home. But somehow Irna Phillips knew enough about all those qualities to entertain millions for generations - to spin endlessly involving tales of day-to-day life; tales about the simple joys and daily dramas of paying the bills, raising children, belonging to a family, and falling in love.      Irna Phillips wrote in McCALL'S magazine in 1965, "None of us is different, except in degree. None of us is a stranger to success and failure, life and death, the need to be lovedthe struggle to communicate..."(75)     Four of the programs Irna Phillips created - AS THE WORLD TURNS, GUIDING LIGHT, DAYS OF OUR LIVES, and ANOTHER WORLD - are still on the air today.  IRNA PHILLIPS July 1, 1901        Born in Chicago, Illinois 1922             Graduated with bachelor's degree in education. 1924             Graduated with master's degree in speech; began career teaching school in Missouri and, later, Ohio. May 1930        Returned to Chicago; joined WGN as actress and ad hoc writer.  October 20, 1930    PAINTED DREAMS, radio's first "soap opera" debuted;created by Irna Phillips.  June 16, 1932        TODAY'S CHILDREN, second Phillips creation, premiered; departed WGN. 1934            MASQUERADE premiered.  1935            MASQUERADE aired last broadcast. January 25, 1937     THE GUIDING LIGHT premiered.  1938            TODAY'S CHILDREN aired final broadcast; ROAD OF LIFE and WOMAN IN WHITE premiered. October 16, 1939    THE RIGHT TO HAPPINESS premiered.  1940            Phillips moved briefly to New York City; would return to Chicago after six months.  1941            WOMEN ALONE premiered; settled court suit with WGN.  June 29, 1942        LONELY WOMEN (title later changed to TODAY'S CHILDREN) premiered.  1943            Resided briefly in Los Angeles; adopted son, Thomas Dirk. 1944            Adopted daughter, Katherine.  Summer 1948        WOMAN IN WHITE aired last broadcast. October 11, 1948    THE BRIGHTER DAY premiered on radio.  January 31, 1949    THESE ARE MY CHILDREN premiered. March 4, 1949        THESE ARE MY CHILDREN ended. 1950            Second incarnation of TODAY'S CHILDREN ended on radio. June 30, 1952        THE GUIDING LIGHT debuted on television. 1956            BRIGHTER DAY ended  on radio. January 4, 1954        THE BRIGHTER DAY premiered on television.  December 13, 1954    ROAD OF LIFE premiered on television; show ended broadcasts on radio. July 1, 1955        ROAD OF LIFE aired last broadcast on television. April 2, 1956        AS THE WORLD TURNS premiered. November 25, 1960    THE RIGHT TO HAPPINESS ended on radio. May 4, 1964        ANOTHER WORLD premiered.  1964            Worked as consultant on primetime's PEYTON PLACE. May 5, 1965        OUR PRIVATE WORLD, AS THE WORLD TURNS spin-off, premiered in primetime. September 10, 1965    OUR PRIVATE WORLD aired last episode. September 28, 1965    THE BRIGHTER DAY aired last broadcast on TV. November 8, 1965    DAYS OF OUR LIVES premiered. September 18, 1967    LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING, soap opera, premiered.  March 23, 1973        LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING aired last broadcast. Late 1973        Fired by Proctor and Gamble.  December 23, 1974    Passed away at home in Chicago.  NOTES 1.    "The Creators," TV GUIDE (Commemorative Edition) (July 1991), p.59. 2.    Dan Wakefield, ALL HER CHILDDREN (New York: Doubleday, 1976), p.27.  3.    CURRENT BIOGRAPHY (1943), p.590. 4.    Irna Phillips, "Every Woman's Life Is a Soap Opera," Mccall's (March 1965), p.116 5.    Ibid. 6.    Peter Wyden, "Madam Soap Opera," SATURDAY EVENING POST (25 June 1960), p.129. 7.    Barbara Sicherman and Carol Hurd Green, NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN: THE MODERN PERIOD (Cambridge: Belknap, 1980), p.542. 8.     "Script Queen," TIME (10 June 1940), p.66. 9.    Sicherman and Carol Hurd Green, p.542. 10.    "Writing On: Irna Phillips Mends With Tradition," BROADCASTING (6 November 1972), p.75 11.     Madeline Edmundson and David Rounds, THE SOAPS (New York: Stein & Day, 1973), p.43.     12.     CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, p.590 13.    Sicherman and Green, p.542. 14.    Robert C. Allen, SPEAKING OF SOAPS (CHapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 1985), p.111.  15.     "Writing On: Irna Phillips Mends With Tradition," p.75. 16.     Edmundson and Rounds, p.44. 17.     Allen, p.112. 18.     Wyden, p.130. 19.     Ibid. 20.     CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, p.590. 21.     "Queen of the Soaps," NEWSWEEK (11 May 1964), p.66. 22.    Sicherman and Green, p.543. 23.     Wyden, p.130. 24.    Sicherman and Green, p.259. 25.    CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, p.519. 26.     "With Significance," TIME (11 June 1945), p.46. 27.     CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, p.590. 28.    Wyden, p.129. 29.    Interview with Lee Bell (4 September 1991). All other information and quotes from Mrs. Bell in this chapter were taken from this interview. 30.    Interview with Don Hastings (5 December 1991). All other information and quotes from Mr. Hastings in this chapter were taken from this interview.  31.    Wyden, p.129. 32.    Robert LaGuardia, SOAP WORLD (New York: Arbor House, 1983), p.20. 33.    Wyden, p.129 34.    Interview with Helen Wagner (10 October 1991). All other information and quotes from Ms. Wagner in this chapter were taken from this interview. 35.     Ibid., p.130. 36.    "Script Queen," p.66. 37.    Wyden, p.127. 38.     Wagner interview. 39.    Wyden, p.127. 40.    Phillips, p.117. 41.    Wyden, p.127. 42.    Ibid., p.130. 43.    Ibid. 44.    CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, P.591. 45.    "Script Queen,"p.68. 46.    Wakefield, p.28. 47.    Sicherman and Green, p.543. 48.    Wyden, p.130.  49.    Ibid. 50.    Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, THE COMPLETE DIRECTORY TO PRIME TIME NETWORK TV SHOWS(New York: Ballantine, 1981), p.571. 51.    Wyden, p.129. 52.    Phillips, p.168. 53.    Bell interview. 54.    Wyden, p.30. 55.    Ibid. 56.    Phillips, p.168. 57.    CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, p.591. 58.    Hastings interview. 59.    Ibid. 60.    Bell interview. 61.    LaGuardia, p.81. 62.    Ibid. 63.     Jean Rouverol, WRITING FOR THE SOAPS (Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books,1984), p.11. 64.    "Writing On: Irna Phillips Mends with Tradition," p.75. 65.    "Queen of the Soaps," NEWSWEEK (11 May 1964), p.66. 66.    Rouverol, p.11. 67.     La Guardia, p.81. 68.     Ibid. 69.    "Week's Headliners," BROADCASTING (17 January 1972), p.9. 70.    LaGuardia, p.81. 71.    Landry, p.71. 72.    Wagner interview. 73.    "Writing On: Irna Phillips Mends with Tradition," p.75. 74.    Sicherman and Green, p.542. 75.    Phillips, p.116.
    • So, Roman admitted that everything he did was to protect Johnny. I like that. It adds another dynamic to this storyline. And it’s also a much better use of the character of Roman. He’s been stuck in the Pub for too long lol I’m also really liking the way that Roman and Kate’s relationship has been written lately. As for Josh Taylor’s voice… no comment

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      And speaking of relationships, I’ve also been seeing improvements in the relationships between Johnny and Paulina as well. I enjoyed their scenes today. They really feel more like an actual mother in law and son in law. I’m cringing a little at the way that Paulina would’ve been written had Ron stayed on a little longer. This type of writing is the exact thing that the character of Paulina needed, especially for a storyline like this.  I am a little intrigued with the idea of EJ and Xander going head to head over buying the hospital too, mostly because of how it could drive other storylines, couples, etc.,like EJ and Belle. Him basically using Belle as his own personal fixer, both with Johnny and the hospital board could lead to something interesting happening in the future. And Philip, doing whatever he can in order to get back in Xander’s good graces is a good addition to this storyline as well.  Btw, I don’t dislike it at all but I still can’t believe that they’re 

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      And yeah, sorry, I know that Days means well but I think they’re making a little too much out of this Xander/Felicity thing. But Xander and Sarah were sweet today. I’m looking forward to seeing everything between them get blown to hell.  Seriously, one of the worst, if not the worst, team in soap history. 
    • Thanks for letting me know! I thought there was a preemption until CBS confused me by uploading Monday's episode on Friday.
    • Lucky Day is an awfully good Doctor-lite episode focused on Millie Gibson and Jemma Redgrave - I am glad the show brought in Varada Sethu who continues to give major Caroline John/Liz Shaw vibes, but Millie was always very good in what felt designed to be a single arc companion and she's very good here too. She deserves a bit more somewhere in the franchise. The depressingly relevant storyline aside, I was most impressed by the showcase for UNIT and Kate Stewart. Jemma is always good but she was amazing here, noting the Doctor would've stopped her from going all the way re: Think Tank if he were there. Yet it's the kind of brute force her father could and did resort to in extreme situations back in the day. I almost hoped she would allow Conrad to be killed right then and there, which is something I think the Brigadier also would've done when backed against a wall over operational control and the safety of the Earth. She came very close, and the steel Redgrave exhibited (as always) was amazing. Whatever spinoffs can still materialize given the current streaming climate and DW's uncertain future (I do think it will continue somewhere, but I would not be shocked if it's back to a run of holiday specials for awhile a la Tennant's and Whittaker's), aside from the upcoming odd Sea Devils miniseries that's in the can, I still hope UNIT and Kate can get a proper one sometime.
    • I think it was just him  And it gave good explanations as to why Alistair was the way that he was. By the time the series ended, he was just evil for evil’s sake 
    • To me, that made no difference. The point stands whether Eva wants to be a Dupree or not. Anita was 110% on top of things. Also it's a logical inference that Eva might be interested in having a place in her supposedly real family. Frankly though I wonder if Eva knows how to feel ... yet. She could really be confused.
    • Does Jack ever dress in drag during that early '00s period where he was trying to get Jennifer back...or does he just fake being gay around then?
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