4 minutes ago, will81 said:

This might be the ad. Ran in the New York Daily News August 06, 1978

 

 

Thank you! That seems pretty clear that Kerrigan is credited as author of the books and Lemay was overreacting. Based on his description of the event which he jealously attended the fans only cared about the actors anyway. 

19 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

Now I am curious: if you have seen most or all of the Alices on youtube, whom did you think was worse than Pfenning?

I thought all of the recasts were wrong for the role, for different reasons. 

Based on the clips I've seen, Linda Borgeson is the worst in the role. She didn't carry the depth of emotion required for a soap opera in the 1980s, especially for the role of Alice Matthews Frame.

18 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

If I were forced to choose one worst-Alice actress, it would probably be Borgenson. So bland, so lifeless, so lacking in emotion. She was a non-entity. I thought Tribbey was a better actress than Borgenson, but after watching Courtney for a decade, Tribbey's cooler, sarcastic Alice just did not feel right to me. I would have preferred her as another character. In any case, I'll bet that Borgenson would "win" the title of the worst Alice in a poll, LOL.

For me, Vaughn Taylor (a.k.a. Vana Tribbey) would've better suited the role of Iris had Carmen Duncan not been cast. Borgeson is definitely the weakest in the role of Alice.

5 hours ago, Xanthe said:

Lemay seems to have interpreted (or assumed the fans would interpret) the promo as crediting her as the writer of the show and not specifically the novelizations. It's confusing because they both have the same title. I'd be curious to see the actual ad to judge how misleading it actually was. 

In his telling:

"A publishing friend sent me a newspaper advertisement for a large luncheon discussion featuring stars of “Another World.” Among the names and photographs displayed in the ad was that of an unknown writer credited as author of the serial."

I think the likelihood is it credited her as the author of Another World (meaning the novelizations) and Lemay read it as Another World meaning the show. What I meant though was if the ad was actually more actively misleading ("Kate Lowe Kerrigan, writer of the TV serial Another World") then he would certainly have been justified reclaiming his territory. 

If any advertisement about the books falsely claimed that Kerrigan was "the author of the serial," that would have been egregious and Lemay's ire would have been totally understandable. She did not write for the TV serial. BUT! The ads I have seen made it very clear that the party was to launch the Ballantine books. They referred to Kerrigan as the "author of AW I and II." Those were obviously the novels, not the broadcast program itself.

Besides clearly stating that KLK was the author of Another World I and II, the Ballantine novelizations, what else could P&G, Ballantine, or the creators of the advertisements do? Perhaps add a note that the books were based on the TV serial which was written by Agnes Nixon, Robert Cenedella and Harding Lemay. But even without that, I don't believe most reasonable people would jump to the conclusion that KLK had been the headwriter for the show. That had not been claimed anywhere. I think the prickly and easily-vexed Lemay jumped to annoyance for little cause.

5 hours ago, will81 said:

This might be the ad. Ran in the New York Daily News August 06, 1978

 

 

That is a great find; thank you. I have seen a couple of advertisements about the novelizations, and this is one of them. There is no doubt that they are talking about two books and their author, not the material as seen on TV broadcasts.

I’m so glad I was able to buy those books when I did.

They’re so hard to find now, and when you finally do, they’re really expensive 

3 hours ago, AbcNbc247 said:

I’m so glad I was able to buy those books when I did.

They’re so hard to find now, and when you finally do, they’re really expensive 

Emily McLaughlin's daughter, Mary Ann Cooper, wrote a book about her mother once. It was a soft-cover trade paperback called Portrait of a Soap Star. It only remained in print a short while. When I ordered it, the book was about $15.00. A few years later, I saw it on sale on the internet for over $700.00. Surreal!

 

11 hours ago, Liberty City said:

Based on the clips I've seen, Linda Borgeson is the worst in the role. She didn't carry the depth of emotion required for a soap opera in the 1980s, especially for the role of Alice Matthews Frame.

For me, Vaughn Taylor (a.k.a. Vana Tribbey) would've better suited the role of Iris had Carmen Duncan not been cast. Borgeson is definitely the weakest in the role of Alice.

Most people seem to agree. The choice to cast Borgenson in the role is as baffling as the decision to cast Susan Batten as Connor Walsh on ATWT, Charity Rahmer as Belle Black on DAYS, Jayne Bentzen as Nicole Drake on TEON and Jason Kinkaid as Tom Hughes on ATWT. It's like someone deciding that Danny DeVito would be a good choice to take over the role of Rhett Butler in a remake or sequel to Gone With the Wind. Egads!!!

Edited August 18, 20214 yr by vetsoapfan

1 hour ago, vetsoapfan said:

It's like someone deciding that Danny DeVito would be a good choice to take over the role of Rhett Butler in a remake or sequel to Gone With the Wind. Egads!!!

SHHH...someone may be listening. 😉🤣😂

1 hour ago, vetsoapfan said:

It's like someone deciding that Danny DeVito would be a good choice to take over the role of Rhett Butler in a remake or sequel to Gone With the Wind. Egads!!!

9 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

That is a great find; thank you. I have seen a couple of advertisements about the novelizations, and this is one of them. There is no doubt that they are talking about two books and their author, not the material as seen on TV broadcasts.

How many soaps had tie-in novels? The Doctors had one. AW had at least two. I got nothing else.

2 hours ago, amybrickwallace said:

SHHH...someone may be listening. 😉🤣😂

TPTB don't need my suggestions to make horrid and baffling decisions, unfortunately.😉

2 hours ago, amybrickwallace said:

How many soaps had tie-in novels? The Doctors had one. AW had at least two. I got nothing else.

Going back decades: General Hospital, Search for Tomorrow, The Edge of Night, The Doctors, Dark Shadows, Another World, Love of Life, All My Children and The Young and the Restless. Those are the ones I can think of off-hand, from the top of my head. There were also those awful Soaps & Serials novelizations of many other soaps.

I've read many of them, and the Kate Lowe Kerrigan Another World books were the most satisfying to me as someone who had watched the TV versions of the shows. The S&S  books were poorly researched and often inaccurate and hard to tolerate, IMHO.

On 8/14/2021 at 1:24 PM, Mitch said:

That was Rauch's job to reign in his writer and talk to his actors to meet in the middle. I would think Dwyer would have been happy to play a bit more of an edge to her character...Nancy Hughes was controlling and even good Mom, Grandma and everyone's friend Bert Bauer had her moments.

I do remember some clips of Lemay on some primetime special on soaps or on some newsmagazine show when the soaps were at their 80s peak and Lemay was dissing what had to be Dwyer in reference to "An actress who actually thought she had the same qualities as the character, the good mom who was a wonderful cook and baker, and...she wasn't" Lemay still was holding a grudge against her so who knows if she could have delivered..Lemay could be bitchy indeed but he made for great interviews.

There was a time he was either headwriting or consulting on ATWT right before Marland came back...and the producer was restoring the Hughes as the core family and bringing back Nancy and Chris. They were giving Nancy her old bite in scenes with John, "Oh hello Dr. Dixon, I see the mustache is about the only thing about you that has changed." and having some friction with Kim who just married Bob...with Lisa showing her old ways a bit by "advising" Kim on getitng into Nancy's good graces by making her favorite dish..."steak kidney pie" which Nancy hated. That was straight up Irna there and interesting that as soon as Marland came Nancy became Bert Bauer and Lisa went back to Bob and Kim's friend..so I think the domineering Mom thing was all Lemay (and I have to say much more interesting ....)

Lemay was a wonderful writer -  8 Years in Another World was truly engrossing - so since he was happy to take the spotlight, while  Rauch was a less wordy figure (his grudge-holding and  malice were rarely spoken of in his own voice), he is more likely to get the blame. I also think some of the  blame comes from AW falling apart at the end of his tenure and never really  recovering, although he and Rauch were  probably something of an anomaly in terms of stability (there's a thread  buried on here  with a title like - "AW - longest transition ever?") 

I think the other problem is that many fans took  his  word as gospel, because so little footage of his era is available. What he said about the cast, especially Courtney, became fact.

The most revealing anecdote about his biases is probably when he takes  time to eviscerate Val Dufour for stealing the spotlight from Susan Sullivan by being too hammy in the confession  scenes that he wrote to showcase her. Dufour had been fired, and those were his last scenes. Sullivan was  one of the show's leading ladies, and had plenty of story ahead. Yet  the thrust of the story is that he was selfish, in the wrong. 

I am sorry he never got to  make  much of an impact in daytime after that, and that his second headwriting run, which was excellent  from the little we saw of it, was quickly ended. 

Speaking of his ATWT consulting, he had a TV Guide interview a year or  two after his second consultancy (which  had been around 1994 or 1995 I think). I mainly remember it for his criticizing ATWT for becoming too out of touch with reality - he said during his time there he pointed out to them that three different characters had private jets. 

Edited August 18, 20214 yr by DRW50

It's interesting to me that Rauch and Lemay got credit for AW Golden years, which pretty much fell apart once Lemay left even though Rauch stayed on through several headwriters.

Which leaves me to believe that possibly without Rauch, Lemay would have flourished any way.

Rauch, I think tried to make lightning strike twice when he hired Corinne Jacker, thinking that a playwright new to the soap genre would shake things up. He certainly seemed to give her free rein.

I guess Rauch had to be credited with allowing his writers some freedom, even when the results were less than ideal.

Or was what we saw onscreen the result of Rauch insisting on certain story decisions.

Guess we'll never know, unless people from that era decide to talk freely.

 

Were Lemay/Rauch the longest-running HW/EP tandem in soaps, or was that Slesar/Nicholson of EDGE?

Edited August 18, 20214 yr by amybrickwallace

7 hours ago, amybrickwallace said:

Were Lemay/Rauch the longest-running HW/EP tandem in soaps, or was that Slesar/Nicholson of EDGE?

I'd think there may have been some longer teams on  ATWT or GL in the '50s or '60s. 

4 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I'd think there may have been some longer teams on  ATWT or GL in the '50s or '60s. 

That sounds right. Thanks!!