4 minutes ago, Soaplovers said:

Did Lemay resort to Rachel chasing Steve again, or was that already in place when he took over?

Apparently, it was a network/P&G mandate that Steve/Alice/Rachel had to be revived once JC returned to the show full time and Lemay came on as head writer.

He did write Steve and Alice’s first wedding though.

5 minutes ago, AbcNbc247 said:

He did write Steve and Alice’s first wedding though.

He didn't write both? Wasn't their second wedding the first hour-long episode?

1 minute ago, amybrickwallace said:

He didn't write both? Wasn't their second wedding the first hour-long episode?

Yes to both of your questions. Somewhere on AWHP is an audio clip of the episode 

54 minutes ago, AbcNbc247 said:

Yes to both of your questions. Somewhere on AWHP is an audio clip of the episode 

Thank you!!

4 hours ago, amybrickwallace said:

If Russ had actually married Iris, Rachel would have gone from being his wife to his sister-in-law (through their marriages to Ted and Cindy) to his stepmother-in-law!! The Matthews family would definitely have been tearing their hair out. 😂

Of course, for The Bold and the Beautiful that would have been par for the course!

 

4 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

It seemed like Cendrella had to move away from the Steve/Alice/Rachel story..partly due to Jacqueline Courtney taking time off the show.

It kind of appeared that Rachel kind of moved on somewhat to Ted.  I know Vicky Wyndham came in to play the last months of that marriage.

Did Lemay resort to Rachel chasing Steve again, or was that already in place when he took over?

I'm a little hazy about this, but I definitely remembered that under Lemay they brought back Walter Matthews as Gerald Davis to encourage Rachel by saying things like, "Would you rather be Mrs. Ted Clark or Mrs. Steven Frame?" As if Rachel needed any encouragement!

Lemay noted in his book that Stephen Bolster (Ted Clark) told him how he kept getting mail from fans who wanted Ted paired up with Alice. Lemay knew this wasn't so, because he had access to the mail, but he couldn't blame Bolster for trying, because it was clear how the storyline was going to go.

Alice precipitated her breakup with Steve by misunderstanding a conversation she heard between Steve and Rachel. Steve had been with Rachel talking about Jamie when Alice fell off a ladder (I think), precipitating a miscarriage, and Steve wasn't there to send for help in time. Alice understood him to mean he had been with Rachel sexually, so instead of confronting him she behaved like a soap opera heroine and took off for parts unknown. Rachel then eventually took advantage of the situation.

Many thanks to everyone who has access to the timelines and cast and character lists.

3 hours ago, Nicholas Blair said:

My memory is probably wrong. James Gerald certainly would be reasonable, although Rachel had had no contact with her father for years.

Oh, that's a pity. I was hoping it was another legit variant.

Speaking of variants, I have been sucked a bit too far into the Tanquir rabbithole to see how it varies from soap to soap. Someone has listed it as a "Mediterranean kingdom" on the Wikipedia entry for fictional countries. It's definitely Arab/Muslim for the debut of Texas, but what I have seen on GL so far is much vaguer and chiefly focused on archaeology.
 

 

29 minutes ago, Nicholas Blair said:

Of course, for The Bold and the Beautiful that would have been par for the course!

AW would have been way before their time!! 😂

Lisa Peluso will be on Alan Locher's show next Friday. Details on the SFT thread.

AW in the 60s made one of those classic bad writing decisions, which illustrates this rule: "Don't kill off a beloved character until you're sure you have something interesting as a replacement." Irna, presumably, made the decision to kill off Lee Randolph (Barbara Rodell) to illustrate the dangers of taking LSD. Lee, having had LSD dropped in her drink, ultimately (after many twists I won't detail here) has an LSD flashback, wrecks her car, and is killed. Fans were upset because Barbara Rodell was popular, and she and Jordan Charney (as Sam Lucas) were a popular couple. Even after Sam had married Lahoma (Ann Wedgeworth) because Lee was concerned about that any child of hers might have birth defects, fans expected Sam and Lee to get together eventually. Wrong.

The grieving father, John Randolph (Michael M. Ryan), then got to know the Mason family: the mother, Anne, was a department store executive (I think), implicitly criticized very harshly for having a career instead of looking after her teenage daughter Emily. It's unclear where this story was ultimately to have gone. Anne died of a heart attack, John became Emily's guardian, and apparently Emily was going to be a substitute daughter. Unfortunately, Emily bored the pants off most of the viewers, who resented her space on the screen in place of Lee. Emily was sent off to boarding school or one of those other dumping grounds for unwanted soap characters, and she was never heard of again.

When Agnes Nixon recycled pretty much the entire LSD story on OLTL, she made one very important change: Cathy Craig, unlike Lee Randolph, was not killed off.

13 minutes ago, Nicholas Blair said:

Irna, presumably, made the decision to kill off Lee Randolph (Barbara Rodell) to illustrate the dangers of taking LSD.

irna was long gone by this stage. I believe Cenedella was writing at this point.

The plots that appeared when Nixon's stories (which he inherited)began to run dry showed that Cenedella didn't have the same skills as his predecessor.

7 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

I believe Cenedella was writing at this point.

Per AWHP, he was. He was headwriter from February 1969 to August 1971, and Lee was killed off in May 1969.

1 hour ago, Paul Raven said:

irna was long gone by this stage. I believe Cenedella was writing at this point.

The plots that appeared when Nixon's stories (which he inherited)began to run dry showed that Cenedella didn't have the same skills as his predecessor.

 

1 hour ago, amybrickwallace said:

Per AWHP, he was. He was headwriter from February 1969 to August 1971, and Lee was killed off in May 1969.

Thanks for the timeline info. The fact that Agnes Nixon recycled the LSD story on OLTL so closely makes me wonder if this was one of her stories.

14 minutes ago, Nicholas Blair said:

Thanks for the timeline info. The fact that Agnes Nixon recycled the LSD story on OLTL so closely makes me wonder if this was one of her stories.

Well this was a time when 'relevance' was one of the soap trends.

I think Love of Life had a 'drugs on campus' story around that time.

Didn't Tom Hughes have a drug issue also  around this time on ATWT?

Edited October 8, 20214 yr by Paul Raven

Taking it back to Cenedella, it was a big mistake to kill off Lee, and then Bill the following year. Bill and Missy were basically AW’s first supercouple and to just abruptly end them like that did the fans a disservice. Lee could have driven story for years as well, and it always sounded to me like the Emily Mason story was really boring. 

But the whole LSD storyline is one that I would love to see. The way the storylines transitioned into one another back then sounds genius. Same goes for the Danny Fargo saga, and how Liz was able to help Walter send Missy to prison for his murder. 

Edited October 8, 20214 yr by AbcNbc247

On 10/6/2021 at 3:57 PM, amybrickwallace said:

It said James Gerald in the AW 35th Anniversary coffee table book, not that those books are exempt from errors.

It was definitely James Gerald. He was named after bother his grandfathers: Jim Matthews and Gerald Davis.