Tresa Hughes,who played Emma Frame Ordway, has died aged 81. In addition to AW and RH ,she also was on From These Roots.

OBITUARIES, SOAPS

Former Another World star Tresa Hughes has died aged 81

POSTED BY TVVOMIT ⋅ JULY 29, 2011 ⋅ LEAVE A COMMENT

FILED UNDER ANOTHER WORLD, TRESA HUGHES

Tresa Hughes, who played Emma Frame on Another World from 1976 to 1979, has died at the age of 81. She was also an accomplished and popular performer on Broadway.

In 1961, Tresa Hughes was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Supporting or Featured Actress for the Broadway play The Devil’s Advocate. By this point, she was also making a name for herself in television, appearing in episodes of shows like Naked City, NYPDand The Bob Newhart Show.

She joined Another World in 1976, the second actress to play the role of Emma Frame Ordway, and stayed with the show until 1979. During this time she played a nurse in a few episodes of Ryan’s Hope.

She also appeared in the alarmingly-titled TV movie Daddy I Don’t Like It Like This, and went on to appear in episodes of shows likeTales from the Darkside, NYPD Blue and Law & Order.

Edited August 1, 201114 yr by Paul Raven

THANKS for the pics!!!

I think I've already asked this, but do you know why they changed the initial plans to have Sharly become obsessed with Michael? Instead she was fixated on Grant. I don't remember this playing out onscreen, but the Michael angle was mentioned in a soap magazine preview.

I was watching some of the little I could see of Maeve Kinkead as Angie Perrini, and I wanted to ask, for anyone who's seen more of her run (or who was watching at the time), how was Toni Kalem in the role? And was Angie supposed to be so strange and childlike? By the time of the fall 1979 episodes, when Angie was pregnant, she was talking in some wide-eyed fashion, she had her hair styled like a child (sort of strewn on top of her head, with one or two buns). It was odd. There was a scene where she showed Willis the new baby mobile she'd gotten for their unborn child and said if the baby likes it it he will do this (looks happy) and if the baby doesn't like it he will do THIS (angrily punches at the mobile).

It's also strange imagining Maeve and Kathleen Widdoes as mother and daughter, for some reason. I guess because I know them from elsewhere.

It was odd. There was a scene where she showed Willis the new baby mobile she'd gotten for their unborn child and said if the baby likes it it he will do this (looks happy) and if the baby doesn't like it he will do THIS (angrily punches at the mobile).

It's also strange imagining Maeve and Kathleen Widdoes as mother and daughter, for some reason. I guess because I know them from elsewhere.

!

Yeah, KW and MK are not many years apart. Most likely, KW's weight gain attributed to her transition into more motherly roles, not unlike Shirley Knight. I had sort of a reverse reaction to yours when I saw some stills of KW opposite Sam Waterston in a Shakespeare in the Park production of Much Ado About Nothing. I only knew her from brief glimpses of Emma so I never thought of her as the typical slender romantic lead she once was.

I had the same reaction when I saw a photo of her on Young Doctor Malone. At that time Virginia Dwyer was playing her mother, but I wonder if she was still in the role when Augusta Dabney took over. Augusta and Kathleen as mother/daughter is a bit

If you're interested in Pat Barry I posted an article on her in a thread on NBC soaps of the early/mid-50's.

Something else that I noticed in the 1979 episodes was how much that Eileen character looked like Susan Keith. In one of her romantic scenes with Ray Liotta, I initially thought, "Wow, Cecile really was a great big whore, two-timing Jamie and Dennis," and then I realized it was another actress.

I liked the girl who played Sally then. She kind of looks like Jo Joyner (Tanya from Eastenders), but she has a very natural quality.

Liz and Jim were a great double act. It's a shame that Jim just basically vanished from the show, without any real sendoff, when the actor passed away.

I rewatched Doug Watson's final scenes recently, as well as the 25th Anniversary episodes and Mac's death and funeral. What powerful stuff and a great reminder of what a fabulous actor Watson was.

Knowing that his untimely death impacted storyline for years, does anyone know what was planned for Mac, Rachel, Iris, Amanda, the Corys et al that needed to be scrapped or altered after Watson's passing?

I rewatched Doug Watson's final scenes recently, as well as the 25th Anniversary episodes and Mac's death and funeral. What powerful stuff and a great reminder of what a fabulous actor Watson was.

Knowing that his untimely death impacted storyline for years, does anyone know what was planned for Mac, Rachel, Iris, Amanda, the Corys et al that needed to be scrapped or altered after Watson's passing?

The 25th anniversary was amazing. I agree. I especially loved the scenes with Jamie and Steve Frame and Rachel and Alice talking about seeing Steve's ghost. Great stuff. My only disappointment was Pat barely appearing and making Gwen into a lunatic, but I got over it. I also wondered why they didn't bring Sandy and Blaine back for the party? I wonder if the show made an offer for the anniversary or Mac's funeral?

I've always wondered the same thing about the show's plans for Mac and the Cory's before his untimely death. They did an amazing job incorporating it almost immediately following his passing. It almost seemed planned. It was eerie.

In SOD the producers said Christopher Rich wasn't available, so they decided to come up with a reason Sandy wouldn't be at the funeral. I think they should have just recast the role, and then this could have laid the groundwork for Sandy returning and having more of a role in the company. That would have been good drama, especially since Jamie and Matt were never involved with Cory at that time.

I believe that they had already planned the Paulina story before Douglass passed away, and they just had to speed it up due to his death.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60sw1F59-WA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyZTBi9l51U

From the April 1979 TV Dawn to Dusk/Daytime Stars

dor, ready to rehearse the next "act." Dressed casually, comfortable in jeans and a shirt with elbow patches, the slim director makes a few witty remarks, breaking up the crew and cast, which consists, at this point, of Anne Meacham dusting a table.

What sort of talent does it take to helm the high pressure atmosphere of a daily show/ how similar is doing a show like this to the theater where Melvin trained and works constantly? These were a few of the questions that seemed pertinent. For the soaps have an enormous audience, a remarkable long-run status and offer the thrill of doing a new show every time.

Melvin took one whole minute from his tight schedule to come over, say hello, and then he was back at work. "Lunch" you discover for the director means a ten minute break for cottage cheese, cantaloupe, cigarettes and coffee. Of all the people on the show, it is the director who is most responsible for the final shooting of the script. The producers, who include Paul Racuh as executive, and several others who are on-set while shooting is in progress, oversee the taping and the rehearsals. Doubtless they are invaluable to the show's success, but Melvin today is the man who must keep the show in gear until it's "in the can."

Before my arrival the cast had arrived - starting at five a.m. for some of the Connecticut dwellers - to do a read-through in an upstairs rehearsal room. After the director's comments, they move downstairs for a walk-through that coordinates camera positions and bits of business. After a break for lunch, which the actors can enjoy because their responsibilities vary from act to act, there is another dress rehearsal, then notes from the director and, at last, the final taping. Today, however, will be slightly different, for the show's demands are relatively easy and instead of a dress, the cast will have just a final tape, giving everyone an extra free hour.

Between breaks in the rehearsal, Melvin states, "It's not just a two day a week job." Another World employs three directors who rotate their schedules, each shooting two days in sequence and then breaking for four. The director receives the script a week early to prepare notations for camera movement and actors' positions.

"That's the hardest aspect for me as a stage director," Melvin admits, "making all those choices ahead of time on paper. Doing a play, one has the time to be more open and responsive, but here you have the opportunity to unfold characters in a novelistic form. Each day, other aspects of their lives and habits are revealed, giving the audience a dimension of involvement that is hard to match in any other form - theater, films, or primetime television."

Melvin certainly knows a lot about theater. This year he was awarded a "Tony," Broadway's highest honor, as the year's "Outstanding Director" for Da, an Irish comedy-drama about a man and his dead dad, the 'da" of the title. The play also won acting and play awards. And even though Da is the season's biggest success, Melvin is no stranger to "hitsville." Earlier in his career he had directed the Pulitzer-prize winning production of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds with Sada Thompson. He is a director who genuinely likes his work and enjoys working with actors. Melvin's not the man who will refer to his performers as "cattle" or maintain an autocratic air of authority on the set. When he calls from the control room for another interpretation of a line, he will scream, "Darling please, once again?" to the actress, rather than making the words into a demand.

"We have some of the greatest actors in the business on our show," Melvin boasts, with cause, naming Irene Daily, Douglass Watson, Kathleen Widdoes, and Miss Meacham among others.

A native of Buffalo, New York, Melvin's interest in theater has been a consuming passion since his teens. He distinguished himself at Yale's Drama Department and went from there to Chicago where he taught classes and directed for the prestigious Goodman Theatre. "I went for one year and stayed for five," he laughably remembers, commenting again about "how I hate to commit myself to anything for a long time. I came to this show for a year and have already been here four.

"I love it. It's invigorating, the cast is terrific and it's fun," the director enthuses as the final call comes for the taping.

The Control Room resembles a space video laboratory - a wall of television screens, several in color, with two rows of stadium style seats facing the monitors. Melvin sits in the center of the first row, watching the three cameras (sometimes four) shoot the acts, giving directions to an assistant who relays the image to the screen that will show the final broadcast. Tension is present, but the humor and affability of the group are overwhelming.

Where Melvin on the soundstage was fast, here he's almost like a quiz contestant on $20,000 Pyramid: Shout "Go!" and he's running, not ready to stop until the commercial.

Talented, meticulous, extremely capable, Melvin presents the new crossbreed: the director who works - everywhere. Without formal television training, he has mastered the visual and technical demands of the medium to enhance what he sees as his prime role as director: "I'm a storyteller," he explains, "It is my job to make the audience understand and care about the people on-screen or onstage."

And if joy is a contagious emotion, Melvin Bernhardt is sending it along the airwaves, two days out of every six, making Another World more than just another show.

- Charlie Hughes

Edited August 12, 201114 yr by CarlD2

Nice article.To have a Tony award winner as a director is quite a coup.Of course,AW was known for using theater people. Did that all stop when Rauch left?

Bernhardt also worked on OLTL and AMC and is still living.He is now 70 years old.

I know AW continued to have some theater actors but you're right it did seem to end when Rauch left.